Religion led to cities?

Did the urge to worship together spark civilization? The June 2001 National Geographic magazine has an interesting article on "The Birth of Religion".

The author says we used to think that increased agriculture moved humans from a nomadic society to one using cities. An archaeological dig in Turkey makes those assumptions suspect, though.

The dig's implications lead him to conclude that wonder at the changes in the natural world led to religion. The earth's warming after the last ice age led to this wonder. The author suggests that gathering together for worship created a need for food. This in turn led to increased farming and cities.

• The Birth of Religion article (National Geographic)

Constitution writers were Christians

An interesting factoid, derived from a posting by Bill Federer in "The Moral LIberal" blog. The religious composition of the 55 writers of the U.S. Constitution was:

• 26 Episcopalians
• 11 Presbyterians
• 7 Congregationalists
• 2 Lutherans
• 2 Dutch Reformed Christians
• 2 Methodists
• 2 Quakers
• 2 Roman Catholics
• 1 Deist Christian – Dr. Franklin, who called for prayer during the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787.

Bad religion causes lost faith

Up to his death Darwin insisted that the Christian faith and evolution were compatible. It was bad religion that caused Darwin to lose his faith says Rev. Martin Thielen, a United Methodist writing in The Tennessean newspaper.

And, says Thielen, there's a lot of bad religion causing people today to lose their faith.

"... closed-minded religion, arrogant religion, intolerant religion and judgmental religion. You can add to that list religion that tells women they are inferior to men and religion that says science is the enemy of faith."

• Read the full article

In the news

Some news, feature, and just interesting articles:

• Fiji bans Methodist Conference
• American Religious Identity Survey 2008
• Struggling congregations look to change, grow
• History of the CME
• Christian Comedy Association

Americans increasingly change Faiths

Research by the Pew Research Center shows that Americans increasingly leave the faith they were brought up in for others or desert religion altogether. The Pew study also has interactive section about the survey results.

• U.S. Religious Landscape survey results (Pew Research Center)
• Religious Landscape survey - interactive
• Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate (NY Times)
• Religious makeup of the United States

Religious Beliefs interactive

"USA Today" has a neat interactive summary of some Pew Forum research data about religious beliefs in the United States as well as a "Topography of Faith" section. Both use Flash.

You can select one variable and then sort the bar chart of results based on that variable. It's a great way to squeeze out visual patterns from the data.

Religion videos

The advent of YouTube has brought a slew of videos to the web. Here's a few that are tagged as "religion" or "church":

• Moving a 100-year old church, complete with choral music - 4 min.
• Church-hunting (King of the Hill) - 9 min.
• The Orthodox Church - A Visual Journey - 9 min.
• The Spirituality of Early Christianity - 26 min.
• Mr Bean Goes to Church (a classic) - 4 min.
• Baby got book - a rap about "I like big [KJV] Bibles" - 4:24 min.
• Inside Scientology (From Britian's "The Big SHow") - 21 min.

Does Religion Make You a Better Person?

The Youtube video "Does Religion Make You a Better Person?" is anti-Christian (actually, anti-religion), but Christians should watch it carefully. I can't personally verify or dispute the statistics claimed. If real, they are alarming. Please feel free to refute any of the many statistics, but provide a link to a credible source of data. No flames, please.