[Buddha-l] How Gallup, Pew & Templeton Pro$elytize in the Guise of "Research"

[Richard Hayes]

On Dec 26, 2009, at 4:10 PM, Curt Steinmetz wrote:

> What, one might wonder, is up with that? Well, as it turns out, it is 
> more or less an open secret that Pew, Gallup and Templeton are all in 
> the business of promoting Christianity under the guise of "studying 
> religion".

It's also completely irrelevant, Dr Steinmetz. The Pew Charitable Trusts sponsors respectable scientific studies using sound methodology and is one of the most reliable sources of social scientific information on religion in all parts of the world. Even if it is true that there are people in the Pew Foundation who have personal convictions, those convictions do not in any demonstrable way influence the outcome of the research. It is not "an open secret" that Pew is in the business of promoting Christianity; rather, it is a misrepresentation of what the business of the Pew Charitable Trusts is.

As for the Sir John Templeton Foundation, its mission is very clear, and the research the foundation sponsors fits well with the foundation's description of what it does. Its mission statement is found on its web site. http://www.templeton.org/about_us/ The Templeton Foundation, unlike Pew, does not pretend to provide sociological data on comparative religions, so mentioning it in your diatribe against the Pew Foundation is pointless. The Templeton Foundation does provide funds for promoting a particular sort of Christianity, namely, theologically liberal and non-triumphalist Christianity that takes science seriously and acknowledges the validity of religions other than Christianity. The foundation provides an important counterbalance to the forms of Christianity that are at war with science, that deny the findings of evolutionary biologists and geologists, that decry environmental science as a hoax and that insist that the only path to redemption is through Jesus Christ. 

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes
rhayes at unm.edu