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

[JKirkpatrick]

Curt

Thanks for taking the time to find out where the Pew effort
realistically is coming from--Gallup too. Now I don't need to
bother with their flawed research efforts on religions. (One can
always check on Zogby's poll).  Most polls are fairly useless
anyway, unless you are a politician running for media attention.

Cheers, Joanna


 On Behalf Of Curt Steinmetz
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2009 4:10 PM
To: Buddhist discussion forum


According to the recent Pew Report on "Global Restrictions on
Religion", India is one of the very worst places on earth when it
comes to religious freedom. It is ranked alongside Iran, an
openly theocratic nation in which religious police roam the
streets beating women who violate the medieval dress code.

India is ranked by the Pew report as MUCH worse than China when
it comes to religious freedom!

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".

Luis Lugo, who is Director of the Pew Forum on Religion and
Public Life, is a member of the group Christian Political
Scientists, and has said, when speaking to that group, that "we
must make the Christian tradition our primary intellectual
community". He also described to CPS in 1999 how Pew's goal "is
[to] train, over the next few years, at least 120 of these
promising young Christian scholars who will be equipped to
provide that kind of leadership to church and society."

Gallup has been run since 1988 by Don and Jim Clifton, who give
an annual prize to an institution of higher learning called the
Don Clifton Compass Award. The most recent recipient was Lee
University, a "Christ-centered" liberal arts college whose
president has written three books on Amway.

Slate magazine ran a profile on Sir John Marks Templeton in 1997,
in which the author, David Plotz, describes Templeton as a
"religious philanthropist, investment wizard, amateur
philosopher, and full-bore crank" who "believes he can reconcile
the irreconcilable contradictions of contemporary society:
Christian conservatism and New Age loopiness, capitalist greed
and sweet charity, old-time religion and modern technology."

Personally I have nothing against rich people (or anyone else)
who want to spend their money promoting their own religious
ideas. But the folks in question pretend to be educating the
public with objective scientific research.

More, with extensive linkage, here:
http://egregores.blogspot.com/2009/12/form-of-ministry-push-polli
ng-for-jesus.html

Curt


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