“We
should remember that the United States remains a nation of believers,” said
Gregory A. Smith, Pew’s associate director of research, “with nearly
9 in 10 adults saying they believe in God.” That said,
overall, belief in God has ticked down by about 3 percentage points in
recent years, driven mainly by growth in the share of “nones” who say they don’t believe in
God. But even among Christians — 98 percent of whom say they believe in God —
fewer believe with absolute certainty: 80 percent in 2007 compared to 76
percent in 2014. And now 77 percent of adults surveyed describe themselves
as religiously affiliated, a decline from the 83 percent who did so in
Pew’s 2007 landscape study. Americans as a whole are growing less religious,
but those who still consider themselves to belong to a religion are, on average, just as committed to
their faiths as they were in the past — in certain respects even more so.
Read the complete study at -- http://www.religionnews.com/2015/11/03/pew-americans-religion-believers-faith/
The witnesses, laying their coats at the feet of Saul, were the men that would cast the first stones at Stephen in Acts 7. Why did they all lay their coats at Saul’s feet? The Talmud contains a very interesting account of the act of stoning that may provide the answer. “When the trial was over, they take him [the condemned person] out to be stoned. The place of stoning was at a distance from the court, as it is said, ‘Take out the one who has cursed.’ [i] A man stands at the entrance of the court; in his hand is a signaling flag [Hebrew sudarin = sudar , ‘scarf, sweater’]. A horseman was stationed far away but within sight of him. If one [of the judges] says, ‘I have something [more] to say in his favor,’ he [the signaler] waves the sudarin , and the horseman runs and stops them [from stoning him]. Even if [the condemned person] himself says, ‘I have something to say in my favor,’ they bring him back, even four of five times, only provided that there is some substance to...
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