Living in godless Europe like I do, I find the article (below) from Time magazine incredible. I remember when guardian angels were all the rage in America about 10 years ago, and some of my relatives used to read hardback books about angels and their complete history/lineage, but I thought that was just a fad.
"More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion. In a poll of 1700 respondents, 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, "I was protected from harm by a guardian angel." The responses defied standard class and denominational assumptions about religious belief; the majority held up regardless of denomination, region or education — though the figure was a little lower (37%) among respondents earning more than $150,000 a year." 
"The guardian angel encounter figures were "the big shocker" in the report, says Christopher Bader, director of the Baylor survey that covered a range of religious issues, parts of which are being released Thursday in a book titled What Americans Really Believe. In the case of angels, however, the question is a little stronger than just belief. Says Bader, "If you ask whether people believe in guardian angels, a lot of people will say, 'sure.' But this is different. It's experiential. It means that lots of Americans are having these lived supernatural experiences.""
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Have you had an experience with a guardian angel?
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24 comments:
A study done by a religious university in the South cannot be taken seriously. They got the answers they wanted...the 1700 respondents all probably lived in Waco...puhleeze!
Oops! I meant to say a study of religious beliefs done by a religious university...
I thought Baylor was OK -- but it's a religous-type campus? I guess de facto it would be just from its location in the South?
I need a guardian angel about now to protect my retirement fund from the lunatics on Wall Street but don't hold out much hope for one appearing.
Baylor is very Southern Baptist uptight campus.
As for retirement funds...I've been forbidden to look at them by my husband, because I'm such a worrier, but I can tell you how to know when the low point in all this financial crisis will be. It'll happen exactly at the point when we're ready to sell up in the UK and return to the US!
I was thinking of taking all our money out of the bank and putting it underneath the bed but then you know our foster cat will shred it up or the house will catch fire, etc. I'll just have to wait it out but I'm a huge worrier like you too.
Maybe the respondents were using guardian angels as a metaphor for helpful strangers?
I remember when I was a child in London and my grandmother took us out on a Sunday. We were waiting for a bus and a stranger passing by told us the bus we were waiting for didn't run on a Sunday.
My grandmother (who was quite religious) later made a comment about it being like he was an angel, but I still think she was speaking metaphorically.
More than half of all americans think they have been helped by a guardian angel?
I wonder what percentage of Americans think that Santa really brought them a gift last christmas, so we can toss that in as an index.
I see they controlled for education. Do you know if they controlled for intellect?
"There are more things between Heav'n and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio."
I am not in the very least psychic, intuitive, or in any way attuned to worlds beyond our five little empirical senses, but I would never discount the experiences of others. Just because my little radio can't pick up those stations, so to speak, doesn't mean there aren't things out there perceptible to others.
It's a silly argument. Let the believers believe, and the sneerers sneer---I fall in neither camp. Are there angels? I sure don't know. Probably not, literally, of course. But, as the last line of "The Sun Also Rises" went..."Isn't it pretty to think so?"
Maybe there are leprechauns too.
And the Victorians really thought there were fairies around -- that's why they tried so hard to take pictures of them.
Wonder why people don't see these things anymore but now actual angels. Something to ponder.
oh yeah, and we forget Martians. Farmers have seen them too -- but never anyone in New York City -- it always has to be out in the middle of nowhere so it can't be proved.
I do regularly and deeply discount the experiences of others.
If sense data were always right then we wouldn't need photography to show us all that sports referees are often wrong.
Is it somehow horribly arrogant of us to not trust the Son of Sam's hearing when he experienced his dog telling him to kill people?
And lastly, I want to say that I doubt that it is actually the experience of others that we question in the whole guardian angel question. Very few people question that someone won the lottery - it's the interpretation of that event as being guided by some supernatural figure with which we disagree.
dear 'giving the yanks the benefit of the doubt':
My husband insists that I point out to you that if an angel helped you that day in London, it was certainly a PoundSaver guardian angel.
A real angel, he says, would turned up with a bus even on Sunday, or possibly even left you some taxi fare and then ushered a couple of taxis conveniently down the street. ;-)
I didn't think of that. yes, the angel should have done more than that for Mel's grandmother instead of just posting someone there to say the buses didn't run that day.
Jeez, I'll bet you people would have been real joys to sit with at a childhood production of "Peter Pan." When asked to "clap if you believe in fairies" to save poor Tinkerbell from extinction, you'd have stood up and thrown tomatoes!
Ha ha, cute comment.
I don't know that I would have thrown tomatoes, but there would certainly been lots of eye rolling!
I would have clapped for Tinkerbell & I always love the child-like things that happen at English pantomimes at Christmas but I think I'd be in trouble if I took that gullibility out of the theatre and into my real life. But you know, if an angel wants to help me out and make me believe, she should do it. I need to see the wings though.
I think that is a good attitude, E.
Whenever that child-like stuff (as you called it) is happening around me, I always feel sheepish, like we all know we're telling these enormous lies and the whole thing feels sort of awkward to me. It doesn't feel like fun at all.
I definitely would be sitting at a production of Peter Pan thinking "fuck tinkerbell", being annoyed that anyone wants me to do something so stupid and not clapping. That's just me and I don't mind if other people like it (although like you I worry if signs appear that people have trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy).
...and *I* worry that there are too many people who have NO "trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality." Without getting into a futile and boring debate about "what is reality?" I'd only observe that if everyone were factual, empirical sticklers for the "actual" then we'd have no poets, no visionaries, no saints, no fun at Christmastime.
There must be a difference between thinking supernatural life-forms exist and being a poet/visionary/enjoying Christmas!
Yeah, that's right E - I don't think it follows that your life isn't worth living and you can't have any fun if you don't make up irrational things about the world and then pretend that they're real.
I'd happily do without saints, actually, so that isn't a disincentive. And I think there are plenty of non-delusional poets. Some people might even prefer them.
And I think the visionaries fall at least equally (many more, if I'm being honest) into the empirical camp. If there weren't people who valued empiricism, people in the medical arts would still be curing people with leeches and there would still be exorcisms of the mentally ill.
god damn everything that isn't the circus
I can just see the dialogue between the Happy Self-Deluder and the Factual Empiricist. Scene:
Happy S.D. is planting flowers in her garden of bright images, blissfully singing to herself, when along comes Factual Empiricist, brandishing a science textbook.
HSD: "I'mmmm always chasing rainbows/ Watching clouds drifting byyy..."
Factual Empiricist: Wait a damn minute. Stop right there! One cannot "chase" a rainbow, as they are merely an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a sprectrum of light to appear in the sky. And are those clouds cumulus,nimbus,cirrus,or stratus?
HSD: "Myyyy schemes are just like allll my dreams/Ending in the skyyyy..."
FE: That is patent nonsense. The lyricist of that ridiculous song was just going for a rhyme, obviously, and failed to differentiate between---
HSD: Oh, shut up. (takes garden trowel and beats FE about the head and ears.) "Waiting to find that little bluuuuebird/In vaaaaain."
FE: (struggling weakly to her feet and rubbing her bruised temples) The music of that song is credited to Harry Carroll, but the melody is actually that of Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu.
HSD: Where'd you learn that?
FE: WIKIPEDIA!
*curtain*
And then the dialogue between the Happy Self-Deluder and the Factual Empiricist continues:
Happy Self-Deluder: Look! I see a fairy over there. I'm just going to dance over there closer to it.
Factual Empiricist: HSD, the value of your retirement fund has just plummeted! I think you need to pay attention to what's going on in the world & maybe send a letter to your congressman about your concerns.
Happy Self-Deluder (pulling petals off a flower): I don't need to do that. I have a guardian angel who will protect me. (doesn't see a car coming as is too busy with flower) Oh look! I would have been hit with that car if an angel hadn't been on my shoulder.
Factual Empiricist: ARGH!
Happy Self-Deluder: You know, I've just been hearing the Voice of God telling me to kill you. I must obey.
(strangles Factual Empiricist)
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