three faiths.ppt

Basics of Jewish faith The spiritual world of the Jew contains a global and detailed system of theories and wisdom for all areas of life and views of life. * America is a highly religious country, and has been since its earliest days. Nearly every religion in the world has adherents or organized institutions in the United States. American religious institutions are large, powerful and influential in social and political life. Even Americans who are members of no established religion are likely to believe in God. According to a Gallup opinion survey, nearly all Americans, 98% of them, do, compared to 84% in Switzerland, 73% in France and 60% in Sweden. Americans also tend to believe in life after death: 73% compared to 50% in Switzerland and only 38% in Great Britain. About 60% of Americans are members of a church, synagogue or other religious group, though many more identify with various religions because of their birth or upbringing. About 40% of Americans attend religious services regularly, compared to only 20% in Great Britain.  By the 1950s, a kind of “three faiths” model of the United States had developed. Americans were considered to come in three basic varieties: Protestant, Catholic and Jewish, the order reflecting the strength in numbers of each group. It appeared in recognizable form by the time Robert Burton wrote his Anatomy of Melancholy in 1621, and the melancholy Burton was the thinker who first clearly identified it. It emerged from an exaggerated sense of sin, a morbid conviction of the danger of damnation, and a terrible fear of being abandoned by God. Pietists and Puritans suffered from it in the 17th century; revivalism subsequently spread it widely throughout American culture. It manifested itself not only in morbid fears of damnation but also in suicide and in evangelical anorexia nervosa, an inability or refusal to ingest food. Far less frequent now than it once was, it continues to appear both among 20th-century evangelicals and desp