Most American Christians do not believe that Satan or the Holy Spirit exist

[PapaSquash]

Ten out of Ten on the other side know the truth also

Personally, I’m far more bothered by the denial of the Holy Spirit than the ignorance of Satan. Belief in the Spirit is in the creed.

 

[KathleenElsie]

When I was a kid, my mom had a nun from our parish tell her, in front of a whole group of parishioners, that Satan was not real.

I looked at your profile and could not find an age. So can you tell us if this was before or after the great change in the convents. Was this a “pinned” sister or a “habited” Nun.

Many of the “pinned” sisters IMHO tend to be more worldly in their thinking and since the mid 1960s have followed the trend of the world in their teachings and thinking. (gay “marriage”, feminism, women “priests”, abortion etc)

 

[Deacon_Ed_B]

Satan’s biggest lie will be to convince people that he does not exist. This just makes his task of having souls condemned that much easier.

For those who do not believe in the Holy Spirit, I guess they will say that Jesus did not know what he was talking about either when he breathed on the apostles and said, **“Receive the Holy Spirit…” **

Our job in all this is to pray for these poor misguided souls. We must do it daily and we must not stop. As Church Militant that is our task.

 

[Holly3278]

Wow. This is really sad. I wonder how many of these people actually were practicing Christians?

 

[Christiano]

Here in Brazil, although most evangelicals believe in the devil, most Catholics don’t.

Father Óscar Gonzáles-Quevedo, a Spanish Jesuit priest who lives in Brazil since 1950, has openly spoken against the belief in the devil.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

This is worth looking into:

CULTURE
“Newsweek greeted the coming of Easter with a black cover, and the headline ‘The Decline and Fall of Christian America,’ spelled out in red in the shape of a cross. Inside, it was more declarative: ‘The End of Christian America.’ Why? Because they found that the percentage of self-identified Christians had fallen 10 points since 1990. Okay, then let’s compare. How much has Newsweek’s circulation fallen since 1990? Just since 2007, their announced circulation has dropped by 52 percent. It would be more plausible to state ‘The End of Newsweek.’ At the end of 2007, Newsweek reduced its ‘base rate’ (or circulation guaranteed to advertisers) from 3.1 million to 2.6 million, a 16 percent drop. … Newsweek’s strategy in the midst of all its financial decline is to double and triple the amount of editorializing, cast aside all semblance of ‘news’ in favor of long, liberal essays by self-impressed Newsweek editor Jon Meacham and his international editor Fareed Zakaria. Is that really a business solution, or is it the captains performing violin solos on the deck of the Titanic? Christianity, in contrast to Newsweek, is in decent demographic shape. The American Religious Identification Survey that Newsweek touted – from Trinity College in Connecticut – estimated there are now 173.4 million self-identified Christians in America, up from 151.2 million in 1990. The percentage declined, but the actual number increased. …[T]he top minds at Newsweek think they are the wisest of men, the definers of trends and the shepherds of public opinion. So why is everyone abandoning their advice? Why are the captains of a magazine that’s lost half its circulation telling the rest of us where the mainstream lies?” --Media Research Center president L. Brent Bozell

 

[Little_Dove]

Here in Brazil, although most evangelicals believe in the devil, most Catholics don’t.

Father Óscar Gonzáles-Quevedo, a Spanish Jesuit priest who lives in Brazil since 1950, has openly spoken against the belief in the devil.

Dear Christiano,
Speaking against the existence of the devil? What does he say? How does he ignore all of the scriptural references Jesus makes?

God Bless!
To Jesus, through Mary

 

[mystagogia]

I would take all of these sorts of polls with a grain of salt. Polls about beliefs are reliably all over the map. For example, the infamous Pew poll on religious beliefs of Americans has a good percentage of atheists who believe in Heaven, and Christians who don’t believe in God. Go figure.

Cold calling somebody up on the phone and saying, “Tell me now, do you believe in God?” seems like a dicey way of getting to the bottom of matters!

Anecdotally, I’ve also known adults who have attended church since childhood who somehow don’t know the most obvious things. Recently in RCIA I found that a woman who’d been a churchgoing Baptist her whole life did not know about the Holy Trinity. Now, Baptists do preach the Holy Trinity. So, how such things happen mystifies me but they do. There’s a whole lot of ignorance and confusion out there regarding fundamental points of theology. I take it as an opportunity to share my understanding of it when I find it!