By Fred Jackson and Jim Brown
March 3, 2003

(AgapePress) - A new poll indicates that while the majority of Americans say they believe the basic concepts of the Bible, there's also a growing acceptance of other religious beliefs -- even among those who call themselves "Christian."

A new Harris poll found that more than two-thirds of adult Americans believe in hell -- but only 1% expect to go there. The poll also found that 90% of the more than 2,000 adults surveyed believe in God, 82% believe in heaven, half believe in ghosts, almost a third believe in astrology, and more than a quarter believe in reincarnation.

As might be expected, Harris found that younger adults -- those in the 25-to-29 range -- tended to be far more accepting of the non-biblical teachings than older Americans. According to WorldNetDaily, the poll results also indicate that women are more likely than men to hold both Christian and non-Christian beliefs.

Christian pollster George Barna reported similar results in a survey he did last fall. His conclusion was that a large share of church-going Americans have adopted beliefs that conflict with the Bible and their churches.

Barna also reported last year that in separate surveys of adults and teens, the vast majority of respondents said there is no such thing as "absolute truth."

'My Hero Is ...'
Meanwhile, it also appears that the general perception of "heroism" among American youth has eroded. An author who frequently travels the country talking to middle- and high-school students about heroism has found that most of those young people rarely mention soldiers as heroes.

Even as the United States faces a likely war with Iraq, public school students remain skeptical about describing American soldiers in heroic terms, says Dr. Peter Gibbon, a research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Gibbon says this lack of appreciation for U.S. military is the result of peace curriculum in schools and the fact that today's children have not experienced war.

"We have come out of a period of peace and prosperity after Vietnam," Gibbon says. "Vietnam certainly tarnished the American soldier enormously. And war has become much more technological, so bombers bomb targets they can't see."

Gibbon says school children need to be taught that General Dwight Eisenhower, for example, was a hero even though he never risked his life. He says the simple fact that Eisenhower presided over one of America's most successful military campaigns ever, the D-Day invasion, is reason enough to grant him hero status in American history.

"I do think Eisenhower showed a great deal of moral courage -- after all, going ahead with the D-Day invasion when the weather predictions weren't so great," he says. "So I do think he showed moral bravery, and I think he was a risk-taker."

Still, Gibbon says, Eisenhower never received a medal for bravery, like General Douglas MacArthur did.

Gibbon, author of the book A Call to Heroism: Renewing America's Vision of Greatness, adds that revisionist historians are writing many military heroes out of history.

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