Highlights from a 2008 Harris Poll nation-wide survey of 2,126 U.S. adults:

• Americans who believe in God: 80 percent (unchanged since the last survey in 2005)
  
  
• Americans who believe Jesus is the Son of God: 71 percent
  
  
• Americans who believe in the resurrection of Jesus: 70 percent
  
  
• Americans who believe in the Virgin Birth: 61 percent
  
  
• Americans who believe in the survival of the soul after death: 68 percent
  
  

Knowing tells the story of John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), a professor who discovers a cryptic document that was hidden in a time capsule in 1958. A scene early in the film shows the depth of Koestler's existential wrestling—a struggle that has been going on long before the strange document makes an appearance.

The scene begins with a wide angle shot of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ...

If you don't believe in God and the Devil, I wouldn't say you're crazy, but you're intellectually malnourished.

—U.S. author, Norman Mailer (1923–2007)

The greatness of God is most clearly displayed in his Son. And the glory of the gospel is only made evident in his Son. That's why Jesus' question to his disciples [in Matthew 16] is so important: "Who do you say that I am?"

The question is doubly crucial in our day, because [no one is as popular in the U.S. as Jesus]—and not every Jesus is the real Jesus. …

There's the Republican Jesus—who ...

We live in a time when people have become extremely conscious of nature, its beauty, its wonders, its indescribable value. We appreciate our planet more than we did before. We realize that in a very real sense, the earth gives us physical life. It's not surprising, then, that some people take this truth one step further and regard the planet as somehow giving them inner life as well.

This worldview ...

In his book The Cell's Design: How Chemistry Reveals the Creator's Artistry, Fanzale Rana gives the following account of the approach used to authenticate a piece of artwork by Picasso, often referred to as The Unknown Masterpiece:

In the early 1970s, a junk dealer came across five ink drawings while clearing out a deceased woman's apartment in London. He hung onto them for several years, [and then] ...

Early in his career, many had hoped A. N. Wilson, a brilliant philosopher, would become the next C. S. Lewis. But as a young man, he began to wonder how much of the Easter story he accepted. By his thirties, he had lost all religious belief and publicly repudiated his Christian faith, becoming an atheist. He soon embraced the role of a harsh, cynical critic of Christianity and any faith in God at ...

A website called muslimjourneytohope.com has video testimonies of many who have converted from Islam to Christianity. One video clip is of an Iranian-born man who had been a militant Muslim, trained by Hezbollah. While on a trip to Malaysia, he was arrested and jailed—which only fueled his passion for his religion. He taught Islam to the other prisoners. Every ten days he read the Koran cover ...

In his book The Unexpected Journey, Thom Rainer shares the story of Kathi, a woman who left behind a life of witchcraft and Wiccan paganism to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Immediately after her decision to become a Christian, she describes to Thom how God delivered her from the powers of evil in her life, as well as her physical deafness (Kathi had been suffering progressive hearing loss for ...

In his book Please Don't Squeeze the Christian, Scott Sernau reflects on the danger of cynicism—especially in the life of believers who claim a "living hope." He writes:

Cynicism kills in the manner of frostbite: the only symptom is a deadening numbness. And even Christians are often tinged with this frostbite. Callousness and doubt numb us to life and joy. We find ourselves leaving the triumphant ...