I found this interesting article this week… Link to original appears below.
Public Religion Research Institute study reported 26% of Americans plead to God to aid their team to win.
In addition, the survey suggested 25% of fans in U.S. think their sports franchise has been plagued by curses.
19 percent of American sports devotees have faith that God controls who wins in the field or on the court. Generally, half of the U.S. population belongs into some of these groups, according to the Public Religion Research Institute study released on January 14.
“As Americans tune in to the Super Bowl this year, fully half of fans – as many as 70 million Americans – believe there may be a twelfth man on the field influencing the outcome,” said Public Religion Research Institute CEO Robert Jones. “Significant numbers of American sports fans believe in invoking assistance from God on behalf of their favorite team, or believe the divine may be playing out its own purpose in the game.”
Football buffs were the most probable to pray for their own personal teams to triumph with 33% revealing they request God to interfere in sports events.
In addition, Football connoisseurs were also more expected to believe their own teams were jinxed 31% compared to 18% in other sports. 25% of football fans performed rituals prior to or throughout games compared to 18% in other sports.
According to the PRRI survey, fans were split on the issue of whether or not God played a role in sports competitions. American fans also were torn on whether God recoups devout athletes with well-being and triumph, for example: Tim Tebow, Derrick Coleman, Jeremy Lin, and so on. 48% of Americans believe God does bless sports stars in that matter. On the other hand, 47% of Americans don’t believe God shows favoritism to devout athletes.
The faith that God will assist spiritual athletes was most dominate among Caucasian Christians (62%) and non-Caucasian Protestants (65%), according to the PRRI survey.
Super Bowl XLVIII will be broadcast live at 6:25pm on Fox on February 2 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Original article here: http://bit.ly/KGlM7T