Is God alive and well within the spiritual hearts and minds of mankind? First, let me share some statistics with you. In a world where both the believers and nonbelievers wage war over whether there is a God or higher presence, it appears the believers have won. Recently, in a Newsweek survey, 54 percent of American adults said they pray daily, ( nearly a third said more than once a day), to a higher source, God whatever they believed him or her to be. Eighty-seven percent said they believe God answered their prayers at least once in their life. Amazing, 86 percent said they accept that God does not grant their every prayer and only 15 percent said they have lost faith and belief. Strangely enough, these percentages run rather close within the populations of other countries.

Despite that the questions in this survey pertained to prayer, it shows one thing definitely. By people believing in prayer they are acknowledging a God or higher presence. What is interesting although in another survey where the question asked was whether they believed in a God or not, only 62 percent said they did versus the 86 percent in the survey listed above that they prayed daily. What could cause this approximately 25 percent difference? This is my opinion and some thoughts of some of you, my readers.

I believe people want to believe and somehow they exercise their faith by praying. However, when their prayers are not answered, this is the 15 percent that say they lost faith. Okay, this leaves 10 percent remaining. I believe this 10 percent then starts searching in new directions, the metaphysical areas of spirituality. These areas include, astrology, psychics, anything to do with the paranormal. This is their search into their own spirituality, to find what they do or don't believe in.

Paul, 45, from St. Paul wrote, "When I was younger, I didn't give much thought to God, what he was, how he played a role in my life. As I got older, I realized because of events in my life, both good and bad, that there was a higher source, a God and I better start listening to my heart."

There is the answer. People at some point in their life whether it be 20 to 70 years of age, find themselves staring right into the face of the one thing I call which begins their search and that is death. Oh, there is that nasty word, death. Isn't it amazing how we seem to go through life without thinking about it, that we all will die one day, including ourselves until something pushes us into the face of death. This can be the death of a loved one, or facing an illness that could lead to death. I firmly believe that everyone before they die do start this journey of finding out who their God or higher source is.

The danger though lies that through this journey, they may stop listening to their spiritual hearts, (not religious heart, their is a huge difference), and may fall for cults of all sorts. The reason, these cults have made them feel "whole" and "human", where present day structured religions don't do this. The internet is a prime example of this. You can find so many different cults today on the web that specialize in almost every type of God or higher presence belief.

What is interesting in surveys and from readers that sent in thoughts and comments concerning the belief in miracles and angels is that they do happen and are real. Over 90 percent of people that have been polled in these surveys state that in some point in their life, something miraculous happened that was more than coincidental. Another 48% said they believed in angels because they had seen one at some point in their life.

There was a young woman in New York that was beginning to be attacked by a man who was going to rape her. At that moment when it began, her mother at home awoke from a deep sleep, knowing something terrible was happening to her daughter. She knelt and began praying God to protect her daughter. Convinced she had connected to God to protect her daughter, the mother returned to bed. Back at the scene where the man was attacking her daughter, all of a sudden, he turned his head in an awkward manner, made a beastly type of sound the daughter said, then let her go and ran down the street away from her, leaving her untouched. Some twenty years later, the mother and daughter still believe God intervened. Some would say that it was the devil in the man, and it was God who sent him away like a beast that he was.

Beth, 40, from Duluth wrote, "When I was about 10 years old, I was riding in the car with my mother, father and little brother. All of a sudden a car bolted from a side street towards us. Suddenly, the car we were jolted forward some fifty feet as if a hand was pushing it to get us out of the way. I turned around and looked out the back window and I saw the most beautiful angel. She was wearing a white robe, had gold colored hair and even to his day I remember the loving smile she had on her face. This truly was God's intervention to spare our lives and he sent an angel to do it.

Through the years, there have been many such stories written in articles about people who have experienced such things. At the same time, you also have what would be termed the bad stuff. It appears when the "bad stuff" happens to people, the first reason they tend to look at is why did God let this happen. Instead, maybe by looking at why it has happened, it will be found that it is the creation of our own doing. Not to sound like I am preaching folks, but as it is written, "You reap what you sow", I believe this has more impact on peoples lives that we know.

Frank, 50, from Denver wrote, "I am so tired of hearing about the religious right complaining about this, or bringing up this or that up about politics, or outing a politician for this or that, that these actions actually have caused me to grow a disdain about religion. They should stay in there churches and keep there preaching out of politics. This is what many people complain about concerning religious groups that become involved in political debates.

There is a huge difference between being religious and being spiritual and I believe that this is something that people need to understand above all else. Being religious simply means that you have studied some faith, attend church of some faith, but it does not, and I stress that it does not necessarily mean a person is spiritual. Now what is spiritual you ask? Very simple. I believe it means one simple law, one simple law that is really only needed and that is, "Love you brother as you would love yourself". Think about it! If all of mankind truly loved their brother as they loved themselves, they would not have committed the hideous injustices that mankind has done to their fellow man through the ages. Not trying to sound like I'm preaching folks, but really, look at the simplicity of this one teaching, law or whatever you want to call it.

Sandra, 50, from Sacramento, CA. wrote, "I do believe we are in the end times. Christ is coming back for us believers and the nonbelievers who have not accepted him are going to hell."

First, I believe that we are in the end times. Are they God's end times? Maybe, maybe not! Has mankind been creating their own destruction and God doesn't have anything to do with it. What do I mean by the end times? Some major catastrophe that destroys half of mankind, to where Christ comes back and takes so many hundreds of thousands up to heaven? Am I going to try and say which it is. No way, and here is why. It goes back to that one simple law, "Love your brother has you would love yourself." Living this in your life and not just preaching the words is a huge difference and I believe this is why so many have turned away from God, faith or a higher source. I believe we are in the end times because of our own doings. War, pollution, hunger, murders, mother nature fighting back for destroying her, and the negative list goes on and on. Has not mankind possibly create their own "hell" right here on earth and creating the end times by doing so?

In his book called The Bible Code, journalist Michael Drosin, states that there is a highly complex code in the text of the Bible that "reveals events that would take place thousands of years in the future. They have found an encryptic code that supposedly states the Rabin Assassination in Israel., Kennedy in Dallas, and also a cataclysmic earthquake that will rock Los Angeles in the year 2010. How accurate is the breaking of this code. More than a quadtrillion to one that the predictions made would be a coincidence. The reason is the code that has been broken uses the 19th, 44th or 3007th or any order of the nth letter of the text of the Bible. If there are no hits the first time round, it begins the encrypt ion again using this mathmetical computation until it does find a hit. Now that is interesting is that they use the original Hebrew text in the computer and then it is translated into English. The odds of this correlation occurring, 62,500 to 1 in direct interpretation of the Bible in a meaningful decipher. Get this book if you care to learn more, it is an interesting book to read and will expand your spiritual heart if you are on that journey of spiritual findings of self.

I believe that mankind is on the threshold of new a spiritual awakening, the reason? Mankind has finally said enough to mankinds inhumanity to mankind. The trouble I feel though in this awakening is that the beast so to speak will rise, the best being the beast within us to not believe. Are some of the things written about in the book of Revelations factual and to be concerned about. This is something that I nor anyone can answer for any person. Answers such as this must be found, and found only by the one searching for the answer.

I will make this comment although. Is Christ coming back? I don't believe he ever left. What I mean is, he has been here, with us ever since he transcended into a higher spiritual place to where we all can journey at the time of our physical death. Why did he leave to go and prepare many mansions? And if he created these mansions for people who made the same transition, walked in his path, why would he come back? Why would there be a need for him to come back? There simply would not be any need to!

Do I believe that there is a final so called judgement day. I believe it is already here and has been here for 2,000 years at least, actually since the creation, for we are all one. The judgement day is how we live our lives. If we can't seem to get it together and instead live a life full of negatives, then we have to come back until we learn the lessons so we can climb the stairs to Christ's other mansions. Yes, I believe in reincarnation. If you stop and think about it, reincarnation is truly the only way of one's own self purification. The thing is, these are not mansions in some other place, they can be right here, according to our works. Boy, sure sounds like I'm preaching here, don't mean to folks, but it is something that I believe.

It appears that as the computer networks grow, so will mankinds search for a higher presence. An example is that if you pull up the name of Christ in the Alta Vista search engine, you will find over 140,000 references to it. I believe that mankind like I stated earlier is on the verge of the awakening of what I term spiritual consciousness instead of religious consciousness. There is a difference. Simply look at mankinds inhumanity to mankind over the last 2,000 years. Mankind simply has had enough and this explains this growing search of who God is. I just hope that in the process, that the listening of the heart takes place instead of what some cult or religion says is God or what he has said. All we have to do is listen to our hearts and we will know that God is not only listening, but talking to us as well.

My next column will be about global warming and other attacks on mother earth. The damage she is doing and the results that are sure to come. Be sure to write me your thought on this subject and include what you feel is happening and why.

Here is an interesting religious site to pull up on the web. You'll have to email them first to get their web site because they do not list it. I've only heard about this site. It is run by monks in a monastery, more than two hours from Albuquerque, N.M. This site has been so well done, that the Pope himself has sent for the monk that designed this site to design the site for the Vatican. The email address is, webmaster@christ.desert.org. Now let me ask you this, if the internet is what has been identified as the "beast" by the many religious groups, then why is the Vatican creating a web site? But at the same time, just who is the Vatican trying to reach, another group to sell ribbons to for sins? Sorry if I have offended anyone with this comment, but as you know this is what the Catholic religion did for many hundreds of years in the first formation of the church in developing lands. The selling of different ribbons for difference sins to forgive you of that sin. No wonder the Vatican Bank is the richest bank in the world.

Thanks to everyone for writing me from all over the US and the readers in another dozen countries since last time. And I will get to answering everyone eventually. Be sure to send me your thoughts on global warming and the attacks on mother nature.