Zone1 Belief in God drops to 81 percent

[XponentialChaos]

I’ve experienced this transition happen gradually over time.

Before, saying that you don’t believe in God would get you the worst looks from people. Now, it’s nothing like that.

In my opinion, the behavior of Christians has significantly contributed to this decline. The way they act only pushes more and more people away from their beliefs.

 

[BreezeWood]

It could be a high price

In the early days and up to the present day Christians have been put to death for believing in Jesus

the desert religions have from their beginning to the present day -

persecuted and victimized the innocent as recorded by history without interruption or remorse.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I’ve experienced this transition happen gradually over time.

Before, saying that you don’t believe in God would get you the worst looks from people. Now, it’s nothing like that.

Very true. That was true 30 years ago at universities, and in cities and other various places where sophisticated people congregated.

But now it has spread to the heartland's cities. And into the suburbs, as the WASP kids who never bought into any of it grew up and didn't make their kids get up on Sundays to go to church. Now their kids are going to college and living secularly and will have little secular, atheist babies.

 

[cnm]

But still. Kinda grim. Seems like an immoral demand, when one takes score.

You're missing the point.

They've got theirs.


That's the point....

 

[Mac-7]

So, you think maybe everyone just gets in, then? Good deeds or no? Maybe, that's possible?

I dont know

Accepting Jesus means our sins are forgiven but not necessarily forgotten

We may have to do penance for our sins and the lowest on
earth may be among the highest in Heaven

I just dont because thats speculation

Nor can I tell you much about Hell or what ultimately happens to to libs who are too stubborn to accept God

So dont ask me questions I cant answer

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

You're missing the point.

They've got theirs.


That's the point....

Oh, I know. It is pure self interest, in the end. I mean, they want the people they love to go to heaven too, but they aren't giving up their own ticket to anyone.

 

[Ringtone]

Ever consider that one day a child you didn't know you had showed up at your door with evidence you were indeed the parent? Would you ask him in, or would you slam the door in his face, because he had called another man, 'Dad'.

God knows who are His.

Why do you bother trying to engage the likes of rightwinger on terms of good faith when he violates the rules of his very own thread, i.e., the rules that are supposed to govern discourse in Zone 1 discussions?

Just as he always does on the "unprotected" threads of others' regarding religious matters, he invites folks to engage him only to turn around and derail the natural flow of an open and honest discussion of the very issues that he himself raises. Rather than allowing the discussion to precede in a reasonably responsive manner, wherein he respectfully regards and directly addresses others' points, he trolls and mocks and derails.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I dont know

I appreciate the honest answer.

So dont ask me questions I cant answer

How will I know you can't answer them, unless I ask them? I can't

Anyway, some people would easily and quickly pop off answers to those questions. You did not. Great. I actually admire that. But don't you even have any guesses?

In keeping with the topic, and explaining why I admire your responses:

A lot of atheists in the western world find Christianity immoral and distasteful, as far as the collection of mythologies itself goes. But what really turns people off is the immoral demand that humans believe something without evidence, under threat of eternal suffering, or even of just being denied the "forever prize".

Count me among them. I find that idea so obviously immoral, that there is little common ground to be found as far as it any of it being a basis for morality.

But I don't really think of you as someone that gets his morality from Christianity anyway. I think you affirm it, there, at times. Maybe you use sentiments and ideas from the holy texts to refine your morality via introspection, meditation, philosophy, whatever. However, these ideas can be found in plenty of other places. You could use other sources to find them. Even great works of fiction.

I think you are almost certainly just a decent dude whose morality is chiefly the product of the time and place where he was born. And you retrofit some of it to the Bible, ignore other parts of the Bible, and live generally happily.

No? Am I close?

 

[badbob85037]

Lowest level in US history and down 10 percent in the last decade

Belief in God in U.S. Dips to 81%, a New Low

Eighty-one percent of U.S. adults say they believe in God, down six percentage points from 2017 and the lowest in Gallup's trend.

news.gallup.com

What else would you expect from the Whore of Babylon?

 

[Ringtone]

I’ve experienced this transition happen gradually over time.

Before, saying that you don’t believe in God would get you the worst looks from people. Now, it’s nothing like that.

In my opinion, the behavior of Christians has significantly contributed to this decline. The way they act only pushes more and more people away from their beliefs.

The nihilism of atheism is a real threat to civilization.

 

[badbob85037]

I appreciate the honest answer.

How will I know you can't answer them, unless I ask them? I can't

Anyway, some people would easily and quickly pop off answers to those questions. You did not. Great. I actually admire that. But don't you even have any guesses?

In keeping with the topic, and explaining why I admire your responses:

A lot of atheists in the western world find Christianity immoral and distasteful, as far as the collection of mythologies itself goes. But what really turns people off is the immoral demand that humans believe something without evidence, under threat of eternal suffering, or even just being denied the "forever prize".

Count me among them. I find that idea so obviously immoral, that there is little common ground to be found as far as it any of it being a basis for morality.

But I don't really think of you as someone that gets his morality from Christianity anyway. I think you affirm it, there, at times. Maybe you use sentiments and ideas from the holy texts to refine your morality via introspection, meditation, philosophy, whatever. However, these ideas can be found in plenty of other places. You could use other sources to find them. Even great works of fiction.

I think you are almost certainly just a decent dude whose morality is chiefly the product of the time and place where he was born. And you retrofit some of it to the Bible, ignore other parts of the Bible, and live generally happily.

No? Am I close?

No evidence?! A 2,000 year old book that so far has hit the nail on the head every time is plenty of evidence for me but I think we can have it both ways. democRats come from shit infested stupid monkeys.

 

[XponentialChaos]

The nihilism of atheism is a real threat to civilization.

So they say. I disagree.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The nihilism of atheism is a real threat to civilization.

Clearly the nihilism of a bunch of apocalyptic cultists would be an equal or greater threat, given the size and scope of the apocalyptic, Abrahamic religions.

Fortunately there isn't such a threat currently, since the Muslim extremists are too busy killing each other, and Western Christianity was reformed by superior, secular ideas. And Judaism just doesn't have the numbers, no matter what percentage of them would decide to go apeshit. But they do have nukes, so let's pray that the largely secular Jewish population of Israel does not suddenly take a turn for the delusional.

So slowing our approach to a self-imposed apocalypse is and has been accomplished at least in part by the extent to which the Abrahamic religions are marginalized, as they are apocalyptic religions. They also claim to be revealed religions. A dangerous combo, if people buy too far into it.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

A 2,000 year old book that so far has hit the nail on the head every time is plenty of evidence for me

Then you are delusional, by any measure, in that respect. You mangle the concept of evidence, and unpacking/discarding your dubious, universal claim would be an academic exercise.

 

[Ringtone]

This is why it's called "faith".

I really wish folks would stop saying things like this. God does not demand faith in the absence of evidence.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I really wish folks would stop saying things like this. God does not demand faith in the absence of evidence.

God does demand faith.

Repeatedly. In the holy texts. Over and over and over.

 

[Ringtone]

So they say. I disagree.

Which is your right in a constitutional republic founded on the Anglo-American tradition of natural law informed by the sociopolitical implications of Judeo-Christianity.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Which is your right in a constitutional republic founded on the Anglo-American tradition of natural law informed by the sociopolitical implications of Judeo-Christianity.

Yet we had Christianity for 1700+ years, and nothing like the US or any liberal democracy came along.

Only after we underwent the reformation and the renaissance and scientific enlightenment and the discovery of classical liberalism, did we produce the ideas that afforded us all of us these rights about which you seem to be bragging.

Unfortunately for you and your narrative, these rights -- and the philosophies and discoveries which underpin and produced them -- were acquired and taught quite IN SPITE of Judeo-Christian organizations and what they taught.

For you to credit Judeo-Christian values for our modern, liberal democracies is like crediting an extinct fish species from 250 million years ago for giving us mankind.

Yes, it was a step along the way. But we had to change it and discard it to get to where we are today. The progress we have made since then can be measured precisely by the extent to which we diverged from it. By the extent to which we are no longer it.

Same for society and the primitive, childish toys of our ancient past that are the iron age mythologies.

 

[Ringtone]

It was the Hellenistic influences facilitated by ‘Paul’ that allowed the Jewish sect of Jesus to become Christianity, which previous messiah sects lacked.

Hogwash. The worldwide gospel, the gospel for all nations, prophesized in the Old Testament centuries before Paul, is strictly predicated on the teachings of Jesus Christ himself and the theological justification of his sacrificial fulfillment of the law.

 

[cnm]

God does demand faith.

And evidence seems absent...