Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
WRONG. The first problem with your logic is rebellion. It is a parent's responsibility to keep their child in check and disciplined. When you choose not to discipline your child and they become spoiled rotten and entitled and wreak havoc on society with their bad behavior, that is YOUR fault and they are already on the wide path to Hell. If they were to die as teenagers, they would have been sent to Hell. American parents believe it's normal for teens to go through a rebellious period and talk back and act up in the streets. This isn't considered normal to people raised in West-Indian households. We would be beaten and punished for doing the crap teenagers do here in the states. That behavior isn't normal to us nor is it to God. When you spare your children from the rod of correction, you are sending them to Hell. The Bible plainly states that.
The second problem with your logic is that you THINK redemption comes afterward. WRONG again. Who you are as a living human being, conscious of right and wrong, good and evil, and knowledge of the gospel, is what you will be judged by God for. He doesn't care whether your 13, 15, 17, or 18. If you die after the age of accountability and you are NOT saved, you will be judged accordingly. That's why he said you need the fear of God. Because the fear of God keeps you from destructive behavior and life paths. Even as a teenager. And many teenagers are going to Hell just as well as adults. The adults YOU encountered are LUCKY they lived to be such an age and CHOOSE to change their ways. Because trust and believe if they died in their youth, they still would have wound up in Hell. God is no a respecter of NO PERSONS. Luck and their choices changed their ways. But not everybody is so lucky. Some people die in the prime of their youth. And some die in sin and end up in Hell. That's why once again - you need the fear of God! You only have one soul and one life to get it right. Who you are - even as a teenager - is who you are to God. Now think about all the teenagers on destructive life paths and have unchecked behavioral issues. Alot of them are on a path to Hell. That is the simply the reality of the situation. And it is the parent's fault for not disciplining them.
First off, I have taught in Ukraine, Russia, Argentina, India, and Mexico for extended periods of time: Teens are the same around the world. Are punishment methods different? Perhaps. But teens find a way to rebel.
Second, I believe in redemption. I would surmise most respected religious leaders feel the same. After all, if we are all sinners, we are always seeking redemption.
Because the product Christianity is trying to sell is being exposed and is spreading to the masses easier and at a faster pace. Rather than taking what our parents sold us as an absolute, now with technology, research from a much wider pool of resources and make decisions for ourselves as opposed to taking one person's word for it. There were no message boards or google or any other forum to discuss such topics 30 years ago. So it was easier to sell false ideologies. To add to that, man created God or Gods to explain the unknown. As we advance, we are answering a lot of the questions we once upon time did not have the answers to. That information is reaching a broader audience.
Christianity doesn't evolve my friend. You are dangerously misguided.
Which is the biggest problem with it and why so many flee from it. If they can't even LOVE THEIR NEIGHBOR AS THEMSELVES...as they are commanded to...who would want to be around them??? I sure don't and this is the precise reason why I no longer label myself a Christian...using that label leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth these days.
Young people today, especially those raised in Christian homes, for the most part have not only turned their back on religion but also hate it to the point they will look down upon anybody who keeps their faith. Militant atheism among the younger generation is not only a belief system but also a cultural fad. If you are religious and under 30, if you let your peers know you will likely not be looked on as highly as someone who is a professed atheist. Most of these people think they are the intelligent, enlightened, and tolerant ones while the religious people are backwards, ignorant, and despicable, but what they don't see is their brand of atheism has almost everything in common with evangelical Christianity except the lack of the belief in a deity. Most churches are filled with people over 50. I've lived in Little Rock, Charlotte, and Oklahoma City within the last five years and in all of these places, there are just a few churches that even have younger twentysomething people and the vast majority are made up entirely of senior citizens. Millennials aren't the first generation with science and evolution so while those are commonly given as the reasons behind this cultural phenomenon, there is something more to it.
Keep in mind I am talking specifically about the younger generation (under 30). Belief in a deity is still very high for older generations and religious people in that generation don't suffer from the stigma they do in the younger generation.
This was all foertold, and we can see that the conclusion of the system of things is at hand when we add up the composite sign given by Jesus Christ in Matthew 24.
But especially do we see things clearly in the following scriptures:
(2 Timothy 3:1-5) But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, disloyal, 3 having no natural affection, not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, 4 betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride], lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godly devotion but proving false to its power; and from these turn away.
I am not sure that is a safe assumption at all. All you really need for "evolution" to occur is the NEAR perfect reproduction of information with some form of differential success in that reproduction. That is to say: Some forms reproduce better and more successfully than others. If you have those elements then you will get evolution. You can not NOT have it.
And this is exactly what we have. The information reproduction is NEAR perfect but it has changes/errors. Translation errors between Hebrew, Greek and English for example. Interpretation changes between generations, churches or sects. Doctrine changes within and between religions are common too.
Differential success is there too. The Christian encyclopaedia records well over 33,000 different branches of Christianity all with varying numbers of followers. Some reproduce better than others. Some go extinct either by people converting out or... in the case like the "10 commandments of god" sect they gather in a meeting, dragging their unwilling partners and children with them, and engage in a bout of mass murder and suicide. Meanwhile polls and studies in the americas show americans change religion more often than they change cell phone providers. Not to mention many people in one branch of Christianity rather delight in killing people in other branches. My own home country of Ireland is a good example of that one.
So with small changes occurring and differential successes, speciation events and extinction events you will by necessity have evolution regardless of how much one feels compelled to close ones eyes to it.
Young people are smarter than their parents who bought into the Bible stories as real history instead of Jewish religious propaganda promoting Jews, the Jewish God, and Jewish beliefs over everyone elses. Nothing new there but in our times the religious lies contained in Scriptures are not forbidden discussion, at least in the West, and that's all it takes, really, to demolish traditional Judaism and traditional Christianity (and Islam). Just expose the false history and reliance on bad science and worse religious ideas and there you go: the real history of Judeo-Christianity. 1700 years of religious warfare with no end in sight. Who needs that? No wonder young people scoff at the same old formulas for religious warfare.
That's the trouble not being seen: These are new times and call for a new revelation from God. The Age of Pisces is drawing to a close and Piscean Christianity is headed for its End Times. And that's what we are seeing: the collapse of unbelievable Christian theology. There is a new Christian theology coming just in time for the New Aeon but it will force a division between Piscean Christian believers and Aquarian Christian believers. Piscean Christians are not even aware that the Gospels record astrological events as Signs just like Judaism before it and all the pagan religions too that were based on astrological alignments. Until Christians wake up to the astrological meanings contained within the Gospels they will be caught like the one left in the field or the one left at the grinding wheel. Look and see what I mean:
There are two Pisces fishes but only one receives Living Waters from Aquarius. If you don't know the astrological meanings you can't really understand Christianity as the way God evolves the Humanitarian Model through the millennia for all humankind to emulate.
Many young people associate Christianity, and some other major religions, with intolerance, homophobia, hypocrisy, judgmentalism and other issues. Thats just not groovy to them.
Also, it doesn't make sense if you can find yourself more compassionate or caring than someone else's God does it? Starts to make you think - "well their God can't be the real God"
I don't think this problem is specific to Christianity.
They don't hate Christianity. They hate Christians, particularly the condescending, pedantic, holier-than-thou set which, unfortunately, seems to be the most vocal portion of Christians.
Blaming MTV, leather jackets, and the "liberal" educational system is, in my humble opinion, lazy. If Christians are seriously concerned with bringing younger people into the church, they need to stop the easy excuses and look in the mirror.
Christianity is supposed to be user-friendly and not negative. I have seen the changeover take place in Catholicism from the "you are bad" (shake finger) educational system to the "you are good" contemporary approach, probably spruced up to keep membership.
I know that a lot of people from the Catholic school system are burned out. The message really has few simple tenets that one is to live their life by. Add in any layers of overall Church politics and bureaucracy with some layers of unpalatable parish politics, and you have people who say "You know, I think I've got the message by now, so I'm going to stop attending and rely on the faith I've built up to plan for the 'future.' "
Not to digress, but I have an example of a holier-than-thou who is anything but. In my extended family, one member goes to a certain parish. In this parish is a woman from another state in the East who actually worked toward being a nun, left that, and has her fingers in all the pies. She had a late marriage and is childless. In this same parish, there is an obnoxious parishioner who is a divorcee with quite a few kids, some of whom have problems of sorts. This parishioner also had an event at church for one of her children's life milestones. The parishioner who was training to be a nun, at a later occasion, talked about the problems in this family including those of the kid for which there was a church event, revealing that this kid has a "cutting problem." One DOES NOT need to know that. That was the one of the least Christian-like things I seen or heard. This woman who was training to be a nun is one of the worst gossips. Then, why would someone want to attend such a parish?
Well, my guess is that they read postings by some of the whackjobs on this forum and said, "Well, not for me...."
JUST before reading this post, I was going to start a thread called "Has reading all the guilt-ridden, doom and gloom posts on CDF Christianity turned you off to the faith to any degree?" I guess I don't need to. I think the answer is commonsensical.
I'm 19, in college, and definitely consider myself a Christian, albeit in a spiritual sense vs. a religious sense (I don't attend church, and I don't read the Bible). I do, however, live my life with Christian values. In fact, I live my life by the Golden Rule, treating others as I wish to be treated. That attitude has served me well.
I have also chosen to abstain from pre-marital sex, and I can't even begin to tell you how big an impact that has had on my dating life. Christian men who also believe in abstaining from premarital sex are FEW and FAR between...sigh.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
