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People have been trying to stamp out Christianity since the Roman era. (which says a lot about the truth of our faith)
It says exactly nothing about factual truth. All over the world, people once believed that thunder and lightning were messages from some deity or other. Quite a few still do. Never made it true.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
We're not going away.
I agree that religion is not going away any time soon. But the historical landscape is littered with dead religious ideas. I don't think that literalist beliefs can survive the encounter with modern science. There are many non-literal religious people, and I think their number will grow at the expense of organizations like the SBC. Unless they succeed in hurling the world back into the Dark Ages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The same people in these polls who say they have turned away from religion wouldn't hesitate to ask for prayer the moment the chips fall in their life and tragedy strikes.
Maybe some will. But I wonder why you think that all the people who today reject literal religion have never had terrible things happen to them. Terrible things have happened to me, but in dealing with them, I was never tempted to return to the myths I was raised on.
Finally, more and more people are realizing that rational, secular, scientific, reasoning is reality, not belief in some old book written by desert dwelling, bronze aged, superstious goat herders.
This would be an example of "gleefully exclaiming". You don't just state facts, you repeatedly post stories and commentary. It's bigotry. You can deny it if you want, but it is what it is.
But the historical landscape is littered with dead religious ideas. I don't think that literalist beliefs can survive the encounter with modern science.
For all intents and purposes, Jeff's Christianity doesn't even remotely resemble the Christianity of a millennia ago. The only question is whether Jeff's Christianity will be unrecognizable of Christians 300 years from now, or perhaps only 100 years from now, or perhaps even just 20 years from now. Taking a dogmatic perspective is inescapably a decision to set an appointment with irrelevance - it's only a matter of when that appointment will be.
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Originally Posted by jacqueg
Unless they succeed in hurling the world back into the Dark Ages.
I doubt that we'll regress back into Dark Ages, but if we do, I doubt even more than it will be Christianity that survives into the Dark Ages.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
This would be an example of "gleefully exclaiming". You don't just state facts, you repeatedly post stories and commentary. It's bigotry. You can deny it if you want, but it is what it is.
As I pointed out in another thread, the terms of reference here require one to do more than just post a link, when opening a thread, but also to open some discussion on it.
Do you have a problem with that?
Here it is once again for your reference.
When starting a new thread, please do not post only a link or a video. Other members may not know what your intent was if that is all there is. Also, subsequent posts may be off topic if they have no idea what topic you wanted to set forth with your link/video. Add a line or two to let the readers know your thoughts.
Quite the opposite. You probably need to reread what you replied to.
I did. "... I will, and believe you should, talk about these things using words like spirituality and God, rather talking about these things in the dispassionate, lifeless, antiseptic manner you are advocating we regard these important aspects of life." you said. Underlining mine.
Mordant replied with 'Fantastic linkages' and you responded with the baby -bathwater. So it seems to be that I have it right. The bathwater is the spirituality and God belief and the baby is the claim that there really is a God.
If you meant something else, please do correct me.
I did. "... I will, and believe you should, talk about these things using words like spirituality and God, rather talking about these things in the dispassionate, lifeless, antiseptic manner you are advocating we regard these important aspects of life." you said. Underlining mine.
Mordant replied with 'Fantastic linkages' and you responded with the baby -bathwater. So it seems to be that I have it right. The bathwater is the spirituality and God belief and the baby is the claim that there really is a God.
If you meant something else, please do correct me.
Fundamentalists, we've often noted, try to make a case for a generic sortagod and before we know it they are conflating that with their very specific personal god.
It seems that even some liberals have a version of this, making a case for "spirituality" and even "God" in an apparent attempt to establish the existence of spirit separate from the material world and with it a basis for all the special pleading that goes with it. A fundamentalist lives in terror of "godlessness" and a liberal lives in terror apparently of an uninteresting world lacking in passion, liveliness and interest. I am surprised at the notion that such qualities arise from some discarnate realm rather than from human imagination. If this is representative of liberal theism then it feels to me like climbing ten rungs up the ladder of reason and then slipping down by four.
I don't see how such fundamentalist thinking on your part is any different from the fundamentalist thinking of the Christian fundamentalists. Regardless, tell us please how this relates to the topic of the thread. It seems that in the attempt to disparage my explanation of a better path for Southern Baptists disenfranchised by their religion's lack of grounding reality you've decided to make the thread about disparaging whatever you personally don't resonate with instead of trying to keep to the topic of the thread.
I don't see how such fundamentalist thinking on your part is any different from the fundamentalist thinking of the Christian fundamentalists.
What exactly would I have to do to avoid this increasingly popular charge of being hypocritically "fundamentalist" or "just as fundamentalist as an actual fundamentalist"?
Would I have to refrain from arguing any opinion or position over another, or at least refrain from it if it would disturb the sensitive and tender feelings of someone who disagrees with me for heartfelt reasons?
Would I have to argue that empirical facts are a fungible commodity to be embraced or rejected on a whim?
There is a sense, I suppose, in which I have switched my source of authoritativeness from a particular subjective interpretation of an ancient holy book, to my observation of the physical world as informed by the scientific method. I don't apologize for thinking I have far better reason to use the SM and an understanding of logical fallacies as a basis for judging claims about reality, than I formerly did as a fundamentalist. Or to think therefore that I am not a fundamentalist anymore.
If either of us is making axiomatic "just because" arguments, however subtly, it is you. Because it's you that's trying to introduce specious concepts like "spirituality" into the conversation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
Regardless, tell us please how this relates to the topic of the thread. It seems that in the attempt to disparage my explanation of a better path for Southern Baptists disenfranchised by their religion's lack of grounding reality you've decided to make the thread about disparaging whatever you personally don't resonate with instead of trying to keep to the topic of the thread.
Well yes we have gone down something of a rabbit trail here. I will agree with you on that. Personally I think that conversations by their nature are dynamic and evolve and likely what can be usefully said about the SBC's dissolution has already been said, and so there's nothing wrong with this particular segue since no one has held a gun to anyone's head. After all we are just unpacking the claims you made in your prescription for a "better path" for disgruntled SBC members, in hopes of determining if in fact it's a substantive suggestion.
But I suppose we can mutually agree to drop any discussion of the merits of your path and require that we have words like "SBC" in each and every post.
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