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A few weeks ago I was driving in a different part of town on a Saturday. I passed some people standing along the road doing some kind of community service and some were holding signs. I agreed with everything on the signs. One of them said "Christ is King". I believed that also. He is king, not Caesar. Christ lives and reigns as king in my heart, the way he does in the those people at the church.
Is there really any difference between myself and them?
One of religion's best arguments is that it provides community, and community that atheism and even non organized religions don't provide.
It is one of its' trump cards that it controls communities and makes the family serve the religion.
This is not a good thing, but it is effective. But it is breaking down Families are breaking up, but that's not altogether bad. My sisters and family and I are close even without living in each other's pockets, let alone being regimented by some religion or other.
Community -controlling religious organisations can do much to suppress question and exclude dissesnt, but these days it isn't so easy. The Internet is disseminating views and information that weren't before available, and already we can see the results right here: Christianity is breaking up, and unlike my family, differences on interest and views are not tolerated.
The authoritarian religious community will break up under pressure, whereas the tolerant community, though less organised, will grow.
So, I think a different Kind of community will replace the Coldwar cult of Right wing fundamentalism, even if the more loose online federation is theist as much as not.
One of religion's best arguments is that it provides community, and community that atheism and even non organized religions don't provide.
It is one of its' trump cards that it controls communities and makes the family serve the religion.
This is not a good thing, but it is effective. But it is breaking down Families are breaking up, but that's not altogether bad. My sisters and family and I are close even without living in each other's pockets, let alone being regimented by some religion or other.
Community -controlling religious organisations can do much to suppress question and exclude dissesnt, but these days it isn't so easy. The Internet is disseminating views and information that weren't before available, and already we can see the results right here: Christianity is breaking up, and unlike my family, differences on interest and views are not tolerated.
The authoritarian religious community will break up under pressure, whereas the tolerant community, though less organised, will grow.
So, I think a different Kind of community will replace the Coldwar cult of Right wing fundamentalism, even if the more loose online federation is theist as much as not.
By the yr 2030 Christianity is expected to be the largest religious denomination in china.
One of religion's best arguments is that it provides community, and community that atheism and even non organized religions don't provide.
It is one of its' trump cards that it controls communities and makes the family serve the religion.
This is not a good thing, but it is effective. But it is breaking down Families are breaking up, but that's not altogether bad. My sisters and family and I are close even without living in each other's pockets, let alone being regimented by some religion or other.
Community -controlling religious organisations can do much to suppress question and exclude dissesnt, but these days it isn't so easy. The Internet is disseminating views and information that weren't before available, and already we can see the results right here: Christianity is breaking up, and unlike my family, differences on interest and views are not tolerated.
The authoritarian religious community will break up under pressure, whereas the tolerant community, though less organised, will grow.
So, I think a different Kind of community will replace the Coldwar cult of Right wing fundamentalism, even if the more loose online federation is theist as much as not.
Organized religion is "natural". A word that has been discussed recently.
To me, God is real. But the ancient organized religion such as Jupiter was not real. Yet the majority of people at that time believed in Jupiter. Do you have any evidence that the Jupiter religion caused harm to the world that would not have occurred otherwise? (This is a rhetorical question, even if you do have a response by the way.) In my opinion the world would have been much worse without organized religion.
I believe in God. Most people do. The fact that most believers follow an organized religion doesn't bother me like it once did.
Organized religion is "natural". A word that has been discussed recently.
To me, God is real. But the ancient organized religion such as Jupiter was not real. Yet the majority of people at that time believed in Jupiter. Do you have any evidence that the Jupiter religion caused harm to the world that would not have occurred otherwise? (This is a rhetorical question, even if you do have a response by the way.) In my opinion the world would have been much worse without organized religion.
I believe in God. Most people do. The fact that most believers follow an organized religion doesn't bother me like it once did.
Religion has caused harm. Christians never cease to complain about how the Graeco -roman religion persecuted them. There was a time when Religion was the only real place for learning, but since 18th century, it has has lost ground to secular learning. And since the 60's and the fundamentalist movement, it has become a real problem.
God belief as such isn't the problem, though I think it's erroneous, but organised religion urgently needs to be rolled back. It might not have such an easy ride in China as is expected, especially if they learn English a bit more and start talking on the Internet.
Religion has caused harm. ...God belief as such isn't the problem, though I think it's erroneous, but organised religion urgently needs to be rolled back. It might not have such an easy ride in China as is expected, especially if they learn English a bit more and start talking on the Internet.
It's not organized religion per se that's the problem, it's the combination of 1) bringing politics into the churches and 2) getting people to be narrow-minded and adversarial. For the second, it's "our way is the only way", and "our way or the highway" (not welcoming, not understanding, not respectful). It's mostly a cultural and social shift and aberration, not something inherent in religion.
People over time have gotten crappy at seeing the root causes, and just assume, and then pass their assumptions to the next generations. That's why the roots of the problem never get addressed and corrected, and everything gets more and more f-ed up.
Yeah, China will get messed up by many foreign western ways, even beyond western religions. The huge shift towards materialism will probably be their biggest change and downfall. Moving away from the traditions that held them together for so long will be the second largest factor.
Religion has caused harm. Christians never cease to complain about how the Graeco -roman religion persecuted them. There was a time when Religion was the only real place for learning, but since 18th century, it has has lost ground to secular learning. And since the 60's and the fundamentalist movement, it has become a real problem.
God belief as such isn't the problem, though I think it's erroneous, but organised religion urgently needs to be rolled back. It might not have such an easy ride in China as is expected, especially if they learn English a bit more and start talking on the Internet.
We just came back from a month long trip to Europe. One of the biggest take aways we got from that is the horrible confluence of religion, politics and war, and how that affected ordinary people with misery for almost 2,000 years. Hitler's attempt at eliminating all Jews could never have occurred if the ground had not been prepared for 100's of years by the Christian church and the prejudiced it preached against Jews.
A horrible situation, and we came back humbled by the true history we learned and observed.
It's not organized religion per se that's the problem, it's the combination of 1) bringing politics into the churches and 2) getting people to be narrow-minded and adversarial. For the second, it's "our way is the only way", and "our way or the highway" (not welcoming, not understanding, not respectful). It's mostly a cultural and social shift and aberration, not something inherent in religion.
People over time have gotten crappy at seeing the root causes, and just assume, and then pass their assumptions to the next generations. That's why the roots of the problem never get addressed and corrected, and everything gets more and more f-ed up.
Yeah, China will get messed up by many foreign western ways, even beyond western religions. The huge shift towards materialism will probably be their biggest change and downfall. Moving away from the traditions that held them together for so long will be the second largest factor.
It's more than that; the campaign to give religious fundamentalism political power to change the law and educational curriculum has set off the alarm bells, and that. together with more people deconverting and saying what the problems are have revealed a serious problem with religious influence on societies.
They exploit families to serve the religion, they make "God" that is, church authority, more important than family. Any dissent and the family can break up - never mind about individuals. They can be shunned, lose their jobs.
And when religion does effectively control government, the results are even worse.
Bottom line, the more religion is pushed out of society, the more a secular society can live with it, but we won't be able to say "Job done" until all you hear of it is a half column in the news "Your religious events this week" and a three minute thing on Fox news about an end of world announcement with a 30 second clip next night noting that the world is still here. And the only Bibles you ever see in public are a couple per Library. Mythology section.
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