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.
Then teach people to not do these things. You don't have to teach them to believe in the flying spaghetti monster or this or that.
People don't teach these things to their children. Parent don't talk to their kids about sex and the importance of condoms. Or why you shouldn't have children before you're financially stable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by makes no sense at all
Without a source, these stats are likely made up. However, let's assume they are true. They don't support the topic very well. In the USA, these stats would mainly be referring to poor people, and people of color, two groups that are overwhelmingly religious.
Oops, I forgot the link to the sources! They weren't made up. I have to disagree with you; I believe the stats support the topic very well.
There's a difference between identifying as a Christian and actually practicing as a Christian (and going to church every Sunday isn't good enough). I'm sure you know (or knew of) people who identify as Christians but didn't behave like one.
***To those saying that being born outside of wedlock isn't a bad thing: Would you be satisfied if a woman you love became a part of the following:
80% of the 12 million single parent families were headed by single mothers (2014)
The only purpose I see to educating my kids in religion is to keep them from being manipulated into cults when they are older. I'm sorry, but what you are saying (hearing the Lord at 20) is very common among most people I know who are entrenched in mega-churches. They didn't have a formal religion growing up and now they had a moment of some divine intervention - which is fine - but then they go over the top proclaiming their faith and living with questionable beliefs. As my sister said about her neighbor who joined a mega church and now homeschools his kids "Yeah, he went to that church one day and got all 'God-y' all of a sudden."
Did you mean "Godly" instead of "God-y"?
It wasn't a divine intervention, the Lord spoke to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by keepingquiet
Wouldn't that also be a failing of the church you went to
Yes, it would to a degree. We never went to sunday school, just the regular adult service.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,476,450 times
Reputation: 12187
The Bible says not to lie then lies about how the earth was created. There are just too many errors and contradictions for any educated person to believe it's right about anything. I was raised in a ultra conservative protestant group and have read the entire Bible many times. How many of you people bemoaning the lack of religion follow more than 10% of what the Bible even says? According to it polygamy is fine and never condemned, wasting semen is sinful, depending on doctors for healing is wrong, and remarriage is wrong under all circumstances.
I think more 'Bible-thumpers' than you might think who consider themselves saved in Christ would agree. Christianity is not about the religious trappings of incense and candles and rosaries and chants and mantras and cathedrals and stained glass windows and mega churches and empty ritualistic motions 'no different to the pagans'. It's about a personal commitment and relationship with God under the guidance of His spoken word. Everything else is secondary.
We are moving to a more science based society and I think that is for the most part good thing. We all have more information regarding technology than we did 20 years ago. We use basic flow charts in our head to "log on" everyday. I'm not at all surprised that this would lead to less people being able to blindly follow any doctrine or theory.
We are moving to a more science based society and I think that is for the most part good thing. We all have more information regarding technology than we did 20 years ago. We use basic flow charts in our head to "log on" everyday. I'm not at all surprised that this would lead to less people being able to blindly follow any doctrine or theory.
Ironically, the view that science and religion are mutually exclusive is just another indication of how the education system is failing.
How many advocates of natural science understand that any science that looks into the distant past, at cosmological scales or at subatomic intervals (ie. pretty much all of the science that purports to 'debunk' Christianity) is rooted in a system of unprovable assumptions no different to any religious doctrine?
Any self directed reading of the knowledge theory foundations of science and history of science would debunk such ignorance.
There's nothing logical about religion, it is based on deceit in order to keep maintain order of the people. Since we already know the earth is round, there are more suns out there in the universe than sand in our beaches. Religion is the story that people have to keep telling others in order someone to gain control or influence over others.
There's nothing logical about religion, it is based on deceit in order to keep maintain order of the people. Since we already know the earth is round, there are more suns out there in the universe than sand in our beaches. Religion is the story that people have to keep telling others in order someone to gain control or influence over others.
What a shame for you that I've studied logic, and know for a fact that there's nothing about supernatural and religious beliefs that's contrary to logic (the axioms of logic, the classical laws of thought and rules of inference). If anything, nowadays, it's atheism that is looking on shaky ground relative to logic, resulting in absurdities like the following: http://truthbomb.blogspot.co.uk/2014...-universe.html
Judging by the online lexicon of many dunce atheists, what you're probably referring to by "logic" is actually "naturalism" or "anything verifiable through the senses" AKA. positivism. Something fundamentally different.
Meanwhile, those with college educations in the US are now more likely to be religious than those without college education.
Let's discuss reasons why this is the case.
The general public will usually be unaware of the fact that it was a vague philosophical theory most have never heard of, conceived in ivory towers far away in the mists of time (circa 1920s), that gave rise to the mode of widespread secularism we have today. Called logical positivism, it forms the beliefs that are now common place and "fashionable" among young atheists of the millennial generation.
This kind of neo-positivistic influence is why today's younger atheists, spoonfed on the self-aggrandizing fulminations of the New Atheism, often struggle to define their atheism (they would say things like: "atheism is not a world view or belief but an 'absence of belief'") and consign themselves to a hard empirical world view without the knowhow or motivation to recognize its problems.
While all this was taking place, and online communities were being littered with incoherent neo-atheist musings, logical positivism had already been exposed as untenable and had all but been completely abandoned in academic communities. With the dominant secularizing force removed, the late 20th century saw a renaissance of Christian theism taking place in university faculties.
It came as a complete surprise, as naturalist professor Quentin Smith describes its beginnings:
Quote:
"Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism. . . began to sweep through the philosophical community, until today perhaps one-quarter or one-third of philosophy professors are theists, with most being orthodox Christians . . . . in philosophy, it became, almost overnight, 'academically respectable' to argue for theism, making philosophy a favored field of entry for the most intelligent and talented theists entering academia today."
In the same way that logical positivism did in the early 20th century, today's upsurge in theistic philosophy is starting to influence the other knowledge-oriented specialties. It's only a matter of time before many of these ideas start to become common place among the general public. You might say that it's already begun, for example, with the popularizing of the cosmological argument.
This explains why colleges have gone from being a secularizing influence to a desecularizing influence. The article is correct in saying that the "atheist factory" stereotype is outdated. The main reason such stereotypes persist beyond the 20th century is because you have an undiscerning public exposed to polemical writings by Dawkins et al., and to politically-colored liberal media invective.
Last edited by Yousseff; 05-30-2015 at 03:29 AM..
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.
