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Then we have a battle of stats. But your stats are from a clearly biased source.
My source is referencing the same 2018 GSS study. You just can't admit you are wrong, huh?
Nones are increasing. Ok so what? We are not losing numbers. Unless you have some evidence to explain why they are increasing then there is nothing to discuss here.
No one on this forum claimed that any denomination was going extinct. If they did please n9t the post number. Just one more of your straw man claims. Using the data from the link you posted it shows a downward trend guessing about a 5% decrease in the last 5 or so years and nearly a 25% decrease from the peak in the early 90s. That article also claims that the numbers are not that bad because evangelicals will be coming back. So even the link you gave accepts that numbers are decreasing.
And in your research what are the nones who are not associated Christians? How large is the minority of atheists? Will you share your research?
And why link to an article that does not support you?
Because he doesn't completely read the articles he provides. We've seen this many times before from him.
My source is referencing the same 2018 GSS study. You just can't admit you are wrong, huh?
Nones are increasing. Ok so what? We are not losing numbers. Unless you have some evidence to explain why they are increasing then there is nothing to discuss here.
Nothing for You to discuss, perhaps. We goddless bastards are more than happy to discuss the rise of the Nones, which you appear to accept, while disputing the actual stats.
So what? So religion is decreasing and irreligion is increasing. Not perhaps the lot that you belong to, or not by much. But it appears to be happening. This means that the grip of religion on the throat of the USA is being loosened, and I hope to live to see it effectively removed.
Why? You clearly ignored it the first time I did, brick wall.
So once again. He misrepresented atheism. Do you understand that, yet?
Fingers out of your ears when I am talking to you. And stop with the la la las.
Except he did not do that, he misrepresented atheism. As several people have told you, and you could verify this for yourself by reading (V E R Y . S L O W L Y) your own link.
And once again, you won't explain exactly what he said that was wrong. Typical, you make an assertion but never back it up. Just keep saying how wrong or stupid I am.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
I was talking about the opinion pieces the Templeton publishes. The Pew report may be funded by the Templeton foundation, but the studies are not influenced by them. That is the difference.
If the man had been awarded a Nobel, you would suddenly start talking down about that organization. It's really comical. Your side just can't accept that there are highly educated people out there who don't agree with atheists. Funny you don't hear the president of Dartmouth college trying to downplay this achievement:
Quote:
“This is an extraordinary first for Dartmouth, and we could not be prouder of Marcelo, whose work goes to the heart of humanity’s place in the cosmos and explores the biggest questions about our existence,” said Dartmouth President Philip J. Hanlon. “This award acknowledges his place among the scientists, theologians, writers, and others who have transformed the way we view the world.”
What's next? Telling me that Dartmouth is a lousy institution?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
How selfish of you to ignore the many people with cancers it HAS helped. And once again with the stupid 1% beats the 99% argument.
Yet science can't explain why a treatment works for one person and not another. It's always a gamble
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
No, we use evidence. You ignore it because it disagrees with you man made BS.
Evidence is not proof. Atheists seem incapable of understanding the difference. BTW, I will not respond to most of your posts from now on since you couldn't even show a tiny bit of respect and change your posting style. Ridiculous to expect me to have to quote around every single sentence. At least most people understand the concept of a paragraph.
Nothing for You to discuss, perhaps. We goddless bastards are more than happy to discuss the rise of the Nones, which you appear to accept, while disputing the actual stats.
So what? So religion is decreasing and irreligion is increasing. Not perhaps the lot that you belong to, or not by much. But it appears to be happening. This means that the grip of religion on the throat of the USA is being loosened, and I hope to live to see it effectively removed.
And again, you offer no evidence to explain why they may be increasing. So again, what is there to discuss then? If it is truly increasing then I can't dispute that. But I do have issue with the suggestion that they are embracing irreligion because they somehow see our faith as a lie. If you are going with that then it is hypocritical to dismiss my claim that irreligion causes a higher suicide rate.
If you want to see religion and churches in America destroyed then I hope your ilk is hard at work building a replacement structure for the countless Christian ministries that directly work to help people in crisis and need. Let's start with Mercy Ships. Atheists have any hospital cruise ships ready to go?
And once again, you won't explain exactly what he said that was wrong. Typical, you make an assertion but never back it up. Just keep saying how wrong or stupid I am.
If the man had been awarded a Nobel, you would suddenly start talking down about that organization. It's really comical. Your side just can't accept that there are highly educated people out there who don't agree with atheists. Funny you don't hear the president of Dartmouth college trying to downplay this achievement:
What's next? Telling me that Dartmouth is a lousy institution?
Yet science can't explain why a treatment works for one person and not another. It's always a gamble
Evidence is not proof. Atheists seem incapable of understanding the difference. BTW, I will not respond to most of your posts from now on since you couldn't even show a tiny bit of respect and change your posting style. Ridiculous to expect me to have to quote around every single sentence. At least most people understand the concept of a paragraph.
We have explained exactly why he is wrong about atheism. It does not claim to know for certain that there are no gods. Only that the evidence for any god is not persuasive. If he misrepresents atheism and doesn't even ask what the rationale of atheism is, how can we say that this award was justified?
Look mate, if a physicist got a Nobel prise for saying that Egyptologists were irrational because they thought that the Pharaoahs were greeks, like Ptolemy and Cleopatra, the Egytologists would be quite right in raising a shout and asking what had gone wrong with the Nobel committee.
We know what's wrong here - this foundation evidently exists to reward people for promoting religion and swiping at atheism, and they don't much care whether what they are rewarding is true or not.
And evidence/ proof is just dickering about semantics. Evidence is used to validate a claim as much as possible. This is called 'proving the case'. Nothing (technically) is provable 100%. But supportive evidence can be pretty conclusive. Like irreligion is washing away religion, very quickly.
We have explained exactly why he is wrong about atheism. It does not claim to know for certain that there are no gods. Only that the evidence for any god is not persuasive. If he misrepresents atheism and doesn't even ask what the rationale of atheism is, how can we say that this award was justified?
Look mate, if a physicist got a Nobel prise for saying that Egyptologists were irrational because they thought that the Pharaoahs were greeks, like Ptolemy and Cleopatra, the Egytologists would be quite right in raising a shout and asking what had gone wrong with the Nobel committee.
We know what's wrong here - this foundation evidently exists to reward people for promoting religion and swiping at atheism, and they don't much care whether what they are rewarding is true or not.
And evidence/ proof is just dickering about semantics. Evidence is used to validate a claim as much as possible. This is called 'proving the case'. Nothing (technically) is provable 100%. But supportive evidence can be pretty conclusive. Like irreligion is washing away religion, very quickly.
In other words, Trans, the only acceptable evidence is anything that suits your opinion. The evidence is against you, but you are in a constant state of denial.
My God, some of you guys have no idea how uninformed and biased you sound.
And again, you offer no evidence to explain why they may be increasing. So again, what is there to discuss then? If it is truly increasing then I can't dispute that. But I do have issue with the suggestion that they are embracing irreligion because they somehow see our faith as a lie. If you are going with that then it is hypocritical to dismiss my claim that irreligion causes a higher suicide rate.
If you want to see religion and churches in America destroyed then I hope your ilk is hard at work building a replacement structure for the countless Christian ministries that directly work to help people in crisis and need. Let's start with Mercy Ships. Atheists have any hospital cruise ships ready to go?
I offer no evidence as to Why the Nones are increasing, because I don't know. Where did I ever claim that I did? I would like it to be because atheist polemic is having an effect, but it could be boredom with church -going, easier life reducing a need for religion, nausea at scams and scandals, being disaffected by religious apologetic strawman accusations - it could be a mix of reasons. But whatever is doing it, we'll take it. Because it is eroding the power of the churches over society and for whatever reason the Nones become irreligious, they then might be willing to listen to the atheist arguments and move from theism to agnosticism, and maybe further.
Whatever, it's Good News for us perdition - bound Satanspawn. I would indeed love to see a rational infrastructure based on logic (critical thinking), and evidence (science). But if it just caries on like today, minus religion, that will do.
We are moving more towards a society of no values. Everything should be accepted and celebrated. That may be good or bad depending on you perspective.
Your second sentence contradicts your first. That everyone should be accepted and celebrated is a value. But beyond that contradiction (and it's a serious one, for you are conflating changing values with abandoning values) your claim is also not true. No one says that everything should be accepted and celebrated. Where is the broad support for racism? For terrorism? For sexual harassment? For communism? For not vaccinating your child? For smoking?
Would you like to be more specific as to who/what being 'accepted and celebrated' concerns you? I can guess, but I'd prefer that you put it out here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
Most people have a morality line. As our society crosses it for more and more people, there may be a backlash. This has happened before.
Indeed. Some people don't like change. Recently - ie, the last couple of decades - we saw a reaction to the burgeoning idea that marriage should not be restricted to opposite-sex couples. There was a national attempt, unsuccessful, to take that decision away from individual states. There were barriers implemented at state levels to make it harder for that idea to be implemented there. Ultimately, people got used to the idea and now American society broadly, if not entirely, is accepting of the idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
Religion/spirituality and morality cycle and will likely continue to do so. How far are you willing to go in accepting things? Everyone has a line.
Why don't you stop dancing around the 'acceptance' that has you aggrieved and spell it out for us?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens
When society crosses the line, people look for some means to restore sanity and invariably turn to religion.
A lack of sanity now? It really would be nice if you would explain the acceptance that you find so insane.
You see, your thesis that we're increasingly becoming valueless as a society is, to put it bluntly, nonsense. We are not losing values. Social values are changing. Really, this change never stops.
Five years ago next month, my older son went to prom with his boyfriend at the same high school from which I'd graduated in the 1980s. When I was there, it was unfathomable for anyone to be out. I graduated in a class of 240, and there were nearly a thousand students in the four grades. As far as I can tell, every last one of the dozens of gay boys and girls that inevitably were present were all deeply closeted. I think my son and his boyfriend were the only gay male couple at that prom. There were another male couple that just went together to enjoy prom, a few female couples (one or two of them gay couples, the others just friends), a few threesomes (all just small groups of non-romantic friends in various gender combinations), and a few individual attendees. It should go without saying that at my prom - again, at the same school - there was nothing but opposite-sex couples, period. These changes do not represent an abandonment or erosion of values but a change of values. Instead of valuing the enforced-through-coercion of people into male-female couples in order to attend prom, what is valued is the liberty of individuals choosing the nature of their consensual relationships. It is more than a little ironic that those who preach most strenuously about liberty as the defining essence of America so often fight so intensely against aspects of individual freedom.
A couple of weeks ago, my daughter (my older son's twin) was a bridesmaid in the wedding of one of her best friends. It was quite a religious affair, with much commentary by the pastor on how the groom was to be the leader and the bride was to be his supporter. When the "you may now kiss the bride" part rolled around, they kissed - for the first time ever. In contrast, my daughter (a senior in college) has been with her boyfriend since high school and they have been sexually active since then. My daughter often travels with her boyfriend's parents, who visit Florida multiple times each year. When they do, my daughter and her boyfriend have their own hotel room. They are talking about getting an apartment this summer after their respective graduations, and about getting married down the road. Neither her newly-married friend nor her boyfriend's parents (who I know did not live together before they married) seem to have an issue with how my daughter and her boyfriend are going about their relationship. They seem to respect that their own personal values are not to be projected onto my daughter and her boyfriend. That respect for the rights of others to define their own values regarding their own personal relationships is a value in and of itself. Again, liberty.
I cite the examples above because they're precisely the sort of thing often decried as a loss of values. Whether or not this is an example of what you perceive as such I can only guess, because you've been cagey and avoided any specificity. But again, they're not a loss of values. They're a change in values.
In other words, Trans, the only acceptable evidence is anything that suits your opinion. The evidence is against you, but you are in a constant state of denial.
My God, some of you guys have no idea how uninformed and biased you sound.
Using the most common definitions of the terms this man is not only incorrect in his conclusion but is himself an atheist. Using his definition of the words atheists and agnostics then almost all atheists on these forums are agnostics and not atheists.
This has been explained countless times to you and Jeff. Your bias either makes you fail to understand explanations or you are both being very dishonest.
Under this scientist definition of atheism it is indeed unscientific. But he uses a rare definition of the term. According the all the common definitions of the terms he is himself an atheist. When you posted in the A&A forum you were directed t9 read up the definition it ions of the terms. That you either did not indicates that you are dishonest. That you claim we have not shown evidence to you shows that you are dishonest. That Jeff claims that religion is not decreasing in the USA while blaming the rise of lack of religion in the USA responsible for the rise in suicide rates in the States indicates that he too is being dishonest.
But both of you go out of your way to insult and lie about atheists and then declare you're being attacked is very tiring and again dishinest.
The term atheism is misused in his assertion that atheism is unscientific. Hence he is incorrect. Just how hard is it for either of you to grasp that? Failure to be able to do so must be deliberate on your part. I see no other explanation. It is you that is not only uninformed and bias but also being very dishonest.
As far as the decline in religion, the very article Jeff linked to and the original one both agree that there is currently a decline in the percentage of those who claim to be relugious. Neither of you have bothered to either present evidence to the contrary or a refuting of the articles. All you are doing is saying that the graph showing downward trends is in reality showing something else and the numbers and the lines only appear to be decreasing but really cannot be because you don't want them to be.
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