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The Rapid Decline of Christianity in the USA
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
Ah yes, one of god's favorite agents.
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It can actually be demonstrated.
After today's education. It's a widely accepted concept that we should believe what is evidenced and reject what is not evidenced.
However, the fact is among 100% humans who realize the existence of black holes, 99.99% of them don't have the evidence. All they have is basically ------------- Faith!
It means that the reality is completely the opposite to what can be delivered from today's education. This however is completely unnoticed by humans. So it's not unreasonable to speculate that it's an act of Satan because something totally wrong but without humans own consent yet it affects deeply your tendency of belief!
Plus that this is prophesied and warned. The Bible can warn about something humans themselves failed to notice!
Skwim
Veteran Member
You're confusing faith with belief. Faith is belief with trust. I don't know anyone, cosmologist included, who have faith in the existence of black holes. Cosmologists work with the evidence of black holes believing that the conclusions they have so far come to are on the right track, but they would never believe them to such a degree that they would trust them to be absolutely accurate, which is what faith comes down to.
So what do you think can be delivered from today's education, your particular brand of religious faith?
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You don't really know what faith and believe are.
Faith and believe are takes without evidence. You have no evidence of black holes when you come into believe that it's a truth. That's actually your faith because of the lack of evidence. You believe that the direct eyewitnesses (the scientists) have the evidence. This is the process of what human witnessing is for humans in majority to get to a truth of any kind. That is, you put faith in a small group of humans who you believe that they are maintaining a more direct contact with the truth itself and thus have the evidence.
I simply point out what going wrong with education. What's wrong with that?
I don't have to give any suggestion. Or the suggestion I can give is that they should make this consent to each and every student.
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Skwim
Veteran Member
Don't know what "takes" are, but I do know that both belief and faith can be grounded in evidence.
Sure I do, I have the evidence of the say-so of those whom I've deemed to have the ability to correctly judge the evidence that's been amassed. And their say-so is that black holes exist.
*sigh* Please try to grasp the difference between belief and faith. It isn't that difficult.
And you don't have to participate in the form either; however, under the assumption that you can and are willing to explain yourself, I asked.
When you say "It means that the reality is completely the opposite to what can be delivered from today's education." I presume you have a decent idea of what "can be delivered." If you don't then I'll figure you're just blathering along here to hear yourself talk. So far it looks like the later.
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That was one of the benefits to this activity that I mentioned: "If teaching and learning are the lecture session of skeptic school, tapping the glass on the aquarium is the lab section."
Where else would you learn these things but in a venue like this? It requires protracted and open discussions to discover them, something you're not likely to get in meat space. Deeje doesn't appear to be selling her religion here like the Jehovah's Witnesses you're likely to encounter at your door or in a public place seated beside a stack of religious literature. The latter generally get none of our time, or at most, a few minutes if we choose to engage them. Even then, the discussion isn't frank. It's canned language designed to market their religion.
You might hear from such a person that man needs God for guidance and salvation, but not what we get from Deeje. Nobody that wants to sell his religion to you is going to confide just how dark their worldview is. You get that message once you become an insider and start attending services and consuming the material in Awake! and Watchtower.
Christians seated both Bush and Trump. Neither could have won without that support. That's most of your war and immorality this century.
And if you believe in a god, the most prolific abortionist is the one responsible for the billions of miscarriages.
America's best hope is for its most prominent religion to fade into the background and join the Jews, Muslims, Druids, and Zeus worshipers in lacking political clout and cultural hegemony.
The decline of Christianity should be accompanied by an increase in morality as it has been in the past. More religion doesn't make better people. It makes worse people.
Your first sentence seems to imply that you agree with the last one.
Justified belief is not religious-type faith, which is unjustified belief. We are justified in trusting the scientists even knowing that they will likely modify the newest and least testable of their ideas. Their track record is stunning.
My education prepared me nicely to navigate reality. I suspect that that would not have been possible had my mental map not been pretty accurate.
When has Bible prophecy ever been useful? High quality prophecy is useful. If your prophecies are useless, they are trivial.
Can you give me a biblical prophecy that was useful?
Christianity is fading because its message seems irrelevant, and its public face very off putting.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Jesus said unrighteous anger is murder in that murder proceeds from desire. You may have felt mad enough to kill someone but not committed the act, yet you are guilty of hate, as am I.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
I would like to respond to you, but I sense you are being rhetorical--and angry. You consistently respond with anger--not knowledge, kindness, inquiry--to my posts.
Many evangelical Christians did not vote for the Republican criminal who ran for office, but for the Democratic criminal.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
How did you come to understand that democracy, state-church separation and freedom of religion are "moral"?
Not all socio-economic systems or even freedoms are "moral". Until we get your moral compass better oriented, I don't think you have the high ground suggesting that atheists are as moral (or even as kind and gentle) as born again Christians.
This would be one of those questionable commandments I mentioned.
The difference between actual murder and getting angry enough to murder is that actual murder results in someone's death. Only someone who doesn't value human life would argue that the one is just as bad as the other.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
I see--Christians break all the commandments, same as atheists, including commandments like:
*No other God besides Jehovah
*Tithe to your local congregation
*Honor the Shabbat
You are a very smart person, but you are often illogical--responding from emotion, not a will that is turned toward obedience to Jesus Christ.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Yes, Christians break the commandments mentioned very often. There is nothing illogical about it. Nobody is perfect, even Christians.
No anger. Just a reply to your comment about atheists being immoral. Did I accuse you of being angry when you wrote that? So where do you see anger in my defense of that?
I answered a theist who was telling us on another thread that atheists were aspiritual (his word) and I gave him an reply analogous to the one I gave you arguing that it was Christianity that had spirituality issues, not my worldview.
This is what I call soft bigotry. It's not expressed with any active hatred or malice - just what you consider true, but which is bigotry nevertheless. This is the same accusation that I made when you commented that atheists were incapable of loving their enemies.
I suspect neither of you felt that you were being derogatory, and possibly you were both surprised and offended to be disagreed with and called what you called atheists - immoral in your case, spiritually defective in the other.
I'm prepared to have analogous discussions in a number of other areas. Would you like to compare the Christian and secular humanist takes on truth, love, justice, or mercy? You'll never see me call Christianity defective in any of those areas unless you first post that our version is inferior to yours. At that point, you will see the counterargument.
Regarding your other accusations above, I did answer with knowledge. I compared two ethical systems and provided a fair amount of detail.
As far as inquiry, you don't answer the questions asked of you. You didn't address my most recent post to you except to say that you wouldn't address it. When we were discussing loving one's enemies, I described how I treated the last to people to act like enemies to me, asked you what you would do differently, and you never answered.
As for kindness, again, I don't know what you are talking about. You said that your Bible, which you believe, said that atheists were immoral, and I answered that I thought that the biblical system of ethics was inferior to the humanist one. How was that unkind? How were you any kinder?
It isn't necessary for you to answer any comment I direct to you or anybody else. As I have explained to you many times, that will always be interpreted as a concession. Its presumed that if you had an effective answer, that you would post it, and that when you ignore the comment or deflect from it as you have here, that you cannot and prefer to not.
It will also be considered bad faith disputation to make a claim, have it rebutted, ignore the rebuttal, and repeat the claim as if nothing had happened. There will be no need to rebut it a second time, but just to note that it has been done, provide a link to the refutation, and that the post still stands unchallenged and as the last word on the topic to date. You will always to be free and even encouraged to address that reply, but you needn't, and such bad faith disputation will be identified as such.
Fair enough? If you think not, please explain why.
So bring your best game to the forum. If it pleases you to make derogatory comments about atheists, expect a reply, and if you can, post which parts of the reply you agree with, and which parts you disagree with and why. Those are gentlemanly rules of discourse. It is the academic standard. It's the courtroom standard. It's the standard for judging formal debates. In every case, whoever the last plausible argument prevailed.
If you don't care for this type of give and take, I recommend leaving your atheophobia at the door. Many of us won't grant you free kicks at atheists.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
That's one of the reasons I can't stand being around my sister or her husband. Rather quite frequently, at least around me, they go on and on about how we need god, we have to have faith, and without we have no morals, no meaning, no purpose, and just can't be a loving, understanding, good person. No, they aren't intending to be mean or rude or hurtful, but indeed they are still saying hateful and mean things about people who lack religion and god in their lives and I'm sitting just a few feet away, typically even am an active participant in the conversation.
I used the humanist method of deciding moral issues - rational ethics, which brings reason and empathy together to try to elucidate which societal rules give us the best society, which we define as the one that empowers individuals maximally, and rules for living our individual lives in a satisfying, upstanding, just, and kind way. You might know it as the Golden Rule.
Unlike some ethical systems that merely give lip service to it, rational ethics actually make it the basis of our moral theory. That's how it was determined that slavery was wrong. Christian abolitionists were the ones who accepted that thinking. Their opposition came from the Christians that did not, and who used their Bibles to defend that choice.
There you go again. Another derogatory comment, this time directed not just at atheists, but me personally.
My moral compass is none of your business, you are unaware of my values apart from the handful I have shared with you (more below), and I don't consider that somebody who gets his moral instruction out of a book is qualified to judge mine.
Also, you are resuming your bad faith disputation. You ignored a detailed rebuttal to your claim to a moral high ground for theists, then essentially repeated your claim.
My response is the same as before. You can see it again here if you care to. At this point, I have the last word on the matter. Are you content with that? If so, I'll assume that you cannot back up your claim.
Let's up the ante, since you don't feel like defending your atheophobic calumnies :
Blessed are the meek. Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies.
All bad advice:
- The meek are used. They are easily exploited. Humility, cooperation, being of service,and politeness are all praiseworthy deferential behaviors. Meekness is not. It is spinelessness, and represents a poverty or smallness of spirit. It's a form of cowardice, not a virtue as your Bible suggests.
- Turning the other cheek invites a second blow. My advice? Try to negotiate a peace if possible, or walk away if your attacker is uninterested. If unable to walk away, at least put up your fists to protect your face. Offering the other cheek a mistake.
- The best that enemies should hope for is that no revenge is exacted and that they are simply excluded from one's life.
This is essentially deconstructing the Beatitudes, which on closer inspection, are easily seen to be a set of instructions for people to not resist being treated unfairly. Who gives advice like this to people that they care about? This is what you tell people whom you intend to exploit and hope that they will accept your exploitation without rising up.
This is what Constantine undoubtedly wanted from his subjects, and probably what he found so appealing about this particular religion. Confucius and Buddha didn't give advice like that. Their writings wouldn't be of any use to somebody like Constantine.
It's another example of a thought crime. Christianity is fond of them. Unbelief is punished with perdition. Being aroused physically by another person is adultery if either is married. Coveting the possessions of another is also a thought crime. Christianity teaches that God is reading your mind, and will reward or punish you for your desires.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Well, the Bible does instruct slaves to serve well, doubly so if their master is also Christian. It makes it very difficult for me to believe that Paul himself gave a damn about the lives of others.
Sorry to read that, but I'm sure that you know that is common.
Regarding a sense of purpose and having a moral compass outside of their religion, if you looked at the link to another thread that I provided in counterargument to the impossibility of spirituality outside of a theistic worldview, you saw this:
- "People that accept that view of reality are often so disconnected from this life that they report that they see no purpose in it if there isn't an afterlife with their God to follow, and so disconnected from their fellow man that they tell us that they see no reason not to go berserking and begin killing people around you if there is no God or heaven."
They are saying that they would have no sense of purpose without a god belief, and with one, it is to someday worship a god. I can hardly think of a more meaningless existence. My mother actually once told my younger sister that she, my sister, was conceived to keep me company - an idea that my sister found offensive, and I understand why. I don't see much difference being told that you were created to audition for the role of eternal flatterer to amuse a deity. I imagine that existence to be something like that Trump cabinet meeting with non-stop fawning and flattering.
Regarding having no reason to behave morally without the promise of a reward or the threat of punishment in an imagined afterlife, I like Amanda Marcotte's take on it:
- "Atheist are routinely asked how people will know not to rape and murder without religion telling them not to do it, especially a religion that backs up the orders with threats of hell. Believers, listen to me carefully when I say this: When you use this argument, you terrify atheists. We hear you saying that the only thing standing between you and Ted Bundy is a flimsy belief in a supernatural being made up by pre-literate people trying to figure out where the rain came from. This is not very reassuring if you're trying to argue from a position of moral superiority."
Also, if you agree, you have the option of adding that you question whether it is possible to be moral if you believe that your every thought and act is being monitored for the purpose of rewarding or punishing you in the future. It's neither moral nor immoral to do good and avoid harming others under those circumstances, especially if you add that there is no need to do so if you're not being monitored for purpose of rewarding or punishing you. It's common sense.
And if you go that route, consider adding at the end that you're only telling them these things to help them because you love them, and would like to see them saved from religion.
I hope I don't sound like I'm telling you what you should do - just cataloging options that might or might not suit your disposition and situation. There are people that I would not talk to like that, and others that I would.