The Rapid Decline of Christianity in the USA

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I would attribute the trend to 1) being several generations past the free morals of the 1960's 2) degeneracy in morals and ethics 3) the end of days, prophesied to come some time after Israel is restored as a Jewish state and the Temple for worship

I always find it interesting when Christians suggest that rejection of Christianity has something to do with "degeneracy."

Back when I was trying my best to become a Christian, the immorality of what I was being asked to accept was probably a bigger obstacle for me than all the unsupported factual claims.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Christianity is practised in an extreme way by some in the US, possibly because the general populace seems more gullible about such matters than those of us here in the UK. How come those scam merchants the TV evangelists do so well, lining their pockets with money given them by their acolytes? Scum like that wouldn't do nearly so well in the UK!

In the UK, the gullible religious extremists end up in the Orange Lodge.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Have you ever seen man solve any problems without replacing them with bigger ones?

Sure. Most problems that are solved are solved without creating bigger problems.

Man is completely inept when it comes to directing his own life

Most people do a reasonable job of it. Virtually everybody I know has. Most have supported themselves and their families, made contributions to their communities, been a friend when one was needed, and lived nonviolent and law abiding lives. Such people generally trip up a few times over the course of a lifetime and thus and have some regrets, but for the most part have lived their lives well.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Yes God is omniscient.....but he has total control over what he wishes to know

Wouldn't that make Him responsible for the choice to not know something? With omniscience and omnipotence comes omniresponsibility. Even in a court of law, one might hear, "You knew or should have known such-and-such, and are therefore held responsible."

The unbeliever is free to evaluate these matters objectively, whereas the believer must always arrive at a place that finds the deity blameless and benevolent, whatever it has done. I find the deity who didn't bother to look ahead and see what its action would cause just as responsible as the one who looked, saw a bad outcome for most souls, and did it anyway.

 

[1AOA1]

It can certainly be A point, but not in this issue. The issue being that god created humanity knowing what a sorry state it would end up as.

.

The spiritual aspect of man does not will that the entity should perish.

One is that people find it more difficult to believe in the Biblical interpretation of creation. Especially in the U.S., we tend towards literalism and fundamentalism. People are taught now, though, in stuff like evolution and the old Earth. Some don't find it problematic, but many do and abandon the faith.

So organized religion, or religion, is any system that has doctrine which is in opposition to what is taught outside of it.

Unorganized religion is any system which has no doctrine or rules, or whose doctrines consist of what is amenable to those principalities urging the occupants to leave religion.

 

[LuisDantas]

I always find it interesting when Christians suggest that rejection of Christianity has something to do with "degeneracy."

Back when I was trying my best to become a Christian, the immorality of what I was being asked to accept was probably a bigger obstacle for me than all the unsupported factual claims.

A big part of it, doubtless, is that much of Christianity insists that there is no morality beyond whatever can be derived of faith in God/Jesus and therefore tends to lose the interest of those who know better.

 

[LuisDantas]

The spiritual aspect of man does not will that the entity should perish.

Which entity?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

There is no pre-determined outcome for anything. If you consider the possibility of the space time continuum, as Einstein figured, then the future is determined by the present. Such was the case in Eden. The actions of the first humans were not pre-determined but could later be 'visited' by the Creator in order to plan and predict future actions. Its not that far fetched you know.

If god can learn of future outcomes, the outcome is predetermined as it can only happen that way. If there is no predetermination, then god can know nothing of the future because it isn't set in stone.

That is a bit like asking if your parent passed on a fatal genetic disorder, were you being punished if you inherited it?

The biblical word "sin" is an archery term that means to "miss the mark". As a consequence of their actions, Adam and his wife were somehow genetically impaired, passing on the 'defect' to all their offspring. We have no cure for aging or death.

No, Adam and Eve were punished for there sins, and the god who said child will not be punished for the actions of that parents saw to it that we got those same punishments like death. There is nothing Biblical to support the idea the Adam/Eve were genetically impaired.

Have you ever seen man solve any problems without replacing them with bigger ones?

Quite a few, actually.

Abuse of free will has been at the base of every heinous act ever committed by man.

First you need to prove that free will exists at all. With things like genetic predispositions and cultural conditioning, we are actually learning free will doesn't exist. I wouldn't say we are puppets, but there is nevertheless so much of "us" that is determined by things we had no conscious decision or effort in, that it becomes so easy to disprove free will all you have to do is look at someone who has something like schizophrenia and we can predict future behaviors based on how schizophrenia effects people. This person will have psychotic delusions; depending on the sub-diagnosis we can say they will display paranoid behaviors or fall into catatonic states. If we look at someone who has Asperger's, there are a range of traits and behaviors that we could expect the person to display. Or we could look at advertisements, and how marketing has people addicted to junk and thinking more is better when it comes to food. And of course we can condition behaviors, further damning to case of "free will."

 

[Skwim]

Yes God is omniscient.....but he has total control over what he wishes to know....like the locksmith.....remember.

I know where you'd like to go with this, but sorry, knowing everything doesn't work that way. You don't get to redefine "omniscience" to suit your purposes; as if god only knows stuff when he wants to know it, AND you happen to know he didn't choose to know the future state of humanity when he created it.

So, FYI: If you're omniscient, by definition you do know everything.

Four dictionary definitions. Note the lack of any qualifying exceptions.

om·nis·cient
ämˈnisēənt,ämˈniSHənt/
adjective
adjective: omniscient

knowing everything.

______________________________________


Definition of omniscient

1 : having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight an omniscient author
the narrator seems an omniscient person who tells us about the characters and their relations — Ira Konigsberg

2 : possessed of universal or complete knowledge the omniscient God


______________________________________

omniscient
adjective [ not gradable ] us /ɑmˈnɪʃ·ənt/
having unlimited knowledge:
They give the impression that the magazine is omniscient.

________________________________________

omniscient

To be omniscient is to know everything. This often refers to a special power of God.

​

So in as much as god is omniscient---he actually does know everything, past, present, and future--do you agree that he knew how humanity would turn out before creating Adam and Eve?

☐ YES
☐ NO

.

​

 

[Deeje]

Wouldn't that make Him responsible for the choice to not know something? With omniscience and omnipotence comes omniresponsibility. Even in a court of law, one might hear, "You knew or should have known such-and-such, and are therefore held responsible."

The one thing unbelievers fail to appreciate is the sovereign right and power of the Creator. Do you know what rights sovereignty gives to an entity? Our countries have the sovereign right to dictate their laws to us under penalty if we disobey them....whether we agree with them or not.

If you have a patriotic streak (which seems to be encouraged more so in America than most other countries) then out of a sense of duty, you may wish to join the armed forces to defend your beloved homeland. Once you join those ranks however, your life is no longer yours. They determine where you will go and what actions you will take.....even if it means sacrificing your life, or taking the lives of others. I do not see many chafing under that sovereignty because it is an expectation and people have no choice but to obey unless they wish to suffer the penalty. They usually obey willingly because they signed up voluntarily. It is the same with Christianity.

The sovereignty of the Creator gives him more rights than our government....or any government for that matter.

The unbeliever is free to evaluate these matters objectively, whereas the believer must always arrive at a place that finds the deity blameless and benevolent, whatever it has done.

Yes, a bit like a citizen's justification for the awful things done by their country in times of war....the attitude is usually..."I will support my country right or wrong".

I find the deity who didn't bother to look ahead and see what its action would cause just as responsible as the one who looked, saw a bad outcome for most souls, and did it anyway.

He looked ahead all right......but way ahead. At the end of the day, he will have tested all humanity as to their fitness for life on this earth in the future. There is criteria for citizenship in the "new earth".....we either meet the criteria or we are rejected completely. Since there is nowhere for disobedient people to go (having already proven over thousands of earth years how futile it is to disobey the Creator's laws and try to dominate over one another,) rejection will mean permanent eviction. Why would the Creator want rebels to exist when history has proven how destructive they are? He has no use for them. That seems perfectly fair to me.

 

[Deeje]

Sure. Most problems that are solved are solved without creating bigger problems.

You obviously don't live on the same planet as I do......or your view is confined to your own circle of existence. I am talking about a much broader picture. I am speaking industrially...technologically....scientifically.....and politically.

Most people do a reasonable job of it. Virtually everybody I know has. Most have supported themselves and their families, made contributions to their communities, been a friend when one was needed, and lived nonviolent and law abiding lives. Such people generally trip up a few times over the course of a lifetime and thus and have some regrets, but for the most part have lived their lives well.

Must be nice to live in a bubble where the rest of the world doesn't fit.....

 

[Deeje]

I know where you'd like to go with this, but sorry, knowing everything doesn't work that way. You don't get to redefine "omniscience" to suit your purposes; as if god only knows stuff when he wants to know it, AND you happen to know he didn't choose to know the future state of humanity when he created it.

According to Wiki....."Omniscience /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/,[1] mainly in religion, is the capacity to know everything that there is to know."

It also makes the point...."Whether omniscience, particularly regarding the choices that a human will make, is compatible with free will has been debated by theists and philosophers. The argument that divine foreknowledge is not compatible with free will is known as theological fatalism. Generally, if humans are truly free to choose between different alternatives, it is very difficult to understand how God could know what this choice will be."

Omniscience without choice rules out free will. So either God can choose to know what suits him, or humans do not have free will. I know we have free will, otherwise the first humans could not have chosen to disobey their Creator.

So in as much as god is omniscient---he actually does know everything, past, present, and future--do you agree that he knew how humanity would turn out before creating Adam and Eve?

☐ YES
☐ NO

No, I don't believe he chose to know how things would turn out for Adam and Eve before they made their choices.....there were three possible choices that could have been made....all of which would have had a different outcome. God would have dealt with the choice they made...whatever it was. That is an exercise of free will, as well as an exercise of his omniscience.

 

[Skwim]

According to Wiki....."Omniscience /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/,[1] mainly in religion, is the capacity to know everything that there is to know."

It also makes the point...."Whether omniscience, particularly regarding the choices that a human will make, is compatible with free will has been debated by theists and philosophers. The argument that divine foreknowledge is not compatible with free will is known as theological fatalism. Generally, if humans are truly free to choose between different alternatives, it is very difficult to understand how God could know what this choice will be."

So you think that because god gave us free will it negated his omniscience? Of course not, because you've already agreed god is omniscient. Your only folly is in insisting on redefining it because it ain't working the way you need it to.

Omniscience without choice rules out free will. So either God can choose to know what suits him, or humans do not have free will.

If omniscience is a chosen power, then it's only chosen once, unless you think it comes and goes like a yoyo goes up and down. So no, if one knows everything he always knows everything. There's no choosing to know this or that because this and that is already known. By definition the very nature of being omniscient means one already knows everything. And if this happens to infringe on free will, so be it, because you don't get to redefine the nature of god to suit your needs.

I know we have free will, otherwise the first humans could not have chosen to disobey their Creator.

Can't reconcile free will with god's omniscience? Too bad, but your inadequacy doesn't give you special privileges.

No, I don't believe he chose to know how things would turn out for Adam and Eve before they made their choices.....there were three possible choices that could have been made....all of which would have had a different outcome. God would have dealt with the choice they made...whatever it was. That is an exercise of free will, as well as an exercise of his omniscience.

As I already noted in another post, You don't get to redefine "omniscience" to suit your purposes; as if god only knows stuff when he wants to know it, AND you happen to know he didn't choose to know the future state of humanity when he created it. Tough that the two concepts are irreconcilable in your mind without bastardizing one of them, but they're notions you've chosen to accept as real,

.

 

[Deeje]

Omniscience without choice rules out free will. So either God can choose to know what suits him, or humans do not have free will. I know we have free will, otherwise the first humans could not have chosen to disobey their Creator.

So you think that because god gave us free will it negated his omniscience?

That is not what I said at all. I said that we know God gave humans free will or else the penalty for disobedience would be meaningless. Only if they disobeyed would the penalty apply. That means they had a choice. It doesn't mean that God already knew what it was.

But once that choice was made God then stepped in with a long term solution. The Bible's first prophesy in Genesis 3:15 was not clearly understood until Jesus made his appearance as the one to whom the prophesy applied. He would deal the serpent a fatal head wound, but not before the serpent dealt him a non-fatal, temporarily disabling heel wound.

Your only folly is in insisting on redefining it because it ain't working the way you need it to.

If you want to discuss this topic objectively, then put down your prejudices and see where the real folly is. It isn't with God...it is with your distorted understanding of God's purpose and his actions. If you want to understand I will continue...if not I will not waste any more of my time....or yours.

 

[Skwim]

That is not what I said at all.

Which is why I didn't say you did, but ASKED if you did. Please try paying better attention to punctuation. Thank you.

If you want to discuss this topic objectively, then put down your prejudices and see where the real folly is. It isn't with God...it is with your distorted understanding of God's purpose and his actions. If you want to understand I will continue...if not I will not waste any more of my time....or yours.

In as much as you show absolutely no concern for the meaning of some of the words you use, and, in fact, feel free to redefine them as they suit your needs, there's no sense in trying to reason with you because to you reason is meaningless and obviously interferes with your peace of mind.

Have a good day.

.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The one thing unbelievers fail to appreciate is the sovereign right and power of the Creator.

For good reason. We don't recognize the existence of a creator.

Do you know what rights sovereignty gives to an entity? Our countries have the sovereign right to dictate their laws to us under penalty if we disobey them....whether we agree with them or not.

National sovereignty isn't about that nation's government having power over its citizens. It's about that government not being subject to external authority.

If you have a patriotic streak (which seems to be encouraged more so in America than most other countries) then out of a sense of duty, you may wish to join the armed forces to defend your beloved homeland. Once you join those ranks however, your life is no longer yours. They determine where you will go and what actions you will take.....even if it means sacrificing your life, or taking the lives of others. I do not see many chafing under that sovereignty because it is an expectation and people have no choice but to obey unless they wish to suffer the penalty. They usually obey willingly because they signed up voluntarily. It is the same with Christianity. The sovereignty of the Creator gives him more rights than our government....or any government for that matter.

You seem to be evading my comment. Here it is again:

• Wouldn't that make Him responsible for the choice to not know something? With omniscience and omnipotence comes omniresponsibility. Even in a court of law, one might hear, "You knew or should have known such-and-such, and are therefore held responsible.

He looked ahead all right......but way ahead. At the end of the day, he will have tested all humanity as to their fitness for life on this earth in the future. There is criteria for citizenship in the "new earth".....we either meet the criteria or we are rejected completely. Since there is nowhere for disobedient people to go (having already proven over thousands of earth years how futile it is to disobey the Creator's laws and try to dominate over one another,) rejection will mean permanent eviction. Why would the Creator want rebels to exist when history has proven how destructive they are? He has no use for them. That seems perfectly fair to me.

I have no reason to believe that.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Sure. Most problems that are solved are solved without creating bigger problems.

You obviously don't live on the same planet as I do......or your view is confined to your own circle of existence. I am talking about a much broader picture. I am speaking industrially...technologically....scientifically.....and politically.

I think we've already established that we have radically different world views. I don't share your misanthropy, nihilism, or pessimism. You have been told and have believed that the world is decadent and man a degenerate race. That's the learned helplessness that establishes a need for salvation. That's what your church teaches.

I haven't been indoctrinated into that mindset. I take my opinion of mankind from daily life, the news, and history books.

You are not talking about a broader picture. My vista is the same as yours - the world. You are looking at it through a gloomy confirmation bias that serves the church that taught it to you, but doesn't serve you. It robs you of the chance to feel pride in humanities accomplishments. You only see war, strife, pollution, disease and the like. Yes, they're out there. But there is also something very good and noble about the human race. Most of us are trying to the right thing. We mostly make things better, We strive to make a difference, We strive to raise children lovingly and to be good citizens, and mostly succeed. We want to make a difference at whatever we do for a living whether that is possible or not. We try to be good friends, good neighbors and good citizens, and mostly succeed.

You seem to miss all of that, or leave it out of your assessment. I'm pretty sure that you are a decent person that wants all of those same things. I'll bet that you were a good mother to your children, are kind to your pets, and probably get a sense of well-being from gardening

And I'll bet that most of your fellow congregants are the same. Each of you probably have pretty nice lives, yet think the world is a horrible place. And if any of you challenged that, he would be rebuked as you rebuke me - living in a bubble, not caring about anybody but myself before citing some tragedy in the Sudan or East Timor, etc..

So why can't you see how good life is and how good people can be and usually are? I suspect it's for the reasons I gave. You've been taught to not include such factors in your analysis of mankind. You've been taught to see. What you call the broader picture is you looking past what is all around you to see only things that are frankly not visible - things you have been told and have believed, but not seen.

We see the same phenomenon in Americans whether they are religious or not. The have been convinced through a steady diet of indoctrination by political commentary sources that their country is falling apart. They'll cite the rising national debt, but can't tell you how it affects them or why they care.

They feel threatened by Mexicans living in their country illegally, most of whom are serving them by picking produce or working fast food jobs for pay that they wouldn't work for.

They're worried about ISIS, who has less chance of harming them that their fellow citizens or their automobiles. I'd bet that you're more likely to be killed by a spouse than a Muslim terrorist.

They're worried about who pees where and who can marry whom, seeing these issues as indicators of moral collapse and a threat to their safety and their marriages when neither is the case. Most of their actual problems are not due to anything external. They're due to their own consumerism, debt accumulation, infidelities, and assorted vices - not the state of America.

But that is the narrative, and tens of millions have bought into it. It's usefulness is roughly the same as that of the misanthropic narrative, but serving the politicians rather than the church: "The sky is falling. You need us to rescue you from grave peril. You need to trust us, to submit to us, to vote for us, to tithe to us, and to allow us to think for you."

Most people do a reasonable job of [running their lives]. Virtually everybody I know has. Most have supported themselves and their families, made contributions to their communities, been a friend when one was needed, and lived nonviolent and law abiding lives. Such people generally trip up a few times over the course of a lifetime and thus and have some regrets, but for the most part have lived their lives well.

Must be nice to live in a bubble where the rest of the world doesn't fit

Too bad that you missed all of that. Too bad that you consider acknowledging that there are many good and decent people in the world living in a bubble. Not surprisingly, I consider missing it to be the bubble - a gloomy bubble a that.

But whichever of us sees more objectively, I can't see trading in my perspective for yours. I arrived at a place of happiness and contentment without them, and live in a world with more flowers than weeds.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I said that we know God gave humans free will or else the penalty for disobedience would be meaningless.

That's the whole crux of the matter for the Christian, isn't it? He needs for there to be free will, or else his theology falls apart. The existence of free will must be defended however convoluted the argument necessary to do so becomes.

This is one of the Bible's many internal contradictions, where because several dozen men over several centuries each contributed to the final product without collaborating with one another. They generated a growing collection of statements that would eventually be cobbled into a holy book without realizing that they were creating these contradictions.

An omniscient god seemed like a good idea, and so did original sin and its punishment, so, they both made it into the story. It probably wasn't noticed until much later that there was a problem claiming both ideas at once - a problem that cannot not be reconciled, and so, the specious argumentation. It forces the apologist to make convoluted arguments as you are doing with this god that turns off understanding like a light so that he can be both omniscient, yet not.

Thus far, the apologist has only had to deal with the logician, who says that free will and omniscience are mutually exclusive. The existence of one makes the other impossible.

Soon, he'll have to contend with the neuroscientists, who are showing us more and more that the sensation of free will is an illusion. This will likely be received the way that evolutionary theory was: As a contradiction to a central tenet of the faith.

 

[joe1776]

Thus far, the apologist has only had to deal with the logician, who says that free will and omniscience are mutually exclusive. The existence of one makes the other impossible.

Do you have a post that explains this further? I'd like to read the argument.

Soon, he'll have to contend with the neuroscientists, who are showing us more and more that the sensation of free will is an illusion.

I understand that its impossible for us to know the difference between free will and the illusion of free will, but how do you expect science to demonstrate that free will is, in fact, an illusion?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Thus far, the apologist has only had to deal with the logician, who says that free will and omniscience are mutually exclusive. The existence of one makes the other impossible.

Do you have a post that explains this further? I'd like to read the argument.

Did you look at Deeje's link? It begins with,

"The argument from free will, also called the paradox of free will or theological fatalism, contends that omniscience and free will are incompatible and that any conception of God that incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory."​

I understand that its impossible for us to know the difference between free will and the illusion of free will, but how do you expect science to demonstrate that free will is, in fact, an illusion?

Take a look at this. It's a compelling but not conclusive argument that free will is an illusion - it has its critics that question its meaning - but it's provocative, and demonstrates a way to do what you are asking about.