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An Atheist’s Utopia
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Watch this clip:
[link]https://youtu.be/P5ZOwNK6n9U[/link][url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/01/stephen-colbert-and-ricky-gervais-debate-the-existence-of-god.html]Stephen Colbert and Ricky Gervais debate atheism[/url]
A civil conversation between Gervais, one of the most outspoken celebrity atheists, and Colbert, who is a devout Catholic.
As they go to faith in science versus religious faith, Gervais delivers one of the best argument’s I’ve heard: “Science is constantly proved all the time…If we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and destroyed it, in a thousand years time that wouldnt come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years theyd all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.
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Funny you posted that, I was just looking at some talks and arguments given by Christopher Hitchens.
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i love watching youtube videos of Christopher Hitchens. Hours of enjoyment.
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Quote from dergon
Watch this clip:
[link=https://youtu.be/P5ZOwNK6n9U]https://youtu.be/P5ZOwNK6n9U[/link][link=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/01/stephen-colbert-and-ricky-gervais-debate-the-existence-of-god.html]Stephen Colbert and Ricky Gervais debate atheism[/link]
A civil conversation between Gervais, one of the most outspoken celebrity atheists, and Colbert, who is a devout Catholic.
As they go to faith in science versus religious faith, Gervais delivers one of the best argument’s I’ve heard: “Science is constantly proved all the time…If we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and destroyed it, in a thousand years time that wouldnt come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years theyd all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.
To play devil’s advocate, one could argue that one’s religion is simply the superficial symbolic story/details*** (no offense to anyone), its just a way a group of individuals explain their understanding of an higher power and need for meaning…this is cross-cultural and has been a reoccurring theme for a long time (didn’t neanderthals practice some type of religion?)
Also, there are certain concepts such as “infinity” which our minds cannot truly grasp (there has to be a beginning and end, no?)…similarly, our universe must have originated from something (how/what created something from nothing? And what created that creator?)
***I know the symbolic story/details usually become more powerful/meaningful (and at times divisive), than the underling belief of an higher power and living harmoniously amongst others
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Pew Center for Religion & Public Life: [url=http://www.pewforum.org/2017/12/12/americans-say-religious-aspects-of-christmas-are-declining-in-public-life/]Fewer Americans celebrating Christmas as a Religious Holiday;Shrinking majority believe that the story of Jesus’ birth reflects historical events[/url]
Currently, 55% of U.S. adults say they celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, including 46% who see it as more of a religious holiday than a cultural holiday and 9% who celebrate Christmas as both a religious and a cultural occasion. In 2013, 59% of Americans said they celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday, including 51% who saw it as more religious than cultural and 7% who marked the day as both a religious and a cultural holiday.
But some of the ways Americans think about and commemorate Christmas appear to be moving in a more secular direction. For instance, while two-thirds of Americans continue to say that Christian displays like nativity scenes should be permitted on government property during the holidays, the share who say these displays should be allowed on their own (unaccompanied by symbols of other faiths) has declined by 7 percentage points since 2014. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who believe [i]no[/i] religious displays should be permitted on government property has grown from 20% to 26% over the past three years.
The religiously unaffiliated those who identify religiously as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, and who are sometimes also referred to as religious nones are much less likely than Christians to express belief in the biblical Christmas story. And, in recent years, nones have become even less likely to believe in it, contributing to the publics overall decline in belief in the biblical depiction of Jesus birth. (Religious nones also have been growing as a share of the U.S. population, although the religiously unaffiliated share of respondents in the December 2017 survey is similar in size to the unaffiliated share of the December 2014 sample.)[/QUOTE]
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I expect a 180 now that the war on Christmas is over.
Merry Christmas everyone.
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Quote from DICOM_Dan
I expect a 180 now that the war on Christmas is over.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Thank god Obama is gone and we can say Merry Christmas again! 😉
[link]https://youtu.be/6d7mTRaUmaE[/link]-
Does Alex Jones know about this video? The war on Christmas is a Trump false flag. Deep state mind washing with fake news.
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Heh. Kinda fun going back through these really old threads and see who’s no longer here.
A veritable “online obituary”, if you will.
Hero Of Reason
JackBauer
OutpatientRadRules
man, them were the days!!!-
GOD has no gender, neither male or female.
According to the Church of Sweden, its preferable not to refer to God as a “he.” The official decision to use gender-neutral language will be a change in the way that many Swedish churchgoers worship
ARCHBISHOP ANTJE JACKELEN:
God is beyond our human categories of gender. Its actually already in the Prophet Isaiah in the 11 Chapter. God says, I am God, and not human or a man. God is beyond that, and we need help to remind us of that, because due to the restrictions of our brains, we tend to think of God in very human categories.
We are not worshipping political correctness. We are worshipping God, the creator of the universe.[/ul]
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Glad to see you believe after all.
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Hold the presses … I agree with Newt Gingrich about something. (In addition to how awesome it would be to have moon colonies 😉 )
[url=http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/18/newt-gingrich-atheist-philosophy-more-dangerous-to-christianity-than-terrorists/]Gingrich says atheism more dangerous to Christianity than terrorists organization who want to kill Chrisitans[/url]
[b]The rise of a secular, atheist philosophy in the West is an equally or even more dangerous threat to Christianity than terrorist organizations[/b] that will kill Christians if they dont submit, Gingrich said.
He said religious institutions such as the Ave Maria School of Law in North Naples can serve as centers of resistance to those [b]two horrendous wars underway against Christianity[/b].
[b]The secular philosophy dominates universities and is embraced by newspaper editors and Hollywood[/b], Gingrich said. It represents a repudiation of everything weve learned about the importance of the spiritual world, he said.
[/QUOTE]
Our big difference is that Gingrich says it like it’s a [b]bad[/b] thing. 😉
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[url=https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/protestants-decline-religion-sharply-shifting-religious-landscape-poll/story?id=54995663]Rapidly shifting religious landscape in US, “No religion” increases markedly as Protestants/Evangelicals decline[/url]
The nations religious makeup has shifted dramatically in the past 15 years, with a sharp drop in the number of Americans who say theyre members of a [link=https://abcnews.go.com/topics/lifestyle/protestantism.htm]Protestant[/link] denomination still the nations most prevalent religious group and a rise in the number who profess no religion.
On average last year, 36 percent of Americans in ABC News/Washington Post [link=https://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/elections/polls.htm]polls[/link] identified themselves as members of a Protestant faith, extending a gradual trend down from 50 percent in 2003. That includes an 8-point drop in the number of evangelical white Protestants, an important political group.
Reflecting the change among Protestants, the share of Christians overall has declined from 83 percent of the adult population in 2003 to 72 percent on average last year. In the same time, the number of Americans who say they have no religion has nearly doubled, to 21 percent.
[b]Political Identification [/b]
Thirty-five percent of liberals report no religious affiliation, compared with 21 percent of moderates and 12 percent of conservatives. Twenty-three and 25 percent of Democrats and independents, respectively, dont report a religion, dropping to 10 percent of Republicans. Indeed the non-religious are something of a political counterpoint to evangelical white Protestants; 67 percent of those with no religious affiliation supported [link=https://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/whitehouse/hillary-clinton.htm]Hillary Clinton[/link] in 2016.
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Results correspond with other research. The Public Religion Research Institute found that 24 percent of Americans identified as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular in 2017, up from 14 percent in 2004. Similarly, in Gallup polls, 38 percent identify as Protestants, down from 49 percent in 2003, and 20 percent have no religious affiliation, up 10 percentage points.
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[img]http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/ChangingReligiousLandscapeCharts-02.jpg[/img]
[img]http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/ChangingReligiousLandscapeCharts-03.jpg[/img]
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Quote from dergon
Hold the presses … I agree with Newt Gingrich about something. (In addition to how awesome it would be to have moon colonies 😉 )
[link=http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/02/18/newt-gingrich-atheist-philosophy-more-dangerous-to-christianity-than-terrorists/]Gingrich says atheism more dangerous to Christianity than terrorists organization who want to kill Chrisitans[/link]
[b]The rise of a secular, atheist philosophy in the West is an equally or even more dangerous threat to Christianity than terrorist organizations[/b] that will kill Christians if they dont submit, Gingrich said.
He said religious institutions such as the Ave Maria School of Law in North Naples can serve as centers of resistance to those [b]two horrendous wars underway against Christianity[/b].
[b]The secular philosophy dominates universities and is embraced by newspaper editors and Hollywood[/b], Gingrich said. It represents a repudiation of everything weve learned about the importance of the spiritual world, he said.
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Our big difference is that Gingrich says it like it’s a [b]bad[/b] thing. 😉
If you care about survival, which is ironic since the secular atheists claim to be “darwinists” of course it’s a bad thing. There’s a reason why you can’t name a single godless society from history. I’m suprised you haven’t thought of that (actually I’m not) or at least read Taleb.
Intellectual yet idiot, indeed. No understanding of history. Even recent history.-
Interesting. So then any religion is perfectly fine according to your question – and implied argument. Polytheistic religions are all OK, the importance being some religious system in place. Even animism.
I am surprised I have to say. Very open thinking on your part.-
I don’t believe in “religion” per se. But false religions still exist to be shadow of what is true, and yes, even those are for survival, and many survive far longer than atheist ones (obviously).
You fail to see why your logic still doesn’t hold even if you were correct in specifying my “argument.”
Read the first word of my response, it’s an important word, and [i][b]conditional [/b][/i]statements are just that.-
You fail to see why everything you say is a nothing burger of anything. You have no logic & never apply any so who are to to complain about anyone’s logic when you understand nothing. There is no fact or logic to be found in any of your statements. All you do is lob spitballs & I do mean spitballs, little minor things of consequence like mosquitos. “Nothing sliders,” not even nothingburgers. You are just trying to be annoying and that is the single thing you are successful at doing.
DEET for you.-
I’m annoying? You are on here with PMS just about every day. It’s quite funny, but also sad.
Go make another Russia nothing burger thread — it might make you feel better temporarily.-
[h1]”No religion” becomes most common identity in US.[/h1]
For the first time No Religion has topped a survey of Americans religious identity, [link=https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1108183399364263936]according to a new analysis[/link] by a political scientist. The non-religious edged out Catholics and evangelicals in the long-running General Social Survey, [link=https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/13/us/no-religion-largest-group-first-time-usa-trnd/index.html?utm_source=twCNN&utm_term=image&utm_medium=social&utm_content=2019-04-13T14%3A12%3A27]CNN[/link] reports.
Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University and a Baptist pastor, found that 23.1% of Americans now claim no religion. Catholics came in at 23.0%, and evangelicals were at 22.5%.
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[link=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-christian-right-is-helping-drive-liberals-away-from-religion/]https://fivethirtyeight.c…ls-away-from-religion/[/link]
[h1]The Christian Right Is Helping Drive Liberals Away From Religion[/h1]Researchers havent found a comprehensive explanation for why the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans has increased over the past few years the shift is too large and too complex. But a recent swell of social science research suggests that even if politics wasnt the sole culprit, it was an important contributor. Politics can drive whether you identify with a faith, how strongly you identify with that faith, and how religious you are, said [link=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/polisci/people/standing-faculty/michele-margolis]Michele Margolis[/link], a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of [link=https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo28246146.html]From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity.[/link] And some people on the left are falling away from religion because they see it as so wrapped up with Republican politics.
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{T}oday, most peoples political ideology is more tightly tethered to their religious identity. The overlap is far from complete there are still some secular conservatives and even more religious liberals. In fact, [link=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-democrats-struggle-to-mobilize-a-religious-left/]the majority of Democratic voters [i]are[/i] religiously affiliated[/link]. But the more liberal you are, the less likely you are to belong to a faith; whereas if youre conservative, youre more likely to say youre religious.
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Recent surveys show that secular liberals are more likely than moderates or conservatives to have spouses who arent religious. Thats critical because these couples are then often less likely to pray or send their children to Sunday school, and research shows that [link=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3511333?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents]formative[/link] [link=https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1983-07799-001]religious[/link] [link=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1386039?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents]experiences[/link] as a child play a crucial role in structuring an adults religious beliefs and identity. Its no coincidence then that the youngest liberals who never lived in a political world before the Christian right are also the most secular.
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[img]https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ATD.DC-RELIGION-POLITICS.0918-0917-1.png?w=575[/img]
[img]https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ATD.DC-RELIGION-POLITICS.0918-0911-2.png?w=575[/img]
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Opiate of the masses is losing its addicting qualities.
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[h1]Decline of Christianity In U.S. Continues at Rapid Pace[/h1]
A new [link=https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/]Pew Research survey[/link] finds 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade.
Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.
[img]https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/10/PF_10.17.19_rdd_update-00-020.png?resize=310,643[/img]
[img]https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/10/PF_10.17.19_rdd_update-00-019.png?resize=640,788[/img]
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[link=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/[/link]
Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back[/h1]
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[link=https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/08/28/the-moral-confusion-of-trump-christians/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=John+Pavlovitz&fbclid=IwAR2GqOnop4X50Q3u29nZ2PRP1fOgbchD54I3uDB7KLtBL7rZa6jdenksfi8]https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/08/28/the-moral-confusion-of-trump-christians/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=facebook_page&utm_medium=John+Pavlovitz&fbclid=IwAR2GqOnop4X50Q3u29nZ2PRP1fOgbchD54I3uDB7KLtBL7rZa6jdenksfi8[/link]
And it’s the Trump Evangelicals are helping lead people to secularism…
[b]I[/b]n this unprecedented moral pivot point moment, millions of professed followers of Jesus, had to somehow find a way to make this man and these comments and this behavior, sufficiently decent enough to cast their votes for him.
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I can understand their disorientation. It must be dizzying to try and keep this cognitive dissonance up; an exhausting exercise to balance the moral inconsistencies and do the theological gymnastics required to not have it all collapse.When you confront these people, you can tell that they cant make sense of it either. They double down and toss out random Bible verses, and they try to connect dots that simply cannot be connected. They may have chosen this haze, but they cant see out of it now.
The day they hitched their convictions to Donald Trump, they doomed themselves to moral confusion, but whats worsetheyve confirmed the greatest fears that people outside of Christianity have about Christians.
[b]Theyve become a walking example of the hypocrites people fear, and the kind ironically, that Jesus warns about.
They are giving millions of people sound reason to reject it all. I dont blame them one bitthough I hope they realize there are others.[/b][b]
[/b][b] [/b]
[b] [/b]
[b] [/b][/QUOTE]
(bolding mine)
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I’d call it less moral confusion as moral compromise in search of a rationale. Evangelicals made the trade for political power in the person of someone with no core moral beliefs, only transactions. It’s a transaction, someone who is courting their support in exchange for giving them political power they seek.
It’s rather clear. Justifying it is the difficult part, hence the dissonance trying to rationalize according to Biblical teachings. There is no rational excuse.
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[h1]Giving Up on God[/h1]
[link=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2020-08-11/religion-giving-god]Foreign Affairs[/link]: Since 2007, there has been a remarkably sharp trend away from religion. In virtually every high-income country, religion has continued to decline. At the same time, many poor countries, together with most of the former communist states, have also become less religious. From 2007 to 2019, only five countries became more religious, whereas the vast majority of the countries studied moved in the opposite direction.
The most dramatic shift away from religion has taken place among the American public. From 1981 to 2007, the United States ranked as one of the worlds more religious countries, with religiosity levels changing very little. Since then, the United States has shown the largest move away from religion of any country for which we have data. Near the end of the initial period studied, Americans mean rating of the importance of God in their lives was 8.2 on a ten-point scale. In the most recent U.S. survey, from 2017, the figure had dropped to 4.6, an astonishingly sharp decline.…
Although some religious conservatives warn that the retreat from faith will lead to a collapse of social cohesion and public morality, the evidence doesnt support this claim. As unexpected as it may seem, countries that are less religious actually tend to be less corrupt and have lower murder rates than more religious ones. Needless to say, religion itself doesnt encourage corruption and crime. This phenomenon reflects the fact that as societies develop, survival becomes more secure: starvation, once pervasive, becomes uncommon; life expectancy increases; murder and other forms of violence diminish. And as this level of security rises, people tend to become less religious.
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Several other factors beyond rising levels of economic and technological development help explain the waning of religion. In the United States, politics accounts for some of the decline. Since the 1990s, the Republican Party has sought to win support by adopting conservative Christian positions on same-sex marriage, abortion, and other cultural issues. But this political appeal to religious voters has had the corollary effect of pushing other voters, especially those who are young and culturally liberal, away from religion. It once was generally assumed that religious beliefs shaped political views, not the other way around. But recent evidence indicates that the causality can run the other way: panel studies have found that many people change their political views first and then become less religious.
The uncritical embrace of President Donald Trumpa leader who cannot be described as a paragon of Christian virtueby many prominent evangelicals has led other evangelicals to fear that young people will desert their churches in droves, accelerating an ongoing trend. The Roman Catholic Church, for its part, has lost adherents because of its own crises. Earlier this year, the [link=https://www.pewforum.org/2019/06/11/americans-see-catholic-clergy-sex-abuse-as-an-ongoing-problem/]Pew Research Center[/link] found that fully 92 percent of U.S. adults were aware of recent reports of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and about 80 percent of those surveyed said they believed that the abuses were ongoing problems that are still happening. Accordingly, 27 percent of U.S. Catholics polled said that they had scaled back their attendance at Mass in response to these reports…
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[link=https://www.pewforum.org/2021/01/27/more-americans-than-people-in-other-advanced-economies-say-covid-19-has-strengthened-religious-faith/]https://www.pewforum.org/…hened-religious-faith/[/link]
[h1]More Americans Than People in Other Advanced Economies Say COVID-19 Has Strengthened Religious Faith[/h1]
[img]https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/01/PF_01.27.21_covid.religion-0.png?resize=640,788[/img]Nearly three-in-ten Americans (28%) report stronger personal faith because of the pandemic, and the same share think the religious faith of Americans overall has strengthened, according to the survey of 14 economically developed countries.
Far smaller shares in other parts of the world say religious faith has been affected by the coronavirus. For example, just 10% of British adults report that their own faith is stronger as a result of the pandemic, and 14% think the faith of Britons overall has increased due to COVID-19. In Japan, 5% of people say religion now plays a stronger role in both their own lives and the lives of their fellow citizens.
Majorities or pluralities in all the countries surveyed [i]do not[/i] feel that religious faith has been strengthened by the pandemic, including 68% of U.S. adults who say their own faith has not changed much and 47% who say the faith of their compatriots is about the same.
Some [link=https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0049648]previous studies[/link] have found an uptick in religious observance after people experience a calamity. And a [link=https://www.pewforum.org/essay/what-lessons-do-americans-see-for-humanity-in-the-pandemic/]Pew Research Center report[/link] published in October 2020 showed that roughly a third (35%) of Americans say the pandemic carries one or more lessons from God.
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[link=https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx?fbclid=IwAR1lPGEuGWcHvom32_D0_RBlFAO2JYlInN4HGU0nONlaAZNsSVDagbprCCU#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20D.C.,2018%20and%2070%25%20in%201999]https://news.gallup.com/p…nd%2070%25%20in%201999[/link]
[b] US Church Membership drops below 50% for First Time Ever [/b]
[image]https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/1mlbpqjqyuma9i2skgqowa.png[/image]
Americans’ membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup’s eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.
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The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans [link=https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/267920/millennials-religiosity-amidst-rise-nones.aspx]who express no religious preference[/link]. Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.
As would be expected, Americans without a religious preference are highly unlikely to belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, although a small proportion — 4% in the 2018-2020 data — say they do. That figure is down from 10% between 1998 and 2000.
Given the nearly perfect alignment between not having a religious preference and not belonging to a church, the 13-percentage-point increase in no religious affiliation since 1998-2000 appears to account for more than half of the 20-point decline in church membership over the same time.[/QUOTE]
[image]https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/nc1zlg0vbksc4v0bgqceqg.png[/image]
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People are just changing from traditional deity-based religions to idea-based religions. During the same time period we see the decrease in deity-based religions as you have posted, we have seen an increase in the idea-based religions such as climate change and social justice. These ideas are deified by their believers with much of what they believe in based upon conjecture and faith to form nebulous and poorly defined values and beliefs similar to the traditional deity-based religions. Humans are inherently going to shape their beliefs around something, the modern world has just changed what that something is.
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Everything including the absence of religion is still religion to the right. Inability to see the world in any other way except through religious interpretations.
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I’m unaware of any evidence to suggest some “replacement” effect. The decline in religiosity does not seem to be correlated over time to an increase in civic engagement or political activity.
It is simply people living their lives without religion.
The only surprising thing to me is that the US has lagged so far behind most other wealthy, educated western societies in its move towards a more secularist population.
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There is definitely a growth in specific beliefs such as climate change and “social justice.”
They have become religious to some in that they are irrefutable and even unchallengeable despite facts which belies the faith based core.
The US is slower to transition because of its history.
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Stupid phone wont let me edit. Not the word belies. Shows.
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I understand what you are saying, but I just don’t buy it.
Are newly non-religious people more interested in the environment and social justice than religious people?
Are non-religious people more engaged in political action than religious people?
I highly doubt it. I just don’t think your speculation holds.
I know you want to label advocacy for social justice and climate change as “religious” because it is an intentional pejorative… because you want to dismiss it as just a false and fictional as the stories that surround Christianity or Islam or Judaism or any other religion.
But your claim is just bullsh*t.-
Advocacy for those things isn’t religious.
SOME of the people (a growing number each year) hold religious-type views centered around one or both of those causes. Not all. Not you, for example, from what I can tell.
Things become “religious” when they are accepted against all reason with blind faith and no amount of facts or evidence will sway you or even worse – will even allow you to have honest conversation.
This was true whenever someone “questioned someone’s faith” back in the day and it’s definitely true now when people question anything to do with climate change or social justice. The same could be said about the 2020 election fraud. If that theme continues across multiple cycles then it would become a “religion” of the right wing in the same way.
Perhaps the better way of putting it is that a majority of people succumb to beliefs they start to define themselves by so they are unable to change them or have them question lest they admit to themselves being flawed. This is not true in any sense, but certainly people feel that way.-
Dude sounds like Qasino Royale more every day
Pretty soon he will be dissing American women and courting Asian hookers
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You must not have even read my post or you read them all now with such bias that you already form your opinions. That’s fine. I struggle not to do that with your posts too but you have good ones sometimes.
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1) None of what you just wrote suggests that your claim that the reason the number of people claiming to be religious is declining because people are “replacing” religion with other religion-like beliefs is valid.
___________
2) I do not see any reason to believe that people who support social justice movements or climate change action have impaired critical thinking relative to those who do not.
____
3) You seem to imply that people who are skeptical of climate science are somehow being more intellectually rigorous because they are “skeptical.” … again, bullsh*t. – You are talking about faux-skepticism that is really denialism. It’s not empirical, it’s just a reflexive “don’t trust the scientists, the elite, the government, the liberals” often born out of a media diet that reinforces that attitude.
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I gave my opinions and I appreciate yours.
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In general the population is declining, correct? Stands to reason there would be less religious types.
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[link=https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-not-just-young-white-liberals-who-are-leaving-religion/?ex_cid=story-twitter]https://fivethirtyeight.c…/?ex_cid=story-twitter[/link]
[h1][b]Its Not Just Young White Liberals Who Are Leaving Religion[/b][/h1]
Compared to the U.S. population overall, nonreligious Americans are [link=https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1382320692855779328/photo/1]younger[/link] and more [link=https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1382320703215710208]Democratic-leaning[/link]. But the number of Americans who arent religious has surged in part because [link=https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1376902562021060610/photo/1]people in lots of demographic groups are disengaging from religion[/link] many nones dont fit that young, liberal stereotype. The average age of a [link=https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1382320692855779328]none is 43[/link] (so plenty are older than that). About one-third of nones ([link=https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1382320697695944705]32 percent[/link]) are people of color. More than [link=https://www.npr.org/2020/11/03/929478378/understanding-the-2020-electorate-ap-votecast-survey]a quarter[/link] of nones [link=https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-results]voted for Trump in 2020[/link]. And about [link=https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1382476779940614144]70 percent[/link] dont have a four-year college degree.
[h2][b][b]People are leaving mainline Protestant churches and Catholicism in particular.[/b][/b][/h2] There are about as many evangelicals (22 percent of American adults), Jewish Americans (2 percent), Black Protestants (6 percent) and members of smaller religions in the U.S. like Islam and Hinduism (6 percent) as there were a decade ago, according to GSS data. Its really two groups in particular that are [link=https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/march/evangelical-nones-mainline-us-general-social-survey-gss.html]declining[/link]: mainline Protestants ([link=https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/06/28/what-is-a-mainline-protestant/]think Episcopalians or Methodists[/link]) and [link=https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/march/evangelical-nones-mainline-us-general-social-survey-gss.html]Catholics[/link].
[b]Nones arent just leaving religion because of the Christian right.
[/b]So what else is going on? Well, nations with fairly high per capita GDPs ([link=https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true]such as Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom[/link]) tend to have fairly [link=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/05/how-do-european-countries-differ-in-religious-commitment/]low levels of religiosity[/link]. The U.S. has long been an outlier: a high-income, highly religious nation. But America may have always been destined to grow less religious.
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I’m a catholic but over the years I’ve become a lax catholic. Christmas and Easter.
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[h3][link=https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/half-americans-believe-god-lowest-153310331.html]Half of Americans believe in God the lowest number in History [/link][/h3] That finding, from the closely watched [link=https://gss.norc.org/]General Social Survey[/link], stands out among several nuggets of new data about religion in America.
Not quite 50 percent of Americans say they have no doubt about the existence of God, according to the 2022 survey, [link=https://norc.org/research/library/2022-general-social-survey-data-released-to-public.html]released Wednesday[/link] by NORC, the University of Chicago research organization. As recently as 2008, the share of sure-believers topped 60 percent.Thirty-four percent of Americans never go to church, NORC found, the highest figure recorded in five decades of surveys.
Another new report, from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), said that [link=https://www.prri.org/research/religion-and-congregations-in-a-time-of-social-and-political-upheaval/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top]27 percent of Americans[/link] claimed no religion in 2022, up from 19 percent in 2012 and 16 percent in 2006.
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THANIK GOD!
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Atheists
[link=https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/no-one-participates-in-politics-more]https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/no-one-participates-in-politics-more[/link]The last forty years of politics and religion has been focused squarely on the ascendancy of the [link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right]Religious Right[/link]. I must admit that Ive probably contributed my fair share to that discourse, as well.
A motley crew of white evangelicals and traditional Catholics locked arms on some social issues, started voting in large numbers for Republican candidates, and changed American politics forever.
Heres what I believe to be the emerging narrative of the next several decades: the rise of atheism and their unbelievably high level of political engagement in recent electoral politics. Let me put it plainly: [b]atheists are the most politically active group in American politics today and the Democrats (and some Republicans) ignore them at their own peril. [/b]
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The data is clear and unequivocal on this point – no one gets involved in the political process to the level of the average atheist.
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[h1]What Really Happens When Americans Stop Going to Church[/h1] People hold on to their politics when they stop attending church.
[link=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/christianity-religion-america-church-polarization/675215/]Daniel Williams[/link]:
Millions of Americans are leaving church, never to return, and it would be easy to think that this will make the country more secular and possibly more liberal. After all, that is what happened in Northern and Western Europe in the 1960s: A younger generation quit going to Anglican, Lutheran, or Catholic churches and embraced a liberal, secular pluralism that shaped European politics for the rest of the 20th century and beyond. Something similar happened in the traditionally Catholic Northeast, where, at the end of the 20th century, millions of white Catholics in New England, New York, and other parts of the Northeast quit going to church. Today most of those states are pretty solidly blue and firmly supportive of abortion rights.
So, as church attendance declines even in the southern Bible Belt and the rural Midwest, history might seem to suggest that those regions will become more secular, more supportive of abortion and LGBTQ rights, and more liberal in their voting patterns. But that is not what is happening. Declines in church attendance have made the rural Republican regions of the country even more Republican andperhaps most surprisingmore stridently Christian nationalist.
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