America Retreating from Religion
- Thread starter katzgar
- Start date
"Since 1990, the fraction of Americans with no religious affiliation has nearly tripled, from about 8 percent to 22 percent. Over the next 20 years, this trend will accelerate: by 2020, there will be more of these "Nones" than Catholics, and by 2035, they will outnumber Protestants."
This is why the Christian Nationalists feel they must take over the Government. They know they are losing Membership.
The longer version of her article on her blog is notable for these observations:
The precipitous belief in God is limited to the demographic of people who have an unshakable belief in God and zero doubts God exists. That itself probably explains a decline in church attendance.
The demographic that is increasing are the people who believe in the possibility/probability of God, but have doubts about it.
The author draws a bimodal distinction between a group of people who think the bible is literally true, and those who think it is fables. There is no strict bimodal distribution in the population. The author's approach is biased in assuming that biblical literalism and inerrancy is representative of Christianity. Biblical literalism is a tenet of the Protestant tradition. Biblical literalism is not a tenet of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.
The precipitous belief in God is limited to the demographic of people who have an unshakable belief in God and zero doubts God exists. That itself probably explains a decline in church attendance.
The demographic that is increasing are the people who believe in the possibility/probability of God, but have doubts about it.
The author draws a bimodal distinction between a group of people who think the bible is literally true, and those who think it is fables. There is no strict bimodal distribution in the population. The author's approach is biased in assuming that biblical literalism and inerrancy is representative of Christianity. Biblical literalism is a tenet of the Protestant tradition. Biblical literalism is not a tenet of Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.
There's hope for us yet then. May I quote from your link for our factually-challenged RW friends?
"Since 1990, the fraction of Americans with no religious affiliation has nearly tripled, from about 8 percent to 22 percent. Over the next 20 years, this trend will accelerate: by 2020, there will be more of these "Nones" than Catholics, and by 2035, they will outnumber Protestants.
"The following figure shows changes since 1972 and these predictions, based on data from the General Social Survey (GSS):
(end quote)
Perhaps so. I'll point out that the party and IMPOTUSx2 that shows the least amount of principle, honor, ethics, morality is the one that starts with (R). Ironically, they are the same ppl who claim to be ever-so-in-with-Jesus.
You need a God to tell you what's right and what's wrong?
of course not.
Buddhism has no gods, and is greatly concerned wiht a just and moral life to aid "good karma"
"Biblical literalism is not a tenet of Roman Catholicism".
Origen of Alexandria, Saint Augustine, other apostolic church fathers wrote that the new and old testaments should be read and interpreted at an allegorical level.
Catholic doctrine, broadly speaking and with exceptions, is that interpretations of the bible are provisional and should be changed depending on the current state of human knowlege in natural philosophy and science -- aka, interpretations and understandings of the bible are not inerrant and ironclad.
Dukkie is a moron of the Trump variety. My friends who are atheists, agnostic and pagan are far more moral than many Christians.
So your "not good. we have no morals. politics is a literal blood sport. people have no idea of the common good -just me me me
Not that religion guarantees any of this is abated - but we have lost all sense of what the founders called Providence" spiel doesn't have anything to do with 'religion'. (?)
So you just pay lip service to Buddhism, but don't actually practice it. Got it.
That’s my observation as well, all hat...
So ... what was the beef with Copernicus and Galileo?
History goes through cycles. There will probably be more "great awakenings" in the future.
My two cents: the important thing is that people comport themselves consistent with the moral philosophies of Jesus, Siddhartha Gautama, Confucius, Zoroaster, Muhammad, et al.
Not that they go to church.
The non-canonical Gospel of Thomas may have the right approach: salvation comes through Jesus' teachings, not his resurrection.
Any correlation between the Jesus Freaks and their Spiritual Leader Trump ... and what America has become today?
Churches have created a lot of this. Their political stances automatically piss off half the parishioners. Many leaders with the gospel of profit for them, are driving logical people away. Churches are the bastions of hypocrisy. The Catholic church has a big hand in people questioning their faith. They did the wrong thing with the alter boys. They acted like a corporation rather than a religion.
If churches want to be political, they must pay taxes.
If churches want to be political, they must pay taxes.
Persecution of Galileo was caught up in the politics of the counter reformation, and that combined with his belligerent and repellant personality, is what got him in trouble.
The church was open to evaluating his hypothesis, and accepting it if it was convincing. The papacy had their own scientists (the Jesuits) look at Galileo's work, but they decided it simply was not compelling enough scientifically to accept at that time.
Galileo simply did not have the mathematics and mechanics to support his hypothesis.
What Galileo had was a hypothesis. Not a comprehensive theory.
We had to wait for Newton's mechanics and math to convince ourselves that the Galilean-Keplarian view of the solar system was the correct one.
in theory you are correct, what i am NOT SEEING is any attempts at moral philosophies
by the masses.
As far as Salvation the resurrection is inseparable from such.
The resurrection was not just for Jesus, but to show a life ever after was possible thru Faith in Christ