Christianity shrinking in U.S.; Mormon numbers essentially flat

[babe]

I believe in the Trinity. The Bible refers to the 'Godhead' multiple times (Godhead is a plural term), and 1 John 5:7 says, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

And here's an interesting link on the controversy of that verse: https://www.chick.com/ask/articles/1john57.asp

OK. I had been wondering what your specific belief framework is, and this information helps. Mormons are often relegated by Trinity believers to being "non-Christian" because of the fundamental difference in belief about how Jesus fits in with Jehovah, The Father, and The Holy Spirit. A difference of opinion on those details was no barrier to Christians for four centuries until the Nicene creed defined it your way. Christ never taught the Trinity, and it is nowhere in the Bible. As I understand it, the term does not appear in Christian literature until after the fourth century C.E. . But it is what both the Orthodox and Roman Catholics believed after that, and what the Protestants took along with them when they broke off.

I don't think I can really change your thinking, but I wouldn't say you're not a "Christian" for believing that way. Whatever the reality of "God" might be, we are here just talking about how we understand that. I don't think it changes the way "God" deals with us, exactly. It does change the way we interpret a lot of things.

A more important item to discuss might be the difference between what the Israelites believed Jehovah to be and what they believed their Messiah would be. Try that out in Psalm 110, the first verses, which has YHVH or Jehovah as distinct from the Messiah, David's "Lord", who would sit on the right hand of God. Pretty much takes two persons with different corporeal existence for one to sit on the side of the other, just like in the New Testament where one spoke from Heaven while the other was standing in the water after being baptized.

 

[babe]

you're assuming too much about me. All I said is that the enthusiasm over a stat might be more than what the facts warrant.

I do appreciate responses like this because I think the value of a discussion in a public forum like this is the opportunity to work our way towards actual understanding of one another.

It seems more worthwhile to me simply because I'm sure you represent in a manner the views of quite a lot of people in here, and others get to think it through a bit, too.

 

[Harambe]

you're assuming too much about me. All I said is that the enthusiasm over a stat might be more than what the facts warrant.

I do appreciate responses like this because I think the value of a discussion in a public forum like this is the opportunity to work our way towards actual understanding of one another.

How does the fact that people are breaking the mold not warrant heralding?

 

[Stoked]

How does the fact that people are breaking the mold not warrant heralding?

Depends on the mold, who broke it and how.

 

[Harambe]

Depends on the mold, who broke it and how.

Keeping in context with religion, and your first post, there's just as good a chance as those choosing to identify themselves not "Christian" have a belief in a higher power as there aren't. You should be pretty ok with this.

It's totally ok to look back at your values, weigh them against what you see as the future, and encourage that to happen.

It's totally not ok to look back at your values, weigh them against your desires for the future, and ignore them because someone else said so.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I've never met two Christians who believe in the same God. Every last Christian I've talked to at any length has established their own criteria for what the God they worship must be like.

Let's just say I talked to 10 different people that went to the same concert, or saw a car accident, or went to the same school or any number of things.

Each of them may describe the concert, accident, school experience, or whatever differently than the other 9.

Does that mean they all didn't go to the same concert, see the same accident, go to the same school?
Or does that mean they all are individuals and saw/heard/experienced the same thing differently and from different points of view?

Just because people explain things differently, or see things differently... imo... does not necessarily mean the God they worship is different. It could just be that they see/explain/understand that God differently.

/2cents

 

[Siro]

Let's just say I talked to 10 different people that went to the same concert, or saw a car accident, or went to the same school or any number of things.

Each of them may describe the concert, accident, school experience, or whatever differently than the other 9.

Does that mean they all didn't go to the same concert, see the same accident, go to the same school?
Or does that mean they all are individuals and saw/heard/experienced the same thing differently and from different points of view?

Just because people explain things differently, or see things differently... imo... does not necessarily mean the God they worship is different. It could just be that they see/explain/understand that God differently.

/2cents

I would assume they were distributing LSD at that concert.

Religions and their gods are supposed to present a fundamental truth about the universe. At the very least, they're supposed to provide a common framework for believers to establish communities around shared beliefs. If we accept religion is just something you make up as you go along depending on how you feel/have felt, then why bother at all? Can't you just do that far better without an arbitrary set of rules that were ingrained into you as a child? It is really no wonder religion has been on the decline in the developed world for more than a century. Hopefully the trend will continue as the living situation in developing countries improves.

 

[babe]

How does the fact that people are breaking the mold not warrant heralding?

It's commonplace, every generation has it's share of that, so much so it's just the norm. It's the details of how we are re-shaping the world that might not be so worthy of hype.

I'm pretty sure the same poll, rephrased appropriately for the age, would have had about 70% saying they believed in God in the year 300 AD in Europe, and the same percent in the year 1500. Pagans were a significant demographic throughout the middle ages in Europe. Sometimes they went "into the closet", in some places at some times they were a dominant group. I have my own share of ancestors who never made it into the Churches of their day, ordinary folks who never, or very rarely, cast a shadow on the door of a church.

Still every generation has its own hot button issues and the next will be different. Secular Humanism has a huge skeptic reaction, and so will the next popular "norm" for society. When people turn to religion they are basically saying we need help because things are not all that good with the way things are now. People assume that our best thinkers and our best professionals have done their level best to answer the needs of life and the human psyche, and conclude that they need something more. They call it "religion" but surely the exact ideas will be different every few centuries.

We will re-invent "God" as the times require.

I don't think we will ever get past this.

 

[NAOS]

Let's just say I talked to 10 different people that went to the same concert, or saw a car accident, or went to the same school or any number of things.

Each of them may describe the concert, accident, school experience, or whatever differently than the other 9.

Does that mean they all didn't go to the same concert, see the same accident, go to the same school?
Or does that mean they all are individuals and saw/heard/experienced the same thing differently and from different points of view?

Just because people explain things differently, or see things differently... imo... does not necessarily mean the God they worship is different. It could just be that they see/explain/understand that God differently.

/2cents

^logical trickery

I would assume they were distributing LSD at that concert.

Religions and their gods are supposed to present a fundamental truth about the universe. At the very least, they're supposed to provide a common framework for believers to establish communities around shared beliefs. If we accept religion is just something you make up as you go along depending on how you feel/have felt, then why bother at all? Can't you just do that far better without an arbitrary set of rules that were ingrained into you as a child? It is really no wonder religion has been on the decline in the developed world for more than a century. Hopefully the trend will continue as the living situation in developing countries improves.

^playing along with logical trickery.

But at least these weren't like Howard's deuce a page or two ago.

Let's try dropping the Logical Rope Courses and get back to the evidence about the existence of God. Leaping over this question in order to talk about "concerts" is probably a total waste of time.

 

[Siro]

Let's try dropping the Logical Rope Courses and get back to the evidence about the existence of God. Leaping over this question in order to talk about "concerts" is probably a total waste of time.

Is that what's being discussed? Oh, easy then. There is no such proof. In fact, there isn't even anything to prove, since nobody can agree on the nature or characteristics of said god/s.

 

[RJF]

What this sounds like is that one must have your level of belief to be Christian. One can believe in Christ and not go to church. I do.

It's this kind of thinking that prompted(see what I did there?) me to no longer attend. I may curse like a sailor, but that doesn't make me any less than someone who goes to church on Sunday(or Saturday depending on their religion).

 

[NAOS]

Is that what's being discussed? Oh, easy then. There is no such proof. In fact, there isn't even anything to prove, since nobody can agree on the nature or characteristics of said god/s.

We can synthesize the arguments on creation well enough, I think.

....Anyway, I'm actually not interested in participating in these discussions... the logical presuppositions involved in arguing for the existence of God are boring as ****. Equally boring as the side arguments about experiences of God like Jazz Spazz put forward.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

We can synthesize the arguments on creation well enough, I think.

....Anyway, I'm actually not interested in participating in these discussions... the logical presuppositions involved in arguing for the existence of God are boring as ****. Equally boring as the side arguments about experiences of God like Jazz Spazz put forward.

Which are equally as boring as your "^logical trickery" comments which add nothing to a conversation, but lead to you saying what someone else said was boring so you wouldn't talk about it... yet...

If you don't want to talk about it, don't bother posting. I wasn't responding to your post anyways.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

Is that what's being discussed? Oh, easy then. There is no such proof. In fact, there isn't even anything to prove, since nobody can agree on the nature or characteristics of said god/s.

Not being able to agree on the nature or characteristics of something is not proof that it doesn't exist.
It's proof that people can't agree.

 

[Siro]

We can synthesize the arguments on creation well enough, I think.

....Anyway, I'm actually not interested in participating in these discussions... the logical presuppositions involved in arguing for the existence of God are boring as ****. Equally boring as the side arguments about experiences of God like Jazz Spazz put forward.

I agree, with one caveat; a creator is not necessarily the same "god" that is espoused by nearly all believers. For example, the human species can achieve the level of knowledge necessary to simulate a universe in a large enough computer. There is nothing in the known laws of physics that contradicts the possibility. Homo sapiens would be the Creator in that scenario, but we would still be what we are now (very much a natural organism).

The synthesis of an argument for a supernatural creator, on the other hand, would be a more impressive feat. But I am in the same boat as you. I avoid debating the subject. The threads that lead to meaningful debates are few, and I'm pretty sure I've heard all of them. The arguments advanced by, um, the general public are depressingly dumb and not worth debating. So yeah, not really a favorite subject of mine.

 

[Siro]

Not being able to agree on the nature or characteristics of something is not proof that it doesn't exist.
It's proof that people can't agree.

There can be no proof that anything doesn't exist. What's your point?

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I would assume they were distributing LSD at that concert.

(1)Religions and their gods are supposed to present a fundamental truth about the universe. At the very least, they're supposed to provide a common framework for believers to establish communities around shared beliefs. (2)If we accept religion is just something you make up as you go along depending on how you feel/have felt, then why bother at all? Can't you just do that far better without an arbitrary set of rules that were ingrained into you as a child? It is really no wonder religion has been on the decline in the developed world for more than a century. Hopefully the trend will continue as the living situation in developing countries improves.

(1) Religion is a name given to a group of people/or their set of beliefs regarding who/what they worship. It could be true, it could be false... that doesn't really play into it.

(2) Why would we accept your view on what you think religion is? I personally don't see it as something I "make up as you go along".

I can see what you are saying if your assumptions are accepted. I personally don't agree with the assumptions you've outlined here.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

There can be no proof that anything doesn't exist. What's your point?

People can't even agree on what "proof" is or would be.

What's your point?

 

[Siro]

(1) Religion is a name given to a group of people/or their set of beliefs regarding who/what they worship. It could be true, it could be false... that doesn't really play into it.

(2) Why would we accept your view on what you think religion is? I personally don't see it as something I "make up as you go along".

I can see what you are saying if your assumptions are accepted. I personally don't agree with the assumptions you've outlined here.

I made no assumptions. If God is undefinable outside of personal experiences, then he/she/it is made up as you go along. Like LITERALLY. I don't see the controversy.

 

[NAOS]

Which are equally as boring as your "^logical trickery" comments which add nothing to a conversation, but lead to you saying what someone else said was boring so you wouldn't talk about it... yet...

If you don't want to talk about it, don't bother posting. I wasn't responding to your post anyways.

I was interested in portions of this conversation. Then I remained interested in things adjacent to what the conversation had become. Then things got into full wishy washy. Where's your problem?