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

Stoked said:
And to those who disagree with you on what those criteria really are?
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That's fine. I might disagree with them, but I'm not gonna treat them any differently. At the end of the day, it's just my opinion, and I'm not the one who will be the final judge.
 
Howard said:
Are you truly curious or are you just trying to provoke? Surely someone with the intellect of you already knows what my answer would be.
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There is no final judge. There was no initial judge. There have been some powerful and violent human judges along the way, enough to keep the significance and threat high enough, and even these people number well beyond our ability to count them. Hordes of them. And then alongside all of those gems there have been exponentially more numbers of common folk with their own judgments. Summed together, there have been so many of these weak and disenfranchised people that it almost shatters the thin membrane of my optimism. Almost.
 
NAOS said:
There is no final judge. There was no initial judge. There have been some powerful and violent human judges along the way, enough to keep the significance and threat high enough, and even these people number well beyond our ability to count them. Hordes of them. And then alongside all of those gems there have been exponentially more numbers of common folk with their own judgments. Summed together, there have been so many of these weak and disenfranchised people that it almost shatters the thin membrane of my optimism. Almost.
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I disagree. The final judge will be God/Buddha/Allah/Sapaghetti Monster/Shiva/Care Bears...who ever the all power turns out to be.
 
NAOS said:
Your use of categories always amuses, terrifies, and interests me.

I'm afraid you're correct about a conservative counter-revolution to some of the liberalizing moves of the last few years. And I'm very afraid of the fate that this will be waged through 24-hour news channels, social media noise, and jazzfanz. There's nothing I can do but try to ignore it.
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Perceptions and definitions inside human skulls are often reduced to skeletal concepts as clichés. When we see someone violating conventional cliche thought, it is gonna be both terrifying and amusing. The ability to be interested in it marks you out as way above the average person for caring about it.

I might have one thing in common with you. . . . a store of experience warning me to beware of mass psychology, including churches.

The warfare on CNN, and the net, might reflect the hysterics of the masses more than the thinking of principled people, but in the end those people are going to feel the saddle-sores for their ride, and come to some sensible realizations about the costs of denying others their basic rights, when giving bureaucrats the reigns affects them personally. Which is why I consider it inevitable that people will come to recognize that our basic rights are best protected by extending those rights to people who are different from us somehow.
 
Stoked said:
I disagree. The final judge will be God/Buddha/Allah/Sapaghetti Monster/Shiva/Care Bears...who ever the all power turns out to be.
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you're welcome to disagree.

I'm also welcoming myself to feel horrified at how easily people put forward their assumptions about a creator. No matter how "co-existy" their sentiments are, I feel the same chill. If I don't welcome myself to feel this, then I actually feel more irritated.
 
babe said:
Perceptions and definitions inside human skulls are often reduced to skeletal concepts as clichés. When we see someone violating conventional cliche thought, it is gonna be both terrifying and amusing. The ability to be interested in it marks you out as way above the average person for caring about it.

I might have one thing in common with you. . . . a store of experience warning me to beware of mass psychology, including churches.

The warfare on CNN, and the net, might reflect the hysterics of the masses more than the thinking of principled people, but in the end those people are going to feel the saddle-sores for their ride, and come to some sensible realizations about the costs of denying others their basic rights, when giving bureaucrats the reigns affects them personally. Which is why I consider it inevitable that people will come to recognize that our basic rights are best protected by extending those rights to people who are different from us somehow.
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repped.

My comment about amuse/terrify/interest was a sincere compliment. And it was a compliment for the very same reasons you just outlined. You've always been one of my favorite posters.
 
NAOS said:
There is no final judge. There was no initial judge. There have been some powerful and violent human judges along the way, enough to keep the significance and threat high enough, and even these people number well beyond our ability to count them. Hordes of them. And then alongside all of those gems there have been exponentially more numbers of common folk with their own judgments. Summed together, there have been so many of these weak and disenfranchised people that it almost shatters the thin membrane of my optimism. Almost.
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You failed to answer my question. Let's try another...would you say it's absolutely true that there is no final judge?
 
Howard said:
You failed to answer my question. Let's try another...would you say it's absolutely true that there is no final judge?
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you and a few other posters fail to understand that I won't answer bad questions. Answering a bad question feel icky, alright? My post was a response to the casual nature in which you asserted the assumption that there was a God (i.e. someone or some force that is a final judge). My post was meant to give an opportunity for myself (and anyone else like me) to assert their atheistic values.

Now, for your new question. I'll answer this one:

There is no final judge. There was no initial judge. There have been some powerful and violent human judges along the way, enough to keep the significance and threat high enough, and even these people number well beyond our ability to count them. Hordes of them. And then alongside all of those gems there have been exponentially more numbers of common folk with their own judgments. Summed together, there have been so many of these weak and disenfranchised people that it almost shatters the thin membrane of my optimism. Almost.
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So if you believe that to be absolutely true, you believe in absolute truth.

Where did absolute truth come from? Did it just appear out of nowhere?
 
babe said:
Game and El Roacho might be over-enthusiastic about this.

What is happening along the LGBT/Christian divide does not portend well for the brave new worlders.

Used to be, a lot of Christians were CINOs who just said that while in fact it was irrelevant to their political opinions. But what we actually have is a polarizing issue that is forcing some folks on both sides to actually think things through. The Christian "Right" is actually gaining more converts than the LGBT "Left". And the more the issue is shoved in people's faces, the more they will react, rebel, and actually oppose.

Despite the media, the government, and the corporate shifts towards the social changes sought by the LGBT, which are in line with over a hundred years of sociological new-world dreaming including Karl Marx's formula for transforming society, more people are "Christian" in meaningful respects today than ever before.

The Clive Bundys and the D. Chris Buttars among us are just getting smarter about it. They will be back, after all the LGBT gains, with successful legislation that responds to the loss of Christian equal rights to believe their way, to live their lives as they please, and to speak as they believe. Churches will advertise their marriage rites as holy and meaningful in ways that protect the family, make wives more secure in their homes and with their children, and laws that abuse them for their beliefs will be nullified by juries, by legislatures, and by courts.

Of course, the LGBT folks could just get smart sooner, if they would, and make the changes they work for do that in the first place, and really guarantee those basic human rights.

But until they shake their Marxist or other change-agent ideologues, they will go on being just as stupid as humans have always been, and just have to learn from their mistakes.
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This is daft, short sighted, illustrates to a fair degree that don't understand at all the line "Americans are increasingly willing to discard religious identities and take on new ones", and also shows how quickly you put up blinders after you see anything LGBT related.

I can't speak for GFbro, but I could truly give a crap less what people want to believe where LGBT is concerned, so long as their rights are not trampled over. What I do care about, is exactly what that line, and the data over to Pew forums/ is stating.. less people are blindly fitting the caste, more people are willing to identify as unaffiliated.

So don't paint me as the right hating, gay loving, gun right stripping hero from the war on Christianity commie ******* you seem to have me pegged as. Paint me as the guy that broke the mold, and loves that others are willing to do the same.
 
Howard said:
So if you believe that to be absolutely true, you believe in absolute truth.

Where did absolute truth come from? Did it just appear out of nowhere?
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Do you really think this trashy kind of relativism will work on me? Daymn, dude.
 
NAOS said:
you're welcome to disagree.

I'm also welcoming myself to feel horrified at how easily people put forward their assumptions about a creator. No matter how "co-existy" their sentiments are, I feel the same chill. If I don't welcome myself to feel this, then I actually feel more irritated.
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As long as I am not pushing you to have the same beliefs (I'm not nor have I) then why should it give you chills? Your belief that their is no creator does not give me pause.
 
Stoked said:
As long as I am not pushing you to have the same beliefs (I'm not nor have I) then why should it give you chills? Your belief that their is no creator does not give me pause.
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I'm actually not saying that they're 'bad chills', but I can see how it probably sounded that way.

I have my reasons for responding this way. I won't bother you with them. Obviously this all impacts me differently than it does you. I see the impacts of the popular Christian values that you ascribe to, on a societal scale, in a different way than you, and it does give me pause. That's all.
 
Howard said:
It's not my criteria.
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Do you believe in one god, as in the trinity? Or 3 gods, as in the mormon godhead? Or just one God and Jesus was his son, but is not a God and the Holy Ghost is just his influence, again, not a God, with the last 2 in no way connected to the first other than in purpose? Is God a physical being or is he only love?

Any and or all of these are different things Christians believe, supposedly taken from the same bible. Which one is it then?
 
NAOS said:
I'm actually not saying that they're 'bad chills', but I can see how it probably sounded that way.

I have my reasons for responding this way. I won't bother you with them. Obviously this all impacts me differently than it does you. I see the impacts of the popular Christian values that you ascribe to, on a societal scale, in a different way than you, and it does give me pause. That's all.
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Now this is something I can understand and to be honest with you I am much more in line with you than you would think at first.

As a Christian (how I identify myself int his discussion) this whole life is a test. Free agency, the chance to choose and mess it all up, is paramount to that. Without free agency the test of this life is pointless. The way I see these laws, stances and agendas (such as banning gay marriage, forced insurance coverage, forced birth control coverage, banning of weed...) is man's attempt to remove our own choices. That is something I am against. Granted their are limits to this view but it has gotten to a sickening extreme.

People need to back off and let others choose their own life and how they will live. Then comparing scores when we are all on the other side. I bet we will all be surprised.

Edit: I see many of the stated stances by Christianity (on a general scale) to be saddening and self defeating.
 
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
 
Howard said:
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
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So the point is, how do you know YOUR interpretation of that all is right, and someone else's is wrong. When Jesus was baptized, God spoke from the heavens and the Holy Ghost appeared in the form of a dove. Sounds like 3 distinct personages to me. This is an example of where the statement came from about Christians all believing in a different God. So it isn't just God's criteria, it is man's interpretation of biblical verse.
 
ElRoach0 said:
This is daft, short sighted, illustrates to a fair degree that don't understand at all the line "Americans are increasingly willing to discard religious identities and take on new ones", and also shows how quickly you put up blinders after you see anything LGBT related.

I can't speak for GFbro, but I could truly give a crap less what people want to believe where LGBT is concerned, so long as their rights are not trampled over. What I do care about, is exactly what that line, and the data over to Pew forums/ is stating.. less people are blindly fitting the caste, more people are willing to identify as unaffiliated.

So don't paint me as the right hating, gay loving, gun right stripping hero from the war on Christianity commie ******* you seem to have me pegged as. Paint me as the guy that broke the mold, and loves that others are willing to do the same.
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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.
 
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