It was a long slog from my indoctrination as a child. A combination of Star Trek, Monty Python, honest answers from pastors (e.g. I don't know...), general education and curiosity, little pressure from my parents after their assigned duties during my childhood (Confirmation), college and military life, and some innate cynicism and my sarcastic bent finally got me there.
Unwinding childhood belief is difficult. But it can be done.
Mine was a long slog too but I had a catalyst in a near death experience. One of the parts of the religious experience that was harped on when I was a teen was the wide range of people who "crossed over" and then "came back from the dead". As a true believer, I was gullible. There were supposedly thousands of people who had experienced that bright light and "The Hand of God" or some other entity that told them it wasn't time yet or some other such thing in a movie-trailer-like voice. When I had my near death experience none of that happened. I didn't even see my life flash before my eyes.. I had a lot of time for that to happen as I was trapped in a car for 10 hours. I was disappointed but undaunted. I searched for Jesus for a few years and had another catalyst in the form of an evangelical church. The people were waving their hands in the air and the preacher was coming around and talking to people who didn't seem as overcome with the Lord. When he talked to me I told him about my near death experience and he proclaimed that I had already been 'reborn'. The only thing I took from that church service was how ridiculous and fake it all seemed. It took a few more years but like you, geek culture had a lot to do with my de-conversion.
Yeah, if you don't know, I'm so loathe to pontificate without knowing what you know, New Order is the band that Joy Division evolved into after the front man Curtis suicided, may the Ceiling Cat preserve his songs in eternity. They were "post punk, new wave, Brit wave, Manchester sound" musicians and were poking fun at the glam rockers that were extremely popular at the time.
I've never been a believer, even though both my parents came from Catholic families and we were raised Catholic.
I've always wondered why it never "stuck" with me, even after years of going to church and everything.
A few years ago, on the Nerdist podcast, he was interviewing someone and the subject came up of how some people don't get sucked into religion. The guest postulated that people who grow up reading/watching science fiction don't because they see alternatives to the Supreme Being model.
That was a light bulb clicking on, as I've been a huge sci-fi nerd since childhood. That cimbined with the likes of Monty Python making fun of religion likeely go a long way.
I wonder how much of the belief in angels and devil/demons come from the church and how much from watching TV shows/movies with theses tropes ?
"It suggests many Americans take a cafeteria-style approach to religion, picking and choosing the parts they like instead of purchasing the entire package."
Isn't it what christian religious leaders already do ?
Regardless of where it comes from, most people believe what they do because the authority figures in their lives conditioned them to believe it from birth.
Yeah, occultic entertainment is a giant market. It. Is the socially permitted exploration of the occult. A lucrative market in which people pay cash for the promise of enchantment, but come away with glamour.
While I was losing my religion I still liked shows with the supernatural in them. Highway to Heaven was a favorite of mine and Angels in the Outfield still makes me cry. But if anything shows like that pushed me farther from religion, not closer.
A lot of Latino guys are named Angel or Jesus. Just a few weeks ago I got a text saying Jesus was coming. The Uber driver was late. Not 2,000 years late though.
I have felt for some time now, that organized religion is going to have a very difficult time surviving the internet with its influence intact. There is just too much easily accessible, good information out there. For the first time people all across the free thought spectrum are realizing they are not as alone as they once thought, and networking. The staggering number of Christian sects does not bolster the argument for Christianity. It speaks directly to a divine being who could will the universe into existence, but when it came to the most important message imaginable, could not make himself understood and chose to rely on faith rather than objective evidence.
I did Facebook for a short while when it was new, but soon concluded it was a predatory web site I wanted nothing to do with. I have no idea why people are so willing to open their lives up on line the way they do.
This God they believe in has also left many wanting. If he created this planet than why not make sure the people, he supposedly created, took care of it and help us do it?
You're discounting how functionally illiterate and low-information the electorate is. Social media is heralding the rise of the individual and simultaneously undermining the fabric of our society.
Since there is zero evidence to support creationism, I don't know what they would be looking up, other than a Bible quote. If they had any actual evidence, they would be on their way to a Nobel Prize.
I really do think these science illiterates believe science just makes stuff up, the way they do. Few things are more ironic than a science-denying creationist using a smart phone.
Hi There - Over the years I have shared these quotes many times with many people. I thought it would be interesting in this context of examining what people believe in. Enjoy.
"Let's take, for example, the word "God."
In our research we queried thousands of people, using a variety of surveys and questionnaires, and discovered that 90 percent of the respondents had definitions that differed significantly from everyone else. EVEN people who came from the same religious or spiritual background had fundamentally unique concepts of what this word means. And for the most part, they never realized that the person they were talking to about God had something entirely different in mind." - Andrew Newberg, M.D. - research neuro-scientist
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
I note that Jews and other non-christians aren't included in the survey. Given the considerable number of "secular Jews," I'd suggest that including them would skew the numbers even more to our side of the discussion. Thant may even be why Gallup didn't include them.
"There are a lot of Americans in this survey who say they believe in God but reject the concepts of Heaven, Hell, or the beings that supposedly live in them." Sounds like they believe in a Deist God which, while still problematic and unprovable, at least makes more sense than the traditional, i.e. biblical God.
And finally there's this: "belief in the devil saw a slight rise during the George W. Bush administration" Would it be terribly unbecoming of me to say that can't be a coincidence?
As a secular Jew I fine your comment interesting because I think there are more of us than people think, many Jews loss faith in God during and after the Holocaust. However, I think, although all religions have their Orthodox and Conservative sects, it is the radical Christians in our society that are playing havoc with our government and trying to force their brand of Christianity on the rest of us. Other religions that support the Christian radicalism today are going to be in for a very sad surprise if these radical Christians win, they will be the first to be denied.
Agreed completely. The Hasidim and other far-right Jewish sects are apparently too self-absorbed for the simple realization that they'd be on the chopping block. I don't know how many televangelists I've heard screaming that Jews MUST be forcibly converted before Jesus will come back.
On the other hand, Olivia DeHavilland lived to be 103, and her reputation as one of the few genuinely nice people in Hollywood is attested by many, many sources.
Growing up my parents only ever made me go to mass on special occasions and we didn’t talk about god all that much outside of church. So it was pretty easy for me to slip out of the belief in god. What we did hear a lot from my parents was things like “someone was watching over us during this dangerous moment.” They spoke of guardian angels or grandpa looking down on us and even the idea that when we die we will see our lost loved ones. None of that talk was really tied to god though, no caveats that we needed to be good or believe really hard in god to get these blessings. Which I’m sure is probably unique to my immediate family. Dropping the guardian angels and comforting thoughts of seeing grandpa and grandma again took a bit longer to shed for me because they weren’t tied to religion in my mind.
The parts of the religion my family chose were the really feel good parts and left the rest out to dry. My parents had an issue with the churches and mass, being told they couldn’t help in our time of need while the church became more grand and I have a feeling that my father might have been exposed to the rot in the Catholic Church (I don’t think as a victim but I have reason to think he knew a victim.) So I think they believe in god but the human structures and rules are not necessary. Folks will accept the parts that comfort them the most. Angels to watch over us, devils to blame our so called sins on, a god who cares, a heaven to reunite with dead family, and a hell to punish evil. Even though none of that is truly supported in the Bible. These religions are unique to each individual and we can see what those people value by the type of church they attend and dogma they enforce.
It’s good to see the belief in all of it slipping, it’s slow but steady. Now if we could convince the politicians to protect the whole population we can speed up the process. Poor and underprivileged folks won’t be a target when their needs start being met without the chains of religion attached.
I went to catholic school K-12, we went to mass every week, we prayed before meals, but outside of that, I can not think of any single instance of talking about god or religion in the family. I still don't know if I ever actually believed any of it, or if I just went along with it because I was told I believed. At some point I was going along with it telling myself that maybe I just didn't know. I was probably 30 before I understood that not believing was a valid position.
I went to public school and had an hour of catechism every Tuesday at my local parish. That was the only time there was ever any god talk during the school week.
At home and at church, that's when the god thing took center stage, especially as I was an altar boy who attended weekly practice).
Guardian Angels seem more of a Catholic thing. They were rarely mentioned during my IFB upbringing. I had heard of them, but it wasn't a big part of the beliefs I was fed. Demons, OTOH... and of course, As an IT worker, I now believe in daemons.
And gremlins. They infest comment systems. I think ViaFoura did an actual summoning, rather than an incidental infestation.
That much decline in 20 years is significant. I'm wondering how many reporting nonbelief now also didn't believe in 2001 but weren't comfortable saying it, even to an anonymous survey? It's good to see people more and more willing to express their non-belief.
LOL to the increase in belief in the devil during Bush's term.
I'll say it one more time, and this time with a metaphor.
Religions see their membership numbers dropping, and they run around trying to fix whatever is wrong, such as their anti-science attitudes, their bigotries, their right-wing politics, their greed, and their sexual and financial abuses to name but a few. Often their remedies just make the decline worse.
All those things have been driving people out, BUT even if they cleaned up all of that, they'd still be shrinking. They're ignoring one foundational cause of their decline because they can't do anything about it.
Magic is going out of style.
Magic is just the more honest term for the euphemism "supernaturalism." Long ago, belief in the supernatural was ubiquitous and constant. Today it's still widespread, but it's subject to regions and to time. It's thin or even nonexistent in some places, and its strength changes up and down over time, but the very long-term trend is toward thinner and weaker.
Here's the metaphor: The religions are a group of boats on a placid lake. The boat captains notice that they seem to be moving down, so they panic, thinking that they must be sinking. Some do find leaks and struggle to patch them, others toss out excess ballast, still others concentrate on changing their courses. A few actually do sink because of problems with their boats, but they're all missing the bigger picture:
The lake is drying up.
The lake is belief in supernaturalism. Belief in magical beings and magical powers is what keeps all religions afloat. The boats might be decrepit or in good shape, but they'll all eventually settle on the dry lake bed, turn to dust, and blow away. Our species is very, very slowly growing up and leaving belief in magic behind. It will take another century or so.
Do they ever admit to being wrong though? I can see them making superficial changes (Better music! Donuts after service! Pretend not to hate gays!) but nothing meaningful. I don't know if I've see any church say "You know, maybe vaccines aren't bad," "We shouldn't be associating with a twice indicted candidate," "We should be accepting gays," etc. unless they already held that position. Yes, there was the RCC and Galileo, the LDS and blacks, maybe the current RCC is working a bit harder on pedophilia, but I don't know if any church is really making any meaningful changes. The boats are still sinking, but I think it's more rearranging the deck chairs than actually looking to plug leaks.
It has occurred to me more than once that that might be the real source of the J-boy walking on water thing. They just made a slight geographical error in their inerrant bible, that's all.
No, It's my own. I read Capt. Cassidy frequently and I haven't seen that, but I wouldn't be surprised. Her latest article spurred me to write a comment with this metaphor, but for some reason, it wasn't allowing any comments. So I wrote it here. More than one person independently coming up with the same metaphor is a sign that it's a good one. :)
Hers is a little different. It's been a while, but she calls it a "faith pool" or something like that.
OS has finally scrapped the Viaflora commenting system, but hasn't replaced it with anything, yet. I did notice that all the old comments have been scrubbed.
I saw them when they toured as Heaven and Hell at Radio City Music Hall all by myself. I actually had the end seat on a row and the guy sitting next to me showed up on crutches so I traded seats with him so he could stretch out his leg.
Okay, so we see here that more people without college degrees, republicans and the economically challenged are believers.
Now look at the Republican efforts to degrade and dumb down education, and you no longer have to ask yourself, "Why?" The answer is obvious. Keep 'em poor, uneducated, and Republican.
It took me a long time to get to my non religious self as well. I started questioning at age 9 when my belief in Santa, Easter Bunny, etc. no longer seemed they could possibly be real. I then started wondering that if these unseen entities that parents had maintained were real, how could the god they spoke of could be real as well. But I was assured that they absolutely were real as was all the dogma that went along with this myth. All through my pre-teen and teen years I had periods of real belief interspaced with huge questions. I even joined the "God Squad" club in high school. Into my 20s god belief, and all that comes with it, waned even more until, finally by the time I was in my mid-30s to early 40s I just rejected the whole thing as ridiculous and just as silly as belief in a tooth fairy. I've been a proud atheist since then. (I'm in my mid 70's)
The thought of seeing dead loved ones, the thought that we don't just end, the thought that the truly evil will face punishment if not in this life, afterwards. These are very seductive and most people don't think about it beyond the surface. They don't think about an eternity of servitude and boredom. They don't think about the injustice of eternal punishment. Even if they do, like Mr. Graf, they are convinced that anything God does is good by definition, no matter how horrific.
I find it very seductive to think Scalia woke up in hell to realize what a horrible person he had been and the suffering he'd inflicted. I waver on whether I believe that to be a possibility.
I am convinced if there is a god, ze doesn't involve zirself in human affairs. I can't square the idea of a benevolent god allowing St. Jude CRH to exist. No invocation of free will can explain that away.
I had already begun to play "devil's advocate" in my head during sermons when one of my high school teachers asked the class the rhetorical question "What do you believe, and why?" Realized I had no answer for the second part of that question. Spent 12 years questioning the existence of God. Then at 28, I came to the conclusion that I did believe there was a god, and was finally able to accept I was gay and he had made me that way. My belief has had little effect on my day-to-day life and since coming here, I have realized I have much more in common with most atheists than I do with most Christians.
Thinking about it, If they have a human appearance, I would assume mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Adult in the prime years of their lives. But more likely, I don't think they'd have a human appearance (unless they chose to) but without a physical form. We'd recognize them by who they are rather than what they look like.
I thought I replied, but it either disappeared or I did something to it.
Anyway, I had similar thoughts on infants. What would an infant who died at birth be like in heaven with no earthly experience or influence and no attachment to the parents?
Depends on your version of heaven. Return to earth? New souls generated in heaven grow up before being sent to earth. All kinds of movie versions of heaven.
What was that Robin Williams movie where he was a doctor that was killed in a car accident and when he was in heaven met his kids who died before him. They chose whatever they wanted to look like, his daughter picked a Polynesian woman’s visage because she noticed he was flirting with one who was a flight attendant.
The Amazon Prime series Upload did something on that theme. Digital heaven. 8-year-old dead 10 years complains his younger brother is lapping him (now 16-17 has a date to prom). Horny and bitching because his parents won't let him go through puberty.
I've talked about the first season of "American Horror Story" before. The family all dies and are trapped in the house in stasis with an infant that will never develop beyond a few weeks old. Pure hell.
How many Christians who strongly aver that they are true believers continue to violate their scripture by eating cheeseburgers (mixing meat and dairy is a no-no)? Or bacon (BIG no-no)? Mix wool and linen together? Tattoo themselves? Criticize others believers? Say they love their god yet hate a fellow believer? And on and on and on.
Even the supposedly "devout" aren't very devout at all.
Yes but they have an out for that, because it's the old Testament, and they don't need to take any notice of the old Testament except when they want to use the Vatican is to condemn gay people. I've had this nonsense explained to me numerous times now. They don't seem to see the illogic. Or rather they created their own logic that the old Testament only applies to Jews.
Since they don't need to take any notice of the OT, then they deny their "origin" story (both of them) in Genesis and the 10 Commandments they want to shove down everyone's throats.
The demographic breakdown supports the idea that poverty, lack of education, and a rigid hierarchy are what keeps people believing. We already knew this, now there is more data to support that. The NSGOP knows this too, it is no wonder that they oppose anti poverty measures and education.
Of course there are educated wealthy people who believe and uneducated poor people who don't. It's just that the trend shows more education and less poverty tends to reduce the likelihood of god belief.
Religion tends to prey on vulnerable folks, the poor and uneducated are vulnerable, but also any demographic that has some sort of trauma or grief are good targets as well. I agree the trend is the poor and uneducated, with some outliers. But there’s also an explanation for the outliers. Besides, having an education doesn’t make one smart/intelligent, just look at GW Bush, and Ben Carson. Two highly educated men from elite* institutions who are rocks with lips. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them think.
*Both men attended elite schools, Carson wasn’t an elite until his education.
It was a long slog from my indoctrination as a child. A combination of Star Trek, Monty Python, honest answers from pastors (e.g. I don't know...), general education and curiosity, little pressure from my parents after their assigned duties during my childhood (Confirmation), college and military life, and some innate cynicism and my sarcastic bent finally got me there.
Unwinding childhood belief is difficult. But it can be done.
Mine was a long slog too but I had a catalyst in a near death experience. One of the parts of the religious experience that was harped on when I was a teen was the wide range of people who "crossed over" and then "came back from the dead". As a true believer, I was gullible. There were supposedly thousands of people who had experienced that bright light and "The Hand of God" or some other entity that told them it wasn't time yet or some other such thing in a movie-trailer-like voice. When I had my near death experience none of that happened. I didn't even see my life flash before my eyes.. I had a lot of time for that to happen as I was trapped in a car for 10 hours. I was disappointed but undaunted. I searched for Jesus for a few years and had another catalyst in the form of an evangelical church. The people were waving their hands in the air and the preacher was coming around and talking to people who didn't seem as overcome with the Lord. When he talked to me I told him about my near death experience and he proclaimed that I had already been 'reborn'. The only thing I took from that church service was how ridiculous and fake it all seemed. It took a few more years but like you, geek culture had a lot to do with my de-conversion.
For your enjoyment...
https://youtu.be/T9M_bqIB6EU
Hair was bad in the 80s but they take the prize for the worst.
Heh. They're wearing costumes...
Ahh, I was wondering if those were wigs.
Yeah, if you don't know, I'm so loathe to pontificate without knowing what you know, New Order is the band that Joy Division evolved into after the front man Curtis suicided, may the Ceiling Cat preserve his songs in eternity. They were "post punk, new wave, Brit wave, Manchester sound" musicians and were poking fun at the glam rockers that were extremely popular at the time.
Sorry for splaining.
I've never been a believer, even though both my parents came from Catholic families and we were raised Catholic.
I've always wondered why it never "stuck" with me, even after years of going to church and everything.
A few years ago, on the Nerdist podcast, he was interviewing someone and the subject came up of how some people don't get sucked into religion. The guest postulated that people who grow up reading/watching science fiction don't because they see alternatives to the Supreme Being model.
That was a light bulb clicking on, as I've been a huge sci-fi nerd since childhood. That cimbined with the likes of Monty Python making fun of religion likeely go a long way.
No one really ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Was it the Knights Who Say Knee that provided the impetus?
The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch and witches.
"What else floats?"
"Very small rocks!"
AArrrrgghhhhaaae ...... Don't say Ni! AArrrrgghhhhaaae I said Ni!
AArrrrgghhhhaaae I said it again
AArrrrgghhhhaaae!!!
How about when Batman says it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytMPlg-M7UE
Steel and chain mail and rubber, reeeeally seals in the flavor.
I wonder how much of the belief in angels and devil/demons come from the church and how much from watching TV shows/movies with theses tropes ?
"It suggests many Americans take a cafeteria-style approach to religion, picking and choosing the parts they like instead of purchasing the entire package."
Isn't it what christian religious leaders already do ?
𝐴𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑓𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛...
-- David Silverman
See if you can guess what I am now?
https://youtu.be/R4GLAKEjU4w
"Don't know much about history..."
Au contraire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g
Well yeah, but you better call...
https://youtu.be/vBfFDTPPlaM
How about during the fire? Earth, Wind and Fire? Mixed with KISS yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMZIg0btqMU
We have reached peak humanity.
I love that channel!
But I get...
https://youtu.be/CyfVmYF_184
Obese America is having second and third helpings. Thank God for that.
Regardless of where it comes from, most people believe what they do because the authority figures in their lives conditioned them to believe it from birth.
Yeah, occultic entertainment is a giant market. It. Is the socially permitted exploration of the occult. A lucrative market in which people pay cash for the promise of enchantment, but come away with glamour.
While I was losing my religion I still liked shows with the supernatural in them. Highway to Heaven was a favorite of mine and Angels in the Outfield still makes me cry. But if anything shows like that pushed me farther from religion, not closer.
ugg, I hate that I can't edit after posting.
Adding...
These shows actually pushed me farther from religion rather than closer.
See the little ... to the right of "reply?"
Click on ... You'll get the option to "Edit" or "Delete"
Nope, I edit, hit "save" and it goes blank. No ability to get it back the only option is 'cancel'.
edited to experiment.
After you hit save, refresh the page.
Hit cancel then refresh the page. You should see your edit then.
I ran into that myself while learning. It's supposed to go blank. Once you refresh, your post will appear in its edited form.
What's weird is that if you hit Save AFTER you edit, it will undo the edit.
My app (mobile) does not yet support that...
I only get share, hide, delete.
Buncha commies...
Why not use an Internet page ? You can edit your comments, there is the problem of the bug mentioned but someone gave you the solution.
I do not believe in a God, or Angles, etc. But when I see something that is based in love, I cry.
It is not like that at all when they do it.
I really want to believe in the Lucifer from the tv show, lol. I'd party all night long with him!
Who doesn't ? Plus he is bisexual :)
And delicious... his eyes look like chocolate drops!
For once I would be willing to make an exception on my rule about tall men 😁
I'm sure he could make himself shorter for you. He IS an angel, after all. He can Do Stuff!
A lot of Latino guys are named Angel or Jesus. Just a few weeks ago I got a text saying Jesus was coming. The Uber driver was late. Not 2,000 years late though.
I have felt for some time now, that organized religion is going to have a very difficult time surviving the internet with its influence intact. There is just too much easily accessible, good information out there. For the first time people all across the free thought spectrum are realizing they are not as alone as they once thought, and networking. The staggering number of Christian sects does not bolster the argument for Christianity. It speaks directly to a divine being who could will the universe into existence, but when it came to the most important message imaginable, could not make himself understood and chose to rely on faith rather than objective evidence.
And people like Zuckerberg get rich curating a place where misinformation runs rampant.
I did Facebook for a short while when it was new, but soon concluded it was a predatory web site I wanted nothing to do with. I have no idea why people are so willing to open their lives up on line the way they do.
I think I get it; because they want to make sure what they are saying is understood to come from age and experience; and some just want to be heard.
This God they believe in has also left many wanting. If he created this planet than why not make sure the people, he supposedly created, took care of it and help us do it?
christian trumping card "Free will".
There is a lot of woo on social media like Manifesting, Reiki and psychics.
You're discounting how functionally illiterate and low-information the electorate is. Social media is heralding the rise of the individual and simultaneously undermining the fabric of our society.
Since there is zero evidence to support creationism, I don't know what they would be looking up, other than a Bible quote. If they had any actual evidence, they would be on their way to a Nobel Prize.
I really do think these science illiterates believe science just makes stuff up, the way they do. Few things are more ironic than a science-denying creationist using a smart phone.
Or getting on a plane.
Christian 1: How does the internet work?
Christian 2: God makes it happen. That's all you need to know.
Christian 1: Okay. Thanks for answering my question. Now I don't need to worry about it or do my own research.
They think everybody is like them. They carve jebus, therefore everybody must crave cheezits.
Hi There - Over the years I have shared these quotes many times with many people. I thought it would be interesting in this context of examining what people believe in. Enjoy.
"Let's take, for example, the word "God."
In our research we queried thousands of people, using a variety of surveys and questionnaires, and discovered that 90 percent of the respondents had definitions that differed significantly from everyone else. EVEN people who came from the same religious or spiritual background had fundamentally unique concepts of what this word means. And for the most part, they never realized that the person they were talking to about God had something entirely different in mind." - Andrew Newberg, M.D. - research neuro-scientist
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick
Three comments:
I note that Jews and other non-christians aren't included in the survey. Given the considerable number of "secular Jews," I'd suggest that including them would skew the numbers even more to our side of the discussion. Thant may even be why Gallup didn't include them.
"There are a lot of Americans in this survey who say they believe in God but reject the concepts of Heaven, Hell, or the beings that supposedly live in them." Sounds like they believe in a Deist God which, while still problematic and unprovable, at least makes more sense than the traditional, i.e. biblical God.
And finally there's this: "belief in the devil saw a slight rise during the George W. Bush administration" Would it be terribly unbecoming of me to say that can't be a coincidence?
As a secular Jew I fine your comment interesting because I think there are more of us than people think, many Jews loss faith in God during and after the Holocaust. However, I think, although all religions have their Orthodox and Conservative sects, it is the radical Christians in our society that are playing havoc with our government and trying to force their brand of Christianity on the rest of us. Other religions that support the Christian radicalism today are going to be in for a very sad surprise if these radical Christians win, they will be the first to be denied.
Agreed completely. The Hasidim and other far-right Jewish sects are apparently too self-absorbed for the simple realization that they'd be on the chopping block. I don't know how many televangelists I've heard screaming that Jews MUST be forcibly converted before Jesus will come back.
Come on. No one made the obvious joke about belief in the devil going up during W's administration?
Rumsfeld? Gotta be Rumsfeld because Cheney was Darth Vader.
Sorry, Kissinger is the devil – way before Bush. If only the good die young, he must be one of the most evil people on earth.
On the other hand, Olivia DeHavilland lived to be 103, and her reputation as one of the few genuinely nice people in Hollywood is attested by many, many sources.
Exception that proves the rule? Jim Bakker is still alive. Pat Robertson died at 93. Kenneth Copeland looks about 150. :)
Ken is not human. He is a demon.
Pat died 20 years ago and was replaced by a disgruntled ex-Disney engineer with a animatronic facsimile.
Saw the opening and resisted it. :)
Could any of us resisted if it had been during the Trump administration?
I think Hemant posted what he said, knowing that we would grok what he was implying. :D
Growing up my parents only ever made me go to mass on special occasions and we didn’t talk about god all that much outside of church. So it was pretty easy for me to slip out of the belief in god. What we did hear a lot from my parents was things like “someone was watching over us during this dangerous moment.” They spoke of guardian angels or grandpa looking down on us and even the idea that when we die we will see our lost loved ones. None of that talk was really tied to god though, no caveats that we needed to be good or believe really hard in god to get these blessings. Which I’m sure is probably unique to my immediate family. Dropping the guardian angels and comforting thoughts of seeing grandpa and grandma again took a bit longer to shed for me because they weren’t tied to religion in my mind.
The parts of the religion my family chose were the really feel good parts and left the rest out to dry. My parents had an issue with the churches and mass, being told they couldn’t help in our time of need while the church became more grand and I have a feeling that my father might have been exposed to the rot in the Catholic Church (I don’t think as a victim but I have reason to think he knew a victim.) So I think they believe in god but the human structures and rules are not necessary. Folks will accept the parts that comfort them the most. Angels to watch over us, devils to blame our so called sins on, a god who cares, a heaven to reunite with dead family, and a hell to punish evil. Even though none of that is truly supported in the Bible. These religions are unique to each individual and we can see what those people value by the type of church they attend and dogma they enforce.
It’s good to see the belief in all of it slipping, it’s slow but steady. Now if we could convince the politicians to protect the whole population we can speed up the process. Poor and underprivileged folks won’t be a target when their needs start being met without the chains of religion attached.
I went to catholic school K-12, we went to mass every week, we prayed before meals, but outside of that, I can not think of any single instance of talking about god or religion in the family. I still don't know if I ever actually believed any of it, or if I just went along with it because I was told I believed. At some point I was going along with it telling myself that maybe I just didn't know. I was probably 30 before I understood that not believing was a valid position.
I went to public school and had an hour of catechism every Tuesday at my local parish. That was the only time there was ever any god talk during the school week.
At home and at church, that's when the god thing took center stage, especially as I was an altar boy who attended weekly practice).
Though I would change my mind about guardian angels if mine looked like Brian Krause or better a Nephilim that looked like Drew Fuller.
Guardian Angels seem more of a Catholic thing. They were rarely mentioned during my IFB upbringing. I had heard of them, but it wasn't a big part of the beliefs I was fed. Demons, OTOH... and of course, As an IT worker, I now believe in daemons.
And gremlins. They infest comment systems. I think ViaFoura did an actual summoning, rather than an incidental infestation.
The Gremlin was bad, but not as bad as the Pacer.
My parents had two Pacers; one green, one red.
I'm sorry.
Santa apologized too.
Could've been worse. Could've been Yugos or Trabants.
Wonder how many people were non-believers in 2001 but afraid to 'come out of the closet'?
Now that there are so many outspoken atheists, it is not as daunting.
The more of us there are OUT, the more of us there can be OUT!
That much decline in 20 years is significant. I'm wondering how many reporting nonbelief now also didn't believe in 2001 but weren't comfortable saying it, even to an anonymous survey? It's good to see people more and more willing to express their non-belief.
LOL to the increase in belief in the devil during Bush's term.
I'll say it one more time, and this time with a metaphor.
Religions see their membership numbers dropping, and they run around trying to fix whatever is wrong, such as their anti-science attitudes, their bigotries, their right-wing politics, their greed, and their sexual and financial abuses to name but a few. Often their remedies just make the decline worse.
All those things have been driving people out, BUT even if they cleaned up all of that, they'd still be shrinking. They're ignoring one foundational cause of their decline because they can't do anything about it.
Magic is going out of style.
Magic is just the more honest term for the euphemism "supernaturalism." Long ago, belief in the supernatural was ubiquitous and constant. Today it's still widespread, but it's subject to regions and to time. It's thin or even nonexistent in some places, and its strength changes up and down over time, but the very long-term trend is toward thinner and weaker.
Here's the metaphor: The religions are a group of boats on a placid lake. The boat captains notice that they seem to be moving down, so they panic, thinking that they must be sinking. Some do find leaks and struggle to patch them, others toss out excess ballast, still others concentrate on changing their courses. A few actually do sink because of problems with their boats, but they're all missing the bigger picture:
The lake is drying up.
The lake is belief in supernaturalism. Belief in magical beings and magical powers is what keeps all religions afloat. The boats might be decrepit or in good shape, but they'll all eventually settle on the dry lake bed, turn to dust, and blow away. Our species is very, very slowly growing up and leaving belief in magic behind. It will take another century or so.
"they run around trying to fix whatever is wrong"
Do they ever admit to being wrong though? I can see them making superficial changes (Better music! Donuts after service! Pretend not to hate gays!) but nothing meaningful. I don't know if I've see any church say "You know, maybe vaccines aren't bad," "We shouldn't be associating with a twice indicted candidate," "We should be accepting gays," etc. unless they already held that position. Yes, there was the RCC and Galileo, the LDS and blacks, maybe the current RCC is working a bit harder on pedophilia, but I don't know if any church is really making any meaningful changes. The boats are still sinking, but I think it's more rearranging the deck chairs than actually looking to plug leaks.
"the current RCC is working a bit harder on pedophilia"
What 5 zeptoJoules instead of 1?
(Yes. I had to google what was smaller than a picoJoule.)
I did say maybe, I think there is more awareness and possible acknowledgement, and 5 rather than 1 is almost a whole order of magnitude! Progress!
Yes. But the job requires PetaJoules at least.
Petting the jewels? Isn't that what got them in trouble?
Wrong thread. The pun thread is baseball today.
Pedo-what, you say? 🤔
I picture those religious boats bobbing up and down on the Aral Sea.
Not the Dead Sea? That's where religion belongs.
Do boats sink on the Dead Sea? I thought it was so salty you could walk on it. :)
It has occurred to me more than once that that might be the real source of the J-boy walking on water thing. They just made a slight geographical error in their inerrant bible, that's all.
So the apostles looked at Jesse and said: "Big whoop, Master. We do that all the time."
The Aral Sea is rapidly shrinking. It may soon truly BE a dead sea.
Did you steal that metaphor from Capt. Cassidy. She uses something similar a lot. : )
No, It's my own. I read Capt. Cassidy frequently and I haven't seen that, but I wouldn't be surprised. Her latest article spurred me to write a comment with this metaphor, but for some reason, it wasn't allowing any comments. So I wrote it here. More than one person independently coming up with the same metaphor is a sign that it's a good one. :)
Hers is a little different. It's been a while, but she calls it a "faith pool" or something like that.
OS has finally scrapped the Viaflora commenting system, but hasn't replaced it with anything, yet. I did notice that all the old comments have been scrubbed.
Some of us got an email on the 17th explaining that OS was shutting down Viashit to switch to a new commenting system.
There was much weeping and wailing about Viashit.
Actually, there wasn’t.
There were many exultations of joy, however.
I believe in Heaven and Hell...
...as the best Black Sabbath album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnWsRUKGDeo
Saw them live on the tour promoting that classic LP.
Suddenly occurs to me that I also saw them on the tour for the "Mob Rules" LP.
I saw them when they toured as Heaven and Hell at Radio City Music Hall all by myself. I actually had the end seat on a row and the guy sitting next to me showed up on crutches so I traded seats with him so he could stretch out his leg.
Okay, so we see here that more people without college degrees, republicans and the economically challenged are believers.
Now look at the Republican efforts to degrade and dumb down education, and you no longer have to ask yourself, "Why?" The answer is obvious. Keep 'em poor, uneducated, and Republican.
It took me a long time to get to my non religious self as well. I started questioning at age 9 when my belief in Santa, Easter Bunny, etc. no longer seemed they could possibly be real. I then started wondering that if these unseen entities that parents had maintained were real, how could the god they spoke of could be real as well. But I was assured that they absolutely were real as was all the dogma that went along with this myth. All through my pre-teen and teen years I had periods of real belief interspaced with huge questions. I even joined the "God Squad" club in high school. Into my 20s god belief, and all that comes with it, waned even more until, finally by the time I was in my mid-30s to early 40s I just rejected the whole thing as ridiculous and just as silly as belief in a tooth fairy. I've been a proud atheist since then. (I'm in my mid 70's)
More than half of all Americans still believe in those 5 entities into the 21st Century. I rejected all 5 back in the 20th Century.
And I was a KID when I did it. I just shake my head at grown adults. What's THEIR excuse to continue clinging to these faerie tales?
The thought of seeing dead loved ones, the thought that we don't just end, the thought that the truly evil will face punishment if not in this life, afterwards. These are very seductive and most people don't think about it beyond the surface. They don't think about an eternity of servitude and boredom. They don't think about the injustice of eternal punishment. Even if they do, like Mr. Graf, they are convinced that anything God does is good by definition, no matter how horrific.
I find it very seductive to think Scalia woke up in hell to realize what a horrible person he had been and the suffering he'd inflicted. I waver on whether I believe that to be a possibility.
I am convinced if there is a god, ze doesn't involve zirself in human affairs. I can't square the idea of a benevolent god allowing St. Jude CRH to exist. No invocation of free will can explain that away.
I had already begun to play "devil's advocate" in my head during sermons when one of my high school teachers asked the class the rhetorical question "What do you believe, and why?" Realized I had no answer for the second part of that question. Spent 12 years questioning the existence of God. Then at 28, I came to the conclusion that I did believe there was a god, and was finally able to accept I was gay and he had made me that way. My belief has had little effect on my day-to-day life and since coming here, I have realized I have much more in common with most atheists than I do with most Christians.
</ramble>
The priests never answer questions about how those deceased loved ones would appear in the afterlife. Old and infirmed? Middle aged? Children?
All the priests I ever questioned ultimately fell back on "it's a mystery", which was Catholic for "I don't fucking know, kid, stop bothering me."
Which was why I gave up on them and started seeking answers for myself.
Which led me out of religion altogether.
Lots of things still make no sense, but at least I am free of the long con of religion.
Same thing for me. That whole "It's a mystery." I also gave up asking them anything.
Thinking about it, If they have a human appearance, I would assume mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Adult in the prime years of their lives. But more likely, I don't think they'd have a human appearance (unless they chose to) but without a physical form. We'd recognize them by who they are rather than what they look like.
I thought I replied, but it either disappeared or I did something to it.
Anyway, I had similar thoughts on infants. What would an infant who died at birth be like in heaven with no earthly experience or influence and no attachment to the parents?
I thought about babies as well. Do they age in heaven? Do children in heaven ever progress past the age they died at?
Depends on your version of heaven. Return to earth? New souls generated in heaven grow up before being sent to earth. All kinds of movie versions of heaven.
What was that Robin Williams movie where he was a doctor that was killed in a car accident and when he was in heaven met his kids who died before him. They chose whatever they wanted to look like, his daughter picked a Polynesian woman’s visage because she noticed he was flirting with one who was a flight attendant.
My version of heaven? Pizza, heavy metal and sex sex sex would have to be involved.😉
The Amazon Prime series Upload did something on that theme. Digital heaven. 8-year-old dead 10 years complains his younger brother is lapping him (now 16-17 has a date to prom). Horny and bitching because his parents won't let him go through puberty.
I've talked about the first season of "American Horror Story" before. The family all dies and are trapped in the house in stasis with an infant that will never develop beyond a few weeks old. Pure hell.
𝘑𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘵𝘺 𝘐𝘴 𝘍𝘪𝘷𝘦 by Harlan Ellison, everyone aged except the kid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffty_Is_Five#Plot
Would Stephen Hawkings still be in a wheelchair?
He couldn't have gotten into YHVHs temple on Earth when he was alive.
The Almighty God of the bible had a thing against anyone with "deformities." Made him feel all oogie.
How many Christians who strongly aver that they are true believers continue to violate their scripture by eating cheeseburgers (mixing meat and dairy is a no-no)? Or bacon (BIG no-no)? Mix wool and linen together? Tattoo themselves? Criticize others believers? Say they love their god yet hate a fellow believer? And on and on and on.
Even the supposedly "devout" aren't very devout at all.
Yes but they have an out for that, because it's the old Testament, and they don't need to take any notice of the old Testament except when they want to use the Vatican is to condemn gay people. I've had this nonsense explained to me numerous times now. They don't seem to see the illogic. Or rather they created their own logic that the old Testament only applies to Jews.
Since they don't need to take any notice of the OT, then they deny their "origin" story (both of them) in Genesis and the 10 Commandments they want to shove down everyone's throats.
I didn't say they were clever. 😁
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2aabae23144312ebc9382edb8862f6547295fcff01d857d5ae5306b3b0f07166.jpg
I'm thinking that has to be a put-on by an atheist to show xtians that they don't follow or even read their bible. :)
It is impossible to underestimate the intelligence of a conservative.
The demographic breakdown supports the idea that poverty, lack of education, and a rigid hierarchy are what keeps people believing. We already knew this, now there is more data to support that. The NSGOP knows this too, it is no wonder that they oppose anti poverty measures and education.
What else do the Common People do but drink and dance and screw?
https://youtu.be/dxhQiiNJG74
https://youtu.be/St8FtbzH_JE
He's not so common...
https://youtu.be/OTfQVMH5SuI
Sorry to ruin the narrative: https://sojo.net/articles/sen-cory-booker-radical-faith-and-its-role-civic-spaces. All the education in the world can't stop Jesus from his mission of delusion.
Of course there are educated wealthy people who believe and uneducated poor people who don't. It's just that the trend shows more education and less poverty tends to reduce the likelihood of god belief.
Religion tends to prey on vulnerable folks, the poor and uneducated are vulnerable, but also any demographic that has some sort of trauma or grief are good targets as well. I agree the trend is the poor and uneducated, with some outliers. But there’s also an explanation for the outliers. Besides, having an education doesn’t make one smart/intelligent, just look at GW Bush, and Ben Carson. Two highly educated men from elite* institutions who are rocks with lips. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them think.
*Both men attended elite schools, Carson wasn’t an elite until his education.