That's why they are trying to eliminate public schools. They want to make everyone's offspring cognitively challenged and gullible, thus easier to control.
The whole premise of any religion is that they are in possession of the TRUTH... and everyone else is just wrong. If it was just a difference of opinion it wouldn't get me agitated. But, judgmental, patriarchal people are using bits and pieces of their 'inerrant' religious texts to cobble together the legal underpinnings of Gilead. Far too many of us are being too passive about the rise of the fascist and theofascist movement. And, of course they will stamp out human rights and eventually send 'Those People' to the camps... There will be a new inquisition and Diversity will be quashed. It is time to fight back. https://handsoff2025.com/about
Conservatives see the writing on the wall, which is why they’re scrambling to codify as much of their privilege into law while they still can, especially redefining “religious freedom” to mean “my right to discriminate against others because of Jesus.” It’s also why none of them give a rat’s ass about their Orange Messiah being one of the most morally reprehensible people to ever live. They’re willing to ignore all the rape and grift so long as he continues to deliver the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic policies they crave.
On the previous FA article, I just posted a news story about a Japanese court ordering the dissolution of the Unification Church (a Christian sect) in Japan. Good for them. Another blow to the insanity of religion.
The weird thing is, I’m old enough to remember when the Moonies were the weird cult that harassed people in airports. Now they’re meeting with Republican members of congress.
Yeah, you sure will, won't you? And isn't that is what's happened here? People LOOK at religion and especially Christianity ... and they see Paula White and her pay-to-pray grift, they see Ted Haggard complain about gay men, then get caught in a hotel room with a rent-a-boy. They see Jimmy Swaggart violate his marriage vows and then repent VERY PUBLICLY on national television. Most of all they see people who were taught by their supposed savior to give to the poor, heal the sick, and love their neighbor as themselves, who then turn around and do the exact opposite and BOAST about it.
Is it any wonder that people are leaving religion?
They see christian evangelicals worshipping an orange idol on his third marriage, who's cheated on every one of his wives, been found liable for sexual assault, and who bragged about grabbing women's privates and spying on underaged girls in their beauty pageant dressing room. WWJD, 'christians'??
They see Dumb Idiot Ken Ham claiming that he loves and supports science while railing against evolution and science along with promoting an unrealistic fantasy he falsely brand as "biblical truth and answers" found in the Book of Genesis that are not really there.
I suspect this is a large reason why their children are leaving evangelical christianity in droves; I constantly see these ex-evangelical young atheist influencers on the Insta (thanks to the Zuck).
52 years since an American last walked on the moon, and we still haven't been back. Too busy worrying about drag queens reading stories to elementary students in libraries.
The goal right now is to send Musk along with Zuckerberg and Bezos to Mars. When they walk on the surface everyone on Earth will cheer. Then we will be rid of them.
Looks like people with more social options (whether by effort or accident) are still freer to switch than others. Did PEW analyze by income? I bet it shows the same trend.
So, this says to me religion still has social pressure and we still have some work to do to achieve socially uncoerced choice.
"We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid."
Alone among his peers, the nonbeliever Thomas Paine never owned slaves. He detested slavery for its cruelty, just as he detested the bible for ITS cruelty.
I always thought that he was a Scotsman, but that's actually not the case. It's just that he fits in with all the other folk of the Scottish enlightenment.
I've maintained for some time now that organized religion is going to have a hard time surviving the internet with it's power and influence intact. There is simply too much good, easily accessed, information out there, and the churches will never be able to control it. The almost daily reports of clergy sexually abusing children certainly hasn't helped the churches either. More than anything, people from all across the free-though spectrum now know, often for the first time, they are not nearly as alone as they may have once thought.
It also doesn't help that the behavior of these Christians is very often on public display, and while THEY might think that any publicity is good publicity, there are those of us out here who see their stupidity and cringe.
The biggest problem that we face right now is that, as religion sheds members, what is left amounts to a diehard core of True Believers who will continue to scream loudly and act out. They won't quit and they won't be persuaded to back off.
They are fucking DANGEROUS, and dealing with them will NOT be fun.
” if just 8 million American Christian couples began supplying more “arrows for the war” by having six children or more, they propose, the Christian-right ranks could rise to 550 million within a century”
There are a number of assumptions here which simply don’t, err umm, add up.
not so many people can afford, need, or want so many children. Too many flavors of christianity. By it’s very nature, the statement is political, not religious at all. And only a not fun and entirely mental christian couldn’t see that—and not every evangelical would be so politically minded that they wouldn’t be offended by it.
And jesus said quite clearly: His kingdom was not of this world. Psychologically, children are not carbon copies of their parents. It assumes there are no “mule’ factors—people who read Asimov’s “Foundation” will know what I am talking about.
But the extremely sectarian nature of so much of christo-inanity would be the biggest limiting factor. They are not going to 8 million people in different sects to reproduce so destructively. Because they would soon be butting heads with the spawn of a different 8 million.
'....not so many people can afford, need, or want so many children...' well over 50% of the world now live in cities and that number is growing, which generally means high rise blocks of one or two bedroom apartments. So as well as all the other factors, the cost of raising a family etc, having a quiverful isn't possible in such small spaces.
I followed the quiverful movement, and the adoption craze of the 2000s. X-tians were told not only to have umpteen bio-kids but to rush abroad to those heathen muslim and hindu countries and 'rescue' little heathen orphans so that they could be raised x-tian and become warriors in the holy war against those religions which was surely gonna happen in the not too distant future.
My very devout catholic friend had 3 daughters, Alice, Anna and Amy, then number 4 came along. She's called Zoe...and has indeed proved to be the last!
What trouble shooter says below is the case, but it’s also more than that. Harry Seldon had the mathematics to basically predict the future, but the one thing that he could not predict was a random mutation that changed everything.
Here is a practical example from real life. Our recent pandemic. Who could have guessed that China’s burgeoning population would expand into previously under populated areas and expose animals to a bat virus, which would then mutate and jump to humans.
Psychohistory, as I understand it, was meant to predict the behavior of LARGE groups of people: billions if not trillions, as applied to the time of Asimov's Galactic Empire. Where its weak point may have been is in the influence of a single person on a large group, and that person wouldn't even have to be a mutant, as the Mule was.
I wonder – if psychohistory could be an actual scientific discipline, could it anticipate the advent of an Adolf Hitler ... or a Donald Trump?
With the additional benefit of 20-20 hindsight, yes.
On the other hand, as Asimov noted, there is a cult of ignorance in this country, it has always been here, and it continues to exert power. But even that isn’t quite accurate, I think. Intelligence is distributed on the standard Bell curve. Most people are average. But far too many people are way too below average, and far two few people are above average. And the average and below people reproduce more than the people who are above average.
The rise of Adolf Hitler or Agolf Shitler might well have been predictable in general terms, given a decent knowledge of history, sociology, and psychology. The rise of those miscreants in particular Was probably not predictable at all.
Hitler was an aspiring, But not inspiring artist. What if he had just been a little bit better at it? Could the entirety of history between 1933 and 1945 have been averted If he were less of a workman and more of an artist? If Roy cohn had found a good man rather than Joe McCarthy, Could the history of the last 10 years have been averted?
There are a LOT of "what ifs" out there, for sure ... which is probably why any attempts to create a science of psychohistory are likely doomed to failure.
It's mostly an intentionally badly written novel by "Adolf Hitler" the well-known illustrator of pulp SF books and magazines who left Germany in 1919 after his failure in far-right politics. The American Nazi Party praised it, which says a lot about their literary taste and knowledge of satire.
Spinrad also gave us the now-classic Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine." He wrote another story called "He Walked Among Us" that was never produced.
That proposed 2nd episode concerned a primitive culture called the Jugali suddenly, inexplicably wielding technology WELL beyond their capabilities. Spinrad relates that producer Gene Coon turned his concept into a comedy (with a planned guest shot by Milton Berle!). Spinrad was so upset that he took Coon's teleplay to Gene Roddenberry and begged him to kill the whole thing. "Read it and weep," he told Roddenberry. Roddenberry read it and agreed with Spinrad.
The "mule" factor which I think Ben is talking about is the whole mutation thing: a case where the child or children don't follow the example of the parents, but go their own way. This happened a LOT in the 60s, between the sexual revolution and the influences of Vietnam, and I suspect that it continues to this day, one way or the other.
I know a bunch of you are nearly twice as old as me, yet I feel I am speaking with people from my generation, until you mention what you heard or saw in the 60's 🤣
I care far less about how old you (or anyone else here) are than I do the quality of the commentary you bring to this forum. And the fact is that I get an enormous kick out of you and your contributions here!
I just got through reading "I Robot." Bet most people think that the movie of the same name is based on it. Uh uh. It's an interconnected series of stories that have ZERO to do with the movie (other than the 3 Laws of Robotics concept being used).
The movie came out a dozen years after Asimov died and he had no input.
I read I, Robot ages ago and loved it, especially "Robbie," but it was all good and wonderfully thoughtful. The Robot novels are a different animal, mostly gumshoe detective stuff, but with some really interesting commentary on society and its reaction to the presence of not just robots but humans who were disconnected from Terran society, then reconnected. I enjoyed the hell out of those, too, and in fact recently reread The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn. All good stuff.
I should mention that I heard Asimov speak at Amasa Stone Chapel, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, back in 1972. He was a fun speaker, wonderfully engaging.
Seeing as how they and their kind have made it infinitely MORE DIFFICULT to get the bare necessities for survival, this “quiverful” is just creating more PREVENTABLE deaths by hunger and disease.
Their god isn’t using humans to farm “virtue and goodness”, it’s using us to farm misery and despair.
I used to be a good bible-toting xtian, and then HIV/AIDS came, and I saw the true hate of my fellow pew-sitters. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Yeah. Sure. Then I read The Feminine Face of God, twice in one week! I walked away, and have never regretted one nano second of my decision. I think many of the 'good' xtians today have love and hate totally confused.
"Duggars: If you have lots of children, the religion will eventually spread to their own families, and within a few generations, your religion will mathematically outgrow all the other ones."
DM's grandmother birthed 9 children. The 3 boys were raised as Atheists the girls as catholics (catechism only). 4 generations later, there is 2 religious people left in my family, my "go to a church to light a couple of candles from time to time" aunt, and me, and you know what I think of abrahamic propaganda.
Silly Joe. Catholics, liberal protestants, quakers, black baptists, any sort of Democrat...these aren't the Christians they are talking about. The number of Representatives they'd count as Christian is waaaaay lower than the number of Representatives that count themselves as Christian.
This is the most hopeful article I've read all year. Thanks, Hemant.
Stephen Bullivant in his book, 'Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America', points out that the US largely dodged the wave of religious deconversion that swept Europe in the wake of WWII, probably because of the Cold War. But in recent decades, the percentage of nonbelievers in America is rapidly catching up with our European counterparts - who on the whole have a higher standard of living and score higher on happiness and wellness measures.
The current capitulation of American christians to MAGA has acted like an accelerant on a fire. That's why we're seeing the christian nationalist backlash. But christian denominations losing adherents have only themselves to blame, and it's time they looked inward instead of outward for the root causes.
The thing is, though, that there has been a strong if well-hidden movement to promote religion in general and Christianity in particular, which started as a reaction to FDR's New Deal and continues to this day. Read One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, by Kevin M. Kruse.
It is an eye-opener, never mind one hell of a read!
That's all very true, but as Bullivant points out, the holding steady of christianity in the US was bucking a worldwide trend in the opposite direction. It was only a matter of time - and circumstance - before that trend took hold here. Once people have decided that religion, any religion, is no longer relevant to them, no amount of PR is going to change their minds. If anything, it would strengthen their resolve.
Thanks for the recommendation — I’m always looking for new material, so I took your advice and downloaded it to my library. Can’t wait to read it after I finish the book I’m right in the middle of… (isn’t that the way it always happens? 😆)
You're welcome. I actually met Kevin Kruse at the 2015 FFRF convention in Madison, Wisconsin. He gave a talk, then answered questions after. The man is SHARP, knows his stuff, and the book reflects that big-time.
Heh. Wouldn't it be something if the current deconversion trend was the result of conservative destruction of the middle class. Ain't it strange how stagnant wages and loss of workers rights can make those workers a lot less happy with the status quo?
They aren't going to be able to breed their way out of decline....not all of their offspring will be cognitively challenged and gullible.
That's why they are trying to eliminate public schools. They want to make everyone's offspring cognitively challenged and gullible, thus easier to control.
Agree, plus the less commented subplot of more opportunities to molest them in private.
I suspect that's behind the surge in homeschooling, vouchers and christians with their hands out for charter school taxpayer funds.
The whole premise of any religion is that they are in possession of the TRUTH... and everyone else is just wrong. If it was just a difference of opinion it wouldn't get me agitated. But, judgmental, patriarchal people are using bits and pieces of their 'inerrant' religious texts to cobble together the legal underpinnings of Gilead. Far too many of us are being too passive about the rise of the fascist and theofascist movement. And, of course they will stamp out human rights and eventually send 'Those People' to the camps... There will be a new inquisition and Diversity will be quashed. It is time to fight back. https://handsoff2025.com/about
Anyone who as ever raised a child knows children are not blank sheets, but come with a personality right from the beginning.
Which is why the Dobsons et al ( Focus on the Family, etc) want to beat kids into submission.
I think you mean those things that give monsters a bad name the Pearls.
Them or David and Louise Turpin.
You did see "Idiocracy", didn't you? Remember the opening premise?
Conservatives see the writing on the wall, which is why they’re scrambling to codify as much of their privilege into law while they still can, especially redefining “religious freedom” to mean “my right to discriminate against others because of Jesus.” It’s also why none of them give a rat’s ass about their Orange Messiah being one of the most morally reprehensible people to ever live. They’re willing to ignore all the rape and grift so long as he continues to deliver the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic policies they crave.
They aren't going to be able to breed their way out of decline...
Elon Musk: I accept your challenge.
Let him. His spawn will inherit even less that way.
Religions also facture as they grow so much so that some don't consider other denominations as part of the same faith.
𝐼𝑛 𝐵𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑠ℎ, 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒, 𝑠𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐼𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠. 𝑁𝑜 𝑤𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑠𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 1%.
And there are Christians here who would do the same.
In a heart beat.
And some are already saying it openly.
NOT extremist Just religionistas.
And they have guns, assault rifles, and ammunition. Trump, Jesus, & Guns!
On the previous FA article, I just posted a news story about a Japanese court ordering the dissolution of the Unification Church (a Christian sect) in Japan. Good for them. Another blow to the insanity of religion.
Was that Sun Myung Moon's outfit? [TS checks Google] Wow! This is GREAT NEWS!
The Korean sect where men wear tiaras and worship firearms ?
That is apparently an offshoot (no pun intended! 😁) of the Unification Church, founded by one of Moon's sons:
𝐴 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑑 𝑠𝑜𝑛, 𝐻𝑦𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝐽𝑖𝑛 "𝑆𝑒𝑎𝑛" 𝑀𝑜𝑜𝑛, 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒, 𝑔𝑢𝑛-𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑛 𝑃𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑠𝑦𝑙𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑎 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑎𝑠 𝑅𝑜𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑟𝑜𝑛 𝑀𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑑𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝐴𝑅-15𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑔𝑢𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑. 𝐻𝑦𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝐽𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑎 𝑔𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑛 𝑐𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑙𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒-𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑦. 𝐻𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎. 𝐻𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟—𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑖𝑛 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑡ℎ 𝐾𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑎—𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 "𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑎𝑏𝑦𝑙𝑜𝑛.
-- from Wikipedia
The first time I heard about them was in a video about sects made by a French man living in Japan.
wow. Nice guy.
Wow make sure MAGA doesn't discover him.
A few decades late, but I'll take any win that comes along.
I was originally going to call it Jesus Moon's Unification Church. 😃
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Whoa! That's fantastic news!
It would be better if it wasn't based on nationalism, Japan and India have a heavy bias toward Hinduism and Shinto.
For its part, Shinto is about people mingling with ancestors rather than gods.
You will make Amaterasu cry.
All about respecting them, but also to not be afraid to give them a well-deserved beatdown.
The weird thing is, I’m old enough to remember when the Moonies were the weird cult that harassed people in airports. Now they’re meeting with Republican members of congress.
Moonies at the airport? Did they they think the Hare Krishnas were trying to muscle in on their territory? ;)
Probably.
Yeah, no trip through Newark airport was complete without them prancing through.
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚.
-- Matthew 7:20
Yeah, you sure will, won't you? And isn't that is what's happened here? People LOOK at religion and especially Christianity ... and they see Paula White and her pay-to-pray grift, they see Ted Haggard complain about gay men, then get caught in a hotel room with a rent-a-boy. They see Jimmy Swaggart violate his marriage vows and then repent VERY PUBLICLY on national television. Most of all they see people who were taught by their supposed savior to give to the poor, heal the sick, and love their neighbor as themselves, who then turn around and do the exact opposite and BOAST about it.
Is it any wonder that people are leaving religion?
They see christian evangelicals worshipping an orange idol on his third marriage, who's cheated on every one of his wives, been found liable for sexual assault, and who bragged about grabbing women's privates and spying on underaged girls in their beauty pageant dressing room. WWJD, 'christians'??
There's an old saw that goes to this:
𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑠𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑢𝑑, 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔!
OK, I'm totally stealing that one! Thanks for the laughs!
You're welcome to it! Enjoy! 👍
"It's the women's fault"
Yep. Couldn't possibly be the fault of the aging, degenerate play-ah.
Always
They see Dumb Idiot Ken Ham claiming that he loves and supports science while railing against evolution and science along with promoting an unrealistic fantasy he falsely brand as "biblical truth and answers" found in the Book of Genesis that are not really there.
I have questions for Kenny about the 'biblical truthfulness of Genesis.'
No kidding! When Genesis 2 contradicts Genesis 1 as regards order of events (at minimum!), eyebrows should start to reach hairlines!
See? The list of questions is endless!
I saw one that said if the sun was created on the fourth day, then how could there have been days to count??
Expecting logic from the bible is a task doomed to failure. 😝
Which one ? Some parts exist in 2 or 3 contradictory versions.
I suspect this is a large reason why their children are leaving evangelical christianity in droves; I constantly see these ex-evangelical young atheist influencers on the Insta (thanks to the Zuck).
The death of any and all religions...esecially Christianity...is long overdue. It has only held mankind back. It is incapable of doing anything else.
Humanity should be reaching for the stars by now. Instead, it is wallowing in the mud due to those with "Thus sayeth the Lord" on their putrid lips.
52 years since an American last walked on the moon, and we still haven't been back. Too busy worrying about drag queens reading stories to elementary students in libraries.
The goal right now is to send Musk along with Zuckerberg and Bezos to Mars. When they walk on the surface everyone on Earth will cheer. Then we will be rid of them.
Can we get them to do it without space suits?
I'll give Bezos credit. He had the courage to go up in one of his own rockets.
Compare and contrast with the Afrikaner. That chickenshit has no intention of going up in one of his own blow-y up-y Roman candles.
A malfunctioning return rocket sounds nice...
Just screw up the conversion from metric to imperial (sanity to insanity). I'm sure the Rat can handle that if NASA can't.
All NASA has to do there is keep their mouths shut. Easy enough when the Felons fired them.
Y’know, it suddenly makes sense WHY they’re so hung up on imperial measurements: Because they want to establish an Empire.
*hums Imperial March* https://youtube.com/watch?v=MSMINO0kPgM
Gobekli Tepe, Stonehenge, Carnac, North American Natives tumuli. All are tied in a way or another to religious thought.
Organised religions brought wars and millions of deaths, but proto religions brought us music, architecture, maths and astronomy.
We can have music, architecture, math, and astronomy without religion now.
“assuming Christ does not return before then” - Pretty good assumption.
"both houses of Congress and the majority of state governor’s mansions filled by Christians" - It's always been that way.
"universities that embrace creationism" - There are a few, but they have to make up their own accreditation.
"sinful cities" - Didn't know cities could commit sins.
"swift blows dealt to companies that offend Christian sensibilities." - "Christian sensibilities" is an oxymoron.
Fall in and shut yer yap if you know what's good for you.
I've never known what's good for me. : )
𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑠𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛.
Looks like people with more social options (whether by effort or accident) are still freer to switch than others. Did PEW analyze by income? I bet it shows the same trend.
So, this says to me religion still has social pressure and we still have some work to do to achieve socially uncoerced choice.
Time for this one by Hitch
"We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid."
-- Christopher Hitchens
Owning people as slaves is moral as is burning people at the stake as witches or heretics.
Alone among his peers, the nonbeliever Thomas Paine never owned slaves. He detested slavery for its cruelty, just as he detested the bible for ITS cruelty.
I always thought that he was a Scotsman, but that's actually not the case. It's just that he fits in with all the other folk of the Scottish enlightenment.
🎯🎯🎯
I've maintained for some time now that organized religion is going to have a hard time surviving the internet with it's power and influence intact. There is simply too much good, easily accessed, information out there, and the churches will never be able to control it. The almost daily reports of clergy sexually abusing children certainly hasn't helped the churches either. More than anything, people from all across the free-though spectrum now know, often for the first time, they are not nearly as alone as they may have once thought.
It also doesn't help that the behavior of these Christians is very often on public display, and while THEY might think that any publicity is good publicity, there are those of us out here who see their stupidity and cringe.
The biggest problem that we face right now is that, as religion sheds members, what is left amounts to a diehard core of True Believers who will continue to scream loudly and act out. They won't quit and they won't be persuaded to back off.
They are fucking DANGEROUS, and dealing with them will NOT be fun.
Bloodshed will happen. They tend to be heavily armed.
Yeah, I'm fairly sure of it. I haven't armed myself YET, but if need be, I won't hesitate.
” if just 8 million American Christian couples began supplying more “arrows for the war” by having six children or more, they propose, the Christian-right ranks could rise to 550 million within a century”
There are a number of assumptions here which simply don’t, err umm, add up.
not so many people can afford, need, or want so many children. Too many flavors of christianity. By it’s very nature, the statement is political, not religious at all. And only a not fun and entirely mental christian couldn’t see that—and not every evangelical would be so politically minded that they wouldn’t be offended by it.
And jesus said quite clearly: His kingdom was not of this world. Psychologically, children are not carbon copies of their parents. It assumes there are no “mule’ factors—people who read Asimov’s “Foundation” will know what I am talking about.
But the extremely sectarian nature of so much of christo-inanity would be the biggest limiting factor. They are not going to 8 million people in different sects to reproduce so destructively. Because they would soon be butting heads with the spawn of a different 8 million.
CAGE FIGHT!
'....not so many people can afford, need, or want so many children...' well over 50% of the world now live in cities and that number is growing, which generally means high rise blocks of one or two bedroom apartments. So as well as all the other factors, the cost of raising a family etc, having a quiverful isn't possible in such small spaces.
I followed the quiverful movement, and the adoption craze of the 2000s. X-tians were told not only to have umpteen bio-kids but to rush abroad to those heathen muslim and hindu countries and 'rescue' little heathen orphans so that they could be raised x-tian and become warriors in the holy war against those religions which was surely gonna happen in the not too distant future.
My catholic parents had nine kids. My dad called it Vatican Roulette.
My very devout catholic friend had 3 daughters, Alice, Anna and Amy, then number 4 came along. She's called Zoe...and has indeed proved to be the last!
I am a single child.
My parents were reasonably devout catholics.
I read it, years ago, and I don't.
What trouble shooter says below is the case, but it’s also more than that. Harry Seldon had the mathematics to basically predict the future, but the one thing that he could not predict was a random mutation that changed everything.
Here is a practical example from real life. Our recent pandemic. Who could have guessed that China’s burgeoning population would expand into previously under populated areas and expose animals to a bat virus, which would then mutate and jump to humans.
Psychohistory, as I understand it, was meant to predict the behavior of LARGE groups of people: billions if not trillions, as applied to the time of Asimov's Galactic Empire. Where its weak point may have been is in the influence of a single person on a large group, and that person wouldn't even have to be a mutant, as the Mule was.
I wonder – if psychohistory could be an actual scientific discipline, could it anticipate the advent of an Adolf Hitler ... or a Donald Trump?
With the additional benefit of 20-20 hindsight, yes.
On the other hand, as Asimov noted, there is a cult of ignorance in this country, it has always been here, and it continues to exert power. But even that isn’t quite accurate, I think. Intelligence is distributed on the standard Bell curve. Most people are average. But far too many people are way too below average, and far two few people are above average. And the average and below people reproduce more than the people who are above average.
The rise of Adolf Hitler or Agolf Shitler might well have been predictable in general terms, given a decent knowledge of history, sociology, and psychology. The rise of those miscreants in particular Was probably not predictable at all.
Hitler was an aspiring, But not inspiring artist. What if he had just been a little bit better at it? Could the entirety of history between 1933 and 1945 have been averted If he were less of a workman and more of an artist? If Roy cohn had found a good man rather than Joe McCarthy, Could the history of the last 10 years have been averted?
There are a LOT of "what ifs" out there, for sure ... which is probably why any attempts to create a science of psychohistory are likely doomed to failure.
See: Norman Spinrad; The Iron Dream.
https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2013/05/18/book-review-the-iron-dream-norman-spinrad-1972/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dream
It's mostly an intentionally badly written novel by "Adolf Hitler" the well-known illustrator of pulp SF books and magazines who left Germany in 1919 after his failure in far-right politics. The American Nazi Party praised it, which says a lot about their literary taste and knowledge of satire.
I never heard of it , but yes.
Spinrad also gave us the now-classic Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine." He wrote another story called "He Walked Among Us" that was never produced.
That proposed 2nd episode concerned a primitive culture called the Jugali suddenly, inexplicably wielding technology WELL beyond their capabilities. Spinrad relates that producer Gene Coon turned his concept into a comedy (with a planned guest shot by Milton Berle!). Spinrad was so upset that he took Coon's teleplay to Gene Roddenberry and begged him to kill the whole thing. "Read it and weep," he told Roddenberry. Roddenberry read it and agreed with Spinrad.
The "mule" factor which I think Ben is talking about is the whole mutation thing: a case where the child or children don't follow the example of the parents, but go their own way. This happened a LOT in the 60s, between the sexual revolution and the influences of Vietnam, and I suspect that it continues to this day, one way or the other.
Upvote for Foundation reference! 😁
Are you saying I’m not really old?
I don't see that age matters here, just the enjoyment of a good book or series of books!
A teeny tiny joke.
I know a bunch of you are nearly twice as old as me, yet I feel I am speaking with people from my generation, until you mention what you heard or saw in the 60's 🤣
I care far less about how old you (or anyone else here) are than I do the quality of the commentary you bring to this forum. And the fact is that I get an enormous kick out of you and your contributions here!
No jive ... FACT.
> "...until you mention what you heard or saw in the 60's"
What happened in the 60's, stays in the 60's!
As those of us who came of age in the 60s will tell you, if you can say you can remember the 60s, you most likely weren’t there.
We are all indeed the same age group: 1-130.
BCE or CE ?
True.
Although, I try and pretend that I am younger.
My 23-year-old nephew said pretty much the same last week.. some of us old people were hip back when it was hep.
DM may have been over 70 but she took to electronics like she was born in 2000.
I just got through reading "I Robot." Bet most people think that the movie of the same name is based on it. Uh uh. It's an interconnected series of stories that have ZERO to do with the movie (other than the 3 Laws of Robotics concept being used).
The movie came out a dozen years after Asimov died and he had no input.
I read I, Robot ages ago and loved it, especially "Robbie," but it was all good and wonderfully thoughtful. The Robot novels are a different animal, mostly gumshoe detective stuff, but with some really interesting commentary on society and its reaction to the presence of not just robots but humans who were disconnected from Terran society, then reconnected. I enjoyed the hell out of those, too, and in fact recently reread The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn. All good stuff.
I should mention that I heard Asimov speak at Amasa Stone Chapel, on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, back in 1972. He was a fun speaker, wonderfully engaging.
Seeing as how they and their kind have made it infinitely MORE DIFFICULT to get the bare necessities for survival, this “quiverful” is just creating more PREVENTABLE deaths by hunger and disease.
Their god isn’t using humans to farm “virtue and goodness”, it’s using us to farm misery and despair.
Absolutely the case. I was going to say something along that line in my comment, but I forgot. Thanks for adding it.
Battle royal should be faster.
No DQ, anything goes.
I used to be a good bible-toting xtian, and then HIV/AIDS came, and I saw the true hate of my fellow pew-sitters. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Yeah. Sure. Then I read The Feminine Face of God, twice in one week! I walked away, and have never regretted one nano second of my decision. I think many of the 'good' xtians today have love and hate totally confused.
"Duggars: If you have lots of children, the religion will eventually spread to their own families, and within a few generations, your religion will mathematically outgrow all the other ones."
DM's grandmother birthed 9 children. The 3 boys were raised as Atheists the girls as catholics (catechism only). 4 generations later, there is 2 religious people left in my family, my "go to a church to light a couple of candles from time to time" aunt, and me, and you know what I think of abrahamic propaganda.
Alas, this one is very old and pitifully ignorant.
Who is DM?
Once upon a time, it meant Dungeon Master.
All Google turns up is "direct message.
Dear Mother, it's her nickname for her mother.
"What is religious switching?"
Is it going between your wife and the pool boy?
Ask Ted Haggard. I'm pretty sure he'd know! 😝
Depends on the beard and the pool boy.
"Religious switching." Sounds like "the rod of correction" to one's bottom.
It’s a kink with them…
Lie to kids, they'll figure it out.
Act like an asshole, people won't like you.
Maybe stop lying to people and being an asshole?
...𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑗𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑜𝑟’𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠...
So, Quiverfull nutjob wants the status quo?
Silly Joe. Catholics, liberal protestants, quakers, black baptists, any sort of Democrat...these aren't the Christians they are talking about. The number of Representatives they'd count as Christian is waaaaay lower than the number of Representatives that count themselves as Christian.
They will count them just long enough to outlaw everything nonchristian. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗻 they start the holy war.
This is the most hopeful article I've read all year. Thanks, Hemant.
Stephen Bullivant in his book, 'Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America', points out that the US largely dodged the wave of religious deconversion that swept Europe in the wake of WWII, probably because of the Cold War. But in recent decades, the percentage of nonbelievers in America is rapidly catching up with our European counterparts - who on the whole have a higher standard of living and score higher on happiness and wellness measures.
The current capitulation of American christians to MAGA has acted like an accelerant on a fire. That's why we're seeing the christian nationalist backlash. But christian denominations losing adherents have only themselves to blame, and it's time they looked inward instead of outward for the root causes.
The thing is, though, that there has been a strong if well-hidden movement to promote religion in general and Christianity in particular, which started as a reaction to FDR's New Deal and continues to this day. Read One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, by Kevin M. Kruse.
It is an eye-opener, never mind one hell of a read!
That's all very true, but as Bullivant points out, the holding steady of christianity in the US was bucking a worldwide trend in the opposite direction. It was only a matter of time - and circumstance - before that trend took hold here. Once people have decided that religion, any religion, is no longer relevant to them, no amount of PR is going to change their minds. If anything, it would strengthen their resolve.
Thanks for the recommendation — I’m always looking for new material, so I took your advice and downloaded it to my library. Can’t wait to read it after I finish the book I’m right in the middle of… (isn’t that the way it always happens? 😆)
You're welcome. I actually met Kevin Kruse at the 2015 FFRF convention in Madison, Wisconsin. He gave a talk, then answered questions after. The man is SHARP, knows his stuff, and the book reflects that big-time.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e04b096d7e8a94171c089303a550bef8b4ed9f21581f0fc42dabdec6b2bb4828.jpg
𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑈𝑆 𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑑𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑤𝑒𝑝𝑡 𝐸𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑊𝑊𝐼𝐼, 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑊𝑎𝑟.
Heh. Wouldn't it be something if the current deconversion trend was the result of conservative destruction of the middle class. Ain't it strange how stagnant wages and loss of workers rights can make those workers a lot less happy with the status quo?
Their worship of an odious orange idol ain't helping either.