Originally posted by sonship
Nice hype.
Nice implication of an Argument Ad Populum.
[quote] "These trends are part of a larger cultural context, a context that is often missing in polls about religion," Twenge said. "One context is rising individualism in U.S. culture. Individualism puts the self first, which doesn't always fit well with the commitment to the institution and o ...[text shortened]... ng the Gospel needs.
That is more "Galilean" types to follow Jesus.
Nice hype though.
It would be fine if 100% of the population followed JC and the boys like you want.
The tiny difficulty there is all those other pesky religions at loggerheads with Christianity, as you no doubt have seen lately in Boko Haram, Isis, Taliban and so forth.
THAT is what I am talking about where less belief is a good thing.
If everyone on Earth was Muslim, there would also be not so much religious war, at least if everyone was Sunni or some such. It is the mixtures that give so much death.
And the same goes for atheism: if the entire population was atheistic, no more wars over religion regardless of how you want to pave it, THOSE guys are from the devil or whatever. All atheistic, that crap is out the window.
BTW, that is my main argument for the non-existence of a god that gives a crap about humans, regardless of whether or not there are actual gods or a god out there.
Too dam many religions, at each other's throats, each one professing to be the ONE true faith.
It is and always has been since I was 8 years old, in my view, such a system would have NEVER been set up by a god.
A god would have compassion for those tortured in supposedly his or her name.
A god would have compassion for those children with diseases like cancer at the age of 3.
And so forth.
That is clearly not happening. It is clear if there is such a god as JC and the boys say, it is not a nice god, letting a 3 year old get cancer. That is not compassion. That is clear uncaring. And OF COURSE I know your and other's response is 'so now you know the mind of god'. Perhaps I do, which of course then will lead to the statement that I am overwhelmingly arrogant. Perhaps I am. That doesn't change my views one bit.
That is why I say all religions are strictly man made, no god involved.
Another thing about this whole religious set up is the convenient way they give a god human like characteristics.
It is and always has been a god, we are talking about a being who can wave in whole universes, as we see ours clocking in at many billions of light years across, with all the billions of galaxies each one with billions of stars, each galaxy clearly must have life in it so humans would only be one of maybe billions of planets in the universe with their own intelligences on them, where our star is a relative new comer in the galactic sense, under 5 billion years old in a 14 billion year old universe. That means our entire solar system time cycle can have happened 3 or 4 times, a star forming shortly after all the heavy stuff was built by supernova's where a new star coming together has metals and so forth that a civilization would need, there has been enough time go by for our entire solar system life cycle to have repeated itself at least 3 times in all that vast space of time.
That means that civilizations of intelligent life has come and gone literally billions of times in the course of the evolution of our universe.
So here is a god capable of just THINKING all that into existence. Do you really think with all those billions of CIVILIZATIONS coming and going, that humans are going to somehow be on the top of the list of those species a god would adore above all others, make a religion where it somehow looks like humans and has human characteristics like jealousy?
The gist of all that is I think it is the religious who are supremely arrogant to think a god that can do all of the above would think humans so far up the totem pole of spirituality would be worth the time of day to such a god.
Think about that long and hard in that light before you respond.
Please don't just spout stuff like 'and god so loved man he blah blah blah'
Give me your OWN thoughts please not paved over scripture.