ny times - big drop in percentage of americans calling themselves christian

As an population becomes more educated and progressive newer faiths such as Scientology are embraced. No wonder this is one of the fastest growing religions in America. It is based on science and facts, not fairy tales.

 

Scientology is the ultimate fusion of litigious American capitalism and old-time religious intimidation and indoctrination. I think Mormonism is more practical and that is why it is more popular, but Scientology was smart enough to target eccentric personality types who would immediately buy into something against the grain of simplistic, proletariat deity-worship (i.e. Hollywood).

L Ron Hubbard, truly a visionary.

 

That Scientology temple in LA is probably one of the creepiest things I have drove past. If you have ever seen the opening credits on the first scene of Weeds, it was kind of like that. People walking around looking just the same. Like robots.

 

Shhhh, you might get sued.

 

Not sure if serious?

 

He's serious.

Mr. Brightside is well known for his extreme views.

 

pretty unsurprising, I feel like modern society in most first world countries have much less of a need for religion and believing in some kind of deity

Society is rapidly progressing away from a lot of the backwards values of out of date religious texts and it will become harder and harder to extract meanings out of these thousand year old books.

 

i think that religion is important when there is not that much education. religion is powerful in that it gives people faith and some kind of moral compass. as people get dumber since there is not much money in public education anymore and/or people cant afford college, you have a new generation who are becoming immune to immorality.

people now are like- i know the earth isnt 6000 years old and the bible is all BS. so that means i can go stick my d1ck in whatever i want and not care about poor people or be racist because there is nothing supernatural to hold me accountable in the afterlife.

 

Religion is a handy substitute for education. It gives simpletons an imaginary flag to wave in the face of science and hard evidence. Kind of like that kid who after being tagged in freeze-tag would say "You didn't tag me, I had my invisible force field up." While you may have applauded the creativity, it didn't make his ass any less frozen. Your hard evidence was negated by an unprovable theory so ridiculous it makes your head spin.

Well now, if that same kid was backed by 71% of America, most rational people would just consider that an epidemic of delusion.

 

you're deviating from my point. im not going down this road of 'science vs. religion'. the 2 are in their own separate realms. although, most people think that they must clash; as if you either believe in religion or you believe in science. this is a totally absurd way of looking at things, and it really was all of these creationists and other religious extremists of a given faith that tried to disprove science. they were idiots, they missed the point completely. remember that galileo, copernicus, and darwin were all very devout christians despite their groundbreaking scientific findings which were seen as 'heretical' by some elements of religious communities. people failed to distinguish that distinction in subject matter of religion and science.

just as the scopes 'monkey trials' became a huge debacle that deviated from the substance of actual state law and became a huge media circus of 'science vs. religion' i still see this crap on the TV everyday, its stupid and is literally nonsense.

you either have faith or you dont, simple as that. i dont need a religious book or scientific book to prove something to me. you either believe in something or you dont.

what i am saying is that religion was effective because it governs over masses well, it is very effective as we can observe today.

 

he shouldnt be scientology has been declining in total members for years now.

 

I honestly think he's joking...

So what is the excuse for being immune to immorality for the past 6000 years when the bible wasn't considered BS...???

 

Fully agree. This is what turns people off more than anything, in my opinion, is how people twist religion to justify actions that their religion does not support or justify. For example, sexism, racism, murder, judgment of others, hatred of others, materialism, terrorism, etc. None of that is supported by any religion I'm aware of.

 

Actually you could say this another way. As some people earn more money and take more classes in school (to make them feel smarter), they believe they are more self sufficient and might not "need religion". However I personally believe these people are very wrong -- they need it more than anyone. But they're lulled into a false sense of confidence. Everybody's "betting on something" in this life and when they die. They're making a big bet on themselves, you could say!

 

The Abrahamic faiths are pretty much chock full of bad ideas like that. No idea why you would say such a thing unless you're just ignorant, or more likely, practicing some 10th level form of cognitive dissonance.

It's one thing to cherry pick the good stuff, it's another thing to pretend the bad stuff doesn't exist entirely.

 

bigtexxx - if I were you , I would hope that the people who think magic men in the sky and all of their attendant trappings are an inherently absurd concept are right.

Surely if there is a vengeful smiter lurking above meting out punishment for earthly behavior, you will be smited at some point.

Perhaps you are instead banking on the off chance that the Abrahamic God is truly the cruel retributionist insecure psychopath that he appears to be in Scripture and sees a bit of himself in you? Unclear.

 

Would you, or anyone for that matter, not also be smited?

Your point is invalid.

 

I can't speak for all the Abrahamic faiths, but that's certainly not condoned in any Christian texts.

 

Of course i would be smited. We would be smitten together.

Big Texxx, will you be my smitebro?