Will films like The Chosen and near death experience accounts where people meet Jesus during a brush with death lead to a massive spiritual awakening in our generation? Will the outpouring of the time of the Book of Acts look rather anemic and small in comparison to what is about to happen? Will the future awakening be like the larger fall harvest of the land of Palestine while the Awakening of the time of the Apostle Paul will look like the much smaller Spring Harvest?
No I don't think there's a spiritual awakening occurring if anything it's the opposite of that. It certainly isn't happening to Christianity and the reason for that is that people who claim to be Christian do not try to live up to Christ's message they try to pretend they are and most importantly what they do is they attack others for not adhering to various functionary rules they have deemed are the most important. What I think would help is if we all treated everyone as if they were partially divine. Meaning if what you're about to say to someone else you wouldn't say to Jesus Christ himself and keep your mouth shut. There's too many people that think they're the captain of the ship and that makes for quite a miserable experience. And is the ship is sinking more and more captains appear.
The subject of this thread is not my signature if you want to talk about that start a conversation with me independent of this thread.
The nicest, most thoughtful people I've known in my life have been deeply religious. Why do they scare you?
Scare? What the hell?? What I see is that they tend to behave like YOU do toward Polydectes. Then, they try to use our government to force their religiously based ideas on others.
The nice part isn't surprising given what their religion says. If anything, it's surprising that they are not more nice and less thoughtful. But I guess even smart people, at least some of them, can lie to themselves and be rational only when it suits them.
Please do not speak in riddles. State what you believe to be the case and give examples. Other than making Christmas a national holiday, how does the government use religious based ideas to coerce others?
I do not consider myself a religious person but I have known many over the years and have studied all the great and lesser religions to some degree. You might wish to approach the subject in a broader manner and see how it neatly ties into how societies operate their institutions and conduct themselves as individuals. There's a great deal to it that one can miss if you are only concentrating on the stuff that makes little sense to you [because (and after all), everything is this way]. People can always find a great number of contradictions even in those things they hold dearest.
Nothing wrong with an almost honest observation…..IMO opinion if you had said ‘could’ instead of ‘should’……religious people become scary when they mistakenly think they are God. Thinking that they become judgmental and that makes them hypocrites….
Read or watch the Handmaiden's Tale. I know it's fiction but fiction is based on fact. I also went to catholic school for some years. Finally, I study history. Religion IS scary
I don't think I do, but your post is a bit vague/abstract. I am very much not a product of my culture, as I question many aspects of it as illogical but sure, understandable in a way. I was a star student of sorts in sociology, but that knowledge is pretty faded by now. I also oppose nationalism as a secular religion but understand how it can be useful to both tyrants and saviors. There are things that I want to be true and fantasize about a bit but suspect it to be pure fantasy anyway, like having an afterlife at all.
There is so much more to it than this part which seems to capture many people's ire. Think about it, what has had more sway on our species than religion? There must be many, many reasons for this, no? Religion is the glue that hold things together for a great deal of humanity, so for this alone, we must pay homage. Without religion, you'd have an entire global population similar to the Leftists who will attach their horse to any mode of thinking [no matter how Utopian or destructive]. Religion is also that which made our Constitution workable. If you do not understand why freedom must be given by an authority higher than man, you have missed a great deal of how faith has fostered a great deal of freedom and prosperity in the world over the past couple of centuries.
That's the wrong question, obviously. The real question is what is the basis for the laws being made concerning abortion. I would contend it is mostly religious fervor. The majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The primary opposition is coming from evangelical Christians and some sectors of other Christian religions - like Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. It's essentially a toss up with Catholics. The arguments being made against abortion don't stand up without these religious views. And again, they are minority arguments. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/views-about-abortion/ We're seeing a predominantly religious view being written into law to force all to conform, regardless of personal beliefs. That's not legitimate, and is counter to our first amendment. Also, these laws are being written with no serious concern for the lives of women, as the woman's healthcare is being disregarded - leaving our government condemning women to death, permanent loss of procreative ability, and other harm when healthcare solutions are available.
Most of our freedom or prosperity is DESPITE religion throughout history. It is only religion's decline over the last 300 years that has enabled our Constitution to exist at all. Religion is itself the most destructive mode of thinking we have. Without it, we might very well HAVE Utopia by now
Seems pretty straightforward to me. To the individual, religion feels better than the alternative and the alternative gives us great distress (death of a loved one = gone forever, e.g.). To those in power, it makes people easier to control, at the cost of some constraints on power. Logic and science are really what deserve homage for allowing us to move beyond religion to find real morality and technological progress (respectively, mostly) to improve our lives. Faith didn't come in the past couple centuries. The newest of the abrahamic religions, if you don't count mormons or particular denominations, is islam. What came in the past couple centures is secularism, a departure from absolute control of religion over daily life. Freedom is only logical. Who can function optimally in the context of barbarism? How can we specialize if we all must defend against the strongest threat? The overall quality of life depends on morality, and not morality based upon the whims of imagined supernatural megalomaniacs.
It has nothing to do with "scare". That's a false position. The fact is that one doesn't look forward to working out solutions with someone whose immutable position was given him by his God.
I agree some of the nicest people I've met are deeply religious but some of the nastiest people I've met are deeply religious. I don't think you're religiousity makes you a nice or a mean person. I've also met some of the nicest atheists and agnostic people.