I don't understand where your coming from in the first sentence.
who do you think it is that helps keep government from allowing gay marriage?
I don't understand where your coming from in the first sentence.
I think gays should be able to get married. I don't think Christianity has the answers to everything. There are things in the Bible i dont agree with. There are many churchgoers who are split on it as well.
I'm not going to throw the religion under the bus though because of that. There's more (good) to the religion than that issue.
Are you deliberately not paying attention to my point? You decried the loss of "morality" due to high divorce rates etc etc even though I'd say that the current generation is more "moral" than the ones even 50 years ago.
It's possible to do good deeds without a crutch.
One would think that creatures who commonly stood 20+ feet tall would merit some mention.
The obvious inference, is that the Bible represents the worldview and knowledge base of Bronze-age peoples who would not be expected to have knowledge of such creatures.
God would not have such limitations.
The existance of fossilized dinosaur bones represents a rather insurmountable problem for creationists to overcome. Unless, of course, you take the position that the Flintstones was a do entary. This is essetionally one of the chief prepositions (humans and dinosaurs living together at one point) of the Creation(ist) Museum, meant to inspire the faithful.
They shouldn't be split. Pretty cut and dry imo.
I've got no issue if someone wants to believe in fairy tales.'m not going to throw the religion under the bus though because of that. There's more (good) to the religion than that issue.
I take issue when politicians give in to pressure from the fairy tale communities.
No you can do good deeds without ascribing to Judeo-Christianity. I have athiest friends who do a lot of charity and are great people. They're more Christian than some of the people I know who call themselves Christians. Calling yourself a Christian doesn't necessarily make you one.
And the worst aspects of our culture (greed, materialism) have invaded Christianity. Christian communities have suc bed to political pressure way more than the other way around.
Why are we more moral?
agreed, no .
bull , tbh.
Creationism isn't ascribed to my many, many Christians. I don't know the exact number, but I'm pretty sure it's way higher than the media has one believe. The Pope himself believes in evolution. He accepts it as a reality. The leader of the Catholic church isn't Mic e Bachmann and she far from represents what many Christians believe.
On Darwin’s Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/da...evolution.aspx
Capitalism doesn't work when a left-controlled media disseminates a distorted picture of Christianity and diminishes it.
2009: Charles Darwin would have been 200 tomorrow, an event that Gallup is marking with a new poll showing that 39 percent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution. A quarter say they don't believe in evolution, and 36 percent say they have no opinion.
The strongest predictor of respondents' views on evolution? Church attendance.
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/god...e-in-evolution
Left-controlled media![]()
lol wtf does capitalism have to do with Christianity?
you are getting more incoherent by the post.
it'd be interesting to see the age group of those surveyed. A lot of adults who studied biology in highschool 30-40-50 years ago studied a very different biology. The theory has developed quite a but since then. Hard to find a young Christian that doesn't find it quite compelling at least. Most outright believe it. And many of the younger priests and rabbis accept it.
Catholic Church has accepted evolution for decades, just not unmitigated evolution, their required mitigation being God's intervention to create the soul.
What I meant to say is that this country would be in better shape if both entrepreneurs and consumers were more moral.
The halcyon days of religious poverty and utter selflessness are more myth than legend, anyway.
There never existed a time of near total moral enlightenment, never was there an era where religious morality reigned supreme over the minds of men.
It strikes me as odd that one would argue for a "lost time" that really never existed, ever.
At no point in civilized history did there exist a more "moral" time than the one in which you find yourself today. None, ever.
Just because divorce rates are up does not mean something is wrong. It means women stood up to the status quo of being marginalized and unheard. Marriages of the past where prisons for (looking at divorce rate of today...) damn near 50%. Whether one spouse was abusive, a drunken loser, an adulterer or all three, those marriages lasted only because society's stigma attached the "D word" precluded a lot of marriages from ever ending like they should have.
...and this only addresses the divorce rate, which is overall, a terrible benchmark to use as a basis of contention about current moral standards and practices.
I cannot remember the quote, but there is a famous line about the acts of war being the benchmark of society's moral capacity. At no time in the history of man has war between civilized nations been so (relatively speaking) merciful.
Rome made famous the act of crucifixion of the conquered. Rome would demand surrender of the nations they targeted and rarely did they. To Rome and Her Glory, it was an affront to them that a "lesser nation" would balk at the chance to join their empire. So, after demolishing their military on the battlefield(s), they would enter the cities and crucify men, women and children along both sides of the main road leading into and out of the city for dual purpose. One, to inform the conquered of their new master's tolerance for resistance and rebellion. Two, to remind all other future and present enemies to the fate that awaits them.
Fast forward to Medieval Times, ie the Dark Ages. The Western Roman Empire has fallen to the Goths and countless others, sacked, re-sacked, pillaged and re-pillaged a hundred times over. An outbranch of Christianity has risen to power, the Roman Catholic Church with its epicenter in (you guessed it) Rome, or Vatican City. Thousands if not millions were reformed to conversion via torture of unimaginable horror. Quartering, the Rack, nail beds, hot coals being force-fed, etc. Convert or fall was the song heard throughout Europe. This church was the first of its kind and still is today, a church of incredible political power and as yet unheard of wealth (so much so, they paved their streets in ing gold).
The best part about it? They had domain over the single most mysterious aspect of life, death. They had a patent on God's word, His intent, His plan ever-changing, His will. The Church used that license to suppress scientific advancement that wasnt sanctioned by the Church (countless scientists killed for the observation of nature), they used that power to subjugate the masses to the whims of the Pope (ex. fish on Fridays). They used that power to consolidate their position of power in every royal court of the time (until England split). To wage Holy Wars for worthless plots of desert thousand of miles away, but not on their dime. Needless to say, the only example in European culture that fits the moral high water mark you refer to is something we collectively call the Dark Ages. When religion over everything else, reigned supreme. No ing thanks.
No one, not you, not me, not your priest/pastor, no one knows what happens when you die. Who or what you see, who or what you meet. Is there a return to the "source"? Or are we just worm food? Anyone who claims otherwise is a charlatan, to be mocked, scoffed at and ridiculed.
No one can know the unknowable. Its fine to wonder to yourself and others about the possibilities in death, but its nothing more than a mental exercise to drum up a conversation. Anyone who feels compelled to fight for their view of it over another is trying to sell you something, period. Whether its like-mindedness, social acceptance, their version of living salvation or a collection plate, there is always a hook, a catch, a contrived and inflated sense of self-worth perpetuated by a congregation of people who cannot admit their fear and total non-understanding of the world they find themselves in.
Religion is comfort food to the morally obese. A very half-ass attempt (and I mean very half-ass) to answer questions all people have, very natural questions. But the virulent nature of religion and its component parts, the injection of its "answers" into your everyday existence, is something to scorn and ridicule.
If existence is as Christianity states, then so be it. This universe is far less interesting for it and fear the unimaginative and uninvolved God responsible for our current position.
But since I know its all bull , a relic mythos fed to the uneducated, mumbling masses at a time when average lifespan was under 40 years old and oratory was still a subs ute for reading and writing. That somehow it has endured the test of hundreds of wars and hundreds of years, other competing doctrines, but most of all, scientific advancement is not a testament to the validity of its claims.
No, its continued existence and importance only verifies that the questions around death still persist and that people still want to believe they rank in the universal equation, when in fact you and I do not. That religion is still around speaks only to the vanity of man, nothing more, nothing less.
try reading the article, lots of by-age, etc graphs.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/da...evolution.aspx
I go back to the states in a few days. I'm posting on my iPhone. Hard to have a discussion. I'll look at them in a few days.
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