Has Christianity finally been debunked?

[citizen abuse]

Originally Posted by verklingen

^ not really man. the decisions of others are the cause of much suffering in the world. and to eradicate it, "god" would have to remove our ability for choice.

I didn't know that we had any choice. Don't the Christians say that everything about our lives has already been determined by God?

[Lt. Carlton Banks]

Originally Posted by verklingen

dude i'm not saying that necessarily. all i'm saying is that in order to eliminate any suffering whatsoever, "god" would have to eliminate freedom of choice. you can't dispute that, really.

oh i agree with you on that but thats not what i was talking about i should have clarified. i meant natural suffering like what i posted disesases and such. humanity is humanity and we'll always be fucked up but "god" sure didnt help making somehting thats killing thousands of us off daily

[higherthanamile]

This is indeed one of the better threads I have read through recently...

LegalLies, I don't think the article is useless, but you make a very articulated point when you reference applying real word data to an ethereal one. Well stated, sir.

I'd stand shoulder to shoulder with you regarding, 'Christianity, in this sense, cannot be debunked because no one can ever prove that there isn't a God. That is why it is a matter of faith.' I would submit the fact that Christian record keeping seems to be compromised during some convenient times of the religions evolution, though.

Your thoughts?

HTAM

[higherthanamile]

This article is a bit of a read, but I think it will lend to more discussion within this thread.

It talks of a study about religious affiliation released by The Pew Research Center and along with a notable rise in Americans claiming no affiliation to a specific religion, it also presents other survey results that you may find interesting.

EDIT: The CC'd article below came from The Boston Globe. I've posted a link to I guess would be a rebuttal from another author at the end of it.

Read on....


HTAM


US religious identity is rapidly changing

The United States, founded by dissident Protestants seeking religious freedom, is on the verge of becoming a nation in which Protestants are a minority.

A growing fraction of Americans identify themselves as unaffiliated with any religious tradition, and a small but increasingly significant number say they are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Orthodox Christian. And a flood of overwhelmingly Catholic immigrants, mostly from Latin America, is helping to offset a high dropout rate among US-born Catholics

These are among the key findings of a groundbreaking study of the American religious landscape released yesterday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The study, which is the most comprehensive such examination of the country in at least a half century, finds that the United States is in the midst of a period of unprecedented religious fluidity, in which 44 percent of American adults have left the denomination of their childhood for another denomination, another faith, or no faith at all.

"Americans are not only changing jobs, changing locations, changing spouses, but they're also changing religions on a regular basis," said Luis E. Lugo, director of the Pew Forum. "We have nearly half the American public telling us they're something different today than they were as a child, and that's a staggering number. It's such a dynamic religious marketplace and very competitive."

The study is based on a survey of 35,000 Americans age 18 and over, a very large number for survey research, and the size of the pool allowed the researchers to get more detail about minority religious groups than is usually available from smaller studies. The study is also important because the quantification of religious affiliation in the United States is often difficult and contested; the US Census does not include questions about religion, and many studies rely on counts submitted by denominations, whose self-reporting is often unreliable.

Protestantism in America has been declining at least since the 1980s, the researchers said, when about two-thirds of Americans identified themselves as Protestant. Scholars have debated the causes of the decline, but said it might be due in part to low birth rates among mainline Protestants and difficulties among mainline Protestant churches in retaining the children of their members.

"The continuing decline in the size of Protestantism is very important for American culture and American politics," said John C. Green, a professor of politics at the University of Akron and a fellow at the Pew Forum. The traditions of civility, tolerance, and individualism are values that arose from Protestantism, Green said. "So much of our values and institutions in American public life came out of mainline Protestantism."

The new study is filled with findings about a remarkably diverse nation, with a population that is shaped by affiliation with a vast and shifting array of religious groups and sects. Every religious family - Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists - is represented by a number of subgroups. Scholars believe, for example, that the Muslim population of the United States - which is made up of African-Americans, whites, and immigrants from both south Asia and the Arab world - is more diverse than anywhere else.

"Every indication is that adherents of these other world religions - such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. - will continue to grow as a percentage of the US population," Lugo said. "It is now at 5 percent, which is not insignificant. When the census bureau took its own numbers back in the '50s, these groups were virtually a rounding error. So, clearly they are growing, and we know that you don't need a high percentage of folks who are new or different, as perceived by most folks in the society, to generate a lot of conversation, not least in politics."

The nation is still predominantly Christian - 78 percent of adults say they are Christian - but nearly 5 percent identify themselves as members of other faiths, and 16 percent say they are unaffiliated.

The largest single faith tradition in the country is evangelical Protestantism, with about 26 percent of the adult population; followed by Catholicism, at 24 percent; mainline Protestantism, at 18 percent; the unaffiliated, at 16 percent; and historically black Protestant churches, at 7 percent.

Evangelical Protestantism appears to be growing, but its growth is being dwarfed by a decline in mainline Protestantism, and the result is that just 51 percent of Americans are now Protestant, the brand of Christianity that has dominated this nation's history, generating all but one of its presidents and dominating its town squares.

"There is no question that the demographic balance in American Protestantism has shifted in the last several decades decidedly in the direction of evangelical Protestant churches," Lugo said.

The average age of mainline Protestants, as well as Jews, is also higher than for other faith groups.

The willingness of Americans to change their religion is a relatively new phenomenon, after generations in which one's faith was largely determined by the faith of one's parents.

And the survey found that about 37 percent of adults are married to someone with a different religious or denominational affiliation; many conversions do not appear to be driven by marriage, the researchers said.

"The study confirms that religion in America is achieved, rather than ascribed - it's something we choose - and, in that sense, it is so different from what religion has been like for the previous 2,000 years of history," said Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, who reviewed the study.

The study determined religious affiliation simply by asking respondents their religion and denomination. Later this year, the Pew Forum plans to release studies exploring the beliefs and practices and the social and political views of members of different religious traditions.

Among the study's more unusual findings: Jehovah's Witnesses have the worst record of any faith group at retaining their members. Hindus and Mormons are the least likely to be married to someone of another faith, and the least likely to be single. Mormons and Muslims have the biggest families. Three-quarters of American Buddhists are converts. Jews are the highest-income group in America, but Hindus are now the best educated: Nearly half of all adult Hindus have some post-graduate education.

Catholicism, the biggest single denomination in the country and the dominant faith group in the Northeast, is losing members nationwide faster than any other major grouping.

One in three people raised Catholic is now a former Catholic, the study finds, and, as a result, 1 in 10 Americans is now a former Catholic.

Yet, the overall Catholic population in the country remains fairly stable, because most immigrants today are Catholic.

"If you remove immigrants, then Catholicism is in free fall, the way Episcopalianism and other mainline religions were 20 or 30 years ago," Wolfe said.

The study finds that among former Catholics, a little less than half are now Protestant and about the same number are unaffiliated.

Latinos make up only one in eight Catholics over age 70, but half of those between ages 18 and 29, strongly suggesting that the makeup of the Catholic Church, which is now one-third Latino, will become increasingly Latino over time.

Locally, the Archdiocese of Boston already offers Mass in Spanish at about 40 parishes, and counts several hundred thousand Hispanics among its parishioners. Priests who work with Hispanics in the Boston area say the change is visible throughout the church.

"The Hispanicization brings a tremendous dynamic into the church, with a love of Mary and a wonderful sense of celebration of life and celebration of faith," said the Rev. James J. Ronan of St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Charlestown, which just consolidated two congregations, one predominantly white and the others with a substantial Hispanic minority.

But Ronan said the integration of the church also poses challenges, adding that "people are also struggling to work this out, because it's not easy to do."

Ronan expressed skepticism about the permanence of findings that show people leaving Catholicism, saying his experience is that many come back.

"I would be reluctant to take at face value a response that's a Catholic saying, 'I'm no longer a Catholic,' because things change, people find themselves looking for bigger answers, and they revisit it and they come back," he said.

The study finds that Massachusetts is more Catholic and more Jewish than the nation at large and that the state has fewer evangelicals and fewer African-American Protestants.

In general, the study confirms, the Northeast remains the most Catholic region, the South the most evangelical, and the West the most unaffiliated.

A different point of view...
A Cacophony of Faith--Is This What God Intended?

[farmergiles]

Originally Posted by Legal lies

...you could say that I am an agnostic-it is the only rational, fully defensible position.

Come on, don`t sit on the fence.

[Man in Black]

Originally Posted by Lt. Carlton Banks

so because our ancestors made bad decisions we get cancer? aids? downs syndrome? sorry man i dont buy it

This is actually beginning to be proved by genetics. Something about gene mutations that are handed down to the children.

If I stumble across an article or better yet the PBS special I watched about it I will gladly share. It's basically saying that what my grandfather did with/to his own body could effect my own genetics and body. For instance, if a woman was poor growing up and didn't have much to eat as a child than her daughter will not need to eat as much. Or if a man chooses to smoke and get lung cancer it could increase the chances of his son/grandon getting it.

It's probably old news now but at the time it was groundbreaking.

[Man in Black]

Originally Posted by Lt. Carlton Banks

oh i agree with you on that but thats not what i was talking about i should have clarified. i meant natural suffering like what i posted disesases and such. humanity is humanity and we'll always be fucked up but "god" sure didnt help making somehting thats killing thousands of us off daily

All species have their own form of population control. If god started saving everyone who had cancer or AIDS and they like, they would all grow old and die or you'd have to kill them.

As for why some people (or animals) for that matter have to suffer more than others, that is nature taking its course. Unfortunately if you believe in a transecendant God then he is not going to cure your disease because you want him to or because anyone else wants him to.

You must understand God in a natural sense. Nature is God. Nature doesn't stop for anyone.

And if you think that this is contradicting the Christian creed, I will ask you to consider this passage from The Lord's Prayer..."Thy will be done." Prayer is not a medium for you to make requests. It is meant to be a way to glorify God and ask forgiveness for your sins. God's will is the natural order of things. There is no way to argue against that because it is self evident. Nature is nature. Nothing you or I can do to change it. If you are going to believe in an omnipotent, all encompassing God then the only context to consider him in is the only one that there is. It is not a hypothetical.

People try to tell me that if God existed than we would know it. He would make himself evident and demand that we do his bidding and worship him. They say "Well there would only be one way to think of God and it would be the right one", but we know this isn't true because there are many interpretations of God. We don't KNOW God exists because if we did that would negate our existence and even the thought and idea that there wasn't a god WOULD NOT EXIST. The thought would be unimaginable, or as Verk might say, impossible. It's like how I pointed out to someone a long time ago, nothing can come from nothing. There has to be something that was there that all other things came from.

Now that I've made you think, consider this some more food for thought. For anyone who is truly trying to understand and comprehend the idea of God, the first place to start is with Saint Anselm's ontological argument. He stated that there are necessary beings (things that cannot not exist) and contingent beings (things that may exist but whose existence is not needed).

Anselm's Argument may be summarized thus:

God is, by definition, a being greater than anything that can be imagined.
Existence both in reality and in imagination is greater than existence solely in one's imagination.

Therefore, God must exist in reality; if He did not, God would not be a being greater than anything that can be imagined.

This is a shorter modern version of the argument. Anselm framed the argument as a reductio ad absurdum wherein he tried to show that the assumption that God does not exist leads to a logical contradiction. The following steps follow more closely Anselm's line of reasoning:

God is that entity than which nothing can be greater.
The concept of God exists in human understanding.
God exists in one's mind but not in reality.
The concept of God's existence is understood in one's mind.
If God existed in reality, it would be a greater thing than God's existence in the mind.
The final step to God's existence is that God in reality must exist.

(excuse me for borrowing the last part from Wikipedia)

[slunt]

What ever happened to that Zeitgeist Video explaining the rise of Christianity as a Roman political method of controlling the masses and amalgamating all the different religions as one?
Religion continues to kill more people than disease and disaster combined. Wait til the Iranians and Israeli's start lobbing nuclear warheads at each other, each saying it's Gods will, like he sent them a memo or something.

[higherthanamile]

Originally Posted by slunt

Wait til the Iranians and Israeli's start lobbing nuclear warheads at each other, each saying it's Gods will, like he sent them a memo or something.

If they didn't shoot the messenger with the memo, first...

HTAM

[BearsysRevenge]

Originally Posted by verklingen

so you guys advocate a conception of "god" which would eliminate free will?

Well I don't advocate any god at all but thats just semantics.

I just try and understand why people can be so deluded, and then I try and encourage them to think for themselves.

yeah exactly. it's the ego of humans which projects human judgment upon the prospect of divine judgment.

This is why I can't believe in any god, they are so obviously human ideas, if there was a divine something that had any say over anything it would be so far beyond our comprehension that we would never have any knowledge of it.

[Man in Black]

Bearsy did you read my post bub?

It's alright I didn't expect anyone to :P

[v3d4]

^i read it, i dig what you are saying there but i think it might be difficult for some to grasp.

this thread (including anslem), or the idea of "debunking christianity" reminds me of this article:
Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously | Ekklesia

[Man in Black]

Originally Posted by slunt

What ever happened to that Zeitgeist Video explaining the rise of Christianity as a Roman political method of controlling the masses and amalgamating all the different religions as one?
Religion continues to kill more people than disease and disaster combined. Wait til the Iranians and Israeli's start lobbing nuclear warheads at each other, each saying it's Gods will, like he sent them a memo or something.

Zeitgeist was interesting and all that but I certainly wouldn't put much faith in it. It's worth a watch but you should cross reference the stuff they say in there and watch/read things presented by the other side and by neutral agents.

"A prophet is never accepted in his own nation"-Jesus (don't remember scripture verse)

[BearsysRevenge]

Originally Posted by Man in Black

Bearsy did you read my post bub?

It's alright I didn't expect anyone to :P

Yeah, I read it, I'm working on a response. I don't want to just brush you off in a one sentence post.



[EDIT] fuck, my computer just shut itself down and I lost the whole thing. you're gonna get a half assed response cause I'm not putting another 45 minutes into the reply lol

[citizen abuse]

I like one of the points made in the piece, that it's hard to believe that a supreme being could have all the capabilities that the Christians claim their good has but yet have virtually no capability to make his presence known in the here and now. Yeah, right!

[The Rev]

The article points the finger at "The Christians" as if they are all clones of one another (which, granted, is typical of most finger pointing of this kind on all sides). I have known some very irrational Christians, who use their religious affiliation to occupy a moral high ground from which to attack and condemn others. I have known some athiests of the same variety. However, the typical christian that I know is pretty much just like the typical anyone else that I know: he or she is a nice person, courteous, and prone to the normal level of stupidity that everyone else is.

The thing is, I have known alot of people who have benefitted from christianity, whether it's rational or not. I have known people who went from being criminals to "finding jesus" and becoming better people. I know people who find a greater capacity for benevolence toward others because of their religion, as well. Maybe it's all just belief in a fairy tale, but the end result is a good one for the person, and the people they interact with.

Maybe, what I'm trying to say is: condemning the condemners is just a good way to start people fighting, which is, ironically, what both sides condemn in the first place.



The Rev