The End of Christian America

[Caliga]

What am I, a clown?

[Malthus]

What amuses me is that I now have alot of Facebook "friends" who are native to this area, and tons of them put stuff like this in the "Religion:" field:

"OMG JAYSYS IS MAH GAHDING LAHT"

Strangely, it seems these are also always the people who engage in lots of immoral behavior like drug use, out of wedlock children, DUIs, and so on.

I can't think of any 'secular' friends I have who have similarly shady morals.

This chick that gave me the best blowjob ever was so religious, Jesus himself would start edging away from her.

But damn, she was a freak in the sack. But on Sunday, she was in the front pew.

Lots of practice kneeling. 

[DontSayBanana]

That is ridiculous.  The Astronomers would have to accept on faith the whole nonsense about the big star thing was based on historical fact.  The entire birth narrative, and any of the stuff about Jesus' youth, is almost certainly completely invented after the fact-if his life entirely was not in fact invented completely after the fact.

Not by that long. The only reason they were able to extrapolate the date is detailed description of the night sky at that time. They've used similar techniques in extrapolating birth/death dates of pharoahs.

[DontSayBanana]

I've always attributed that to the source of behaviour. The atheist can base his behavior of his morality because doesn't need to square his deeds with an external source of morality but only his conscience, while the believer needs to square his personal view of right and wrong with his external source of morality.

The religious believe if they don't confess, they're damned. The nonreligious believe that if they don't confess, they get away with it.

[Queequeg]

"OMG today's youth don't care about anything  " is just about the oldest accusation there is.  I believe I read it in Suetonius

We have records of Sumerians complaining about how the younger generation is going to fuck everything up. 

[Valmy]

Not by that long. The only reason they were able to extrapolate the date is detailed description of the night sky at that time. They've used similar techniques in extrapolating birth/death dates of pharoahs.

Right that was exactly what I was saying.  They are making that guess based on suspect data.  I mean the gospels are being written decades after Jesus "died" how could they possibly have an accurate idea what the night sky looked like?

[DontSayBanana]

Right that was exactly what I was saying.  They are making that guess based on suspect data.  I mean the gospels are being written decades after Jesus "died" how could they possibly have an accurate idea what the night sky looked like?

*shrugs* It doesn't really affect me either way, not being religious, it just amounts to what date I get out of work or school. However, if the Bible was intended to be interpreted as nonfiction, why would they have bothered to describe the sky at all, unless the current conditions were remarkably similar?

Decades isn't long enough for constellation drift, so they know roughly what star charts to work with, and from there, the description simply outlines the position in the calendar year.

[Queequeg]

Obviously, as they approach higher percentages, teh rate of increase will decline.

That's my exact objection; if Education and Secularization had such an obvious relationship, than the rise in self-identification as non-religious should have happened post-war rather than in the 1980s, as since then it appears as though the rate of growth in number of High School graduates, and the number of people receiving Bachelor's Degrees went from extremely low to pretty low. 

You are reading way to0 much into the data, and more importantly details about the specific timing of particular "bumps". Education levels have consistently risen - secularism has consistently risen. They are likely linked, but not necessarily in such a direct manner that one would expect some kind of 1:1 ratio maintenance. There are a lot of variables involved beyond those two, even if one if influenced by the other to a great degree.

Again, this is only true in Europe and a few heavily Europeanized areas (Quebec, maybe some of the Crown Colonies).  The rise of an educated middle class in Turkey, China and India have gone hand in hand with a rise in religious observance.  Look at it this way; in 1960, a lot of Turkish, Chinese and Indian towns would have had no place of worship, all three were ruled by a secular elite (in the case of China an actively, belligerently anti-theist one), and all three eventually ended up stagnating and turning to capitalism.  Today there are more active Christians in China than in Europe (and the number appears to be growing rapidly), the massively expanding Indian Middle Class is the backbone of the BJP (with the stagnant areas like West Bengal supporting the Communist Party), with a similar situation in Turkey with the AKP.  Religion has become far more important in all three societies in the last 30 years, not less so.  This is especially problematic for your theory as all three societies have seen a rapid increase in education and religiosity at the same time. 

I would argue that you are correct in a certain sense; education, urbanization economic shift are a very fertile ground for the birth/strengthening of new ideas and identities, and stagnant national churches (in Protestant Europe) or super-stagnant international churches (the Catholic Church) have a hard time keeping up.  Some of these are Secular, some (most?) aren't. 

[Barrister]

The numbers I've seen still show that the number of self-identified evangelicals continues to increase.

Evangelical christianity is a bit like Amway.  Eventually they will run out of friends and relatives to whom they can pitch their product.

And yet it's been increasing for what - 30-40 years?

[Martinus]

I'm always amused that Marty and Tamas are such strident athiests.  The Soviets were much better at brainwashing then we gave them credit for.

Marty would have been a Christian had he been straight.  His gayness saved his soul.

Yeah. Or I would be a Christian if they weren't so stuck up about gays (and a couple of other things, like birth control). I don't believe in cherry-picking type of religion, so since I reject some of its tenets, I don't see myself sincerely embracing the rest. I think it's a honest approach, rather than pretending some of the nasty stuff isn't there.

I like Jesus and the whole catholic drama-queenish love for pomp and circumstance, though. The cult of saints, with its BDSM homoeroticism is rather nice too. And the whole catholic guilt thing tickles my martyr complex.

[Martinus]

I'm always amused that Marty and Tamas are such strident athiests.  The Soviets were much better at brainwashing then we gave them credit for.

I am indeed an atheist. Marty isn't. He himself admits that much.

And I suspect he has a secret longing for the whole Catholic parade thing, he just can't succumb because catholics hate gays.

My approach to religion is best summed up by Oscar Wilde's quote: "I intend to die a catholic. I just can't imagine myself living as one."

[DontSayBanana]

Yeah. Or I would be a Christian if they weren't so stuck up about gays (and a couple of other things, like birth control). I don't believe in cherry-picking type of religion, so since I reject some of its tenets, I don't see myself sincerely embracing the rest. I think it's a honest approach, rather than pretending some of the nasty stuff isn't there.

I like Jesus and the whole catholic drama-queenish love for pomp and circumstance, though.

Huh. I believe Kain said something along those lines and he put it pretty well: Catholics see church as a temple; Protestants (mostly, exception made for Episcopalians) see it as a country club.

[Martinus]

Yeah. Or I would be a Christian if they weren't so stuck up about gays (and a couple of other things, like birth control). I don't believe in cherry-picking type of religion, so since I reject some of its tenets, I don't see myself sincerely embracing the rest. I think it's a honest approach, rather than pretending some of the nasty stuff isn't there.

I like Jesus and the whole catholic drama-queenish love for pomp and circumstance, though.

Huh. I believe Kain said something along those lines and he put it pretty well: Catholics see church as a temple; Protestants (mostly, exception made for Episcopalians) see it as a country club.

I've always respected Cain more than Abel. At least he had his pride.

[Barrister]

What am I, a clown?

Nah, you know, you're just funny.

[DontSayBanana]

I've always respected Cain more than Abel. At least he had his pride.

Except the person in question is KainShinra from Kapland and Paradox. Great guy, but refusing to degrade himself isn't one of his more notable traits.