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USA: Becoming More or Less Religious?

I thought the primary reason Atheism wasn't a religion is that they don't belive in God!


I'm sorry, I don't buy the idea of beliving in God and Christ as being spiritualism, rather than religion.

God, maybe, if you define it as being a spirit.

But once you start following the teachings of a 2000 year old rabbi, it's religion.



re·li·gion (r-ljn)
n.

1.
1. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
2. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
 
Re: Re: USA: Becoming More or Less Religious?

toddjh said:


Yes.
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Yes the USA is getting less religious?

or..

Yes the USA is getting more religious?
 
The polls seem to show that people believe now as much as they ever did in this country. Yet church attendance is dropping. Maybe people are just getting lazier? They still believe, but just don't bother to worship. People don't seem to take the moral strictures of the Christian churches as seriously either, even if they claim to adhere to one of those faiths.
 
Re: Re: Re: USA: Becoming More or Less Religious?

Tony said:
Yes the USA is getting less religious?
or..
Yes the USA is getting more religious?
Click to expand...

Yes, the USA is getting both more and less religious in different contexts.

If you're concerned with fundamentalists and other religious extremists, it's becoming more religious. If you're talking about the average salad bar Christian, it's becoming less religious.

Jeremy
 
Renfield said:
The polls seem to show that people believe now as much as they ever did in this country. Yet church attendance is dropping. Maybe people are just getting lazier? They still believe, but just don't bother to worship. People don't seem to take the moral strictures of the Christian churches as seriously either, even if they claim to adhere to one of those faiths.
Click to expand...

I think this has less to do with religion than with social groups. A lot of people are "Christian" because the segment of society they live in believes that being "Christian" is what "good people" are.

My parents are like this. They go to church, they sing the hymns, they say the prayers, and they don't believe in God any more than I do. It's a club. The Christian Club.

Jeremy
 
It seems to me, and this is merely a personal observation by someone who is forced to live in the central command of the American Taliban, that it's not so much that the country is becomming more or less religious, it's just that the extremes are getting more extreme. Those who are of the religious extreme are now tryig to rewrite laws and history in their favour and those who are extrememly non-religious are taking the fight right back to them.
 
Somewhere in this sports dominated win/lose culture, the idea of religion ONLY being exhibited by dogmatic and unchanging belief; and rooting that belief in "Christianity," which is one of the most redacted religions on the planet, I feel we have been moved away from humane, human, civil and logical ways to respect each other in the arenas of ideas and discourse.

Ergo: where is the concept of "loyal opposition" to be found in American politics, or even more laughably, in American religion?

For loyal opposition as a concept to work, there must be a goal (preferably of HOW we maintain freedom) not just an economic solution to human and political problems. Much more needs to be considered. Our news problem de jour heralded in the media may have absolutely nothing to do with real issues confronting us as a nation. It miught stir the hornet's nest of opinion until the next superbowl, Michael Jackson story -- or bare piece of human anatomy being seen by anyone who may someday go to church or grow up ignorant of the differencve between the sexes -- gets in the way.

By working with, considering and testing opposition views and ideas, even to the point to true compromise (not surrender) or proof of efficacy of their ideas as solutions, or even as as tentative solutions we can work together, without oppression, until something better (even different) can be worked out.

The Missouri compromise was shameful. It took blood and apocalyptic defeat of a whole part of the nation to start the change toward civil rights. It took Woodrow Wilson about 45 days as president to stop that change from continuing until the 1960's. Then the revolutionaries like Dr. King, Malcolm X and even Jesse Jackson had had enough. Even then, through the Jim Crowe years, it was the black man's LOYAL opposition that kept the wheels of civil rights moving, albeit slowly.

The right of privacy many claim exists today does not exist in the US constitution per se. The balance between government intrusion into privacy, commercial invasion of privacy and a demand of privacy by individuals, beyond mere control of property, is a modern practice.

Consider this: if, a gay couple was to show up in court and claim to be a "man and woman" for a marriage license, does the court have a right to demand a confirmation of sexual nature??? Or does the right of privacy prevail? Or does this act of proposed civil disobedience constitute criminal perjury, offering the government the right to pull the applicants pants down????

(I hope Hal has a comment on this.)
 
Silicon said:


I don't understand how a non-religious person can be Christian.

I also don't understand how a Christian can be non-religious.

Isn't Christianity a religion?
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We're dealing with an objective poll. For a good 6 or 7 years of my life, I told anyone who asked (including a poll once) that I was "Lutheran", even though I wasn't going to church or even thinking or caring about the whole Jesus-God thing, simply because I used to be, but hadn't fully and completely decided I wanted to change yet. It was a mechanical response.
 
How do you define religious? Or, how did the compilers of the statistics you cite define it? Is it a certain frequency of church attendance? Is it a belief in god and/or life after death? Is it following a certain code of ethics as espoused by a religious sect? Is it being on the membership roll of some congregation? I think people are pretty much as always regarding how they conduct their lives vis a vis following the precepts of the church. I would think that most people in America would call themselves christian if only because they haven't been introduced to any of the other religions.
 
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