The amount of people identifying as atheists or agnostics has increased steadily in the United States in recent years. Along with those saying their religion “is nothing in particular”, they make up 23 percent of the U.S. population. Back in 2007, it was only 16 percent. Pew Research conducted a survey to find the reasons for disaffiliating among those who were raised in religious households. 49 percent turned their backs on religion due to a lack of belief while 20 percent disliked organized religion.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Most people who think they are Christians are not. They reveal their lack of Christian faith by doing things primarily for their appearance sake (e.g., driving Racists or Misogynists out of their workplaces or their communities, because being seen to do so is a Signal Of Moral Virtue!!)
I’m a well-informed agnostic, and even I know that living Christ’s teaching is about what’s inside, not what others see you doing. We are surrounded by people who are doing nothing but jockeying for position in their social hierarchy. It’s truly disgusting.
I lost my faith because the more I studied it, the more it looked like Christianity was a product of a human mind (the collective version.) I’ll aver that this would be the appearance if a superior being dumbed its presentation down to human level, but this is not the Occam’s Razor view. That said, I consider strident atheists to be fools. Arguing about religion is fruitless. Religion is just part of a larger constellation of behaviors that may make someone a better or worse fit for being my neighbor. If they proselytize endlessly, just like playing loud music late at night, it’s going to piss me off. Better they congregate together apart from where I congregate.
During this 50 year lurch into collective insanity, it was deemed a good idea to shuffle otherwise immiscible people together (geographically) like a deck of playing cards. Why this struck someone as wise I don’t know. Those people didn’t all ask to have culturally antagonistic people move in next to THEIR houses, now did they?
When the Phase Change occurs, all that will happen is that the Hearts, Diamonds, Spades and Clubs will discover they are face-to-face with foreign suits whose very proximity enrages them, and violence on a scale not seen in centuries will sort the deck into surviving members of each suit, geographically separated.
@dc: Religion in the US is a mile wide and an inch deep.
“I lost my faith because the more I studied it, the more it looked like Christianity was a product of a human mind (the collective version.)”
I never had any faith to lose but the older I get the more a realize how flawed religion is. I’ll concede that a god or gods may in fact exist but you won’t be brought closer to any god by organized control methods…….like religion.
The article here today about Soros paying leftists groups to manipulate the pope is a perfect example.
So often when we argue/debate/discuss complex topics, we stumble right out of the gate because we don’t define our terms well. Words are simply images in the mind, labels for things and concepts. I found so often that when having intellectual discussions, two people can be having different arguments because while they use the same words, they have different concepts in mind. Nowhere is this problem more prevalent than with the religious/atheist topic.
The HUGE problem I always come up against is that people tend to use religion, faith and God interchangeably, when they are vastly different concepts.
Religion is clearly a Human construct…none existed before mankind became sentient (No matter how it happened and arguing the logistics is just silly); whereas God would necessarily have to have existed before. Also, religion (as it is known) exists (os practiced) only here on this tiny blue dot. God, necessarily, would have to exist throughout a Cosmos that is vast beyond comprehension. Religion is groups of people getting together around an ideology….doing the things that groups of people always do. There is tremendous power in groups, but almost never any intelligence or morality.
God, as a concept, is the idea of Purpose to the formation of all that is. Without God, ALL events that have ever taken place anywhere in the Cosmos, MUST be EQUALLY random. This, as I’ve said many times is the REAL argument–not Creation vs. Evolution that is the silly logistics argument–but Purpose vs. Accident. In this aspect–we are ALL equally ignorant. From an epistemological standpoint we are all agnostic.
Faith, is separate from either. Faith is an individual trait. A person can have faith, or decide to not have faith, or have no idea what faith really means, or all three at once (our thoughts are complex and ephemeral, after all). People say that we have a “right” to faith, but you know the really cool thing? We don’t even need one: our thoughts are one thing truly inalienable–they can never be taken away or given away.
Everyone needs to be on the same page–on the same level of the discussion–or it just turns meaningless.
I was born an Atheist. I’m not an ‘angry atheist’. I like Christmas, Easter ham is good too. I don’t care if a minuscule portion of my tax dollars go to Christmas decorations, nor crosses, or “In God We Trust” on our currency.
To me it’s obvious: Religion fills a spot in some people’s mind, that makes them feel at ease, and relieves them of the burden of dealing with their fears.
Religion made sense 10,000 – 5,000 – 2,000 – 1,000 years ago. People didn’t know why ‘things happened’. Why someone died. Why there were plagues. Why there were natural events – like volcanoes, earth quakes, eclipses, etc. Religious beliefs explained all this, and they were satisfied.
Perhaps the worst is the personification of God. He lives in the sky, in a big chair, has a beard, wears a bathrobe. In reality the universe is 15 billion years old. Nothing but a vacuum, at 0 degrees Kelvin (-273 degrees C). Or perhaps God is outside our time and space (our Universe). But he’s out there, and he knows what you are doing and thinking. How absurd.
Fast forward to today, we know many of the answers as to ‘why’. What DOES religion have to offer in the 21st century? Nothing I know of except some archaic books, who’s authors are unknown, but are somehow supposed to be divine, or perhaps the gold plates – ala the Mormons. And then there’s the Joos – that have about 4 holy days a month – except when they have really holy-holy days – then it might be an entire holy week – another crock. I know the Long Island school district told the Joos they had so many fucking religious holidays, their kids were truant.
Look at the Catholic Church pedophile scandal – 100’s (maybe 1,000’s) of Priests (men of ‘God’) reaming little boys up the ass. This is a religion? God would allow this behavior in a wholesale way? The answer is: “Sure, God works in many mysterious and wonderful ways.” Another crock of shit excuse.
IMO, Religion is a passe, worn out construct.
Regarding the personification of God …..
….i prefer the Monty Python version …at least he had a self-effacing sense of humor …… and just got down to brass tacks !
To Bea Lever:
Awhile back you mentioned some real property you knew of potentially for sale, that I made note of on my prior Z10 and lost when it fried.
If you see this reply, would you be so kind to provide town and/or zip code again.
Thank you.
@ RCW:
I’m not Bea, but I’ve got a couple of properties for sale:
Two (02) 5-Acre properties in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma
One (01) 1.25-Acre properties in Apache County Arizona.
You can see them and find info at http://www.rurallandwatch.com
Tim Flood
Hi Tim: Thank you; OK is tempting as Dad moved to AR when he left MD, however KY and TN are in my sights, with FL in the background.
A friend told me of a 95 acre farm here in south central MO
Hi Tim:
Also I forgot to mention that KY is losing ground by the day and will very likely drop off the list altogether IF the seat-warmers in KY’s Dept. of Travel & Tourism can’t get their act together enough to forward the KY highway/road map (also showing towns & cities) I requested via voice message and online over a week ago. Fortunately finding a freer state than MD is right easy as MD is in the bottom five of the fifty states when freedom is THE issue. Also thank you kindly for the link; I reckon to make good use of it. 🙂
As if bringing my net worth with me isn’t enough for the KY bureaucrats to tax, I was also planning a trip to Knob Creek Range this October for their biannual machine gun shoot, during which I especially wanted to watch the night time pyrotechnic/machine gun show/shoot in person; both plans now look like they will be for naught so at least I can watch it on youtube. SMH
Thanks, RCW. We will be adding more and more properties to our inventory as time goes on. We’ll keep you posted.
Dutchman, I’m with you on your arguments against the current organized religions. But I am absolutely opposed to the religion of atheism for the same reasons. The current beliefs of atheism, the Religion of the Science of Stuff (stuff = our current universe), is just as narrow minded as the other organized religions and just as based on outmoded thinking. Despite plenty of scientific evidence atheists reject any theories that point to anything outside their current beliefs. Current theories in physics point to consciousness as not only being able to manipulate stuff, but necessary for stuff to exist, therefore there must have been consciousness before there was any stuff. What would you call this consciousness other than God?
I am a scientist – I hate the term.
Everything in this universe is ‘up for grabs’. I mean first Newton defined the universe. Then came Einstein – who proved that the speed of light was absolute – thus negating / but extending Newton’s theories.
When I say everything, even the atomic model of electrons / protons / neutrons could be replaced with a better theory. Same for quantum physics where quarks and string theory may be / has been thrown out the window.
Consciousness – probably the latest – feel good-ism. Let’s see – only a few have ever attained it – those who live on mountains, eat moss, write books, have Roll Royce’s. The biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard.
Now for the supreme BullShit: “Current theories in physics point to consciousness as not only being able to manipulate stuff, but necessary for stuff to exist, therefore there must have been consciousness before there was any stuff.”
Where can you demonstrate consciousness can manipulate ‘physical stuff’?
Your argument is soooo simplistic, a kin to: “if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there is there a sound?” Grade school philosophy.
You have heard of the double slit experiment? An observer (consciousness) looks at an electron one way it acts like a particle. The same observer looks at an electron another way it acts like a wave. Consciousness creates reality. That’s old news. Current theories and testing (e.g CERN) go way beyond that.
PS current theories are that space is mostly filled with dark matter, not a vacuum. You must be a really old “scientist”.
The dark matter – just another theory – a very weak theory. It’s a shame – but physics has hardly advanced since Einstein. This is why there is so little funding for physics.
Before Einstien, it was thought that light/electromagnetic waves were ‘propagated’ through an ‘ether’ – it sounded rational – sound is propagated through the atmosphere. Michaelson and Morely (my poor spelling) devised an experiment where they would measure the propagation of light. They found whether clockwise (to the earth) or counter clockwise the speed was the same. This gave some foundation to the belief that there was no other ether.
Dark matter is a rehash of the ‘ether’ – IMO. But since there has not been one experiment – simply the existence is ‘inferred’.
Annie: “Double Slit” – That was a porn movie – wasn’t it?
Einstein also predicted that “spooky action at a distance” of two intertwined particles, so doesn’t that trump the absolute speed of light?
Truth is, we actually know very little about how the universe really works. Personally my theory is for a multiplicity of universes vibrating at different frequencies just as if you tune a radio. This universe hit a speed bump on 9/11 (caused by whatever was unleashed to bring down the towers) and we’ve been on a slightly different track since then.
That’s how Donald Trump can be the GOP nominee for president.
Your slick, Dutch. Of course it will make a sound, it is only logical. The question was, does it make a noise? The point is that noise is a subjective conclusion.
I think this is a bad thing. What will fill the void left when Christianity is offloaded?
HATE. Hate of those not like us, those who would hurt us, those who lie / cheat / steal from us. I’m not in favor of hate, but it’s pretty much the default human mindset when stress overcomes maturity.
Perhaps why Jesus taught love thy neighbor; trying to reset the default human mindset before it caused species extinction back in B.C. days.
@james: “Perhaps why Jesus taught love thy neighbor”
I wonder if the Catholic Church extended that to “Love thy choir boy?”
@Glock-N-Load: “What will fill the void left when Christianity is offloaded?”
MTV
The Fool has said in his heart , there is no God.
They are corrupt.
They have done abominable works
There is none who does good.Psalm 14-1
Fool in the bible doesn’t mean stupid. It is God’s Judgment upon you for rejecting what you know to be true. Now look up corruption and abomination.
You are better off being an atheist .Atheist are just men who have pride the size of Mount Sinai .
Being an Agnostic is calling God a liar. Not good.God says over and over all you got to do is look at creation to know he is real.
bb, God talks to you personally? Or you going by that old book written by men and edited by men for their own purposes over the centuries?
bb *knows* as much about god or religion as he does about tying his shoes or wiping his ass. Someone, another human presumably, told him or showed him and that was the beginning and end of his understanding.
I don’t know jack shit about god except what millions of other mindless morans have told me. Being human, they are according to religion…….flawed, so how is anyone supposed to discern the truth about god as written, translated, preached or handed down countless times by imperfect men? Even religious scholars and theologians don’t agree that the bible is complete.
The Son of Sam – his dog spoke to him – telling the words of God – No shit – look it up!
fixed your sentence: theists are just men who have pride the size of Mount Sinai .
The demise of religion in this country is not an accident. When I say religion I mean Christianity. During the reformation of the 1500s in which the world at large gained access to the Word of God (aka The Bible) the Catholic church launched the counter reformation after creating The Society of Jesus (aka Jesuits). Their sole purpose was and is nothing less than world domination. In order to accomplish such a lofty goal it was necessary to destroy the hated new upstart protestantism.
The reformers, who now had access to the holy scriptures were able to decipher the book of revelation through the book of Daniel and identified the catholic church as the beast with the papacy as the antichrist. All the reformers universally agreed on this, though they disagreed on aspects of salvation.
Today we see that the counter reformation has succeeded and protestantism has been destroyed. None of today’s formerly protestant churches are protesting anything. They are crawling back to Rome begging for forgiveness.
The most powerful person on earth is not the POTUS or the Queen of England or even the Pope. It is the Jesuit general (aka the black Pope). For the first time in history the black pope is the same person as the white pope (Francis). If you really want to know what has happened to our world, this is where you should be looking.
The video clip below documents the above:
to all,
God visited me once and gave me a talking to.
He exists. Put it to God as a request, pray for a sign,
or a visit.
I want to attend a church but the “pastors” have nothing of value to say, in my humble opinion. Most read versus or scripts. Never
any true life advice or suggestions. That is about #503 exemptions, or tax free real estate I think. Then the church collects for special “projects” and carries those out for “the poor.”
Religion and churches. God is in your mind. He is the power of good. No matter how rotten the world is, there is always some
good that can be done. At the least, be polite and kind to those in your area. Good is as good does. This requires no religious
affiliations or affectations. Just be it. No labels for being.
Because they figured out organized religion is a business and a racket meant to part the sheep from their hard earned dollars. Just a guess.
You will know when the end of the world is truly here because the televangelists will say “Get yourself right with God, don’t send me any money, just pray like hell folks”.
I think people are just getting fed up with organized religion. Look at Pat Robertson buying diamond mines in Africa with his flocks tithes. Joel O’Steen and his motivational jibberish and money making books. Benny Hinn.Tammy Baker. The list goes on and on. Prosperity gospel which enriches the fraudster and profits from your labor.
Jesus never did anything like that. He never wrote a single word in the bible. He prayed alone in the wilderness.
Yes Annie , the Bible . I do mean the one inspired by the Holy Spirit Which Western Civilization was founded upon and his served The Anglo Saxons very well until recently.
Every mercy and grace you take for granted comes out of Christianity. Without the Christianity America will become like every other Godless war torn hell .
yup.
bb …. you are truly wise! I hope you count your blessings! What greater gift can any man boast than to know/acknowledge one’s Creator?
There appear to be a plerthora of opinions provided here. I wonder …. how many TBP’ers have spent time delving into the Word of God? Studying it? Forget the excuses of the politics of religion. The fact remains … God is not a liar. He states (I am paraphrasing) … ‘Seek me out. I will show you the Truth’. So why not accept God’s challenge. Read/study the Bible. Get to know it. All you TBPers …. you desire the truth, don’t you? Yet, I would wager few have done so. So if such is the case, how can anyone who has not done so render an informed opinion? There are some tremendous minds that correspond on this website. Yet, I would would surmise that many are scared of what will be reaped should they sow. Deny all you want. Google what Pascal had to say about believing in God. The fact remains, the day will come when every knee shall bend and every tongue confess. I would rather do it willingly now than ……
mutley said:
“how many TBP’ers have spent time delving into the Word of God?”
Precisely zero………… Where exactly is this word of god, written by god, edited, re-edited, copied, printed, translated BY god? The only thing we humans have is a book written by men, edited, re-edited, copied, printed, translated BY men. If you’ve got something written by god, I’d really like to see it.
Was the word, as put forth by Jim Jones, Jim Baker or Creflo Dollar the actual word of god? Which bible is the word of god? Old? New? King James? Perhaps the next version?
I guess old Stuck is among the zeroes. So much for your precision.
I-S, you forget, in your Alinsky zeal to make bb prove his Christian claims, that you also cannot prove your claim that there is no divine creator. Like everyone else, you shall have to wait until your dead to be able to say with any definite certitude that there is no spirit world or an afterlife.
Promise us though, that you will make every effort to disabuse us of religion if you happen to be right. I doubt it. HF has told you that life only comes from life, there is no exception.
The bible, written by men, perhaps but inspired by god, tells us that god is life. He is intelligence and consciousness.
I’ve heard from white folks, unimpeachable because – white, that your conscience is the word of god speaking to you. White folks – again – have said that sociopaths or psychopaths have no conscience. They hear nothing, the signal to noise ratio being quite low.
With ample proof of god around them, they keep looking to the stars for answers.
“If you’ve got something written by god, I’d really like to see it.” The ten commandments were written by the fingers of God, twice! He spoke the same words to the Israelites at Sinai before giving them to Moses. You still may be able to see copies of these on a few courthouses before they are replaced by statues of Satan.
You may think the Bible was simply written by men but the proof is in prophecy. Much of the Bible is prophecy and God has never failed to make good on His predictions as spoken through His prophets. There are over 300 prophecies relating to Jesus in the Old Testament. The probability of a person coming on the scene (at the precise time as prophesied by Daniel 9) and fulfilling all these prophecies are beyond measure.
The prophecies of Daniel 7 relating to the end times (our times) are mostly already fulfilled by Rome. See my earlier comments and video above.
I have read most of the christian bible. All of the new testament (some parts multiple times) and most of the old testament. I have to say I was not impressed. I see the words of many men but few (if any) words of god. There are some good stories and parables and if Jesus was a real person he was a pretty interesting guy. There is also a lot of boring stuff, especially in the old testament (this guy begat that guy who begat some other guy; this tribe/country went to war against that tribe/country and then some other tribe/country; etc.) but also some boring stuff in the new testament (especially letters between people tens or hundreds of years after the fact). Overall there are a lot of contradictions in stories that should be the same and a lot of conflicts in content and intent as far as I can tell.
I have also studied the history of the bible enough to know that religions and governments have had their hand in editing the content for nearly as long as this collection of texts has existed. Some parts (which were probably the most interesting ones from my perspective) were deleted and others heavily edited over the years. There have been many translations to/from different languages that have changed meanings, either intentionally or unintentionally.
One site that I found that has a facinating take on translations in the bible: http://thechronicleproject.org/index.html
This thread reminds me of Esqueleto in Nacho Libre. He believed in science 🙂 The claim that there is not God is as unscientifically sound as anything. How can anyone claim there is no such thing? It is improvable. The opposite is also, for the most part too. As long as we are willing to accept that everything we see is the product of unimaginable random coincidence. We’re barely beginning to scratch the surface of what the universe is, yet some claim we know all we need to know. I respect everyone’s right to believe anything that does not cause anyone else harm. However, intellectually I have more respect for the honesty of the agnostic, than that of the atheist who claims to know, not being able to present any evidence, not just cite lack of it, as proof. Some of them, by the way, are rabidly angry towards anything religious, claiming that it is the cause of all human malady. We should call Golman and offer to replace all those religious Christian (being that Christianity is the bashing religion of choice) fanatics they have for traders, in exchange for some atheist. Things would be much better.
Finally, just a brief last comment, if Americans know as much about religion in general as they know about politics or financials, then no explanations are needed about their beliefs. But hey, maybe all they need is “change they can believe in”. LOL!
I firmly believe in the Creator.
Religion on the other hand is rife with hypocrisy and socio-political intrigues, so I avoid it. Maybe a lot of people feel the same way and that’s what they’ve rejected.
Doesn’t mean you’ve turned your back on God.
BB is addressing the many professed agnostics and atheists on this site.
He’d have better luck arguing with a drunk.
Their arguments are hollow.
And pitiable.
Well said HF, my sentiments exactly.
I’m with George Carlin…”but he loves you…and he needs money”.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” – G.K. Chesteron
I turn my back on religion because there is nothing in it that prepares people for the world we live in today. A world where psychopaths like the Clintons are shoehorned into power by a corrupt and bought off media. A world where millions of people are thrown in prison for smoking a leaf, whilst simultaneously millions of people are literally killed off by a trillion dollar industry that drugs people for profit with useless drugs like statins. I could list this crap all day long. Religion doesnt help with any of it. These people go to church on sunday and sing their crap songs about useless crap and listen to the crap spewed by worthless pieces of crap, and absolutely none of it will stop any of them from voting for more and more of this crap. So screw them. Screw any group of people who get together to talk about meaningless crap whenthe world is burning down all around them. If this is your leisure time, then fine do what you will with it. But do NOT pretend like you are answering some sort of spiritual higher calling, because you most certainly are not.
On topic article “Witchcraft, Islam And Humanism Are Filling The Spiritual Void Left By The Dying Church”
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/witchcraft-islam-and-humanism-are-filling-the-spiritual-void-left-by-the-dying-church
Right here on TBP
I have read the earth chronicles (seven books) by this man and believe this is the closest we will come to know how humans came to exist. It is backed up in the old testament (explains Adam (Adamu), the flood of Noah’s time, all recorded in clay tablets of Sumer. There are listed all the gods and kings through the time of the Pharos. I have found no historical evidence of events of the new testament when it was the most recorded time in Roman history. Here is what wiki says about him:
Zecharia Sitchin was a Russian-born American author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributed the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he stated was a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He believed this hypothetical planet of Nibiru to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth’s own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects this. Sitchin’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages.
Look up his website. Though he died in 2010 his Niece, Janet Sitchin carries on his work.