Why Christianity is dying in the U.S.

[MadeManG74]

Looking at Barry's gamertag, it seems he's been playing VF5: Final Showdown. Surely that game's existence is proof that there is a good and loving God?

[Barry the Nomad]

AM2 are gods, not God.

[pcm92]

So Barry, you're a person who hates Christians. Yeah. We kind of knew that already by your previous posts. That doesn't mean you have to force your beliefs on us. I was just trying to say that those are the things that most atheists live by. I don't even see how you can stand losing a loved one, if you think they will just go away forever. It must be really sad being an atheist. You know what it is? It's just that you are too lazy to live by rules. Instead, you make your own. Which is fine with me. Your beliefs do not effect my life very much. I respect that you do not believe in God. Why can you not respect Christianity, instead of calling it "dumb" or "b.s."?

[crackdude]

Barry, don't call things dumb. pcm, stop assuming things.

Let's just get along and agree that AM2 is heavenly.

[Barry the Nomad]

You're hilarious, you know that? For starters, I don't hate Christians. I have friends who are Christians. They're nice people, just as nice as any other people I know who prescribe to other beliefs or choose to not follow any religious code.

Have I forced my beliefs on you? From what I see, I've defended my right to not live under any religion. You have these ridiculous, and frankly outdated ideas of homosexuality (kill them!) and atheism (your little list of things you claim atheists "live by", which by the way are not what they live by at all as I laid out on the previous page).

Want to know how I can't stand losing a loved one? I loved them, I'll never see them again. They're gone. It's really fucking sad. What, do you think I whistle and say "ho hum! guess they're gone for good!". No. I remember the good times and feel deep sadness, but I also accept the reality of it all and treasure the time I had with them. So don't even dare insinuate that I, or any atheist for that matter, do not miss those who have died.

Too lazy? From what you've laid out it seems to be more complicated being an atheist. You can't simply fall back on the reassuring words of god. You have to both accept the harsh realities and life and see the natural beauty in all of live's experiences and enjoy the short life that you have to the fullest. Doesn't sound lazy to me.

What I'm seeing here is a constant need from you to have my respect for Christianity, yet when it comes to my beliefs (which, by the way, I have never said I am an outright atheist, so thanks for labeling the guy who sees evolution as a truth as the big bad atheist) you are finding it very easy to pity me for living what you seem to deem a sad, lazy, loveless existence.

---

Barry, don't call things dumb. pcm, stop assuming things.

Let's just get along and agree that AM2 is heavenly.

I never called anything "dumb". Do a word search throughout the topic. It was actually George who said it, and even then he was right in doing so:

He also isn't calling your religion dumb, he is calling 'wanting to kill homosexuals' dumb, which lets be honest... it its ignorant.

Wanting to kill homosexuals is very, very dumb.

---

Having said all that, we're going to go in circles here so let's go back to your initial post and keep things simple:

"Why do you think it is dying? Does it stand a chance of coming back?"

I don't think it is dying, I think it is changing. As such, it doesn't need a chance of coming back because it never left.

[Nameless 24]

So Barry, you're a person who hates Christians. Yeah. We kind of knew that already by your previous posts.

I personally saw it as he's making non-serious posts since religion creates some really hostile posts.

I respect all religions but I also don't like the things they consider bad, such as homosexuality.

In threads like this, I don't really talk about my beliefs much since you end up seeing even forum friends as preachers, and I don't believe anyone here wants to do that and come across in a bad way for what they believe in...but it does happen sadly.

[nuckles87]

I believe that humans could be primates. That does not mean we evolved though. Sharks are fish. Anchovies are fish. That does not mean that sharks came from anchovies. What the evolutionary belief is...

1. No God.
2. No meaning of life.
3. Just dead after death. No afterlife.
4. No goals.
5. No purpose.
6. No free will.
7. No foundation for ethics or morals.
8. No happiness.

Yeah. Sure. Great belief you atheists have. Every unique effect had to have an adequate cause. That is the law of cause and effect. An explosion/big bang would have to come from somewhere. It didn't just appear out of nowhere.

Dude....I came here to write up a Tuesday Tunes, and yet these sorts of posts keep distracting me.

NO ONE EVER SAID SHARKS EVOLVED FROM ANCHOVIES. NO ONE. FIND ME A SINGLE ARTICLE THAT EVEN IMPLIES THAT THAT IS HOW EVOLUTION WORKS.

I am not a scientist. I have no interest in becoming one. But even I can understand how evolution works! The idea isn't that one modern day creature somehow evolved from other. The idea is that we had creatures that lived long ago that, over millions of years, developed beneficial mutations that proved beneficial and resulted in this one, single species evolving into multiple kinds of species, each with their own mutations and adaptations.

You want proof? Take a look at your own body, which is littered with leftover from are more primal selves. That hair your body is covered in? It does not have any actual purpose. It's "vestigial" (a useless remnant that no longer serves any function). It still shares functions with other, furrier animals: when we are frightened or cold, it pokes up (goosebumps). In other, furrier animals, this would serve to both help trap in heat in a cold environment and make the animal look bigger when threatened. But in us it's just a useless reaction. You also have a tailbone, a remnant from our more monkey-like ancestors that, again, serves no purpose.

Then, there are the wisdom teeth, which you may or may not have. These teeth are leftovers from are larger jawed, herbivorous ancestors. In us, wisdom teeth are useless, and often even need to be removed due to the pain they can cause.

And no, evolutionary belief is NONE of those things. Even Vatican scientists believe in Evolution. Are you telling me the Vatican doesn't have God  or an afterlife?

Addressing your list directly...

1. I don't need God. Why do I need God? I've lived my entire life without belief in God.

2. Life doesn't need any greater meaning. Life is what you make of it. Do I really need to devote a substantial part of my life to a deity I never see or hear from? No. I'd rather devote my life to learning about the world around me and me and finding my place in it.

3. I don't need an afterlife. I'm content with what I have, and knowing that whatever I was before my life is simply what I'll go back too. Nothingness is certainly preferable to being damned to eternal torture because I was not born into the right belief system (which I'll probably be getting into more in a minute).

4. I am currently in college studying for a University major, and I am also working on a comic book that I intend to use to eventually jumpstart a little publishing company with a focus on bringing inexperienced creators together and getting their stuff out their, provided the actual comic I am working on is any good. It took me a little while to decide on these goals (I only decided to go for a journalism major about a year ago after three years in school) but that has little to do with my disbelief in Monotheistic God: I am just indecisive.

6. So, because I question the world around me and refuse to belief in any dogmatic system without a shred of real hard evidence, I have no free will? O....kay? I am not sure you are putting much thought into this, and I am beginning to think you are just blindly parroting what other people tell you to parrot. Which, if I have the correct definition of the word, would be considered ironic. I think after I finish posting this I am going to play some Pikmin, work on my comic book, then post a Tuesday Tunes. Not because I want to...but because a mysterious atheistic force COMPELS me to. :|

7. And this is the part where things just get kind of insulting. But then again, I'm not really holding myself back anymore so I probably am not one to talk. ANYWAY, this is suggesting that I have no morals....which I'd have to disagree with. I don't like hurting creatures and I often try to go out of my way not to do so. I can't even bare to kill cockroaches myself simply because I tend to empathize with anything that MIGHT feel pain, let alone let anyone else around me kill something. I've helped friends out with expenses, given them gifts, helped them do things. I WANT to be a good person, and it has nothing to do with a belief in god or a fear that I will be sent to hell otherwise.

8. Happiness is not in religion. It's a state of mind. I can get down on myself sometimes, but it isn't because I don't think there is a God out there who loves me. It is over my own personal failings, failings I try to correct. I am quite happy right now. My comic is making some progress, I have an awesome room mate moving in soon, I am finally making progress on my major, and I am done with this post. I don't need god for any of that.

[max_cady]

And because I am so tired of this argument: Misconcepts about Christians

[nuckles87]

And because I am so tired of this argument: Misconcepts about Christians

Yep, pretty much. Christians are regular people.

[Emmett The Crab]

Except people who think evolution is an animal changing into another animal, and that homosexuals should be killed make them all look stupid and bigoted.

[George]

I never understood the thinking behind 'what caused the big bang, huh, ya athiest swine, answer me that!', but what came before God? How was God created? Where did he come from? Where did his powers come from? Did he just 'transform'?

See, we don't have answers to everything in life and that's fine. We will probably never know (in our life times) what caused the big bang. We just have to get used to not knowing all the answers.

I'm surprised people on here don't think we evolved over time, I mean, how can you deny that? With all the evidence (some say here lack there of), but there have been more than 6,000 individual fossils that support the claim.

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils

There is obviously more proof that evolution exist than there is of Jesus actually existing and he 'walked the earth only 2,000 years ago. Imagine trying to dig up stuff from millions of years?

[MadeManG74]

I never understood the thinking behind 'what caused the big bang, huh, ya athiest swine, answer me that!', but what came before God? How was God created? Where did he come from? Where did his powers come from? Did he just 'transform'?

I think it's because people use Big Bang Theory as a hand wave to deny the existence of God, but the two could actually be compatible theories, because where did all that matter come from?

Big Bang Theory is also the worst television show ever. That, or Two Broke Girls, but at least I can ogle Kat Dennings on that show...

[Emmett The Crab]

They are all theories. 

[max_cady]

Ah, yes... Primum movens aka The First Cause.

It's the toughest philosophical question of them eall.

[Barry the Nomad]

While I don't identify as atheist, I do think this is a very important read for those who assume the many things that pcm does of atheists: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/how-do-atheist-find-meaning-in-life/2012/01/18/gIQAbiFP8P_blog.html

It takes a bit of an defensive stance, but I don't think it's unjustified given the comment they're replying to.

The correspondent was blunt: “Why don’t you atheists just go out and kill yourselves right now?”
True, most Christians phrase it rather more delicately, but atheists are regularly informed by a certain kind of believer that our lives can have no value if we do not believe in their God. What is the point, they ask, of being kind or loving, caring about suffering or doing anything at all, if one day we just die?
It is true that in the absence of a divine plan our lives have no externally determined purpose: an individual is not born for the purpose of becoming a physician or creating a spectacular work of art or digging a well in an arid corner of Africa. But are the sick less cured, the pleasure to the art-lover less intense, or the thirst of parched villagers less slaked, simply because a man sought his own purpose rather than following a diktat from on high? Do we really need a deity to tell us that a life spent curing cancer is more worthwhile than one spent drinking in the gutter?

Why should we not find satisfaction in alleviating suffering or injustice, just because we’re all going to die one day? The very fact that this life is all we have makes it even more important to do everything possible to reduce the suffering caused by poverty, disease, injustice and ignorance. To describe such attempts as meaningless is to say that avoidable suffering does not matter, hardly a moral stance.

Many Christians claim we have no reason to care about others if there is no God. But this is itself a religious claim, arising from the theological concept of Original Sin, which declares humankind fallen and corrupt. We can safely ignore it, for in reality we do not need childish stories of eternal reward or damnation to coerce us into being good: research shows that the least religious societies have the lowest incidence of social ills, including crime and violence. Healthy humans have empathy built in, and the explanations for this lie in psychology and evolutionary biology: no gods required.

Life cannot be meaningless so long as we have the capacity to affect the well-being of ourselves and others. For true meaninglessness, we would need heaven. In the state of permanent, perfect bliss that is the very definition of heaven, ‘making a difference’ is ruled out. If the difference made an improvement, the previous state could not have been perfect. If it made things worse, the result would not be perfect. In heaven, neither is possible. Even being reunited with loved ones could not add one jot to their bliss or yours, for heaven would be, by definition, a state that could not be improved on.

Just consider for a moment the hellish pointlessness of heaven. At least in our real existence our actions have an effect, for better or worse, and it is therefore worth trying to get them right. In an eternal life where we can have no effect whatsoever, we might as well be dead.

If you have ever claimed that your life would have no meaning if it weren’t for your faith in God, do you really believe your family and friends have no worth in their own right? Can you really not see the point in striving to protect and nurture your children, even if there is no eternal life? Really?

If you do, then it is you, not atheists, who debase humanity, and it is Christianity, not atheism, that diminishes the real value and meaning of life. We atheists find purpose in the world as it is, and in our real lives; we see living beings as valuable in their own right, deserving of our concern and compassion simply because they share our capacity for pain and pleasure. It is hard to imagine a position less moral, less conducive to empathy, than this inherently warped and uncharitable view of humanity proposed by Christianity.

This is a perverse view of reality. After all, if the only valuable thing about existence is that God gave it to us, then that must mean the gift is not worth having in its own right. God’s creation would be the equivalent of a shapeless, baggy sweater of dubious color that you would never willingly wear but which you nevertheless can’t bring yourself to throw away because it was a gift from Granny. This approach in effect says you’re grateful for God’s gift, but you don’t actually like it very much; that, were it not for your belief that there’ll be an eternity in heaven to compensate you for having had to endure it, you can see no reason why you’d ever want it.

Theistic religion reduces life to something that has no value other than as the creation of an imagined deity. It decrees that purpose and meaning can only be found in being that deity’s puppet, having no purpose but its purpose and no value other than as its handiwork. Theistic religion looks on all that is best and most noble in human impulse and endeavour and dismisses it as meaningless and worthless --or worse: corrupt --unless done in the name of God. It is time to abandon this baseless worldview. It is time to reject theistic religion and start viewing ourselves and others with real dignity, as beings with value in our own right and not just as the distorted shadows of a fictional creator.