The coming evangelical collapse

reply to post by finishr1


I don't believe in the God expressed in the bible but many of the points raised in that link ignore several things that conflict with their views. For example their proof that near death experiences are not real is a very one sided view of the subject. There are plenty of NDEs that are unexplainable through the explanation they give, many who write books on this issue or who are atheist try to ignore this and simply blame it on chemicals.

reply to post by space cadet


Yes indeed, sc. The word translated as 'church' in the NT is Ecclesia, meaning 'a called out assembly'. You're either called or you're not, playing church makes you a Christian like going to Pizza Hut makes you a pizza. The days of the feel good, prosperity preaching ear itchers is nearing an end. When it costs you more than a tithe to be a Christian, we'll begin finding out who the real Christians are.

reply to post by Salt of the Earth


Outstanding points SotE, I agree with every one of them, only please differentiate between Judaism and Zionism. There are a great number of observant Jews who do not subscribe to the political movement of Zionism, and who properly recognize the Tenach as the word of God, and the Talmud as a commentary on it by men.

Of course Christianity began to be hijacked from the very beginning with Ananias and Sapphira
so it shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone. The path has always been narrow and those who find it few.

Prosperity always makes people proud and easily lead away from God, so I see the coming economic correction as a blessing in disguise. The destroyers have done their job and worked their evil, now it's God's time to turn it into a blessing for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

Originally posted by converge
Murder is against the law not because it's a religious moral, but because murder is morally wrong, period. Atheists don't murder more people than religious people.

Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot would beg to differ.

edit schmedit

[edit on 28-3-2009 by resistor]

This has to be the dumbest article I have ever heard. This his no legs to stand on.

reply to post by grover


Awww.... poor little talivangelicals.... just think, no more Robertsons or Falwells - what will become of America?

No more religious fanatics with excessive influence over the government... this might actually feel like a sane place to live again.

If I, a Moderate, might posit a philosophical maxim, it would be this:

Ideology is the curse of all sentient beings.

Dogma is nothing more than solidified Ideology.

Thus, all dogmas, whether religious, politcal, or philosophical are hardened, untested, concepts rarely or never tested against Reality.

What's wrong with using Reality and 'constantly tested' hypotheses about Reality as a guideline? Yes, it's harder to chew than the pablum the Fundamentalists toss out, but a lot more filling.

The collapse of Christianity is as inevitable as the collapse of the old relligions whose symbols were the Bull - Taurus, and the Ram- Aries. These were the ages whe the Sun was in those signs.
They both gave way for the sign of the Fish - Pices. Jesus, as the Lamb/Ram of God was sacrificed to make way for the Fish of which Jesus became the "fisher of men>"
Now his time is up and the Sun is moving into the sign of Acquarius, the water bearer.

EXpect changes. Christians would make it easier on themselves if they would just go with the flow.

I can't say this would be a bad thing - fundamentalist Christian lobbies have done more to harm freedom than encourage it and the evangelical movement bears many similarities with Scientology in terms of demanding money from it's followers, secrecy, bizarre personal attacks and smear campaigns etc

This article is from a very American perspective - over here in Europe we've been post-Christianity for a very long time. It's harsh to say but a lot of people i speak to view America as a kind of medieval-thinking, god-fearing, somewhat intellectually retarded country - 'intellectually retarded' in the sense that most of your media is run by right wing lobbys; you can't run for office unless you're vocally Christian etc.

[edit on 28-3-2009 by died4government]

As a former member in the seventies of a large, charismatic church, I can state with confidence that when the Religious Right served as facile tools for Karl Rove and George Bush, the Rapture Right wrote their own obituary.

In other words, it is ludicrous that the Bride of Christ would vote in droves for torture, invasions, and heavy favoring of corporatists and the ultra-rich. By doing so, they have fallen into a sad deception, which may be what we used to term The Great Deception. If it isn't The Great Deception, then it's a precursor of it.

Frankly, I'm angry at these folks. They gave us Bush, and Bush gave us two wars and this dark economic crisis. Thanks Christians. Next time you get political, think first please!

I cannot say that the death of evangelism is a bad thing. To me, it represents something that will make Christians and non-Christians cringe in its deliberately ham handed delivery, unabashed combination of salesmanship and faith, and its followers tendency to shoehorn their faith into any facet they can manage. I'll miss evangelicals as much I'll miss Zionists and the fanatical branches of Islam, because all of them have taken their religion to a dubious extreme.

Originally posted by died4government

This article is from a very American perspective - over here in Europe we've been post-Christianity for a very long time. It's harsh to say but a lot of people i speak to view America as a kind of medieval-thinking, god-fearing, somewhat intellectually retarded country - 'intellectually retarded' in the sense that most of your media is run by right wing lobbys; you can't run for office unless you're vocally Christian etc.

Actually the media here is run by the same people who run your media over there -- the off-shore banksters whose central headquarters are in London, England, and who own and run the Federal Reserve and all the other banks of the world.

These same people also run the media. They control everything that happens worldwide, start all the wars, finance both sides, and create all the "crises" that happen so they can have an excuse to put their solutions in place, the Final Solution (as Hitler used to say) to be the New World Order (or Zionist Fourth Reich) and the killing off of at least 75 percent of the world's population.

People are still confusing "Evangelical" and "Fundamentalist"

They are two different things.

Some Evangelical Christians are fundamentalists aligned with the Religious Right. Most are not.

As I pointed out before, President Obama is an Evangelical.

And he's hardly a poster boy for the Religious Right...

Christianity will never die. Developing a relationship with Jesus Christ as not only your Lord and Saviour, but your loving, caring friend will ensure that you can endure any "collapse" whether financial, natural disaster or post-apocalypticia. Get to know him and you won't end up as a religious person with nothing left to stand on when super-saturated consumerism delivers it's final crushing blow to America.

reply to post by grover


Consider history. What happened with the decline in Christianity in 1917 in Russia? What happened with the decline in Christianity in 1933 in Germany?

reply to post by grover


It is going to happen because Jesus Christ was not about that.

He is about Love and Forgiveness.

As usual, mankind has got it wrong - all churches have missed the point.

reply to post by CharlesMartel


What happened in cultures where it wasn't present until introduced by Europeans?

reply to post by TheDustman


Exactly.

Nothing more to say.

So anyways people might be better off being more spiritually than being the typical judgmental fundamentalist biblical christian.

KEEP THE FAITH! ORGANIZED RELIGION IS A SCAM!

TRUE SPIRITUALITY COMES FROM WITHIN!

CSM stand in line.
Peoples all over the world have been predicting the *End of Christianity* since the moment of Christ death and ascension.

Christianity will never die.

*Nothing to see here - move on folks*...



peace

Hi Grover,
Interesting OP an link.
This is not the only time schools of thought have predicted an end to aspect of religious movenments or groups. Many Scholars thought that Seularism was the deathnell of christianity and The Church as the state removed this influence from its structures and mechanisms in a form of exorcisms from public life. Many 20th century Scholars expressed that they though Christianity was dead and Many Atheist thought, that as a progression, faith would eventually give way to the rationality, critical thinking and reliance of science. They were all wrong.

Many Scholars now acknowledge we are in a post Secular age were religion is even more influential and robust, locally, nationally and Globally. We can see this by lookng at India, Isreal, The US post 9/11, in election of 2004 and 2008 were faith was a huge issue. The Muslim world, especially throughout the third world. Religion and faith seems even more central to individuals daily life then ever before.
We can also track the oppsite, the reaction of the Atheistic response in the emergence of outspoken figure heads like Dawkins and Hitchen(for example) as a hallmark of the growing prevelance of religion again etc. and the Atheistic realm not willing to sit idle as religion regains it relevance many thought was bound to fade.

I think what will really collapse is our western materialist paradigm. We are watching the process of this now as our system continues to fail and people realise that we need a new way of living, this will also fuel the anti-west sentiment and with it the wests secular nature. In the wake of this I believe the religions and churches will infact flourish and prosper.


Nice thead S&F.

My friends and I toasted to this most auspicious news.

HUZZAH!

Bring on the feast. Bring on the secular.

[edit on 29-3-2009 by Welfhard]