29% of Americans say religion 'out of date'

reply to post by iamcamouflage


God has written a description of Himself in the Created Universe (science).
God has written a description of Himself inside the Created Human (conscience).

Either way every being on earth "knows" there is God, and to deny this is to be blinded and deafened by the enemy of GOD, The evil spirit Satan.

reply to post by kozmo


uh, are you talking about the same god that SACRIFICED HIS OWN SON FOR SH!TS AND GIGGLES?

he's GOD. he could do ANYTHING and he knows EVERYTHING.
why would he kill his own son to prove a point that he can fix easily himself?

Originally posted by fmcanarney
You posters against religion and Chistianity in specific are some of the most rude, angry, judgemental and opinionated people on this boar.

The narcissism eeks from your pores.

Did you know that GOD loves you?
Each person is has sinned and errored in the eyes of GOD.
GOD desires that you surrender your will unto HIS will.
The evil spirit Satan is blinding your mind to the fact of the existence of GOD.

There are a lot of good human beings who will be going to Heaven after this life.

ELF=Everyone Lives Forever.
Where is up to you.

I may be narcissiticicicicical....

But believing that you're some majestic being beyond mortality, and above everything, is pretentious (my word of the month )

God desires that I surrender my life? Why? So that I don't endure fire and brimstone for eternity? WTF? This is Cult speak.

Satan is blinding my eyes? Hmmm Hmmm... So anything that doesn't agree is satan... well now that I have a divine being overpowering me, we are both equals!

Except... more people were killed by God in the bible by a ton then satan ever did...

Copernicus.

I won't for one second accept that by me being born, made me the bottom of the pit and that my life is completely void, and shat on because some fictional character, an unagreeable time ago...... ate an apple.

God loves me, allah loves me, krishna loves me, zeus... well he's high maintenance...

Ya... christianity is a cult in my eyes... look you were born... ergo your a worthless piece of **** that deserves to burn forever.... but if you do everything I say... you'll redeem yourself for being alive, and you'll go to heaven, and be my slave for the rest of eternity... forever.

Breaking down someones spirit (spirit as in conscious) then building it up with false hopes. Brainwashing.

And by the way, the most rude people on here. Is you!!!! Just kidding



[edit on 27-12-2009 by Republican08]

Originally posted by fmcanarney
Did you know that GOD loves you?

I do, sure.

Each person is has sinned and errored in the eyes of GOD.

Now that, I don't buy for a second. I don't really need to hear the Adam and Eve or Jesus mythology crap, either. THIS is the "control" aspect that you are buying into.

ELF=Everyone Lives Forever.
Where is up to you.

I agree entirely, and we are limited by our own beliefs. Near-death experiences confirm this. If you worried about going to hell when you're dis-embodied, you'll create it for yourself like a horrible nightmare. You think you're going to heaven, well, there are a million different versions of heaven that people experience, loving light, meeting deceased relatives, gardens. And then there are the people who are not Christian at all. They meet Buddha, or even just float around and observe their own physical body. People have experienced all kinds of crazy stuff at death.

In fact thousands of people dis-embody before death on a regular basis, and it's known as "out of body experiences."


But all of that stuff used to come only with the inner teachings of religions, which are no longer taught in churches. Ancient religions were what is known as "mystery schools" and you had to be initiated to get the real meaning of stuff. The truth will set you free, and all of that. You will know the truth in the stillness of your heart when you hear it.


Satan, the boogey man, hell, all that stuff is mythology invented by the church to scare you and make you go to church and more importantly pay them money and confess to them all your dirty secrets (if you're Catholic anyway, but hell, even protestants love preaching about hellfire and damnation ). A truly loving God would never send you to hell for all eternity and make you suffer for all eternity against your own will when he also supposedly has power over Satan to change things. That is something I've known in my heart ever since I was a little kid and first heard of "hell." In fact it is the very thing that made me renounce all organized religion as a form of mind control in the first place. If my own heart and incomprehension of such cruelty from a supposedly loving God is my ticket to eternal damnation, then so be it my friend, I would spit in the face of such an arrogant and spiteful image of "God" anyway. If anyone is worshiping or fooled by Satan, it's you.

[edit on 27-12-2009 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by ohsnaptruth
ONLY 29%? i thought we debunked christianity already. i guess we'll never really evolve. why can't we be buddhist like the japanese?

Even in Japan there are people who have turned Buddhism into a religion and worship Buddha as if he's a God instead of a spiritual teacher.

Some people just don't have enough will to take responsibility for their own spiritual advancement here I guess. Simply believing in something has replaced true seeking of understand and knowledge for them.

The problem with this is that it is a poll.
Which leaves it suspect to begin with.

If your choices are: christian, muslim or other as they said, there isn't wiggle room.

If someone believed in God, but not much else, they most likely would choose Christian.

If they did not belive in attending church, they would still have to choose Christian or Muslim.

If they went to church but had major issues with the doctrines,that is not covered either.

reply to post by AlreadyGone


You can still do all those things without religion.

Maybe I am missing something here, but for everyone celebrating the downfall of religion in the US...ummm....there ARE religions other than Christianity. What percent of the population would you say is Islamic? Jewish? Buddhist? Etc? I'd guess there at least another 10% that are religious but not Christian...meaning that more like 85-90% of the country is religious in some form. So...what are you celebrating, again?

Interesting how the 10-15% who are atheist are running everything in this country right now...and interesting how they seem to think they can push their viewpoints on everyone else. That is a very bad idea. Religion-based warfare and uprisings have a strong history of being very bloody and unforgiving. Perhaps if these champions of "tolerance" learned to understand and tolerate the vast majority that is very different from them, this country could make some real progress towards freedom and prosperity for everyone.

Originally posted by saturnine_sweet
Interesting how the 10-15% who are atheist are running everything in this country right now...and interesting how they seem to think they can push their viewpoints on everyone else. That is a very bad idea.

Maybe I missed a post but I haven't seen anyone pushing atheism here..

Just because someone is not Christian, and seems to resent Christianity as a religion, does not mean they're atheist.

The only thing that bothers me about Christianity is exactly what you accuse atheists of doing -- pushing their beliefs on others. There is even a Christian word for this and it is called "evangelizing." As a Christian (I assume?) it probably escapes your notice, but many of your brothers and sisters are very much nuisances to people who are of other faiths or not religious at all. I speak from personal experience. They feel as though it is their duty to save people from going to hell.

Originally posted by RedGolem

29% of Americans say religion 'out of date'

rawstory.com

A Gallup poll of Americans' attitudes towards religion released on Christmas Eve found significant recent increases in those responding either that they have no religious preference, that religion is not very important in their lives, or that they believe religion "is largely old-fashioned or out of date."

Only 78% of Americans now identify as Christian, while 22% describe their religious preference as either "other" or "none."

(visit the link for the full news article)

Who does these 'Gallup polls' and how come, in the 50 years I've been walking this Earth, I've never met a single person whose been among these polls. People with means (in this case, a media venue) can say anything and people without means, simply believe it.

Originally posted by saturnine_sweet

Interesting how the 10-15% who are atheist are running everything in this country right now...

Wow... they must be some pretty intelligent dudes then!

and interesting how they seem to think they can push their viewpoints on everyone else.

Are you talking about those guys who wake me up every second Sunday and try to slip their foot in the slamming door whilst raving on about salvation?

That is a very bad idea. Religion-based warfare and uprisings have a strong history of being very bloody and unforgiving.

Bloody and unforgiving... yep that's about par for the course. No wonder the world is so crap!

IRM

[edit on 27/12/09 by InfaRedMan]

reply to post by bsbray11


One, Im not christian, and two, there are numerous posts celebrating the downfall of religion in general, not just Christianity, so yes, that pretty strongly implies they are atheist. And btw, Im not Christian, either....just trying to interject some logic here.

reply to post by InfaRedMan


Wow..I see that point TOTALLY went over your head. You're like walking proof of my point. All you did was indirectly try to make anyone religious sound as though they have an inferior intellect, and then ranted about people coming to convert you. Which has nothing to do with anything I said, other than to point out how you have no interest in trying to understand or work with those who follow religion. Which makes my point, like I said.

Thanks.

Identifying yourself as a Christian doesn't make it so. I think it's a cultural standard that so many people label themselves as such. As children, we learn the phrases and the basic knowledge... but what about when we grow up? Do we hold on to those labels out of faith or habit? What about during era's when it was "bad" to not be a christian? Do the people from those era's who still live today follow the faith or is it just a habit to fit in? A survival tool?

I ask these things because of the shockingly high number in the poll and the tiny number of people I have ever met that actually practice the religion. Sure, I've met several who labeled themselves christians... but they didn't go to church, didn't give away money to the church or charity, didn't seven practice the teachings. It seems to be treated as a general "fact" but that's about it. Honestly, a lot of people I have known own bibles... but they're locked up somewhere and never opened. A token kept for the sake of conscience. Maybe it's only personal experience, but it's my own personal experience that I have to work with and analyze.

The common cognomen of this world among the misguided and superstitious is a 'vale of tears' from which we are to be redeemed by a certain arbitrary interposition of God and taken to Heaven - What a little circumscribe[d] straightend notion! Call the world if you Please "The vale of Soul-making". Then you will find out the use of the world (I am speaking now in the highest terms for human nature admitting it to be immortal which I will here take for granted for the purpose of showing a thought which has struck me concerning it). I say 'Soul making' Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence-there maybe intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions-but they are not souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself. Letter to George and Georgina Keats Wednesday 21 April 1819 from John Keats

There is absolutely no doubt or argument against an understanding that there is a 'Creative' force in the universe. To argue against such is to argue against one's own existence. The very fact that we not only exist, but are very aware that we exist, is equally profound and awe-inducing, and whether or not one perceives one's own existence as being attributable to a 'certain arbitrary interposition of God', or as being a accidental random concaternation of atoms and molecules, should not beguile one from the understanding of the presence of a Creative force in the universe...however, or by whatever means you perceive it.

If you want to call it 'God', then by all means go ahead, but do not for one minute try to tell me that you know it, for neither by any religion or science are we able to understand it...we don't even know or understand the role of our own existence in the existential 'beingness' of all things, except that we are interconnected with all things simply by existing.

For me, religion is nothing more than politics hiding behind a wafer-thin mask of spirituality, dictating to the faithful how their faith is to be expressed. Religious creed and dogma, ritual and uniform has interposed itself between the faithful and the subject of their faith, and spun one's faith into a web of chain links ensnaring the believer into a programmed form of control and supplication. Ideas should never ensnare, but liberate; they should never persecute, but comfort...and one's faith in one's belief in the idea of God, should do exactly that. The problem with religious creed and dogma is that it has made 'God' into an image of man, and infused and animated the idea of God with all of man's petty nuances. God has been politicalized and militarised by religion, and has assuaged the believing individual of their true sense of spirituality...which is a nurturing intuitive sense of 'self' in harmony with all things (good and bad) in one's life experience.

If we are to survive as a species, if we are to accept the cognition of how our activities impact upon the planet, then we have to allow ourselves to gain an expansive consciousness, and to do this we must liberate ourselves from the grip of religion's control, and become the spiritual beings that we are. No one can force you on this, you can accept it only when your conscience counsels you to do so. By putting away the toys of religion, you allow yourself to pick up the tools of conscience and altruism, and through their use, maturate into the next phase of mankind's growth, and gnotically come into a understanding of our true spirituality...we will build a better and more harmonious world.

Icarus Rising:

Is your location really Avalon?

Yes, indeed it is, Icarus.

[edit on 27/12/09 by elysiumfire]

[edit on 27/12/09 by elysiumfire]

reply to post by DemonicAngelZero


Indeed.
I define myself as cultural Christian, but I'm religiously atheist. The comment on "religion 2.0" is rather amusing and yet prophetically true - the world needs a new religion. It needs to evolve.

reply to post by elysiumfire


I believe the Bible contains God's truth, revealed to us by Him through men. I believe Jesus Christ came and lived as God and man among men, to show us The Way. That's what Christianity was called before its followers were dubbed Christians, most likely mockingly at first by the Antiochians; The Way. I believe I can come to know God to a certain extent through understanding His Word. There isn't guilt, there is conviction. There isn't damnation, there is sanctification.

What I see happening with "religion" today is summed up nicely in a couple paragraphs from "The Seduction of Christianity" by Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon.

Whatever the...package, the product inside is the same old satanic ploy: "the answer is within ourselves." We can "do it" if we only learn the "laws" and "principles" that apply and put them into operation by "faith." The goal is always to reward self in some way......

It should be profoundly disturbing to Christians that growing numbers of pastors and Christian leaders are teaching that humans are destined to be gods.....The related beliefs in evolution and infinite human potential lead logically to the twin conclusions that God as Creator of all does not exist, and that man can....become a god himself.

I'm skeptical of Gnosticism. Its too self-sufficient. For me, the emphasis is on gnosis of God's will for me, and His will accomplished through me. A never ending challenge of complete victory through total surrender.

I'm from Avalon.

Originally posted by lagenese
Religions will vanish from the human experience, but it's going to take time.

You will never get rid of the pagan religions, as they are based on energy.

That will not change, why do the ptb practice it, its always going to be hear, and has been for like forever, while man has been civilised.

What is shocking is there are 71% Americans who are still disillusioned by so called religion.

hehehe good article , ancient wisdom is outdated , hahaha

we´ve been given tools which we cant use due to not understanding the bluepprint/function

i mean fart humor hasent changed in 5000 years so how can "religion" be out dated , im mean its practicly the same ball game....