Can the growth of Athiesm be due to the inaffectivenes or lack of inteligence in todays Christian apoligetics?

[Gaber]

Can the growth of Atheism be due to the ineffectiveness or lack of intelligence in today’s Christian apologetics? Or are we dealing with the mere illusion of Atheism’s intellectual superiority?

Just briefly, by survey atheists are on the high end of the scale of knowledge about religion and its histories. At the other end of the scale are fundamntalist Christians, and somewhere in that direction, Catholics. But it seems that the most knowledgeable people are the most atheistic, or on the other hand, “spiritual, but not religious.”

That only says that not the intelligence, but the comprehension of people of faith concerning what faith itself is as a phenomenon, distinct from a committed lifestyle, might be at question in apologetics. That is to say that what is being apologized is not comprehended in a larger context, however wonderfully and thoroughly it might be comprehended within the self verifying parameters of the faith.

So atheism is seen mostly as an outcome of being more widely educated and therefor one’s bringing to bear tools on the ideas of faith that cut finer and deeper than cradle belief. For my part, I’ve maintained that atheism may be a healthy step in a sincere inquiry into the nature of a spiritual life, though not so much as agnosticism. For me the best position is always one that questions the reality of an appearance, rather than dogmatically rejecting it or upholding it. To me, in a sense, atheism and religionism are, functionally, pretty much the same thing.

And for the record, while I’m not an atheist, some would categorize me as such, because I hold that God is not personal. That is what I find to be the realization of even my favorite Catholic contemplative, not to mention the other traditions that espouse that, or even call what IS, or Reality, “God,” that being a term overused into near meaninglessness, imho.

 

[JDaniel]

Just briefly, by survey atheists are on the high end of the scale of knowledge about religion and its histories. At the other end of the scale are fundamntalist Christians, and somewhere in that direction, Catholics. But it seems that the most knowledgeable people are the most atheistic, or on the other hand, “spiritual, but not religious.”

That only says that not the intelligence, but the comprehension of people of faith concerning what faith itself is as a phenomenon, distinct from a committed lifestyle, might be at question in apologetics. That is to say that what is being apologized is not comprehended in a larger context, however wonderfully and thoroughly it might be comprehended within the self verifying parameters of the faith.

So atheism is seen mostly as an outcome of being more widely educated and therefor one’s bringing to bear tools on the ideas of faith that cut finer and deeper than cradle belief. For my part, I’ve maintained that atheism may be a healthy step in a sincere inquiry into the nature of a spiritual life, though not so much as agnosticism. For me the best position is always one that questions the reality of an appearance, rather than dogmatically rejecting it or upholding it. To me, in a sense, atheism and religionism are, functionally, pretty much the same thing.

And for the record, while I’m not an atheist, some would categorize me as such, because I hold that God is not personal. That is what I find to be the realization of even my favorite Catholic contemplative, not to mention the other traditions that espouse that, or even call what IS, or Reality, “God,” that being a term overused into near meaninglessness, imho.

Gaber, my friend, just a suggestion: such assertions (above) that are so naked, and so inane, such that it would invite a large squadron of Police Riot units come and take you away, will not get you read on this forum. You used to make some pretty good points. But recently, you’re sounding more like a street-corner rummy from Rush Street. Or . . . . . do you really believe what you just wrote?

God bless,
jd

 

[Gaber]

Gaber, my friend, just a suggestion: such assertions (above) that are so naked, and so inane, such that it would invite a large squadron of Police Riot units come and take you away, will not get you read on this forum. You used to make some pretty good points. But recently, you’re sounding more like a street-corner rummy from Rush Street. Or . . . . . do you really believe what you just wrote?

God bless,
jd

Hi JD,

Thanks for the compliments!

Actually the point is that it’s not a matter of belif, in a very real sense.

Here’s the Pew poll.Catholics score at about half of what atheists do.

And who’s gong to impugn inteligence? Some of the most fabulous rationalizers ar religious. Read these pages. So it isn’t about intellignce, I’m guessing. It’s about what youapply it to: faith, or knowledge. Pious people, tend to use their intelligence to prove themselves right. Inquisitive people tend to use it to find out what is and how it is.

And neither group tends to think highly of the idea of an impersonal God, which is what the most accomplished contemplatives arrive at as Truth. Including the most credible of Catholic contemplatives that Ive found. And her iteration of whay that is so is something that every Catholic ought to read.

As to my claim that atheism and religionism are identical, it is an easy explanation: both are mental constructs that are incomplete of examination as to their base, the mind which generates them. To go beyond the mind is to be neither an atheist nor a religionist, but to Know.

But that is what happened to our faith: someone early on decided that what is in essence a mystery teaching ought to go public because it is so fundamentaally important. But it turns out that the public is acurately described by a famous line from A Few Good Men, and rightfully so. And the result is our religion, taken literally as history while it was meant, Jesus being an actual Son of God notwithstanding, as a symbolic and yet literal interior journey to be penetrated. Therefore, Mark 4:33,34.

And as to the last point, the word God is so innured of analysis by the pious, that it is indeed more of a stumbling block to genuine inquiry than of use other thatn a place holder until someone gets very, very curious. Apassing phase of questioning isn’t what this is about.

So religion is an excellent thing, until religions clash. But those who have penetrated the idea of religion, those Saints and Sages of the Ages, from the begining of ime, whatever thier backgrounds, conditions, or circumstances, all independently have come up with the identical exegesis of the end of contemplation. And from that standpoint, the Teachings of Our Lord fit perfectly into and are equal to what has been, as St Augustine put it: “That which is now called the Christian religion existed already among the ancients, even in the earliest days of the human race. When Christ appeared in the flesh, the true religion, which was already in existence, was called Christianity” Only thing is, my friend, it is hidden in the veils of symbolism and the need to penetrate it is not advertised as any kind of an actual need by the Church, due to its institutional requirements, as far as I can see. Yes?

So when the Light dawns, so to speak, everything falls into place, the scales fall from the eyes, and “all is made new in the twinkling of an eye.” It is very much like one of those magic pictures that pop into 3D when you look at it right. Did the picture change? No, it is identical. So what changed? The way you look and at what. You have to focus where the picture isn’t, and then you can see it. A lovely paradox, but it works both with magic pictures and with experiencing what the mind is founded on to begin with.

Then it is extraordinarliy simple to see how atheism and religion are identical in function. Religion has the slight advantage of pointing to something invisible, but misdirecting the gaze, and atheism has a slight advantage in being critical of expereince. They are mental, and therefor equally off base, except as material for transformation. And that is possible of expereinceing, an is not as uncommon as one might think. God does Bless!!!

 

[Contarini]

There’s different categories. Also different communities also tend to use the word differently (ex: in the Southern Baptist community in which I grew up the word was synonymous with misotheist). The first person I met that was an atheist had gotten there from being a polytheist - a pathway that didn’t fit into the use of the word within that local community.

For the most part if the word isn’t constrained by some other adjective then it’s difficult to know what some one means by it without knowing their background. Such as “Strong atheist”, “agnostic atheist”, and so on. This adjective or one of the related words will let one know if the person of discussion asserts with absolute confidence that there are no gods, that the person simply doesn’t hot the a belief of any gods, that the person just doesn’t really care, and so on.

And, of course, atheism has not really referred to disbelief in gods since the time of Constantine. . . .

It generally refers to disbelief in God.

Until atheists understand the complete difference between God and gods, they won’t even be able to make an atheistic case with credibility.

All Christians disbelieve in gods in the sense that we don’t worship them.

Many Christians don’t think they exist, though that’s not required by Christianity.

If God were just a god, it would be idolatry to worship Him.

If you want to know what we mean by God, you could start with Aquinas’s “Five proofs.” Bracket the question of whether they are effective proofs and focus on what they say about what monotheists mean by “God.” It’s very clear that Aquinas is not describing a “god.”

Edwin

 

[Gaber]

And, of course, atheism has not really referred to disbelief in gods since the time of Constantine. . . .

It generally refers to disbelief in God.

Until atheists understand the complete difference between God and gods, they won’t even be able to make an atheistic case with credibility.

All Christians disbelieve in gods in the sense that we don’t worship them.

Many Christians don’t think they exist, though that’s not required by Christianity.

If God were just a god, it would be idolatry to worship Him.

If you want to know what we mean by God, you could start with Aquinas’s “Five proofs.” Bracket the question of whether they are effective proofs and focus on what they say about what monotheists mean by “God.” It’s very clear that Aquinas is not describing a “god.”

Edwin

What, specifically, is the difference between gods and “God,” given that as objects of belief they are not properly known, but placeholders for the Unknown? In other words, one who believes in “God” is as ignorant of That as is anyone who believes in gods. What’s the difference?

 

[Contarini]

What, specifically, is the difference between gods and “God,” given that as objects of belief they are not properly known, but placeholders for the Unknown? In other words, one who believes in “God” is as ignorant of That as is anyone who believes in gods. What’s the difference?

“gods” aren’t placeholders for the Unknown, except perhaps in the Hindu perspective, which for that reason can only be labeled polytheistic with some serious qualifications.

“gods” are finite beings whose nature may be known. That’s precisely the difference between them and God, whose nature can never be fully known (in Eastern Christian terms, you can only know God’s energies and not His essence; in Thomistic terms, you can “see” God’s essence in the Beatific vision but never “comprehend” it).

Edwin

 

[Roy5]

I would suggest that a major factor in the growth of atheism is that Christianity still holds fast to primitive ideas and stories. For example, many Catholics and Protestants still insist on the historic truth of Adam and Eve, and they glorify people in the Old Testament who were commanded ‘by God’ to slaughter others, and they have trouble believing that Jesus cast demons into pigs who rushed headlong down a cliff to drown in the water below.

Christianity needs to loosen up and not live in a bygone era. It needs to devalue the Church Fathers, for example, who were brilliant thinkers for their time but who believed in all sorts of false ideas - e.g., heaven was above the clouds, hell was in the bowels of the earth, etc. They need to fo less worshiping of Christ and more to live and promote his message.

Preaching the essential theme of Jesus and of Christianity - love, which includes peace, mutual respect, integrity, etc. - and not pious fiction is the road for a future Christianity to travel if it is to survive.

 

[Contarini]

I would suggest that a major factor in the growth of atheism is that Christianity still holds fast to primitive ideas and stories. For example, many Catholics and Protestants still insist on the historic truth of Adam and Eve, and they glorify people in the Old Testament who were commanded ‘by God’ to slaughter others, and they have trouble believing that Jesus cast demons into pigs who rushed headlong down a cliff to drown in the water below.

Actually, the form of Christianity that is growing fastest–Pentecostalism–tends to take all these things very literally.

Granted, atheism may be growing for the same reasons that Pentecostalism is. Both seem to be growing at the expense of “moderate” versions of Christianity.

But all the evidence indicates that if all Christians would adopt your approach, Christianity would become a very tiny, niche religion. That might not necessarily be a bad thing–numbers aren’t everything.

Probably what would happen, if all Christians took your approach, is that Muslims would pick up the folks who now go for Pentecostalism and fundamentalism and other conservative Christian traditions. . . .

But realistically no one needs to worry about all Christians adopting your approach–it isn’t going to happen.

Christianity needs to loosen up and not live in a bygone era.

Loosening up, while sometimes a good idea for specific reasons, is a bad general principle both in itself and (much less significantly) in its effect on the growth of a religious community.

It needs to devalue the Church Fathers, for example, who were brilliant thinkers for their time but who believed in all sorts of false ideas - e.g., heaven was above the clouds, hell was in the bowels of the earth, etc.

Actually, the Fathers are the ones who formulated a more spiritual understanding of these images. I don’t think you know their work very well, frankly.

They need to fo less worshiping of Christ and more to live and promote his message.

Why is this an either/or?

What better reason to promote Jesus’ message than that you believe Jesus is God Incarnate?

Preaching the essential theme of Jesus and of Christianity - love, which includes peace, mutual respect, integrity, etc. - and not pious fiction is the road for a future Christianity to travel if it is to survive.

Roy, by all means promote this agenda because you think it is true. But when you say it’s necessary for Christianity to survive, you’re flying in the face of the evidence as evaluated by most contemporary sociologists of religion.

Edwin

 

[Gaber]

“gods” aren’t placeholders for the Unknown, except perhaps in the Hindu perspective, which for that reason can only be labeled polytheistic with some serious qualifications.

“gods” are finite beings whose nature may be known. That’s precisely the difference between them and God, whose nature can never be fully known (in Eastern Christian terms, you can only know God’s energies and not His essence; in Thomistic terms, you can “see” God’s essence in the Beatific vision but never “comprehend” it).

Edwin

So “unknown” is accurate, and I beg to differ as to “gods” from the perspective of those who worship(ed) them, perhaps though other than Hindu. I don’t know them all. But I think the point stands. Belief, even if it “knowledge” about a belief, is still belief, and there is funda-mentally no difference, the effect being totally subjective as to what benefit emotionally or rationalizationally they might be to the believer. Belief might point to a goal hoped for in worship, but it is not the goal itself by any stretch of the imagination, and therefore as far as it being an apprehension in the mind of a thinker, they are equally unreal, even if there might be a referent. What that referent IS is occluded, (occult) even in the most fervent of believer’s minds, even if that believer is one who is an untranscended mystic seeing visions and experiencing phenomenon. That, in fact is yet a barrier, though one of the last. Even an intellectual knowledge of mysticism and contemplation would account for that hierarchy.

 

[edwest2]

I would suggest that a major factor in the growth of atheism is that Christianity still holds fast to primitive ideas and stories. For example, many Catholics and Protestants still insist on the historic truth of Adam and Eve, and they glorify people in the Old Testament who were commanded ‘by God’ to slaughter others, and they have trouble believing that Jesus cast demons into pigs who rushed headlong down a cliff to drown in the water below.

Christianity needs to loosen up and not live in a bygone era. It needs to devalue the Church Fathers, for example, who were brilliant thinkers for their time but who believed in all sorts of false ideas - e.g., heaven was above the clouds, hell was in the bowels of the earth, etc. They need to fo less worshiping of Christ and more to live and promote his message.

Preaching the essential theme of Jesus and of Christianity - love, which includes peace, mutual respect, integrity, etc. - and not pious fiction is the road for a future Christianity to travel if it is to survive.

More vagueness. The world is foolish, God is not.

To my brothers and sisters in Christ, ignore those who give long speeches where they put the knowledge of man above the knowledge of God. Did men or scientists convince us of the faith, that is, those who do not believe? Jesus sent His disciples, as the Church sends us, to preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Church survives not by the will of men but by the promise of Jesus Christ Himself.

"Real History

"The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

"Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

"The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

"It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

Science that discards truth is not science, it is ideology.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Gaber]

None of the above.

You neglected the most likely possibility, that religious ideas, Christianity included, are simply incorrect.

More people are becoming educated, and while most educations are not worth much and teach their own style of errors (e.g. Darwinism, Big Bang theory, etc.) regarding the beginnings of things, those alternatives make a lot more sense to most people than any current theology.

This is not surprising. The history of science is replete with errors. Physicists once believed in phlogiston to explain fire. But while those who believed that silly theory at the time taught it as absolute truth, as more data came in and more thought was applied, it was finally recognized as foolishness.

Science is willing, however grudgingly, to discard bad theories and replace them with something that works better. Phlogiston theory is not the only example. But religions do not change. The current core beliefs of the Catholic Church were invented about 1700 years ago, by men who believed that the solar system and the universe revolved around a flat earth. They did their best given the knowledge they had— but they had little knowledge, and most of what they thought they knew was entirely wrong.

The beliefs they adopted were as illogical then as they are today. The worst of them, omnipotence and omniscience, are often questioned right here on CAF, but to no avail.

Fifty years from now science will hold different theories than it does today. When physicists see contradictions in their theories they do not ask their followers to accept the discordant ideas on faith— they set to work finding better theories.

Because of that, your grandchildren will not be taught Big Bang theory, and in time, even Darwinism will go the way of the Dodo bird. (Darwinism will take longer because it is now a religious belief system which incoming acolytes are not allowed to question.) But the religions your children will try to teach your grandchildren, or those further along, will be the same old beliefs that are turning off people today, and their rejection rate of those religions will be even higher.

So do not blame apologists. Do you blame J. Carney, a mere spokesman, for Obame’s policies? If an idea does not make sense, wrapping it in words will not create sense out of it. That will only befuddle, and only for a while.

Perhaps it is time for religions to rethink the very definition of God in light of what science has learned? What better way to serve the Creator than by seeking an understanding of him which is agreeable to the principles of logic, and perfectly consistent with the universe he took the trouble to create?

I don’t know if we would agree on fundamentals, yours would appear to be “non scheduled,” as one comic put it, (mine too,) but I agree with your iteration here.

 

[greylorn]

I don’t know if we would agree on fundamentals, yours would appear to be “non scheduled,” as one comic put it, (mine too,) but I agree with your iteration here.

Based upon my experience trying to expose people to ideas, it is certain that we would not agree on fundamentals— at least not yet.

If someone would have tried to convince me of the usefulness of the ideas I’ve devised in the last 50 years, 50 years ago, I’d have dismissed him as an ignorant crackpot.

But you have an open mind, and if you are careful what you fill it with, there is no limit for you.

My fundamentals are surprisingly well scheduled (e.g: the Physics and Theology thread), and I reserve the right to adjust the schedule according to incoming information.

 

[Gaber]

Based upon my experience trying to expose people to ideas, it is certain that we would not agree on fundamentals— at least not yet.

If someone would have tried to convince me of the usefulness of the ideas I’ve devised in the last 50 years, 50 years ago, I’d have dismissed him as an ignorant crackpot.

But you have an open mind, and if you are careful what you fill it with, there is no limit for you.

My fundamentals are surprisingly well scheduled (e.g: the Physics and Theology thread), and I reserve the right to adjust the schedule according to incoming information.

I’ve been searching the thrift and second hand stores for mind stretchers, but all I find are last yuga’s thought patterns. Good luck to us all!

 

[greylorn]

I’ve been searching the thrift and second hand stores for mind stretchers, but all I find are last yuga’s thought patterns. Good luck to us all!

Were you searching the current slick Kali retailers, or dropping back a notch looking for dingy Dvapara stores that might not have closed their doors entirely? In those yugas, mind compressed. Wrong places to seek a stretcher.

If you cannot find a Satya store, you’ll need to open your own. Read that parable! (Or a Vince Lombardi biography.) Your mind’s life may be changed by either.

 

[JDaniel]

Hi JD,

Thanks for the compliments!

Actually the point is that it’s not a matter of belif, in a very real sense.

Here’s the Pew poll.Catholics score at about half of what atheists do.

And who’s gong to impugn inteligence? Some of the most fabulous rationalizers ar religious. Read these pages. So it isn’t about intellignce, I’m guessing. It’s about what youapply it to: faith, or knowledge. Pious people, tend to use their intelligence to prove themselves right. Inquisitive people tend to use it to find out what is and how it is.

And neither group tends to think highly of the idea of an impersonal God, which is what the most accomplished contemplatives arrive at as Truth. Including the most credible of Catholic contemplatives that Ive found. And her iteration of whay that is so is something that every Catholic ought to read.

As to my claim that atheism and religionism are identical, it is an easy explanation: both are mental constructs that are incomplete of examination as to their base, the mind which generates them. To go beyond the mind is to be neither an atheist nor a religionist, but to Know.

But that is what happened to our faith: someone early on decided that what is in essence a mystery teaching ought to go public because it is so fundamentaally important. But it turns out that the public is acurately described by a famous line from A Few Good Men, and rightfully so. And the result is our religion, taken literally as history while it was meant, Jesus being an actual Son of God notwithstanding, as a symbolic and yet literal interior journey to be penetrated. Therefore, Mark 4:33,34.

And as to the last point, the word God is so innured of analysis by the pious, that it is indeed more of a stumbling block to genuine inquiry than of use other thatn a place holder until someone gets very, very curious. Apassing phase of questioning isn’t what this is about.

So religion is an excellent thing, until religions clash. But those who have penetrated the idea of religion, those Saints and Sages of the Ages, from the begining of ime, whatever thier backgrounds, conditions, or circumstances, all independently have come up with the identical exegesis of the end of contemplation. And from that standpoint, the Teachings of Our Lord fit perfectly into and are equal to what has been, as St Augustine put it: “That which is now called the Christian religion existed already among the ancients, even in the earliest days of the human race. When Christ appeared in the flesh, the true religion, which was already in existence, was called Christianity” Only thing is, my friend, it is hidden in the veils of symbolism and the need to penetrate it is not advertised as any kind of an actual need by the Church, due to its institutional requirements, as far as I can see. Yes?

So when the Light dawns, so to speak, everything falls into place, the scales fall from the eyes, and “all is made new in the twinkling of an eye.” It is very much like one of those magic pictures that pop into 3D when you look at it right. Did the picture change? No, it is identical. So what changed? The way you look and at what. You have to focus where the picture isn’t, and then you can see it. A lovely paradox, but it works both with magic pictures and with experiencing what the mind is founded on to begin with.

Then it is extraordinarliy simple to see how atheism and religion are identical in function. Religion has the slight advantage of pointing to something invisible, but misdirecting the gaze, and atheism has a slight advantage in being critical of expereince. They are mental, and therefor equally off base, except as material for transformation. And that is possible of expereinceing, an is not as uncommon as one might think. God does Bless!!!

Gaber:

There’s a large problem with the PEW research: what it does not take into consideration is that more people are turning from Protestantism to Atheism than from Catholicism to Atheism. And, of those Catholics that turn, many turn back as they grow older and wiser. The reason is that Catholicism is “authority based,” while Protestantism is not. Each and every Protestant is an authority, i.e, each is his (or her) own pope.

Human beings are strange entities. We tend to dislike authority until . . . until we come to recognize that authority is necessary, and not bad. There cannot be 400 million Popes. You can see that that’s insane. There must only be one - and Jesus Christ knew that. It makes sense that Protestants - and Atheists - score higher on a test that is strictly Bible-based. Catholics are not Bible-based for their religious expression. They expect the Church to be correct. After all, Christ made certain promises to Peter including the promise that the Church would be always in possession of Truth by virtue of the Holy Spirit. No Protestant Church has that assurance. Period. End of sentence.

According to adherents.com and other sources, when last I looked there were about 1 billion Protestants, of which only about 30 - 35 % were “churched,” while there are about 1.2 to 1.8 billion Catholics (depending on the source), of which about 60 % are churched. It is well known, even amongst Protestants that their ranks are being decimated by the loss of multitudes to, of all things, Atheism. Consider that there are about 35,000 Baptist sects alone.

You can rail here all you want against authority, but you’ll find most Catholics very secure in their Church. I dare say, you will not change a single soul. But, you’re not here to do that: you’re here to engage in better discussion, discussion you won’t find on a Protestant or Atheist board. (I know that sounds disparaging, but, that’s not my intent: I am merely stating the truth as I know it to be.)

God bless, (yes He does!)
jd

 

[JDaniel]

I would suggest that a major factor in the growth of atheism is that Christianity still holds fast to primitive ideas and stories. For example, many Catholics and Protestants still insist on the historic truth of Adam and Eve, and they glorify people in the Old Testament who were commanded ‘by God’ to slaughter others, and they have trouble believing that Jesus cast demons into pigs who rushed headlong down a cliff to drown in the water below.

Christianity needs to loosen up and not live in a bygone era. It needs to devalue the Church Fathers, for example, who were brilliant thinkers for their time but who believed in all sorts of false ideas - e.g., heaven was above the clouds, hell was in the bowels of the earth, etc. They need to fo less worshiping of Christ and more to live and promote his message.

Preaching the essential theme of Jesus and of Christianity - love, which includes peace, mutual respect, integrity, etc. - and not pious fiction is the road for a future Christianity to travel if it is to survive.

Roy:

Absolutely wrong. That’s the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. Do some checking. It is Protestantism that is losing adherents in droves, not Catholicism. Why? Simply because we have one Pope and one Magisterium. You have hundreds of thousands of them. Anarchy is not the answer.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

More vagueness. The world is foolish, God is not.

To my brothers and sisters in Christ, ignore those who give long speeches where they put the knowledge of man above the knowledge of God. Did men or scientists convince us of the faith, that is, those who do not believe? Jesus sent His disciples, as the Church sends us, to preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Church survives not by the will of men but by the promise of Jesus Christ Himself.

"Real History

"The argument is that all of this is real history, it is simply ordered topically rather than chronologically, and the ancient audience of Genesis, it is argued, would have understood it as such.

"Even if Genesis 1 records God’s work in a topical fashion, it still records God’s work—things God really did.

"The Catechism explains that “Scripture presents the work of the Creator symbolically as a succession of six days of divine ‘work,’ concluded by the ‘rest’ of the seventh day” (CCC 337), but “nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. The world began when God’s word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history is rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun” (CCC 338).

"It is impossible to dismiss the events of Genesis 1 as a mere legend. They are accounts of real history, even if they are told in a style of historical writing that Westerners do not typically use.

"Adam and Eve: Real People

"It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2–3) as a fiction. A question often raised in this context is whether the human race descended from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) or a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

"In this regard, Pope Pius XII stated: “When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains either that after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parents of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now, it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the teaching authority of the Church proposed with regard to original sin which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam in which through generation is passed onto all and is in everyone as his own” (Humani Generis 37).

“The story of the creation and fall of man is a true one, even if not written entirely according to modern literary techniques. The Catechism states, “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).”

Science that discards truth is not science, it is ideology.

Peace,
Ed

Ed:



God bless,
jd

 

[fred_conty]

@ graylorn, you mentioned,

The beliefs they(catholics) adopted were as illogical then as they are today. The worst of them, omnipotence and omniscience, are often questioned right here on CAF, but to no avail.
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Everyone is entitled to not understand explainations if they wish.

You also said,
The current core beliefs of the Catholic Church were invented about 1700 years ago, by men who believed that the solar system and the universe revolved around a flat earth. They did their best given the knowledge they had— but they had little knowledge, and most of what they thought they knew was entirely wrong.
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Catholics were the only ones who thought we had a flat earth? Thank you for the light.
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By the way, below is one real reason for atheism written by someone not long ago.​

I left the church for 11 years and became the president of an Atheist group. I was miserable. I thought that since I was a good and moral person I didn’t need the church and it’s silly rules. I could simply police myself and live a good life. I was wrong. I disintegrated into all sorts of sin, lost my morality (what little I had of my own) and the misery pain index of my soul skyrocketed. If I had to rate my pain on a scale of 1-10 I would say I was pretty much at 9. I was empty, dissatisfied, and tearing Christians apart and making fun of them ceased to amuse me any longer. I was bankrupt spiritually. When I finally went to a mass I cried my eyes out in the back row. It is still a work in progress as I went to Confession, was restored to the Church, but still wrestle with horrible guilt that I left. It’s NOT WORTH IT.

Here’s a suggestion: Get on your knees and just simply tell God what you wrote here. Be honest, just talk to Him like a friend and dump all those questions on God and ask that He direct you to the person with the answers. Too often I jump to looking around at people FIRST. Whenever I ask God to direct me to the right people, I literally trip over the amount of helpful people God brings to me.

Then call and schedule an appointment with a priest. If it’s hard to articulate type it up and read it to the priest. Tell him honestly that you are struggling, thinking of leaving, and need help. Chances are you may be able to totally clear up your issues and questions in an hour or less.

If I had done this instead of stomping off and insisting that I was right and the Church was wrong, I would be so much further along in my Christian walk than I am now.

 

[DeepBlueSea]

More vagueness. The world is foolish, God is not.

To my brothers and sisters in Christ, ignore those who give long speeches where they put the knowledge of man above the knowledge of God. Did men or scientists convince us of the faith, that is, those who do not believe? Jesus sent His disciples, as the Church sends us, to preach the Gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Church survives not by the will of men but by the promise of Jesus Christ Himself.

Science that discards truth is not science, it is ideology.

May I present this trophy of veracity to you: :yeah_me:

 

[Gaber]

Gaber:

There’s a large problem with the PEW research: what it does not take into consideration is that more people are turning from Protestantism to Atheism than from Catholicism to Atheism. And, of those Catholics that turn, many turn back as they grow older and wiser. The reason is that Catholicism is “authority based,” while Protestantism is not. Each and every Protestant is an authority, i.e, each is his (or her) own pope.

Human beings are strange entities. We tend to dislike authority until . . . until we come to recognize that authority is necessary, and not bad. There cannot be 400 million Popes. You can see that that’s insane. There must only be one - and Jesus Christ knew that. It makes sense that Protestants - and Atheists - score higher on a test that is strictly Bible-based. Catholics are not Bible-based for their religious expression. They expect the Church to be correct. After all, Christ made certain promises to Peter including the promise that the Church would be always in possession of Truth by virtue of the Holy Spirit. No Protestant Church has that assurance. Period. End of sentence.

According to adherents.com and other sources, when last I looked there were about 1 billion Protestants, of which only about 30 - 35 % were “churched,” while there are about 1.2 to 1.8 billion Catholics (depending on the source), of which about 60 % are churched. It is well known, even amongst Protestants that their ranks are being decimated by the loss of multitudes to, of all things, Atheism. Consider that there are about 35,000 Baptist sects alone.

You can rail here all you want against authority, but you’ll find most Catholics very secure in their Church. I dare say, you will not change a single soul. But, you’re not here to do that: you’re here to engage in better discussion, discussion you won’t find on a Protestant or Atheist board. (I know that sounds disparaging, but, that’s not my intent: I am merely stating the truth as I know it to be.)

God bless, (yes He does!)
jd

How is it that you state a problem of shuffling Christianities as a problem with the poll? Do those Protestants or Catholics then become more or less knowledgeable as the shift around, dependent on their current status? I think you are introducing a factor that is both irrelevant and misinterpreted. One could as well make a case that those returnees are doing so out of fear, regression, or other factors, not growth in wisdom. My Mom, though never having left the Church, is more and more involved mentally with her past, especially childhood, in proportion to her aging. From similar reports, and my interactions with folks as aa Senior Peer Counselor in our community, I’d say that such is not uncommon. Fear is one of the major issues of growing older, and what greater thing is there to fear then the unknown? and for those in that state, what greater panacea than a claim of authority in such matters? I don’t buy it. Too obvious. Wisdom might increase, but as I’ve posted elsewhere, what homo sapien does better than animals but not too well nevertheless, is reason or be wise.

And from your position, your claim for authority is built in and self verifying. Not so authoritative, eh? Not from a phenomenological view. It works in the paradigm the Church presents, but is that paradigm accurate on other grounds than the nature of belief and how culture and its habits are handed down? There are far more practical interpretations of the Gospels then what I learned in catechism and the Catholic school system. I just din’t know them yet, because I had no motivation to look. Who knows? Even you or someone like you might sometime find such motivation?

Further, to place authority in the Pope is a wonderful and needful thing for the Church as an institution. Wouldn’t work otherwise, and what you say about “authority” in that sense might apply. But ultimate authority is not in the Pope, eh, despite what it allegedly says about that in the Bible. Again, there are other interpretations. And it is fine to believe the one you want to, until religions clash. Then what? You get to feel right because of the self verification part of the story. But unfortunately, relationship with God is not a story and isn’t abut religion. You can make it that way, but some day you might find out different.

In any case, the Pew poll is a good indicator. I’m guessing you scored 100%? That would put you head and shoulders above our fellow Catholics by a factor of nearly two,