Did God Bless America or has America Blessed God?
In August of 2004, USA Today featured "Religion takes a back seat in Western Europe"1, an article examining the alarming decrease in church attendees over the past few decades. Some of the lowest church attendance appears in the countries of France, Sweden and the Netherlands where belief in God is as low as 23%2. This decline can most appropriately be attributed to an increasing consensus among people who accept the Theory of Evolution and understanding of science.
Research done in 2007 by the Pew Forum showed a much different picture in America, where church attendance and belief in (a) God is above 80%3. With certain exceptions, such as Raëlism, Scientology, and the Bahá'í Faith, most religions were formulated at a time when the origin of life, the workings of the body, and the nature of the stars and planets were poorly understood4
Below is a video for your viewing and open discussion. Tell us what you think, and if you feel passionately one way or the next - Please submit a blog op-article.
1. USA Today
2. Wikipedia
3. PEW Forum
4. Dennett, Daniel Clement (2006). Breaking the Spell : Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-03472-X.
Research done in 2007 by the Pew Forum showed a much different picture in America, where church attendance and belief in (a) God is above 80%3. With certain exceptions, such as Raëlism, Scientology, and the Bahá'í Faith, most religions were formulated at a time when the origin of life, the workings of the body, and the nature of the stars and planets were poorly understood4
Below is a video for your viewing and open discussion. Tell us what you think, and if you feel passionately one way or the next - Please submit a blog op-article.
1. USA Today
2. Wikipedia
3. PEW Forum
4. Dennett, Daniel Clement (2006). Breaking the Spell : Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-03472-X.
posted by Br. Jacob at
3:16 PM
6 Comments:
Everyone has the right to believe what they wish. They do NOT have the right to push it on another. Yes, all religions have faults. Yes, they all cause and force prejudice. Is that not the point of Universal Unitarianism, however? Spiritual progression through whatever means necessary? As in, the deity which is worshiped is irrelevant, and humanitarianism guides the principals behind it?
I was once a Bible Thumping christian, I am now a Pagan, and don't believe in the god of the bible.. I completely understand the decline in church attendance, as someone who attended church as much as humanly possible and now wouldn't attend church if someone paid me to do so, christians I find for the most part to be some of the most judgmental humans on the planet, as a Pagan I don't find this at all..
Lao Tsu wrote, "Do you think you could take over the Universe and IMPROVE it?"
Nature, or Nature's God, for better or worse (and seems to always know better) uses Genetic Algorithms practically everywhere. Where does lightening strike? Streamers solving the path upward collide with streamers solving the path downward, two connect and ka-BOOM.
Human beings are aggregates of genetic programs, solving the pathways of Nature, looking for 'good' solutions. Which are really good? the two that go ka-BOOM, the rest were still 'good' but just did not result in The Solution. God loves them no less, they were no less important, they were just The Way, the how in how it is done, this Universe thing.
I used to say the thing we learned in the 70's about "Free Love" was that it wasn't 'free', and the thing we learned from the Rolling Stones was that if you give a room of teenagers everything they can imagine they want for the rest of their lives, they stay teenagers for a long long time, until one of them dies. Does that mean Free Love was a mistake? Does that mean we shouldn't have rewarded teen celebrity with unbridled hedonism? No, it means that now we know better, as Buddha said, now our feet are lifted just a little bit off the ground.
So yes, you can be a Wiccan, you can be a book-thumping Christian, you can be Manichean or a Satanist or a Jewish Gay farmer who sells GM foods, God still cares, because God cares about the outcome, about the optimal anti-entropic 'good', and maybe you are one of the streamers that goes ka-BOOM, maybe you aren't, but you will never know just sitting on a bump in the priordial sludge :)
What we do need to realize however, is of utmost importance to our survival: All of these streamer paths we call 'religion' do what they do to solve the SAME Universe problems. And what this means is that we need to realize and recognize that when their methods conflict it is cause to modify BOTH streamer paths. Because we have to cover the maximal ground, because our objective is solving the problem, not colliding like Keystone Cops.
Here is my prediction: Within 100 years most (I'd hope all) religions will come to understand (rediscover) the MECHANICS of why they do what they do, and when they find a rule in conflict with another religion they will simply develop another NEW rule that has the same neurocognitive social effect but lacks the abrassive qualities.
This will be a very hard lesson for some of the streamers to grasp, perhaps they were never destined to grasp it, and they won't be the first to fizzle out and vanish, but do remember: that fizzling out will happen all on its own. Always does.
The other day I was in a bookstore looking for a book on world religions. In the I found many great books Christian section of the bookstore.
However, I found an area where certain Christian authors wrote what I call “Hate Books” these books cut down other religions. One in fact said on the Cover “New Age Lie” then went on to how it is deceiving woman. It accused New Age Religion of being the Devil’s way to deceive Christians.
I know a lot of Good Christian People who do not buy into this talk. The video reminded me of the bookstore. Just because someone is not a Christian or not Religious does not make them a heathen. I do not consider myself Religious I do however consider myself spiritual.
If we are judged at all by God I don’t believe God would judge us on rather or not we are a Christian. I believe we would more than likely be judged on what’s in our hearts. Sincerely Reverend Penny J Ragan.
Penny, I believe you are right, for it is hard to believe there could exist any sentient deity that could be offended by trivialities such as the way ice cream curls at the top. I think just about any reasoning person would agree with you.
However ...it is in the nature of the genetic program that it must believe in its own Destiny Path, regardless. Otherwise it would waver and the path would never be tried. So there is, as your bookstore shows us, a very very strong tenacity to the tenants of each faith not because it is logical, but because that is the nature of the phenomenon. So do remember that it can be dangerous to question someone's tenants, and more dangerous still to attempt to debate them (oops, here I am attempting to convince you all!! yikes!! ;)
However ... I believe it befalls to us, the called, and especially those called to anything that dares be called Universal Life, it befalls on us to act as both religious anthropologist and as guides, on one hand to observe and understand the mechanics of Life and on the other to gently use our knowledge and our skill to bend and nudge where we can without breaking anything.
Some of them will break, I think that is a given. Religions break and vanish all the time, nothing new there. But I think it is important to use discretion in which among them we should decide has run its time. Zoroaster did so, with wonderful and potent results did shred his oppressor with his pen, but I would never want to boast I had his talent.
As I say, I predict this will all be common knowledge in 100 years where any reasonable person will see culture/religion programs in humanity for what they are, intrinsic and important parts of the whole totality of creation, God's plan every last one of them, but a few here and there that could use some, shall we say, skillfull husbandry ;)
I don't understand why this is so Christian-centric. I find this segment to be very false. There may be a decline in Christian faith in Europe, but a lot of other things mentioned are very untrue. I'm beyond amazed that they impact of Jewish, Pagan and Muslim art, language, culture and learning was so downplayed in European history. IMHO, Christianity took hundreds of years of art and learning and squashed it. So much was lost during the take over. The little that was preserved was hidden from the general population. Sure there was a renaissance, but even that never got to the splendor of pre-Christian Europe. And are they kidding me about the babies? The world population isn't high enough? Oh, but they're not Christian babies, they're Buddhist or Muslim so they don't count? I'm really upset by this segment. Major Fail in accuracy and bigotry.
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