Whole Christian religions were formed on the basis of what we'd perceive today to be minor or ultimately insignificant...

Whole Christian religions were formed on the basis of what we'd perceive today to be minor or ultimately insignificant differences in interpretation of scripture. In multiple eras throughout history, people spent their whole lives attending sermons at different churches, wrought with concerns that they believed none of the sects ever satisfactorily answered. You could casually reference "obscure" passages of scripture that today even your above average Christian may not recognize, and even your less devout Christian could keep up.

Nowadays, you have these generic Buzzfeed Christians who don't even pretend to follow any of the common ground/rules that pretty much all these different sects back then agreed upon. They don't go to church or engage in any kind of bible study. They actually actively undermine rather clear biblical instruction and commandments by saying stuff like "God loves everyone" and " it's not for us to judge others", which doesn't contradict the fact that the values you are ignoring or saying it's ok NOT to follow SHOULD be encouraged and (at least self-) enforced for anyone who is genuinely trying to be a good Christian.

Despite their total lack of interest in any real theology, worship, or standards, they still identify as Christians because.... well, I don't really know why. But they do.

What is to blame for this? Is the increasingly hedonistic society to blame for the fall of Christianity, or is the fall of Christianity to blame for the increasingly hedonistic society?

Discuss.

That picture makes me so angry

It's more than just that the levels of morality have been lowered. The religion itself has become a weapon against society.

Infiltrated from within as wolves in sheeps clothing. When the time of the return the attack on the church (congregation of true faithful believers in Christ for whom he yearns to rescue) will begin from within.

Churches with skeletons in their closets from the elders who've been in power for generations will sell their souls and their "brothers and sisters" in Christ for their promised safety into a new transition of society.

The love of money will be their demise. Their depraved participation within the circles of the world elite will be their pages in the book of judgement.

We can escape the judgment of man, not God the father.

You shouldn't stick your religion into politics unless you want to find politics in your religion. If we'd followed the Amish example of living our own way and letting the heathens be damned there wouldn't have been so many shitty Christians today.

Modern science and liberal values destroyed christian values.

I'm an idealist and a theist but I'm not a fan of Abrahamic religions for historic and cultural reasons. That being said I would never criticise someone personally for believing them and I appreciate the impact they have had on the world and our people.

Here is my favourite quote ever, I feel as though it relates perfectly to the discussion you have raised OP:

The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is ever marvelling that civilization, should have offended him with priests and soldiers.
The Barbarian wonders what strange meaning may lurk In that ancient and solemn truth, " Sine Auctoritate nulla vita."
In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this, that he cannot make: that he can befog and destroy but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true.
We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid.
We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.
We permit our jaded intellects to play with drugs of novelty for the fresh sensation they arouse, though we know well there is no good in them, but only wasting at the last. Yet there is one real interest in watching the Barbarian and one that is profitable.

Cont.

The real interest of watching the Barbarian is not the amusement derivable from his antics, but the prime doubt whether he will succeed or no, whether he will flourish. He is, I repeat, not an agent, but merely a symptom, yet he should be watched as a symptom. It is not he in his impotence that can discover the power to disintegrate the great and ancient body of Christendom, but if we come to see him triumphant we may be certain that that body, from causes much vaster than such as he could control, is furnishing him with sustenance and forming for him a congenial soil—and that is as much as to say that we are dying.
-Hilaire Belloc, This and That and the Other, Chp 32, p. 281-83, (1912).

Christianity is dying because of scientific understanding and the internet.

Its too bad we didnt have these things in the dark ages, if we did religions would have died a long time ago, but then again we might have died with them.

Would you agree that modern Christians don't really follow the fundamental aspects of Christianity?

So how do you explain religions existing in the modern age? Do you really think a 400 year period (which is arguably not as unscientific as suggested) really affects us so much 1K years later?

Pope Francis is more concerned with Islamizing Europe than he is with helping persecuted Christians in the Middle East and China. I hope he falls off the balcony.

>Christianity is dying because of scientific understanding and the internet.
The world will be the worse for it. Can you name anything else that has produced such beautiful art, literature and music? A soulless civilization produces soulless works

this, so tragic how the left seeks to remove all meaning from life.

Saying that they don't really follow it is being able to look into the heart of the individual. God looks upon the heart of a man, man cannot see into their own hearts clearly without repenting before God. It's almost double speak when you tell people this. They can't comprehend the idea that someone knows their intimidate struggles, let alone wants to help, and in return he just wants you to focus on spreading his word by living it. Instead we have let secular society change the faith. We sat back as faithful Christian's and changed our own goals that God had set for us.

We are supposed to be the voice in the wilderness crying out "REPENT REPENT REPENT! The kingdom of God is upon you!"

But instead we are like Lot, lowering our standards bargaining with God to spare this sinful world.

>So how do you explain religions existing in the modern age?

There are a lot of reasons.
Humans are generally pretty ignorant and ego centric, they will not admit that they are wrong and often cant even comprehend the possibility of them being wrong.
Confirmation bias is another really big thing, no matter how many things you tell a hardcore christian that they dont have a good reason to believe in a god or explain how whatever they dont understand happens, they will simply ignore it and find the toast with a face on it as proof of god.
Greed is another, religions make big money for those in charge, just look at the pope, churches also evade taxes.
Tradition, it has been such a big thing for so long that people have hard time letting it go.
Fear of death, who wants to die? nobody, that is why its easier to think you dont die.
Indoctrination, if people were allowed to grow up without the influence of religions, VERY few would find religions convincing as adults.

limited

Do you think its possible to follow the scriptures and believe the dogma wholeheartedly? Its for this reason I cannot really call myself truly religious, I mostly identify with germanic paganism but I accept that my belief regarding it is soley my own interpretation based on assumptions.

At the time when that art was made basically everyone believed in a god, we have no idea what kind of art, literature and music would have come about if humanity never got hooked up on religion.

So irrelevant of scientific progress we still hold religious values for a number of reasons, though I disagree with some of the ones posted you have rendered your own point as invalid.

>we have no idea what kind of art, literature and music would have come about if humanity never got hooked up on religion
Actually we do. We're seeing it right now in every aspect of western culture and it's garbage.

I wanted to end it with, i could go on but i hit the character limit.

you should go look up the god of the caps. i did touch on it.
Atheism started to show its head around when science started actually doing something.
People who seek knowledge and are honest with themselves see this, god has been the go to answer for everything, not we have an answer for almost everything we can think of asking and the things we dont have an answer for we are either looking for the answer or not assuming the answer is god.
Tell me one thing god is an answer to?

>who wants to die?
Jihadis.

Understanding scripture is understanding its purpose. The Bible that has survived to this point in time has done so for a reason. There are no coincidences in this life of ours, this place, this planet, our existence has meaning. You're not just swine on the vine for the elites. God gave us freedom, from our first moments in this world to our last breath. Man did not give you freedom, he gives you choices. God gave you freedom of choice. There's a huge difference between those two points.

Whatever you seek out in this world is what you will find. If you want a person relationship with Christ you must ask for it, that's all it takes. You speak to him through prayer, he responds through the word in scripture.

It is all for not without faith. Being able to take that leap. He took a leap of faith with us, his creation, by giving us that freedom to choose. We must meet him half way.

Secularism is influencing Christianity too much. When a Christian is within a secular society, they are more likely to adopt certain views that may not go hand-in-hand with the few scriptures throughout the bible that are unanimously accepted by all Christian sects.

It also doesn't help when you have "cultural Christians" penetrating the religion, although these individuals contribute to the religion by partaking in it, since these individuals do not believe in the word nor are they theists, they are though really more likely to disrupt interpretations in a more progressive manner.

Just an interesting statistic about Christianity in America, Christian churches that take a more literal approach to the bible, and are typically conservative, experience more growth than denominations that adapt liberal biblical interpretations. Liberal sects of Christianity usually have lower church attendance, will see a drop in congregation members, etc.

Why don't you feed the starving children, user?

well yeah, but they are conviced that they get 72 virgins and get to live in paradise.

Which would you choose? shitty life in a desert or paradise?

God has zero explanatory power. I think you misunderstand. God simply gives you a choice to believe or not. If anything this obscures natural understandings. Which is why it is such anathema to materialists.

To go into why I disagree with your points:

>Humans are generally pretty ignorant and ego centric

The same could be argued as to why people are militant atheists.

>Confirmation bias

A lot of philosophical teachings and modern quantum physics both suggest that your thoughts create reality, as opposed to reality manipulating your thoughts. Confirmation bias could easily be equated to a synchronicity. Again the same could be applied to atheists.

>Greed is another
For the established ruling classes within organised religions, not for the average believer. What is to gain financially from simply believing? They wouldn't be following the word of Christ anyway if they sought worldly riches.

>Tradition

Tradition is everything. Tradition stretches back for tens of thousands of years before you and will continue for tens of thousands of years after you, irrelevant of your short time on Earth. It is what connects your earliest ancestor to the last survivor of your lineage. It is your roots, it is what grounds you, it is an inherent part of your identity and every single action you take. It is what binds us as a family, a nation, a race.

>Fear of death
Lots of religions accept that who we perceive ourselves to be, our collection of memories, will one day expire and be reborn anew into a completely blank state. Atheists fear having to take responsibility for their actions. Such as morality, what justifies an Atheist morals?

>Indoctrination

Genetic fallacy. Do atheists believe what they do because they are from an atheist background or because their opinion is "right"? Can't intelligent, rational adults make their own mind up?
Why was the epicentre of Christianity at one point the Middle East, then Europe, then the USA, now Africa and soon to be China, despite it being illegal to follow under communist rule only a few decades ago?

Right. So take fear of death off your list.

It's not specific to America. I know it's true for France too. Why bother to go to mass if your priest tells you it's more important to just (make) love each other?

Always relevant

Christians in the past knew what was up. Monks would form mobs and go murder people, like that pagan slut Hypatia.

God is an answer to creation.

There are two possibilities.
From a materialist atheists point of view, matter and energy always existed and always will. Or matter and energy came into being from entire non existence.

Neither make sense. Aquinas argument for motion explains how all things that hold potentials must be proceeded by a fully actual entity. Something which holds no potentials, such as the potential to be created or destroyed. There must be a fully actual being at the start of the chain. An infinitely long line of boxcars must be driven by an engine, an infinitely long paintbrush must be used by an artist.
Also, these things cannot have simply come into existence from nothing of their own volition. How would that make sense if they didn't exist to do it in the first place? Something cannot come from complete nothingness. Mathematics are simply a system of measurement and observation. Newtons law of motion describes how a ball rolls but it does not cause the ball to roll. One plus one equals two but it does not create two of anything. Write a zero on a piece of paper and leave it alone, see how long it takes to turn into one...


Theism has an answer for this though.
God is eternal and infinite.
God is a fully actual being, he is immutable, eternal, infallible, omnipresent and omniscient.
All that is created is made manifest through God, therefore all that is uncreated is God, therefore God was not created.

How do militant atheists have anything to do with this?

I could see how you apply Confirmation bias to atheism if you treated an atheist as someone who claims and believes there is no god. which is not a position i hold, nor is relevant.

>What is to gain financially from simply believing?
nothing? but you can make money by making other people believe your shit and then get them to act on those beliefs.

>Tradition is everything.
Oh so i should believe in a god just because my ancestors did? i cant choose what i believe, i have to be convinced. Traditions might be nice and comfy but they dont get to decide what is a fact and what is not, which is why i brought it up. Believing something ONLY because your parents told it to be so is incredibly dishonest and will leave you with no ability to learn anything.

>Fear of death
There you go talking about atheists again, this is not about atheists nor about morality.

>God is an answer to creation.
This is a dangerous game. You are setting logical traps for yourself waiting to get btfo'd.

Science and philosophy changes over time. It would be better if you seperate this vulnerability from your faith.

It is ok. You dont need to explain.

My thoughts?

That heretic Martin Luther is to blame for all this trash.

DEUS VULT

EXTRA ECCLESIAM NULLA SALUS

You claim god to be the answer to creation.
What is the answer to "Where did god come from"?

You are answering a mystery with another mystery, its a non-answer.
You actually have to DEMONSTRATE that a god did it, because im not convinced.


Looking at the amount of text you are spewing out its quite clear that your mind cannot be changed with reason. Im happy that i brought up ignorance and dishonesty because that is the only thing you are demonstrating.

I'll give you 1 last change to convince me that a god exists, i dont think you can, without the powers of a god atleast, but i want to see you try.

>“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." - Matthew 7:13-14, NKJV
For whatever reason God's willed that this be so. Many will use religion as a way to seek power over others, others will be lukewarm or ambivalent of their condition. It's not so much the barriers that God has put up, as it is barriers we put up ourselves. To truly overcome our own sloth, greed, wrath, lust, gluttony, envy and especially pride is harder than anything God has set up before us. The downfall of the modern world is simply man completely giving into those base desires. It's the same reason why the poor are often more likely to be Christian in heart and mind, they mostly don't have to deal with as much prideful thinking as the rich. It still exists within them, of course, but it's easier to accept that you don't have all the answers yourself and put your hope in someone else when you don't have much physical wealth, that plus the fact that Jesus preached that in death the world would become fair towards them if they believed.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. You're unequivocally opposed to a creator being, and until you give yourself a chance to get lost in the studies that won't change. You'd need to put aside all preconceived notions, do pretty intense research, then compare that to non-theistic theory.
You will likely never come to God through debate, unless you debate the other side and do true research about religion. Even if you do that, you might stay an atheist, but if you're so sure about your position you'd have no trouble learning everything you can about Christianity and absorbing all it's nonsense so you can more accurately BTFO of us Christfags.

I trust the scientific community and if they find god or unanimously agree that anchient scriptures are accurate i will look into it myself, but before that happens im not going to waste a shit ton of time researching every single religion just to come to the same conclusion that i came to when i was 11 years old or to win more internet arguments, my ego isnt that big.
The conclusion btw is: I dont have a good enough reason to believe in a god.
There are a bunch of bad reasons, but my honesty prevents me from becoming convinced by them.
I am however open to the idea of god, but im not open to the idea of faith. Faith is gullibility, the reason you have for your beliefs when you dont have a better reason.

tlrd; I'm unequivocally opposed to saying there is a creator being without a good reason, we havent even demonstrated that to be possible.

Its getting late, its almost 5AM here, better head to bed, but dont let that stop you from responding.

Quantum physics has shied away from "consciousness collapses the waveform" these days. They've not been able to kill the idea of solipsism outright though. They probably never will either.

Actually we've been finding events where either there was no causal happening, there was a causal event but it happened in the future and acted in the present, or there was a causal event that happened in the past and acted in the present. So stuff coming from nothing isn't logically inconsistent.

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9

NO HOMOSEXUALS