Is Christianity Dying?

[SaidNobody]

It's fun and interesting to hear you say you like to argue, SN. Have you ever changed your mind about something through argument?

It is the only way that I ever change my mind, is by arguing about it. I don't come here to be right. I come here to be challenged. Often times I know most of the information that others might present but have a completely different stance on it. If after we hash it out a little bit I think they might still have a point, it changes my opinion.

Seriously, sometimes I stumble onto writings that I may have done 5 or 6 years ago and not even realize that I wrote them. Sometimes I'm amazed at how wise they are Before I realize that it was me who wrote them. Sometimes I have the same opinion in a completely different form. That might sound strange but I do. For example, I now publicly hold a pro-choice standard on the concept of abortion, but if you listen to my argument it's still very much about for a life. It's not that I'm unwilling to save the children, but I don't think we should do so by stripping women of their sovereignty.

So my stance in my argument is about how can we save the innocence without violating a person's sovereignty. So did I actually change, I think so, but not really in my intent.

[deacon blues]

Interesting. It reminds of a TBM friend who was pro-choice; and then there was an atheist writer- Nat Hentoff- who was pro-life. I'm a instinctive fence sitter. On most issues I'm drawn to the middle, at least that's how I think of myself. I could be wrong.

[SaidNobody]

Interesting. It reminds of a TBM friend who was pro-choice; and then there was an atheist writer- Nat Hentoff- who was pro-life. I'm a instinctive fence sitter. On most issues I'm drawn to the middle, at least that's how I think of myself. I could be wrong.

Everyone finds their place. I'm a both pro-choice and pro-life.

On the subject of women having sovereignty over their body I am extreme. We kill to protect our freedoms and quantity of life all the time. Why when it comes to woman's right to protect herself do we hesitate?

But on the issue is pro-life, it is a shame on the entire culture that we kill our unborn. But we should be pro-life before the child is conceived. Men/boys who plant seeds in hostile gardens should be held accountable to. Unwanted pregnancies shouldn't happen.

[Keewon]

I wonder sometimes whether civilization needs religion to remain stable. Civilizations obviously "want" religion, since it always pops up.

Secular European countries seem to do just fine, happier by most measures than the US. The more religious countries tend to have higher disparity between rich and poor, more social problems and on and on.

I recently decided I needed some kind of community and joined the Unitarian Universalists. No creed, just a covenant to love one another, to "lift the hands that hang down", etc. What a concept. It is so very refreshing, and far more "spiritual" than much that I experienced in my LDS ward.

I don't regret my upbringing in the LDS church, other than not learning the skills required to have a social life outside the ward. While kids often get radicalized in different ways, I was radicalized- if you want to call it that- to the concept of charity, of Christ-like love. I longed for it, prayed for it. That's not a bad way to start out in one's adult life, all said and done.

[Rob4Hope]

The merging of the Radical Right with Evangelical Christianity is frightening to me.

We live in a world of confusion and intellectual deferral that is taught to us from childhood. For example, the idea of "informed consent" doesn't exist in the temple at all. You go there, and before you are told much of anything, you are asked if you want to leave because you don't want to make the promises that are coming up.

Hunh?

You had no idea this was coming; you don't know what "promises" you will be asked to make; you don't know anything, and now they are asking you if you want to go through with it?

Then, unbeknownst to you and out of no-where, you are asked to pantomime slitting your throat.

Uhhhh...Hello out there! Could you have told me I was gunna do this ahead of time so I could make an informed choice?

When you get evangelicals and radical rights together, it gets frightening. But the other side is also an extreme.

I see polarization happening in communities and people. And that is NOT what Jesus taught.

[Rob4Hope]

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