Godless America?

JediMindTrick · Post by **JediMindTrick** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 9:11 am

FROM MY BLOG ON LIVEJOURNAL:

Last night Bill O'Reilly reported on a recent survey conducted by ARIS (American Religious Self-Indentification Survey) which showed that between 1990 and today, the percentage of Americans that called themselves Christian dropped from 86 to 76. Additionally, 20% of Americans now choose to associate themselves with no defined religion, with Catholicism taking the biggest hit in numbers. The conclusion, therefore, is that today more and more Americans are becoming "Godless" beings and hold no faith to speak of.

I believe that can't be farther from the truth.

On the contrary, I believe we are simply in the midst of a massive redefining of how we view religion in America and around the world. Perhaps a second Reformation, if you will. Much like the Reformation of the 16th century, Americans are seeing the obvious flaws with organized religion, including the omnipresent "do as I say, not as I do" mentality of many preachers and churchgoers alike. So, they choose to not be a part of the hypocrisy and opt to not associate themselves with a certain church.

Does that then mean they have no faith? That they are Godless heathens? Absolutely not. Just because a person chooses not to go to church every Sunday does not mean they don't share many of the same thoughts, feelings, and faith in God. They just choose to exercise their religious beliefs in a more personal way. At home, for example - where God belongs the most. I can honestly say that I do not attend church on a regular basis, but my kids do. Not because they have to, but because they genuinely want to. And that's the way it should be. Religion should not be force fed down a child's throat on a young age. Instead they should be given the option to attend church, and they should decide for themselves if that is something in which they wish to participate. Mandatory church attendance will only go on to cause greater distrust in organized religion later in life. Church should be a place of fun and togetherness, not a place of "fire and brimstone" where you learn about all the things God doesn't like about us meager humans.

And because I don't go to church, does that mean my family has no faith or belief in God? Negative. If anything, I'd say deep down we are much more religious than the individual who goes to church and then leaves the parking lot afterwards and proceeds to lie, cheat, steal, etc etc etc (but it's okay because they went to Church). Just remember: if you do go to church, take what you learned with you when you leave, and make sure you apply it all throughout the week, not just two hours on Sunday morning...and then maybe we'll see the churches start to fill up again.

Mr Wallstreet · Post by **Mr Wallstreet** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:15 am

If you're not Shadowman, you have no business opening a discussion on this topic

Mr Wallstreet · Post by **Mr Wallstreet** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:26 am

Firstly, why on earth were you watching Bill O'Reilly?

Secondly, although the number of Americans who called themselves "Christians" has decreased, I don't believe many of those people have stopped believing in God altogether (and when I say "God" I am lumping together any and all traditional beliefs of God from all ancient/current religions as well as any new modern Gods/Goddesses etc.. together). I believe those people are just as spiritual as they were before; they are merely seeking to fulfill their spirituality in different more unorthodox ways because organized religion no longer works for them.

More to the point, I believe what we are really seeing is a decrease in traditional organized religion and an increase in spirituality.

There are several reasons for this. One reason is that people have, seemingly, reached a point where they feel they know how to live good, meaningful, honest lives without being or needing to be told what to do by the clergy. A clergy they feel are either hypocritical and out of touch with today’s world or both.

People are starting to question more and more of the things they read in religious texts and are finding the answers they are receiving are lacking and/or unjustifiable. The biggest, obviously being the view of homosexuality by all the big religions and despite leading a good life, if you do not prescribe to a particular religious way of life, you’re damned to hellfire and brimstone. To many people that doesn’t sit right at all and just flies in the face of common sense. It is increasingly seen as nothing more than a scare tactic to frighten the masses to get them to get back to organized religion but all it does is further alienate people from religion and pushes them closer to leaving organized religion and finding their own path to god/spirituality or atheism.

Also, just because people leave the walls of organized religion to find their own way does not mean they no longer have faith. Faith is not the exclusive property of organized religion. Many people who do not follow any traditional organized religion continue to have faith in an abundance of things.

Goshin · Post by **Goshin** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:37 am

i love jesus and talk to him everyday but i cant stand church im not a religious person.

faith is having something to believe in religion is a big list of do's and don'ts and scaring people into being good

JediMindTrick · Post by **JediMindTrick** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:01 pm

Bill O'Reilly was on the TV when I was on the elliptical at the gym. No choice.

Junkogen · Post by **Junkogen** » Wed Mar 11, 2009 5:53 pm

Maybe it's because all of those Judeo-Christian myths are plagiarisms of ancient Egyptian myths and should be taken just as seriously. For some reason people need lies to keep themselves going. The search for "truth" seems to be the search for the best lie to suit your ends.

Humanity creeps me out. It really is FUBAR. I don't understand any of this shit that goes on. God or no, nothing seems to work. If people really wanted to be moral they'd stop breeding and just let our species go extinct. God could always create us again, right? I say we give it a shot.

Everyone's a hypocrite, nobody lives by what they think they do, because no one can ever understand what's really going on in this reality. We're apart of it. It's impossible to remove yourself from this reality to objectively see the true inner workings of it. Any claim to know the truth about what's going on here is a foolish lie, most likely aimed at exploiting, controlling, and/or manipulating people for personal gratification.

Humans are for the most part irrational and ruled by things that really are quite absurd like symbolism, stereotypes, delusions, anthropomorphism, and basic animal instincts all aimed at self-gratification. If this existence is controlled by some kind of omnipotent intelligence, it seems more likely akin to what would be characterized as the mind of psychopath, than any kind of beneficent or loving being.

It's utterly unconscionable what people do to each other. Any claim to the effect that human beings care for each other any further than how they can accomplish their own ends is absurd.

I guess what I'm saying about Christianity and associated religions is that if the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one and the same, then they should probably throw Satan in there and make it a Holy Quaternity to be more accurate.

Python · Post by **Python** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:22 am

I see this as a veiled attempt to deflect the fact that religious numbers are actually falling.

"It's not that they are no longer Christian, it's that they're disenchanted with the church and just don't want to attend service!"

Sure, Bill. Whatever you say.

>.>

Junkogen · Post by **Junkogen** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:31 pm

Python wrote:I see this as a veiled attempt to deflect the fact that religious numbers are actually falling.

"It's not that they are no longer Christian, it's that they're disenchanted with the church and just don't want to attend service!"

Sure, Bill. Whatever you say.

>.>

I hate Bill O'Reilly. His success troubles me deeply.

MGM · Post by **MGM** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:08 am

Who exactly is he?

Python · Post by **Python** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:26 am

He's a political commentator for Fox News. He tends to go on righteous rants, which is why people like him I think. I used to agree with what he said, maybe 80% of the time, but these days he's off his rocker on a lot of stuff.

Mr Wallstreet · Post by **Mr Wallstreet** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:29 am

MGM wrote:Who exactly is he?

An asshole.

But to be more specific, Bill O'Reilly is a conservative commentator with his own "news show" called "The O'Reilly Factor" of which I am a huge fan of

To be marginally fair to Bill, although he is a blowhard he is not the worst of the bunch. In fact, of all the conservative loudmouths, I'd say O'Reilly (while still a blowhard) is the most open to listening to differing view points and discussing them...His interview with Barney Frank notwithstanding...

Mr Wallstreet · Post by **Mr Wallstreet** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:32 am

Junkogen wrote:I hate Bill O'Reilly. His success troubles me deeply.

Now look, you made Bill sad.

JediMindTrick · Post by **JediMindTrick** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:10 pm

Tragic Angelus · Post by **Tragic Angelus** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:48 am

Mr Wallstreet wrote:An asshole.

Agreed.

Mr Wallstreet wrote: To be marginally fair to Bill, although he is a blowhard he is not the worst of the bunch. In fact, of all the conservative loudmouths, I'd say O'Reilly (while still a blowhard) is the most open to listening to differing view points and discussing them...His interview with Barney Frank notwithstanding...

Disagree. I've NEVER seen this cocksmack listen to someone elses point of view. If they differ from his he raises hell against them, calls them a liar, tells them to shut up and get off the air and cuts them off.

Tho, to be fair I also Hate him so much I stopped watching him after only a handful of times seeing him because he angered me. I also refuse to watch FOXNews because of it's ultra conservative far right-wing bias.

IrishCream · Post by **IrishCream** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 1:41 am

All the networks are biased. The reason FOX stands out is because it's the only one that has a conservative slant. And at least O'Reilly has people he disagrees with on his show. I can't watch Keith Olbermann for longer than 5 minutes at a time because it's him talking to his guests and them agreeing with him %100. That and he's so full of shit I can smell it coming off the screen.

Tragic Angelus · Post by **Tragic Angelus** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:53 pm

This is true, but I guess it's just not as noticable as FOX's bias since the rest are the same... and I'm more liberal.

Either way, I hate watching FOXNews and I hate O'Rielly. I need to find that link to the interview where some high school kid uses one of O'Reilly's own quotes to contradict the message he's attempting to preach that night.

IrishCream · Post by **IrishCream** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:23 am

They ALL contradict themselves. Frequently. When you're a talking head spouting off hours of crap a week, you're gonna contradict yourself. O'Reilly, Hannity, Matthews, Olbermann. They all do.

JediMindTrick · Post by **JediMindTrick** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:17 am

They sure did help out G Dub after 9/11 too. That should tell ya sumthin.

IrishCream · Post by **IrishCream** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:55 am

And MSNBC did everything they could to bury Obama's competition and get the guy elected. They ALL do it. That's why news journalism is so shitty nowandays; none of it is unbiased.

Mr Wallstreet · Post by **Mr Wallstreet** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:01 am

After 9/11 just about everyone/thing was supportive of the President. That was when Bush enjoyed the highest approval rating ever.

Also, Irish raises a great point. No matter which side the talking heads lean towards, they inevitably wind up contradicting themselves.

This is one of the reasons why the Daily Show is so popular despite being a fake news show. The Daily Show and the Colbert report, despite being liberal, point out inconsistenices and double-talk on both sides of the political spectrum. Stewart/Colbert go after both democrats and republicans for talking out of their asses and/or going back on their word.

As for Keith Olberman, watching him scream at the television in his wooden voice while he "reports the news" is just as fun as watching O'Reilly yell at his guests.

It now occurs to me that every one of these pundits has their own little assholish quirks.

Bill O'Reilly tends to sandbag guests and/or shout them out when he has them on his show.

Olbermann spends at least a third of his show reprimanding conservatives for being conservative.

Hannity spends his time bringing on like-minded guests and they both discuss how flabbergasted they both are that the public doesn't see the evils of liberalism and the Obama administration and any attempts to shed light on Obama's questionable past are quashed

Matthews pretends to be unbiased but rides the coatails of whatever is currently popular. He's a pretty big a-hole himself but what makes him kind of worse is that he's a phony.

Colmes was just a fuckin' joke. I suspect he was concieved, bred, raised and educated for the sole purpose of eventually becoming Sean Hannity's bitch. Colmes' arguments were so lame, ridiculous and half-assed it made ashamed to harbor liberal feelings

Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter - I suspect these two aren't even real people. All they do is spew vitrolic hate about anything even remotely liberal and anyone with a differing opinion

Bill Maher is the crazy male liberal counterpart of Ann Coulter but with the added bonus of a drug problem