My dad is a retired Methodist pastor. The very last year he went to the annual United Methodist Conference, they were pushing HARD to force the approval of LGBT inclusion in the church. In order to get their way, they fiddled with the schedule to prevent the African delegates from being able to attend, because they've historically voted conservatively. (Thank God for North Katanga....)
It just blows my mind on every level. They're happy to be manipulative racists so long as they get what they want. It flies in the face of everything they claim to support, on either side of the isle. They literally have no morals, yet somehow find themselves qualified to preach to the rest of us how to live.
The very idea of voting to determine whether something that has been a sin for four thousand years is still a sin after all, is itself an incredible act of blasphemy.
My grandfather (and his father!) were Methodist pastors. One of them was a bishop even.
Today, my local Methodist church has a “Queerly Beloved” flag and sign out all year long, along with BLM flags, and whatever the local secular leftist cause of the day is.
I bet the African delegates were mad about that. Really sad how so many churches have let that poison to enter. I go to a Lutheran church that is part of a conservative synod. If a church is pro gay or pro abortion then it’s time for me to leave
Its unfortunately the way people want their religious leaders to be. They refuse to listen to any Word that denies them, but will line up around the block for someone preaching something that justifies them.
Majority of people don't care about religion beyond what and how it allows them to bludgeon and virtue signal.
Pretty sure there's a verse in the bible about being pious to yourself and to God, and to not make a big public production out of it. So all these virtue signallers are sinners right off the bat just for virtue signalling.
Some of these people really make me think that Atheists got into the church.
I've actually said before that most priests were so useless that I could probably do a better job being a fake one than they could be being a real one... but I'm worried that a few people far more cynical than me took up that idea.
Some of these people really make me think that Atheists got into the church.
Always has been. Perhaps the first generation of church fathers were pure in their beliefs and teaching, but where there is authority, power, and influence, you will find corruption and those in it purely for the secular perks.
You are close to understanding the drive to religion that helps so many on the right end of the bellcurve find god again.
Societies need religion to culturally encourage moral behavior - that is both more effective and far less tyrannical than government force. Once you understand that, you now have motive to seek religious understanding, because a positive religious understanding is beneficial to your moral character and capacity to influence others toward the same good moral character.
Atheism is pointless. It provides no value. Atheists that aren't just stuck in rebellious teenage angst usually find something they think is a logical error with religion and stop thinking, convinced that their "insight" isthe final truth and so they should reject god despite all reason to not do that, because it's easier than trying to actually solve their logic problem.
Societies need religion to culturally encourage moral behavior - that is both more effective and far less tyrannical than government force. Once you understand that
You're acting like this has ever been separate from government force. There are brief moments in America, almost exclusively, where that has happened. Brief.
Even Ben Franklin complained that whistling in New England on a Sunday could get you arrested.
The truth is that human societies need some form of connection, through a grand narrative, to function in groups of any significant scale.
The grand narrative of Christianity produced a civilization that I like to live in and don't want to see disappear. There is no other religious tradition that I would want to live under.
The truth is that human societies need some form of connection, through a grand narrative, to function in groups of any significant scale.
Sure, I don't know why you need a god for that.
The grand narrative of Christianity produced a civilization that I like to live in and don't want to see disappear. There is no other religious tradition that I would want to live under.
No issues there. I think we could be better, we just didn't actually try. Living under Communism's grand narrative is obviously worse than living under Christendom's narrative.
It's not truth. Atheism isn't produced by actual unsolvable logical flaws with the existence of god. It's produced by misplaced pride and self absorption. You find something that looks like a logical flaw, and instead of actually examining it, use it as an excuse to stop thinking.
Atheism is nothing but pure arrogance, to believe you are superior to the great minds of history. We aren't in an age of philosophical enlightenment, we're in an age of hedonism and nihilism, and atheism is a tool used to excuse both, which is why it's popular in declining societies, and pushed by those who want to see society decline. "God allows evil so he can't be all powerful" for example isn't a logical flaw, it's a petulant tantrum by midwit children.
There are more times and places in history than just in the US where religion held social fabric and order together, not government force. It has been self-evident throughout history that law and morality are separate. Religion can preserve the latter, government cannot.
Sure it's based on unsolvable logical flaws. That's what happens when you take a metaphysical concept; demand it be a material, sapient, entity; and then claim it's totally metaphysical when you get challenged on it. Atheism isn't thought-terminating. Religion (all institutional religion) absolutely is because it requires you to stop asking questions regarding moral dilemmas and appeal to authority.
"God allows evil so he can't be all powerful" for example isn't a logical flaw, it's a petulant tantrum by midwit children.
The problem is that theists have never had a good answer to the existence of evil. Normally it's just a cop-out about "mysterious ways" and "plans" and "well that one wasn't God that was evil", all while still claiming that God has a everyday interest in personal matters. Fundamentally, the problem is with omnipotence and omnipresence, and then claiming a perfectly moral God who doesn't make mistakes.
If you don't want God to make mistakes, then you can still have omnipotence, but not omnipresence. If you want God to use evil as a test of faith or a training mechanism for each person to become better, then you have to abandon the idea that he's all-knowing (because he already knows that some people will fail the test, fail, and be sinners). Whatever excuse you want to use, Omni-presence, Opmni-Potent, and Omni-Knowledge means that your character will be evil. He has to make an evil choice if the world exists in the way that the real world does.
It makes sense that all those could be true in the garden of Eden or some other utopia. But it doesn't make sense in the real world unless he is willfully choosing to abandon one of those powers so that humanity can develop.
Christianity sees God as a kind of Father figure. Your dad isn't evil when he lets you suffer in a safe environment. But your dad also isn't omnipotent so that if burglars break into your house and kill your sister, your dad didn't allow that.
Reality happens, and you can't just keep coping about "God's plan" yadda yadda. Sometimes bad shit happens and you have to deal with it, God's input in the matter simply isn't relevant.
There are more times and places in history than just in the US where religion held social fabric and order together, not government force. It has been self-evident throughout history that law and morality are separate. Religion can preserve the latter, government cannot.
No, it isn't. Despite the screeching about the Separation of Church & State, it really is part of the American Enlightenment project because it helps keep the state out of the Church. Moral issues are supposed to be settled among the people and among moral leaders before a law is made. This is almost never done because the allure of making a law to coerce people into your moral thinking is always too strong. The US is one of the only countries that has ever tried to do this. Most of the time it fails, and most religious Conservatives don't agree that the state shouldn't be a moral arbiter. Every other country in history asserts morality from the state, because the state and the religion are unified by one mechanism or another (or they are just the same thing).
Again, your understanding is flawed. Humanity as we know it wouldn't exist without free will. There is no flaw in saying that god is all knowing and that humans still retain free will.
If people weren't allowed to make choices despite some of those choices being bad, they wouldn't be sentient, they would be nothing more than complex machines.
You are judging god based on your own pettiness for not personally stopping all evil. Would you prefer slavery to free will, if that slavery was comfortable?
There is plenty of law that has been recognized as being wrong by the citizens under it, law and morality haven't been considered to be the same by all previous societies. States have tried to assert themselves as moral arbiters, and ignorant statists have gone along with that, but that doesn't make it factual that law and morality are one and the same, and the force that kept order wasn't the state. Weak states can't maintain order, social forces like religion do that. Strong states maintaining order through force just inspires rebellion, not morality.
Law and morality can correlate to a degree, and law is necessary, but no intelligent person would argue that law is the whole of morality or that morality comes from law.
It’s one thing for the “religious studies” students to be this way: it’s entirely another to hear the same garbage from actual priests, pastors and other clergy who will defer to the thoughts of man than His written Word.
My dad is a retired Methodist pastor. The very last year he went to the annual United Methodist Conference, they were pushing HARD to force the approval of LGBT inclusion in the church. In order to get their way, they fiddled with the schedule to prevent the African delegates from being able to attend, because they've historically voted conservatively. (Thank God for North Katanga....)
It just blows my mind on every level. They're happy to be manipulative racists so long as they get what they want. It flies in the face of everything they claim to support, on either side of the isle. They literally have no morals, yet somehow find themselves qualified to preach to the rest of us how to live.
The very idea of voting to determine whether something that has been a sin for four thousand years is still a sin after all, is itself an incredible act of blasphemy.
Funny enough the African Bishops are some of the most conservative in my church as well.
If they haven't been excommunicated for naming the jew, are they really holding fast to tradition?
My grandfather (and his father!) were Methodist pastors. One of them was a bishop even.
Today, my local Methodist church has a “Queerly Beloved” flag and sign out all year long, along with BLM flags, and whatever the local secular leftist cause of the day is.
So that’s why I’m not a Methodist any more.
I bet the African delegates were mad about that. Really sad how so many churches have let that poison to enter. I go to a Lutheran church that is part of a conservative synod. If a church is pro gay or pro abortion then it’s time for me to leave
This shit is literally what the Inquisition is for. To prevent popular reform of the religious doctrine.
Heretics: "We have talked about it. It makes us feel good if Jesus was a gay, purple space alien. So we are going to do that now."
Inquisition: "Ahem."
They just don't want their tax-exempt status threatened. That's all.
Its unfortunately the way people want their religious leaders to be. They refuse to listen to any Word that denies them, but will line up around the block for someone preaching something that justifies them.
Majority of people don't care about religion beyond what and how it allows them to bludgeon and virtue signal.
Of course, this was prophesied in the bible in several places. One of those is 2 Timothy 4:3,4 https://biblehub.com/2_timothy/4-3.htm
Pretty sure there's a verse in the bible about being pious to yourself and to God, and to not make a big public production out of it. So all these virtue signallers are sinners right off the bat just for virtue signalling.
Some of these people really make me think that Atheists got into the church.
I've actually said before that most priests were so useless that I could probably do a better job being a fake one than they could be being a real one... but I'm worried that a few people far more cynical than me took up that idea.
Always has been. Perhaps the first generation of church fathers were pure in their beliefs and teaching, but where there is authority, power, and influence, you will find corruption and those in it purely for the secular perks.
You are close to understanding the drive to religion that helps so many on the right end of the bellcurve find god again.
Societies need religion to culturally encourage moral behavior - that is both more effective and far less tyrannical than government force. Once you understand that, you now have motive to seek religious understanding, because a positive religious understanding is beneficial to your moral character and capacity to influence others toward the same good moral character.
Atheism is pointless. It provides no value. Atheists that aren't just stuck in rebellious teenage angst usually find something they think is a logical error with religion and stop thinking, convinced that their "insight" isthe final truth and so they should reject god despite all reason to not do that, because it's easier than trying to actually solve their logic problem.
You're acting like this has ever been separate from government force. There are brief moments in America, almost exclusively, where that has happened. Brief.
Even Ben Franklin complained that whistling in New England on a Sunday could get you arrested.
Acknowledging the truth is never pointless.
The truth is that human societies need some form of connection, through a grand narrative, to function in groups of any significant scale.
The grand narrative of Christianity produced a civilization that I like to live in and don't want to see disappear. There is no other religious tradition that I would want to live under.
Sure, I don't know why you need a god for that.
No issues there. I think we could be better, we just didn't actually try. Living under Communism's grand narrative is obviously worse than living under Christendom's narrative.
It's not truth. Atheism isn't produced by actual unsolvable logical flaws with the existence of god. It's produced by misplaced pride and self absorption. You find something that looks like a logical flaw, and instead of actually examining it, use it as an excuse to stop thinking.
Atheism is nothing but pure arrogance, to believe you are superior to the great minds of history. We aren't in an age of philosophical enlightenment, we're in an age of hedonism and nihilism, and atheism is a tool used to excuse both, which is why it's popular in declining societies, and pushed by those who want to see society decline. "God allows evil so he can't be all powerful" for example isn't a logical flaw, it's a petulant tantrum by midwit children.
There are more times and places in history than just in the US where religion held social fabric and order together, not government force. It has been self-evident throughout history that law and morality are separate. Religion can preserve the latter, government cannot.
Sure it's based on unsolvable logical flaws. That's what happens when you take a metaphysical concept; demand it be a material, sapient, entity; and then claim it's totally metaphysical when you get challenged on it. Atheism isn't thought-terminating. Religion (all institutional religion) absolutely is because it requires you to stop asking questions regarding moral dilemmas and appeal to authority.
The problem is that theists have never had a good answer to the existence of evil. Normally it's just a cop-out about "mysterious ways" and "plans" and "well that one wasn't God that was evil", all while still claiming that God has a everyday interest in personal matters. Fundamentally, the problem is with omnipotence and omnipresence, and then claiming a perfectly moral God who doesn't make mistakes.
If you don't want God to make mistakes, then you can still have omnipotence, but not omnipresence. If you want God to use evil as a test of faith or a training mechanism for each person to become better, then you have to abandon the idea that he's all-knowing (because he already knows that some people will fail the test, fail, and be sinners). Whatever excuse you want to use, Omni-presence, Opmni-Potent, and Omni-Knowledge means that your character will be evil. He has to make an evil choice if the world exists in the way that the real world does.
It makes sense that all those could be true in the garden of Eden or some other utopia. But it doesn't make sense in the real world unless he is willfully choosing to abandon one of those powers so that humanity can develop.
Christianity sees God as a kind of Father figure. Your dad isn't evil when he lets you suffer in a safe environment. But your dad also isn't omnipotent so that if burglars break into your house and kill your sister, your dad didn't allow that.
Reality happens, and you can't just keep coping about "God's plan" yadda yadda. Sometimes bad shit happens and you have to deal with it, God's input in the matter simply isn't relevant.
No, it isn't. Despite the screeching about the Separation of Church & State, it really is part of the American Enlightenment project because it helps keep the state out of the Church. Moral issues are supposed to be settled among the people and among moral leaders before a law is made. This is almost never done because the allure of making a law to coerce people into your moral thinking is always too strong. The US is one of the only countries that has ever tried to do this. Most of the time it fails, and most religious Conservatives don't agree that the state shouldn't be a moral arbiter. Every other country in history asserts morality from the state, because the state and the religion are unified by one mechanism or another (or they are just the same thing).
Again, your understanding is flawed. Humanity as we know it wouldn't exist without free will. There is no flaw in saying that god is all knowing and that humans still retain free will.
If people weren't allowed to make choices despite some of those choices being bad, they wouldn't be sentient, they would be nothing more than complex machines.
You are judging god based on your own pettiness for not personally stopping all evil. Would you prefer slavery to free will, if that slavery was comfortable?
There is plenty of law that has been recognized as being wrong by the citizens under it, law and morality haven't been considered to be the same by all previous societies. States have tried to assert themselves as moral arbiters, and ignorant statists have gone along with that, but that doesn't make it factual that law and morality are one and the same, and the force that kept order wasn't the state. Weak states can't maintain order, social forces like religion do that. Strong states maintaining order through force just inspires rebellion, not morality.
Law and morality can correlate to a degree, and law is necessary, but no intelligent person would argue that law is the whole of morality or that morality comes from law.
Until next time…
It’s one thing for the “religious studies” students to be this way: it’s entirely another to hear the same garbage from actual priests, pastors and other clergy who will defer to the thoughts of man than His written Word.
Very true