Today, there appears to be an ever-growing group of "nones." I think the latter is a bad term, because when you use it, others often hear "nuns." However, that's the term the literature is using. These are people fantastically interested in spirituality, but have no use for organized religion at all, no church affiliation, nothing. I think the bottom line her is that the nones are turned off by classical image of God as a one-dimensional, simple being, unchanging, immobile, outside us, outside time and space. Many find more spiritual nourishment and deep aesthetic experience in in contemplating the awesome wonder and beauty of the universe, with its inexhaustible profusion of structures and relationships, internal and external, than the traditional image of God, which seems too static, too transcendent, too juridical. We can't get this image of God to agree with anything we know about sex, evolution, healing, physics, you name it. So many reject it, and their rejection comes out of an honest, gut-level, real openness to spiritual; experience.
Does Jesus need Creationism?
- Thread starter iBrian
- Start date
Devils' Advocate
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 2,086
- Reaction score
- 392
- Points
- 83
I know you were. I was making the point that you made in your post following this one. In today's America Creationism stands for a very specific group of anti-evolution loony tunes.
Devils' Advocate
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 2,086
- Reaction score
- 392
- Points
- 83
It was the Nuns! Holy Cow!!! I had it wrong this whole time. 
Devils' Advocate
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 2,086
- Reaction score
- 392
- Points
- 83
But seriously. The religious nones are not a homogenous group at all, at all. Who exactly are they? One of the sources I trust more than most is the PEW Research Institute, and here is their polling data:
The “nones,” a category that includes people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is “nothing in particular,” now make up 23% of U.S. adults, up from 16% in 2007. But there is more to the story. To begin with, this group is not uniformly nonreligious. Most of them say they believe in God, and about a third say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.
(These are adults who are not affiliated with a religious group and who also say religion is not important in their lives.) As of 2007, there were only 21 million “nonreligious” adults who fit this description.
Religiously unaffiliated Americans are younger, on average, ...... 70%) also say they seldom or never pray and 42% say they do not believe in God.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ot-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular/
The “nones,” a category that includes people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is “nothing in particular,” now make up 23% of U.S. adults, up from 16% in 2007. But there is more to the story. To begin with, this group is not uniformly nonreligious. Most of them say they believe in God, and about a third say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.
(These are adults who are not affiliated with a religious group and who also say religion is not important in their lives.) As of 2007, there were only 21 million “nonreligious” adults who fit this description.
Religiously unaffiliated Americans are younger, on average, ...... 70%) also say they seldom or never pray and 42% say they do not believe in God.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...ot-only-growing-theyre-becoming-more-secular/
Thanks for the clarification.
The interesting thing to me is that many of the "nones" I met do believe in God and are very interested in theology. They just don't like organized religion.
The interesting thing to me is that many of the "nones" I met do believe in God and are very interested in theology. They just don't like organized religion.
BigJoeNobody
Professional Argument Attractor
as I was going over this (late I guess) I was wondering where I missed something like this. I tend to try to read the big complicated stuff, although I tend to take forever to finish them. A consequence of ADHD and an elevated IQ it seems.
As for "Creationists", the term is largely used for anyone who believes the Earth (and the whole of existence, or in the case of Abrahamics, existence itself) is created by a higher power. It is now being hijacked a bit by the short-earther crowd, but the term just doesn't seem to fit being only applied to them. Then again I still object to calling terrorists of any religious claim as "Fundamentalist" or "Radical" based solely on their etymology (unless of course their religion does in fact call for that action done by those groups)
shunyadragon
everything is in pencil
It is a fact of history of traditional Christianity that doctrines, dogma and beliefs are base on an early literal Creationism, they determined the literal events surrounding Adam and Eve and the World Flood, the justified the 'Fall,' 'Original Sin,' and the 'World Flood' to justify the mission and purpose of Jesus Christ.
This argument is in line with the original title and purpose of the thread.
This argument is in line with the original title and purpose of the thread.
Last edited:
I wish banana brain were here –
So nit-picking on the grounds of scientific veracity is specious.
Read Ricouer on Augustine before you presume to say what the African Doctor meant ...
Also note that every side of the creationist debate will cite their favoured texts to prove their argument.
Augustine began four times a treatise on the literal reception of Genesis, and each time ended up talking in analogical terms ... but he had the profound sense that if we begin the rationalise the text, we bring it within the scope of our own habits of thought and comfortability and probably miss the very element that could, like a koan, trigger something profound that sets us free ... and that cannot be planted, programmed, or self-determined ...
... so in short, I find the current tendency to classify and categorise into this and that, goodies and baddies, naive and self-serving, and poor scholarship.Indeed it owes more to fundamentalism that philosophy.
The point banana brain is alluding to here, and one made by Polycarp in the prior post, is the Hexaemeron is neither science nor history, its metaphysics and theology. So really the scientific, historic, and nigh-on every other discussion here is meaningless because that's not what the text is about. The text is an insight into the nature of man, of the divine, the relation between the two, couched in words people can understand.
So nit-picking on the grounds of scientific veracity is specious.
I might also add that the Fathers were equally aware of its import, and had remarkably honest views when it comes to the apparent contradictions – such as day and night prior to the creation of the sun and moon – but having a greater plasticity of mind than the contemporary mindset, read the texts literally and spiritually, morally and analogically ... in short, they were not 'of this camp or that camp that critics here delight in putting people into. I know its makes it easier to criticise, but really these men were far more insightful and intelligent than modern man gives them credit for.
Read Ricouer on Augustine before you presume to say what the African Doctor meant ...
Also note that every side of the creationist debate will cite their favoured texts to prove their argument.
Augustine began four times a treatise on the literal reception of Genesis, and each time ended up talking in analogical terms ... but he had the profound sense that if we begin the rationalise the text, we bring it within the scope of our own habits of thought and comfortability and probably miss the very element that could, like a koan, trigger something profound that sets us free ... and that cannot be planted, programmed, or self-determined ...
... so in short, I find the current tendency to classify and categorise into this and that, goodies and baddies, naive and self-serving, and poor scholarship.Indeed it owes more to fundamentalism that philosophy.
Last edited:
- Messages
- 1,149
- Reaction score
- 287
- Points
- 83
Amen.
shunyadragon
everything is in pencil
The problem here is that the accounts of Genesis are considered historically and scientifically factual by the authors of the gospels, Paul and the majority of the church fathers as the foundation of the doctrines and dogmas of traditional Christianity, and embraced as factual by at least half or more than half of the Christians today. It is not nit-picking on the grounds of scientific veracity is specious. It is a matter of uncompromising belief of many if not most Christians.
Your evading and side stepping the fact that by far the majority of the church fathers believed in a literal Genesis, and that is what the doctrines and dogmas of traditional Christianity is based on.
This is dodging the fact that Augustine specifically endorsed a literal interpretation of Genesis in his work the 'City of God' despite his misgivings as to its rational implications.
If you present and argument about what Augustine believed cite him completely.
This just creates a high fog index and doe not address the issue specifically.
Devils' Advocate
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 2,086
- Reaction score
- 392
- Points
- 83
To me the problem here is that too many people today consider Genesis historically factual. Most of them, the vast majority of them, don't have a clue about which way the early church leaned, and they don't care either. Their basis for their beliefs are founded on 'that is what I want to believe'. And if this way of thinking stayed within the bounds of religion it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Unfortunately the 'I have a right to believe what I want to believe' has overflowed to the physical reality in which we live. And that is a recipe for disaster.
I think this reflects your local situation and, as a Christian, I feel for you believe me!
A problem for you, not really a de facto problem.
No, I think it actually illuminates the issue.
Either one believes in a doctrine or one doesn't. If one doesn't there are no end of reasons not to believe, we get people pop up here regularly telling us what's wrong with Christianity, the Catholic Church, etc., etc. Normally the problem is their problem, rather than ours.
Devils' Advocate
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 2,086
- Reaction score
- 392
- Points
- 83
Belive ME, your telling me that European Christians are way more sane about their theology is a lifeline I hold onto with both hands!
A Cup Of Tea
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 3,313
- Reaction score
- 579
- Points
- 108
Yup.
shunyadragon
everything is in pencil
This post does not really respond to anything constructive. I believe the problems presented more that just 'telling what's wrong with Christianity and the Roman Church. Later day revisionism to try and make Christianity fit an every changing world with a religion and churches that do not change their doctrines and dogma based on ancient myth.
The scholarship is excellent documenting what the church fathers believe when they formulated the doctrines and dogmas of Christianity.
Last edited: