| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Elf M. Sternberg" |
| Date: |
06 Apr 2005 05:44:40 PM |
| Object: |
Benign Whateverism! |
So, anyway, the National Survey of Youth and Religion has been completed
and the first studies based upon the survey are starting to hit the
shelves. What the survey reveals is that, in terms of creed, most
teenagers are not "Christians" or "Jews" or "atheists." They have a
creed which, for all purposes, is hedonistic:
* God exists and has created and ordered the world and watches over
human life on earth.
* God wants people to be good and nice to each other and
to be moral.
* The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about
oneself.
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
* Good people will go to heaven when they die.
Christian Smith, Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology at The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and one of the authors of
the study, states that this collection of creeds represents the "pop
religion" of the United States and has dubbed it, "Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism," although at least one wag has dubbed it "Benign
Whateverism."
And they get it from their parents. That's the only conclusion that
most of the handwringing pundits deep within the evangelical youth
churches can really say: kids are getting this religion from their
folks. After all, these are people who are getting their earthly reward
by feeding the institution, and *the institution wants something back*.
It never ceases to amaze me how few people appreciate just how Darwinian
the relationship between institutions and their human symbiots really
is, and how much natural selection really goes on between institutions
looking for their niches among we the living.
This is not, apparently, because teenagers are vague in general. The
survey found that most teens could speak clearly and concisely about a
whole range of issues. It was simply that, in the matter of religion,
most of them identified with the church of their parents and very few of
them could accurately identify the creed of their church. Very few had
been taught what it means to be "a Christian," "a Jew," the beliefs into
which they had been born.
Elf
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| User: "Mike Painter" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
06 Apr 2005 06:35:00 PM |
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Elf M. Sternberg wrote:
Christian Smith, Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology at The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and one of the authors of
the study, states that this collection of creeds represents the "pop
religion" of the United States and has dubbed it, "Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism," although at least one wag has dubbed it "Benign
Whateverism."
I have a Masters in Apathetic and Agnostic Studies from The International
University of Nesceince.
I have also been ordained a minister through IUN in The first Universal
Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic.
-Nesciamus, non attingamus.
"We don't know and we don't care."
So I am a minister in UCTAA, ULC and have a Masters from UIN or IUN (who
cares)
All free. Top that Jason.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
07 Apr 2005 01:11:58 AM |
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Elf M. Sternberg wrote:
So, anyway, the National Survey of Youth and Religion has been
completed
and the first studies based upon the survey are starting to hit the
shelves. What the survey reveals is that, in terms of creed, most
teenagers are not "Christians" or "Jews" or "atheists." They have a
creed which, for all purposes, is hedonistic:
* God exists and has created and ordered the world and watches over
human life on earth.
* God wants people to be good and nice to each other and
to be moral.
* The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about
oneself.
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
* Good people will go to heaven when they die.
If you take away the interventionist notion, I refer to this
as the "poker god": you take what you're dealt and do the
best you can.
If I were I a believer, it would be the only explanation:
You're born crippled? Deal with it. Got AIDS? Same answer.
The tsunami? Likewise. Underachievers, lazy bastards, and
those who expect help (ie. praying) go to "hell", those who
work hard go to "heaven".
No, I don't believe in any such nonsense.
Christian Smith, Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology at
The
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and one of the authors
of
the study, states that this collection of creeds represents the "pop
religion" of the United States and has dubbed it, "Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism," although at least one wag has dubbed it "Benign
Whateverism."
How Generation X-ish of him.
And they get it from their parents. That's the only conclusion that
most of the handwringing pundits deep within the evangelical youth
churches can really say: kids are getting this religion from their
folks. After all, these are people who are getting their earthly
reward
by feeding the institution, and *the institution wants something
back*.
It never ceases to amaze me how few people appreciate just how
Darwinian
the relationship between institutions and their human symbiots really
is, and how much natural selection really goes on between
institutions
looking for their niches among we the living.
More pseudo-evidence for my "poker god". O_-
This is not, apparently, because teenagers are vague in general. The
survey found that most teens could speak clearly and concisely about
a
whole range of issues. It was simply that, in the matter of
religion,
most of them identified with the church of their parents and very few
of
them could accurately identify the creed of their church. Very few
had
been taught what it means to be "a Christian," "a Jew," the beliefs
into
which they had been born.
Par for the course. Parents assume kids aren't capable of
thinking for themselves, that kids will blindly obey their
religion even after leaving the house. I didn't follow it
for nearly a decade _before_ moving out.
Bob Dog
-----
Divine retribution is an idol threat.
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| User: "Brian E. Clark" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
06 Apr 2005 08:44:22 PM |
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In article <87ll7vttif.fsf@drizzle.com>, Elf M. Sternberg
said...
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
AAA Piety.
(For those who don't live in the US, AAA or "Triple-A" is an
automobile association that offers roadside assistance.)
--
-----------
Brian E. Clark
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| User: "Frank J Warner" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
06 Apr 2005 09:26:03 PM |
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In article <MPG.1cbe5a82247275cb98994b@news.comcast.giganews.com>,
Brian E. Clark <reply@newsgroup.only.please> wrote:
In article <87ll7vttif.fsf@drizzle.com>, Elf M. Sternberg
said...
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
AAA Piety.
(For those who don't live in the US, AAA or "Triple-A" is an
automobile association that offers roadside assistance.)
Because this thread needs a little drift, I've always wondered at
people's reluctance to shorten the "www" in most urls. As you point
out, we say "Triple-A" for AAA but we're all reduced to saying,
"double-you, double-you, double-you" for World Wide Web, taking up
precious seconds that could be saved by substituting "triple-wuh."
-Frank
--
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
06 Apr 2005 09:44:05 PM |
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Frank J Warner wrote:
In article <MPG.1cbe5a82247275cb98994b@news.comcast.giganews.com>,
Brian E. Clark <reply@newsgroup.only.please> wrote:
In article <87ll7vttif.fsf@drizzle.com>, Elf M. Sternberg
said...
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
AAA Piety.
(For those who don't live in the US, AAA or "Triple-A" is an
automobile association that offers roadside assistance.)
Because this thread needs a little drift, I've always wondered at
people's reluctance to shorten the "www" in most urls. As you point
out, we say "Triple-A" for AAA but we're all reduced to saying,
"double-you, double-you, double-you" for World Wide Web, taking up
precious seconds that could be saved by substituting "triple-wuh."
I shorten www (double-you, double-you, double-you) to "trip-dub". ;-)
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| User: "Enkidu" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
06 Apr 2005 10:18:42 PM |
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DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in news:Jr6dnSJ_sevpA8nfRVn-
qA@comcast.com:
Frank J Warner wrote:
In article <MPG.1cbe5a82247275cb98994b@news.comcast.giganews.com>,
Brian E. Clark <reply@newsgroup.only.please> wrote:
In article <87ll7vttif.fsf@drizzle.com>, Elf M. Sternberg
said...
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
AAA Piety.
(For those who don't live in the US, AAA or "Triple-A" is an
automobile association that offers roadside assistance.)
Because this thread needs a little drift, I've always wondered at
people's reluctance to shorten the "www" in most urls. As you point
out, we say "Triple-A" for AAA but we're all reduced to saying,
"double-you, double-you, double-you" for World Wide Web, taking up
precious seconds that could be saved by substituting "triple-wuh."
I shorten www (double-you, double-you, double-you) to "trip-dub". ;-)
Or hexayoo.
--
Enkidu AA#2165
EAC Chaplin and ordained minister,
ULC, Modesto, CA
The pioneers and missionaries of religion have been the real cause of
more trouble and war than all other classes of mankind.
-- Edgar Allan Poe
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| User: "MarkA" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
07 Apr 2005 06:23:21 AM |
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On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 19:26:03 -0700, Frank J Warner wrote:
In article <MPG.1cbe5a82247275cb98994b@news.comcast.giganews.com>, Brian
E. Clark <reply@newsgroup.only.please> wrote:
In article <87ll7vttif.fsf@drizzle.com>, Elf M. Sternberg said...
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
AAA Piety.
(For those who don't live in the US, AAA or "Triple-A" is an automobile
association that offers roadside assistance.)
Because this thread needs a little drift, I've always wondered at people's
reluctance to shorten the "www" in most urls. As you point out, we say
"Triple-A" for AAA but we're all reduced to saying, "double-you,
double-you, double-you" for World Wide Web, taking up precious seconds
that could be saved by substituting "triple-wuh."
-Frank
Wouldn't 3 double-u's be 6 u's?
--
MarkA
(still caught in the maze of twisty little passages, all different)
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| User: "Douglas Berry" |
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| Title: Re: Benign Whateverism! |
06 Apr 2005 06:28:07 PM |
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On 06 Apr 2005 15:44:40 -0700, "Elf M. Sternberg" <elf@drizzle.com>
drained his beer, leaned back in the alt.atheism beanbag and drunkenly
proclaimed the following
* God does not need to be particularly involved in life except when
needed for a problem.
Crisis Monotheism.
--
Douglas E. Berry Do the OBVIOUS thing to send e-mail
Atheist #2147, Atheist Vet #5
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as
when they do it from religious conviction."
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #894.
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