Last time that great scribe Christopher A.Lee <calee@optonline.net>
chipped away at his/her stone these gems of wisdom for posterity ...

On Thu, 4 Oct 2007 16:52:27 -0500, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com>
wrote:

"Geoff" <gebobs@yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:dqCdnUy72YQA0ZjanZ2dnUVZ_jednZ2d@giganews.com...

Wow...I wasn't expecting this kind of perspective from a Tennessean
pastor. I think he hits the nail squarely on the head why people are
rejecting theism. Though not the point of the article, he makes no case
for why people should accept the god myth.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/religion/columns/070922a.shtml

Why are more Americans rejecting religion?

(snip)

Others believe atheism is on the rise because of the secular influence of
American culture. Dennis Prager, writing at Townhall.com, makes the case
that "from elementary school to graduate school, only one way of looking
at the world - the secular - is presented."

This guy needs to explain England then. State religion, low proportion of
believers, what's up with that?

Religion is cultural and hasn't been fundamentalist since the days of
Oliver Cromwell.

But it goes back to the restoration of the Monarchy in the 1600s. The
English civil war had led to rule by Puritans who were pretty well
hated.

With liberal Kings who were the head of the Church of England, people
partitioned themselves between Sunday mode and the rest of the week.
They were church goers but not religiously conservative

So that attempts by Catholics to bring the CofE back under Rome, or to
make it Puritan, were considered to be treason against the crown. With
the former treason against the country as well because it would lose
hard-gained sovereignty. Since Henry VIII the King had no longer been
subordinate to the Pope.

The liberal CofE was a real power for a while, but in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries they had no problem with the science and
technology that gave England its prosperity.

Religion gradually became more cultural than serious over all this
time.

The last straw was WW1, where many survivors lost what was already a
"just about" belief completely due to what they went through.

There are some seriously religious believers high up in the CofE
hierarchy, but they are out of touch with the rest of the country and
don't even realise how ridiculous they are when they lament the
declining of religion and tell the country it should believe in Father
Christmas again - or was it God?

Probably the most reactionary Anglican diocese in the world is the
Sydney arch-diocese. There the Anglican church is very evangelical and
morally in your face.

Last time that great scribe Christopher A.Lee <calee@optonline.net>
chipped away at his/her stone these gems of wisdom for posterity ...

On Thu, 4 Oct 2007 16:52:27 -0500, "Denis Loubet" <dloubet@io.com>
wrote:

"Geoff" <gebobs@yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:dqCdnUy72YQA0ZjanZ2dnUVZ_jednZ2d@giganews.com...

Wow...I wasn't expecting this kind of perspective from a Tennessean
pastor. I think he hits the nail squarely on the head why people are
rejecting theism. Though not the point of the article, he makes no case
for why people should accept the god myth.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/religion/columns/070922a.shtml

Why are more Americans rejecting religion?

(snip)

Others believe atheism is on the rise because of the secular influence of
American culture. Dennis Prager, writing at Townhall.com, makes the case
that "from elementary school to graduate school, only one way of looking
at the world - the secular - is presented."

This guy needs to explain England then. State religion, low proportion of
believers, what's up with that?

Religion is cultural and hasn't been fundamentalist since the days of
Oliver Cromwell.

But it goes back to the restoration of the Monarchy in the 1600s. The
English civil war had led to rule by Puritans who were pretty well
hated.

With liberal Kings who were the head of the Church of England, people
partitioned themselves between Sunday mode and the rest of the week.
They were church goers but not religiously conservative

So that attempts by Catholics to bring the CofE back under Rome, or to
make it Puritan, were considered to be treason against the crown. With
the former treason against the country as well because it would lose
hard-gained sovereignty. Since Henry VIII the King had no longer been
subordinate to the Pope.

The liberal CofE was a real power for a while, but in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries they had no problem with the science and
technology that gave England its prosperity.

Religion gradually became more cultural than serious over all this
time.

The last straw was WW1, where many survivors lost what was already a
"just about" belief completely due to what they went through.

There are some seriously religious believers high up in the CofE
hierarchy, but they are out of touch with the rest of the country and
don't even realise how ridiculous they are when they lament the
declining of religion and tell the country it should believe in Father
Christmas again - or was it God?

Probably the most reactionary Anglican diocese in the world is the
Sydney arch-diocese. There the Anglican church is very evangelical and
morally in your face.

"Support our troups, O5 and below. SeaWoe" <midl...@earthlink.net> wrote in
message

On Oct 4, 2:09 pm, "_ Prof. Jonez _" <thep...@jonez.net> wrote:

Geoff wrote:

Wow...I wasn't expecting this kind of perspective from a Tennessean
pastor. I think he hits the nail squarely on the head why people are
rejecting theism. Though not the point of the article, he makes no
case for why people should accept the god myth.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/religion/columns/070922a.shtml

Why are more Americans rejecting religion?

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, atheism is on
the rise in America. Margaret Downey, president of the Atheist
Alliance International, reports that her organization's membership
has doubled in the last year. She also reports that the Alliance's
annual convention already has a 500-person waiting list.

The Barna Group, an organization of pollsters that specializes in
religious issues, conducted a survey and found about 5 million adults
in the United States refer to themselves as atheists.

Their poll also found a number of additional people who say they have
no religious faith or that they are agnostic. Combine these folk with
the 5 million atheists, and the number of Americans detached from any
sort of religious life rises to about 20 million.

This may explain why several recent books promoting atheism and
criticizing all forms of faith have managed to become best sellers.
Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," Sam Harris' "The End of Faith,"
Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell," and Christopher Hitchen's "God
is Not Great," have all appeared on the New York Times best seller
list. In fact, Publisher's weekly reports that titles attacking faith
have sold a combined 750,000 copies.
We cannot help but ask, why? Why this sudden interest in atheism?

Part of the answer, according to Sam Harris and others, is the rise of
militant Muslim fundamentalism. In his book "The End of Faith," Harris
quotes long passages from the Quran arguing that anyone who takes
those selected words literally, and seriously, has no choice but to
be at war with the rational world.

For Harris, fundamentalist Muslims and Christians are but two
different sides of the same coin. Each serves as examples of why the
world would be better off if there was "an end to faith."

Others believe atheism is on the rise because of the secular
influence of American culture. Dennis Prager, writing at
Townhall.com, makes the case that "from elementary school to graduate
school, only one way of looking at the world - the secular - is
presented." Some truth may be in that statement, but that is
precisely what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind. They
had seen the disastrous results of state-supported religion and
official orthodoxies mingled with civic duty in Europe and wanted
none of it for America.
The Constitution establishes a secular society but with a guarantee of
religious freedom for all.
If children go through life not knowing their faith heritage, as
Prager asserts, that is not a failure of the public school system. If
children do not learn their faith at home and at church, we cannot be
surprised if they emerge into adulthood with low expectations about
the role of faith in their lives.

We must also be willing to admit that some of this turning away from
religion may be a form of running away.
The aggressive attacks on science from many quarters of the faith
community have left some people feeling great resentment toward faith.

It could be that certain expressions of faith have made God too small
to be embraced by those who experience the universe as vast and great.

A person who looks at the universe through the Hubble telescope is
going to have trouble taking the first two chapters of Genesis
literally. And when told that being faithful to God requires such
belief, unbelief may feel like the only option.

James L. Evans, a syndicated columnist, also serves as pastor of
Auburn First Baptist Church. He can be reached at
faithmatt...@mindspring.com.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Only one quibble:
Using the common definition of Agnostic as one who believes
that the existance / nonexistance of God cannot be proven,

An utterly fallacious assertion.

it's quite possible to be a believer and an agnostic.
It's also possible to be an atheist and agnostic, too.

Which makes the "agnostic" qualifier absurd and meaningless.

Further proof that the position of "agnostic" is
nothing but intellectual cowardice

"Support our troups, O5 and below. SeaWoe" <midl...@earthlink.net> wrote in
message

On Oct 4, 2:09 pm, "_ Prof. Jonez _" <thep...@jonez.net> wrote:

Geoff wrote:

Wow...I wasn't expecting this kind of perspective from a Tennessean
pastor. I think he hits the nail squarely on the head why people are
rejecting theism. Though not the point of the article, he makes no
case for why people should accept the god myth.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/religion/columns/070922a.shtml

Why are more Americans rejecting religion?

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, atheism is on
the rise in America. Margaret Downey, president of the Atheist
Alliance International, reports that her organization's membership
has doubled in the last year. She also reports that the Alliance's
annual convention already has a 500-person waiting list.

The Barna Group, an organization of pollsters that specializes in
religious issues, conducted a survey and found about 5 million adults
in the United States refer to themselves as atheists.

Their poll also found a number of additional people who say they have
no religious faith or that they are agnostic. Combine these folk with
the 5 million atheists, and the number of Americans detached from any
sort of religious life rises to about 20 million.

This may explain why several recent books promoting atheism and
criticizing all forms of faith have managed to become best sellers.
Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion," Sam Harris' "The End of Faith,"
Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell," and Christopher Hitchen's "God
is Not Great," have all appeared on the New York Times best seller
list. In fact, Publisher's weekly reports that titles attacking faith
have sold a combined 750,000 copies.
We cannot help but ask, why? Why this sudden interest in atheism?

Part of the answer, according to Sam Harris and others, is the rise of
militant Muslim fundamentalism. In his book "The End of Faith," Harris
quotes long passages from the Quran arguing that anyone who takes
those selected words literally, and seriously, has no choice but to
be at war with the rational world.

For Harris, fundamentalist Muslims and Christians are but two
different sides of the same coin. Each serves as examples of why the
world would be better off if there was "an end to faith."

Others believe atheism is on the rise because of the secular
influence of American culture. Dennis Prager, writing at
Townhall.com, makes the case that "from elementary school to graduate
school, only one way of looking at the world - the secular - is
presented." Some truth may be in that statement, but that is
precisely what the framers of the U.S. Constitution had in mind. They
had seen the disastrous results of state-supported religion and
official orthodoxies mingled with civic duty in Europe and wanted
none of it for America.
The Constitution establishes a secular society but with a guarantee of
religious freedom for all.
If children go through life not knowing their faith heritage, as
Prager asserts, that is not a failure of the public school system. If
children do not learn their faith at home and at church, we cannot be
surprised if they emerge into adulthood with low expectations about
the role of faith in their lives.

We must also be willing to admit that some of this turning away from
religion may be a form of running away.
The aggressive attacks on science from many quarters of the faith
community have left some people feeling great resentment toward faith.

It could be that certain expressions of faith have made God too small
to be embraced by those who experience the universe as vast and great.

A person who looks at the universe through the Hubble telescope is
going to have trouble taking the first two chapters of Genesis
literally. And when told that being faithful to God requires such
belief, unbelief may feel like the only option.

James L. Evans, a syndicated columnist, also serves as pastor of
Auburn First Baptist Church. He can be reached at
faithmatt...@mindspring.com.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Only one quibble:
Using the common definition of Agnostic as one who believes
that the existance / nonexistance of God cannot be proven,

An utterly fallacious assertion.

it's quite possible to be a believer and an agnostic.
It's also possible to be an atheist and agnostic, too.

Which makes the "agnostic" qualifier absurd and meaningless.

Further proof that the position of "agnostic" is
nothing but intellectual cowardice- Hide quoted text -

Further proof that the position of "agnostic" is
nothing but intellectual cowardice