American religiousness

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Tero
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Re: American religiousness

Post by Tero » Sat Dec 04, 2010 1:38 pm

It's cause without God life has no meaning. And you can't get something from nothing. Plus they all got C's in science and can't spell possessives and plurals. So, they are just dumb.

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Re: American religiousness

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sat Dec 04, 2010 1:41 pm

Tero wrote:It's cause without God life has no meaning. And you can't get something from nothing. Plus they all got C's in science and can't spell possessives and plurals. So, they are just dumb.
The willingness to ignore reality is the biggest challenge to a rational society.
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Re: American religiousness

Post by DaveDodo007 » Sat Dec 04, 2010 10:54 pm

I think American religiousness is due to the fact that America is a nation of immigrants and people like to mix with like minded people. As the church was the focal point of society for Americans they gravitate towards that. This left America behind the other Western democracies, I think the youth of America are now rejecting religion in large numbers except for the new immigrants who have the same problem as the earlier immigrants.
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Re: American religiousness

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sat Dec 04, 2010 10:56 pm

DaveDodo007 wrote:I think American religiousness is due to the fact that America is a nation of immigrants and people like to mix with like minded people. As the church was the focal point of society for Americans they gravitate towards that. This left America behind the other Western democracies, I think the youth of America are now rejecting religion in large numbers except for the new immigrants who have the same problem as the earlier immigrants.
If church was the only place to do that I'd be inclined to give it some credence. But people spend most of their time outside the church, even in highly religious countries.
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Re: American religiousness

Post by Twoflower » Sat Dec 04, 2010 10:59 pm

My parents had to bribe my brother and I to go to church with promises of doughnuts after if we stayed quiet and didn't ask the priest awkward questions in the middle of the sermon.
I'm wild just like a rock, a stone, a tree
And I'm free, just like the wind the breeze that blows
And I flow, just like a brook, a stream, the rain
And I fly, just like a bird up in the sky
And I'll surely die, just like a flower plucked
And dragged away and thrown away
And then one day it turns to clay
It blows away, it finds a ray, it finds its way
And there it lays until the rain and sun
Then I breathe, just like the wind the breeze that blows
And I grow, just like a baby breastfeeding
And it's beautiful, that's life

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Re: American religiousness

Post by Robert_S » Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:24 am

Gawdzilla wrote: People here are trying to figure out what they are, religious or not, that make them rather strident at times.
That would explain why people "identify" as Christian even though they don't read the Bible, go to church, or give all their belongings to the poor.
What I've found with a few discussions I've had lately is this self-satisfaction that people express with their proffessed open mindedness. In realty it ammounts to wilful ignorance and intellectual cowardice as they are choosing to not form any sort of opinion on a particular topic. Basically "I don't know and I'm not going to look at any evidence because I'm quite happy on this fence."
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Re: American religiousness

Post by Tero » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:01 am

Twoflower wrote:My parents had to bribe my brother and _I_to go to church with promises of doughnuts after if we stayed quiet and didn't ask the priest awkward questions in the middle of the sermon.
And then Americans have problems with me as well. But the English speakers all do that. The parents are the subject, the brother and you are the object.What is the object form of "I"?

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Re: American religiousness

Post by Ian » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:12 am

Gawdzilla wrote:Deersbee, I've often said that America is a country of liars when it comes to religion. One hour in church and 167 hours being nothing at all religious each week. Figure the percentages.
Speaking of percentages, I'm convinced that the US isn't as pious a country as polls suggest. Most people may not be in touch with the notion that they're skeptics, but they nevertheless have very little interest in religion. So when polled, they identify themselves as "Christian" even though they're really nothing of the sort. A great many people who don't even realize they're nonreligious/atheist call themselves Christian because they know no better; they have a tree up in December, might have gone to church a little when they were younger (or still do, out of family habit) but don't buy into the dogma of Christianity in the slightest.

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Re: American religiousness

Post by Trolldor » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:14 am

Look at the polls asking for specific beliefs, not references to denominations.
"The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don't like that statement but few can argue with it."

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Re: American religiousness

Post by Ian » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:15 am

The Mad Hatter wrote:Look at the polls asking for specific beliefs, not references to denominations.
Yeah, though they're harder to find.

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Re: American religiousness

Post by charlou » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:42 am

Ian wrote:
The Mad Hatter wrote:Look at the polls asking for specific beliefs, not references to denominations.
Yeah, though they're harder to find.
Is it really the case that 40% of Americans believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old? That's a statistic that has been used quite often by some atheists to either point and laugh ... or despair ...
no fences

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Re: American religiousness

Post by charlou » Sun Dec 05, 2010 2:54 am

Gawdzilla wrote:
DaveDodo007 wrote:I think American religiousness is due to the fact that America is a nation of immigrants and people like to mix with like minded people. As the church was the focal point of society for Americans they gravitate towards that. This left America behind the other Western democracies, I think the youth of America are now rejecting religion in large numbers except for the new immigrants who have the same problem as the earlier immigrants.
If church was the only place to do that I'd be inclined to give it some credence. But people spend most of their time outside the church, even in highly religious countries.
That may be so, but I think the relative formality and ritual of a regular gathering at church is, or at least has been, deemed an essential aspect of community cohesion, with all the other points ... moral guidance, leadership, spiritual teaching, etc ... being packaged up in and reinforced by that.
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Re: American religiousness

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Sun Dec 05, 2010 4:09 am

Robert_S wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote: People here are trying to figure out what they are, religious or not, that make them rather strident at times.
That would explain why people "identify" as Christian even though they don't read the Bible, go to church, or give all their belongings to the poor.
Yep, it's what they're supposed to say when somebody asks them. They don't have to act christ-like, they just have to say the right things when challenged. No hypocrisy involved, nope, none at all, not a bit. No siree. None at all.
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Re: American religiousness

Post by Hermit » Sun Dec 05, 2010 5:06 am

Gawdzilla wrote:It's the science on the street that matters here, not the esoteric research in the labs. It's harder to believe in fairies when you have all these electronic gadgets in the house. In the back of the mind you know there's no magic anymore.
You may be right, but although technology and science was pivotal to my rejection of theism, I am not sure how well that works on a broader scale. This is a quote as near to verbatim as I can remember it, and I think it typifies how little the science inherent in electronic gadgets erodes religious sentiments: "God blessed me with this beautiful, new plasma television."

The USA is way more infested with those wonders of technology and science than any northern and central European nations, yet it is more religious than them.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: American religiousness

Post by DRSB » Sun Dec 05, 2010 7:40 am

Gawdzilla wrote:
Robert_S wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote: People here are trying to figure out what they are, religious or not, that make them rather strident at times.
That would explain why people "identify" as Christian even though they don't read the Bible, go to church, or give all their belongings to the poor.
Yep, it's what they're supposed to say when somebody asks them. They don't have to act christ-like, they just have to say the right things when challenged. No hypocrisy involved, nope, none at all, not a bit. No siree. None at all.
Not sure being religious is defined primarily by going to church and giving your belongings to the poor; more essential are the views as to what happens after we croak up.

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