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In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace

:lol: Cuz you say so, huh? Whatever helps you get to sleep at night, I guess....

No, the people who make the claim to "know" are those dealing in revealed truth - or as you say "cuz they say so".


...so far all I can see "proved" here is that you really seem to hope it's all false....


What is anyone's motivation for thinking the god(s) of the Bible are false

Don't you promise eternal life in paradise ? Why would anyone reject that if they thought it was true ?


...I'll be over here not caring much. The thing about faith is that you don't have - can't have - the expectation of proof...

Then the question you can't answer is why you believe it.

What evidence do you have to persuade others to believe ?

Christians are losing the battle for men's minds....what else do you accept without evidence in another walk of like like politics or employment ?
 
These are among the key findings of a new analysis of trends in the religious composition and churchgoing habits of the American public, based on recent Pew Research Center random-digit-dial (RDD) political polling on the telephone. The data shows that the trend toward religious disaffiliation documented in the Center’s 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies, and before that in major national studies like the General Social Survey (GSS), has continued apace.

Pew Research Center’s 2007 and 2014 Religious Landscape Studies were huge national RDD surveys, each of which included interviews with more than 35,000 respondents who were asked dozens of detailed questions about their religious identities, beliefs and practices. The Center has not yet conducted a third such study, and when the Landscape Study is repeated, it is likely to use new methods that may prevent it from being directly comparable to the previous studies; growing challenges to conducting national surveys by telephone have led the Center to rely increasingly on self-administered surveys conducted online


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In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace | Pew Research Center

"Too many have died in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call" csn
 
I think you need to lay out what you would accept as historically truthful. In great detail. Because it really matters. :lol:

Confirmed by other sources that are themselves confirmed by others are being truthful.
 
A decline in Christianity doesn't correlate with a decline in ethics or morality.

Just remember that, per-capita, there are many more Christians in prison than Atheist...
 
What does it say ?

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. 4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’”

5 Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.

7 Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god.[a] 8 Cyrus king of Persia had them brought by Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

9 This was the inventory:

gold dishes 30
silver dishes 1,000
silver pans 29
gold bowls 30
matching silver bowls 410
other articles 1,000
11 In all, there were 5,400 articles of gold and of silver. Sheshbazzar brought all these along with the exiles when they came up from Babylon to Jerusalem.
 
Absolutely and almost comically ahistorical.

Over 200,000 Americans died fighting Hitler and his allies. Most of their graves are marked with a Christian crucifix. Of course this means nothing to the anti-Americans taking up valuable oxygen within our borders today.
 
So what? The Americans killed hundreds of thousands of Phillippinos during our occupation of that country, and this was despite a "shared religion."

That occurred 120 years ago during a vastly different era. If you're going to use whataboutism, use something that occurred during the 21st century at least.
 
Over 200,000 Americans died fighting Hitler and his allies. Most of their graves are marked with a Christian crucifix. Of course this means nothing to the anti-Americans taking up valuable oxygen within our borders today.

Deliciously irrelevant to the laughable historical illiteracy of your claim. Thank fer tryin'!
 
In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. 4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’”

5 Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites—everyone whose heart God had moved—prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. 6 All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with valuable gifts, in addition to all the freewill offerings.

7 Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god.[a] 8 Cyrus king of Persia had them brought by Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

9 This was the inventory:

gold dishes 30
silver dishes 1,000
silver pans 29
gold bowls 30
matching silver bowls 410
other articles 1,000
11 In all, there were 5,400 articles of gold and of silver. Sheshbazzar brought all these along with the exiles when they came up from Babylon to Jerusalem.


"...archaeological studies have revealed that not all of the population of Judah was deported, and that, although Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, other parts of Judah continued to be inhabited during the period of the exile.[6] The return of the exiles was a gradual process rather than a single event, and many of the deportees or their descendants did not return, becoming the ancestors of the Iraqi Jews...."

But yes, some probably did come back...but not led by a Moses-like prophet of god.


Babylonian captivity - Wikipedia
 
They also intermarried, worked alongside each other, and fought together in trenches. The divide between Catholics and Protestants isn't as deep or unwieldy as the divide between fundamental Muslims and virtually everyone else. It may have been the case in Ireland 40 years ago, but not in the USA.

If you get rid of Muslims, the Christians staying behind will find a way to go at each others' throats again. But first, they'll wipe out the Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, and other smaller denominations first. The whole mindset is just messed up.

May be we should all just join the Baha'i Faith?

"If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division, it were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion would be a truly religious act. Any religion which is not a cause of love and unity is no religion.”
-Writings from the Baha'i Faith
 
"...archaeological studies have revealed that not all of the population of Judah was deported, and that, although Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, other parts of Judah continued to be inhabited during the period of the exile.[6] The return of the exiles was a gradual process rather than a single event, and many of the deportees or their descendants did not return, becoming the ancestors of the Iraqi Jews...."

But yes, some probably did come back...but not led by a Moses-like prophet of god.


Babylonian captivity - Wikipedia

Far be it from me to suggest that the Bible is never guilty of exaggeration. But regardless, the core elements of the story are true. Cyrus did conquer Babylon, he did liberate Judean captives and he did finance the reconstruction of the Temple. Which makes sense, because why would the Hebrew bible go to such lengths to venerate a non Judean if he didn't really do what they say he did.
 
Far be it from me to suggest that the Bible is never guilty of exaggeration. But regardless, the core elements of the story are true. Cyrus did conquer Babylon, he did liberate Judean captives and he did finance the reconstruction of the Temple. Which makes sense, because why would the Hebrew bible go to such lengths to venerate a non Judean if he didn't really do what they say he did.

And Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and the Romans beseiged Jerusalem.

The Bible alludes to both.

The Bible references history but doesn't describe it as an historical account.
 
And Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and the Romans beseiged Jerusalem.

The Bible alludes to both.

The Bible references history but doesn't describe it as an historical account.

The bible doesn't describe historical events with 100% accuracy that's for sure. But then, neither does any historical account. There are certainly parts of the bible that read like a history book, and others that are completely made up.
 
The bible doesn't describe historical events with 100% accuracy that's for sure. But then, neither does any historical account. There are certainly parts of the bible that read like a history book, and others that are completely made up.

It's no different than the historical account of the siege of Troy by the Greeks in the Iliad.

Did you know they actually found the site of the ancient city following the clues from the poem? They also even found evidence of soot and ash at the archeological layer corresponding to about 1100 BC, when the events in the book were approximated to have happened. As you know, the poem says that the city was burnt to the ground. The archeological evidence supports that. Uncanny!

Given such uncanny historical and geographic accuracy of this poem, are we to also believe it when it say that the sea god Poseidon was on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans?
 
It's no different than the historical account of the siege of Troy by the Greeks in the Iliad.

Did you know they actually found the site of the ancient city following the clues from the poem? They also even found evidence of soot and ash at the archeological layer corresponding to about 1100 BC, when the events in the book were approximated to have happened. As you know, the poem says that the city was burnt to the ground. The archeological evidence supports that. Uncanny!

Given such uncanny historical and geographic accuracy of this poem, are we to also believe it when it say that the sea god Poseidon was on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans?

To the ancients, myth and history were not separate concepts but rather the same. It is our job as theoretically more enlightened people to parse them apart.
 
The bible doesn't describe historical events with 100% accuracy that's for sure. But then, neither does any historical account. There are certainly parts of the bible that read like a history book, and others that are completely made up.

Who wants 100% ?

The Bible has no problem descibing in great detail the Exodus or Noah's flood - even going so far as to state the Ark's dimensions.
 
Sad.

Obviously we don't need nor want religious extremism. But a little spirituality & introspection is good for one's soul.
So is a healthy dose of skepticism and humility in what you thought and were taught you knew,
 
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