"Religious blind faith" is a caricature of faith. For the most part it has never existed except in odd little fringe groups. If you want to discuss faith then don't use false stereotypes and misrepresentations of it. That would be bad faith.
I suspect that soon, more and more people will self-identify as atheist or agnostic.
Belief with evidence is standard, faith is unnecessary. Faith requires belief, not only absent the evidence, but despite the evidence, hence blind.
This one's from the annual Gallup survey. !5% believe in evolution, 37% in evolution directed by God, and the terrifying 46% are the majority.
No, it's due the fact that people have "blind faith" in many political ideas as many political ideas can, in fact, be refuted by facts.I think this is more due to the fact that the world is grey, not black and white. Almost any political argument can be refuted with facts to the contrary.
I'm squarely in the 46 percent and proud of it.
You can take that British condescension and shove it.
Yet, at least 80% of Americans self-identify as religious to some degree, whereas outright atheism remains well below 10%.
Religion in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blind faith is alive and well in the USA as in no other developed country. 46% of Americans believe that humans were created by God in the last 10,000 years, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
In reading an interesting set of articles recently, it occurred to me that in this day and age, an appeal to faith simply gets you nowhere during an argument or reasoned debate. Not that this comes as a surprise. But, it is, nonetheless, a powerful cultural shift.
For example, take the debate over same sex marriage.
This same action can be seen all throughout our society: Theologian arguments may state that the earth was created in a week about 10,000 years ago. Rational people scoff at that, demand proof. The theologian points to scripture. Secular folks shake their heads.
Much the same occurs when anyone begins a discussion about Jesus or Noah's Ark or the Exodus. Secularists point to the historical record, rightly show that no such events could have been possible. The faithful deny the realities, argue that what is written in their Book supersedes whatever science or archaeology have unearthed.
In the end, religious blind faith is waning. Fewer and fewer people believe that science is wrong about a four billion-year old planet where dinosaurs once ruled and man only appeared in the recent past. In fact, to think man and the dinosaurs inhabited the same space at the same time a mere 6,000 years ago is today considered childish, if not stupid. But, a few hundred years ago, thinking differently and saying it out loud would have resulted in a burning at the stake. Nowadays, thinking it results in your opinions being dismissed.
Discuss.
This one's from the annual Gallup survey. !5% believe in evolution, 37% in evolution directed by God, and the terrifying 46% are the majority.
Yeah but not among the young. There's a clear emerging pattern where more and more identify as "irreligious" or non church going. It'll be interesting to see in a generation, but I expect this pattern to continue and align with scandinavian countries, which American attitudes routinely lag behind by 20 years or so. The college age group is already to a large extent epicurean and cares more about texting than reading scripture. Anyway, i do agree that the 46% is embarrassing, but it won't last.
Your disability is noted.
As for the exodus, archaeologist has uncovered a Jewish Village in the Nile Delta and it might have been these people who left Egypt. Perhaps not as discribed in the bible, but a bit of truth here. Also I watched on the history channel a show on the ten plagues and each one could have a natural cause.
But in the end faith is faith and science is science. I do not scoff at anyone's faith. Whether someone believes in creation or the big bang theory, that is up to them. Of course the big bang theory is just that, a theory since no one was around to witness it and put it down on paper. Creationism is the same, the on paper bit followed. So much of yesterdays scientific facts have been overturned by today new discoveries and are facts no more.
As for debates, who can really say who is right or wrong, at least until we die. Remember Troy was considered a myth, that is until Schliemann discovered it. King David's name has been found on a Stella. So who really knows, perhaps tomorrow Atlantis will be found along with proof of Noah's flood. There are several sites right now that has been explored that the floods could have taken place, but they were not world wide. Then again, almost every ancient culture from the Israelite, Mesopotamia, to the Astic and plains Indians, to Southeast Asia, India and China all have a myth about a world wide flood.
You put your faith in a discipline that changes its mind every couple of years.
Pero, someone told me once that no matter what your reading interests are, it's in the Bible. History, Society, Wars, Geneology, Crime, Prophecy, Advice, Mystery, etc, are only a few of the subjects covered there. I haven't read them all, but I believe it's probably true.I have also read that Edgar Cayce back in the 1930s explained that Atlantis really did exist, and that it would be discovered because of tectonic plate shifting causing the continent to slowly rise to the surface of the ocean. Who knows? I hope I live to see it!
I wish I hadn't packed up all my books. I had read in one of them about the search for Atlantis that it actually was between Crete and Lebanon. The underwater sonar done there met the dimensions of the description of Atlantis if one were to drop a zero off the dimensions. It is possible when Solon got the measurements from the Egyptians an extra zero was added due to translation difficulties. It was a quite interesting book.
Yup, and religion doesn't do anything like that. That's why they're always splintering off and arguing with each other, right? :lol:
1. Actual physical evidence showing a migration of Jewish people across the desert is definitely accepted. However, there is no record of Jews leaving or being enslaved in Egypt.1. As for the exodus, archaeologist has uncovered a Jewish Village in the Nile Delta and it might have been these people who left Egypt. Perhaps not as discribed in the bible, but a bit of truth here. Also I watched on the history channel a show on the ten plagues and each one could have a natural cause.
2. But in the end faith is faith and science is science. I do not scoff at anyone's faith. Whether someone believes in creation or the big bang theory, that is up to them. Of course the big bang theory is just that, a theory since no one was around to witness it and put it down on paper. Creationism is the same, the on paper bit followed. So much of yesterdays scientific facts have been overturned by today new discoveries and are facts no more.
3. As for debates, who can really say who is right or wrong, at least until we die. Remember Troy was considered a myth, that is until Schliemann discovered it. King David's name has been found on a Stella. So who really knows, perhaps tomorrow Atlantis will be found along with proof of Noah's flood. There are several sites right now that has been explored that the floods could have taken place, but they were not world wide. Then again, almost every ancient culture from the Israelite, Mesopotamia, to the Astic and plains Indians, to Southeast Asia, India and China all have a myth about a world wide flood.
Although the Book of Genesis and Book of Exodus describe a period of Hebrew servitude in ancient Egypt, more than a century of archaeological research has discovered nothing which could support its narrative elements— the four centuries sojourn in Egypt, the escape of well over a million Israelites from the Delta, or the three months journey through the wilderness to Sinai.[3]
Of course, there are many holes. But, to say BBT is on par with Creationism is simply ill informed.The earliest and most direct kinds of observational evidence are the Hubble-type expansion seen in the redshifts of galaxies, the detailed measurements of the cosmic microwave background, the relative abundances of light elements produced by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, and today also the large scale distribution and apparent evolution of galaxies[58] predicted to occur due to gravitational growth of structure in the standard theory. These are sometimes called "the four pillars of the Big Bang theory".
Precise modern models of the Big Bang appeal to various exotic physical phenomena that have not been observed in terrestrial laboratory experiments or incorporated into the Standard Model of particle physics. Of these features, dark matter is currently subjected to the most active laboratory investigations.[60] Remaining issues include the cuspy halo problem and the dwarf galaxy problem of cold dark matter. Dark energy is also an area of intense interest for scientists, but it is not clear whether direct detection of dark energy will be possible.[61] Inflation and baryogenesis remain more speculative features of current Big Bang models.[notes 5][citation needed] Viable, quantitative explanations for such phenomena are still being sought. These are currently unsolved problems in physics.
I would have to think that a continent sinking would definitely cause a huge flood in other places, so the flood story may be factual, particularly since so many different cultures have the same myth. Fascinating....
That's a valid point, but the fundamentals of Christianity have remained unchanged. The teachings of Jesus Christ, which are the backbone of the religion, have not changed for 2000 years. The only thing that has ever changed is the way in which those teachings are interpreted.
1. Actual physical evidence showing a migration of Jewish people across the desert is definitely accepted. However, there is no record of Jews leaving or being enslaved in Egypt.
History of the Jews in Egypt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. Big Bang Theory is somewhat supported by the cosmic background radiation. Creationism, not so much.
Big Bang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
.
Of course, there are many holes. But, to say BBT is on par with Creationism is simply ill informed.
3. Yes. That which is accepted today is not etched in stone. New evidence will demand new theories.
So... religion has changed, and continues to change. So religion is not consistent.
You're not understanding what I'm saying. Christianity is unchanged.
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