The values of American Xtianity have all the abiding permanence of a day lily. They're always morphing and changing to best fit the changing times.

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“But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?”

from the christian or non-theist point of view?

“I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth.”

how he knows this I would be interested in knowing.

“We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught…Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism.”

i suppose not, since man’s first primitive form of philosophy is no longer suitable to the questions of what we are doing in the universe; there are other humanistic philosophical arguments that speculate on that with more rationalism and maturity.

considering that falwell's Liberty University teaches intelligent design and that dinosaurs roamed the north American continent only 6000 years ago and that the pope still forbids use of condoms, i suppose products like that cannot be repackaged and sold to a rational human being. and if they expect to cover that up with a “new mission” cloaked as something else to rescue us from our ignorance, well good luck.

“Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?”

you mean from countries that still have no running water and practice voodoo along with the exploitive christianity they received from the european missionaries?

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I for one say good bloody riddance. I wait in giddy anticipation for the day this and all other forms of bronze age religious dogma that infantilise the human mind gets a stake driven into it.

It's about time a secular humanity rise above this superstitious rubbish and start dealing with the litany of problems this world faces.

Believe it or not, there is a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel of nonsense. One day, in the not-so-distant future (if we last that long), societies will look back at religion, whatever its perverted stripe, shake its collective head, smile and file it alongside witchburning, ghosts, alien abductions, crystal healing, alchemy, seances, possessions... pick your absurdity!

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Between the inbreeding of evangelicals with the armed, political right and the steeped, prophetic expectations of apocalypse to strike down the godless Sodomites, these should indeed remain interesting times.

Have no expectation of a substantial residue of believers fading lamb-like into deserved obscurity. Christ-like pacifism knows no place in the end time visions of St. John and the select will prepare the way for the rule o'God.

Any underestimation in the delirious fervor of the "chosen" committed to eternal exaltation is through missing the current example of their cornered Judeo-Islamic counterparts.

It's a hard rain gonna' fall.

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"...bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society."

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These are interesting predictions, and I know enough about evangelical Christianity from the inside to believe some of them will indeed happen, but I would really like to see the author's backup data. Why does he believe this will happen, and why the short timeline? Twenty years is one generation only, and while it will see the end of the current leadership of the movement (most of whom are over sixty and therefore likely to die or at least retire in that timespan) I'd like to know why he thinks the bottom will fall out of the middle of the movement.

I think there's an exodus coming, specifically of young professional families, probably in favour of more liberal Protestant and UU-type churches at least as much as towards the Catholic and Orthodox communions. That may be just wishful thinking, though, because that's my demographic and it's what I've done. So where's the evidence?

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I used to travel the country alot, hauling art and antiques around to major shows for various dealers. When that giant cross went up, and for folks who don't know, that cross is MANY stories tall in an utterly flat and desolate part of Texas or Oklahoma, it had an amazing power in its remarkable simplicity and shockingly massive scale.

It didn't make me believe anything different than what I believe, but as a fascinating and totally surprising sculpture with a religious theme, it was breathtaking.

My wife and I (I would always have my crew load the truck in Philly and then travel the country with my beloved) pulled in there several times and stretched our legs at the base of it. I thought it was a brilliant achievement... a work that clearly came out of someone's head and heart. Someone who was coming from building gigantic modern agricultural buildings for factory farms and ranches, perhaps. Someone who likely had no connection to art, and didn't see this work in that way.

Then we returned a year or two later, and the barren, dusty and incessantly windswept landscape around the sculpture, that had been without signage or explanation and whose absence of such things added to its surreal appeal, had been turned into a Biblio theme park, where you were, if you chose to enter, pushed through a series of experiences. Bible story experiences in an evangelical stylee.

We left. Sad. Disappointed. Never to return.

People don't want to be pushed. People like to be invited to wonder.

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Fortunately, Europeans learned their lesson in fighting the wars of religion, and came to the conclusion that it was wrong, and that all religion is a myth.

Science and research opens up new understanding to the origins of the universe and life. Our morals and ethics will be recognized as coming from within the human spirit, not from a bearded guy on a throne in the clouds.

Heaven and salvation will be recognized as quaint little myths that our superstitious ancestors believed, analagous to the Greek, Roman and Babylonian pantheons.

Then we can get on with dealing with the problems of the world, and trying to prevent mankind from dooming itself to extinction. On that part, Armageddon, the fundies may be correct, but not in the manner in their texts.

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So be it.
What Commandment haven't the Evangelcials Broken?
One and Only One- You revere the 'Container' more than the 'Almighty' within. If God came to humanity in the Human form of Jesus (or mohammad), That person was ONLY a fleshy Vessel- Not the 'One and Only'. Far worse is to Rever a 'son' over the father. which is exactly what you do everytime invoke the name of Christ.
Beyond that you Wage Wars in the name of these scared Cows, or you intepretations of Books or for Resouces or for more Converts. Thou shall not Kill, does not have an (*), nor does Coveting.
You Dare seize the right of Judgement of Mortal souls, by proclaiming others 'sinners'- At the very least 'bearing false Wtiness' and Failing to 'Love thy Neighbor'.Far more appropriate, working WAY over your 'Pay Scale'. Not to mention blasphemous and heretical. Who granted you such Divine Right over other immortal souls?
Hell youcna't even abid by the one commandment which grants you the priviledge of Doing nothing. On sunday's it's required you not only get up- get into you 'sunday Go ta meetin' clothes (along with your kids) and go PAY to hear a Sermon. Money Changing in the Temple???
The Big 3 have violated every Rule set about to guide Human engagement.
Worse yet the Big 3 have all degraded and devalued the one gender God has Chose to touch with the ability to not only bring forth life, but with his 'incarnate' fleshy vessels. all three treat women like mere sperm recepticles for mortal men. Since God was the creator of All, including humans, ya think he could have just as easily Dropped from the heavens? Didn't Require a female to give birth to this vessel- raise it and nurture it? Ya think if the Creator was unhappy with the performance of his human birthing gender, He couldn't just Switch Us at will- making us reproductively like Sea Horses? And Yet we are portrayed as the Whores, the Jezzabels, the easily Temped by 'satan'! Eve was not Weak, she was the Stronger of the Two. She agreed to make Humanity the Stewards of God's Eden. Adam (and Lilith) were to Self centered and self absorbed to take on such a huge Respsonsbility,Priviledge and perform the Duties necessary to oversee and manage the other creations. If left up to Adam- we'd all Still be just Animals!
Which brings me to the most egregious acts committed by the Religious right- you not only act in distructive ways against other humans- you fail to accept your Responsiblities as the Stewards. When you see polarbears drowning because they have less iceburgs, you yell 'Drill Baby Drill'!
Humanity has seen over 2 millenia of Blasphemy and Heresy, that is why the masses are leaving these institutions, It has been proven it is Not God Your religions Serve or Revere.

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the church was lying for too long.The truth will be the reason for colapse as more people getting educated and have accsess to information not available before.Bible it is a book of myths and none of the characters in that book are real.

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I have always been both amused and nauseated by the naivite' and giddiness of the Christian community, when it reveled in the proclamation that the "gospel" was "good news". The imminent demise of the evangelical parasitical distraction may be the best "good news" to reach my ears in many years.

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Most people in my experience that go to church don't read the Bible for themselves.They depend on the word of a minister, a man with opinions of his own. I find it interesting tha Jesus only preached about three years but some minsters preach for as long as Jesus walked on earth.What could they better say in 30 years that he said in three?All this crap Jesus already taked about and better .Try a sample" Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

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it aint going nowhere, in fact i would bet whats left of my 401K that in couple years your going to see a rise. its a fact when times get rough, religion along with alchohol abuse is on the rise. everyone needs a crutch, booze and God seem to fit the bill.

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I do not share the author’s dismay with secular rationalism. While I am not anti-secular, I do regret the identification of success with wealth and accumulation of possessions. Hence our continued denial of social failure dismays me as much as it does this author.

But one dimension he has neglected is that we are in the midst of the greatest scholarly expansion in human history. It is scholarship that investigates itself as well as all the accepted banalities that previous scholarship has either missed or misunderstood.

Such scholarship is no guarantee of a better life. But it does guarantee that old time religion grows perpetually stale, sclerotic, and irrelevant.

Our prosperity has allowed large numbers of individuals the opportunity to study. As time passes, its determinations make their way into popular understanding. Religion that resists scholarship writes its own obituary.

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The battle has been going on since the 1500s when the Protestant Reformation started. The Ruling Church of the day was being targeted as being a false church by some of its adherants. These folks were called "Protestants". they were part of the mother church and having started studying the Bible, they found vast discrepancies from what the Apostles wrote and believed and what the church was now teaching.
The ruling church usurped their position as Dubba yu did in taking possession of something that was NOT their RIGHT to do but did. They have succeeded in their work of breaking down the Reformation so they have power over people. We decry what the moslems are doing but they were taught by none other than our own Catholic Church who murdered In the vicinity of some 120 million folks because they wanted to follow the real Bible.

Over the last 150 years there has been a slow downward slide of the "Protestant" Churches back towards the "mother" church. People are being indoctrinated to "not rock the boat" not to say anything that might antagonise those who by underhand methods have brought out "new" versions of the Bible which brings much contradiction into what used to be the straight solid Word of God. Now it is so watered down and twisted that most have NO idea what it is supposed to be saying.

Right and wrong are no longer defined and there is no SIN? Both the far right, the Evangelicals and most others have been infiltrated by the spies of the mother church with the express purpose of destroying ANY opposition. This religion calls itself christian, but folks on these blogg sites can NOT see anything that resembles true Christianity.

Christianity and politics should be supportive of each other and both have their place in society BUT Religion which forces its way in politics is fraudulent. We can see from recent times just where it leads. Total confusion and anarchy.

John F Kennedy was a Catholic, he made the statement, In America, the President is the ruler. I will NOT be dictated to by the pope. They murdered him.
Dubbyu comes along claiming to be a Baptist or something else, his statement soon after he usurped power was he would listen carefully to what the pope had to say. So who is to blame for this downgraded situation that America is in? Dubba yu or the pope?

Mr Obama's 2 IC is a Catholic, so all you are going to get is much of the same as you have had since Reagan got into power. Nothing is going to change for the better. Prophecy in the Bible tells us exactly where we are and going. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with some Secret Rapture, which was part of the breaking down of the Protestant Reformation. Folks who refused to believe in the full ten commandments took the direction of the SR false doctrine and most are part of the Religious right now falling into disrepute.

Another point is that the New Age Movement has been slowly pulling both the Catholic AND the socalled Protestants together into a group which has NO concern for you and me and our rights. They will destroy any rights that we had in the past so that now those rights are almost non existent.

Even evolutionists are bedfellows with the Catholic Church whether they believe it or not, they ARE into religion at its worst.

Now, for saying what I have, I will also be castigated as an idiot. Well, History backs up my thoughts and Prophecy has predicted our time EXACTLY. You believe what you want to believe but I accept what the Real bible tells me. I know who will have to eventually back down. Happy search folks. the information is there IF you are prepared to look for it. BUT, you are right about this crazy false so called christianity going down the tube. IT IS MORPHING BACK INTO CATHOLOCISM.

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In 1993 I heard all about the evangelical collapse that was going to occur immediately following the Clinton inauguration. That the fundamentalist right had been completely discredited, and that it was going to fade away into the sunset.

What happened was that the fundamentalists burrowed into the Civil Service and State and Local offices, they bided their time, and did their best to destroy Clinton's presidency.

We have already seen that the fundamentalists and neocons are burrowing into the Civil Service. They will, as Reagan told them to, hide their colors and take over State and Local offices. In time they will attempt another resurgence just as they did when Clinton provided a fertile environment for them. They are patient and dedicated. Ruling these fanatics out is a fatal mistake.

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I am a sociologist. I am also no fan of evangelicals. So I would like to see that happen. But this article only offered speculation by the author. Really, he was talking about his personal epiphany and then trying to fit the facts into his wishful thinking.

Furthermore, many sociologists believe societies need a sense of morality to hold them together. The theory is that they are functional. So as one type fades another arises. This has happened with sex and food. As sexual mores loosened, the guilt was transferred to food and eating. Especially for women who are always more subjected to moral judgments around the issue of pleasure than men. The author himself has said many will go to Catholicism. That is not much of an improvement, especially if the next pope has the same mentality as this one.

Of course we can always hope the New Agers are right and we will have a complete consciousness shift in 2012 and won't need any oppressive type of organized religion.

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"We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith."

The problem wasn't in believing in a cause, but believing in the wrong cause - a chance for judging people rather than helping people. Even Paul, the Biblical author who did more to pervert the teachings of Jesus than anyone by putting so much emphasis on believing Paul's doctrines rather than the wisdom of Jesus, said that "Faith without works (a cause) is dead". This author evidently feels that Paul is wrong as faith shouldn't be about our daily lives and relationships, but only about belief in some supernatural Being.

That's the first religion that will flounder as it is not based in people's real lives.

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Amen to that!!!! RIP their intolerant, narrow-minded, war and hate mongering and their distorted teaching of Christ’s message.
Spreading lies no matter how much divine inspiration is claimed is wrong.
Their demise is way over-due. A favorite quote of Mark Twain, an iconoclast if there ever was one; “If Christ were alive today one of the things he wouldn’t be is a Christian.”
This truly is a “good news message.”
Terrytom

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I agree with much of the general thrust in the article, and the broad predictions, EXCEPT that the evangelical brand can be restored by fundamentalist missionaries from Africa and Asia. Those guys are still drinking from the well of legalism we dug for them years ago. Remember it was the African bishops of the Roman Catholic Church who were responsible for the election of the current reactionary Pope.

The evangelical cause has become so polluted, so corrupted and so unfruitful that we need a truth and reconciliation commission before we can go anywhere. God's way of dealing with trees that don't bear fruit is to burn' em.

We need to go back to that place in church history where we took the wrong fork in the road. Back to when we said the enlightenment was from the devil and the superstitious nonsense we started to preach was from God.

When Americans are standing a nightly watch over their backyard turnip patch, they won't just say no to some crazy preacher asking for money to fight against homosexual marriages or to erect a stone tablet of the ten commandments in the local park, they'll stone him. That's why Mark Driscoll of the Mars Hill church in Washington is returning to a failed philosophy dressed in new hip sophistry. "Broken cisterns" that don't hold water. The broken cisterns of legalism that Jesus came to replace.

That's why evangelicalism will pass from the pages of history. And the tragedy is we can't even develop a dialectic reflective of a biblical (lower case "b") call to repentance---"if My people, who call themselves by My name" etc., etc. Here's a test.

Most evangelicals know all about the culture wars Christians have fought over the right to display the ten commandments in public places. Can anybody reading this name those ten commandments? No, and neither can I. Morality is either written on our hearts or its legalism and that is what has distracted us from the message of peace we were entrusted with: The good news of the brotherhood of man we were supposed to carry to the world. LEGALISM

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Perhaps they can somehow resurrect the stinking corpse of Reagan to gain back their supposed popularity.

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As long as there are emotional incompetents, for whatever reason, there will be religion. Which is unfortunate, and given their maxium of being fruitful and multiplying still applies, generations will still be influenced by their utterly corupt base, their baseless moralism, and their debasing life that's here on earth.
As should happen, they need to be marginalized, as a generalized rule of thumb and if they every get to the amount of corrupting influence that they've had, they need be segregated and if need be, removed from society, any way to insure that we don't repeat the last 30 years of political abuse.
Since their own stupidity isn't painful, it's almost impossible for them to learn by their mistakes, and if they do, it's just to repeat what came before with variation. As Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. These people must be MEGA stupid.
Given what they've shown, they need to be dealt with in a way that protects those who have "no ax to grind" with the world at large, are gregarious to a point in dealing with others while not prostituting themselves for their physcial and emotional survival.
The quicker that religion dies the better for many. At least there's a chance something better might replace it, which hasn't been the case for 2 millenia.

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Unfortunately the "impending collapse" of the "Santa Claus in the sky" belief system may not be so quick and inevitable, as the article suggest.

Besides the reasons that some other posters have already mentioned, I would like to bring up the matter of simple demographics. With Mormon families having 10 kids and Hispanic immigrants doing the same--while still clinging to a medieval-style Catholicism--sheer numbers will keep it going.

I live in rural Nebraska, and some areas out here are dominated by what is known as the "Catholic Mafia". These are wealthy farm families who have a VERY conservative catholic belief--I mean they think Vatican II was a disaster and the Panzer Pope isn't conservative enough. And they all have HUGE numbers of kids. Twelve in a family is not unusual.

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Anticipating the future is never easy. But the only way to ever be right in a forecast is to put a forecast out there.

Eh, I'll play that game.

Evangelical leaders have been broadly disgraced by scandals, demonstrating that at its heart, evangelicalism is largely built on hypocrisy, not the teachings of a revered Jesus. This is dawning on their congregations, one and two members at a time. They are trickling away, more than a little embarrassed to have been taken in and fooled.

That's the present. I think what lies ahead for them is something like this:

- Their numbers will continue to dwindle.

- Those left will adopt a siege mentality. They will harden their hearts.

- They will become a breeding ground for violence and terrorism. To some extent they already are, but this trend will swing upwards.

- Older, more orthodox churches will recoil from extreme evangelicalism in revulsion. Any sense of shared doctrine will vanish. Charges of heresy will be hurled back and forth.

- The right wing will attempt to use these extremists as foot soldiers, but they will run into problems. The right wing exists to serve corporate interests. Evangelicalism is overdue for a realization that corporatist greed is a mortal enemy.

- The result will be a long-term phenomenon of right-wing splintering in which the evangelicals are almost shut out of politics, the corporatists are weakened, and the leftist and centrist voices dominate American politics. Political exclusion will serve as a feedback mechanism for extremism and violence.

- Eventually, Americans are going to get mighty tired of the ranting and shooting that will be emerging from a shrinking evangelical base. Rules governing tax-exempt status will be tightened to exclude many of their sects. Hate speech in broadcast, cable and internet media will be curtailed. Crime units will be formed to focus on extremist evangelicals. They will, in other words, be actively persecuted - not for their faith, but for their antisocial behavior and for encouraging terrorism.

- Whatever their memberships may hold dear by way of beliefs, you may be certain that their leadership is very interested in money. Lots of money. These leaders will abandon sects which lose their tax-exempt status and start up new sects; they will be like gophers popping up on the prairie, ducking and moving to a new hole whenever someone notices them. The turmoil will drive more of their flock away.

- And after a while of this, most of even the hard core are going to get tired of it all and go sign up with an orthodox, spiritually-oriented church. Leaving behind a tiny, resentful, extreme, vicious, one might well say insane, rump.

- Which will be carefully rounded up and imprisoned, and that will be that.

Then again, maybe not.

Maybe evangelicals will all join hands with everyone else and sing campfire songs with us. Embrace peace and compromise. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars and focus on the spiritual. Give up literal interpretations of scripture and learn to love science and critical thinking.

Who knows? That's not stranger than the evangelical Jim Jones leading his entire congregation into suicide.

Might as well hope for the best.

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It's progress. "Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. " Need anyone say anymore? God and Christianity are not synonomous. This belief system developed in the Dark Ages, which they were responsible for, and, like science, may have served the purpose they serve very well. But neither one is the true answer. Please don't ask me what the answer is. Whenever I have met someone that claimed they knew I scooted off as quickly as possible

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"When Jesus said 'love your enemies' he probably meant not to kill them." That's the message on a car bumper I saw yesterday. Maybe it's relevant for all varieties of Christians, and all varieties of wars, which kill bodies, souls and spirits.
Martha Warner

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If you've read the book, Cultural Creatives, how 50 million people are changing the world...by Paul Rey....

The research showed 3 major demographics...one of them being what would essentially be the evangelicals... That research showed that the fastest growing group was the Cultural Creatives--folks who take the best of all thats come before and inclusively work to find solutions.

This growth in the Cultural Creatives wasn't coming primarily from mainstream demographic--but instead, the Evangelicals who were waking up to find themselves in a 'us against them' group and not liking it. But they discovered they were welcomed by the CC groups....

And all this is good news...building a world that works needs us all working together.

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is the world's smallest violin

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I'd be very surprised if many evangelicals converted to Catholicism, considering how many evangelicals were brought up in families where Catholics were routinely disparaged.

Besides, if the totality of one's religious expression is attending a megachurch on Sunday, it's not easy to be a good Catholic. Evangelicals aren't required to go to confession, fast and abstain from meat on on certain days, and support umpteen charities.

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to see Christians spreading the love of God and neighbor and becoming local Christs themselves instead of spewing hatred and slavery to a word of God that says itself it is not to be understood in a literal sense, but a spiritual?
(2Cor. 3:6)

Speaking as a Christian, I believe true Christianity is dedicated to Light, Life, Love and Liberty instead of Darkness, Death, Despair and Despotism. When did the 4 Ds become the Christianoid standard, replacing the 4 Ls? They have taken the 4 Ls and distorted them into a swastika. I promise you, the Ls are healthier for humans, as Jesus tried to show us.

And wouldn't it be nice if people tried reading their Bibles for a change instead of worshiping their local church? which mostly teaches lies like, "The world was created in six days, so evolution is a false teaching," "Life begins at conception, so abortion is murder," (Gen. 2:7) or "God hates (whomever) so kill them all (Matt. 7:1)."

The Christianoids with their blatant hatred of everyone who is not a Christianoid (including especially actual Christians) have made the name of "Christian" a curse in the mouths of many who are not Christianoids and those who don't believe in God, or at least not the Big, Angry Sky Father the Christianoids mistake for God.

Enough already.

With love under will,

Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville

Wouldn't that be good news for a troubled world?

With love under will,

Bob, Adastra,
The Wizzard of Jacksonville

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The worse the economy gets and the less people are satisfied that there will be any change for the better, the more evangelicals get nasty. As a matter of fact, they're even seeping through the pop culture. Watch out people.

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The author's view may have relevance for the near future but not much. It could well be that we are approaching a "new age" where many of our systems (economic, religious, political, etc.) will change by necessity. Formalized, organized, orthodox belief systems have run their course (to mostly damaging effect) and will be put aside when/if we (the human race) decide we want to survive. This does not mean the end of spiritual curiosity but rather a new beginning for it. We will need to apply the scientific method for material existence and pragmatic reason will guide us. In this process, once the immediate critical needs are met and processes are established, we will learn the limitations of applying reason for spiritual discovery, and this will allow "reason" itself to evolve. The basis of almost all religious/spiritual practices were established to help define and predict occurrences in nature - survival driven.
Should we survive, the next phase of spiritual practice will be solidly for exploration, that is, for experiential knowledge.

The evolution of reason - imagine the possibilities.

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BUT VERY HARD to put into practice. The "Good News" or Gospel is too simple for so called ministers, to be able to take the people captive. They make the "good news" complicated with theology talk that is akin to this AIG, smoke and mirror ponzi scheme.

False teachers, will give people odd,complicated, untrue doctrines, and take them captive. As predicted, they were led astray like sheep being led to the slaughter. It is all about greed and taking money and time.

In my community, you had to be a practicing member or giving MONEY, to be married or buried in the church. Being condemned to HELL for eating meat on Friday, I still cannot understand why supposedly smart people really believed this was a sin.

Maybe because they were kept so busy keeping the rules of the church that there was no time to actually read the Bible.

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I believe that religion will continue to screw people up severely more and more as time goes on. The Holy Spirit is leaving the earth. Whenever some damn church people start to blame others' actions for everybody getting punished for it- whenever a person starts bitching about what's in the hearts and minds of others(none of their business) instead of cleaning up their own messes- that is when they become spiritually ill. Fear-driven mostly. This is the kind of thing that causes war and death. All in the name of God. Evangelical or otherwise, my prediction is that we will have Christian terrorists soon comparable to moslim radicals. With or without religion, always remember that an individual is to cultivate a personal relationship on a daily basis with their Creator. Otherwise you are just pissin' in the wind. Great article.

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Seems to me that one of the reasons we, as a society, specifically the United States and to a lesser extent in Europe, is that we took these religion nuts seriously in the first place.

I mean really now, we take cross-dressing prelates, from the pope to the late Ayatollah Khomeini to Muqtada al-Sadr, seriously. Guys like this flounce around like RuPaul and the rest of us in the twenty-first century are supposed to pretend these guys have something important to say? I mean, would you give a man who wears a dress to work every day yet goes around telling everyone he knows homosexuality's a sin a job? I sure as hell wouldn't.

And whaduh'bout these goofy Protestant homo-haters! I'd love to throw Fred Phelps and Ted Haggard in a 50 gallon barrel so they could fight it out! I'd throw in right wing fancy-man Ralph Reed referee! But, then again, they'd probably end up making out! Talk about your Christian love!! Menage a trois anyone?

And why don't we make at least one of these "every-sperm-is-sacred" Protestant fundies, like Pat Robertson or James Dobson, nanny the Octomom's brood. It'd serve those "embryos-are-babies-too" a**holes right to have to change all eight of the Octomom's kids sh*tty diapers, plus pick up after the rest of her six brats 24/7! I mean, their "abortion-is-murder" meme helped twist the Octomom's little mind into her thinking it's O.K. to be a human brood sow. So they should take some of the responsibility, shouldn't they?

And, ferkristssake, don't get me started on those Hasidic bastards. These j'mokes run around this country, looking like refugees from Height-Ashbury doing the Woody Allen-wimp bit, but as soon as they emigrate to Israel they pick up an Uzi and begin bullying Palestinian school girls!

And the Mormons! These clowns are beyond the pale. I mean really now. Why should we take a cult seriously that believes that it's holiest book was written on golden tablets that only cult founder Joesph Smith could read, with the aid of magical x-ray specs; the "Second Coming" of Jesus is going to be at a state park somewhere in central Missouri; believe in the efficacy of "holy" underwear but aren't so sure about the efficacy of condoms!

Oh, gee, I haven't even mentioned the Unification Church and Sun Myung Moon. Talk about your right wing nutsack!

So, O.K., they're not all evangelicals. But what do I know. I'm just an atheist. No one takes me seriously!

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we get to erase 'in god we trust' off currency???

do we get to eliminate the 'under god' from the pledge of allegiance that was added in in 1954???

end prayers before kickoff of congressional sessions and sporting events???

do we get to see the separation of church and state for once???

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"A Jesus shaped spirituality..." Oh dear oh dear. I was about to read this piece but the moment I read that self-description my interest wilted.

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Back in the Age of Reason, during which the USA was founded, most of the revolutionary leaders were Deists, scientists, and thinkers. One might have thought that this auspicious beginning would have led America onto a more secular, thoughtful, intellectual path. Somehow, this is not the case. Instead, the majority of Americans follow, in a vast number of forms, an ancient, superstitious, often mindless mythology. This mythology is steeped in dogma that contradicts observable scientific phenomena.

In a world in which astronomers can measure the distances of immense stretches of the universe, biologists can identify individual genes that cause specific illnesses, physicists can split atoms and observe the activities of entities so small they cannot be seen with the most advanced technology, and oceanographers can view the depths of the oceans, it's inconceivable that so many people still believe in concepts that are so at odds with reality.

Nothing in my 61 years of experience leads me to hope that these True Believers will ever become rational concerning their faith. Religion requires a suspension of disbelief, and once that is accomplished, logic is no longer a factor.

Yes, it is true that many - perhaps even most - Christians don't know what's really in the Bible. Many of them probably have no clue as to the contradictions between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and if they do, they have rationalized them beyond argument. I'd be quite surprised if the majority of Christians could list the Ten Commandments. But this is not new. My ex-husband grew up Catholic, and he told me that Catholics were discouraged from studying the Bible because that was supposed to be the realm of the priests. Does anyone think the Catholic masses of the Middle Ages read the Bible? But it didn't make people any less religious. If anything, it made them more dependent upon the church to tell them what to do and how to believe.

People really do cling to their religions in hard times. When other parts of life seem to be falling apart, people want something larger than themselves to belong to. Jingoism in the form of faux patriotism, religious zeal, and other fervor is easily stirred up during economic downtimes - especially when they seem to be accompanied by the moral collapse of the ruling elite.

I don't see evangelical Christianity going into a precipitous decline within the next 20 years. Ever since my grandmother took me to an evangelical church when I was a small child, I've heard Christians asserting that they are in the minority, that other people will make fun of them, and that their religion is on the brink of disaster. It hasn't happened yet, and it isn't likely to happen any time soon.

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the mumbojumbo neurotic imaginings of the fundie chisters, etc.
I do not take part in any conversations about this stuff in my real life.
By "real life" I mean here and now in my physical presence rather than online, etc.
When I am home to see these little people, I do not allow the litterers with their little pamphlets to leave without picking up their litter and removing it from my property.

As an intelligent adult who is capable of reasons and free thought, I have learned that by conducting myself in ways which allow me to feel good about myself, I have no need of someone else's irrational judgemental diatribes as to who they think I am and/or what sort of person I am.
I have no axe to grind and have no neurotic, mentally defective compulsion to attempt to force others to think as I think, etc.
I have no need to control them or anyone else.
I treat others in the wys that they deserve and, if they are intrusive and abusive, I shoo them away.
I don't need to "figure them out" as, they are extremely boring and rigidly singular in their "thinking".
I put thinking in quotes as, it is highly doubtful that they are capable of original thought.
I go my own way and know that I can only control MY OWN behavior, etc.
I commented elsewhere in this subject that atheism is uncomplicated and peaceful.
I am a happy adult male and, whether or not someone suffers so much from OCS to challenge that, it is them who has to feel those things, not me.

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They managed to succeed in getting a voting majority in California on Prop 8. Now the Mormons are demanding that ICANN (the international IP handler) create a new constituency for fundamentalists so that they can ban porn on the Web. If this is approved, the fundies would have policy making power equivalent to any other group in ICANN. One of the central organizations promoting this can be found at cp80.org, where they are using children as a sword to impose their values upon the rest of the world. Of course, the Mormons are quite familiar with porn. Utah has the highest per capita porn purchasing rate of all the 50 states.

And we all know that when nations who use the sword of "protecting the children" end up when they institute such legislation. The two most recent nations to be caught abusing such censorship are Australia and Thailand. What started out as a "noble" idea in both nations quickly became a method for the suppression of educational and political blogs. A quarter of the sites censored by Thailand are blacklisted because of criticism, no matter how mild, of the Thai royal family. Australia is banning sites that do not purvey porn including amongst many others, Wikileaks which publishes whistle-blower documents. As Wikileaks points out in their response to Australia's actions - ""The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship."" Let a theocratic group gain power and there will be little that they won't try to ban.

For those who wish to help protect their First Amendment freedoms, you can comment on the establishment of a religiously based constituency in ICANN, the notice page is

http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#cybersafety

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Having some exposure to the hierarchy of America's version of Christianity, it runs an awful lot like a corporation. Top down theology and population control. That needs to change because those control mechanisms got corrupted.

The Christian community needs to spend more time concentrating on doing the right thing in society and less time plugging forgiveness without works.

Here is my perspective on how Christianity should work in society. We were not given this planet to trash, a government to fear and the church as a place to hide. We are shepherds of this planet, we should be inspired by our faith and we should fear no government. Of course this approach just might create a lot of radical Christians. Rumor has it that I am one.

Jay Lindberg

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In its zeal to urinate on all things Christian, AlterNet has actually published a Christian article.

Must have been the title that had them salivating.

The article, while provocative and probably not an accurate forecast, still raises a number of salient points, the chief being that the "church" was never these crystal palaces. Christ lives in the heart of Spirit-filled believers who, yes, put faith before any temporal cause.

The Bible says that "Judgment will fall first on the house of the Lord."

Consider judgment come, believers.

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I have no doubt that organized religion will eventually collapse; as we learn more and more about the universe, and about the origins of space and time, religious dogma becomes less and less relevant to our perception and understanding of the world in which we live. The concept of "paradigm shift" described by philosophers such as Thomas Kuhn is not limited in its application to specific branches of human inquiry; it is also ontologically embedded in, and relevant to, the manner in which the process of inquiry itself unfolds over time. As science advances, and as we learn more and more about the origins of the universe, the biblical account of creation was and is seen by rational people first as questionable, then as wrong, then as quaint, then as ludicrous, and finally as dangerously absurd.

We are at the point where the biblical account of creation is viewed by rational people as ludicrous. Consider the ridicule heaped on the State of Kentucky when the "creationist museum" was opened there in 2007. This museum posits that the universe and everything contained therein was created in six days; that the Earth (and hence the universe itself) is only about 6,000 years old; that men and women lived alongside the Tyrannosaurus Rex (which was purportedly strictly vegetarian before the "fall of man"); that fossilized remains of human beings (e.g. homo erectus) simply do not exist; and that the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood.

I know of no paleontologists or anthropologists who believe such utter rubbish. This is, to be blunt, the province of kooks and crackpots. However, these absurdities are presented within the context of "organized religion"; because many rational people still harbor reflexive, vestigial traces of deference towards organized religion, many rational people shy away from calling the founders of this museum kooks and crackpots.

Eventually, however, the weight of the data and the consensus of the scientists will break through this restraint, at which point organized religion will face the transition from ludicrous to dangerously absurd. It is at this juncture that Christianity may undergo violent death throes.

We should be particularly careful when we enter this phase, because the reaction of any dying organic system can be dangerous and unpredictable. These death throws may well resemble the strident, angry acts of barbarism perpetrated by militant adherents of radical Islam. It would be a very grave – and perhaps very costly – mistake to count on the evangelical movement quietly fading away. As dogma becomes increasingly absurd, so do the proponents of dogma become increasingly desperate. Desperate men and women can threaten and grievously wound their neighbors (Salman Rushdie can attest to this, as can the relatives of the 2,500 persons who were murdered on September 11, 2001).

I am all too well aware of the fact that the above paragraph may offend the “politically correct” and may be met with anger or with silence; when pieties collide, the result is often a silence that is as deafening as it is uncomfortable.

(Note that nothing I have written above should necessarily be interpreted as a repudiation of the belief that there exists a higher power; what I have written is a repudiation of organized religion. This is not sophistry; as I have learned more and more about the origins of the universe, and about the manner in which time itself began (about 13.73 billion years ago), I have become increasingly convinced of the existence of a higher power, whilst simultaneously having become increasingly contemptuous of organized religion. The Big Bang theory has passed the two crucial tests of a theory’s value; yet nobody has been able to explain the baryogenesis that occurred very early in the Big Bang…)

PHILIP CHANDLER

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It's best to have compassion on all those heavily invested in rigid positions, particularly those with strict fundamentalist, whether they are within the christian church or opposing it. Physical reality occurrences are going to blow their world view away.

First is that Jesus has been in a physical Syrian body for over 670 years. There is plenty of documentary evidence for those who investigate. Much of the christian church, which in so many ways has completely failed humanity, will be shocked and shaken to its core by by Jesus, who currently lives on the outskirts of Rome, stepping forward.

Second is that Jesus is not at all of the fundamentalist orientation. The things He spoke about in the Bible He still lives. Fundamentalists will find it a great challenge dealing with Jesus as He steps forth due to the current chasm between their actions and their fear based dogmatic beliefs - and those outlined in their scripture.

The appearance of Jesus will end much of what the church is today as this articled touched on. What is indicated is that the Cristian Church will be consolidated into one church with Jesus would take over the throne of Saint Peter, and from then true apostolic succession will begin. The christian church will not be the one church for all humanity but one member of a family of religions, scrubbed of the accumulated crud, that will serve diverse people.

Christians also will have challenges understanding that Jesus is a "Son of God" but that every other human is one, too. Secondly that though Jesus is immensely evolved from the human perspective, he is not the one and only Christ for the entire universe. Even on this planet, it is the teacher of Jesus, Maitreya (who the last Buddha said would be the next Buddha, or World Teacher), who currently holds the position of the Planetary Christ.

So religion, which has dramatically lagged behind scientific progress, is on the verge of a much needed infusion of energy and talent. While science had a plethora of authors writing Buck Rogers visions of the future to pave the way, the arcane visions of a world based on humans living as souls instead of personalities have had a more challenging time reaching the general public. Yet the time is here. Old systems will collapse and evolution of consciousness, which inevitably is a spiritual happening, cannot be stopped.

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...and no two "Christians" have ever agreed on what Christianity is.

This alone proves it's bullsh*t.

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"Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue..."

This article truly resonated with me. Count me in among that trend. Five years ago I left evangelical circles after becoming completely fed up with the blatant hypocrisy and total lack of concern for social justice issues evidenced among the Evangelical Xtians I knew and returned to a church in the mainline denomination where I was raised. I have been so much better off for it. There is genuine concern and ACTION for social justice, appreciation of the unique gifts each individual brings to the church (and allowing each to USE those gifts!), authentic fellowship and loving support, acceptance of people just the way they are... never saw much of any of this in the Xtian evangelical/charismatic churches I formerly attended despite their loud professions of support for these ideals. Funny how those who quietly live their ideals actually succeed in carrying out those ideals, while those who scream on the street corners about how much they LOVE JEEZUS rarely do.

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The sooner the better! What will happen to all those brainwashed brethren? Does this mean AIPAC is going too? There is a God! Are the Ashkenazi Jews next?

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Lest we forget - religion played an important role in the history of civilization.

It gave people a common cause that was larger than the family group. It gave us the basis of law, people were more likely to follow rules under the threat of eternal damnation than, "because everybody will be better off"

It gave us great art, great music and great philosophers. It gave people an explanation for the mysteries around them.

But today, we know what the stars are; we know why volcanoes happen; understand the causes of weather. We no longer need to explain the mysteries.

We can see around us the benefits of the rule of law. We are so interdependent that we can no longer deny that it's better to work together than to strike out on our own.

Religion has served its purpose. It's time to move on.

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Very good article .......it gives me a vocabulary for coping with the Christian Right.All the country needed was 8 years of Bush to really wake up to the insanity of his form of theocracy. Its demise can not come soon enough for me.What amazes me is how come the Right was not violently opposed up to now....with its worse oppression since mid evil times.I hope this is the start of a new Reformation in religion
in America.

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It'd be nice to daydream of a day when Humanity put childish things aside and abandoned a belief system that helped bring the Roman Empire down, founded the Crusades, inflicted the Inquisition on anyone not in lockstep with Holy Mother Church, burned "witches" right here in the good ol' U S of A, and continues to be an excuse for no end of dreadful crimes against Humanity. Don't cry for the religious fanatics; they'll be back, in force, and nastier than ever.

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it's Christians who give the guy a bad name.

People who make a living pretending to know God's mind are sinister hucksters, snake-oil salesmen in the cruelest sense who thump their "good book" as some kind of proof of what they're saying, which, when filtered through their compromised consciences and hot air egos often disintegrates into violently judgmental and bigoted viewpoints as required by their sense of separateness and "chosen-ness".

These people have absolutely no sense of irony. As far as I'm concerned Christianity is the work of the devil. I think his name was Paul.

Faith is what is required when hard evidence is lacking. "By their acts shall you know them." True Christianity exists far beyond the walls of any church, some people actually do practice it in their jammies instead of bowing their heads in submission for their neighbors to see.

There is no God but God no matter what kind of labels, definitions or attributes any human attaches to the concept. Perhaps if the blowhards in the pulpits would shut the fuck up people could rediscover their true connection to the beneficent mystery.

When people start looking to the natural world for answers all of our problems will be gone. When we abide by the example of the heavenly gods and goddesses (earth, sun, moon, stars, planets) who give their love freely to one and all we will finally be living in harmony with all of creation.

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Jesus never killed anyone, neither did he advocate killing anyone, nor did he sanction killing anyone. He possessed the power to annihilate mankind, as he made perfectly clear to Peter, yet he laid down his life rather than kill and commanded his disciples to follow his example which Christians, by definition, do. Christians do no harm to anyone.

Jesus also never castigated the common man or sinners, with whom he socialized, including prostitutes and thieves. He railed against the corrupt religious system, for which Truth he was crucified.

The church of Christ was spirited away into the wilderness for 1260 years (see Revelation) while ersatz worldly versions arose in Asia and Europe, eventually becoming Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and myriad so-called Orthodox churches. Like these, Evangelicalism is a false religion.

Secular persons rightly surmise that Jesus was a champion of the downtrodden and outcasts. The antipathy and antagonism secular persons direct toward the many self-righteous false churches is a measure of how far from Jesus they have become.

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"We are on the verge -- within 10 years -- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West."

One can always dream.

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The last time we had a crackup boom followed by massive bank failures was the 1920s-30s. Guess who had the power back then? The same group of crackpot evangelicals, complete with a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol, a national white christian movement (the KKK), and lots and lots of moralizing.

It ran through the 20s along with a breakdown of conventional morality, gangsters, movies, sex, laws against teaching evolution, the Scopes trial, etc.

Then came the 30s and the Depression. Out went Prohibition, the national KKK, and much of the power of Evangelicals, which faded and then made a comeback with Ronald Reagan. Expect the cycle to complete itself.

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Let me say that I have a very moralistic wife and while her intentions are good she tends to force her views upon her children. A couple of problems with this would be first, the word, force; it is her predilection to want things to be, per se, perfect and according to her set of ideas and within that she attempts to have the kids dance to the beat of her tune, be it how many pops are acceptable to drink, what to wear or smoking weed. The other problem is that they are adults and in as much they “should” be able to make a self determined decision as to how they wish to live and to deal with the consequences of those decisions pro or con.

I find it interesting that there is so much animosity toward the “Church,” but considering this is to be a fairly free thinking forum, I understand. In as much, it would seem the general consensus holds here that they like my children find themselves as having been subject to the “Evangelical Church” as being an entity that wishes to dictate to them what is acceptable, be it real or imagined does not really matter, that they themselves neither adhere to nor have a conviction concerning the validity thereof.

Therefore, in regards to this article, has the “Church” in its good intention or maybe better put in its sincere desire to direct society in the way it believes it should go, pushed its agenda to the extent that there is now a backlash by those who do not wish to be ruled by a set of dogmatic rules? As evidenced within this forum, I believe this is definitely true. That said, morality cannot be legislated nor forced on one by another and just so, that we (Christians) have lost that battle in large part, as well, due to the hardened responses to the original article. Anyway, best wishes all.

M-

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These rightwing Xtians aren't going anywhere. If anything, they'll become more militant and more aggressive than ever. With the new administration floundering around and losing support over this AIG business, count on rightwingers, Xtian or not, to become even more uncontrollable.

They will remake this country into whatever they want BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!

Jeb....or even someone worse..in 2012! Count on it! These PIGS will never give up.

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The Idea is To Synthesise Jesus Christ Appearing From The Sky To Land In The Middle of These Stupid Religious Cunts

He Will Then Disappear Up To Heaven And They Will All Have Orgasms

And We Will Piss Ourselves Laughing

And Silently Withdraw and Disappear

If That Doesn't Re-inforce Their Belief In Crap Nothing Will

Tony

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Wow! That's the best news I've heard since I was told that I didn't have a tumor on my lung! Now, if Islamic fundamentalists, orthodox Jews, extreme Catholics, etc, etc, would also die out, perhaps this planet might finally know some peace! Let "God" go back where he or she came from! Which was from the mind of some ancient "control freak" no doubt!

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Islam and Buddhism nipping at your heels for the hearts and minds of our age....

BTW Alternet, lovin' the juxtaposition of this article with the ad on CarnalNation. Poignant irony...

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That more of humanity has died in the name of their god(s) than for many other reasons.

Seems the human animal is is always trying to take on the role of a god, and not the work.

That work is to be better humans, not better gods.

Peace.

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I READ THE LAST COMMENT ABOUT MOVING OVER FOR ISLAMIC'S NEXT. BUT REMEMBER ONE THING, THAT EACH BIBLE WAS WRITTEN AND CHANGED TO THE WRITERS OWN THOUGHTS,BUT TAKEN FROM THE FIRST BOOK WRITTEN IN ANOTHER COUNTRY FOR ONE REASON ONLY AND IT WORKED FOR THEM AND THEM ONLY. NOW THE ISLAMIC AND MUSLIM BIBLES. ACCORDING TO THE COUNTRY THAT THE FIRST BOOK WAS WRITTEN IN, THERE WERE THEN AND UP TO AND NOW NO FEMALE SLAVES TO BE BOUGHT AND SOLD BY ANYONE. YET THE MUSLIN AND ISLAMIC PEOPLE HAVE FEMALE SLAVES, SO THIS SHOWS ALL THAT HAVE CHANGED BY THEIR OWN THAT REWRITES THEIR OWN BIBLE TO INCLUDE SLAVERY IN THEIR WAYS AS THEY EXCLAIM LIVING IN THE WAYS OF ALLAH=WHICH MEANS GOD OF WHICH IS A SPIRIT WITHIN EACH OF US. AS FOR THE EVANGELICALS, ALL THEY HAVE DONE TO TRY AND SAVE FACE EVEN THOUGH THEIR BIBLES ARE FALSE ARE TO SPEND MORE MONEY TO BUY THEIR TAX FREE WAY OUT AND SLIGHTLY CHANGE THEIR WAYS IN MY OPINION. HAVE A NICE DAY. MIKE

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Unitarian Jihad will be the last one standing.

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I believe that USA as a whole has been anti-christian, egocentric, and a capitalist society. What we need is the opposite, a real socialist-moralist, christian moral revolution based on the teachings of Jesus, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, Trotsky, Kennedy, Martin Luther King, with liberty, justice equality and economic wealth for all thru a Socialist System of the XXI Century. And indeed, religion, politics and economics, and the state are linked. I don't know why people preach about "The separation of state and religion" because you cannot separage the teachings of Jesus Christ from the governmnet. In fact we need real christians, in the US government, not Luciferians.

I don't want to be the judge, but i suspect that the majority of the members of the US evangelical churches are not real christians. But they use churches as social clubs, as hobbies, but not to copy from Jesus behaviour at all.

.

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I have never complained about Alternet before. i always enjoy the dialogue. But this article simply doesn't belong here. I read the WARNING, but i didn't get anything from this article. It seems to me that Spencer is jut an evangelical christian nut with newspeak euphemistic name-change.

i don't want to read this crap on Alternet! What is Alternet being funded by covert Christian organizations now?

Dont waste your time!

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Mr Spencer got it half right, which is pretty good for a Christian. He said "We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past" - true enough: religious wars, child abuse, religious businesses, etc.. But then he says
"and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture." So much for learning from one's mistakes. The closer one looks at the "Gospell" the more one sees what one wants to see. Unfortunately, what is generally seen is a neurotic manifestation of their unhappy lives.

TRC

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:)

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Reason is the foe of superstition. This is why the Taliban-Christers home school and church school.

So their children will be ignorant slaves giving money to a pie in the sky when you die scheme that makes Bernie Madoff look honest.

There is no god. There is no afterlife. You are better off funding the arts than some snake of a preacher.

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Genuine enlightenment is treatened by Christian apologists like your author, since a postevangelical is no more progressive than a John Hagee or Rod Parsley (Thyme, Sage). The problem isn't your brand, it's religion in general, and organized religion in particular. Sam Harris, author of the groundbreaking End of Faith, got into a website debate with Catholic Andrew Sullivan. Harris posited that mainstream and more liberal religions enable the fanaticism of literalist evangelicals. Sullivan disagreed.

Of course, Harris won (if you are an atheist) and Sullivan won (if you are a believer). But, as Ronald A. Lindsay of the Council for Secular Humanism has reminded us, there's not much sense debating anyone who accepts things on faith. Atheists have DNA, evolution, and other facts at their fingertips (not to mention common sense), while religious folk have only belief.

The election of Barack Obama was a rejection of the Hagee-Parsley-Robertson et al. theology in favor of a more moderate one, but all religion is bogus and dangerous.

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If you think for one minute that the Christian Religious Right or Reich would give up their standing as special or chosen, think again. They truely believe they are the only ones to be "saved". They are the only ones to survive the Armageddon and be delivered from the Anti-Christ and be raptured to Christ.

Other Christian sects like Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Orthodox, etc. are simply sinners going to hell according to the Evangelicals I know. Not to say anything about other religions that are not Christian based.

This prediction of "failure", is so totally off base. When you have the complete narcissistic thinking going on where they are they only "true" believers, their version is the only "true" religion, everyone else are "sinners" and doomed to hell, they will never be convinced of anything else. For to do so, would admit they might be a little wrong or flawed. Narcissistic people would die and be tortured before they admit any flaws.

As far as the secular insurrection goes, I believe that people are just plain fed up with being told they don't belong and are going to hell. They are not trying to take over or kill Christianity. What could kill that anyway? They simply want to be treated like they are accepted, included, as human beings with the right to live their lives without persecution from the "true believers" or Religious Right. And who is being persecuted anyway?

I am a believer, but I also believe that Jesus said that you should love your neighbor for a reason. He didn't say love certain types of neighbors. He didn't distinguish between who is a loveable neighbor or who is an unloveable neighbor. He didn't say because you are Christian, then you can tell what is in someone else's heart and judge them to hell even if you don't know them.

I myself have been judged and condemned to hell by the most "true believers" when they did not know me or tried to know me.

But that is what the Christian Religious Right or Reich is about - judging others, feeling separate, feeling special, feeling above others. Isn't that what bigotry is about? Not understanding others so judgement prevails.

No, I argue that they will not admit their own flaws, but continue down this separatist path with no intension of showing real and genuine feelings of love or inclusion. After all, they are better than anyone else, right?

Authentic feelings of being genuine and having empathy versus the pioty and haughtiness will never be something they would ever grasp.

I choose to be a believer, but with authentic feelings of compassion and empathy and admission to my flaws leaving the final judgement to God, afterall it is up to God anyway.

Will the Evangelical Religious Right kind of churches ever be dismantled or go crushing into blackness over time? It is doubtful at best. Narcassism does not change.

Will the prejudice and religious bigotry, judgement, and condemnation stop? It is doubtful as long as they continue their separatist agenda and not venture out to discover how wonderful other people really are even if they have a different belief or culture. Learning and knowledge are not something they value. If they learn something new, they might find they have flaws. Looking for commonalities is not something they would even consider because then they would have to admit that there might be something as foriegn as equality, that threatens their feelings of dominance, being special, and being better than anyone else.

Well, there you go, my two cents worth. Cynical that I am, I guess that might be one flaw. My opinion is said - take it or leave it.

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No, the evangelical Christians -- the term is a euphemism for fundamentalists -- are (unfortunately) not going the way of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Nor could they: the preservation of fundamentalism -- and the preservation of its core dogma that wealth is divine reward (and that poverty is therefore divine punishment) -- is essential to the propagation of capitalism, which since the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963 has become the sole purpose and soul of government and governance in the United States.

Hence the phenomena we witness today: fascism (to protect the ruling class) and theocracy (to soften the subjugation of the rest of us with the opiate of evangelism).

Hence too the grotesque reality of a probably (otherwise) radical-at-heart President courting bible-thump bigots, whether by granting them key roles in his inauguration or expanding -- I say again expanding -- the unconstitutional transfer of tax revenues to religion begun by the Bush Regime’s “faith-based initiatives” program.

What most of us don’t understand is that once U.S. governance was redefined exclusively as the propagation of capitalism -- specifically the protection of its ruling class and the subjugation of all the rest of us -- the transformation to fascism and theocracy was inevitable.

Fascism and theocracy are fraternal twins; each is the logical extension of the Abrahamic (i.e., Jewish/Christian/Islamic) notion of a “chosen” people and a world in which one is either “saved” or “select” (and therefore worthy of life) or a “sinner” or an “abomination” (and therefore worthy only of death -- preferably the most awful death imaginable, as by fire or stoning). Indeed the concept of ubermenschen and untermenschen so central to Nazi racial and socioeconomic doctrine is directly derived from the biblical concept of the “chosen” and the “damned.”

The capitalist archetypes of “success” and “failure” are merely secularized versions of the same judgment. And if “success” is divine reward and “failure” divine punishment, then it follows that infinite greed is ultimate virtue -- and that poverty is how god punishes those of us who are insufficiently virtuous. Thus the twisted logic that rules our ever more ruined planet.

Contrary to its apologists, it was not “ever thus.” The study of archaeology and myth increasingly confirms that until perhaps 4,000 years ago, the organic form of human society was female-coordinated communism -- lower-case “c” to distinguish it from the effort by Marx, Engels and Lenin to resurrect it in the modern era. By genocide and other means not yet understood, this social structure was replaced by patriarchy -- the male despotism that rules us today -- of which the Abrahamic religions with their serial-killer god (think Great Flood or Sodom and Gomorrah) is the ultimate symbiosis so far.

From this perspective the height of Western Civilization was achieved 3600 years ago by Minoan Crete, a female-centered urban society, breathtakingly sophisticated, its primary deity a goddess defined as the womb of the cosmos and the mother of all being. The associated culture was so passionately humanitarian that it evacuated the entire population of Callisté (Google Thera) when its centuries-dormant volcano came alive. The evacuees numbered at least 25,000 (contrast Katrina), though the subsequent volcanic explosion -- probably the most devastating in human history -- raised a tsunami at least 300 feet high and dealt the Minoans a blow from which they never recovered.

Instead of asking “what would Jesus do,” we should begin asking “what would the Minoans have done.” Only then will we begin to free ourselves from the triple shackles of Abraham: capitalism, fascism and theocracy.

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Followers of the Lord God aren't following the Creator while practicing and teaching Conservatism; therefore, everything you have stated in this post will undoubtedly come to pass, as the church as we know it today is a conservative church, preaching conservative rhetoric from the pulpit. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ must get back to following Jesus, the Creator, and away from carnal conservatism. Jesus, the Creator and Son of the Creator, loves people, ALL people, so much that he suffered, shed his blood and died a cruel death at the hands of the Romans, thrown away by his people, the Jewish people, in order to maintain the eternal safety of all who will follow Him, the Creator -- NOT the Conservator.

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I was with you until you said "thrown away by the Jewish people." That statement is not accurate. If you read the NT, Jesus was actually a rock star to the Jews: Jews flocked to see and hear him. Only a handful of Jews "threw him away." They were the Jews who were collaborators with Rome so they had much to gain by turning over to Rome anyone who Rome might see as a threat. The Gospels blame The Jews because the writers were angry that Jews were not converting to Christianity. Instead, the majority of converts were gentiles. The Romans killed Jesus, not The Jews, but someone had to be blamed for Jesus' death. But to blame the Romans would have been a disastrous marketing strategy for the evangelists. Knowing their PR dilemma, the evangelists scapegoated The Jews. In the end though, it's ironic to blame anyone since, if one accepts Christian doctrine, one knows that Jesus' very purpose was to die. That being the case, what difference does it make who killed him? Christians have been on this Christ-killer anti-Jewish kick for 2,000 years, which has brought much unjust suffering and misery to the Jewish people for those 2,000 years. Christians need to get over it, grow up, and move on.

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I agree with everyone else who has expressed disbelief over the writer's premise. I see no evidence that evangelicals are going away anytime soon - if ever. In fact, I see evidence to the contrary. Other postings have cited the correlation between poor economic times and a surge in fundamentalist religion. Other supporting facts are the success of Prop 8 in "blue" California and the rising tide against science education in public schools, in particular the war against Darwin's theory of evolution. I live in Texas where such a heated battle is going on right now. We have a governor who self-identifies with evangelical or conservative Christianity, and I'm sure if he runs in the next gubernatorial election, Gov. Perry will be re-elected, given TX is a red state.

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I've been praying for this collapse! Evangelicalism in America has too long been connected to a weak understanding of
1. Jesus--limited to winning our "salvation" by sacrificing himself to a weird God who demands blood payment to forgive sins--contrary to the Bible
2. Creation--limited to the concept of God's power as miraculous, rather than seeing the literal agenda of the first readers, to demonstrate a compassionate, loving, caring God in great contrast to the all-powerful deities of the time, making the creationism/evolution debate totally irrelevant.
3. Sin--limited to the pelvic issues of abortion and gay marriage
4. Salvation--limited to a passport to heaven, which is won "only by Jesus blood" through a miraculously transformed life with no effort by humans.

All these concepts limit God and scripture. Many of them directly contradict huge passages of scripture, but all are routinely "proven" all the time by the Evangelical understanding of "literal." The theology behind them needs to die in order for a faith based on action, following Jesus and scripture, to take its place.

It already is. It's part of the emerging church movement. Check out "new monasticism" to find people serious about Jesus and the Bible.
Or Jim Wallis and Sojourners.

May fundamentalist evangelicalism in America today die.

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There is only one way to get rid of these superstitious fools = make them pay taxes like everyone else and watch them disappear.

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...and re-embrace native forms of religion which were not imperialistically imposed upon billions in the past few centuries. If you are a White European, why are you worshiping a Jewish Sky God and some ol' Jewish rabblerouser even if you don't have Jewish ancestors? Ditto if you are of African or Asian descent - like White Europeans, you have no real ancient collective connection to these Middle Eastern ideas....so why remain beholden to and trapped by them? Realize that these Judeo-Christian-Islamic beliefs and God are not your beliefs nor your God, nor the beliefs or God of your people and your ancestors, but merely a corrupt and terrible religious system that was imposed upon far too many humans over the past 1,500 years. WHY MUST THE WHOLE WORLD BE FORCED TO BOW BEFORE THIS TERRIBLE JEWISH SKY GOD?

This mean, wrathful, jealous, materialistic, barbarous, and warlike Middle Eastern Jewish Sky God, not to mention some random guy named Jesus, has played havoc with the collective psyche of worldwide humanity for 1,500-2000 years. Scrap it.

Judeo-Christian-Islamic morality is for the vast majority of the world's population a hostile and entirely alien belief system, and it is used by hostile elites worldwide to control and manipulate peoples by appealing to a false and ultimately bankrupt sense of morality which really has no basis outside of the various Middle Eastern groups which originally formulated these outdated ideas.

Let go of this second-rate Jewish God idea and start to rediscover the ancient indigenous religions of your ancient non-Jewish, non-Middle Eastern ancestors before they were misled and (likely) imperialistically converted by the Middle Eastern Jewish Sky God of Judaism/Christianity/Islam/etc.

Open your mind: let the Nietzschean "re-evaluation of all values" begin.

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It has occurred to me after reading all these interesting comments that, if it is true that the religious experience is principally a function of the right hemisphere of the brain, some otherwise very bright people are trying to function with only half of their brain power.

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reading over these comments I can't help but think how strange some people have become (become since I don't think most are inherently born this way). I'm not talking about the Jesus lovers that will march off to the beat of the bible into oblivion; they're hopeless and I've come to terms with it. It's all the people here trying to mix Jesus with who knows what else; trying to rationalize religion into something else without even having a clear idea of what they're trying to do. In a word, stumbling in the dark. With all of the "thinking" that's going on, its remarkable how little people are actually using their brains. Rather than siting here and doing "thought experiments" to try to figure out the universe (that's how a lot of Christian doctrines came to be and as far as I know one of the few people to succeed with a thought experiment was Einstein... and even he then went out and got experimental data to back up his theories) how about picking up a real book (no, put down the bible... give that old horse a rest) and reading about the world we are currently living in. Better yet, go outside and experience it. Go out at night and look at the night sky with a telescope. Is that God waving at you? Do you see the pearly gates? Nope just an ever-changing and evolving universe that we are a part of. Go out into nature and sit a while. Feel that? No, that isn't god's spirit, that's you being a part of nature... THATS reality. Enjoy that and learn about it. Learn about the universe and through that knowledge get to know yourself.

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Five more points:

(1)-The notion fundamentalist Christianity is dwindling into extinction is among the best examples of disinformation I have seen. However if we are going to speak of “disinformation” we should perhaps use the Russian term, dezinformatsiya, the sinisterly sneering sound of which captures the essence of the act far better than English does.

(2)-Once the claim of fading fundamentalism is recognized as dezinformatsiya, its origin becomes obvious. It is an adaptation-by-reversal of the Abrahamic aphorism that “the smartest thing the Devil ever did was convince us he does not exist.” Other examples include the reality-concealing notions that capitalists are buffoons, that the Central Intelligence Agency is a band of morons, and that Bush II is a bumbling fool. (Apropos Bush II, he is in fact one of the most malevolent tyrants of history, his awful skill apparent in how he and his henchmen distracted us with pointless wars as they looted our nation beyond any hope of recovery.)

(3)- The purpose of such dezinformatsiya is always to delude us that our enemies are witless or in decline and thus to convince us to relax our vigilance.

(4)-I was not joking in my earlier post when I described Minoan culture as the all-time apex of human civilization. Many archaeologists agree. Though the relevant discoveries are often downplayed (and in the United States all-too-often suppressed in service to capitalism), the portrait emerging from the excavations is of a stunningly egalitarian society in which there was neither poverty nor great wealth. Minoan communism -- exempt from the undertows of history and moral imbecility that doom modern Communism -- succeeded for at least 1000 years. Its purported “palaces” were more likely administrative centers. Nor did I exaggerate the breathtaking Minoan sophistication: the common use of two alphabets (Linear A and Linear B) suggests a literate population; the Phaistos disk proves the use of moveable type 3200 years before Gutenberg stole the printing press from the Koreans. To apply a common standard of today’s world, Minoan cities had running water and flush toilets. But for me the all-time proof of Minoan superiority is the evacuation of Callisté (aka Thera or Santorini): not just every human, but every pet and all livestock and all moveable goods. The message of that feat in contrast to our abandonment of New Orleans to Katrina is infinitely damning.

(5)-Even those of us who are genuine agnostics are shaped by whatever religion dominates our time and place. Ideas have consequences -- none more than religion. This is because religion is ultimately a symbiosis in which humans shape the world in accordance with their conception of the divine which in turn reshapes the conception itself. The god of Abraham is an oppressive and murderous god -- the ultimate abusive parent, in savage denial of his mother, hateful to his daughters and despotic to his sons -- whose society is (just as the bible says) created in his image: its ultimate symbol is the phallus-shaped thermonuclear doomsday bomb. How poignantly different the deity of the Minoans: the cosmic womb that asserts our kinship with all nature, the source from which we originate and to which in theory we return at death. And its consummate symbol? Alas we cannot know, but quite possibly ships that may have circumnavigated the globe, bringing not colonial oppression but welcome trade. (Moderns are utterly perplexed by the total absence of Minoan military installations.) But of one thing we are increasingly certain: Minoan civilization was based on the impassioned acknowledgement that women as the source of life are also rightly the source of governance and culture -- a defining premise of the first 147,000 years of human existence. No wonder the Minoan world was so radically different from the Prison Planet of today.

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"It's about time a secular humanity rise above this superstitious rubbish and start dealing with the litany of problems this world faces."

Don't hold your breath.

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The anthropological take on religion is that in order to survive, it must reflect the economics of the culture. In the broadest sense, all contemporary modern state-religions successfully reflect the invisible economic forces (much like the god-figure) of a monetary based system of exchange where the dominant capital holders remain largely anonymous. As the economic structure begins to decay, it is inevitable that the religions themselves will lose their ethos-bearing. Even the casual observer can see that the evangelical movement is run by mostly corrupt individuals who manipulate and take advantage of the followers and use their political power for personal gain. What is the future of the evangelical movement? The same as the collapsing Western Empire.

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As a survivor of fundie Xtianity, I can tell Michael has no fucking idea what he's talking about. "Feeling" is all these people do... on a four-year old's developmental level.

It was an interesting series of prognostications without any corresponding evidence.

I'm unconvinced. These people, this entire movement is a threat and a danger to anyone with a brain. And as the economics craptasm worsens, fundie Xtians will be even more of a threat as they continue to link up with white supremacy and fascist political idelogues.

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......that this dude is correct, that Xty in its most toxic form will vanish. Evangelicals have mostly abandoned morality for political gain. No one who believes in the (false) Jesus myth had any business supporting the Texas Turd.

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Onward non-christian, logic-loving soldiers! Will the stranglehold of religion finally be broken? Will there be a true separation between church and state? I can only hope that there are others, a lot of others, who like me, are tired of the constant blurring of the lines between government and politics.

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We have been mind gouged to believe in what the money grubbers want us to believe. This has been going on since time unknown. The G*D whom the people here on Earth worship is not the Supreme Creator!

Have you ever wondered why mankind loves GOLD? It is ingrained within our DNA. mankind was put on the Earth as mining slaves, because their creators got tired of heavy work. We still carry the gene for the mining of gold.

So here's the skinny, in the next few years all the Religions will fail because our Maker is Returning. Not to be a "fisher of men" but to collect the TRIBUTE OF GOLD!! So nice of you to have it stacked away so nice in those guarded buildings. Can you still say "Beam me up Scotty"?? Well that will happen to your gold reserves.
Oh and by the way there will come at the same time a pole shift, a flood, earthquakes, volcanos, and VERY CRAPPY WEATHER.
The Catholic Church is trying to keep a foothold by having built an observatory at the South Pole so the Vatican can get first sighting of the approaching "visitor". This will be their bread and butter because they will then preach the Armmagedan. Soon the visitor will be visible to the naked eye of every person on earth who can lift his/her eyes to the heavens. In August you will see Mars coming very close to Earth, and you will feel the effects of that gravitational pull, so then multiply that by 1000's and that is what Nibiru will do to us. 3,600 years ago Nibiru last made the Crossing and when it was gone again Religions were born.
So all you bible believers, you Islam worshippers, you are fighting the wrong fight, as the god you adore is the Annunaki, the genetic manipulators that made one gene different from the chimpanzee. They are the ones who made mankind to mine for gold, to repair the atmosphere on Nibiru. Ya they use gold dust!!!! Oh and by the way the Annunaki will be back again in 5,612AD I wonder what the people,[if any are left] will worship???

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Christians who put their whole religious focus on hating gays, opposing abortion (and let's not kid ourselves--they aren't even keen on contraception), and fighting science education SHOULD lose their influence and power. It's tiresome, if not outright offensive, to see religious nutjobs grinding their ugly grist in a political environment. They can be relied on to vote for anything that promotes the freedom of corporations to screw their own membership too. What's up with that?

If they had something positive to contribute, like feeding the poor, providing the homeless a safe place to sleep, or even just providing support and life event caring for their own home communities, then maybe they could earn some respect. That, I'd like to see.

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"[They] believe because it is absurd." (Emphasis my own). No amount of well thought-out argument or persuasion (and there is quite a bit of ammunition available, see this e.g.) can convince the true believer of his / her error. (See also the criticisms of the above linked book on that site). For this reason fundie religion, and christianity in particular, will always be with us, so I truly wonder about the veracity of the author's thesis.

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Throughout my life, I've tried to live with my fundamental codes guiding my actions.

1. God gave me my brain and he expects me to use it wisely.
2. Sheltering my brain from reason, observation and responsibility is not 'using it wisely'.
3. God's work is standing in front of me. It is his best evidence of how he truly means for me to understand him. No book is needed to understand what we see in front of us.
3a. If it looks like we're shitting where we live, we're shitting where we live.
4. People are biased. That includes priests, saints and translators. The brain is good for sorting these out.
5. One can't pick and choose little bits of scripture to support one's biases. The book transcends one's biases. It does not sink to the same level as one's biases.
6. Jefferson was right: If Jesus didn't say it, don't worry about it. Don't let the words of others override his. Otherwise, one is a Paulist, a Davidic, an Issaicist, Mosite, etc - not a Christian.

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Unfortuneatly due to public outcry Missouri police has backed off on this mysterious government order. So now we have a Stalinist government where any free speech that questions the government is quickly extinguished and mini mobs like Acorn are sent to extract revenge or silence those who dare speak. These mini mobs will grow into National service and youth corps who will keep us compliant and silent. Money and power will be controlled by the government. No more for the people and by the people. Everybody happy now?

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I said, "Every day I say this prayer: Jesus, please save me from the people who worship you".

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