Religion in Retreat

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Diablo, Jul 11, 2019.

  1. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Then if you believe you will remember this life after your death, you should be able to remember what existence was like for you 200, 400, 10,000 years ago. Wow! Did you watch the Big Bang when it happened? It was AWESOME!!!!
     
  2. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Never said anything about believing that one will remember this life in the next life. Wow - did you realize that engaging Strawman fallacy is pathetic !!
     
  3. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    time is interesting, does it exist after we die, can we be reborn in the past, if so we could have billion of people in the population from a much smaller number of souls and people we bump into on the street, may actually be our soul in both lives at the same time
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2019
  4. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    unless the brain is like a hard drive, people forget their memories from brain damage in this life, so that seems to point to that being true, otherwise people would not lose their memories while alive, memories seem to be stored in the flesh - now if time doesn't exist for the soul, maybe the souls could access that hard drive from a earlier time though
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2019
  5. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Using current metrics almost all of the growth is occurring in developing nations. By 2050, 4 out of 10 Christians will be in the African continent. Islam will overtake Christianity as the largest religious belief shortly afterward.

    As long as we get religious rule out of America, I don’t really care what other nations succumb to.
     
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  6. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Harsh to says because they don't consider all the apostasy in the islamic world. Apparently, both non religious muslims and atheist are on the rise in the islamic world, but it's harsh to estimate, because they face death penalty in some muslim countries.
     
  7. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    huh?
    religion is just as strong as its ever been, what are you talking about?
    Oh you are talking about theists deity based religion?
    How much religion never changes, only the flavor of religion changes, as in which religion is chosen, believers or unbelievers.
     
  8. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I know in the US church attendance is slowly but steadily declining. However, its not because people are losing faith, but rather because people are abandonning the authortarian doctrines handed down by establishment religion and taking up their own personal study and worship instead.

    I see this as highly positive.
     
  9. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

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    What religious rule? Christians have just as much right to involvement in public policy issues as anyone. It's what Dr. ML King and those who ended the slave trade did.
     
  10. Kokomojojo

    Kokomojojo Well-Known Member

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    Since atheism is a religion how do you plan to do that?
    I have only seen 1 or 2 people since I have been on this board that may be able to make a judicial determination between what is religious and what is not.
     
  11. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Oh. Well most "believers" believe they will be reunited with loved ones who have gone before, will see the errors they made, etc.etc. so naturally I made assumptions.
     
  12. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    ...or an afterlife is a fantasy.
     
  13. cd8ed

    cd8ed Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Christians absolutely have a right to be involved in public policy, that is why I referenced religious rule. Making laws that force people to abide by your religious beliefs is a step away from sharia law.

    Laws should be based on observable metrics, unfortunately many religious people believe they are acting in the name of god — or rather their particular reading of god. This is unjust.
     
  14. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am not interested in the various fairy tales that "most believers" believe in - at least not within the context of this conversation. My beliefs do not include being united with loved ones - nor do they include direct memory of one's past life. In fact this does not seem plausible or realistic in a scenario where one has infinite lives as this would mean that there are an infinite number of people and events to remember.

    Humans are made from matter and energy - conscious arises from some combination of the two. We know this because we exist. At some point matter and energy assumed a configuration that opened its eyes and was aware of its own existence.

    In order for this to happen there had to be a finite probability that matter and energy would assume such a configuration. If one believes that time is infinite - then it follows that in an infinite amount of time all finite probabilities happen - not just once - but infinitely.

    That is why I claim that existence is infinite. I make no claims with respect to what the repeated configuration will remember or who the repeated configuration will interact with.
     
  15. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    Got it. Sorry. Now I remember your posts from months ago a bit. You have a more rational, reasonable view. I had forgotten. I guess I made assumption based on your "name".

    BTW, here's something I haven't yet accepted about time. If you have any insight I'd be interested.
    Science/cosmologists have said that prior to the Big Bang when there was no matter, there was no time either.... -nor space. They said that as soon as two particles appeared, time and space both began their existence.

    That would conflict with your idea of infinite time, but I don't know that I buy it. I mean, if time had a beginning, what was "it" (reality) like prior to its beginning and how did that "point" arrive in which time began? See? A beginning requires a preceding time.
     
  16. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Physicists and Scientists that study this stuff do not actually say that there was nothing prior to the Big Bang- although I have heard a fair number of people on here who have this idea. What they say is that we do not know what existed prior to the big bang. There seems to be a point at which this universe was naught - and then it just appeared out of a point or very small area - before which we know nothing. The latest versions of string theory suggest the existence of a multiverse.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity

    The new models seem to make sense - that you have an expansion - then a contraction - in which the gravity would seem infinite as gravity is a function of mass - everything collapsing in on itself - and then another explosion.

    Notice that they say that "space time" does not exist. This is in a mathematical sense. For example Distance (D) x Time (T) = velocity (V)
    What we find is that under certain conditions time is not constant. In other words - if you measured the D of an object in 10 seconds using your watch the Velocity would be X. If the Observer happens to be moving while observing the event V changes. V changes not because the distance was different - what changed was the time variable.

    In any case - regardless of which hypothesis one prefers - none suggest that nothing existed prior to the Big Bang.
     
  17. CourtJester

    CourtJester Well-Known Member

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    Yes is flourishing among the less educated third world countries. But then so is poverty starvation and disease.
     
  18. CourtJester

    CourtJester Well-Known Member

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    Thank you. I had a hard time making it happen.
     
  19. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    could be, I hope not, but none of us really can be sure until we die

    and when we die, we may not even care about the question without our physical brains.. who knows
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2019
  20. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    I remember reading writings of a Hindu Swami about 25-30 years ago that said the Hindu belief was that the universe was created in a massive explosion in the midst of nothingness, the worlds formed, and eventually it would all collapse back to one point which would explode again in a never-ending cycle of creation-destruction-creation-destruction that goes on infinitely.
     
  21. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, but indisputably an appealing fantasy.... the ultimate carrot and the ultimate stick
     
  22. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is an ENORMOUSLY important point
    theists often make the claim that the big bang was the beginning.., which implies a first mover/creator.,. Which they say MUST be god

    BUT, as you correctly point out, scientists make no claim that the big bang was the beginning.... we simply have no idea other than speculation. And, in any case, if there was some first mover, we have absolutely no idea of the nature of the proposed first mover.

    Exactly.
    Actually, the word “nothing” is mostly just a placeholder for that which we cannot currently comprehend. All of space appears to be filled with things like fields, quantum fluxes, dark matter, dark energy, as well as what might be happening in dimensions or multiverses that are hidden from us. For this reason it is fair to say that we know nothing about nothing
     
  23. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

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    I'm still trying to figure out the point of the OP. Christianity in one small nation isn't representative of the world any more than the fact in China Christians have grown from 1,000,000 at the time of the Revolution to 100,000,000 today.
     
  24. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In other among words, Christianity will increasingly become an artifact of peoples and nations that we typically distain as insignificant

    Realistically, the future will be dominated be a few key cultures....The USA, The EU, China, India, and the smaller Asian TIGERS (japan , Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam.

    Christianity is is becoming increasingly irrelevant Among those movers and shakers. And, i suspect that its growth in less developed countries will become constrained as religion reaches a tipping point where it loses its intrinsic deference and instead is viewed as a legacy backwardness.
     
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  25. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Where do you get that number of Chinese Christians?
     

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