JCC God Exists.

Or they just decided not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

I think people are much more likely to accept it at face value because they were raised in an environment of unquestioning belief from birth and because of the social expectations that they continue to adhere to those beliefs into adulthood. Tradition and family and community matter to people. And so they believe what they need to believe to be accepted members of the group.

 

That's different than being intelligent and deciding to believe something because you believe it to be true, though.

I likened it to learning a language when I was talking to my girlfriend about this. As an (hopefully) intelligent, educated person, I've chosen to believe in a "supernatural" or "spiritual" realm of the universe. The language I was given to understand this part of existence is "Christianity". That language has flaws and doesn't adequately express reality for me, so I'm in the process of learning a new language. But the fact that I find meaningful truth in the old language I've been taught doesn't make me uneducated or unintelligent, and it doesn't mean I'm just trying to fit in with a social group. It's simply a matter of where I find truth, and how that truth is expressed.

 

Over a decade ago I worked in a credit union and right across from me eveyr day was a very intelligent girl who litterally "phhhhhhht" at the ToE. She was sensible, smart, and logical. But to her, in just one brief sentence on a topic never brought up again she scoffed at ToE.

 

I guess what I'd want to see is statistics on the numbers of educated people who have come to Christianity in adulthood after having been raised in a relatively religion-free family environment. My children have been exposed to all the Christian traditions: catholic christmas and Easter masses, protestant religious services, not to mention a host of bar mitvahs and Passover observances. I have not yet heard them say: I really find these religions appealing, and there is an element of truth in them that I feel compelled to explore. And keep in mind that I do not share my opinions about religion with them, nor have they asked me for them, in which case of course I would give them an honest and complete answer.

This is really new ground because there have been so few generations of Americans raised in religion-free home environments so far. Western Europe is far ahead of us on this as Superwatto noted. There Christianity is well on its way to extinction along with, unfortunately, western Europeans themselves. Christians breed a bit faster in North America, that's for sure.

 

p crazy, yo

 

I'm with you on that. I'd be interested to see that too.

 

This is true.

 

That's the only thing really missing in western culture - multiple generations of people raised in environments where some version of Christianity isn't taken for granted as a part of daily existence. That's one of the reasons I believe for the increasing urban-rural political rift in the U.S. The educated secular population has moved to the big cities where they are living happy atheistic lives to an increasing extent, while the rural parts of the country remain mired in ignorance and superstition even as they continue to depopulate.

 

I think the real mistake people make is equating religious belief with personal acceptance of the truth of various propositions about the world. Most intelligent Christians that I have seen use "biblical infallibility" and whatnot as terms of art, as a MORAL stance.

They emotionally identify with Christianity in a powerful, personal way (almost in the way that nerd identifies with his favorite fictional universe or a sports fan with his favorite football team), and thus the notion of its sensu proprio truth or falsity is near completely irrelevant, although when asked they would, of course, assert that they believed in its truth absolutely.

 

I split my time in my childhood between a protestant denomination where that was certainly often the case (southern Baptist) and one where it really was not (United Methodist). Clearly the Methodists have struggled mightily for being too urbane and wordly a denomination to coexist and compete successfully in the kind of environment where emotional identification with the faith requires such affirmations of loyalty.

But I guess you're right. Methodists are dying out because that church fails to provide the kind of empty-headed emotional satisfaction so many people seem to crave. The intelligent people are driven away because society no longer demands church membership, and the dumb people are going to where the emotional bang for the buck is biggest. becoming amorphous, denomination-less pseudo Christians who just love Jesus in their heart. or something.

 

I was raised in a family where my parents didnt force any particular religion on me. They let me find my way. The only time I could say they influenced my decision regarding a religion is my baptism into the LDS church. But I was only 8 and I wasn't exactly going to rail against organized religion at that age. But really from about 10 into my early 30's, I was a deist at heart. Couldn't believe the personal stories about God. They all seemed based on pure emotion.

 

The LDS church must be one of the hardest places on earth for smart people to be stuck in, with all that cognitive dissonance caused by The Dumbest Story Ever Told.

 

On the contrary. Mormons are generally attractive go-getters and professionally successful. If anything, they are a validation of what I was saying earlier: theists identify with their religion on a level that goes beyond mere truth or falsity. Mormons take great advantage of collective social effort, and seem very aware of doing so.

 

I think we're in agreement. Adherence to a religion is just one price of admission into certain communities. People pay the price because it's the price everyone pays, and comes with all the ancillary benefits of membership in the community. The goal of the first world, however, should be to develop more of those kinds of communities where religion is not one of the prices of membership, as it is in the Netherlands where Superwatto lives or in upper middle class suburban Chicago where I live.

 

thankfully, shane didnt have that problem

 

Those would be interesting statistics. I suspect a large majority of those people would have had some kind of trauma in their lives, were manic depressives or they found Jesus whilst in prison.

 

I didn't realise western Europeans were going extinct. Sad times.

 

I wasn't indoctrinated.

 

I'm a dinosaur. Somebody is digging my bones.

 

Dig this bone, daddio.

 

And has been said many times, there have been over 3000 gods worshiped by various cultures since the beginning of recorded history. If any one of them is real, the odds of you selecting the right one are very small.

 

I mean like, 1 in 3000. those are better odds than the lottery or something