Here's a bit of a thinkpiece for you guys.

How has the "religous culture" changed? Isn;t the guidebook the same as it has been for two thousand years? Isn't the same shit being taught that was taught two thousand years ago?
I mean, aside form the Catholics deciding that God no longer has purgatory, what's so different?

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/...BL._AA240_.jpg
These don't happen anymore. I don't see many Shakers or Quakers around. If you look at the link I posted earlier it says while 79% of Americans believe there is a God (only 66% are certain of it), only 36% go to church as regularly as once a month. That's certainly a change from the days of using the church as the school house and the town hall (or the town hall as the school house and church).

And no the "guidebook" isn't the same as it was 2000 years ago (by the way it didn't exist 2000 years ago). The Geneva Bible (the version the Pilgrims and early European Americans used) isn't even mentioned today and the King James Bible which became popular later centuries has fallen out of favor (even the revised version) in the 20th-21st century. The current standard is the NIV or New International Version I believe. Not to mention that before the protestant revolution the Bible was seen (and still is by much of Catholicism) as a distant second to the dictates of the church leadership (those guys with the funny hats). Catholicism stands on the argument that the church existed before the bible and so its authority is superior to it (I might be coloring that argument poorly or even be out of date on the issue since I am not a Catholic). So your "isn't the guidebook the same" question wouldn't have even been asked in say the 16th century. You would have asked, "Isn't the church the same as it was 2000 years ago?"

I realize you don't practice it and condemn it at every chance you get, but your bluster would hold more weight if you would actually learn something about religion. You could condemn it on a whole new (and much more effective) level. Its hard to believe anyone who thinks about it would believe that millions of people (or any teaching/strain of thought) had remained the same for over 2 millenium.

This thread isn't complete until we get a one-off post from geerussell.

He usually sums things up pretty nicely, too.

Does this mean we're one step closer to finally getting the official religion thread?

This is the official religion forum, does that help?

If you want to start the thread, blaze that trail.

Well, I just think this thread was steering away from the original topic...people who paint their face blue and worship Cthulhu.

Quote:

Originally Posted by timbeau0805

Well, I just think this thread was steering away from the original topic...people who paint their face blue and worship Cthulhu.

IA! IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

Let me get this straight, Fool:
The guidebook is different due to new transliterations? Have these transliterations altered the infallible word of God (who supposedly dictated much of this) in such a way as the teachings are different, or the "rules"(for lack of a better term) are different?
And how could the dictates of a church be held above the Bible? How could the teachings of man hold sway over the supposed dictations of the one and only God?
Now, I'm willing to accept that to a large degree, man has to teach man about God or how to practice worship, and how to interpret the Word. But some of us see that that is where dogma overtakes religion, and men (and church) assume a power over people not necessarily given to them by the divine. And the assumption of this power leads to religion, which is a relationship to man or church, and not God.
I think the fact that only 36% of the people who believe in God attend services speaks volumes. It tells me that even people who profess a belief in a God don't trust the intercession of man, and mistrust organized religion.
Or, it says that people just say they believe because they think it sounds right, and don't practice what they say they believe because they really think it's a crock of shit. They really think it's a tale more fantastical than Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zip Goshboots

Let me get this straight, Fool:
The guidebook is different due to new transliterations? Have these transliterations altered the infallible word of God (who supposedly dictated much of this) in such a way as the teachings are different, or the "rules"(for lack of a better term) are different?
And how could the dictates of a church be held above the Bible? How could the teachings of man hold sway over the supposed dictations of the one and only God?

See PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zip Goshboots

Now, I'm willing to accept that to a large degree, man has to teach man about God or how to practice worship, and how to interpret the Word. But some of us see that that is where dogma overtakes religion, and men (and church) assume a power over people not necessarily given to them by the divine. And the assumption of this power leads to religion, which is a relationship to man or church, and not God.

So you are saying you define religion as a relationship between power and man? While I wouldn't say that's the most precise definition (it allows too many things like government, technology, and education to be defined as religion) I would certainly agree that when any amount of people get together on any common interest power is a neccessary implied result. People together = power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zip Goshboots

I think the fact that only 36% of the people who believe in God attend services speaks volumes. It tells me that even people who profess a belief in a God don't trust the intercession of man, and mistrust organized religion.
Or, it says that people just say they believe because they think it sounds right, and don't practice what they say they believe because they really think it's a crock of shit. They really think it's a tale more fantastical than Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings.

There is a recognized factor in survey research that distorts the collecting of true opinions called "social disirability responses" where people's answers (or non-answers in cases of questions about drug use etc.) are distorted by the natural tendency for people to give the more socially exceptable version of things close to their true opinion (or in some cases flat out say the opposite of what they really think. This is exactly why I mentioned the 66% who said they felt certain about god as opposed to the 79% who said they believed a god exists. No survey researcher in the world however, would agree that the 79% to 36% casm between god believers and church goers is due solely (or even primarily) to this however (its not that powerful a force on anonymous response surveys).

The casm is surely due to many things and I completely admit that some portion is due to people attributing the Bible stories to LOTR-like fantasy, and agree about a definite strain that mistrusts organized religion or even just dislikes it, and there are a number of other factors as well (I myself am not a member of any one particular church for reasons not too far off from some of the one's specifically mentioned). What it definately says however is that the "religion" is not the so uniformly the same throughout time and the religious power-hungry world dominators you like to portray religious believers as are not as overwhelming a force on all things as you tend to claim.

We should also be specific when we refer to religion here. We're talking about Christianity for the most part, aren't we?

I'm not getting the Jewish "tribe-vibe" from anyone here, and I don't think any one of us is sufficiently knowledgeable about the role Islam plays in Islamic countries. I consider myself a Buddhist, and I'm familiar with Hinduism, but those are vastly different religions and they don't have remotely the same ideologies as Christianity does. So let's be direct and honest here and say that we're discussing Christianity.