3500 people a day are leaving churches

[Virge]

Very interesting article about churches.....

"One might ask if Christians actually ever wonder why their religion is losing, by Christian leaders’ own estimates, some 3500 people a day (and that is not a typo), why some 70%-90% of young people desert the religion by adulthood depending on the survey in question, or why hundreds of churches close every single year for lack of funding and attendance.

Read it here.

[Virge]

Here's a pretty revealing article with some of the "christian perspectives"...

They perceive gays as being enemies of their religions and that we're trying to destroy them.

No. That's not the case. It's just more of their bullshit.

What's really happened is gays in the past 20 years or so have become able to define themselves in the eyes of the public that popes, politicians and preachers who used to be the most trusted sources of information on hays. The religious based lies, discrimination, criminalization gay people put up with for centuries isn't cutting it anymore.

Rather than change and grow with the 21st century a small minority of christians have decided to try to drag society back to the past. That's why they are losing 3,500 people a day in churches. It's not that so many people support gays. It's that so many people are beginning to see much of christianity for the lie based hoax that it is.

https://stream.org/gay-totalitarianism-c...hristians/

[jaxc]

Well, some would say that it's a sign of the end times and "evidence" of Christians in America being persecuted. Some who aren't delusional, narcissistic self-righteous assholes with a huge persecution complex would say that a lot of people, including religious people are just fed up the bullshit constantly being peddled by many churches and are taking control of their own lives. Though i guess the second coming is still a "possibility".

[ceez]

Very interesting article about churches.....



Read it here.

I saw this coming a long time ago, so many people in the church I go to point fingers at the younger generations for the smallest things, like they don't want you to just go to church even if you attend Sunday school before church starts they want you to become an usher or go to bible study twice a week. then there was a baby boom with unwed mothers and the shit really hit the fan then. what gets me is that the majority of the holier than thou Christians were out doing the same stuff when they were young but now that they settled down and started a family and happen to be straight they feel they can point fingers at people and tell them how they should live.

[princealbertofb]

Here's a pretty revealing article with some of the "christian perspectives"...

They perceive gays as being enemies of their religions and that we're trying to destroy them.

No. That's not the case. It's just more of their bullshit.

What's really happened is gays in the past 20 years or so have become able to define themselves in the eyes of the public that popes, politicians and preachers who used to be the most trusted sources of information on hays. The religious based lies, discrimination, criminalization gay people put up with for centuries isn't cutting it anymore.

Rather than change and grow with the 21st century a small minority of christians have decided to try to drag society back to the past. That's why they are losing 3,500 people a day in churches. It's not that so many people support gays. It's that so many people are beginning to see much of christianity for the lie based hoax that it is.

https://stream.org/gay-totalitarianism-c...hristians/

I'm not sure that christianity, as the following of Christ's word, is a hoax. Much of it makes a lot of sense, all the more so in a world that is becoming brutal (but has learnt, in the meantime, also to become more gentle, and more respectful of human rights, strangely). The ethics of 'do to others as you would have done to you', the idea of forgiveness is surely not to be thrown out like the proverbial baby with the bath water. What I think you mean is that too much of that message has been deviated from its original meaning of loving one another and making humankind a collaborating community. The fact that it's taken all this time to come to this pitiful result shows that there's still much to strive for.

[MikeW]

....they settled down and started a family and happen to be straight they feel they can point fingers at people and tell them how they should live.

This.

The article points out some of the "excuses" and hateful finger-pointing that goes on for WHY this is happening and then points out:

These fake answers give Christians justification for the stuff they really want to do, and rationalizations for why they don’t have to forego behaviors they don’t really want to give up. But they’re not really the answers they claim they seek.

This story Neil tells, though, is the real answer. People are leaving Christianity because despite claiming to be a religion of love, its underpinnings are actually hate, shame, dominance, exclusion, and tribal authority, and no matter how sanitized someone tries to make the religion, those underpinnings are there and will inevitably emerge to wreak havoc.

Now, if Christianity’s supernatural claims were true, then people would put up with the rest of Christianity’s bullshit out of fear and self-interest if nothing else. Alas, its supernatural claims aren’t actually true, so there is no reason at all to stay in a religion that is this degrading to the human spirit. Increasingly, that’s what people are realizing, and they’re leaving. It’s that simple.

[Virge]

I'm not sure that christianity, as the following of Christ's word, is a hoax. Much of it makes a lot of sense, all the more so in a world that is becoming brutal (but has learnt, in the meantime, also to become more gentle, and more respectful of human rights, strangely). The ethics of 'do to others as you would have done to you', the idea of forgiveness is surely not to be thrown out like the proverbial baby with the bath water. What I think you mean is that too much of that message has been deviated from its original meaning of loving one another and making humankind a collaborating community.

That is what I mean. Unless you're in the US and regularly confronted with fundamentalist ignorance you cannot fully comprehend the people I'm talking about...

[LJay]

I've been mulling this over since yesterday. Not sure that I want to scrap about it, but I do think that the point needs to be made that there are some serious Christians who view virulent US fundamentalism as only a part of the whole picture. As one of those who holds to his religion with thoughtful and very deep concern, I am happy to subscribe to the idea that people who depart from the strongholds of the rampaging far right wing of Christianity are heading in the wise and proper direction.

[East]

I often say that a lot of Christians are the worst advertisement for Christianity...and they are....

I think about all of the scary SOB's that I see and hear...psycho nutcases and CLEARLY NOT WORKING FOR OR SPEAKING FOR GOD...and the idiots who follow them...and I am reminded how evil some people can be...

I am sure that anyone who uses their senses can feel the same thing...and that is why they leave....

[Virge]

I've been mulling this over since yesterday. Not sure that I want to scrap about it, but I do think that the point needs to be made that there are some serious Christians who view virulent US fundamentalism as only a part of the whole picture. As one of those who holds to his religion with thoughtful and very deep concern, I am happy to subscribe to the idea that people who depart from the strongholds of the rampaging far right wing of Christianity are heading in the wise and proper direction.

I agree with on that LJay but I need to point out something in the way I handle it. When I'm talking about to christians I DO NOT MAKE THE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN fundamentalists and the moderate forward facing denominations. That's on purpose because I want to keep the bath water boiling on the moderate forward facing ones. All this time up until recently they've kept their mouths shut and put up with fundamentalists just because they all believe in the same basic things. If the moderates had their way now they'd go back to tolerating the fundamentalists again and if you want to get down to it.. THERE'S NOT ONE MODERATE DENOMINATION that's really stepped forward to take a public stand against the fundamentalists.

Now that I said that... Let me blow your mind... Do you want to hear both moderate christians and fundamentalists bitching about denominations not combatting the influences of fundamentalists? Start talking about Islam with them and watch the hypocrisy ooze out their pores.

I often say that a lot of Christians are the worst advertisement for Christianity...and they are....

I think about all of the scary SOB's that I see and hear...psycho nutcases and CLEARLY NOT WORKING FOR OR SPEAKING FOR GOD...and the idiots who follow them...and I am reminded how evil some people can be...

I am sure that anyone who uses their senses can feel the same thing...and that is why they leave....

The reason people are abandoning churches is they have become disgusted with the fraud, intimidation and ignorance so many denominations in the US depend on and spread.

I get up before 5 am 7 days a week through the summers. One of my big thrills of the week is catching the Sunday televangelists who come on that early... YOU WOULD BE AMAZED at some of the things they say!!!! Yesterday I caught a new one telling listeners that the belief in evolution is a disease that can be cured by prayer... and all listeners had to do was call in on his prayer lines with names of people who need to cured... along with a "debit or credit card love offering" to get his well trained prayer teams to get to work...

WHAT A FRIGGIN FRAUD!!!!!!

And this goes right back to what I said to LJay above... I intend to bring that preacher up to every Christian I know to get their bath water boiling. They've sat back and turned a blind eye to that type crap for way too long... and then wonder why people are turning away from religions... GEE... Get a friggin clue!!!!!!!