Issue list with the Christian religion

David777

David777

Well-known Member
Location
Silicon Valley
The below is an excerpt from a long MSWord document I've been working on for years that broadly, tersely, addresses problems with the Christian religion that many have difficulty separating from their notion of what god is and is the subject of a long current thread that is hopelessly discussing many off OP god topic subjects at once. Thus this person has generally avoided replying.

So instead herein with isolation, offer my own baseline ideas that others may comment on but for which I will not be drawn into longer debates on regardless of baiting because this forum has proven many times it is not one to do so meaningfully within. My actual document goes into more detail on these and more subjects I'll avoid expanding on. Whole books have been written on many of these issues.
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In this modern 21st Century science and technology era, more and more Western world people, especially younger adults are increasingly dismissing the possibility that God exists without making much effort to personally research or consider the issue. Instead, they are likely to rely on societal awareness that there is increasing secularism among credible successful people, media, peers, scientists, their acquaintances, and society that confirms what they suspected about an invisible, hidden deity that modern science shows no certain evidence for. 60% of Millennials that grew up with religion have dropped out, 35% have an anti-religious stance, and only 20% under 30 believe church going has value in their weekly lives.

Against making that decision is the understanding that we sentient human earth creatures are mortal with otherwise limited lifetimes. The one and only hope for individuals to escape the otherwise certain eternal non existence of death is by the very clear New Testament promises from Jesus of salvation into his Father’s Heavenly kingdom. Thus, many today though not actively religious and living reasonably moral lives, are in fact on the fence when directly asked, continuing to lean publicly towards the possible existence of God.

Accordingly, when confronted with moral, ethical, or sinful choices in their lives, unlike when I grew up in the USA, choosing to be agnostic or atheist is now a popular choice without social consequence. Although it may not be possible to prove God or an UIE (as I lean towards) exists, I can provide argumentation that Christian churches have created much dogma from misinterpretations and supposed inspiration that God has apparently allowed without corrections. In this modern science and technology era the consequences of two centuries of such has now become a problem that God and son Jesus may be reconsidering intervening again over at least in some subtle way, while remaining invisible unprovable.
  1. Throughout human history there have been a long list of gods people across the planet believed in or still do. Some viewed from this modern era are comically ridiculous while others still practiced widely today have some credibility. The Christian religion itself is fractured into many denominations with serious differences in belief that detracts from the possibility any of them are valid, with full guidance from God. If he exists, there can only be but one god. Jesus did not start his Christian Church with a goal of multiple beliefs and churches.
  2. At least at a shallow limited science level of knowledge, most people see no solid evidence of a god in the universe while science increasingly supplies logical natural mechanisms for physical reality.
  3. Although some Christian denominations like Catholics, have in recent decades quietly embraced evolution and science, the dominant perception at individual levels continues to follow strict literal interpretations of creation and Genesis that is being ravaged by atheists that attack all Christians like rigid Baptist Young Earth Creationists.
  4. People can consider our long list of serious human problems like wars, suffering, and the poor that generation after generation through centuries remains unchanged, as evidence a deity is not there or does not care while not considering that is our human responsibility and not God’s. Making that less believable on the other hand are Evangelicals touting how God is intimately involved in everyone’s lives with elaborate plans, regardless of how evil, and loves all of us equally.
  5. People note how historically many unjust wars and punishments were the result of beliefs of religious people against external people with different beliefs as though God was not really helping religious leaders understand what was moral and what was not moral. In doing so they disregard the reality of political powers habitually compromising the church that one has to suspect was not led so by God.
  6. Additionally, the recent sexual abuse scandals cry out to our religious denominations over a lack of godly guidance. How could God if he was involved have tolerated such? He wasn’t. People don’t consider history showing God abandons such leaders just like he did in the Old Testament with the Levites as Jesus made quite clear when he arrived.
  7. People conversely notice how many of the most wealthy, famous, and powerful people in the world including those through history, are not religious and often sinful as though it makes no difference at least while we are organically alive on Earth.
  8. People notice how many of the non religious atheists are just as happy and content as any religious if not more so and are freer to live their lives unconstrained even sinfully however they wish as long as such does not break civil laws.
  9. Even agnostics on the fence are likely to pray when they or those they love and care for are ill or in danger. When such prayers seem to have no effect, they may blame God or conclude he does not exist.
  10. Most Christian churches continue to cling to the strict Bible recorded historical narratives of miracles, that from physical science standpoints are not defendable even with an extreme allowance of what is possible. Thus may appear as nonsense imaginary magic that is logically impossible instead of considering the flexible nature of orally passed down stories of ancients. Such passed down oral stories often had embellishments for the sake of effective public story-telling to science primitive audiences. Just consider the variance in same subject New Testament gospel verses. Since agendas would include convincing an audience to believe such were acts of gods with vast powers, it ought not be surprising that some passages are embellished so. That does not mean they should be entirely rejected but rather ought to be flexibly interpreted.
  11. When young adults have gained enough knowledge and skill to actually read The Bible, they may be disappointed in how unbelievable some of it is, how disorganized and difficult it is to interpret confidently, and how there is so much disagreement between denominations and scholars on interpretations. Accordingly, they may reject it as interpreted by authorities. All this is not to say parts are very well presented but rather some are not. Accordingly, the insistence of fundamentalists that this was all 100% inspired by the Holy Spirit comes off as rigid inflexible nonsense with an agenda.
  12. There are a list of issues relevant only in this modern era like over population of the planet, priest celibacy, abortion, and senior sexual behaviors, that we humans are struggling to deal with in part because referring to the Bible is not adequately relevant in this modern science era while church authorities have boxed themselves into impossible corners due to tradition.
  13. People also may see self serving manipulative agendas in those that scare people into religion via lack of salvation in Heaven or eternal damnation in Hell.
  14. There are considerable conflicts between the dominant sexual culture of young single people and what ancient Christian religious law considers proper. However, the subject of sexual behavior is a difficult and embarrassing issue for adults to publicly address, especially in church whether speaking to other adults or worse to children.
  15. Some religious people use modern media like television to show supposed miracles in plain view while never being able to prove such and then beg for donations. Thus, are not credible that tends to reduce believability of more serious and logical religious authorities.
  16. Among those brought up in a religious environment, a major issue has always been how boring young children often find the church experience. When later as young adults they are left to decide for themselves after having been so behaviorally damaged, some would obviously choose to play video games.
  17. Many today see advantages to moral independence, free from historical moral constraints, especially regarding materialism, sexual behaviors, and drug and alcohol use. Example are the enormous recent increase in pornography addiction and self sexual gratification with the rise of the Internet.
  18. As increasing percentages of non-believing, non church going parents have children, the probability increases of those children never becoming religious.
 

That's a realistic summation of the state of Christianity today. You have put a lot of thought into it. I won't comment on any of the bullet points, but the following in your introduction, which I think is true, doesn't reflect my own long and arduous journey from indoctrinated believer to atheist/agnostic. But my journey was not at a time or place when I was surrounded by alternative views. I had to labor over the lack of credible proof on my own without support from others for most of my life, until I finally accepted that I have no belief in mystical powers.
David777 said:
In this modern 21st Century science and technology era, more and more Western world people, especially younger adults are increasingly dismissing the possibility that God exists without making much effort to personally research or consider the issue. Instead, they are likely to rely on societal awareness that there is increasing secularism among credible successful people, media, peers, scientists, their acquaintances, and society that confirms what they suspected about an invisible, hidden deity that modern science shows no certain evidence for.
Click to expand...
It is easier to accept ourselves today than it was 50 years ago. Even though there is still no definitive proof of the unknowable for or against. That remains as a constant state of known reality, but acceptance of that fact is now much greater.
 
For someone with no interest in becoming a Christian, you certainly have a lot of interest in Christianity.

True Christianity is not about religion, or politics, or creating a state church. Rather, it is a life-changing relationship based on faith and salvation by grace through faith, not works. For a different spin on all of this, I would suggest you watch ”The Chosen” series.
 

David777 said:
In this modern 21st Century science and technology era, more and more Western world people, especially younger adults are increasingly dismissing the possibility that God exists without making much effort to personally research or consider the issue. Instead, they are likely to rely on societal awareness that there is increasing secularism among credible successful people, media, peers, scientists, their acquaintances, and society that confirms what they suspected about an invisible, hidden deity that modern science shows no certain evidence for. 60% of Millennials that grew up with religion have dropped out, 35% have an anti-religious stance, and only 20% under 30 believe church going has value in their weekly lives.

Against making that decision is the understanding that we sentient human earth creatures are mortal with otherwise limited lifetimes. The one and only hope for individuals to escape the otherwise certain eternal non existence of death is by the very clear New Testament promises from Jesus of salvation into his Father’s Heavenly kingdom. Thus, many today though not actively religious and living reasonably moral lives, are in fact on the fence when directly asked, continuing to lean publicly towards the possible existence of God.

Accordingly, when confronted with moral, ethical, or sinful choices in their lives, unlike when I grew up in the USA, choosing to be agnostic or atheist is now a popular choice without social consequence. Although it may not be possible to prove God or an UIE (as I lean towards) exists, I can provide argumentation that Christian churches have created much dogma from misinterpretations and supposed inspiration that God has apparently allowed without corrections. In this modern science and technology era the consequences of two centuries of such has now become a problem that God and son Jesus may be reconsidering intervening again over at least in some subtle way, while remaining invisible unprovable.
  1. Throughout human history there have been a long list of gods people across the planet believed in or still do. Some viewed from this modern era are comically ridiculous while others still practiced widely today have some credibility. The Christian religion itself is fractured into many denominations with serious differences in belief that detracts from the possibility any of them are valid, with full guidance from God. If he exists, there can only be but one god. Jesus did not start his Christian Church with a goal of multiple beliefs and churches.
  2. At least at a shallow limited science level of knowledge, most people see no solid evidence of a god in the universe while science increasingly supplies logical natural mechanisms for physical reality.
  3. Although some Christian denominations like Catholics, have in recent decades quietly embraced evolution and science, the dominant perception at individual levels continues to follow strict literal interpretations of creation and Genesis that is being ravaged by atheists that attack all Christians like rigid Baptist Young Earth Creationists.
  4. People can consider our long list of serious human problems like wars, suffering, and the poor that generation after generation through centuries remains unchanged, as evidence a deity is not there or does not care while not considering that is our human responsibility and not God’s. Making that less believable on the other hand are Evangelicals touting how God is intimately involved in everyone’s lives with elaborate plans, regardless of how evil, and loves all of us equally.
  5. People note how historically many unjust wars and punishments were the result of beliefs of religious people against external people with different beliefs as though God was not really helping religious leaders understand what was moral and what was not moral. In doing so they disregard the reality of political powers habitually compromising the church that one has to suspect was not led so by God.
  6. Additionally, the recent sexual abuse scandals cry out to our religious denominations over a lack of godly guidance. How could God if he was involved have tolerated such? He wasn’t. People don’t consider history showing God abandons such leaders just like he did in the Old Testament with the Levites as Jesus made quite clear when he arrived.
  7. People conversely notice how many of the most wealthy, famous, and powerful people in the world including those through history, are not religious and often sinful as though it makes no difference at least while we are organically alive on Earth.
  8. People notice how many of the non religious atheists are just as happy and content as any religious if not more so and are freer to live their lives unconstrained even sinfully however they wish as long as such does not break civil laws.
  9. Even agnostics on the fence are likely to pray when they or those they love and care for are ill or in danger. When such prayers seem to have no effect, they may blame God or conclude he does not exist.
  10. Most Christian churches continue to cling to the strict Bible recorded historical narratives of miracles, that from physical science standpoints are not defendable even with an extreme allowance of what is possible. Thus may appear as nonsense imaginary magic that is logically impossible instead of considering the flexible nature of orally passed down stories of ancients. Such passed down oral stories often had embellishments for the sake of effective public story-telling to science primitive audiences. Just consider the variance in same subject New Testament gospel verses. Since agendas would include convincing an audience to believe such were acts of gods with vast powers, it ought not be surprising that some passages are embellished so. That does not mean they should be entirely rejected but rather ought to be flexibly interpreted.
  11. When young adults have gained enough knowledge and skill to actually read The Bible, they may be disappointed in how unbelievable some of it is, how disorganized and difficult it is to interpret confidently, and how there is so much disagreement between denominations and scholars on interpretations. Accordingly, they may reject it as interpreted by authorities. All this is not to say parts are very well presented but rather some are not. Accordingly, the insistence of fundamentalists that this was all 100% inspired by the Holy Spirit comes off as rigid inflexible nonsense with an agenda.
  12. There are a list of issues relevant only in this modern era like over population of the planet, priest celibacy, abortion, and senior sexual behaviors, that we humans are struggling to deal with in part because referring to the Bible is not adequately relevant in this modern science era while church authorities have boxed themselves into impossible corners due to tradition.
  13. People also may see self serving manipulative agendas in those that scare people into religion via lack of salvation in Heaven or eternal damnation in Hell.
  14. There are considerable conflicts between the dominant sexual culture of young single people and what ancient Christian religious law considers proper. However, the subject of sexual behavior is a difficult and embarrassing issue for adults to publicly address, especially in church whether speaking to other adults or worse to children.
  15. Some religious people use modern media like television to show supposed miracles in plain view while never being able to prove such and then beg for donations. Thus, are not credible that tends to reduce believability of more serious and logical religious authorities.
  16. Among those brought up in a religious environment, a major issue has always been how boring young children often find the church experience. When later as young adults they are left to decide for themselves after having been so behaviorally damaged, some would obviously choose to play video games.
  17. Many today see advantages to moral independence, free from historical moral constraints, especially regarding materialism, sexual behaviors, and drug and alcohol use. Example are the enormous recent increase in pornography addiction and self sexual gratification with the rise of the Internet.
  18. As increasing percentages of non-believing, non church going parents have children, the probability increases of those children never becoming religious.
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The article presents some statistics which need sources for most of its claims. Also there are personal interpretations of religious phenomena and societal trends without clear evidence to support these views. You also speculate about God's intentions or potential future actions, which are inherently unprovable and not factual. These are mostly personal opinions and too much oversimplification. Other than that it is an interesting take. :)

.
 
Clinging to the notion of a Big Juju in the Sky, to a Trinity that is only One God until your remember Jesus, to Olympians, or Tree Spirits is hard to give up.

Even "scientists" have a tough time with this. Look at cosmologists and that hoary Big Bang apology. No evidence of it, and more of the desperate hand waving falls aside day by day. Yet the believers still insist and conjure ever more "epicycles" trying to keep it alive much as European primitives struggled to keep geocentricity going for ages when it was resurrected 1000 years after it had already been completely discredited by Eratosthenes and his forebears.

We can't blame anybody, we're hard-wired to seek patterns and draw simple models of the universe from them. Anthropomorphizing those models is just another natural tendency that probably came out of millions of years of survival dynamics.

Even Genesis contains two creation stories, and modern (18th Century and forward) attempts to explain that border on the hilarious. There are also two distinct stories of the creation of Israel. And on and on the inconsistencies run.
 
As noted, this is just an opening document terse summary list that I have further text on in my article. One could certainly add more issues like priest celibacy etc but the above serves my purpose like a table of contents. And it is in no way complete, while providing some sense of the magnitude and broad scope of issues.

Also will emphasize what I have related several times in the past on this web board since the above is obviously one-sidedly negative, that I have chosen to remain an active weekly church-going member of Christian churches despite all my differences because I won't abandon myriad other well meaning hopeful active believers for what Jesus started, due to my own personal different ideas versus much religious dogma and or shortcomings of others.

That small regular action of community and communion is what He clearly requested within gospel scripture as a minimum in order to possibly receive the gift of eternal existence that I as a loving intelligent mortal entity immensely value and seek. Otherwise, I as a logical science oriented person that rejects the dominant magic-like dogma of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, expect when any organic life with mind ends, such mind phenomenon if not in some way pre-saved, is sadly forever final without any way to ever be reversed because the container for mind once gone has no way to serve as a source for duplication.

The Bible itself, indirectly relates in 3 gospels such has been possible for humans in the Transfiguration while also relating spirit, I expect is an electromagnetic energy phenomenon with several clues within scripture, has something to do with water physics that I have speculative hypotheses about. Because eternal death has arguably been the most difficult issue for most to imagine possibilities for, it is one subject I might shed light on and give hope to others over.
 
David777 said:
As noted, this is just an opening document terse summary list that I have further text on in my article. One could certainly add more issues like priest celibacy etc but the above serves my purpose like a table of contents. And it is in no way complete, while providing some sense of the magnitude and broad scope of issues.
Click to expand...
I was wondering how you would address the lack of documentation criticism, which personally, I didn't think was necessary as you don't seem to be trying to prove anything, and none of you points (I don't think) conflict with what I have read, anyway. I suppose you could address them at some time.

While you still attend church, it seems that you are most closely aligned with that growing group that has actually left the church, because they disagree with important issues, but still identify as spiritual or as believers.
 
To me it is quite simple. I can't imagine a God who lets all this atrocious things like wars, murders, rapes and so on happen. Either he is not capable to prevent it, then he is not God the almighty, or he doesn't exist at all. I prefer the second alternative.
Don't reply that God gave us free will. This is nonsense.

In my opinion Sigmund Freud was right. He stated that not God created man, but man created God.
 
I think all religions need a revolution, and then a congress to rewrite their out dated books. They need to represent their current beliefs so we can understand them in our current era. The trouble would be that there are 1000's of religions. maybe the diversity would stop the dualist wars they get into.?
 
George1959 said:
To me it is quite simple. I can't imagine a God who lets all this atrocious things like wars, murders, rapes and so on happen. Either he is not capable to prevent it, then he is not God the almighty, or he doesn't exist at all. I prefer the second alternative...
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Indeed, philosophers during the Middle Ages before our age of science, created the dogma of Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence (OOO), and from that large amounts of non-Bible scriptural dogma that served purpose for their own religious and political agendas. To be clear, IMO, OOO is magic like nonsense of impossible actions without forces. So indeed maybe there is no "god" in that sense. It is why I prefer to use the term UIE (Ultimate Intelligent Entity), entities with limitations within a universe with limitations. With another key limitation beyond OOO, light speed.

The fact we DNA evolved nascent intelligent Earth monkeys within mere moments of geologic time within a universe with trillions of stars and planets, that are already on the technological brink of creating singularity level AI machines, tends to point towards that already having happened elsewhere billions of years before. And one might further speculate it is why we exist in a seemingly fine-tuned universe because UIEs given eternity, evolved to make such so, vastly long before our current Big Bang universe came to be.

And if so given billions of years, if not eternal time, have created a physical process to possibly save otherwise mortal organic mind electromagnetic field contents providing eternal life. Such if physically possible, would arguably be a most important goal of any ancient entities that had a hand in spreading intelligent organic life within a vast universe. And much like with Star Trek's arguably logical Prime Directive, would tend to not noticeably intervene into any planet with intelligent life once technology arose, until they met criteria lest they be guilty of contributing to their eventual self destructive demise.
 
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Lara said:
If we knew the answer to how reliable or valid faith is then faith wouldn't exist.
But we will know the answer in our soul when our bones and flesh no longer exist.
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It's impossible to even discuss this. We will only be talking past each other.
 
JustDave said:
It's impossible to even discuss this. We will only be talking past each other.
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Yes, and that brings us back to my post #12...
"Every 'religious' discussion is the same. You either have faith in faith or you have faith that faith doesn't exist."
And never the twain shall meet.
 
I wanted to be a correctional chaplain, spent 3 yrs at bible college to learn christian concepts and the bible. I abandoned christian counseling and transferred to SUNY University and majored in Human Services. None of which were satisfying. By the time I graduated I needed to work I hung up my desire for further education due to advanced age and lack of time.

My point is in spite of my desire to become a chaplain it seems god was against it based on the obstacles I faced in 2017. i thought my desire to minister as a Chaplin was sufficient to become one? however, I took the road of least resistance and continued working in the familiar fields of mental health and addiction.

I was working at a halfway house owned by Catholic Charities and on occasion, I offered to pray with a few resident. As the result of prayer I lost my job. If I had known was offensive instead of a genuine of kindness I would not have offered.
 
Since @Lara has brought up faith, I'll expand a bit there. In the below, my shortened term "God" is meant to be (God or UIE). There is no one whispering secrets into David's ear or mind, thus the below is personal speculations from my same document, so may be incorrect.

Jhn 20:25
Jesus said to him (Thomas), “Because you have seen Me, have you now believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

Why might God choose to be unrevealed, un-manifested, invisible, hidden? If God and his actions were revealed out in the open public, ALL sane people, would believe he existed just like today in our modern world there is no doubt the world is a round planet. Consider how God could if he had thought that letting humans know he was certain, could have done so.

He might have plunked down say at Jerusalem, some immense incredible gleaming structure like an obelisk made of materials far in advance of even what we have today that withstands disintegration over millennia. No words on the structure, no voice from clouds, no lightning bolts zapping out from, no need to keep reappearing himself every generation or so, to be certain skeptics might believe. Even some primitives on some remote island once seeing an image of such would respond like civilized scientists.

But obviously as previously noted, God if he exists apparently does not want we humans to know he exists with certainty. He wants there to be skepticism and doubt. We individuals must want, must desire, must choose with free will, the light and not the dark while having faith without certain proof. And those that do plus follow God’s laws, receive his eternal gift of life while the rest do not. Those with weak interest in following God’s requested behaviors will thus more likely choose not to given uncertainties while those that want him to exist mostly through faith alone will continue to, therefore acting as a filter.

I will speculate, the dilemma for God is he wants communication with us, he wants to guide us beyond our behavioral limitations, while remaining uncertain to us without physical certainty. Thus, we must have what is referred to as faith. Today though we are flawed with original sin (probably, creature survival of fittest tendencies), God via the Holy Spirit may be revealing himself in subtle invisible uncertain ways to those who seek him, pray to him, love him through faith alone, and are obedient to his will as presented in The Bible and especially through his son Jesus Christ who is there for us representing humanity.

So God is likely to want we beings that have a mind, intelligence, learning, and conscience to do things from our own free will within our innate nature and not as a consequence of external coercion and fears. Again, if coerced by fears with certainty, even many with innate tendencies to be sinful, evil, and criminal would also believe and be obedient. But then their descendants if left alone to mere faith, would be more likely to return to their innate negative natures because their brains evolved to be slightly more so.

Conversely over generations, people who believe mostly by faith alone, will tend to have descendants that have more positive behaviors as a result of their innate nature. In this way, God whose essence is love, sees a future when we fulfill his vision of what we at the pinnacle of creation on his beloved planet, can become.

In other words, for we humans to evolve to what God wants us to become, he must filter out those of us with those negative sinful tendencies using the same evolutionary genetic processes of physically evolved DNA and brain changes he has used to get us to this point. And such may be deeply dependent on complexities of our brains that are otherwise impossible to change quickly even by an ultimate intelligence since he must use physical processes.
 
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David777 said:
The below is an excerpt from a long MSWord document I've been working on for years that broadly, tersely, addresses problems with the Christian religion that many have difficulty separating from their notion of what god is and is the subject of a long current thread that is hopelessly discussing many off OP god topic subjects at once. Thus this person has generally avoided replying.

So instead herein with isolation, offer my own baseline ideas that others may comment on but for which I will not be drawn into longer debates on regardless of baiting because this forum has proven many times it is not one to do so meaningfully within. My actual document goes into more detail on these and more subjects I'll avoid expanding on. Whole books have been written on many of these issues.
---------------------------------

In this modern 21st Century science and technology era, more and more Western world people, especially younger adults are increasingly dismissing the possibility that God exists without making much effort to personally research or consider the issue. Instead, they are likely to rely on societal awareness that there is increasing secularism among credible successful people, media, peers, scientists, their acquaintances, and society that confirms what they suspected about an invisible, hidden deity that modern science shows no certain evidence for. 60% of Millennials that grew up with religion have dropped out, 35% have an anti-religious stance, and only 20% under 30 believe church going has value in their weekly lives.

Against making that decision is the understanding that we sentient human earth creatures are mortal with otherwise limited lifetimes. The one and only hope for individuals to escape the otherwise certain eternal non existence of death is by the very clear New Testament promises from Jesus of salvation into his Father’s Heavenly kingdom. Thus, many today though not actively religious and living reasonably moral lives, are in fact on the fence when directly asked, continuing to lean publicly towards the possible existence of God.

Accordingly, when confronted with moral, ethical, or sinful choices in their lives, unlike when I grew up in the USA, choosing to be agnostic or atheist is now a popular choice without social consequence. Although it may not be possible to prove God or an UIE (as I lean towards) exists, I can provide argumentation that Christian churches have created much dogma from misinterpretations and supposed inspiration that God has apparently allowed without corrections. In this modern science and technology era the consequences of two centuries of such has now become a problem that God and son Jesus may be reconsidering intervening again over at least in some subtle way, while remaining invisible unprovable.
  1. Throughout human history there have been a long list of gods people across the planet believed in or still do. Some viewed from this modern era are comically ridiculous while others still practiced widely today have some credibility. The Christian religion itself is fractured into many denominations with serious differences in belief that detracts from the possibility any of them are valid, with full guidance from God. If he exists, there can only be but one god. Jesus did not start his Christian Church with a goal of multiple beliefs and churches.
  2. At least at a shallow limited science level of knowledge, most people see no solid evidence of a god in the universe while science increasingly supplies logical natural mechanisms for physical reality.
  3. Although some Christian denominations like Catholics, have in recent decades quietly embraced evolution and science, the dominant perception at individual levels continues to follow strict literal interpretations of creation and Genesis that is being ravaged by atheists that attack all Christians like rigid Baptist Young Earth Creationists.
  4. People can consider our long list of serious human problems like wars, suffering, and the poor that generation after generation through centuries remains unchanged, as evidence a deity is not there or does not care while not considering that is our human responsibility and not God’s. Making that less believable on the other hand are Evangelicals touting how God is intimately involved in everyone’s lives with elaborate plans, regardless of how evil, and loves all of us equally.
  5. People note how historically many unjust wars and punishments were the result of beliefs of religious people against external people with different beliefs as though God was not really helping religious leaders understand what was moral and what was not moral. In doing so they disregard the reality of political powers habitually compromising the church that one has to suspect was not led so by God.
  6. Additionally, the recent sexual abuse scandals cry out to our religious denominations over a lack of godly guidance. How could God if he was involved have tolerated such? He wasn’t. People don’t consider history showing God abandons such leaders just like he did in the Old Testament with the Levites as Jesus made quite clear when he arrived.
  7. People conversely notice how many of the most wealthy, famous, and powerful people in the world including those through history, are not religious and often sinful as though it makes no difference at least while we are organically alive on Earth.
  8. People notice how many of the non religious atheists are just as happy and content as any religious if not more so and are freer to live their lives unconstrained even sinfully however they wish as long as such does not break civil laws.
  9. Even agnostics on the fence are likely to pray when they or those they love and care for are ill or in danger. When such prayers seem to have no effect, they may blame God or conclude he does not exist.
  10. Most Christian churches continue to cling to the strict Bible recorded historical narratives of miracles, that from physical science standpoints are not defendable even with an extreme allowance of what is possible. Thus may appear as nonsense imaginary magic that is logically impossible instead of considering the flexible nature of orally passed down stories of ancients. Such passed down oral stories often had embellishments for the sake of effective public story-telling to science primitive audiences. Just consider the variance in same subject New Testament gospel verses. Since agendas would include convincing an audience to believe such were acts of gods with vast powers, it ought not be surprising that some passages are embellished so. That does not mean they should be entirely rejected but rather ought to be flexibly interpreted.
  11. When young adults have gained enough knowledge and skill to actually read The Bible, they may be disappointed in how unbelievable some of it is, how disorganized and difficult it is to interpret confidently, and how there is so much disagreement between denominations and scholars on interpretations. Accordingly, they may reject it as interpreted by authorities. All this is not to say parts are very well presented but rather some are not. Accordingly, the insistence of fundamentalists that this was all 100% inspired by the Holy Spirit comes off as rigid inflexible nonsense with an agenda.
  12. There are a list of issues relevant only in this modern era like over population of the planet, priest celibacy, abortion, and senior sexual behaviors, that we humans are struggling to deal with in part because referring to the Bible is not adequately relevant in this modern science era while church authorities have boxed themselves into impossible corners due to tradition.
  13. People also may see self serving manipulative agendas in those that scare people into religion via lack of salvation in Heaven or eternal damnation in Hell.
  14. There are considerable conflicts between the dominant sexual culture of young single people and what ancient Christian religious law considers proper. However, the subject of sexual behavior is a difficult and embarrassing issue for adults to publicly address, especially in church whether speaking to other adults or worse to children.
  15. Some religious people use modern media like television to show supposed miracles in plain view while never being able to prove such and then beg for donations. Thus, are not credible that tends to reduce believability of more serious and logical religious authorities.
  16. Among those brought up in a religious environment, a major issue has always been how boring young children often find the church experience. When later as young adults they are left to decide for themselves after having been so behaviorally damaged, some would obviously choose to play video games.
  17. Many today see advantages to moral independence, free from historical moral constraints, especially regarding materialism, sexual behaviors, and drug and alcohol use. Example are the enormous recent increase in pornography addiction and self sexual gratification with the rise of the Internet.
  18. As increasing percentages of non-believing, non church going parents have children, the probability increases of those children never becoming religious.
Click to expand...

I looked up UIE but couldn't find anything that made sense. I hesitate to use the word "interesting" because that is often used to describe something of little value but I do find it interesting and probably above my intellectual level.
 
David777 said:
The below is an excerpt from a long MSWord document I've been working on for years that broadly, tersely, addresses problems with the Christian religion that many have difficulty separating from their notion of what god is and is the subject of a long current thread that is hopelessly discussing many off OP god topic subjects at once. Thus this person has generally avoided replying.

So instead herein with isolation, offer my own baseline ideas that others may comment on but for which I will not be drawn into longer debates on regardless of baiting because this forum has proven many times it is not one to do so meaningfully within. My actual document goes into more detail on these and more subjects I'll avoid expanding on. Whole books have been written on many of these issues.
---------------------------------

In this modern 21st Century science and technology era, more and more Western world people, especially younger adults are increasingly dismissing the possibility that God exists without making much effort to personally research or consider the issue. Instead, they are likely to rely on societal awareness that there is increasing secularism among credible successful people, media, peers, scientists, their acquaintances, and society that confirms what they suspected about an invisible, hidden deity that modern science shows no certain evidence for. 60% of Millennials that grew up with religion have dropped out, 35% have an anti-religious stance, and only 20% under 30 believe church going has value in their weekly lives.

Against making that decision is the understanding that we sentient human earth creatures are mortal with otherwise limited lifetimes. The one and only hope for individuals to escape the otherwise certain eternal non existence of death is by the very clear New Testament promises from Jesus of salvation into his Father’s Heavenly kingdom. Thus, many today though not actively religious and living reasonably moral lives, are in fact on the fence when directly asked, continuing to lean publicly towards the possible existence of God.

Accordingly, when confronted with moral, ethical, or sinful choices in their lives, unlike when I grew up in the USA, choosing to be agnostic or atheist is now a popular choice without social consequence. Although it may not be possible to prove God or an UIE (as I lean towards) exists, I can provide argumentation that Christian churches have created much dogma from misinterpretations and supposed inspiration that God has apparently allowed without corrections. In this modern science and technology era the consequences of two centuries of such has now become a problem that God and son Jesus may be reconsidering intervening again over at least in some subtle way, while remaining invisible unprovable.
  1. Throughout human history there have been a long list of gods people across the planet believed in or still do. Some viewed from this modern era are comically ridiculous while others still practiced widely today have some credibility. The Christian religion itself is fractured into many denominations with serious differences in belief that detracts from the possibility any of them are valid, with full guidance from God. If he exists, there can only be but one god. Jesus did not start his Christian Church with a goal of multiple beliefs and churches.
  2. At least at a shallow limited science level of knowledge, most people see no solid evidence of a god in the universe while science increasingly supplies logical natural mechanisms for physical reality.
  3. Although some Christian denominations like Catholics, have in recent decades quietly embraced evolution and science, the dominant perception at individual levels continues to follow strict literal interpretations of creation and Genesis that is being ravaged by atheists that attack all Christians like rigid Baptist Young Earth Creationists.
  4. People can consider our long list of serious human problems like wars, suffering, and the poor that generation after generation through centuries remains unchanged, as evidence a deity is not there or does not care while not considering that is our human responsibility and not God’s. Making that less believable on the other hand are Evangelicals touting how God is intimately involved in everyone’s lives with elaborate plans, regardless of how evil, and loves all of us equally.
  5. People note how historically many unjust wars and punishments were the result of beliefs of religious people against external people with different beliefs as though God was not really helping religious leaders understand what was moral and what was not moral. In doing so they disregard the reality of political powers habitually compromising the church that one has to suspect was not led so by God.
  6. Additionally, the recent sexual abuse scandals cry out to our religious denominations over a lack of godly guidance. How could God if he was involved have tolerated such? He wasn’t. People don’t consider history showing God abandons such leaders just like he did in the Old Testament with the Levites as Jesus made quite clear when he arrived.
  7. People conversely notice how many of the most wealthy, famous, and powerful people in the world including those through history, are not religious and often sinful as though it makes no difference at least while we are organically alive on Earth.
  8. People notice how many of the non religious atheists are just as happy and content as any religious if not more so and are freer to live their lives unconstrained even sinfully however they wish as long as such does not break civil laws.
  9. Even agnostics on the fence are likely to pray when they or those they love and care for are ill or in danger. When such prayers seem to have no effect, they may blame God or conclude he does not exist.
  10. Most Christian churches continue to cling to the strict Bible recorded historical narratives of miracles, that from physical science standpoints are not defendable even with an extreme allowance of what is possible. Thus may appear as nonsense imaginary magic that is logically impossible instead of considering the flexible nature of orally passed down stories of ancients. Such passed down oral stories often had embellishments for the sake of effective public story-telling to science primitive audiences. Just consider the variance in same subject New Testament gospel verses. Since agendas would include convincing an audience to believe such were acts of gods with vast powers, it ought not be surprising that some passages are embellished so. That does not mean they should be entirely rejected but rather ought to be flexibly interpreted.
  11. When young adults have gained enough knowledge and skill to actually read The Bible, they may be disappointed in how unbelievable some of it is, how disorganized and difficult it is to interpret confidently, and how there is so much disagreement between denominations and scholars on interpretations. Accordingly, they may reject it as interpreted by authorities. All this is not to say parts are very well presented but rather some are not. Accordingly, the insistence of fundamentalists that this was all 100% inspired by the Holy Spirit comes off as rigid inflexible nonsense with an agenda.
  12. There are a list of issues relevant only in this modern era like over population of the planet, priest celibacy, abortion, and senior sexual behaviors, that we humans are struggling to deal with in part because referring to the Bible is not adequately relevant in this modern science era while church authorities have boxed themselves into impossible corners due to tradition.
  13. People also may see self serving manipulative agendas in those that scare people into religion via lack of salvation in Heaven or eternal damnation in Hell.
  14. There are considerable conflicts between the dominant sexual culture of young single people and what ancient Christian religious law considers proper. However, the subject of sexual behavior is a difficult and embarrassing issue for adults to publicly address, especially in church whether speaking to other adults or worse to children.
  15. Some religious people use modern media like television to show supposed miracles in plain view while never being able to prove such and then beg for donations. Thus, are not credible that tends to reduce believability of more serious and logical religious authorities.
  16. Among those brought up in a religious environment, a major issue has always been how boring young children often find the church experience. When later as young adults they are left to decide for themselves after having been so behaviorally damaged, some would obviously choose to play video games.
  17. Many today see advantages to moral independence, free from historical moral constraints, especially regarding materialism, sexual behaviors, and drug and alcohol use. Example are the enormous recent increase in pornography addiction and self sexual gratification with the rise of the Internet.
  18. As increasing percentages of non-believing, non church going parents have children, the probability increases of those children never becoming religious.
Click to expand...
TL;DR, @David777 I appreciate your effort, nonetheless. Aside from the specific problem that the Catholic Church created by their failure to remedy the priest's endemic sexual assault of parishioners, some Fundamentalist / Evangelicals groups have alienated greatly members and would-be members that recognize the trend toward support for societal order that runs counter to the teachings of Jesus. that, plus having a nation controlled by an authoritarian theocracy is exactly what those fleeting from England and the control of the Church of England were trying to avoid.
 
I've posted this a couple times in the past. Since it bears on the Drake Equation and thus the possibility that gods are not the magic like OOO type dominantly pushed, but rather from a race of ancient Ultimate Intelligent Entities within a universe with physical limitations:

 
dilettante said:
I'm surprised we don't have more Gnostics, considering the social philosophy of the West today.
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Most people know that books in the Bible were selected from earlier scriptures, most of which were excluded from the final cut, so this information about the Gnostic religion is interesting, and a subject that I knew little about. I have met plenty of agnostics (more than I thought possible at one time), but I don't believe I ever met a Gnostic, possibly because all of their texts were excluded from the Bible. I have heard of a couple of the main characters, but didn't know their roles in Gnostic mythology, which sounds surprisingly rich with drama.

I'm wondering if this utube personality has interpreted the mythology correctly? Although it makes little difference in the end. One mythology contradicting another mythology does not the truth make, nor does either one void the other.
 
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Perhaps, just to get a fair perspective, a list of problems that people have from not having a religion, should also be developed!
 
Since SF members have a few days now to look at the terse list, as the OP, at this point, I'll choose item #10 to expand on and discuss further as it obviously is a significant factor for many not believing that can easily dismiss the Bible without having to further delve into it deeply. It also bears on what @JustDave mentions about "other books" because there is also an oral tradition dimension below any written books. To do so, first I'll help members understand the nature of oral tradition processes since so few in the modern world understand it, especially its accuracy over many generations.

Oral tradition - Wikipedia

Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose or poetry. The information is mentally recorded by oral repositories, sometimes termed "walking libraries", who are usually also performers. Oral tradition is a medium of communication for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledge across generations without a writing system, or in parallel to a writing system...

Indeed, if these final decades of the millennium have taught us anything, it must be that oral tradition never was the other we accused it of being; it never was the primitive, preliminary technology of communication we thought it to be. Rather, if the whole truth is told, oral tradition stands out as the single most dominant communicative technology of our species as both a historical fact and, in many areas still, a contemporary reality.
— John Foley, Signs of Orality
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The following link contains a recent assessments of oral tradition that indicates 19th century scholars advocating "form criticism" that led to much rejection of New Testament writings, usually for anti Christian agendas, have been "dead wrong".

How Reliable were the Early Church's Oral Traditions? - Greg Boyd - ReKnew

...Along these lines, it’s interesting to compare the typical characteristics of oral performances with the Gospels. For example, specialists of oral traditions have discovered that oral performances are characterized by a balance between form and freedom. That is, the narrator is granted a certain amount of creativity and flexibility in how he or she presents the traditional material, but there are also strong constraints when it comes to altering the core content of traditional material.

What specific material a tradent decides to include or exclude in any given oral performance, and even, to some extent, the order in which the narrator decides to present traditional material in any given oral performance, depends largely on the needs and interests of the community at the time of the oral performance. But, again, if the narrator alters the material too much, the community objects and corrects him. In this way, the community itself serves an important role in making sure its treasured oral traditions don’t get substantially altered.

When one compares the Gospels and understands them in the context of the orally dominated culture in which they arose, one discovers this exact same sort of balance. The overall narrative framework and essential content of the portrait of Jesus we find in these texts is quite consistent, but there is also considerable freedom in how the material is presented. The order of events and wording of Jesus’ sayings, for example, is slightly different in each Gospel, though the basic content is the same.

In light of the new discoveries in orality studies, this suggests that we should view the Gospels as written versions of specific oral performances of traditional Jesus material. And the gist of it all is that it reinforces the view that the oral traditions that lie behind the Gospels — including their overall narrative framework– are solidly rooted in history...
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500 that could correct the NT creed oral narratives if false because they were still alive:

1Cor:15
Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, 2 by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3 For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6

After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
 

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