reblog: Why Are Christians Leaving the Church? Turns Out It’s the Churches’ Fault

Image by alvaroprieto via Flickr

You should check out this post from Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta.

It’s a rundown from a Christian author as to why church attendance among young people is declining.

The book he references is called, “You Lost Me,” by David Kinnaman.

It appears brainwashing isn’t working as well as it used to.

What, with all the sources of information available and all, why would church attendance increase? Common sense should be the culprit for church attendance decline, but we’ll settle for information dissemination.

Anyway, check out the post here.

Here are the six reasons that Hemant posted from the book:

1. The Church is too insular — They tell you everything outside the church is bad and wrong… even though young people know that’s not the case.
2. Church isn’t important, relevant, or interesting to the younger generation.
3. Christians are too anti-science.
4. Christians are sex-negative, wrongly pushing abstinence-only education and avoiding frank discussions about sex.
5. Christianity is too “exclusive” — you’re either one of them or you’re the enemy.
6. Christians are hostile to those who doubt any part of the faith.

Those aren’t all the reasons in the book, but they are the ones that Hemant pulled out.

We all know the real reason why church is in decline … it’s because a little red man, with horns, hooves and a pitchfork has tempted the kids away … with his magical powers.

Isn’t it obvious?

Thundering Thursday Reading List

I haven’t done a reading list in a while. There’s a few things I have to take care of today that might distract me a little from getting blogs out. So here’s a recommendation list for you.

• This is a must read/browse: Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta writes about the decline of Christianity (at least on the Internet). He cites a quote from Josh McDowell and from Christian periodical RELEVANT. Both bemoan the Internet as a source of too much information. RELEVANT shows that the largest religious forum is half the size of the largest atheist forum. Read it here.
• In case you missed Richard Dawkins’ science love letter to Rick Perry, check it here. I saw the article posted at Skeptic Money blog.
• PZ Myers linked to this one: Paula Kirby hits the right notes in an editorial about evolution saying: “So-called “reality TV” has done the world a grave disservice. I don’t just mean because the vast majority of such programs are mind-numbingly tedious, but because they have given people the idea that reality is something that can be decided by popular vote.”
• The animals of the Smithsonian predicted the east coast earthquake? That’s what the Smithsonian said. See here.
• Scientists publish that there are 8.7 million species living on the planet, all of which can thank Noah when the evolve a proper voice box. Read here.
• A 22-year old woman covers Hendrix’s “Red House.” Sets the stage on fire with great homage. Here.
• Finally, in case you missed the best church sign ever, see below. Sometimes people don’t think things through. Here’s a link to the church.

Asheville Atheist runs for congress in 2012

Without really learning more about this candidate, I wanted to reblog this post from Friendly Atheist about an atheist running for US Congress. I want to return to it, and I have a vested interest in Asheville NC. I’m originally from NC, and I lived in Asheville, NC for my college career and then for a  year and a half after.

I love that place. Regular-reader Xina lives there currently. And regular-reader SAW lives in the state as well. While I’m at it, regular reader “Old Fart” lives in NC, too, as well as a handful of dirty little lurkers.

And I know ALL of them are going to vote for Cecil Bothwell. 

So go check out the post. There’s a video to watch of Bothwell preaching speaking.

Apropos to a previous post

Recently I wrote about the how I perceive miracles as natural events (here). There are no miracles like the ones in the bible, which leads skeptics to the conclusion that supernatural miracles can be discounted all together.

When people say something is a miracle, there is a general understanding that it’s something natural. There are no instant healings. There are no water-into-wine happenings. There are no examples of raising people from the dead like the biblical stories.

There are events that seem extraordinary, but they aren’t outside of the natural order of possibility.

My perspective is that there were never any biblical miracles. Biblical miracles were literary devices to make stories better. Samson didn’t have superhuman strength. Jonah didn’t spend three days in the belly of a whale. The Red Sea didn’t part. The first-born male of every Egyptian wasn’t murdered. Frogs didn’t rain from heaven. Elijah didn’t light his soaking-wet altar via a fire reigning down from heaven.

When someone says something is a miracle, they are referring to a person who had cancer, but was given a new lease on life through modern science.

Or they say, “Coincidently I was provided for in some way. Wow, what a miracle.” But there are absolutely no examples of supernatural intervention in today’s day-to-day life.

Or you have idiots like Bill O’Reilly saying things like, “Tide goes in. Tide goes out. Never a miscommunication.”

Well, Bill, you’re an asshole. Try to tell Japanese people, “There’s never a miscommunication.” The tide ripped through the Pacific with a vengeance yesterday. And it did it in an explicable fashion. A simple understanding of science showed that. Whether you think that the earthquake was god or satan, the quake is explicable in natural terms.

Sometimes things aren’t directly explicable, but that doesn’t indicate supernatural miracle. For every instance of something good or seemingly miraculous, there are more examples of the bad. God may have saved your loved one, but he ripped my loved one from me. So thanks for making me feel like shit.

Half the time a believer is bragging about a “miracle,” they are hurting someone else’s feelings. It might be time to stop using the term “miracle.”

Friendly Atheist recently posted this cartoon (below) from resident pastor friend of Le Café David Hayward and I think it should be reposted here. Read Hemant’s original post here.

Yesterday, many people wrote that they would pray for the victims of the earthquake, which I see as a pompous way to say you aren’t going to do anything at all except draw attention to yourself.

Instead, do something about it. Make something happen.

Be someone else’s miracle.

How’s that sound?

RETRACTION: This cartoon shows what Glenn Beck believes (via Le Café Witteveen)

While reading The Friendly Atheist (here), I learned that the video I posted (below link) is NOT accurate. It doesn’t not accurately portray what Mormons believe.

Although, I have to say, Mormonism is still a nutty religion and Glenn Beck should still be considered asinine for aligning himself with it.

I apologize for misleading you regarding the video. I will expect an angry mob including yourselves and Glenn Beck lovers everywhere. My buzzer reads, “Bob”. Let yourselves in. I’ll be waiting.

Glenn Beck is a moron Mormon. The video below is a teaching tool that Mormons showed their youth for bible study and learning. It offers all kinds of great information about the origins of Mormonism, including where black people come from. How in Sanity’s name could you take Beck seriously after learning the load of incredible fantasy that man holds as true and good? Before you criticize this cartoon as crazy, consider the beliefs you uphold and … Read More

via Le Café Witteveen

The world is coming to an end … buy jewelry!

Via Friendly Atheist.

I recommend this post and this post as morning reading.

Things that make you scratch your noggin

Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta posted this cartoon this morning. I’m reposting it here.

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If you haven’t read his blog lately, check out this post talking about a pastor who swindles bank account information from his congregation. How gullible do you have to be before waking up? I can’t post these kinds of videos here, so go over to Mehta’s blog and tell ‘em I sent ya.

Walking away from church

Image by JKönig via Flickr

I saw this article over at The Friendly Atheist this morning. Its byline is:

Organized religion’s increasing identification with conservative politics is a turnoff to more and more young adults. Evangelical Protestantism has been hit hard by this development.

The number of under 30-somethings marking none in terms of their religiosity has grown from a stagnant 7% to 17%. I highly doubt that number will get smaller. From the article in LA Times:

The most rapidly growing religious category today is composed of those Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. While middle-aged and older Americans continue to embrace organized religion, rapidly increasing numbers of young people are rejecting it.

As recently as 1990, all but 7% of Americans claimed a religious affiliation, a figure that had held constant for decades. Today, 17% of Americans say they have no religion, and these new “nones” are very heavily concentrated among Americans who have come of age since 1990. Between 25% and 30% of twentysomethings today say they have no religious affiliation — roughly four times higher than in any previous generation.

So, why this sudden jump in youthful disaffection from organized religion? The surprising answer, according to a mounting body of evidence, is politics. Very few of these new “nones” actually call themselves atheists, and many have rather conventional beliefs about God and theology. But they have been alienated from organized religion by its increasingly conservative politics.

Read on

Related Articles

• Telling the “Truth” about Science and Religion (sandwalk.blogspot.com)
• Atheists/Agnostics More Knowledgeable About Religion (psychologytoday.com)
• Study: Generation X more loyal to religion (eurekalert.org)

Oral Roberts: Get under the ‘spout’ where the glory comes out

What an amazing magazine cover from one of the worst organizations on the planet.

Via The Friendly Atheist

(Longish) Quote of the Day

Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta published a response to yesterday’s Pew research in one of the local rags. This was my favorite part:

Study after study have shown that there is a correlation betwen a person’s level of education and that person’s level of religiosity. The more education we get, the less religious we are. It’s no surprise that college-educated scientists have a problem with, say, the evangelical Christian stance on evolution. It’s no surprise that educated people have a problem with how women are treated in the Catholic Church and in certain Muslim nations.

Educated people also tend to be more skeptical and critical. We don’t take what religious leaders say at face value. We want to study their claims for ourselves and, too often, we’ve come to find that those leaders are on the wrong side of the truth. The same applies to their holy books. It should be noted that the Pew Forum study showed that atheists/agnostics fared better than “believers who had a similar level of education.” So while education helps, it isn’t the only factor at play.

As I said at the beginning, these are only my theories as to why we atheists scored higher in this study than people from other faiths. As this study makes the rounds, I’m really curious to hear why church-goers feel they scored lower than we did. And I’d love to know if (and how) they plan to fix that.

I would add one thing: We nonbelievers don’t take what anyone says at face value. It’s not just religious leaders.

Via The Chicago Tribune