Yorkieguy
Established Member
Eternal life or eternal damnation?
A central platform of Christianity is that if we live by the bible and do everything in this life on earth as God would expect of us, we will pass over and have eternal life in heaven. Conversely, if we transgress, we will burn in hell for an eternity. Think about that for a moment. Why would believers ever put a foot wrong in this brief life on earth, and not only put at risk eternal life in heaven but would incur the wrath of God and be confined to hell.
But they don’t believe that do they?
if they really and truly did believe it, as they claim to, they would behave in quite a different manner from the rest of us. And given that America has by far the highest level of ‘religiosity' in the developed world, it would stand out as the most law-abiding haven of peace, love and tranquillity - the ‘shining city of the hill’ that evangelical Christians believe that it is, and something we all should aspire to.
The reverse is true – America stands out as the most dysfunctional country in the developed world.
‘High Religiosity and Societal Dysfunction in the United States during the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century’.
A study by Gregory S. Paul's, a social scientist, provides independent empirical evidence that bears upon the truth or falsity of the relationships between levels of religiosity and societal dysfunction by findings, published in the Journal of Religion and Society (2005), Free Inquiry (2008), and Evolutionary Psychology (2009). It demonstrated that high degrees of theism in America are associated with high degrees of societal dysfunction.
Gregory Paul used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions. According to the research. belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems and can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper reports: “Many Americans believe that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
However, Paul's empirical inquiries have uncovered the country's exceptionalness in a much less flattering sense: It is unique among 17 prosperous Western industrialized democracies as being the most dysfunctional in terms of a wide variety of measures of societal health, including having the highest rates of homicide; incarceration; infant and juvenile mortality, teen pregnancies, STD infection rates, and abortions. Its population also evidences poorer physical health and shorter life expectancies than might be predicted on the basis of the country's enormous comparative wealth advantages as measured by its Gross Domestic Product.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470491000800407
America is not really a 'Democracy' it's a 'Theocracy'.
Sure you could become president if you're young, (Kennedy, Clinton), if you're old (Trump, Biden), if you're black (Obama), maybe if you're female (Hilary Clinton), or possibly even black and female (Kamala Harris?). But if you were any of those and were an atheist - not a chance. You'd be considered Satan's spawn. (Notwithstanding that 1 in 4 Americans (80 million) believe that humans exist without God's involvement). The irony of calling an atheist 'Satan's spawn' is that to an atheist, it isn't an insult, because they no more believe in Satan, than in any other supernatural being, including God.
'Sunday Morning Christians':
A central platform of Christianity is that if we live by the bible and do everything in this life on earth as God would expect of us, we will pass over and have eternal life in heaven. Conversely, if we transgress, we will burn in hell for an eternity. Think about that for a moment. Why would believers ever put a foot wrong in this brief life on earth, and not only put at risk eternal life in heaven but would incur the wrath of God and be confined to hell.
But they don’t believe that do they?
if they really and truly did believe it, as they claim to, they would behave in quite a different manner from the rest of us. And given that America has by far the highest level of ‘religiosity' in the developed world, it would stand out as the most law-abiding haven of peace, love and tranquillity - the ‘shining city of the hill’ that evangelical Christians believe that it is, and something we all should aspire to.
The reverse is true – America stands out as the most dysfunctional country in the developed world.
‘High Religiosity and Societal Dysfunction in the United States during the First Decade of the Twenty-First Century’.
A study by Gregory S. Paul's, a social scientist, provides independent empirical evidence that bears upon the truth or falsity of the relationships between levels of religiosity and societal dysfunction by findings, published in the Journal of Religion and Society (2005), Free Inquiry (2008), and Evolutionary Psychology (2009). It demonstrated that high degrees of theism in America are associated with high degrees of societal dysfunction.
Gregory Paul used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions. According to the research. belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems and can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.
He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.
The study concluded that the US was the world’s only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional. Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The US also suffered from “ uniquely high” adolescent and adult syphilis infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
It compares the social performance of relatively secular countries, such as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.
Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”. But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute to its ills.
The paper reports: “Many Americans believe that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.
However, Paul's empirical inquiries have uncovered the country's exceptionalness in a much less flattering sense: It is unique among 17 prosperous Western industrialized democracies as being the most dysfunctional in terms of a wide variety of measures of societal health, including having the highest rates of homicide; incarceration; infant and juvenile mortality, teen pregnancies, STD infection rates, and abortions. Its population also evidences poorer physical health and shorter life expectancies than might be predicted on the basis of the country's enormous comparative wealth advantages as measured by its Gross Domestic Product.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/147470491000800407
America is not really a 'Democracy' it's a 'Theocracy'.
Sure you could become president if you're young, (Kennedy, Clinton), if you're old (Trump, Biden), if you're black (Obama), maybe if you're female (Hilary Clinton), or possibly even black and female (Kamala Harris?). But if you were any of those and were an atheist - not a chance. You'd be considered Satan's spawn. (Notwithstanding that 1 in 4 Americans (80 million) believe that humans exist without God's involvement). The irony of calling an atheist 'Satan's spawn' is that to an atheist, it isn't an insult, because they no more believe in Satan, than in any other supernatural being, including God.
'Sunday Morning Christians':
Last edited:
