Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church

Fear the LORD

Fear the LORD and depart from evil.

Do you know what that means?

It means love The Truth, and shun falsehood.

It is fine that we express things the way we do, because it weeds out the haughty, and exposes the wisdom of men as foolishness. 

There will allways be idol worshipping pagans in the world, worshipping the lusts of their mind and flesh, living life to fulfill their passions. That being the case, let it be known that The Truth is a greater God than any of these gods, and all of them combined. There is One LORD.

And you saying it doesn't mean it makes sense: the overwhelming, OVERWHELMING majority of American Christians are born into American Christianity. They don't choose it. That's how they're born. Sensibly, the OVERWHELMING majority of American atheists are therefore NOT born into it, they figure it out. It's not sensible to say that people who didn't become believers must have had a REASON not to, when in fact the only reason required not to believe in something is simply because it doesn't make sense. Do you need a reason not to believe Harry Potter is a documentary and that Hogwarts School of Wizardry isn't real? What reason do you have for not believing in the Roman Pantheon? You're inventing things out of whole cloth. Your reason may have covered like half a percentage point. And you don't address my question: First of all, what percentage of religious adherents are  purely atheistic and choose their religion based on its menu of prohibitions? Have you ever met anyone who, when asked, "how did you choose your religion," said "I looked at what I was allowed to do, and when I found one I could put up with, I decided that must be true?" 

 If the overwhelming majority of people who are 

not Christians, are not Christians because Christianity doesn't make sense to them, then so be it. 

 Do you feel that every American from east coast to west coast, across the Pacific to Hawaii, up north (then leaping over Canada) to Alaska (we'll leave out the common wealth's and territories) are born Americans until they convert to atheism?

What percentage of religious adherents are purely atheistic and choose their religion based on its menu of prohibitions? I have no idea. Probably not many

This also does not address the topic at hand. You said "atheists want to be able to sin whenever they want, that's one reason they're mad at god and Jesus, because if they're real, then atheists would feel too bad about sinning," essentially. My point is that's exactly true of Christians and their once saved, always saved doctrine. Jesus came down, somehow absolved all past and future sins which means if you're Christian you get to go to his house when you die, and not the lake of fire like the starved Sudanese infant has to. Christians are the ones with sin-proof armor. When I do something bad, I have to take into account the feelings of others and how my actions impact them: no reward for me, no punishment, but I have to weigh real world impact. Yeah, some Christians think if you die after sinning, you go to hell, and a lot more believe if you know Jesus, no matter what you do, whether it's molest a child who's working in your church, cheat on your wife with her sister, order a thousand gay people rounded up and tortured, or jerk off when you're horny, you get to go to heaven. This is a blank check for sinning if your doctrine is true: I can sell women as prostitutes all day long. If on my death bed, I have a sincere conversion experience, and die 'with Jesus in my heart,' guess what? Almost every denomination of Christianity says I go to the same heaven as the most righteous. That you hail as perfect justice. It's the appeal of Christianity: you're told you're born a disgusting piece of worm ridden filth sinner whom God reviles, but lucky you, he already killed his own kid for you! (???) So now he loves you again, no matter how many times you punch your wife, so long as you're sincerely sorry and have Jesus, so you better get your ass into church and donate. It's your only hope.

Scam.

This article doesn't describe the real reason. It gives partial reasons. Some of the other reasons include those you're claiming are not reasons.

Obviously from your position, God can't win because either he's an unmerciful tyrant, or unjustly too lenient.

I explained to you that no, a Christian does not get away with sin. The earthly punishment is the same that anyone else experiences. So while when a minister has an affair with a woman other than his wife, and is found out, don't you think that's painful? A lot of ministers would sure love to go back 

in time and avoid the pitfalls I'm sure.

Now imagine how a believer who wasted their whole seeking and engaging in pleasure might feel when having to face the savior who just so happens to be the creator of the universe?

PLease explain this italicized part. How does one teach intelligent design to a Hindu, a Scientologist, a Mormon and a standard Protestant Christian? Is the answer "remove all religious implications to the topic"? 

The 'negatives' of evolution? Give an example. Because I can't think of another scientific theory where you would teach the 'positives' and 'negatives' of that theory, you would simply teach the FACTS and METHODS OF DERIVING SAME. For example, germ theory of medicine: Positive would be medical advancement and much longer lifespan. Negative would be "but then demons might not be real." Negatives of 'gravitational theory,' or 'plate tectonic theory,' it sounds ridiculous. But maybe I don't understand what you mean by negatives of evolutionary theory. Please clarify?

Yeah, this is kind of what it has to be about if it wants to be science. At least we can both agree it's not science and belongs nowhere near science, because it does not withstand scientific rigor, at all. If you can find me another proposition that falls apart as easily as ID does that's taught as science, I'd

be very interested. So let's look at the philosophical issues instead. Because it sounds to me like you think philosophy classes are

basically campfire chats with a youth pastor, and not formal schools of thought to ponder. A philosophy class is very difficult, it features things like

"Situational ethics" and "utilitarianism" and many very formal concepts. Your questions, I'll play your standard student.

What I basically meant was, a professor who would know the difference between intelligent design and Biblical creationism, Islamic creationism, Hindu's rendition of creationism, etc. But able to relate it to anyone no matter their worldview.

As an example, common descent between humans and monkeys may seem logical due to similarity of 

appearance, genetics, and high level for an animal intelligence. The octopus is a bit of a mystery (thus a problem however large or small ) because 

they exhibit a high level of intelligence without the similar genetics and physical appearance. So maybe the monkey is an example of designed high intelligence having common design with a human, and an octopus is an example of the same without common design with a human.

And I don't recall ever saying it wasn't science. If one 

of our powerful telescopes picked up a row of planets literally materializing right in front of us every 5 minutes, would we call the phenomenon supernatural, thus not science?

Do you know what that means?

You have no power thst was not given to you by God

Who do you say you are?

I am certainly not interested in having power over you.

You have no power thst was not given to you by God, and I am certainly not interested in having power over you.

If that's true... then, thanks god. Done. Don't need anything beyond appreciation.

you can even be doing this out of kindness and love. It's the humans that wrote it then (maybe more specifically) promulgated it i question. Just look around dude... how many humans do you trust when it comes to keeping their greed and power?

When two enthusiastic, informed, consenting adults have sex with each other.... and they are both married... and not to eachother

While people can have faith in science (I do), science is not faith based. It is evidence based. It doesn't require ardor or faith. It requires empirical proof. 

The everyday matters of science can be verified and repeated empirically. The question of origins/beginnings is another matter. No one was there to witness the universe come into being or life arise from supposed nonliving physical matter alone. Since you can recreate origins you have to interpret the evidence. How you interpret it depends on the slant you start from. As I have said many times (using a Ravi Zacharius argument), atheists, agnostics, Christians all have a religious view in the sense the all three try to explain life's ultimate questions such as What are we, why are we here, how did we get here, what difference does it make, and what happens to us when we die. 

Thus, I would argue you have religious faith in this sense and faith in origins since science is interpreting data from long ago without being able to witness, verify, or repeat the origins. It builds on a particular model. In the past, many of the models have been replaced with a different paradigm.  Thomas Kuhn has documented some of these paradigm shifts. 

While people can have faith in science (I do), science is not faith based. It is evidence based. It doesn't require ardor or faith. It requires empirical proof. 

The everyday matters of science can be verified and repeated empirically. The question of origins/beginnings is another matter. No one was there to witness the universe come into being or life arise from supposed nonliving physical matter alone. Since you can recreate origins you have to interpret the evidence. How you interpret it depends on the slant you start from. As I have said many times (using a Ravi Zacharius argument), atheists, agnostics, Christians all have a religious view in the sense the all three try to explain life's ultimate questions such as What are we, why are we here, how did we get here, what difference does it make, and what happens to us when we die. 

Thus, I would argue you have religious faith in this sense and faith in origins since science is interpreting data from long ago without being able to witness, verify, or repeat the origins. It builds on a particular model. In the past, many of the models have been replaced with a different paradigm.  Thomas Kuhn has documented some of these paradigm shifts. 

100% certainty does not exist, of course.

We can never truly know.

But for me it's that science makes good guesses and religion makes bad guesses. Even science's theories on the origins of life or the universe are based on evidence. More evidence than religion can typically provide.

If asking human questions is your only qualifier of what is religious, I suppose I can see how science might qualify for you.

But I think that's an incomplete description of "religious." For science to be religious I would expect it to involve worship, claim the existence of deities, ask you to rely on faith, tell you what to do/how to live, or make value judgments about what is right or wrong.

Religion is a big word with a lot of baggage. I'm not sure you can justly equivocate the two simply because humans have used both of them to pursue existential questions.

I think part of that appreciation is to not be proud about what you feel you accomplished all on your own.

If greed and power was our motivation, we wouldn't have come up with the idea of churvh and state needing to be seperate. If hreed and power was our motivation, our bishops would not be selected among monastics who literally give up all their possessions and swear to always obey the abbot. Quite the opposite, it is those who shun power and wealth that are made unto bishops, and their duty largely consists of guarding the faith from being corrupted.

incredulity