ludofl3x

 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

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. 

Fear the LORD and depart from evil.

Do you know what that means?

It means love The Truth, and shun falsehood.

I would just like to point out that we Orthodox never had a "once saved always saved" doctrine, and that this is a Calvinist innovation. John Calvin himself was not Orthodox, and many of his teachings are directly at odds with what the church has always taught.

Someone who would know the parameters for instance in a religion sensitive educational system.

For the most part, the teaching of ID would really actually focus more on teaching evolution, except broaden the teaching to include the negatives of evolution.

. Where I think some of the confusion about teaching  ID originates is from the idea the professor would give scientific insight into how a creator would create/design the universe (creator mixes 'A' with 'B', and produces 'C', the universe). Obviously that's not what it's about.

 They may pose the question to Christians and various types of theists what they believe, and why?

atheists: what do they think the possibility of there being a creator/designer is?

What are the possibilities of a deistic creator who only set the motion for the development of our universe through a big bang? 

 Would a deistic creator who only lit the spark for naturalistic evolution to take place be as, or any less probable than any other unproven theory designed to solve puzzles/mysteries like multiverse and the string theories, and why?

Could this creator actually have been involved with designing the universe, or only limited to setting the stage for natural evolution? 

If the creator may have designed the universe, how would that affect their view on evolution if this were the case? 

People become believers for multiple reasons. Like I said in a recent post, probably most Americans have at one point in time at least contemplated becoming a Christian. Probably even Aron Ra. If they were consistently die-hard atheists from the day they were born, they would never have contemplated it. And the fact that they didn't become believers means they must have had a reason not to. I think I provided some of the reasons amongst multiple reasons.

As far as Once Saved, Always Saved, I know what it's like to backslide. It's a painful experience. The idea that anyone can get away with sin, even if 

they died and were allowed in heaven, is completely false. Paul actually warns believers that if they're conscience is not seared while sinning, check themselves to make sure they really are in the faith. This is all explained in texts referring to hearing God's voice, and knowing God's voice, and being chastened. God doesn't chasten non-believers just like a parent doesn't chasten another parent's child.

An orphan is a child who is missing at least 1 parent.

It  really matters little what statistics say about places with nominal Christian populations.

 Especially when these nominal Christians are engaging in SEXUAL IMMORALITY, which is not indicative of Christian ethics.

And that type of attitude is the reason why there are so many orphans running around. It is the reason why countless babies are being sacrificed before they even had a chance to be born. It is the reason why people have such unhealthy relationships and why divorce  rates are  skyrocketing.

Data please. "Sacrificed" is a strange word to use, but I get it, you have to use that charged language rather than just say "aborted." 

Also, how do you account for the correlation in the US between teen birth rate and STD transmission with the states with the highest percentage of Christian identified residents? Could these phenomena have anything to do with less than fulsome sexual education at an early age? Not teaching about birth control? 

In fact, it is my observation that pride in one's perversity is a big reason these days for rejecting God.

It doesn't help that sexual behavior is being equated with race by these pride lovers, which is ASININE.

And that type of attitude is the reason why there are so many orphans running around. 

We can actually just say, some people will not become Christians because the Bible presents a theme (sin) that they don't want anything to do with. If they became a Christian, they would have to  embrace the sin concept. Right?

Okay, now I see what you're driving at. No, I don't think this is at all an accurate portrayal for several reasons. 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?" Compare that number to, say, the number of Christians who had Christian parents. And no, Christians expressly DO NOT have to embrace the sin concept, it's like the leading thing they love about Jesus! He sucked all those sins up for them! You must be aware of the doctrine "once saved, always saved." Similarly, no atheist says "I sort of believe in God, but if I could only jack off without him getting so mad...you know what, I'll be an atheist, solved!" {ZIP!} I misunderstood what you were implying about premarital sex, I thought you were saying that Christians are super moral because they're monogamists (they're not, as the bible shows) and therefore they don't have premarital sex (they do, as every study about the topic ever conducted shows). 

ID shouldn't be taught in science class because it isn't science, as it cannot be tested or demonstrated. As far as "it opens up too many questions," that's half the problem: it opens up too many questions that do not have answers that can be...TESTED OR DEMONSTRATED. I would sure love to hear you detail what you think the ID portion of science would sound like as a teacher, and what EXACTLY it teaches. What does it explain? Don't confuse how with why, here, a common issue. "How does the sun shine" and "Why does the sun shine" have exactly the same answer. "How was the earth created" and "Why was the earth created" do not. Okay, so we can leave it out of science entirely as it is not in any way subject to the examination of the scientific method, agree? Let's look at it in a philosophical but non-denominational way.

Philosophically, "the cosmos might have been created by an intelligent agent" is as far as you can go in a public school, you figure, in order to be fair to all faiths. Okay, so then what would a universe with a creator look like and why? The WHY is the philosophical portion, as far as I can tell. How would a philosophy teacher help students learn to think about this portion? You won't like the answers. I'm all for including it in philosophical discussion, but I bet that only wins more converts to atheism, at least among the critical thinking crowd. We can play the questions out if you like, but you never seemed to enjoy that as much as I do, and you disappear when I do it, and I like having you around. 

Harikrish is a  Brahmin, a Vedantist raised in the Vedantic tradition and trained in the reading of esoteric scriptures

Now these atheists you know that don't want to sin, are any of them not married? If so, do they vow sexual purity until marriage?

The atheists I know don't have the concept of sin, that's a strictly religious concept. The concept of monogamy is not strictly religious (indeed many people in the bible had more than one wife), and in the non-religious context, the idea is that you're considering what your behavior does to another person's feelings. Why would they vow sexual purity until marriage? Are you saying Christians don't have pre-marital sex? Because I've got news for you if so. :)

The purpose of the Dover Trial was to determine whether teaching ID in public schools is constitutional. 

 I am not going to be able to prove the existence of a superstition.

First of all, I bet I know more atheists than you, and in real life, not here. And none of the ones I know got into it because they "wanna sin!" or they're mad at god. Uniformly, they just don't have any reason to believe in god. And almost as uniformly, I find them more morally upstanding and WAY more egalitarian than the loudmouth Christian on Sundays. Saying an atheist is an atheist because they're mad at god is not only incorrect (much like me saying you don't believe in the One Ring because you're mad at Sauron). An atheists' assessment of god's moral character as a thuggish baby doesn't mean atheists are mad at god, any more than saying people who read Harry Potter books don't follow Voldemort because he's evil. It's simply a reading of the character in the book, it has nothing to do with them being real. 

There's always been young people leaving the church in the U.S. What the article isn't telling you is that many people return to church, particularly the one's who grew up in the church. Not all people in general have left the faith when they left church. Some who have come back have stated they've just found their faith that they didn't have before they left.

but through restrictive education.

Fact is not a single person joins a religion after the age of 16 even though I have joined two and not one before I was 20.  

Do you just want us to state the obvious?

Yes, church membership would likely go down.

Now what point do you think this proves?

So you think it would go down but not die out? Sorry, you posted this earlier. The extrapolation is that if Jesus doesn't go recruit new members to join on their 16th birthday and instead those new members go someplace else, then eventually your current base would literally die and there would be a dearth of replacements within a generation. Within two generations, it's safe to say many churches would face closure. Again, this is if Jesus doesn't go solve the problem as the priest lays out in his sermon. 

I guess then my question is how would the church continue to propagate if you're not adding new adherents but you're losing old ones. Or the faith, in this case, not the building. 

Christianity can make sense of origins. 

That appears to me to be a loose attempt at a mechanical conception of human beings, no more. I do not believe you can be absolutely sure of that and your worldview can't make sense of it (i.e., recreate how consciousness comes from something lacking it; how life stems from non-life).

Second, if you are wrong about science as your ultimate god and reason there are consequences. 

Third, origins is an interpretation of what happened. We are in the present looking back at the past and interpreting the data. We are limited in our knowledge and are speculating on the way things were. We build models and try to fit as many positives into those models as they will allow. The anomalies we put aside for a later date as long as there is not an overwhelming amount we continue to build on that paradigm. Once the anomalies become to many we abandon the model in search of a new one that better explains the conditions.   

 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

god colored them red so if someone has heart problems all that person would need to do is look for a red fruit in order to get medicine for heat attack problems

It should be obvious that some level of faith is required to believe that anything can be gained through scientific process.

Im gonna be honest: your kinda retarded

Yes, church membership would likely go down.

Any atheist who has been in a church or service knows there are always options to move kids out of the sermon area so parents can listen.

if there was not a heaven or hell. even i would choose to live choose to live a care free evil life and die happy.

i just skimmed this but are you saying that the church brainwashes people. to stop this you want to put an age restriction on church.

You don't really get how we do things, you are simply beimg arrogant about your presumptions.

This is an unteachable attitude.

We are actually really good at discerning prelest in the orthodox church. 

What's the process look like to discern a priest? 

You really must think we are stupid or gullible to even suggest that we would hop to follow through on some random vision in a dream simply because the one having the dream claimed it was Jesus. If a bishop told us to worship Satan, he'd probably get chucked into the river along with losing his position

There are cultic practices in a religion. The religion itself is not a cult.

You don't understand our religion. You equate the cult with the religion itself.  

You are drawing conclusions based off of nonsense you are imagining out of ignorance.

Cultic practice is simply formalized religious veneration. 

If churches ever decided to bar children, it would be from the influence of government.