Question for materialists

_{Tom Peeler

October 22, 2022

Intelligent Design}

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It’s been a while since I’ve been “out here” and I am wondering if materialism is still considered by some to be a rational position to hold. I understand “materialism” to be the idea that every existing thing is comprised of the periodic table of elements (rearranged in a vast number of ways described by the standard model and general relativity) and no more. Is this a fair definition? Thanks.

Comments

JVL, you are something of a rabble-rouser. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/02/1126454129/russia-ukraine-pope-francis-plea-peace By the way, the Russians are pursuing specific military objectives. Warfare has not changed since the Second World War. In my opinion, based on history, nuclear weapons will not be used. The Russians could have done so when they were in Afghanistan and did not. The U.S. could have done the same when they were in Afghanistan but did not.relatd_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: Got to love Darwinian atheists appealing to Christian morality in order to try to find a silver lining for their atheism. Well, let's hear your authentic Christian moral stance then on the war in Ukraine. Putin has encouraged Christianity in Russia and now the Russians are bombing and raping and killing Christians in Ukraine. I assume you and your church are happy to condemn him publicly?JVL_{October 23, 2022
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Got to love Darwinian atheists appealing to Christian morality in order to try to find a silver lining for their atheism. "I think a lot." Hardly.bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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Seversky: So how many here support Putin and Russia and think we shouldn’t be involved the war in Ukraine? I'm sure many Russian civilians are decent and peaceful people who don't really understand what's going on because their access to information is severely curtailed and edited. But the Russian army and its commanders . . . they are acting like animals. Hideous awful crimes are being perpetrated by them. They need to be stopped and prosecuted. Otherwise we condone by silence, we accept by turning away, we let the cancer spread and hope our children figure out how to deal with it. One of these days Putin is going to be taken out and shot by his generals or oligarchs or both. They're probably arguing over who's going to be in charge once he's eliminated. But if you let up on the pressure and the kickback it will put off that reckoning. This isn't about ideology, it's about sheer, unmitigated, raw power as manifested via horror and death. Putin isn't going to spare you or protect you because you're Christian as most Ukrainians are. He will lay you under the ground if he thinks it suits his purposes regardless of your creed.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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So how many here support Putin and Russia and think we shouldn’t be involved the war in Ukraine?
It is easy to commit the fallacy of division. Putin is a psychopath and I'm sure there are many ordinary Russians, despite the propaganda they are fed, who would be glad to see the back of him. I'm also desperately sorry for the people of Ukraine and the destruction of life and property they are having to endure because of Putin's unjustifiable aggression. Ukraine should be given all possible support to resist the aggressor .Alan Fox_{October 23, 2022
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I doubt if the real numbers of atheists and believers has changed much over the years. What is more likely is that religious belief was heavily suppressed in The Soviet Union and Communist China so that skewed the numbers. It was assumed that all good Soviet and Chinese citizens had abandoned their religious beliefs at the behest of The Party when all that happened was religious belief was driven underground not erased.Seversky_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: Huh? Trying to find a silver lining for your atheism in just how anti-moral a country is? And that does not strike you as being macabre? I don't think pointing out that despite Russia's acceptance of Christianity it hasn't stopped perpetrating some pretty hideous acts is trying to justify or support the Soviet Union or atheism. Sometimes you don't make sense at all. You're like one of those baseball batters that tries to hit a home run on every pitch. Which means you miss a lot. Do you even think about what you are writing? Or are you really just a ‘meat robot’ as your Darwinian worldview entails? I think a lot. And I check out stuff, and look for information and data. And sometimes I find things that I didn't expect or run contrary to what I did expect. And I try really hard NOT to just pick and choose phrases from papers and articles that resonate with some of my beliefs. I try and peruse the entire piece of work to make sure I understand the full context. Again, you are bound and determined to pick a fight. Sadly, some of your links and references lead to areas and statements that prove to be uncomfortable for you at best and, sometimes, even contradictory to the point you think you're making. It's not my fault that actually scanning an entire linked article of yours sometimes makes you look foolish. None-the-less, however far a country may ‘miss the mark’ of Christianity, it is still orders of magnitude better than what happens to a country under atheism. Just ask the +200 million dead in the 20th century at the hands of their own atheistic governments! I'll just ask the thousands and thousands of Ukrainians who were raped and killed by Russians because . . . why exactly? What did Ukraine do to provoke the war crimes now being done to them? Is this any different from when the (atheistic) Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan? Has being Christian made any difference at all in the way politicians in Moscow act? If Putin decides to use tactical nuclear weapons I just might have a cloud of fallout drift over my home. Maybe you don't care 'cause you're a long ways away but some of us who are closer to the front lines are scared. But he supports Christians so you'll cut him some slack?JVL_{October 23, 2022
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So how many here support Putin and Russia and think we shouldn't be involved the war in Ukraine?Seversky_{October 23, 2022
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Huh? Trying to find a silver lining for your atheism in just how anti-moral a country is? And that does not strike you as being macabre? Do you even think about what you are writing? Or are you really just a 'meat robot' as your Darwinian worldview entails?
“You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” Jerry Coyne – No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20
For what its worth, I think Russia, and all countries, fall far short of the "Christian mark". None-the-less, however far a country may 'miss the mark' of Christianity, it is still orders of magnitude better than what happens to a country under atheism. Just ask the +200 million dead in the 20th century at the hands of their own atheistic governments!bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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Oh dear oh dear: Evangelical leaders “face reckoning over praise for Putin” https://currentpub.com/2022/02/25/evangelical-leaders-face-reckoning-over-praise-for-putin/
n February and March 2014, Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association featured Putin on the cover of the March 2014 issue of Decision magazine, ignoring the invasion but praising the dictator’s stand protecting children from “propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia.”

“I think Russia is the hope for the world right now,” said Larry Jacobs, managing director of the Rockford, Illinois-based World Congress of Families, in 2014. Russia’s invasion of Crimea led WCF to cancel its 2014 gathering in Moscow that year, but the nonprofit continues to partner with Russia’s religious and political leaders. “The Russians are not our problem,” said the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer in a 2018 post about then-President Trump and the 2016 election.
And more from: https://ministrywatch.com/franklin-graham-and-pro-family-groups-face-reckoning-over-praise-for-putin/
Putin began massing troops on Ukraine’s border in April 2021. Three months later, Franklin Graham traveled to Moscow to meet with Volodin and other religious and government leaders. The September issue of Decision magazine covered the visit in its “Good News” section, reporting the two had met for two hours. “This is the time for the U.S. and Russia to stand together,” Graham said after the visit. Not everyone agreed. “The meeting between America’s most prominent evangelical and one of the most prominent sanctioned politicians in Russia fits a broader, years-long pattern of Kremlin-connected officials cultivating relations with American Christian fundamentalists,” said The Bulwark.
JVL_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent dramatic increase of Christianity in the former Soviet Union, can readily account for the dramatic drop in global atheism from 1970. Perhaps. It is somewhat plausible at least. Too bad Russia being Christian again didn't stop them from invading Ukraine and killing tens of thousands of innocent people. But, you can't have everything can you? From the linked article:
President Vladimir Putin has encouraged this revival and he has also benefited from it, both at home and abroad. Last year, he explained that Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war was designed to protect Christians from the Islamic State. Not only has the Orthodox Church supported this “holy war” but so have some American evangelicals, who are likewise concerned about Christians in the Middle East and praise Putin’s socially conservative policies.
So, Putin is protecting Christians . . . sometimes at least. I guess that's alright then. I'll stop worrying about the destruction in Syria then. But wait, there's more:
. . . and the rate of abortions in Russia is more than double compared to the U.S. and enjoys widespread support despite strong objections from the Orthodox Church. And contrary to Orthodox teaching, attitudes toward divorce and pre-marital sex remain lax.
Maybe not so Christian after all then. Oh well.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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The collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent dramatic increase of Christianity in the former Soviet Union, can readily account for a large percentage of the dramatic drop in global atheism from 1970.
Russia’s Journey from Orthodoxy to Atheism, and Back Again By Gene Zubovich | October 16, 2018 Excerpt: In Russia, there is a religious revival happening. Orthodox Christianity is thriving after enduring a 70-year period of atheistic Soviet rule. In 1991, just after the collapse of the USSR, about two-thirds of Russians claimed no religious affiliation. Today, 71 percent of Russians identify as Orthodox. https://religionandpolitics.org/2018/10/16/russias-journey-from-orthodoxy-to-atheism-and-back-again/
Throw China's recent 'Christianization' on top of that, I am surprised that the percentage drop in worldwide atheism is not even higher than what they reported,
. By 2060, one of the leading sociologists of religion for China, a man named Fenggang Yang, anticipates that China could be a majority Christian country. https://www.crossway.org/articles/why-the-secularization-hypothesis-is-fundamentally-flawed/
bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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Actually, I think the "what is materialism" question has been answered, and was done about post 19.Viola Lee_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: "According to the Gordon-Conwell report, there are fewer atheists around the world today (147 million) than in 1970 (165 million), with the number expected to continue declining through 2050." That sounds very non-sensical to me: the population doubled and the number of atheists dropped? Really? I may take the time to look that particular statistic up. Fewer Christians are dying for their faith. Oh so they're not being persecuted. I could have sworn someone here said they were . . . More than 90 million Bibles will be printed this year. More tickets to football (soccer) matches than that will be bought. So what? Hahahahahahahah. I tried accessing the first link: https://www.kentuckytoday.com/baptist_life/7-encouraging-trends-of-global-christianity-in-2022/article_6a1f9336-861a-11ec-aab8-dbfeb19c7929.html and I got this message:
451: Unavailable due to legal reasons We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact info@kentuckytoday.com or call 502-489-3332.
So, that website does not abide by privacy laws enforced all over Europe. Lovely. So, I can't even read the article. OH WELL!JVL_{October 23, 2022
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And again, what is materialism?kairosfocus_{October 23, 2022
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JVL, a dogmatic Darwinian atheist who steadfastly refuses to listen to any scientific evidence that contradicts his Darwinian worldview, tries to lecture me on listening to others. :) But anyways. his blatant hypocrisy aside, and again, worldwide atheism is declining and Christianity is growing.
7 encouraging trends of global Christianity in 2022 By AARON EARLS, Lifeway Feb 4, 2022 Regardless of the situation in the United States, Christianity is growing around the world, especially in the global South, according to recently released analysis. The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary regularly updates a report tracking statistics and trends of religion in general and Christianity specifically around the world. There are seven encouraging trends to note in their 2022 Status of Global Christianity report. Religious faith is growing faster than the irreligious. Particularly in the West, it can seem as if secularism is growing, and people are leaving the church and the faith. Globally, that is not the case. While populations of all religions are growing at a 1.27 percent rate, the growth rate of the religiously unaffiliated is less than half that – 0.52 percent, well below the total population growth percentage. In particular, atheism is almost stagnant, growing only 0.18 percent per year. A 2015 Pew Research study also predicts the number of unaffiliated will shrink in terms of the share of global population. According to the Gordon-Conwell report, there are fewer atheists around the world today (147 million) than in 1970 (165 million), with the number expected to continue declining through 2050. Christianity continues to grow. Not only is religion growing overall, but Christian specifically is growing. With a 1.17 percent growth rate, almost 2.56 billion people will identify as a Christian by the middle of 2022. By 2050, that number will top 3.33 billion. Catholics remain the largest Christian group with almost 1.26 billion adherents, but the two fastest growing Christian groups around the world are evangelicals (1.8 percent growth rate) and charismatics (1.88 percent). The dramatic global growth for charismatic Christians is particularly noteworthy. In 1900, less than 1 million people around the world were considered Pentecostals. By 2050, more than 1 billion will be. Growth is fastest in the global South. The places where Christianity is growing the fastest? Africa (2.77 percent growth) and Asia (1.50 percent). In 2000, 814 million Christians lived in Europe and North America, while 660 million Christians called African and Asia home. This year, 838 million live in the global North, while almost 1.1 billion Christians live in Africa and Asia alone. In 1900, twice as many Christians lived in Europe than the rest of the world combined. Today, more Christians live in Africa than any other continent. By 2050, Africa will be home to almost 1.3 billion Christians, while Latin America (686 million) and Asia (560 million) will both have more than Europe (497 million) and North America (276 million). Christianity continues to spread out. As Christianity continues to grow in the global South, it is also becoming less concentrated in highly Christian areas. In 1900, 95 percent of all Christians lived in a majority Christian country. In 2022, that number has fallen to 53.7 percent. By 2050, most Christians (50.4 percent) around the world will live in non-majority Christian nations. The percentage of non-Christians who know a Christian is climbing. With more Christians living outside of Christian nations, more non-Christians know a Christian. In 1900, only 5.4 percent of non-Christians could identify a Christian they knew. That number has grown to 18.3 percent today. By 2050, 1 in 5 non-Christians (20 percent) will know a follower of Jesus and have the opportunity to hear the Gospel from them. As a result, the percentage of unevangelized people around the world continues to fall. In 1900, more than half of the world’s population (54.3 percent) was unevangelized. That has now fallen to 28 percent. More than 90 million Bibles will be printed this year. As Christianity continues to grow, the printing of Bibles continues to grow along with it. This year, 93 million copies of God’s Word will be printed, up from 54 million in 2000 and 5 million in 1900. By 2025, 100 million Bibles will be printed each year. Currently, almost 1.8 billion Bibles are in circulation around the world. That will climb to 2.3 billion by 2050. God’s Word continues to expand into new languages in new and exciting ways, including pastors and theologians in India developing and printing a first-of-its-kind Telugu study Bible for the nearly 90 million Telugu speakers in the country. Fewer Christians are dying for their faith. In 2000, the Status of Global Christianity marked a rate of 1.6 million Christian martyrs over a 10-year period – the high mark of their report. In 2022, they estimate the decade-long number to be 900,000. Each death is a tragedy, but any improvement is worth noting. The 10-year trends do not negate year-over-year numbers, like the increase in martyrs for 2021 as recorded by Open Doors’ latest report. Regardless of the current numbers or trends, churches should continue praying for persecuted believers around the world. https://www.kentuckytoday.com/baptist_life/7-encouraging-trends-of-global-christianity-in-2022/article_6a1f9336-861a-11ec-aab8-dbfeb19c7929.html The thing that’s really shocking to the secular system is that the proportion of people around the world who will say that they don’t affiliate with any particular religion is set to decline from 16% to 13%. (by 2060) https://www.crossway.org/articles/why-the-secularization-hypothesis-is-fundamentally-flawed/ The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research Landon Schnabel,a Sean Bockb a) Indiana University Bloomington; b) Harvard University ,,, the intensity of American religion is actually becoming more exceptional over time. We conclude that intense religion in the United States is persistent and exceptional in ways that do not fit the secularization thesis. https://www.sociologicalscience.com/download/vol-4/november/SocSci_v4_686to700.pdf
bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: now you are just flinging stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Not at all. I've said over and over and over again I am not anti-faith, that I am not anti-church, that I am not a militant atheist, etc, etc, etc. I have also noted, many times, that lots of my very good friends have a deep and abiding faith and we get along just fine because we respect and like each other regardless of our faith or lack thereof. You are the one trying to tar-and-feather anyone who you think is an atheist or a 'Darwinist'. You clearly dislike both of those groups to the point of hatred. In fact, you spend hours and hours every day on this site (at least) posting things which are not only calling some well established science into question but attempting to group atheists and 'Darwinists' with Nazi's and Communists (of the Soviet variety). If anyone here is just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks it's clearly you. Your intense dislike oozes out of just about everything you post. It seems to almost possess you. I guess, deep down, you are genuinely terrified of atheism and unguided evolutionary theory. Not sure why but it sure feels that way. And it makes you react viscerally instead of thoughtfully: you frequently misrepresent what people have actually written, you latch onto a few trigger words instead of taking things in the complete context, you generally don't even read the full text of things you post links about as I have shown several times in the past (even pointing out that one link wasn't even to the right paper!). You might get more sympathy and responses if you actually tried to listen more often and really try to understand the arguments you knee-jerk reject. I'm quite sure you won't do those things but I offer the suggestions in hopes you do.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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From: https://probe.org/faith-trends-in-america-how-is-christianity-faring-as-we-enter-the-third-decade-of-the-21st-century/
All surveys we have reviewed covering this century show the same general result: the percent of people claiming an affiliation with a Protestant or Catholic church has been declining. GSS surveys{3} found across all ages the percentage who identify as Protestant or Catholic has dropped from 84% of the population in 1988 down to 69% in 2018. Looking only at Protestants (both Evangelical and Mainline), the drop was from 58% down to 46%. Considering those who are Millennials now, that is ages 18 to 34, we find a decline from 53% down to 36% over this thirty-year period. And the data does not show any leveling off in the rate of decline. But we may ask, “Are Evangelicals participating in this general decline or are they thriving as some authors claim?” The bottom-line answer is that Evangelicals are declining as a percent of the overall population but at a much slower rate. Across all ages, the percentage who identify as Evangelical has dropped from 30% to 28% over this twenty-year period. For those aged 18 to 34 the drop was from 29% to 25%. In October 2019, Pew released a report showing that from 2009 to 2018, the percentage of Evangelicals of all ages dropped from 28% to 25%, a significantly faster rate of decline.

Nones are people who state their religious affiliation is either atheist, agnostic or nothing at all. The dramatic growth of the Nones has been an ongoing headline story. Surveys indicate the Nones were 8% of the population in 1988. By 2018 they had grown to over 23% of the population. For ages 18 through 29, they tripled from 13% to 35% of the population. No one denies this growth, but some question the importance of this trend. For example, Glenn Stanton states, “(The Nones) are simply reporting their actual faith practices in more candid ways, largely due to new ways in which polling questions have been asked in the last ten years or so.” Oddly enough, he primarily relies on data from GSS for long term trends and they have asked exactly the same question regarding Nones since 1972. Some suggest Nones are primarily Christians who will return to the fold as they move into marriage and child rearing. Is there any indication that this is happening? Well, in 2007, among those aged 18 to 32, 24% of them are classified as Nones. In 2014, for this same group now seven years older, 32% of them are Nones. As this group began rearing children, a significantly larger percentage of them were Nones than when they were younger. Also, instead of attending church, only 4% of these Nones attend church more than once a month. Instead of emerging adult Nones turning into church-attending Christians as they age, more of them are becoming Nones. It appears that the cultural pressures against Christianity are outweighing the tendency of prior generations returning to seek religious training for their children.
JVL_{October 23, 2022
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Whatever JVL, now you are just flinging stuff at the wall to see what sticks. You, as usual, got nothing. I'm more that happy to let my comments stand as stated and let unbiased readers, (if there be any unbiased readers on UD), judge for themselves.bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: and yet studies have consistently found that ‘the secularization thesis’ promulgated by atheists is false. I am not familiar with any kind of secularisation thesis. The truth is that non-theists tend not to sit around in dark basements in small cabals plotting the downfall of faith. In fact, the matter of faith almost never comes up in my daily life. It's not something I discuss often nor does anyone (except the Jehovah's Witnesses) seem to want to discuss it with me. I can't quite figure out why you want to conflate political models with theistic or non-theistic ones. Faith is just not a political issue in Europe which is good because it should be a private, personal matter which should not influence the way someone is treated. But you seem to need to tilt at various windmills. Perhaps your time would be better spent arguing the many Christians who support abortion and other things you disapprove of like same-sex marriage. I'm not going to touch your faith or church at all but your fellow Christians just might help tear your faith apart.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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"Abortions have nothing to do with atheism." Really??? So you really think that Jesus would be championing 'dismemberment' abortions?
Dismemberment Abortion – Patrina Mosley, M.A. Dismemberment abortions are a common and brutal type of abortion that involve dismembering a living unborn child piece by piece. According to the National Abortion Federation’s abortion training textbook, dismemberment abortions are a preferred method of abortion, in part because they are cheaper than other available methods.1 (2018) https://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF18F25.pdf 100 million views: People respond to the viral ‘Abortion Procedures’ videos Excerpt: In these videos, Dr. Levatino, who committed over 1,200 abortions before becoming pro-life, explains in detail what occurs when the life of a preborn child is destroyed during an abortion during the 1st, 2nd and 3rd trimesters. Each of the Abortion Procedures videos describes in detail how each abortion procedure is carried out and how the preborn child dies. The realization of abortion’s barbarity, cruelty, and inhumanity has impacted many viewers who were not expecting to see what they saw.,,, https://www.liveaction.org/news/live-action-abortion-procedures-impact/ Abortion Procedures: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Trimesters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZDhM5Gwhk Watch (pro-choice) minds (immediately) change on abortion (after watching the abortion procedures video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xWQHhqOAcg Abby Johnson Discusses Why She Left Planned Parenthood At The 2020 RNC | NBC News, (she witnessed a dismemberment abortion first hand) https://youtu.be/NXQjCuWFdzI?t=100 Michael Egnor – The Junk Science of the Abortion Lobby (Fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults) https://mindmatters.ai/2019/01/the-junk-science-of-the-abortion-lobby/
bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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JVL, and yet studies have consistently found that 'the secularization thesis' promulgated by atheists is false. Go figure. "When we go back to that initial secularization hypothesis and re-examine it, we realize that not only was it wrong, but it was wrongly founded on a white western bias which assumed that where Western Europe led, the rest of the world would follow. And those days are gone."
Why the Secularization Hypothesis Is Fundamentally Flawed - April 23, 2019 Is Religion Declining? Before I was born, there was a consensus among sociologists that religion was declining. As the world became more modern, more scientific, and more educated, they thought the world was also becoming less religious. This was based on the story of Western Europe where indeed secularization had been bred out of modernization. But in the time between then and now, we’ve seen what’s been referred to as the large-scale empirical falsification of the secularization hypothesis. Not only has the world not become less religious, but the world actually seems to be becoming more religious. So at the moment, if we look at the best projections from now until 2060, we see that Christianity will continue to be the world’s largest global worldview. Currently, about 31% of the world identifies as Christian and it looks like that will be slightly up to 32%. Islam is set to grow quite dramatically from about 25% to 31% in that time and become a very close competitor with Christianity. Hinduism and Buddhism are set to decline slightly, by 1% or 2%. The thing that’s really shocking to the secular system is that the proportion of people around the world who will say that they don’t affiliate with any particular religion is set to decline from 16% to 13%. So the question is: What’s going on here? Worldwide Shift Part of the answer is that people who believe in God seem to have more children than people who don’t. I’m pregnant at the moment with my third child which puts me on the exact average birth rate for Christians globally (2.7%). Muslims also have a substantially larger number of children, also Jews. But people of no religious belief have a lower birth rate. But that’s not the whole story. China—which is currently the global center of atheism—is experiencing a rate of growth in the church that is unexpected, unprecedented, and looks set to change the world. So at the moment, America is the country with more Christians than any other country. It looks like by 2030, it may be China. By 2060, one of the leading sociologists of religion for China, a man named Fenggang Yang, anticipates that China could be a majority Christian country. The global implications of that shift—politically and economically—from a communist-majority country to a Christian-majority country are pretty spectacular. When we go back to that initial secularization hypothesis and re-examine it, we realize that not only was it wrong, but it was wrongly founded on a white western bias which assumed that where Western Europe led, the rest of the world would follow. And those days are gone. https://www.crossway.org/articles/why-the-secularization-hypothesis-is-fundamentally-flawed/
bornagain77_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: contrary to what is popularly believed, it is your Darwinian atheism that is shrinking at a marked rate. Not according to most polls about religious beliefs. But again, I'm not fighting against or even arguing against faith. You, on the other hand, are trying to pick a fight with atheism. But, being something of a pacifist, I'm not going to rise to your baited barbs. Abortions have nothing to do with atheism. As I have pointed out in the past (and is easy to verify) early abortions were generally considered legal and acceptable in England and the US until the mid-19th century. When just about everyone was a Christian or pretended to be one. A fact which you conveniently neglect to point out. Which is, sadly, typical.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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Whatever JVL, contrary to what is popularly believed, it is your Darwinian atheism that is shrinking at a marked rate. Whereas, as I pointed out, despite the best efforts of the totalitarian atheists of the 20th century, Christianity is continuing to grow a fairly healthy clip. That makes me VERY happy. As it should make any reasonable man VERY happy.
Atheism’s Body Count * It is obvious that Atheism cannot be true; for if it were, it would produce a more humane world, since it values only this life and is not swayed by the foolish beliefs of primitive superstitions and religions. However, the opposite proves to be true. Rather than providing the utopia of idealism, it has produced a body count second to none. With recent documents uncovered for the Maoist and Stalinist regimes, it now seems the high end of estimates of 250 million dead (between 1900-1987) are closer to the mark. The Stalinist Purges produced 61 million dead and Mao’s Cultural Revolution produced 70 million casualties. These murders are all upon their own people! This number does not include the countless dead in their wars of outward aggression waged in the name of the purity of atheism’s world view. China invades its peaceful, but religious neighbor, Tibet; supports N. Korea in its war against its southern neighbor and in its merciless oppression of its own people; and Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge kill up to 6 million with Chinese support. All of these actions done “in the name of the people” to create a better world. https://www.scholarscorner.com/atheisms-body-count-ideology-and-human-suffering/
And that is not even counting the untold millions, upon millions, of abortions worldwide. JVL, why you and other Darwinian atheists would even try to defend such a horrible worldview, I have no idea. The science certainly isn't on your side, and the disastrous social consequences for mankind should make even you recoil in horror at defending such a reprehensible 'death as the creator' worldview,,,, even if the science were on your side, (which it isn't).
How Has Darwinism Negatively Impacted Society? John G. West – January 11, 2022 Excerpt: Death as the Creator,, As Darwin wrote at the end of his most famous work (Origin): “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.” https://evolutionnews.org/2022/01/how-has-darwinism-negatively-impacted-society/ “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” – Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man “One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species – 1861, page 266 “A stronger race will oust that which has grown weak; for the vital urge, in its ultimate form, will burst asunder all the absurd chains of this so-called humane consideration for the individual and will replace it with the humanity of Nature, which wipes out what is weak in order to give place to the strong.” – Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf – Chapter 4 Darwin on Marx – by Richard William Nelson | Apr 18, 2010 Excerpt: Marx and Engels immediately recognized the significance of Darwin’s theory. Within weeks of the publication of The Origin of Species in November 1859, Engels wrote to Marx – “Darwin, by the way, whom I’m reading just now, is absolutely splendid. There was one aspect of teleology that had yet to be demolished, and that has now been done…. One does, of course, have to put up with the crude English method.” Marx wrote back to Engels on December 19, 1860 – “This is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.” The Origin of Species became the natural cause basis for Marx’s emerging class struggle movement. In a letter to comrade Ferdinand Lassalle, on January 16, 1861, Marx wrote – “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” Marx inscribed “sincere admirer” in Darwin’s copy of Marx’s first volume of Das Kapital in 1867. The importance of the theory of evolution for Communism was critical. In Das Kapital, Marx wrote – “Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organisation, deserve equal attention?” To acknowledge Darwin’s influence, Marx asked to dedicate Das Kapital to Darwin. https://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2010/04/darwin-on-marx/ “V.I. Lenin, creator of the Soviet totalitarian state, kept a little statue on his desk—an ape sitting on a pile of books including mine [The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle of Life], gazing at a human skull. And Mao Zedong, butcher of the tens of millions of his own countrymen, who regarded the German ‘Darwinismus’ writings as the foundation of Chinese ‘scientific socialism.’ This disciple mandated my works as reading material for the indoctrination phase of his lethal Great Leap Forward.” – Nickell John Romjue, I, Charles Darwin, p. 45 Stalin’s Brutal Faith Excerpt: At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiastical school, Comrade Stalin developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments. He began to read Darwin and became an atheist. G. Glurdjidze, a boyhood friend of Stalin’s, relates: “I began to speak of God, Joseph heard me out, and after a moment’s silence, said: “‘You know, they are fooling us, there is no God. . . .’ “I was astonished at these words, I had never heard anything like it before. “‘How can you say such things, Soso?’ I exclaimed. “‘I’ll lend you a book to read; it will show you that the world and all living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all this talk about God is sheer nonsense,’ Joseph said. “‘What book is that?’ I enquired. “‘Darwin. You must read it,’ Joseph impressed on me” 1 1 E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing house, 1940), pp. 8-12. ,,, http://www.icr.org/article/stalins-brutal-faith/ Darwin and Mao: The Influence of Evolutionary Thought on Modern China – 2/13/2013 Excerpt: Mao and his fellow Communists, “found in Marxism what seemed to them the fittest faith on Earth to help China to survive.” He concludes his article thus: “This was not, of course, all Darwin’s doing, but Darwin was involved in it all. To believe in Marxism, one had to believe in inexorable forces pushing mankind, or at least the elect, to inevitable progress, through set stages (which could, however, be skipped). One had to believe that history was a violent, hereditary class struggle (almost a ‘racial’ struggle); that the individual must be severely subordinated to the group; that an enlightened group must lead the people for their own good; that the people must not be humane to their enemies; that the forces of history assured victory to those who were right and who struggled.” Who taught Chinese these things? Marx? Mao? No. Darwin. https://nonnobis.weebly.com/blog/darwin-and-mao-the-influence-of-evolutionary-thought-on-modern-china Chairman MAO: Genocide Master (Black Book of Communism) “…Many scholars and commentators have referenced my total of 174,000,000 for the democide (genocide and mass murder) of the last century. I’m now trying to get word out that I’ve had to make a major revision in my total due to two books. I’m now convinced that Stalin exceeded Hitler in monstrous evil, and Mao beat out Stalin….” http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/chairman-mao-genocide-master/
As to how diametrically opposed Darwinian 'morality' and Christian morality actually are:
“The law of selection exists in the world, and the stronger and healthier has received from nature the right to live. Woe to anyone who is weak, who does not stand his ground! He may not expect help from anyone.” – Adolf Hitler Matthew 5: 5-10 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Relatd: So much for the claim that an ‘atheist utopia’ and ‘workers’ paradise’ was the way forward for mankind. I don't think anyone would suggest that the Soviet Union was any kind of real functioning state. And, are you saying it's a lot better now since they allowed the return of religion? Who ever made a claim about an 'atheist utopia' anyway? You don't seem to be making any kind of coherent argument, just railing against non-theists. Also, I have said many, many times I have no problem with faith. I don't hate God. I don't hate the church. I'm not advocating the abolition of religion. So, really, I'm not sure what you are complaining about.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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JVL at 52, In the former Soviet Union, the official State religion was atheism. A look at the various military operations that occurred since the Russian Revolution begs the question: What god were these soldiers dying for? Apparently, Atheism. The goal was to 'export the Revolution.' Former Churches were being used to store ammunition. I watched the Soviet Union fall in the early 1990s and religion return. So much for the claim that an 'atheist utopia' and 'workers' paradise' was the way forward for mankind.relatd_{October 23, 2022
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Bornagain77: So you and Sir Giles, as Darwinian atheists, are not antagonistic towards Christianity??? I was merely pointing out that you didn't get the cultural reference. Regardless, I stand by the facts I presented, it is atheism, not Christianity, that is headed towards the dustbin of history. It's not a fact if it hasn't happened.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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So you and Sir Giles, as Darwinian atheists, are not antagonistic towards Christianity??? Really??? Regardless, I stand by the facts I presented, it is atheism, not Christianity, that is headed towards the dustbin of history. Verse:
Isaiah 9:6-7 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.,,,
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Bornagain77: Yet, directly contrary to what Sir Giles apparently wants to believe, it is his atheism, not Christianity, that is headed towards the dustbin of history. Too funny, Sir Giles was referring to the plot of A NOVEL, one written in the early 70s by a very famous author. You really should get out more.JVL_{October 23, 2022
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Sir Giles states, "Smuggling the body of Jesus Christ out of the Vatican crypts, threatening the collapse of Christianity." Yet, directly contrary to what Sir Giles apparently wants to believe, it is his atheism, not Christianity, that is headed towards the dustbin of history.
Pew Study Shows Atheism is Dying While Islam Projected to Dominate by the Turn of the Century JOHN SANIDOPOULOS | 02 JUNE 2018 Excerpt: We often hear from atheists how religion is dying out as mankind comes to see the clear light of reason. Atheist “intellectuals” speak disparagingly about religion and predict that mankind is on the cusp of a new age in which religion will simply disappear as science, technology and reason are in the ascendant. The facts indicate exactly the opposite. It is religion which continues to grow around the world while the statistics indicate that agnosticism and atheism are dying out. A new report chronicled here by Pew Research at the Daily Telegraph tells a very interesting story. While the numbers of those who are “religiously unaffiliated” is predicted to rise in Western Europe and the United States, in global terms their numbers are shrinking as Christianity and Islam continue to wrestle for spiritual domination in the world. According to the Pew Research Centre, the religiously unaffiliated – referring to atheists, agnostics and other people who do not identify with a religion – are declining as a share of the population. Sixteen per cent of the population was unaffiliated to a religion in 2010 and Pew predicted by 2050, this would fall to 13 per cent, mainly because individuals in this group are older and have less children. http://www.pravmir.com/pew-study-shows-atheism-is-dying-while-islam-projected-to-dominate-by-the-turn-of-the-century/
Whereas Christianity, again when looking at the entire world population, is continuing to grow at a healthy rate:
Think Christianity is dying? No, Christianity is shifting dramatically By Wes Granberg-Michaelson May 20, 2015 Excerpt: Over the past 100 years, Christians grew from less than 10 percent of Africa’s population to its nearly 500 million today. One out of four Christians in the world presently is an Africa, and the Pew Research Center estimates that will grow to 40 percent by 2030. Asia is also experiencing growth as world Christianity’s center has moved not only South, but also East. In the last century, Christianity grew at twice the rate of population in that continent. Asia’s Christian population of 350 million is projected to grow to 460 million by 2025. The global religious wildcard is China. Even today, demographers estimate that more Christian believers are found worshipping in China on any given Sunday than in the United States. Future trends, while difficult to predict because so much is below the religious radar, could dramatically drive down the world’s religious “nones.” The growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America is estimated to be at three times the rate of Catholic growth. Non-Catholic believers now account for 2 percent of Latin America’s 550 million Christians. Today, Brazil not only has more Catholics than any other country, but also more Pentecostals, reflecting Pentecostalism’s astonishing global growth. Tracing its roots to the Azusa Street revival in 1910, and comprising 5 percent of Christians in 1970, today one of four Christians is Pentecostal or Charismatic. Or think of it this way: one out of 12 people alive today has a Pentecostal form of Christian faith. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/05/20/think-christianity-is-dying-no-christianity-is-shifting-dramatically/?utm_term=.9ef31bdab313
To give a glimpse of how putrid Sir Giles's atheism is as a worldview, "Here’s How Badly Soviet Atheism Failed in Europe"
Pew: Here’s How Badly Soviet Atheism Failed in Europe In 18 nations across Central and Eastern Europe, religion is now essential to national identity. (massive study based on face-to-face interviews with 25,000 adults in 18 countries} Jeremy Weber - 5/10/2017 Excerpt: “The comeback of religion in a region once dominated by atheist regimes is striking,” states Pew in its latest report. Today, only 14 percent of the region’s population identify as atheists, agnostics, or “nones.” By comparison, 57 percent identify as Orthodox, and another 18 percent as Catholics. http://www.christianitytoday.com/images/76841.png?h=717&w=380 http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2017/may/pew-atheism-failed-central-eastern-europe-orthodox-identity.html Russia’s Journey from Orthodoxy to Atheism, and Back Again By Gene Zubovich | October 16, 2018 Excerpt: In Russia, there is a religious revival happening. Orthodox Christianity is thriving after enduring a 70-year period of atheistic Soviet rule. In 1991, just after the collapse of the USSR, about two-thirds of Russians claimed no religious affiliation. Today, 71 percent of Russians identify as Orthodox. https://religionandpolitics.org/2018/10/16/russias-journey-from-orthodoxy-to-atheism-and-back-again/
This is simply remarkable, after decades of indoctrination into Darwinian/Atheistic ideology, and the massacre of countless thousands of Pastors, Priests, and Nuns in Stalin's purges, in very short order Christianity picked up right where it left off as being the majority belief in the Soviet Union. It is as if atheism had not been constantly indoctrinated into all those people for all those many years. If anything testifies to just how bankrupt, and repugnant, atheism is as a worldview, the dramatic, overnight, resurgence of Christianity in the former Soviet Union is it.
"More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened. What is more, the events of the Russian Revolution can only be understood now, at the end of the century, against the background of what has since occurred in the rest of the world. What emerges here is a process of universal significance. And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God. The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century.",,, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn - “Men Have Forgotten God” – The Templeon Address - 1983
Also of note:
No, Non-Believers Are Not Increasing In America – APRIL 24, 2019 Excerpt: The stats are given as often and with as much confidence as they are wrong. The story goes that our nation is growing more secular with every passing day. Christianity is tanking, and atheists and generic non-believers mushrooming.,,, Stark gets more precise: “The entire change [toward none-ness] has taken place with the non-attending group.” “In other words,” he adds, “this change marks a decrease only in nominal affiliation, not an increase in irreligion.” Stark says the wealth of data he has studied, as well as that his peers have, “does not support claims for increased secularization, let alone a decrease in the number of Christians. It may not even reflect an increase in those who say they are ‘nones.’”,,, In fact, Professor Barry A. Kosmin, director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, the man who coined the term “the nones,” expresses frustration that the larger press has not really gotten the story right on what belief group is actually seeing the largest size increase. He told me, “The rise of nondenominational Christianity is probably one of the strongest [religious growth] trends in the last two decades” in the United States. He added that the percentage gain among the “nons,” or nondenoms, is “many times larger” compared to those we have come to know as the nones. Read that again. The growth of nondenominational churches has been many times larger than that of the nones. Is it likely that one group that is growing—the nones—are gaining folks from a particular group that is growing at even greater pace? That answer would be no. Greg Smith, the long-time associate director of research at the Pew Research Center, adds heft to the conclusion that evangelicalism is actually growing. He confidently explains that while the more liberal mainline churches have been tanking dramatically, losing from 5 to 7.5 million members since 2007 (!), things are completely different for evangelical and non-denominational churches…. The Harvard/Indiana University researchers found the same thing, explaining “evangelicals are not on the decline” but “grew from 1972 when they were 18 percent of the population, to a steady level of about 28 percent” from the late 1980s to the present. This “percentage of the population” measure is very significant because it shows not only growth in terms of real numbers, but enough growth to keep up with or even exceed the rate of population growth. That’s not nothing. https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/24/no-non-believers-not-increasing-america/ New Harvard Research Says U.S. Christianity Is Not Shrinking, But Growing Stronger - Jan. 2018 Excerpt: New research published late last year by scholars at Harvard University and Indiana University Bloomington is just the latest to reveal the myth. This research questioned the “secularization thesis,” which holds that the United States is following most advanced industrial nations in the death of their once vibrant faith culture. Churches becoming mere landmarks, dance halls, boutique hotels, museums, and all that. Not only did their examination find no support for this secularization in terms of actual practice and belief, the researchers proclaim that religion continues to enjoy “persistent and exceptional intensity” in America. These researchers hold our nation “remains an exceptional outlier and potential counter example to the secularization thesis.” http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/22/new-harvard-research-says-u-s-christianity-not-shrinking-growing-stronger/
Verse:
Isaiah 9:6-7 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.,,,
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