Hey FrGamble!

Quote: FrGamble

However, this is in the United States. .

In fact, it's worldwide. In fact, clergy for
every other denomination has been
keeping pace with the growing congregations,
all except the Catholic Church. Not
hard to figure out why. And almost half of
the current US priests are set to retire by 2019.


"Worldwide, the total number of priests in 1970 was 419,728. In 2012, there were a total of 414,313 priests. While the total number of priests worldwide has therefore remained about the same since 1970, the Catholic population has nearly doubled, growing from 653.6 million in 1970 to 1.196 billion in 2013."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_shortage_in_the_Roman_Catholic_Church#Worldwide

Quote: FrGamble

The swallowing up of religion you speak of is the purifying aspect that science plays in the religious landscape. If your religion is based on ancient albino native Americans and gold tablets that no one ever saw science will and should eat you up. However if the "this is it!" of religion is true than it has nothing to fear of the power of science. In fact as science develops and learns more about the truth of our world it will only reinforce certain aspects of a religion that is based in truth and help purify other things proven to be false. Religion indeed can only stay the same, it is a sitting target. It should be easy to knock down if it is not true. Yet here we are standing, standing strong for 2,000 years and here we will be standing until the Lord comes again.

But see, for me, that's already happened. I suspect it's why religion isn't as widely accepted anymore, as well. All religions make so much sense to a kid, what I equate ancient humans to. Their knowledge barely stretched farther than they could see. All of everything on the back of a giant turtle? I mean, sure. Earth is moving, something is moving it, must be a turtle. Sure. Gods carrying the sun and moon, tossing lightning around and making thunder? Sure. Something's doing it, gotta be a god.

It was science that killed them. It was knowledge that killed them. I see the same with Christ. Writing things off as allegory or hyperbole has worked so far, but it's not going to work forever. Proof of abiogenesis, harnessing anti-matter and showing something turn to nothing, and there goes the ballgame.

It's a shame, really. All religions serve a purpose, and most of them contain beauty. But when they're codified, they become ruined. Someone somewhere mentioned the Church's stance on sex, and mentioned some real travesties of the past. What was it, 5mm dead from syphilis? Even today, there's surely a sex problem. Too many diseases, too many broken families, too much predation... with the codification, you lose the ability to change with the times. The beauty that could help is stuck behind some really nasty ideas that now can't be amended or culled entirely. So what you have is a fantastic story of how to be righteous and loving, buried behind persecution, harassment, and laughable fairy tales.

Oh well. Someday my Great-G-G-G grandson will be rallying against Scientology, pointing out that it'll fall just like the Christ myth. Rinse and repeat.

I think the reality is that we are slowly beginning to realize what religion is all about. For too long we have been trying to have religion describe the how, but its real purpose is the why. The spiritual religions of the East seem too mystical and impractical to me. What we need is an incarnational religion. A religion about a God who out of love comes to us and shows us the way. This religion should not just be about a story but a real live human person who changes the face of the world and human history. But is that possible? Yes, it has happened already. A person who helps us confront our human weaknesses and temptations and unconditionally loves us. A person who can teach us about who we are and inspires us to be what we are truly made to be. A person who faces our greatest fears and unconquerable foe of death...and is victorious! One who brings hope, faith, and love. That person is Jesus Christ.

He is not a myth, but very much real and the codified truth He has left us is able to develop with the times, but its main principles still guide us. Again it is not that following Christ has been tried and found wanting it is that it has been found difficult and not tried. It is time for us to try again. We need an infusion of peace, discipline, respect, forgiveness, and love now more than ever. That is what Christ offers us. No abiogenesis, anti-matter, alien, etc. is going to change that. Nor are any of these far out possibilities a true threat to the true faith. It seems almost as if you are asking for a wait and see approach. Let's wait to follow Jesus only until science has completely run its course, which we both believe and hope will never happen. If our world is in trouble now, and seeming to only get worse the further we drift from Christ's teachings why should we wait? Let's keep doing the best science we can, which has always been supported by the Church when done responsibly and ethically and in the meantime start changing our mentality to that which Jesus has shown us will work.

Quote: Face

All of everything on the back of a giant turtle? I mean, sure. Earth is moving, something is moving it, must be a turtle. Sure.

Actually the turtle would have been a positive step in the right direction. Most ancients assumed the Earth to be not only still, but immovable.

Quote:

Gods carrying the sun and moon, tossing lightning around and making thunder?

Ah, now, this brings up an interesting point, too. The ancients knew a little bit about static electricity (the name comes from a Greek word, ELEKTRON, meaning amber), but it was only until the 18th Century CE that lightning was proven to be electricity (yes, by Ben Franklin).

Before anyone even knew what lightning was, naturally it made sense to give it agency through a deity.

Funny story. When Franklin made his discovery, he immediately saw one could make lightning rods hooked up to a conductive cable or pipe, and ground the cable, thus protecting structures from lightning. Many churches refused to put them up, and thus they tended to become magnets for damage through lightning strikes. It's not that more lightning struck them, but more such strikes caused damage and they were not protected by lightning rods. Asimov argues this finally disconnected lightning from divinity.

Hey FrG, there is treatment for people with
your 'condition'. They can strap magnets
to your head and make you believe less
in a god that doesn't exist. Why didn't
god see this coming is what I want to
know. Oh yeah, there is no god. Never
mind.

Science again, always the Church's worst
enemy:

Scientists Claim Zapping Brains with Magnets Can Treat Belief in God

https://stream.org/scientists-claim-zapping-brains-with-magnets-can-treat-belief-in-god/

Kind of makes sense, there has to be something a little wrong with your brain to not believe in God.

Quote: FrGamble

Kind of makes sense, there has to be something a little wrong with your brain to not believe in God.

I blame the maker, in that case. Probably needs a recall.

Quote: FrGamble

Kind of makes sense, there has to be something a little wrong with your brain to not believe in God.

Odd that we don't form cults around it,
then, and worship each other. Wait,
that's what believers do, worship each
other thru a surrogate.

edited

Here's a tutorial video on what not
to say to an atheist, FrG. I'm betting
you don't watch all of it.