Health and Religion

[Astargath]

You have no argument of why homosexuality is wrong.

Here an argument put forward by Richard Swinburne an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.


Why homosexuality is unacceptable: The disability argument
https://philodispatch.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/why-homosexuality-is-unacceptable-the-argument-from-disability/

(1) Homosexuality is a preventable disability.

He defends (1) in two parts. Firstly, he considers homosexuality a disability because it is deprived of something which heterosexuality possesses. In his words:

"The first things to recognise is that homosexuality is a disability. For a homosexual is unable to enter into a loving relationship in which the love is as such procreative."

Secondly, he thinks this deprivation is preventable. He cites various studies which indicate homosexuality is due to both genetics and environmental factors. Swinburne writes:

"The consensus of the scientific community is that both genetic constitution and social factors interact to produce homosexuality. The social factors may include Freudian-type factors (over-involved mother and cold father causing male homosexuality, etc.) and the absence of gender-specific education and dress; but they will also surely include the acceptability of homosexual practice among peers and society more widely."

Thus, if we foster a climate which inhibits the development of homosexuality, Swinburne thinks fewer potential homosexuals will become actual homosexuals (and grow instead into heterosexuals).

(2) Disabilities ought to be prevented and cured.

Typically, Swinburne thinks we seek to reduce disabilities as far as we can. For instance, suppose  we know a baby has a condition which will very likely result in his loss of limbs some years later. Soon after, someone discovers a medication which will significantly reduce the chances of him losing his limbs. We would administer that medication to the baby. On the flipside, if someone does what worsens the baby’s condition, it would seem a bad thing.

(3) Homosexuality ought to be prevented and cured.

Given (1) and (2), it follows that we should prevent and cure homosexuality. Thus Swinburne urges:

"So part of both prevention and cure (where that is now possible) must consist in deterring homosexuals from committing homosexual acts. Homosexuals can help to prevent the spread of homosexuality and help to cure others by setting an example of not indulging their inclinations and of seeking a cure."

Bro, that comes not even close as a good argument to kill homosexuals or to view homosexuality as a sin. Someone infertile is also disabled then, should we kill them too? What about, I don't know, dudes who can't get erect, should we kill them too? If homosexuality was viewed as a disability in the bible, shouldn't god say, hey, let's try to fix them instead of JUST FUCKING MURDER THEM? Give me a fucking break.

God doesn't desire that people die. But if that is what it takes to cleanse the world of their evil, so be it. Coincube provided an alternative... change the evil in people to good.

I don't view homosexuality as evil. You have no argument. His argument doesn't say homosexuals are evil, it says they can't have children. Plenty of people can't have children or wont have children, it's their choice. You still have not answer, why is homosexuality evil or a sin? Again, saying it's ''unnatural'' doesn't make it evil and you haven't defined unnatural.

Just admit it, you don't like gay people and you want to kill them.

[BADecker]

You have no argument of why homosexuality is wrong.

Here an argument put forward by Richard Swinburne an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.


Why homosexuality is unacceptable: The disability argument
https://philodispatch.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/why-homosexuality-is-unacceptable-the-argument-from-disability/

(1) Homosexuality is a preventable disability.

He defends (1) in two parts. Firstly, he considers homosexuality a disability because it is deprived of something which heterosexuality possesses. In his words:

"The first things to recognise is that homosexuality is a disability. For a homosexual is unable to enter into a loving relationship in which the love is as such procreative."

Secondly, he thinks this deprivation is preventable. He cites various studies which indicate homosexuality is due to both genetics and environmental factors. Swinburne writes:

"The consensus of the scientific community is that both genetic constitution and social factors interact to produce homosexuality. The social factors may include Freudian-type factors (over-involved mother and cold father causing male homosexuality, etc.) and the absence of gender-specific education and dress; but they will also surely include the acceptability of homosexual practice among peers and society more widely."

Thus, if we foster a climate which inhibits the development of homosexuality, Swinburne thinks fewer potential homosexuals will become actual homosexuals (and grow instead into heterosexuals).

(2) Disabilities ought to be prevented and cured.

Typically, Swinburne thinks we seek to reduce disabilities as far as we can. For instance, suppose  we know a baby has a condition which will very likely result in his loss of limbs some years later. Soon after, someone discovers a medication which will significantly reduce the chances of him losing his limbs. We would administer that medication to the baby. On the flipside, if someone does what worsens the baby’s condition, it would seem a bad thing.

(3) Homosexuality ought to be prevented and cured.

Given (1) and (2), it follows that we should prevent and cure homosexuality. Thus Swinburne urges:

"So part of both prevention and cure (where that is now possible) must consist in deterring homosexuals from committing homosexual acts. Homosexuals can help to prevent the spread of homosexuality and help to cure others by setting an example of not indulging their inclinations and of seeking a cure."

Bro, that comes not even close as a good argument to kill homosexuals or to view homosexuality as a sin. Someone infertile is also disabled then, should we kill them too? What about, I don't know, dudes who can't get erect, should we kill them too? If homosexuality was viewed as a disability in the bible, shouldn't god say, hey, let's try to fix them instead of JUST FUCKING MURDER THEM? Give me a fucking break.

God doesn't desire that people die. But if that is what it takes to cleanse the world of their evil, so be it. Coincube provided an alternative... change the evil in people to good.

I don't view homosexuality as evil. You have no argument. His argument doesn't say homosexuals are evil, it says they can't have children. Plenty of people can't have children or wont have children, it's their choice. You still have not answer, why is homosexuality evil or a sin? Again, saying it's ''unnatural'' doesn't make it evil and you haven't defined unnatural.

Just admit it, you don't like gay people and you want to kill them.

Why do you keep on talking about killing homosexuals? Simply put them all on an island, and their whole lines will die out when they die of old age.

[Astargath]

You have no argument of why homosexuality is wrong.

Here an argument put forward by Richard Swinburne an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.


Why homosexuality is unacceptable: The disability argument
https://philodispatch.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/why-homosexuality-is-unacceptable-the-argument-from-disability/

(1) Homosexuality is a preventable disability.

He defends (1) in two parts. Firstly, he considers homosexuality a disability because it is deprived of something which heterosexuality possesses. In his words:

"The first things to recognise is that homosexuality is a disability. For a homosexual is unable to enter into a loving relationship in which the love is as such procreative."

Secondly, he thinks this deprivation is preventable. He cites various studies which indicate homosexuality is due to both genetics and environmental factors. Swinburne writes:

"The consensus of the scientific community is that both genetic constitution and social factors interact to produce homosexuality. The social factors may include Freudian-type factors (over-involved mother and cold father causing male homosexuality, etc.) and the absence of gender-specific education and dress; but they will also surely include the acceptability of homosexual practice among peers and society more widely."

Thus, if we foster a climate which inhibits the development of homosexuality, Swinburne thinks fewer potential homosexuals will become actual homosexuals (and grow instead into heterosexuals).

(2) Disabilities ought to be prevented and cured.

Typically, Swinburne thinks we seek to reduce disabilities as far as we can. For instance, suppose  we know a baby has a condition which will very likely result in his loss of limbs some years later. Soon after, someone discovers a medication which will significantly reduce the chances of him losing his limbs. We would administer that medication to the baby. On the flipside, if someone does what worsens the baby’s condition, it would seem a bad thing.

(3) Homosexuality ought to be prevented and cured.

Given (1) and (2), it follows that we should prevent and cure homosexuality. Thus Swinburne urges:

"So part of both prevention and cure (where that is now possible) must consist in deterring homosexuals from committing homosexual acts. Homosexuals can help to prevent the spread of homosexuality and help to cure others by setting an example of not indulging their inclinations and of seeking a cure."

Bro, that comes not even close as a good argument to kill homosexuals or to view homosexuality as a sin. Someone infertile is also disabled then, should we kill them too? What about, I don't know, dudes who can't get erect, should we kill them too? If homosexuality was viewed as a disability in the bible, shouldn't god say, hey, let's try to fix them instead of JUST FUCKING MURDER THEM? Give me a fucking break.

God doesn't desire that people die. But if that is what it takes to cleanse the world of their evil, so be it. Coincube provided an alternative... change the evil in people to good.

I don't view homosexuality as evil. You have no argument. His argument doesn't say homosexuals are evil, it says they can't have children. Plenty of people can't have children or wont have children, it's their choice. You still have not answer, why is homosexuality evil or a sin? Again, saying it's ''unnatural'' doesn't make it evil and you haven't defined unnatural.

Just admit it, you don't like gay people and you want to kill them.

Why do you keep on talking about killing homosexuals? Simply put them all on an island, and their whole lines will die out when they die of old age.

The bible says it ''If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death''
Do you have any argument or are you going to admit that you lost?

[CoinCube]

You have no argument of why homosexuality is wrong.

Here an argument put forward by Richard Swinburne an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.

Why homosexuality is unacceptable: The disability argument
https://philodispatch.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/why-homosexuality-is-unacceptable-the-argument-from-disability/

Bro, that comes not even close as a good argument to kill homosexuals or to view homosexuality as a sin. Someone infertile is also disabled then, should we kill them too? What about, I don't know, dudes who can't get erect, should we kill them too? If homosexuality was viewed as a disability in the bible, shouldn't god say, hey, let's try to fix them instead of JUST FUCKING MURDER THEM? Give me a fucking break.

Never said it was an argument for killing anyone. It is just an argument why homosexuality could be looked at as "wrong" from a non biblical Darwinian perspective.

The Bible is pretty severe when it comes to any form of sexual promiscuity. It advocates the death penalty for sex with animals, adultery, sex with a woman who is betrothed to someone else, sexual relations with your in-laws, kidnapping, and of course male on male homosexual sex.

One possible reasons for this could be that these types of promiscuity lead to cultural upheaval and decay as was argued by the author I quoted earlier: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1373864.msg37403331#msg37403331
However, that argument is certainly not proof.

I agree that the ideal solution when confronted with a biological aberrancy like infertility is to try and find a way to fix it. My own opinion is that the plight of the homosexual man is incredibly tragic. It's worse then infertility really because at least infertility is a fait accompli. Male homosexuality necessitates a constant battle with the self or other extreme measures if one wishes to avoid becoming a biological dead end.

Tragedy, however, does not necessarily mean we should celebrate or normalize male homosexuality. Richard Swinburne makes a fairly good case why that is not the best way to go.

[Astargath]

You have no argument of why homosexuality is wrong.

Here an argument put forward by Richard Swinburne an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford.

Why homosexuality is unacceptable: The disability argument
https://philodispatch.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/why-homosexuality-is-unacceptable-the-argument-from-disability/

Bro, that comes not even close as a good argument to kill homosexuals or to view homosexuality as a sin. Someone infertile is also disabled then, should we kill them too? What about, I don't know, dudes who can't get erect, should we kill them too? If homosexuality was viewed as a disability in the bible, shouldn't god say, hey, let's try to fix them instead of JUST FUCKING MURDER THEM? Give me a fucking break.

Never said it was an argument for killing anyone. It is just an argument why homosexuality could be looked at as "wrong" from a non biblical Darwinian perspective.

The Bible is pretty severe when it comes to any form of sexual promiscuity. It advocates the death penalty for sex with animals, adultery, sex with a woman who is betrothed to someone else, sexual relations with your in-laws, kidnapping, and of course male on male homosexual sex.

One possible reasons for this could be that these types promiscuity lead to cultural upheaval and decay as was argued by the author I quoted earlier: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1373864.msg37403331#msg37403331
However, that argument is certainly not proof.

I agree that the ideal solution when confronted with a biological aberrancy like infertility is to try and find a way to fix it. My own opinion is that the plight of the homosexual man is incredibly tragic. It's worse then infertility really because at least infertility is a fait accompli. Male homosexuality necessitates a constant battle with the self or other extreme measures if one wishes to avoid becoming a biological dead end.

Tragedy, however, does not necessarily mean we should celebrate or normalize male homosexuality. Richard Swinburne makes a fairly good case why that is not the best way to go.

How can you be this blind, you are the one saying the bible is divinely inspired yet you don't agree with it, mind boggling. ''Tragedy, however, does not necessarily mean we should celebrate or normalize male homosexuality'' Yes we do, it happens, just like infertility or other disabilities.

''to avoid becoming a biological dead end. '' Not everyone wants children and having children is not necessarily a good thing.

''One possible reasons for this could be that these types promiscuity lead to cultural upheaval and decay '' No, the reason is clear, the minds of the people who wrote the bible were primitive and viewed homosexuality as wrong for no real reason, the bible is full of shit and you seem to agree with me so why do you still believe in it.

[CoinCube]

How can you be this blind, you are the one saying the bible is divinely inspired yet you don't agree with it, mind boggling. ''Tragedy, however, does not necessarily mean we should celebrate or normalize male homosexuality'' Yes we do, it happens, just like infertility or other disabilities.

''to avoid becoming a biological dead end. '' Not everyone wants children and having children is not necessarily a good thing.

''One possible reasons for this could be that these types promiscuity lead to cultural upheaval and decay '' No, the reason is clear, the minds of the people who wrote the bible were primitive and viewed homosexuality as wrong for no real reason, the bible is full of shit and you seem to agree with me so why do you still believe in it.

The importance of Biblical strictures should be understood in the context of the Biblical world. It was a barbaric place where adultery, kidnapping, rape, homosexual sex, paganism, pedophilia, human sacrifice, and various other things were run of the mill everyday occurrences. In that context Biblical law was a drastic and dramatic rectification one that led directly to our society today.

We don't celebrate infertility or any other disability we mourn for those who suffer and work to find a cure.
Given our rate of technological progress it seems possible that we will figure out the combination of chemical, genetic, and environmental factors that cause the inversion of the traditional sex drive within a generation or two. Hopefully a cure will shortly follow.

[Astargath]

How can you be this blind, you are the one saying the bible is divinely inspired yet you don't agree with it, mind boggling. ''Tragedy, however, does not necessarily mean we should celebrate or normalize male homosexuality'' Yes we do, it happens, just like infertility or other disabilities.

''to avoid becoming a biological dead end. '' Not everyone wants children and having children is not necessarily a good thing.

''One possible reasons for this could be that these types promiscuity lead to cultural upheaval and decay '' No, the reason is clear, the minds of the people who wrote the bible were primitive and viewed homosexuality as wrong for no real reason, the bible is full of shit and you seem to agree with me so why do you still believe in it.

The importance of Biblical strictures should be understood in the context of the Biblical world. It was a barbaric place where adultery, kidnapping, rape, homosexual sex, paganism, pedophilia, human sacrifice, and various other things were run of the mill everyday occurrences. In that context Biblical law was a drastic and dramatic rectification one that led directly to our society today.

We don't celebrate infertility or any other disability we mourn for those who suffer and work to find a cure.
Given our rate of technological progress it seems possible that we will figure out the combination of chemical, genetic, and environmental factors that cause the inversion of the traditional sex drive within a generation or two. Hopefully a cure will shortly follow.

So the bible is not divinely inspired.

[Astargath]

1. Homosexuals can be in loving relationships.
2. Homosexuals can procreate using donor eggs.

Enough said.

For a homosexual to reproduce requires impregnation of a female. This is logically more difficult and less likely to occur if you are homosexual than if you are heterosexual.

Thus the argument that it is a disability above.
...

Swimming by yourself around the world is not only 'more difficult' but impossible.  We don't call people disabled because of that.
Another example is flying from one continent to another.  You and I are not disabled because we cannot jump in the air, move our hands and fly from Europe to America.  We go online buy a ticket and go and fly to America or Europe.

We have the technology to accomplish these tasks.

Same for gay men and their desire to reproduce.  They can pick the female they want to have a child with by selecting her from a catalog.
It is hardly a disability.  Straight men do it all the time.

If I were Swinburne, I would ask Oxford to return my tuition.

And we certainly do not need to kill them. His argument for that is that the bible was written in barbaric times? Well then, why anyone would listen to the bible? If the bible is divinely inspired and the only word of god, god would have known then and at any time that killing homosexuals is wrong, his morals do not change, ours do and it seems like we are in a time where our morals are better than god's. That or god doesn't exist, second option seems the best one.

[CoinCube]

The War on Wisdom
https://www.creators.com/read/dennis-prager/05/18/the-war-on-wisdom

There is more knowledge available today than ever before in history. But few would argue people are wiser than ever before.

On the contrary, many of us would argue that we are living in a particularly foolish time — a period that is largely wisdom-free, especially among those with the most knowledge: the best educated.

The fact that one of our two major political parties is advocating lowering the voting age to 16 is a good example of the absence of wisdom among a large segment of the adult population. What adult deems 16-year-olds capable of making a wise voting decision? The answer is an adult with the wisdom of a 16-year-old — "Hey, I'm no wiser than most 16-year-olds. Why should I have the vote and they not?"

America has been influenced and is now being largely led by members of the baby-boom generation. This is the generation that came up with the motto "Never trust anyone over 30," making it the first American generation to proclaim contempt for wisdom as a virtue.

The left in America is founded on the rejection of wisdom. It is possible to be on the left and be kind, honest in business, faithful to one's spouse, etc. But it is not possible to be wise if one subscribes to leftist (as opposed to liberal) ideas.

Last year, Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, co-authored an opinion piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer with a professor from the University of San Diego School of Law in which they wrote that the "bourgeois culture" and "bourgeois norms" that governed America from the end of World War II until the mid-1960s were good for America, and that their rejection has caused much of the social dysfunction that has characterized this country since the 1960s.

Those values included, in their words: "Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime."

Recognizing those norms as universally beneficial constitutes wisdom. Rejection of them constitutes a rejection of wisdom — i.e. foolishness.

Yet the left almost universally rejected the Wax piece, deeming it, as the left-wing National Lawyers Guild wrote, "an explicit and implicit endorsement of white supremacy," and questioning whether professor Wax should be allowed to continue teaching a required first-year course at Penn Law.

To equate getting married before having children, working hard and eschewing substance abuse and crime with "white supremacy" is to betray an absence of wisdom that is as depressing as it breathtaking. It is obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense that those values benefit anyone who adheres to them; they have nothing to do with race.

But almost every left-wing position (that differs from a liberal or conservative position) is bereft of wisdom.

Is the left-wing belief in the notion of "cultural appropriation" — such as the left's recent condemnation of a white girl for wearing a Chinese dress to her high school prom — wise? Or is it simply moronic?

Is the left-wing belief that there are more than two genders wise? Or is it objectively false, foolish and nihilistic?

Has the left-wing belief that children need (unearned) self-esteem turned out to be wise, or morally and psychologically destructive? To its credit, last year, the Guardian wrote a scathing exposé on the "lie" — its word — the self-esteem movement is based on and the narcissistic generation it created.

Is it wise to provide college students with "safe spaces" — with their hot chocolate, stuffed animals and puppy videos — in which to hide whenever a conservative speaker comes to their college? Or is it just ridiculous and infantilizing?

Is the left's rejection of many, if not most, great philosophical, literary and artistic works of wisdom on the grounds that they were written or created by white males wise? One example: The English department of the University of Pennsylvania, half of whose law school professors condemned Amy Wax and almost none of whose law professors defended her piece, removed a portrait of William Shakespeare (replacing it with that of a black lesbian poet).

Is multiculturalism, the idea that no culture is superior to another morally or in any other way wise? Isn't it the antithesis of wisdom, whose very premise is that certain ideas are morally superior to others, and certain literary or artistic works are superior to others?

And the veneration of feelings over truth, not to mention wisdom, is a cornerstone of leftism.

Here's one way to test my thesis: Ask left-wing friends what they have done to pass on wisdom to their children. Most will answer with a question: "What do you mean?" Then ask religious Jewish or Christian friends the same question. They won't answer with a question.

[CoinCube]

If I were Swinburne, I would ask Oxford to return my tuition.

I don't find your attempts to refute his argument particularly compelling. This seems like a topic we are unlikely to agree on.

So the bible is not divinely inspired.

At a minimum it was written by men inspired by God or the ideal of God.

The utter insanity and self destruction embraced by individuals and societies that reject God hints at its fundamental truth regardless of the exact providence.

[CoinCube]

The same acts (adultery, kidnapping, rape, homosexual sex, paganism, pedophilia, human sacrifice) are done today and we manage with our secular laws.

Bible is a psychopath wet dream.  Put it away.  We don't need to stone adulterers, kill gays or people who work on Saturday.

Relax with your Bible propaganda.
...

Are you sure you shouldn't relax with your anti-Bible propaganda?

If you really want to understand the Bible and how to address your concerns I recommend a book dedicated to this topic as it is a deep one. The Rational Bible is currently near the top of the amazon bestseller lists and would be a good place to start.

The Rational Bible: Exodus

https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Bible-Exodus-Dennis-Prager/dp/1621577724

Why do so many people think the Bible, the most influential book in world history, is outdated? Why do our friends and neighbors – and sometimes we ourselves – dismiss the Bible as irrelevant, irrational, immoral, or all of these things? This explanation of the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible, will demonstrate that the Bible is not only powerfully relevant to today’s issues, but completely consistent with rational thought.

Do you think the Bible permitted the trans-Atlantic slave trade? You won’t after reading this book.

Do you struggle to love your parents? If you do, you need this book.

Do you doubt the existence of God because belief in God is “irrational?” This book will give you reason after reason to rethink your doubts.

The title of this commentary is, “The Rational Bible” because its approach is entirely reason-based. The reader is never asked to accept anything on faith alone. As Prager says, “If something I write does not make rational sense, I have not done my job.”

The Rational Bible is the fruit of Dennis Prager’s forty years of teaching the Bible to people of every faith, and no faith. On virtually every page, you will discover how the text relates to the contemporary world and to your life.

His goal: to change your mind – and then change your life.

[Astargath]

If I were Swinburne, I would ask Oxford to return my tuition.

I don't find your attempts to refute his argument particularly compelling. This seems like a topic we are unlikely to agree on.

So the bible is not divinely inspired.

At a minimum it was written by men inspired by God or the ideal of God.

The utter insanity and self destruction embraced by individuals and societies that reject God hints at its fundamental truth regardless of the exact providence.

''At a minimum it was written by men inspired by God or the ideal of God.'' And you base that on what, exactly? You said it yourself, the bible was written in barbaric times. It doesn't seem that the people who wrote the bible knew any better, the laws are clearly barbaric too, so how do you argue that it was by men inspired by god and not just idiots?

[zain_h332]

Nice article.  I did not know that being religious is linked to being a healthy person.  Well maybe because, those who believe in God knew that their body is God's temple.  Mostly religious people are those who were not into drinking, partying, and smoking.  They are happy people even if they are not into this kind of social perceptions. 

And yes, maybe there are atheist because they are those people who are so intelligent that they refuse to accept that God do exist.  They think they knew everything and questions those who believe to the existence of Supreme being as they say there are no proof to this claim.

[CoinCube]

No need to explain the Bible.  It is self explanatory.
...
You don't need to explain it.  You need to read it.
...

Hey for once we agree on something how about that.

Nevertheless for the uninitiated I think an broad view of the overarching logical framework such as that found in Dennis Prager's book The Rational Bible or Jordan Peterson's online Biblical Lectures Series is a nice place to start for the skeptic.

how do you argue that it was by men inspired by god and not just idiots?

This can be determined by an analysis of the content. There is a tremendous depth to the text.

You will of course disagree.

However, for those willing to actually look into the issue with a degree of objectivity and seriousness the weightiness of the text quickly manifests.

[CoinCube]

New Harvard Research Says U.S. Christianity Is Not Shrinking, But Growing Stronger
http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/22/new-harvard-research-says-u-s-christianity-not-shrinking-growing-stronger/

...
Religious faith in America is going the way of the Yellow Pages and travel maps, we keep hearing. It’s just a matter of time until Christianity’s total and happy extinction, chortle our cultural elites. Is this true? Is churchgoing and religious adherence really in “widespread decline” so much so that conservative believers should suffer “growing anxiety”?

Two words: Absolutely not.

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.”

What Accounts for the Difference in Perceptions?
How can their findings appear so contrary to what we have been hearing from so many seemingly informed voices? It comes down primarily to what kind of faith one is talking about. Not the belief system itself, per se, but the intensity and seriousness with which people hold and practice that faith.

Mainline churches are tanking as if they have super-sized millstones around their necks. Yes, these churches are hemorrhaging members in startling numbers, but many of those folks are not leaving Christianity. They are simply going elsewhere. Because of this shifting, other very different kinds of churches are holding strong in crowds and have been for as long as such data has been collected. In some ways, they are even growing. This is what this new research has found.

The percentage of Americans who attend church more than once a week, pray daily, and accept the Bible as wholly reliable and deeply instructive to their lives has remained absolutely, steel-bar constant for the last 50 years or more, right up to today. These authors describe this continuity as “patently persistent.”

The percentage of such people is also not small. One in three Americans prays multiple times a day, while one in 15 do so in other countries on average. Attending services more than once a week continues to be twice as high among Americans compared to the next highest-attending industrial country, and three times higher than the average comparable nation.

One-third of Americans hold that the Bible is the actual word of God. Fewer than 10 percent believe so in similar countries. The United States “clearly stands out as exceptional,” and this exceptionalism has not been decreasing over time. In fact, these scholars determine that the percentages of Americans who are the most vibrant and serious in their faith is actually increasing a bit, “which is making the United States even more exceptional over time.”

This also means, of course, that those who take their faith seriously are becoming a markedly larger proportion of all religious people. In 1989, 39 percent of those who belonged to a religion held strong beliefs and practices. Today, these are 47 percent of all the religiously affiliated. This all has important implications for politics, indicating that the voting bloc of religious conservatives is not shrinking, but actually growing among the faithful. The declining influence of liberal believers at the polls has been demonstrated in many important elections recently.

These Are Not Isolated Findings
The findings of these scholars are not outliers. There has been a growing gulf between the faithful and the dabblers for quite some time, with the first group growing more numerous. Think about the church you attend, relative to its belief system. It is extremely likely that if your church teaches the Bible with seriousness, calls its people to real discipleship, and encourages daily intimacy with God, it has multiple services to handle the coming crowds.

Most decent-size American cities have a treasure trove of such churches for believers to choose from. This shows no sign of changing. If, however, your church is theologically liberal or merely lukewarm, it’s likely laying off staff and wondering how to pay this month’s light bill. People are navigating toward substantive Christianity.

The folks at Pew have been reporting for years that while the mainline churches are in drastic free fall, the group that “shows the most significant growth is the nondenominational family.” Of course, these nondenominational churches are 99.9 percent thorough-blooded evangelical. Pew also notes that “evangelical Protestantism and the historically black Protestant tradition have been more stable” over the years, with even a slight uptick in the last decade because many congregants leaving the mainline churches are migrating to evangelical churches that hold fast to the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

When the so-called “progressive” churches question the historicity of Jesus, deny the reality of sin, support abortion, ordain clergy in same-sex relationships and perform their marriages, people desiring real Christianity head elsewhere. Fact: evangelical churches gain five new congregants exiled from the liberal churches for every one they lose for any reason. They also do a better job of retaining believers from childhood to adulthood than do mainline churches.

The Other Key Factor: Faithful People Grow More Children
There is another factor at work here beyond orthodox belief. The University of London’s Eric Kaufmann explains in his important book “Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?” (he says yes) that the sustaining vitality, and even significant per capita growth, of serious Christian belief is as firmly rooted in fertility as it is in faithful teaching and evangelism. Globally, he says that the more robust baby-making practices of orthodox Jews and Christians, as opposed to the baby-limiting practices of liberals, create many more seriously religious people than a secular agenda can keep up with.

Fertility determines who influences the future in many important ways. He puts it bluntly, “The secular West and East Asia are aging and their share of the world population declining. This means the world is getting more religious even as people in the rich world shed their faith.”

Fertility is as important as fidelity for Christianity and Judaism’s triumph from generation to generation. Kaufmann contends, “Put high fertility and [faith] retention rates together with general population decline and you have a potent formula for change.”

It comes down to this: God laughs at the social Darwinists. Their theory is absolutely true, but just not in the way they think. Those who have the babies and raise and educate them well tend to direct the future of humanity. Serious Christians are doing this. Those redefining the faith and reality itself are not.

This why Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart proclaimed in First Things, long before the proposal of the Benedict Option, that the most “subversive and effective strategy we might undertake [to counter the culture] would be one of militant fecundity: abundant, relentless, exuberant, and defiant childbearing.” The future rests in the hands of the fertile.

What About All the Millennial Ex-Christians?
But what about our young people? We are constantly hearing that young people are “leaving the church in droves,” followed by wildly disturbing statistics. This also requires a closer look at who is actually leaving and from where. Pew reports that of young adults who left their faith, only 11 percent said they had a strong faith in childhood while 89 percent said they came from a home that had a very weak faith in belief and practice.

It’s not a news flash that kids don’t tend to hang onto what they never had in the first place. Leading sociologist of religion Christopher Smith has found through his work that most emerging adults “report little change in how religious they have been in the previous five years.” He surprisingly also found that those who do report a change say they have been morereligious, not less. This certainly does not mean there is a major revival going on among young adults, but nor does it mean the sky is falling.

Add to this Rodney Stark’s warning that we should not confuse leaving the faith with attending less often. He and other scholars report that young adults begin to attend church less often in their “independent years” and have alwaysdone so for as long back as such data has been collected. It’s part of the nature of emerging adulthood. Just as sure as these young people do other things on Sunday morning, the leading sociologists of religion find they return to church when they get married, have children, and start to live a real adult life. It’s like clockwork and always has been. However, the increasing delay among young adults in entering marriage and family is likely lengthening this gap today.

More Americans Attend Church Now Than At the Founding
What is really counter-intuitive is what Stark and his colleagues at the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion found when looking at U.S. church attendance numbers going back to the days of our nation’s founding. They found that the percentage of church-attending Americans relative to overall population is more than four times greater today than it was in 1776. The number of attendees has continued to rise each and every decade over our nation’s history right up until the present day.


People are making theological statements with their feet, shuffling to certain churches because they offer what people come seeking: clear, faithful, practical teaching of the scriptures, help in living intimately with and obediently to God, and making friends with people who will challenge and encourage them in their faith. To paraphrase the great Southern novelist Flannery O’Connor, if your church isn’t going to believe and practice actual Christianity, then “to hell with it.” This is what people are saying with their choices.

Or as Eric Kaufmann asserts, “Once secularism rears its head and fundamentalism responds with a clear alternative, moderate religion strikes many as redundant. Either you believe the stuff or you don’t. If you do, it makes sense to go for the real thing, which takes a firm stand against godlessness.”

If your Christianity is reconstituted to the day’s fashion, don’t be surprised if people lose interest in it. Few are seeking 2 Percent Christianity. They want the genuine deal, and the demographics on religion of the last few decades unmistakably support the fact.

[Astargath]

No need to explain the Bible.  It is self explanatory.
...
You don't need to explain it.  You need to read it.
...

Hey for once we agree on something how about that.

Nevertheless for the uninitiated I think an broad view of the overarching logical framework such as that found in Dennis Prager's book The Rational Bible or Jordan Peterson's online Biblical Lectures Series is a nice place to start for the skeptic.

how do you argue that it was by men inspired by god and not just idiots?

This can be determined by an analysis of the content. There is a tremendous depth to the text.

You will of course disagree.

However, for those willing to actually look into the issue with a degree of objectivity and seriousness the weightiness of the text quickly manifests.

Well, let's see. Many times the bible commands people to kill other people but without ever explaining why it's wrong to be a homosexual, for example. Not even you can come up with a reason why it's a sin, your ''disability'' argument is garbage and a disability is not a sin anyways. If you can explain to me the depth there I will agree with you.

[CoinCube]

Well, let's see. Many times the bible commands people to kill other people but without ever explaining why it's wrong to be a homosexual, for example. Not even you can come up with a reason why it's a sin, your ''disability'' argument is garbage and a disability is not a sin anyways. If you can explain to me the depth there I will agree with you.

If you are looking for depth I am not sure you are picking the best place to start. Homosexuality is not highlighted as uniquely sinful in the Bible. It is simply listed alongside many other Biblical prohibitions as serious sin one of many serious sins.

Let's try to tackle a less difficult sin first and then return to your area of concern if we  make any progress.

Let's look at adultery. Why is adultery a sin?

This is not necessarily immediately apparent. After all the very definition of Darwinian success is genetically reproducing with the best partner available. In many ways it is advantageous for a woman to cuckold her husband with the highest status male available and for a man to impregnate his neighbors wife if he can get away with it. Indeed many men and women do.

So it's not immediately clear why adultery is a sin. To proceed further we must answer some very broad questions.

What makes something sinful? What is a sin? These are ancient questions that dive to the foundation of morality.

[CoinCube]

What Is Sin?
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2830/jewish/What-Is-Sin.htm

Like almost everything else, it depends on who you ask.

The Midrash(Yalkut Shimonion Psalms 25) describes a sort of "panel discussion" in which this question is posed to four different authorities — Wisdom, Prophecy, Torah and G‑d — each of whom gives a different definition of sin.

According to Wisdom sin is a harmful deed. According to Prophecy it is death. Torah sees it as folly. And G‑d sees it as an opportunity.

The philosophical view of sin is that it is a bad idea, like walking barefoot in the snow or eating too many fatty foods. If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you.

Does this mean that Someone sits up there, tabulating sins and dispensing punishments? Well, yes, though it is not as simplistic as a vengeful G‑d getting even with His little earth creatures for daring to defy His instructions. Is frostbite G‑d's punishment for that barefooted walk in the snow? Is heart disease G‑d's revenge for a high cholesterol diet? Ultimately it is, if you accept that everything that happens, happens because G‑d wants it to happen. But what it really means is that G‑d has established certain "laws of nature" that describe the patterns of His actions upon our existence. There are physical laws of nature — the ones that scientists measure and hypothesize. There are also spiritual laws of nature, which dictate that spiritually beneficial deeds bring spiritual benefit, and spiritually detrimental deeds cause spiritual harm. And since our physical existence derives from and mirrors the spiritual reality, a person's spiritual and moral behavior ultimately affects his physical life as well.

Thus King Solomon (who is the source of the "Wisdom" perspective in the above Midrash) states in the book of Proverbs: "Evil pursues iniquity."

"Prophecy" takes this a step further. Sin is not only a harmful deed — it is the ultimately harmful deed. Prophecy (which represents the apogee of man's endeavor to commune with G‑d) defines "life" as connection with G‑d. Sin—man's turning away from G‑d—is a disruption of this connection. Hence, sin is death.

Like almost everything else, it depends on who you ask.

The Midrash(Yalkut Shimonion Psalms 25) describes a sort of "panel discussion" in which this question is posed to four different authorities — Wisdom, Prophecy, Torah and G‑d — each of whom gives a different definition of sin.

According to Wisdom sin is a harmful deed. According to Prophecy it is death. Torah sees it as folly. And G‑d sees it as an opportunity.

The philosophical view of sin is that it is a bad idea, like walking barefoot in the snow or eating too many fatty foods. If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you.

Does this mean that Someone sits up there, tabulating sins and dispensing punishments? Well, yes, though it is not as simplistic as a vengeful G‑d getting even with His little earth creatures for daring to defy His instructions. Is frostbite G‑d's punishment for that barefooted walk in the snow? Is heart disease G‑d's revenge for a high cholesterol diet? Ultimately it is, if you accept that everything that happens, happens because G‑d wants it to happen. But what it really means is that G‑d has established certain "laws of nature" that describe the patterns of His actions upon our existence. There are physical laws of nature — the ones that scientists measure and hypothesize. There are also spiritual laws of nature, which dictate that spiritually beneficial deeds bring spiritual benefit, and spiritually detrimental deeds cause spiritual harm. And since our physical existence derives from and mirrors the spiritual reality, a person's spiritual and moral behavior ultimately affects his physical life as well.

Thus King Solomon (who is the source of the "Wisdom" perspective in the above Midrash) states in the book of Proverbs: "Evil pursues iniquity."

"Prophecy" takes this a step further. Sin is not only a harmful deed — it is the ultimately harmful deed. Prophecy (which represents the apogee of man's endeavor to commune with G‑d) defines "life" as connection with G‑d. Sin—man's turning away from G‑d—is a disruption of this connection. Hence, sin is death.

Torah agrees that sin is a harmful deed. It also agrees that it's a disruption of the flow of life from Creator to creation. Indeed, Torah is the source of both Wisdom's perspective and Prophesy's perspective on sin. But Torah also goes beyond them both in recognizing that the soul of man would never willingly and consciously do such a stupid thing.

Sin, says Torah, is an act of folly. The soul loses its head, and in a moment of irrationality and cognitive confusion does something that is contrary to its own true desire. So sin can be transcended, when the soul recognizes and acknowledges the folly of its transgressions and reasserts its true will. Then the true self of the soul comes to light, revealing that the sin was in fact committed only by the soul's most external, malleable self, while its inner self was never involved in the first place.

And what does G‑d say? G‑d, of course, invented the laws of nature (both physical and spiritual) and the Wisdom that recognizes how they operate. G‑d is the source of life, and it is He who decreed that it should flow to the human soul via a channel constructed (or disrupted) by the deeds of man. And G‑d gave us the Torah and its formulae for spiritual sanity, self-discovery and transcendence. So G‑d is the source of the first three perspectives on sin.

But there is a fourth perspective that is G‑d's alone: sin as the opportunity for "return" (teshuvah).

Teshuvah is a process that, in its ultimate form, empowers us to not only transcend our failings but to also redeem them: to literally travel back in time and redefine the essential nature of a past deed, transforming it from evil to good.

To achieve this, we first have to experience the act of transgression as a negative thing. We have to agonize over the utter devastation it has wrecked on our soul. We have to recognize, disavow and renounce its folly. Only then can we can go back and change what we did.

So is sin a bad, harmful deed? Is it the very face of death? Is it mere stupidity, to be shrugged off by an inherently wise and pristine soul? Is it a potent opportunity for conquest and growth? Turns out, it's all four. But it can only be the fourth if it's also the first three.

[CoinCube]

Thus we have a broad outline of what sin is.

Sin is a bad idea or harmful deed something that leads to undesirable things happening to you. At a deeper level sin is not just a harmful deed, but a harmful deed that disrupts ones "life" with life defined as synonymous with ones connection to God. Sin is a disruption of this connection and thus sin is death. Sin is also folly for it is ultimately irrational to consciously choose self harm and death over life and self preservation. Finally sin is an opportunity to recognize our failings and understand the negative consequences of harmful deeds. Thus sin is also an opportunity to redeem ourselves by refining our nature and rejecting the sin.

We will not get very far in understanding why certain actions might be a sin without agreement on what a sin is so I will stop here for today.

[Astargath]

Thus we have a broad outline of what sin is.

Sin is a bad idea or harmful deed something that leads to undesirable things happening to you. At a deeper level sin is not just a harmful deed, but a harmful deed that disrupts ones "life" with life defined as synonymous with ones connection to God. Sin is a disruption of this connection and thus sin is death. Sin is also folly for it is ultimately irrational to consciously choose self harm and death over life and self preservation. Finally sin is an opportunity to recognize our failings and understand the negative consequences of harmful deeds. Thus sin is also an opportunity to redeem ourselves by refining our nature and rejecting the sin.

We will not get very far in understanding why certain actions might be a sin without agreement on what a sin is so I will stop here for today.

And yet homosexuality is none of those, it is not a bad idea or harmful at all, it's like saying some people prefer blondes over brunettes, that's not harmful, it's just preference, so we can conclude that homosexuality should not be a sin and yet it is?