Decline of religion

[Thumpalumpacus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_...Article_11

[The Architect Of Fate]

Declaration of Independence, says “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” but the creator in question is the one of Deism, not Christianity.

In the Bible there is no such concept as the idea of unalienable rights (and certainly not in the Ten Commandments, the gospels, or the epistles). Rather, the idea of “unalienable rights” derives from the Stoics and their subsequent influence on pagan Roman legal theory.

The New Testament in fact denies equal rights: Paul himself is made to say (in 1 Corinthians 14:33–35) that women, even baptized Christian women, do not have rights equal to men, and again (in 1 Timothy 2:11–15) he is made to be even more explicit:
Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided she continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

Indeed the Stoics were a huge influence on most enlightenment thinkers.

[The Grand Nudger]

Is it the right time to point out the the declaration of independence is not the constitution, and that under our laws, it would be illegal to declare independence and rebel against the state? The christian nuts are always writing shit like that, though, nowadays we call them "manifestos" from "lone wolves" and "sick individuals".

Gotta slam the door hard behind you if you manage to push your way through it.

[Fake Messiah]

Census data suggests UK faces ‘non-religious future’, say campaigners

The striking census findings – which also show more than 50% of twentysomethings are not religious, compared with under 37% a decade earlier – are expected to fuel debate over whether state schools should still be required to provide “broadly Christian” daily worship, and the role of the Church of England in parliament.

Last week’s rejection by the Church of England of demands to allow clergy to conduct same-sex marriages is likely to further the trend, said Abby Day, a professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, who said the church continued to show itself as “radically out of step”.

“Christianity is fading fast because of generational change,” she said. “The baby boomers, the millennials and generation Z are all turning away from Christianity.”

Census figures released in December had already shown England is no longer a majority Christian country, with the biggest factor being the growth of “no religion”.

This outstripped the growth in the Muslim population, which grew from 2.7 million people to 3.9 million in a decade.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023...ampaigners

[Fake Messiah]

George Pell leaves behind an empty church and a cathedral full of moral losses

Church attendances have plummeted from historic highs. And never has the church’s influence on public policy been so weak. Proof of its diminished role in the spiritual and earthly life of Australia comes via a study conducted by the church itself.

The study found that in 2016, the number of people attending Mass on a typical weekend was about 623,400, or 11.8% of the general Catholic population. In 1996 it was 864,000, about 18% of the Catholic population.

The most dramatic fall came in the number of Australian-born attendees and those born in English-speaking countries; numbers almost halved in the 20 years. At the same time the percentage of attendees born in non-English-speaking countries had risen from about 18% to almost 37% in 2016, an increase of about 72,600.

Those attending Mass were much older than the general Catholic population — a third were aged between 60 and 74, and the trend shows attendees are only getting older.

The study concluded that the impact of the findings from the Royal Commission into Institutional Reponses to Child Sexual Abuse had been “particularly significant”. A secondary finding was that young adult attendees were not being replaced by younger people as they age. This showed “how much the church in Australia owed to our immigrants, particularly those from non-English-speaking countries”.

If any period captured the church’s fall it was 2017. The losses were many. It was the year that Pell was charged by Victoria Police with historic child sex offences (ultimately dismissed by the High Court). It was the year same-sex marriage legislation was passed in the federal Parliament. To cap it off, in November of that year, Victoria became the first state to pass voluntary assisted dying (VAD) legislation, in the face of the church’s intense public opposition. The Andrews’ government legislation opened the way for state parliaments to pass similar laws. Even NSW, the home of the powerful Sydney archdiocese, surrendered to the public will.

The trouble for the church is that outside of a very small bubble no one else is listening.

Tomorrow, by coincidence, a coalition of 20 Catholic groups under the banner of the Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform will gather to press for a different and more inclusive church.

https://www.crikey.com.au/2023/02/01/geo...al-losses/

[Fake Messiah]

Irish Catholic Church in 'terminal decline' after sexual abuse scandals

Ireland was once regarded as the most catholic Country in the World. That, though, is no longer the case.

Weekly Mass attendance which stood at 91% in 1975 was down to 36% in 2016 according to figures from the last Irish census.

According to critical members of the Church, there is only one way to sum up the effect that sex abuse scandals have had on Catholicism in Ireland.

“Catastrophic is the, really, the only answer for that," said Father John Collins, from the Association of Irish Catholic Priests. "We always had an issue before the child sexual abuse scandals broke in this country."

“There was an issue with the Church in a sense that many people who were coming forward [said] that the Church was too controlling and had too much control over their lives and people rejected that,” he added.

The behaviour of the Church in resisting to pay compensation and behaving as if nothing had happened has in the words of one catholic commentator, been detrimental to the Church in Ireland.

“The sex abuse scandals have been absolutely devastating for the Church, not just the actual abuse itself which of course was horrific for the victims, but the fact that when the victims came forward, when they spoke to those in leadership positions within the Church, they were ignored, they were told that they were making it up, it was minimised consistently,” explained Michael Kelly, editor at the Irish Catholic Newspaper.

By all accounts, the Catholic church in Ireland is in serious trouble. The feeling is that unless the Vatican modernises or changes the rules very quickly, the church in this Country will effectively cease to be in the years and decades to come.

https://www.news.yahoo.com/irish-catholi...24539.html

[Fake Messiah]

Black Americans See the Biggest Shift Away from Faith

Even with all the shifts in the faith landscape over the past several years, Black Americans remain more religious than other groups and more likely than the average American to stay in the tradition they were raised in, according to a massive report released by Pew Research Center last year.

But black “nones” are growing. With 3 in 10 adults in the US claiming no religious affiliation on surveys, the rise of the nones has touched every corner of American society.

Over more than a decade, the share of Black Americans who say that they have no religious affiliation has risen more dramatically than whites, Hispanics, or Asians.

In 2008, 22 percent of all Americans who participated in the Cooperative Election Study indicated that they were atheist, agnostic, or described their religion as “nothing in particular.” Just 12 years later, the share of nones rose to just over 34 percent. When that rise is tracked across different racial groups, different patterns emerge.

For instance, white respondents tracked the national average nearly perfectly, with 23 percent nones in 2008, rising to 34 percent by 2020. Among Hispanic respondents. There was an increase of 11 percentage points, but for Asians—who already had the highest levels of religious unaffiliation—it was much more modest at just about 5 percent.

Among African Americans, the increase in the share of the nones was much larger, more than 15 percentage points. In 2008, African Americans were the least likely to be nones (19.5%), but by 2020 they were more likely to say that they had no religious affiliation than white or Hispanic respondents (34.9%).

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2...thing.html

[h4ym4n]

It's mind boggling that any blacks in America want to believe in the same savior as their slave owners. 

[Fake Messiah]

[Fireball]

I guess this dolt thinks he's presenting political comedy?   MAD Magazine has it all over him.