to think we no longer live in a Christian country

[orlantina]

More than 53% of people have no faith - according to a recent survey.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41150792

That figure changes to 71% amongst 18-25 yr olds.

It surveyed 3000 adults - so it would be interesting to look behind the stats but it seems that more than half the country have no religion.

Christianity is still probably the most common religion out there.

Should this have implications for areas of national life?

'Pseudephigraphical' epistles en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha#Pauline_epistles

Oh well

Jesus actually partakes in a homosexual act
If that were true hasn't Jesus broken Bible law of Leviticus 18:22? "You shall not lie with a man, as with a woman: it is abomination."
And hasn't he also been sexually immoral as its sex before marriage.
Aren't the consequences of those that he should be burned in hell for eternity?

Our Christians obsession with sex (devoid of love) is bewildering, and heartbreaking, because it leads to some much pain and outright cruelty
Sex between consenting adults is enjoyable, good exercise, and helps test out/form good relationships. Why is this painful and cruel?

It doesn't bother me at all whether Jesus was straight, gay or bi
That is a very very fringe Christian view!

I don't think that his was a Virgin Birth either
So did god have sex with Mary or was Joseph the father? Are you saying he was just a man? I think that is another fringe view.

the miracle of natural birth is so great it can't be topped by anything else
Natural birth might be miraculous but its NOT a miracle, its happens everyday. And it could easily be topped by an actual miracle.

Jesus was a paradox Jesus had a deity as a father and a mortal mother, that makes him a demigod. There are loads of demigods in history, Hercules, Dionysus, Orpheus... It was quite common back then, not paradoxical at all.

he was a man of his time
If that is the case then his teachings are only applicable in his time and are irrelevant to the 21st century.

Had he stood up and said - "Women are as good as men; children should be protected, not exploited; same-sex relationships are as valid as any other" he would never have got past the starting line
Supposedly he was a demigod, why couldn't he have got started? Just bring someone back from the dead and say, "Now listen to me, I said NO SLAVERY or no eternal life"

I think, as others have said, treating other people the way we would want to be treated is the key to harmony everywhere
NO that's part of the problem. You want to be treated as a Christian, it is not harmonious to treat others as if they should be a Christian. The point of this thread is to talk about ending Christian privilege, its not that hard at all.

Why do pictures of Christ always show him as a white man when, if he actually existed, he most likely had dark brown skin?

Has he fresh? Not in the main stream bible, apparently some secret gospel of Mark.

He was Jewish so possibly olive skin

"No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus.

There occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus came well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings.

Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, at best all sources about Jesus derive from hearsay accounts"

And as we all know, hearsay is not evidence.

woodhill I was responding to a PP christian opinion that Jesus probably did have gay sex. So your obviously not of that opinion?

The point about colour is that he is always depicted as white when we dont know that he was. Just an indication of assumptions/bias not based on facts.

True Fresh about depiction, I believe Jesus was celibate.

Yap yap yap.

Yap yap yap

?????

I think it's a very interesting, important thread myself ... would you care to expand on what the "???'s" actually mean, or is it that you'd prefer the discussion not to be taking place at all?

It's also been noticeable that the many comments about choices the organised churches have made, some relating to outright criminality, have been met mainly with insistence that somebody else is worse - which perhaps suggests a worrying reluctance to consider anything that sheds an unwelcome light on them

Fascinating, that ...

The most common response I have encountered about what people believe and why is: .....

Are you religious? - "Of course, I am a Christian, that's the way I was brought up."

Do you believe in a God? - "Of course I believe in God."
Why do you believe in a God? - "Because, there has to be something, doesn't there!"
What is your God like? - "I dunno!"
Do you go a church often? - "Yes, every time there is a wedding or funeral"
How does you faith affect your life? - "What are you talking about, it doesn't actually affect me in any way."
Do you believe God crucified his son to forgive your sins, then was resurrected? - "Of course not, dont be silly, stop asking me all these dumb questions."

I think its important to try and understand why people call themselves Christians and what it means.

I think its important to try and understand why people call themselves Christians and what it means.

But do you think that firing your list of questions at someone is the best way to find out? It sounds like an opinion survey over the phone.

Organised religion is no longer about faith. It is about control. Early in their developments they tend to be about personal contemplation and prayer and community. Inevitably after a few years its about control of followers, "prevention of heresies" and generally taking what the leaders of society like and adapting it to the faith.

Most societies on the planet and known throughout history are controlled by men for men. Thus religions followed suit. Which, if nothing else, shows religions are human made.

There is no real difference in the controlling cults like the Mormons and the Complementarianism of some Christian women.

the primal instinct of survival of the fittest needs alot of social conditioning to damp down and its mostly religion that accomplishes that in parts of the world that dont have the billions of pounds to spend on surveillance and monitoring their citizens.

in the 20th century many authority figures did away with religion because they either found cult of the personality works quite well as in communist countries eg north korea, russia, cambodia. when if that didnt work then their legions of secret police to ensure obedience and loyality served as the deterrent to the citizen's lack of cooperation.

in the west, leaders had no need to posture to a God or religion anymore when our cooperation could be ensured by gazillions of cctv cameras (omniscience), our trustworthiness by credit checks (instead of elaborate rituals to weed out fraudsters), and all powerful HMRC to chase unpaid tax or earnings (omnipotence).

with post religious societies, whether communist or capitalist, the adage is still, watched people are good people. religion and all its accroutements is how large numbers of humans from varied genetic backgrounds unknown to each other regulated and maintained society together. yeah we dont need that in britain anymore but you need a heck of a lot more resources and manpower to replace the All Seeing All Knowing God.

to pretend that we do away with religion and everything is just fine and dandy in society is not representative of the fact that we in britain live in the most heavily surveillanced country on earth.

blue I'd rather be subject to secular law than to an all-seeing God. The law as it stands makes sense for the most part. I would like there to be less CCTV and I am not at all sure that CCTV was ever intended as a replacement for the fear of God - that's a bit out there as an idea. However, secular laws such as not raping, stealing, killing, inciting hatred seem to do quite well. I'd hate to go back to religious laws based on a book written by flawed humans like ourselves and translated/edited selectively by people with a political agenda, i.e. the Church. At leas as we are now, no-one is telling me not to eat shrimp or go shopping on a Sunday.

and look at societies in the far east where a large part of the reason children do much better there is the heavy respect towards teachers and value of education. you dont need religion to do well but that ability to control a large group of children in a class 30+ to a room those countries have is because of that almost blind obedience they inculcate in their children there. and those societies are mostly atheist. China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore etc. increasingly pro capitalism all of them but not individualistic. the closest environment we can replicate to those countries education systems are faith schools.

"I am not at all sure that CCTV was ever intended as a replacement for the fear of God - that's a bit out there as an idea." i dont think its out there at all pointy, our government doesnt trust us abit but we dont protest because if you have nothing to hide then whats the problem. the all seeing camera eye is everywhere monitoring interactions between citizenry in order to either deter crime or to solve crime. both ways its as a control.
yeah i agree the law is great but remember we are living in a post christian country and so the law is based on christian values and morals. even humanism is a christian construct because of its respect for the individual. religions or value systems that are based on the rights of the group over the rights of the individual eg communism, confucianism have different priorities.

blue that's the old argument about good moral values being entirely due to Christianity. Which is bilge. Those values are all about ensuring that a society survives, which is how a species survives. They evolve naturally in cultures which are not Christian - like Buddhism, for instance, which has no deity at all. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that societal anarchy is not a recipe for humanity to thrive - so we don't have it. We are about survival. Religion on the other hand is about control.

As for different value systems having different priorities - true. There is more than one way to get a society to work. No way is perfect, all have advantages and drawbacks.

Lastly, as an atheist, I try to be a good moral person not because I am afraid of some deity, but because it is the right thing to do. It benefits me. It benefits the people I care about. It benefits people in general. What's not to like about that? I get that some people are inherently selfish enough to put self before society, but that has always been so.

If we hadn't had Abrahamic religion, do people think we would still have had homophobia and mysogny in the world?

Or would that have happened anyway?

When there has been no influence of Abrahamic religions, have LGBT people and women been treated any better?

Religion on the other hand is about control

Indeed. And who is the controller? Who set the rules and how are people controlled?

Organised religion is no longer about faith. It is about control. Early in their developments they tend to be about personal contemplation and prayer and community. Inevitably after a few years its about control of followers, "prevention of heresies" and generally taking what the leaders of society like and adapting it to the faith

Absolutely THIS ^^

If we hadn't had Abrahamic religion, do people think we would still have had homophobia and mysogny in the world?

Most human societies through history (at least since the rise of agriculture) seem to have been more or less misogynistic. So, they give rise to misogynistic religions but then the religion helps entrench and strengthen misogyny. The degree may vary....are there any truly non-misogynistic religions?

Homosexuality is a different matter. Ancient greece was misogynistic but not homophobic- same-sex relationships were entirely normal.

GladAllOver, Those questions & answers where a summary / paraphrasing of conversations I have had over the years, I certainly dont grill people about religion in real life.

If god was the original BB, then it didn't work on the priests who abused children I wonder why that was? Could it be that the concept of an all seeing/knowing god was only to control the good people, make them fearful / amenable to giving money to the church, who where the real power, and an excuse for the priests to do bad things?

CCTV might use the same mechanism but its trying to catch and punish the actual bad people. And as long as its following secular laws with checks and balances as made and voted for by a democratic population then it should be a good thing.