The problem with that sort of argument is that it pre-supposes its own conclusion; that there is some objective definition of Christian. A “zebra” is a biologically defined objective term; even if you paint a horse black-and-white and drop it in Africa, it’s still not a zebra. Even if the word zebra was never invented it would still be a zebra, it just wouldn’t be called that.
But if a dozen different self proclaimed Christian groups call themselves “Christian” using different definitions of the term, what objective standard is there that lets us say that Groups A, B and D are right while the others are wrong?
You will have met a lot of people who were atheists, agnostic, and just-don’t-care-ist. But you wouldn’t have known it because it would never have come up. If you were pushed towards episcopalians then you would have met a lot more religious Christians in your eight months than I would in 8 years. Hope you enjoyed your visit anyway.
Start a new thread, I am sorry I attracted attention to this one with this statement.
We will see but it appears you can not Mormon, or Muslim, or Jewish or an atheist, really protestant christian unless you are a Kennedy but it changes over time.
I haven’t seen the latest responses in this thread, but for those that are interested I did a youtube vid on this topic which was fuelled partly by discussions I’ve had here. It’s turned out to be a very interesting topic discussion overall
Thing is your original statement was worded as if to suggest that being atheist was a risk to atheists EVERYWHERE, and in the western world apart from the US it’s not. I’d be surprised if it’s a big deal in Canada either. The UK is not some strange artefact in Europe in this respect, most countries in it are the same (particularly the western and northern ones).
I am in liberal Seattle, and it would be logical that the cost would be lower however this is also the home of the “Discovery Institute” who are the group who attempted to push “intelegent design”
I am also just a few blocks from “Mars Hill” which is one of the fastest growing fundamentalist churches in the country.
The larger issue is that corporate executives tend to be older than the general population. As they are replaced by younger generations things will improve but not nearly as quickly as they did in the UK.
20 years ago 70% in the UK claimed to be religious, and that same age group is not far off from that mark even today in the UK
Possibly they did, haven’t seen any data to that effect. However I can tell you that 20 years ago (1992) the country was not particularly more religious, that is to so actively participating in religion, than it is today. If it was then it was absolutely not apparent to me, although that said I was 13 and living in London so maybe I just didn’t realise.
Sorry if you thought I was putting the boot in with my reply to you earlier, by he way. I hadn’t read your concession when I posted.
The Christian Church has always done a good job of bundling what are essentially family matters as part of their domain. Ditto, the whole ‘traditional’ church wedding thing; how many people want the white wedding but think the bible is a nonsense…
I am at best agnostic but identify myself as a cultural christian. There are believe it or not many flavours of christians from fundy bible bashers to people who don’t believe that jesus was the actual son of god.
