Past, Present, Beyond?

KnowSelf

KnowSelf

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In the past 40 years are moralistic values and social accountability more or less than present day. Are fewer people attending religious and spiritual teachings today than forty years ago?

Is there any corelation between morality and lack of spiritual and religious participation? Suppose times change and people become in spiritual matters, would people act differently?

Imagine a movement that opens mind and soul of all people.
 
I don't know about global trends. In 79 I was very young, we were living in a country with the most inhumane social injustice institutionalized at the administrative and legislative level that you can imagine existing in the 20th century. Any yet, those my family interacted with, the privileged, voting population, were very devout people who participated regularly in their religious communities.

So I don't believe there is a direct causal link between religious participation and ethical behaviour at all.
 
KnowSelf said:
In the past 40 years are moralistic values and social accountability more or less than present day.
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I'd say less, but from a given perspective.

What seems to be happening on a broad scale is the liberal social agenda is failing, the ideas just don't pack the punch necessary to stand up to the emergence of the right which runs on a 'put me first' agenda, which is understandably difficult to counter.

The young might espouse liberal social ideals, but I'm not sure they have the same values as we did? Extinction Revolution to the fore in that, but then the young have a different experience and pressures, social media foremost with its more negative aspects — it's given the 'nasty right' a platform (not to ignore the 'nasty left' which has scuttled the socialist dream of the Labour Party in the UK)

KnowSelf said:
Are fewer people attending religious and spiritual teachings today than forty years ago?
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Yes

KnowSelf said:
Is there any correlation between morality and lack of spiritual and religious participation?
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No, I don't think so. To say that the non-religious are inherently less moral and ethical is wrong.

KnowSelf said:
Imagine a movement that opens mind and soul of all people.
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No such thing. The issue's not with movements or ideas, it's people that's the problem.
 
Reading Thomas points makes me consider or think here in the United States from my perspective again our Evangelical support for Trump is church-going folks ignoring his immorality. I'm currently take the morality of the non church-going folks any day.
 
There are people who need regulation and orders and a uniform and being on a routine; there are others who need to question everything they are told, to avoid being conned by the system.

The problem is when the basically lunatic extremists on both sides completely drown the voice of the moderate and reasonable majority.

I think social media stokes the extremism by putting out shallow memes half truths and one sided so-called news -- sometimes deliberate lies.

Social media features highly. It started in a way with the 'Arab Spring' and not all the effects of that populism have been of benefit to most of the people?
 
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To elaborate I've got tens of thousands of miles on my thumb hitchhiking. Add to that months of nights spent couchsurfing in strangers houses...in many ways I've relied on the kindness and generosity of others and due to past experiences have not changed my perception in decades.

I am not in any way saying all people are good...I am saying those who offer me rides, and open their homes are not the overtly church going type.
 
I believe "God" is size-less in any context.

I do think that the concept of "God" is more expanded "today than yesterday".
 
KnowSelf said:
Is God bigger or smaller today than yesterday?
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Fewer people think of God as worshipful or use the word 'God' in the 21st Century than in the 16th Century.

Because science has unravelled some of the mechanisms of nature, some people like to think that means we don't need to have God.

EDIT
It's the extremists on both sides again. So we get the extreme scientific atheists/ secular humanists against the young earth fundamentalists -- and all the rest of us end up with ... well never mind the rest
 
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RJM Corbet said:
It's the extremists on both sides again. So we get the scientific atheists/ secular humanists against the young earth fundamentalists -- and all the rest of us end up with a rod up the a**
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OK, I'll agree, it is all personal perception.

My a** is fine, no rod, not that there is anything wrong with that...if that is the perception you prefer.
 
wil said:
My a** is fine, no rod, not that there is anything wrong with that...if that is the perception you prefer.
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I edited that @wil

There is a saying from the French Revolution: At least the old king used a bit of lubrication.

We have an expression here: getting shafted. So it's a bit softer, but the same idea, lol ...
 
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"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which."

-- The last line of Animal Farm, by George Orwell
 
It's all just clubs: my Christian club, your Secular Humanist club -- not yours personally -- but people with ego agendas presuming to speak for truth or God or whatever ... or whatever ...
 
perhaps people are better aware of natural pheromone and the mysteries that once abounded are a matter of fact today, after all we have the internet.

Church-goers and bible-thumpers are the worst kind of fake Christians because they carry them the pretense godliness and influential jargon.

I don't understand a lot of things, but God and I are connected like the ingredients of bread and bread itself. God and I are the combined ingredients of me, myself & I.

Profoundly God and I are fused together. People who claim to have a relationship with God may not know God at all.
 
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KnowSelf said:
... Church-goers and bible-thumpers are the worst kind of fake Christians because they carry them the pretense godliness and influential jargon ...
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But don't you risk sounding as if you are placing yourself superior and more holy than people who go to church? I understand what you mean but when last did you enter a church and kneel before God? Not all church goers are Bible thumpers imo

I believe it is good and necessary to go to the temple, but of course that is not the only place to be with God.

Anyway ... I like the rest of your post
 
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