I like the ruling but wonder if it will survive the SCOTUS...
9-0 to uphold. If Congress wants the NSA to listen, then pass legislation to let them (fat chance on that).
It wouldn't be a Rover post without taking a personal and childish jab at someone.![]()
Interesting and thorough article. Nothing really surprising in its findings. Mainline denominations are gradually collapsing, which is a trend that's been going on for awhile. Interesting that roughly 1 in 3 people have a religious identity that's different than they were raised in, showing that at least some people aren't locked into what they were raised as. And it's those white folks that are the most Godless!Ah sh! t, Bob - just get the hammer and nails out now....
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/
Ah sh! t, Bob - just get the hammer and nails out now....
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the number of Catholics did not decline by 10 million (3.1% of 320M) in 7 years.
As education and social interaction increases, one would expect a gradual movement from "evangelical" to "mainline" to "nothing in particular." Let's be polite and say these are correlative, rather than causal (spoiler: they're causal). One would think (or at least hope) that the local maximum for evangelical would be when the whole country first connects via telecommunications. Prior to that, evangelical voices are discounted since they are spread out among backwaters and they lack media gate privileges. After an initial surge at the Great Connecting, access to information not strictly censored by the community and, more importantly, people outside that community, will gradually erode evangelical numbers, as the swamps are drained.
If you want to skip ahead to where we're going, it's here.
The number of church going probably did. 50 years of bad catechesis will do that. Many stop attending as soon as the child gets confirmed (middle school age). Why bother? The ideas of sin and its consequences are missing from the "Church of Nice".I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the number of Catholics did not decline by 10 million (3.1% of 320M) in 7 years.
As education and social interaction increases, one would expect a gradual movement from "evangelical" to "mainline" to "nothing in particular." Let's be polite and say these are correlative, rather than causal (spoiler: they're causal). One would think (or at least hope) that the local maximum for evangelical would be when the whole country first connects via telecommunications. Prior to that, evangelical voices are discounted since they are spread out among backwaters and they lack media gate privileges. After an initial surge at the Great Connecting, access to information not strictly censored by the community and, more importantly, people outside that community, will gradually erode evangelical numbers, as the swamps are drained.
If you want to skip ahead to where we're going, it's here.
Actually the pattern I've observed is people tend to go from mainline to either nothing or evangelical, not the sequence you posit. Mainline is comfy for older folks who have always been in it, but a lot of the mainline groups are not viewed as being that active or dynamic and if people get disinterested they drop off from there, but if they want something more active and dynamic they go the other way to a more evangelical group. Of course these are massive generalizations and everybody's journey is unique.
I can't speak for all religions, but for Catholicism they aren't doing much to try and win you back. Now one can argue that its up to you to go to church, not up to the church to get you to attend, but I feel that ignores modern realities to the detriment of the congregations themselves. People are busy and also feel they can connect with God without the ritual every Sunday. If there's a counter argument to be made, the Church needs to start making it or keep closing down parishes. You would think after all the priest abuse scandals they'd be a bit more humble.
But, if the Vatican extradited Cardinal Law for his long overdue prosecution and prison sentence that he so richly deserves, I might be tempted to give church attendance another go.![]()
Yup, we all just reject reality. Who needs it, eh?That's valid. Maybe it is more accurate to say there is a fork in the road where empirically observable reality conflicts with the Bible. People either accept reality and take the road to nothing in particular, or they reject reality and take the road to evangelism. Since both paths are self-consistent, there are stable end states, while hanging out back at the fork (mainline) is provisional and does not resolve the tension, and remains unstable.