Religion
Related: About this forumThe Uncertain Future of the Religious Left
https://daily.jstor.org/the-uncertain-future-of-the-religious-left/While many commentators have attributed the Christian rights political dominance to its theological clarity, one shouldnt discount the wide appeal of liberal religions tenets. Liberal religion is not, writes Matthew Hedstrom, the final stage on a progressive path toward secularity, but rather, according to Gary Dorrien, a rational and experiential third way between overbelief and disbelief. Dorrien, however, is skeptical of liberal religion ever becoming the preeminent form of American religiosity, since its partisans must always sail against the values and politics of the dominant culture.
Between its countercultural tilt and its theological plasticity, liberal religion has never been entirely comfortable within the confines of the church. Sometimes this has resulted in outright skepticism, as when John Murraythe reluctant founder of the first Universalist congregation in Americaresisted being ordained a minister in the late 1700s. Or when Ralph Waldo Emerson abandoned the Unitarian ministry, in 1832. At other times, however, this institutional discomfort has inspired immense creativity.
...According to the Public Religion Research Institutes most recent study of patterns of belief and affiliation in American religious life, the religiously unaffiliated now comprise nearly a quarter of the U.S. population. For the first time in history, they are the nations largest religious bloc, with white evangelical Protestants a distant second. While some congregations have thrived in the twenty-first century, the steady erosion of church memberships is unlikely to abate. Its difficult to imagine, for instance, a reversal of the secularization of Sunday that resulted from the loosening of restrictions states had historically used to regulate Sunday activities.
Kinda makes you wonder if it's "religious liberalism" or just liberalism in general, which some people graft onto their religious beliefs. Pushing religion as the basis runs the danger of alienating our country's largest religious bloc, as the article notes.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Progressive theists are dying out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whatever shall we religious progressives do??????????????????
Will we religious progressives be extinct as soon as tomorrow as humankind inevitably evolves past our 300,000 years of previous religious heritage?
trotsky
(49,533 posts)That's all on you, g-man.
Do you have anything to say regarding the article's actual content?
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)Your lack of substantive response says everything, really.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)And it says nothing about theism dying, or the other wild claims guillaumeb said.
Thank you for helping me prove him wrong, pal!
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)You repeatedly call out victory while your lying on the floor!
trotsky
(49,533 posts)If anything, that quote to me seems to say rather the opposite - that liberal religion is a "rational and experiential third way between overbelief and disbelief." I still have yet to see anyone make (or document) the claim that "theism is dying."
Perhaps you'll be the first? Go for it!
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Sure seems to be!
"Getting lost in the weeds," distraction, and obfuscation is a form of argument, I guess.
Not very informative, though.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Voltaire2
(13,033 posts)but there is zero evidence for that.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Voltaire2
(13,033 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Now it remains to write up your argument and defend it.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)These were thought to be expressions of 'fertility gods'. Now we're not so certain.
https://steemit.com/science/@deeallen/self-portraits-of-fertility-symbols-venus-figurines-of-upper-paleolithic-eurasia-nudity
Turns out they may just not have had full-body length mirrors.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)do you have a full length mirror?
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Do you disagree?
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Whether and how we choose to be aware of it, and compensate, is what matters.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)confirmation bias? Given that we all have experiences that we rely on in forming our beliefs, none of us can truly be objective.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Most progressive religious leaders I talk to, almost all of them, feel dissed by the left, he said. The left is really controlled by a lot of secular fundamentalists.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/politics-religion-liberal-william-barber.html
trotsky
(49,533 posts)As the article notes, unaffiliated are now the nation's largest religious bloc. Are you sure you want to alienate them?
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Not divisive?
"Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare." Is this sexist? Is this rightwing capitulation? Is this more purity tests?
How many votes do we lose to 'fundamentalist' rigidity? This new religious intolerance?
trotsky
(49,533 posts)We don't want to divide the party and scare away the largest religious bloc in the country. Shame on Wallis.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)no need to worry about a few more votes.
Can't wait for our Supreme Court to start handing out new decisions after one more pick. No worries.
Or maybe - let's find 80,000 more votes out there so we don't lose in an "Electoral College landslide" again.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)How divisive. Tsk, tsk.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)How do we grow our base if we only appeal to the base?
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Wow. That's interesting.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Never mind, I know.
"Purity!"
trotsky
(49,533 posts)This is exactly what you've been arguing. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? Glad you are beginning to understand that.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)It is quite obvious. But not in the way that you seem to think.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Ask him what he thinks about prosperity gospel - he still hasn't answered me on that.
Voltaire2
(13,033 posts)It categorizes abortion as a poor choice that should be avoided. It is not. It is one of many essential reproductive health care procedures that should be available to all women to use as needed without any stigmatization.
As Katha Pollit put it:
About the stigmatization of abortion, I feel that when we talk about abortionit should be safe, legal and rare, which is how Hillary Clinton put it and how the Democratic Party often frames it, and/or its the most difficult decision a woman makes, you know, its also terrible and agonizing youre kind of conceding a lot to the people who say, Yes, it is a terrible decision, it should be rare, lets make it illegal, lets make it really hard to get. Its very hard to say, Heres this terrible thing youre going to do, so we have to keep it legal, so you wont do it illegally. Thats not a ringing cry that will rally people to the truth, which is: Abortion is a part of reproductive life, womens reproductive lives. One in three American women will have an abortion by menopause. Sixty percent are already mothers. You know, so this picture we have of its the slutty teenager, its the cold-hearted, child-hating career woman, this is completely false. Thats not the typical abortion patient.
https://www.democracynow.org/2014/10/16/abortion_as_a_social_good_author
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)that Hillary moved to the left on this issue/statement and lost voters who want abortion to NOT be considered just another method of birth control.
If we acknowledge no difference between a condom, a pill and terminating an unwanted pregnancy - then we are fundamentalists in the eyes of those who have moral concerns regardless of the "perceived" source.
Mariana
(14,857 posts)over women who terminate unwanted pregnancies? How do we appeal to such voters?
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Advocate and support all the alternatives for birth control to reduce abortion - but guarantee a woman's inviolable right to choose.
Who on earth supports unfettered abortion as a political position?
Last November we had a Supreme Court judge on the line! That alone may have turned the election, not just in the Rust Belt. NC? FLA?
Mariana
(14,857 posts)So step one is that we must oppose the Christians who are working to restrict women's access to effective birth control. I don't see how that won't alienate them. They think they're doing God's will, and we're going to come along and tell them they're doing it wrong.
So assuming we accomplish that, we're still going to have unwanted pregnancies because BC sometimes fails. What do you propose we do to fetter the women who wish to terminate their unwanted pregnancies? What will inspire the Christian voters who oppose abortion to vote Democratic?
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)Believe it or not, there are plenty of Christians who are Democrats.
We just need a few more of them. Not less.
Mariana
(14,857 posts)By doing something about all these women having abortions. Because they don't like that. Do I understand correctly?
Tell me, is it adequate to shame the women, or must we fetter them as well?
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)I have no idea what you're off on now.
You think this is a game? (Obviously)
Keeping us in the minority and powerless - handing over the Supreme Court to the other end of fringy extremism - is not an example of progressive liberalism.
It's just another example of rigid fundamentalism.
Mariana
(14,857 posts)You implied that is some kind of problem. If unfettered abortion is a problem, when attempting to win the votes of Christians, what do you think is the solution?
trotsky
(49,533 posts)What's wrong with trying to win more of their votes?
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)We won the popular vote for president by nearly 3,000,000 votes.
I'm suggesting we need to draw in a few more by being more inclusive who didn't vote our way - and don't, from California to New York!
Let me give you an example.
I'm here in Alabama.
If every Democratic voter turned out and every Republican voter turned out - Democrats would lose every election. Every election!
Since 2010, we have been experiencing the Alabamafication of the United States. Maybe it snuck up on you, maybe you've been unaware, but it happened!
Assuring believers in Alabama (and now America) that there is no place for them, no accomodation, no compromise in the Democratic Party - we'll lose a lot more than just an election!
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Back to your unproven assertion - but now you're doubling down on it. Now it's no longer just a few posts on DU, but a nationwide campaign conducted by horrible, evil nonbelievers to tell decent believin' folk that they are NOT WELCOME in the Democratic Party!
And yet you still can't provide any evidence this is true.
How laughable. It appears no one is taking you seriously - and for good reason.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)You're just not discussing anything seriously.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)But I'm giving up now. You make up totally unsupported bullshit and use it to try and silence non-believers.
Non-believers are welcome in this party too, no matter how much you wish they'd go away.
Welcome to my ignore list. You are not worth my time.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Sad every time they are used.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Yeah, that's sad. When you've humiliated yourself into a corner again, with multiple people pointing and laughing at you, you pull out your sad references to "choirs" and "tactics" and such.
Perhaps you should try actually answering questions and defending your position. What a concept!
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Perhaps you should admit of the possibility, however slight, that your opinions and pronouncements might not be shared as widely as you evidently feel that they are.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)and are telling you the problem may lie with you, and not others...
I'll happily admit the possibility it's me, but I think it's pretty damn slight.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)Doesn't make you right, though.
NeoGreen
(4,031 posts)...to reality based thinking.
The more liberal someone is, the less literally they seem to take religious texts in general.
Mariana
(14,857 posts)is utterly disgusting. The only way to be a liberal and a Christian (for example), is to dismiss most of the Bible as false, as guillaumeb has done. Once you're reduced to trying to decide which parts are true and which aren't, it's only one more step to conclude that the whole thing is bullshit.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)followed by an opinion disguised as evidence.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Prove our conjecture wrong if you want.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)is rarely worded as such. It is generally worded as a condemnation that rejects dialogue.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)Please answer so I can understand if my statement is invalid.
How much of the bible do you take literally?
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)And I have previously answered it.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Thanks so much!
trotsky
(49,533 posts)If it exists, that is.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)trotsky
(49,533 posts)You never said and now you know the hole you've dug for yourself, so you're back to your bag o' tricks.
I will just cherish the fact that the next time you make one of your screaming demands that someone link to a past post, I'll just provide a screencap of this post to fully illustrate your hypocrisy.
You keep being such an excellent Christian, g-man. You are truly setting a great example.
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)Intellectual honesty is pretty much an inevitable casualty if you try to maintain both.
Mariana
(14,857 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)But we both know that.
NeoGreen
(4,031 posts)...they don't engage in rational dialog.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Thank you for confirming it.
NeoGreen
(4,031 posts)...or not.
You would have believed it anyway.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)Supernatural: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially f or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
Reality: the state or quality of having existence or substance
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)and with what.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)analysis cannot be repeated in your presence on demand. You'll just have to have faith.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)And the reflection is attacked.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Oddly enough, often they are quite religious.
I'm sure it's a coincidence.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)About how we should further alienate the largest voting block to appeal to a block that will never vote Dem.