Mega ChurchesFollow

It's creepier in person.

Though then again, most groups are made up of people who want their views and belief something is interesting reinforced. Not like this is exclusive to religious places.

Hey, at least religion comes up with a more interesting story before telling you to believe what they say.

You're just jealous they have crazy beliefs and stories while all you got are the crazy beliefs.

At least he's not a gay pedophile.

It's really just a large church that grew over time by being relevant to the modern experience, and focusing on attracting new members, and making services comfortable to them. They pretty much took church growth seriously, and give good "customer service" to say..they focus on attracting seekers and giving them reasons to stay for the long term.

I don't think it's a bad thing. It's not like drinking in a bar is all that better, or worse, drinking at home. People need a sense that the world has meaning, and like it or not, religion is a lot more coherent than some of the secular attempts to fill the void. I'd rather have a megachurch than Walden Two anyday.

Hey, whatever you want to call your "facts" regardless religion still kicks your *** at having an entertaining story to go along with theirs.

My first objection is to the assumption that this Tony Alamo church is somehow a "christian" church. I would strenuously refute that claim. Just because they utilize the trappings, symbology, and language of Christianity does not mean that they are christian by any measure.

"By their fruits ye shall know them." That's the measure you use to judge if they are a christian organization.

Totem

That is a very religiocentric view--that being good is synonymous with being Christian.

Not really, just that to be consistent, there are things a person can't do and still be called one. In other words, a person's deeds tell the truth about the strength of their beliefs.

Otherwise anyone could call themselves one thing, and act totally opposite to what it is. You can't really say "I'm a christian" and not believe in God, for example, because it sends the whole thing tumbling down.

Also, there is some moral consistency. You can be an atheist and believe whatever moral system you like, because there is nothing really beyond atheism than saying there is no god. But christianity also has its own moral code and precepts, and if you say you believe it, and you go around doing things that not just violate it, but even general human decency, it's safe to say the religion hasn't affected you much and that you probably don't believe or understand it.



No, because non-christian religions can claim such by their own standards. Most new-age religions could very well give jesus sonship, and yet not be christian at all. There's a lot more assumptions and theology to be called such, and a lot of "christian" religions don't even accept the sonship of jesus..jehovah's witnesses believe he was created and is michael the archangel, and some christian sects didn't believe he was the son of god in any real sense at all.



I don't know..what I see now is that neurobiology is slowly starting to destroy even a secular attempt at logic or ethics, because it destroys the sense we are free-willed moral agents. If our brain actions ultimately decide the behavior, it does so without logical thought, and we use logic to justify something that is more or less biologically structured.

That sort of materialistic reductionism is why secular ethics just aren't compelling to me personally, and I think many others. It chops off the basis of free action you need to make logic valid, at least in moral issues.

In that case, there are maybe 40 actual Christians in the US, and a lot of people who claim to be but aren't. And the latter group gets very angry and does decidedly un-Christian things to you if you call them on it.

were the beliefs in line with the founder's teachings or actions, and do they flow from it? For some things there may be honest doubt, but but it's really hard to see an inquisition in line with both jesus's teachings and the early church. If jesus said explicitly to seize power and use coercion to win believers, then yeah.



True, because all they have to do is say he isn't the only begotten son of God, and we are all sons of god. Again, it isn't just that, there's a lot of other theological assumptions.



its not pedantic at all, and it could be argued that the mormons don't fit this role at all, because christ isn't a supernatural being to them. Definition in religious matters is very important, because it's very easy to have a radical change just by altering a few beliefs. A gnostic conception of christ is so radically different from an orthodox one that it's almost a different religion, despite the shared terminology.



Is it? If I am compelled by a third party to kill someone, as opposed to killing someone without compulsion, is that an academic difference? If it's proven we don't have any real choice in our behaviors due to other factors, it changes the tone of the moral act.

Like say people are religious due to a specific section of the brain, or a certain gene expressed in the person. That wouldn't be academic, but it would cast doubt on the entire faith the person holds. To be moral agents, we have to be convinced we are choosing free of compulsion, be it biological or otherwise. Free will isn't meaningless, but one of the serious questions of modern ethics.



It can't be objectively laughable, because laughable is a subjective term.

It doesn't terrify me though honestly. If we can have no real control or no answers, who cares about reductionist or mystical answers anyway? Why should what you say in the end matter as opposed to another? It would just be futility all around, and you would be peddling as much trash as the mystics you describe.

But are you going to die with no control and no real answers too? If so, then why are you rational? If not, then why do you say that? Like it or not, I'm think you do see yourself as a rational agent, in control and able to find real answers out of the human experience, and you are talking out of both sides of your face on that.

If you believe in objectivity, you have to also believe in some measure of control enabling you to be such. You can't say you have no control, and yet say your decisions, observations, and beliefs are objective, any more than a drunk person could be objective.

It's not compelling becuase ultimately people believe they act freely, and we base the weight of moral actions and objective testimony on that. No one says scientists only discover new things because their specific brain chemistry lets them see such, but because they freely and objectively look at the world and perceive it, without bias. No one becomes an atheist because they have no choice but to be one-they do because they have the freedom of thought to see and compare religion and existing reality, and accept or reject descriptions of it.

That's why i don't find it such, it seems to me to be sawing the branch off on which you are sitting.



Some basis of stipulation shape the reasoning behind ethical thought though. You can only reason from the premises you already hold, and if your premise is that you don't have free will, you are making your own reasoning suspect.