The rise of secularism

This report explains why Christianity is in decline in the USA and will be in the minority by 2070.

So there is some hope for the continued prosperity of the nation.

This report is neither surprising nor depressing. Centuries ago, the Bible foretold how there will be a great falling away from the faith: 2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The world is following the path prophesied by Bible writers: 2 Peter 3:3-4 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

2 Timothy 3:1-4 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

For Christians these times are both sad, yet, exciting. Sad, because we know so many people will be left behind to face the Great Tribulation. Exciting, because we understand that we are living in the last days, and at any moment the sky will split wide open and the Lord Jesus shall step out on a cloud and call His children home. Revelation 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Whew! That makes me want to shout right there!

But it still augurs well that irrational beliefs in the supernatural will be replaced by logical decisions based on evidence.   Your bible might have screwed up that aspect of the coming good times, but that is no surprise at all.

When the church is removed the good times will be gone. You have no idea what's coming once the church is gone. If you think inflation, crime, violence, racism and hate are bad now, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Riddle me this...since Christianity is on the decline why aren't things better than they currently are? According to your philosophy the USA should be improving since Christianity is dwindling. The truth is, things are systemically getting worse...crime, violence, hate, bullying are all prevalent in society now. But as a true disciple of Denialism, you will deny the afore mentioned facts and claim things are getting better.

I think that decrease in Christianity will also be a decrease in bullying. If not that, at least a reduction in opinion being used as if it was factual. And I would rather deny than be irrational.

So you cannot answer my question. Fair enough.

That the MAGA crowd can actually exist in the US clearly shows freedom of speech at an all time high. Likewise medical health and longevity are at their highest levels ever. Most crime rates have fallen since 2010 the exceptions being murder and rape, markers of the success the NRA has had on our society.

Answering rhetorical questions always seem to be a waste of time.

And of course, the most notorious bullies of all time are Yahweh and those Christians who tell us unless we willingly and in an unforced manner accept Christ as our personal savior, he will make us scream in agony for all eternity for not so doing.

Denial. Just as I thought. Violent crime is through the roof in cities with the strictest gun laws. Racism is on the lips of every liberal who doesn’t get their way. Inflation is destroying families who can’t afford basic necessities. Our southern border is nonexistent and the human tragedy there is appalling. According to your ideology, none of this should be happening since Christianity is declining.

Actually it appears the decline of Christianity mirrors the decline in society.

In the USA crime rates peaked in 1991. Apart from 2020 there was no significant increase in any one year. Your cherry picking of data was no surprise to those who note how desperate the Christian is to justify his faith. It is a common tactic of the white supremist to label racism as being equal to liberalism: and if that should be the case, it is a positive connection not a negative one.

An increase in the number of asylum seekers can be spun as a failure of border security, but it is naught more than spin. The case that world wide inflation is the result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is plausible and persuasive. Limiting the discussion to inflation in the USA makes it possible to blame Sleepy Joe. A wrongful accusation, but when did the Conservative right care about truthfulness?

But, at least. we do seem to be in agreement about the most notorious bullies.

I don’t think I agree with anything you suggest. For you to sit there and deny the increased violence in Dem run cities; to dismiss the humanitarian crisis at the border; to shift blame for inflation and high gas prices to Putin reveals how out of touch with reality you truly are. Go ahead and put your head back in the sand and pretend everything is A OK

I was simply trying to reduce the effect of your distorted magnifying glass. But you are quite right in that there will be a lot of cleaning up to do once conservative evangelicals are out of American politics.

You don't understand. There won't be any cleaning up to do. This world will go to Hell in a handbasket once we are gone. You cannot even imagine how bad things will get. Until that time comes, we will continue proclaiming the truth and leading as many as possible to a saving knowledge of Christ. So go ahead and stick your head back in the sand and deny how bad the world is getting while you celebrate the decline of Christianity.

Your opinions are yours and you have no authority to bully the rest of us to take them as our own.

Bully? You obviously have never encountered a bully. I'm just telling the truth. Take it or leave it.

Telling anyone who does not accept your savior as their own savior will be punished by an eternity of screaming in agony in hell sure meets the definition of a bully. I suspect someone who spends a lifetime of bullying can no longer recognize the activity for what it is.

A bully would attempt to force someone to become a Christian against their will. Telling the truth does not a bully make. Again, take it or leave it. A bully would not give you that choice. I leave the choice to you. Liberals are so good at playing the victim.

Telling me I shall spend an eternity screaming in hell if I don't accept your irrational belief is not a true choice. And your opinions, no matter how deeply held, do not constitute a truth: it is still only an opinion.

I rather guessed you would not be able to tell the difference,

Of course you have a choice. You can either surrender to Jesus and ask Him to save you, or you can walk away from Him. Again, the choice is yours. If you consider my faith irrational, reject it and skip off celebrating the decline of Christianity. It’s that simple.

Any belief without sound evidence is called "irrational". Christians acknowledge the lack of evidence and state they simply have faith. The agnostic does not reject faith because it is faith, but because it has no backing support. And the bible does not count as backing support.

If I was to say to my daughter "Either you go clean the yard or I will give you a damn good hiding", I could argue that I was giving her a choice, but my wife would rightly point out that I was bullying her. Not, perhaps, the best illustration but one that you might understand.

Sigh, there is more than enough evidence to support my faith. You just deny the evidence offered. Just because you don’t accept the evidence does not mean there is no evidence. I don’t believe you have the credentials to dismiss the Bible as evidence. It has been proven that you are, shall we say, Biblically illiterate. So you cling to your nonbelief and I’ll hold on the the hem of His garment.

BTW, I’m not familiar with what a “good hiding” is.

A good hiding is an English slang term for a disciplinary beating. Agnostics are always persuaded by a persuasive arguments. So many agnostics remain agnostic simply because there is a dearth of persuasive arguments to support any form of theism or any denomination of any religion. You might dismiss all of us as being biblically illiterate: but that would be just your bigotry showing through again.

"Dearth" an old English word meaning a complete lack of something

I’m not dismissing all agnostics as Biblically illiterate. Bart Erhman is a Bible scholar but he’s still agnostic. You, however, are not familiar with the Bible.

Thanks for the explanation on a good hiding.

I know enough about history to spot that Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel are untrue. You don't have to be biblically literate to understand that.

No, you don’t know them to be untrue. You may believe them to be untrue, but you don’t know.

Yeah - and Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden until tricked by a serpent into committing original sin.   It must be true for it says so in the Bible and everyone knows the Bible is inherently true.   That should put those biblical illiterates in their place.

And if the young earth creations can be relied upon, Noah's Ark was afloat during the second Egyptian dynasty: they might have noticed, If not the flood itself, the arrival of Australian wombats standing in line to get on the Ark. If anyone had really tried to build a tower tall enough to see inside the heavenly kingdom, one would expect some bits of it to have survived: unless they all got washed away in that Great Flood.