How do I determine which religion is best?

[packermann]

1. I'll bet Mr Stark starts with a favorable disposition toward Christianity, as opposed to ending there.

Actually, Stark is not a Christian at all. In fact, he does not even believe in God.

Interviewer: You once wrote that you’re “not religious as that term is conventionally understood.”

Rodney Stark: That’s true, though I’ve never been an atheist. Atheism is an active faith; it says, “I believe there is no God.” But I don’t know what I believe. I was brought up a Lutheran in Jamestown, North Dakota. I have trouble with faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Stark


Stark is an agnostic of the sort that thinks religion has played an important and positive roll in human development.

http://www.bede.org.uk/stark.htm



Unlike other skeptics, Stark is intellectually honest enough to give credit where credit is due. And even though he does not classify himself as a fellow believer, he can still see that the world would have been a much darker place without Christianity.

 

[durangodawood]

Actually, Stark is not a Christian at all. In fact, he does not even believe in God.....

I'm surprised.
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But then again, from the wiki article: In a 2007 interview with Massimo Introvigne, Stark described himself as an "independent Christian."
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Either way, I still stand by the rest of my comments.
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[packermann]

2. The polytheistic Greeks did more for science and mathematics (as far as we know) than ANY contemporary monotheistic culture. This is backed up by texts, and not mere speculation about how worldview affects scientific curiosity.

The only monotheistic culture that was contemporary to polytheistic Greece was Judaism, and I think that Judaism can be excused because, except for the time of David and Solomon, the Jews were an oppressed race and did not have the opportunity to contribute to science and math. So to say that the polytheistic Greeks did more than any contemporary monotheistic culture is not saying much.

3. The Islamic world carried the torch for science and mathematics for a number of centuries, while the Christian world carried the torch for witches, and Galileo. Allah's will didnt preclude rigorous scientifc and mathematical exploration, esp in the 11th through 13th c, which outpaced anything in the Christian world. Of course today its the other way around, which convinces me that there's more culture than religion at work here.

It is interesting how quickly you were willing to dismiss Stark when you thought he was a believer because of his bias. But can you look at yourself in the same way? Is it possible that your view of Christianity is colored with your anti-Christian bias? I admit that Christians have done things wrong. But come on! You are seeing that the Moslems are these great people and Christians are doing nothing but killing and imprisoning people. Are these things as black and white as you portray – that the Moslems are all good and the Christians are all bad???

I hope this can give you a more balanced perspective. True, there was a time that the Moslems were more advanced. But what happened since then? Why have they reverted backwards since then?

The Moslems since the time of Muhammad were a conquering race. Whenever they conquered a people, they took over any art, literature, and technology. For instance, when the Moslems conquered a Hindu people, they took their math and embraced it as their own – algebra. Between the 11th and 13 th centuries was the height of the Moslem empire, where they conquered the most. So even here you showed a bias view. You gave the impression that while Christians were burning witches and imprisoning Galileo, the Moslems were peacefully working in their laboratories to try to make the world a better place! That is not how it was at all. As they went around raping and pillaging villages, they took any assets these people had, including any in science and math.

But at the end of the middle ages, these same Arabs started to denounce all the technology they borrowed (or stole) from other cultures. The Christians started to win some of the battles. The Moslems were kicked out of Spain (which they originally invaded). Some leaders in Islam said that this was punishment from Allah on the Moslem people. They said that there should be nothing from the infidels that they could use – including math and science. So they rejected these things.
The reason that Moslems were cultured in the Middle Ages was because they were conquering people and their technologies. And it was because of their world view that they eventually turned their back on these things.

4. Today, fundamentalist Christianity blinds millions to sound scientific reasoning. Witness the evolution "debate".... though I wouldnt be shocked if similar ignorance prevails in the Islamic world too.

I am a strong advocate of open debate. I believe that truth will eventually win. Back in early 1900’s, the fundamentalists tried wrongly to suppress Scopes from teaching evolution in the classroom. But now the tables are turned. Now it is the evolutionists who are trying to suppress the creationists in the classroom.

So it seems to me there is a new kind of fundamentalism – evolutionary fundamentalism. They are now the ones who want to suppress the debate. What are the afraid of? If the truth is on their side, would that not come out in an open debate? I would thin think the evolutionist would be excited to have both views presented. Would this not show everyone how absurd creationism is? Would this not destroy creationism once and for all?

5. Stark amplifies medieval science and seems to diminish the explosion of science that occured during the enlightenment, precisely when the authority of the church and respect for orthodoxy diminished considerably.

I mean no offence to you, but you seem to be ignorant of all the foundation that was laid before the enlightenment. By the time the enlightenment came, science started to show its own profitability. But for centuries, science showed no benefit for society and profit to the individual. Science had to crawl before it ever exploded. Without the earliest scientists laying down the foundation, there would have been no science to explode in the enlightenment.

6. Atheism does not make life or the workings of the universe absurd. Thats complete nonsense. We are still here. The universe still operates according to principles we can discover. Thats the same with or without God.

Nietzsche criticized his fellow atheists for still holding onto Christian principles. He criticized them for seeing how radically things would be if there is no God. He was right. He came to the conclusion that if there is no God, then there is no real order in the universe. It only appears that way to us because we want it to appear that way. Nietzsche realized that if there is no God, then the world is absurd.

So if the world is absurd, then how can we even talk of principles that are guiding this universe? Who put these principles there?

7. Charity originating as a Christian concept? Thats laughable false, and so easy to research on your own that I wont even bother rebutting. I will certainly agree that Jesus preached compassion, perhaps more vigorously than anyone prior, although you might want to see what the Buddha said 500 years before. If Stark thinks that charity has its origin in Christianity, then I can only conclude that his book is a mere polemic and not an honest investigation.

“[There is] no question that neither in practice nor in theory, neither in the institutions that were founded nor in the place that was assigned to it in the scale of duties, did charity in antiquity occupy a position at all comparable to that which it has obtained by Christianity. Nearly all relief was a State measure, dictated much more by policy than by benevolence, and the habit of selling young children, the innumerable expositions, the readiness of the poor to enroll themselves as gladiators, and the frequent famines, show how large was the measure of unrelieved distress." (page 78)

Christianity for the first time made charity a rudimentary virtue, giving it a leading place in the moral type, and in exhortation of its teachers. Besides its general influence in stimulating the affections, it effected a complete revolution in this sphere, by regarding the poor as the special representatives of the Christian Founder, and thus making the love of Christ, rather than the love of man, the principle of charity (page 79)

Atheist W.H. Lecky
http://books.google.com/books?id=bG...hdXrDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result



Perhaps there is nothing greater on earth," he said, "than the sacrifice of youth and beauty, often of high birth, made by the gentle sex in order to work in hospitals for the relief of human misery, the sight of which is so revolting to our delicacy. Peoples separated from the Roman religion [Catholicsm] have imitated but imperfectly so generous a charity."

Voltaire

8. I think the natural inclination of man is toward both compassion and knowledge. Any religion that blocks those tendencies will ultimately be changed or ignored. But meanwhile, desperate people cling to fundamentalism in both Christianity and Islam.

I disagree. Man’s natural inclination is selfisness. Christianity motivates us to rise above our natural inclinations. Atheist Roy Hattersly realized this.

The only possible conclusion is that faith comes with a packet of moral imperatives that, while they do not condition the attitude of all believers, influence enough of them to make them morally superior to atheists like me. The truth may make us free. But it has not made us as admirable as the average captain in the Salvation Army.
Atheist Roy Hattersley
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/12/religion.uk


This atheist writer realized that when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, there were many religious organizations that went done there to help the victims. But he found no atheistic or free-thinker organization down there helping out.

 

[durangodawood]

The only monotheistic culture that was contemporary to polytheistic Greece was Judaism, and I think that Judaism can be excused because, except for the time of David and Solomon, the Jews were an oppressed race and did not have the opportunity to contribute to science and math. So to say that the polytheistic Greeks did more than any contemporary monotheistic culture is not saying much.

Good point, the comparison of the Greeks to the Jews doesnt reveal much. But Just look at the record of the polytheistic Greeks on its own. I see an explosion of scientific and mathematical thought, in a polytheistic context.
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It is interesting how quickly you were willing to dismiss Stark when you thought he was a believer because of his bias. But can you look at yourself in the same way? Is it possible that your view of Christianity is colored with your anti-Christian bias? I admit that Christians have done things wrong. But come on! You are seeing that the Moslems are these great people and Christians are doing nothing but killing and imprisoning people. Are these things as black and white as you portray – that the Moslems are all good and the Christians are all bad???

But in the wiki article you reference, Stark says he's a Christian. He says that three years after his agnostic comments. Maybe my bias has led right.
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My Christian/Moslem comparision looked at the best period of Islamic culture vs. the worst period of Christian culture. I thought I was clear about that. And I certainly noted the descent of Islamic societies since then. The whole picture I paint is not black/white.
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The Moslems since the time of Muhammad were a conquering race. Whenever they conquered a people, they took over any art, literature, and technology. For instance, when the Moslems conquered a Hindu people, they took their math and embraced it as their own – algebra. Between the 11th and 13 th centuries was the height of the Moslem empire, where they conquered the most. So even here you showed a bias view. You gave the impression that while Christians were burning witches and imprisoning Galileo, the Moslems were peacefully working in their laboratories to try to make the world a better place! That is not how it was at all. As they went around raping and pillaging villages, they took any assets these people had, including any in science and math.

The image of rapers and pillagers storming through a village and meticulously gathering the science and math notebooks is both disturbing and amusing. I dont think your caricature holds up very well. There has to be a culture that supports and respects science whether its stolen or invented, or else its ignored. And it was ignored later, but not for the three centuries in question.
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The reason that Moslems were cultured in the Middle Ages was because they were conquering people and their technologies. And it was because of their world view that they eventually turned their back on these things.

Speaking of black/white... if thats a standard to be avoided on principle, you might look again at your own arguments, starting with the above.
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I am a strong advocate of open debate. I believe that truth will eventually win. Back in early 1900’s, the fundamentalists tried wrongly to suppress Scopes from teaching evolution in the classroom. But now the tables are turned. Now it is the evolutionists who are trying to suppress the creationists in the classroom.

So it seems to me there is a new kind of fundamentalism – evolutionary fundamentalism. They are now the ones who want to suppress the debate. What are the afraid of? If the truth is on their side, would that not come out in an open debate? I would thin think the evolutionist would be excited to have both views presented. Would this not show everyone how absurd creationism is? Would this not destroy creationism once and for all?

Call it scientific fundamentalism if you want. Its the belief that science class should be reserved for learning science. If ID (or anything else) gains validity, scientifically, then admit it to biology class. Until then teach it in some other setting like philosophy or religious studies.
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I mean no offence to you, but you seem to be ignorant of all the foundation that was laid before the enlightenment. By the time the enlightenment came, science started to show its own profitability. But for centuries, science showed no benefit for society and profit to the individual. Science had to crawl before it ever exploded. Without the earliest scientists laying down the foundation, there would have been no science to explode in the enlightenment.

I agree totally about science cooking along low-burner through the medieval centuries. But I dont agree that Christianity provided an especially fertile environment for it. It could well have been the Greek tradition of rational inquiry that lived on... a tradition that was perhaps lacking in other contemporary civilizations, while the Christian worldview had little to do with it.
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Nietzsche criticized his fellow atheists for still holding onto Christian principles. He criticized them for seeing how radically things would be if there is no God. He was right. He came to the conclusion that if there is no God, then there is no real order in the universe. It only appears that way to us because we want it to appear that way. Nietzsche realized that if there is no God, then the world is absurd.

So if the world is absurd, then how can we even talk of principles that are guiding this universe? Who put these principles there?.

I find Nietzsche fascinating. But from what little I know I hardly think he's the authority on the implications of a naturalistic universe. I mean... he believed in "eternal recurrence", so his record on the nature of the universe is not so good.
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At bottom, I can find no reason that requires a person who provides the principles that guide the universe. Maybe I benefit, personally and spiritually, from a creator figure, whether imaginary or real. But I cannot see any absolute reason why the universe needs one.
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I'll have to deal with the issue of charity a bit later.
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[durangodawood]

...But if you're more interested in a relationship - you need to spend time with the one to whom you wish to relate - and allow them to spend time with you.

The questions I would consider asking are these, "Is there a being in your religion with whom I might develop a relationship? And if so, whom? What manner of [personal] being are they? What are they like? How do I get to know them and vice versa? Is that even possible? Where do I find this being? How do I get in touch with them? Are they approachable? How approachable are they? Will they speak to me? Can I speak to them?" But the most important question to ask, imo, is "Is this the right being to whom to develop a lasting relationship?" And, "How long will this relationship last?"

As Will Smith asked Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black - "Is it worth it?"

This is very interesting, and I will have to give it more thought.
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My main concern is that the questions you propose could lead to answers that are psychologically satisfying but have little relation to ultimate reality.
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[packermann]

Good point, the comparison of the Greeks to the Jews doesnt reveal much. But Just look at the record of the polytheistic Greeks on its own. I see an explosion of scientific and mathematical thought, in a polytheistic context.

I see attempts of math but not quite of science. I would be interested in examples of this. I find it hard to see how people find any use of studying why the sun moves in the sky if they believe that some god is riding it like a chariot.

But in the wiki article you reference, Stark says he's a Christian. He says that three years after his agnostic comments. Maybe my bias has led right.

He says he is an independent Christian, whatever that means. I suspect that he means that he tries to live a good, moral life but without accepting the dogmas of any Christian denomination. If that is what he means, then there are even many athieists who can consider themselves as an “independent Christian”. After all, atheist Richard Dawkins has tee-shirts with the saying “Atheists For Jesus”. Dawkins argued that Jesus was against the established religious teaching of his time. So Dawkins argued that an atheist is a true follower of Jesus, since he believes that deep-down Jesus himself was an atheist. So if an atheist considers himself a true follower of Jesus, would that not mean that he considers himself a Christian?

Unless Stark comes right out and says that there is a God and Jesus is God, I think there is too much ambiguity in there to read too much into him saying he is an “independent Christian”.

My Christian/Moslem comparision looked at the best period of Islamic culture vs. the worst period of Christian culture. I thought I was clear about that. And I certainly noted the descent of Islamic societies since then. The whole picture I paint is not black/white.

I must be missing something here. You admit that you comparing the best of Islam to the worst of Christianity, and yet I get the impression that somehow you think that this is a fair comparison. But I think this just adds fuel to my argument. If you want to compare Christianity to Islam, then by all means do so. But compare the best with the best and the worst with the worst. If want to look at some Christians burning witches in the past, then compare that to some Muslims doing terrorist activities in the present.

The image of rapers and pillagers storming through a village and meticulously gathering the science and math notebooks is both disturbing and amusing.

Non-fiction can oftentimes be more amusing and disturbing than fiction. If you have documentation of what happened that is different, I am interested to see it.

I dont think your caricature holds up very well.

I have done an extensive study on the history of Islam. It is not caricature.

There has to be a culture that supports and respects science whether its stolen or invented, or else its ignored. And it was ignored later, but not for the three centuries in question.

I agree that for those three centuries the Muslims respected science. But I did not think that was the issue. I thought the issue was the degree that the Muslim contributed to science. If they stole from others, then they themselves did not contribute much. And it is important that they ignored science later. The only credible explanation is the one I gave – that Muslims knew that the science and other studies originated with the culture they conquered, and that once they started losing their battles to the infidels they took that as a sign from Allah that He did not want them to compromise their culture with other cultures. This fits in with Stark’s thesis – that the Muslims view of God and the world eventually caused them to turn their back on science.

Speaking of black/white... if thats a standard to be avoided on principle, you might look again at your own arguments, starting with the above.

I assume that you mean by my statement that the Muslims raped and pillage villages. Again, I like to reiterate, I have done a lot of studying of the history of Islam. This is by no means a caricature. But I do not want to get us off topic. If you want to PM me or open another topic on Islam, I will be happy to discuss it.

Call it scientific fundamentalism if you want. Its the belief that science class should be reserved for learning science. If ID (or anything else) gains validity, scientifically, then admit it to biology class. Until then teach it in some other setting like philosophy or religious studies.

Who determines that ID has gained enough validity for it to be discussed in a biology class? Unlike the Catholic Church, there is no infallible magisterium that determines what is valid or what is not valid. You can produce scientists with the proper credentials saying that ID is not valid. I can produce scientists with the proper credentials saying that ID is valid. So which group is right and which is wrong? That is why I say that we should leave it to the students. Let the students hears both sides. If ID lacks validity, the students will laugh it out of the classroom. If anything, the controversy would make the class far more interesting. Again, I do not know why you are afraid to let the students decide. Either you are afraid that the students are too stupid to decide for themselves or you are afraid that there may be some validity to ID after all.

I agree totally about science cooking along low-burner through the medieval centuries. But I dont agree that Christianity provided an especially fertile environment for it. It could well have been the Greek tradition of rational inquiry that lived on... a tradition that was perhaps lacking in other contemporary civilizations, while the Christian worldview had little to do with it.

Even if we received some from the Greek tradition, we still have to thank Christianity for it, particularly the Catholic Church. Anything that was written before the second century was written on papyrus, which decays very quickly. That means that we have virtually nothing in its original documents before then. Catholic monks devoted their time to transcribing these writings – so that we have copies of copies of copies of these documents. This is not only for the Biblical writings, but also for secular writings of the Greeks.

This destroys the myth that the Catholic Church held back individual thinking and study. It did not. The Church was responsible for preserving what we know of the Greek classical period.

Also, if you are skeptical of anything that comes out the Catholic Church, then you must be consistent and be skeptical of us know anything of the Greek tradition.

I find Nietzsche fascinating. But from what little I know I hardly think he's the authority on the implications of a naturalistic universe. I mean... he believed in "eternal recurrence", so his record on the nature of the universe is not so good.

I mean no offense by this, but I find the word “authority” and atheism to be an oxymoron. I can’t imagine that atheists see any one person or group to be an authority for them. Atheists like to pride themselves to be free-thinkers. They have no one authority. So of course Nietzsche is not an authority.

But, as you say, he is fascinating. I was merely responding that you wrote previously that is absurd to think that science is not possible under atheism. My example of Nietzsche only shows that this is not absurd.

At bottom, I can find no reason that requires a person who provides the principles that guide the universe. Maybe I benefit, personally and spiritually, from a creator figure, whether imaginary or real. But I cannot see any absolute reason why the universe needs one.

I do find reason. These principles are merely postulates that cannot be proven. For instance, we have the postulate that there is order to the universe. This has not and cannot be scientifically proven. It is an assumption that science is based on. Because of this assumption (another word for assumption is faith) we believe that if we can reproduce an event 1000 times that this event will occur the 1001th time under the same conditions. For instance, scientists add 2 parts of hydrogen and one part oxygen, and after doing this so many times, they conclude that will always produce H2O. But this is based on an assumption that can never be proven. Theistic scientists 1,000 years ago were willing to accept that assumption, but I do not believe that atheists would have accepted that assumption back then. Sure, atheists would accept it now, but that is only because of pragmatic reasons. After all these years, scientific experimentation has produced for us all these goodies. It works. So we think it absurd to doubt them. The proof is in the pudding. I doubt that atheists would have trusted in these principles before they were shown to work. But that is exactly what theses theistic scientists did. They trusted in these principles before these principles showed that they could work, because they trusted in God. They trusted in a being who created the world to have order and design. I suspect that most of atheists 1,000 years ago would have been like Nietzchie and distrusted any principles that assumed there was order and design in the universe.

 

[durangodawood]

packermann, i'm going to have to cut some of the fat off our discussion.
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Lets ditch ID/evolution, Starks faith... and I'm almost tempted to ditch the history of Islam, except I would like to know what are your main sources for your extensive study of Islamic cultures.
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I must be missing something here. You admit that you comparing the best of Islam to the worst of Christianity, and yet I get the impression that somehow you think that this is a fair comparison. But I think this just adds fuel to my argument. If you want to compare Christianity to Islam, then by all means do so. But compare the best with the best and the worst with the worst. If want to look at some Christians burning witches in the past, then compare that to some Muslims doing terrorist activities in the present.

Right. I was just examining an era when Islamic culture was at its best, and Christian culture wasnt so great. My point was that theres an ebb and flow of enlightenment that may not depend on the particular religion, but on other social forces. I readily acknowledge that today, Christian-heritage cultures are far superior scientifically to Islamic heritage cultures.
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I mean no offense by this, but I find the word “authority” and atheism to be an oxymoron. I can’t imagine that atheists see any one person or group to be an authority for them. Atheists like to pride themselves to be free-thinkers. They have no one authority. So of course Nietzsche is not an authority.

But, as you say, he is fascinating. I was merely responding that you wrote previously that is absurd to think that science is not possible under atheism. My example of Nietzsche only shows that this is not absurd.

The views of one atheist philosopher are hardly definiative. Plenty of atheist scientists are quite content to persue scientific inquiry without a deity setting the rules that they investigate.
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I do find reason. These principles are merely postulates that cannot be proven. For instance, we have the postulate that there is order to the universe. This has not and cannot be scientifically proven. It is an assumption that science is based on. Because of this assumption (another word for assumption is faith) we believe that if we can reproduce an event 1000 times that this event will occur the 1001th time under the same conditions. For instance, scientists add 2 parts of hydrogen and one part oxygen, and after doing this so many times, they conclude that will always produce H2O. But this is based on an assumption that can never be proven. Theistic scientists 1,000 years ago were willing to accept that assumption, but I do not believe that atheists would have accepted that assumption back then. Sure, atheists would accept it now, but that is only because of pragmatic reasons. After all these years, scientific experimentation has produced for us all these goodies. It works. So we think it absurd to doubt them. The proof is in the pudding. I doubt that atheists would have trusted in these principles before they were shown to work. But that is exactly what theses theistic scientists did. They trusted in these principles before these principles showed that they could work, because they trusted in God. They trusted in a being who created the world to have order and design. I suspect that most of atheists 1,000 years ago would have been like Nietzchie and distrusted any principles that assumed there was order and design in the universe.

I have to admit, that is a very interesting idea you have presented. Perhaps a belief in a creator was indeed instrumental in setting science in motion. Perhaps belief in a creator is even a necessary stage in the evolution of human reason and consciousness.
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[packermann]

packermann, i'm going to have to cut some of the fat off our discussion.

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Lets ditch ID/evolution, Starks faith... and I'm almost tempted to ditch the history of Islam, except I would like to know what are your main sources for your extensive study of Islamic cultures.

First of all, I have a Masters of Divinity at Trinity Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. While there, I did cover comparative religion, including Islam.

Second, I have read several books:

The Sword and the Prophet - Serge Trifkovic
Because They hate – Bridget Gabriel – Palestinian Christian with first-hand experience with Muslims
The Enemy At Home – Dinesh D’Souza – gave a sympathetic view of Islam
Islam Unveiled – Robert Spenser
Why I Am Not A Muslim - Ibn Warraq
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam – Robert Spenser
America Alone – Mark Steyn
While Europe Slept – Bruce Bawer – The first-hand experience of a gay man with Muslims

These are the ones that I still remember reading.

Third – I read several parts of the Q’uran

Fourth – I have read several books on Medievel History. Mostly from a Catholic perspective. I am very interested in that period.

The views of one atheist philosopher are hardly definiative. Plenty of atheist scientists are quite content to persue scientific inquiry without a deity setting the rules that they investigate.

Again, I am just dealing with your statement that it is absurd to think that atheism could conflict with science. I agree that the example of just one atheist does not prove that it happened. But it does refute the idea that this is absurd.

I have to admit, that is a very interesting idea you have presented. Perhaps a belief in a creator was indeed instrumental in setting science in motion. Perhaps belief in a creator is even a necessary stage in the evolution of human reason and consciousness.

I believe that is all that Stark was saying. It could be the evil twist of chance that something that is good for us may still not be true.

But lets get back to the original question – How do I determine which religion is best? I understand this argument to be the following “All right! Let’s say for the sake of argument that that there is a God or gods. Even if that was true, there are so many religions that the odds are against finding the true religion.” But if there is a God, it makes sense that He would show us the true religion by the religion that is the most beneficial to us. Of all the religions that there are in the world, there is no religion that has had more of a positive impact on the world than Christianity. There is no culture that has been more scientifically advanced, more compassionate, more just, more humane that our western culture. And the foundation of our western culture was Christianity. I know it is politically correct to say that all cultures are equally as good as our western culture, but that is simply not true. We are far more advanced from other cultures in every way that I can think of. And the main difference I see between our culture and other cultures has historically been our view of God and the world. Only the western culture has been founded on Judeo-Christian values. The other cultures are historically either polytheistic or pantheistic. It has been the theistic western culture that has advanced above the other cultures in science, compassion, and justice.

This is not to say that things are not changing. As our culture is becoming less Christian, other cultures are becoming more Christian. There are tremendous Christian revivals going on in the Third World Countries recently. I do not think it is a coincidence that the other cultures are going up and we are going down.