The Decline of Religion in the West. A TED Talk

[Steve Petersen]

15 minutes long, but informative. Good overview.

 

[joinfree]

15 minutes long, but informative. Good overview.

The satan remains defeated, I have checked the Bible end part.

 

[Steve Petersen]

The satan remains defeated, I have checked the Bible end part.

Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing to the thread.

 

[Kenny'sID]

I only watched the first couple minutes, and he was correct about how it's declining, but it doesn't take a degree to know that it will....as far as Christianity goes anyway. This is all biblical/prophesied.

 

[Steve Petersen]

I only watched the first couple minutes, and he was correct about how it's declining, but it doesn't take a degree to know that it will....as far as Christianity goes anyway. This is all biblical/prophesied.

Watch the rest.

 

[Tree of Life]

15 minutes long, but informative. Good overview.

Obadiah 3-4
The pride of your heart has deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rock,
in your lofty dwelling,
who say in your heart,
“Who will bring me down to the ground?”

Though you soar aloft like the eagle,
though your nest is set among the stars,
from there I will bring you down,
declares the Lord.

Every nation and culture at its height believes it's unshakable. But no nation can make a permanent stand against Yahweh. Modern secular culture will go the way of all flesh.

 

[Grumpmeister Supreme!]

Please keep in mind that my response is from my Christian perspective.

A "Quantative Social Scientist". Whatever that is that sounds quite impressive. Anyway, the decline of "religion" has been proclaimed ad nauseum in one way or another for as long as I can remember. This is just another person adding his two cents worth. The problem I have with modern day prophets is that whatever their predictions are they are quite frequently wrong! IMHO one would be better off taking whatever they say with a liberal dose of salt.

"But contemporary culture is not conducive to religious revival". Revivals have occurred not only from such atmospheres but in spite of such.

Sorry, but this talk or discussion or whatever it was, like all the others, fails to convince.

Have a good day.

 

[Colter]

When secular totalitarianism fails, the world will once again resume the search for values, for spiritual truth.

 

[Steve Petersen]

Please keep in mind that my response is from my Christian perspective.

A "Quantative Social Scientist". Whatever that is that sounds quite impressive. Anyway, the decline of "religion" has been proclaimed ad nauseum in one way or another for as long as I can remember. This is just another person adding his two cents worth. The problem I have with modern day prophets is that whatever their predictions are they are quite frequently wrong! IMHO one would be better off taking whatever they say with a liberal dose of salt.

"But contemporary culture is not conducive to religious revival". Revivals have occurred not only from such atmospheres but in spite of such.

Sorry, but this talk or discussion or whatever it was, like all the others, fails to convince.

Have a good day.

You see this pattern in the story of Israel. Material prosperity and security bring a reversal in their devotion to their native deity. Along comes catastrophe, and voila!, they become devout again. I think this is a really primal reaction to being faced with your mortality. Makes me wonder about the Great Awakenings in Britain and America that occurred periodically. Did these happen in times of material hardship for the masses?

 

[Tree of Life]

You see this pattern in the story of Israel. Material prosperity and security bring a reversal in their devotion to their native deity. Along comes catastrophe, and voila!, they become devout again. I think this is a really primal reaction to being faced with your mortality. Makes me wonder about the Great Awakenings in Britain and America that occurred periodically. Did these happen in times of material hardship for the masses?

This is the situation that America and the west is currently in. The prosperity brought about by modernism has also brought about a secularism that has caused us to forget the biblical foundations of modern prosperity. Ezekiel 16, while a picture of Israel, is apt for the post-Christian west today.

 

[Grumpmeister Supreme!]

You see this pattern in the story of Israel. Material prosperity and security bring a reversal in their devotion to their native deity. Along comes catastrophe, and voila!, they become devout again. I think this is a really primal reaction to being faced with your mortality. Makes me wonder about the Great Awakenings in Britain and America that occurred periodically. Did these happen in times of material hardship for the masses?

And yet during the Victorian Era in Great Britain when industrialization and materialism were increasing Christianity grew if not thrived. A number of missionary organizations were founded during this time as well as a number of other Christian organizations.

 

[joinfree]

Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing to the thread.

It is just your rude opinion.

 

[Winken]

There is no way back. Instead of Billy Graham, we have the TV talkers espousing $$$$ for faith. Instead of humbly and worshipfully gathering together, we attend services to listen to jazz bands followed by talkers who race back and forth across the stage, "revealing" some "new word" from God, some new method for gaining and profiting from God's approval. Its as if God doesn't know us until the hawker reveals Him and the congregation hears about it for the first time; the Truth has been there in the Bible all along. The Holy Spirit has been present in the life of the authentic Christian Believer all along. He has been calling out to seekers and non-Christians all along.

Hold on.......... there's a TV preacher who needs my sustaining gift........he'll send me a book......but wait.......he'll include a disc.....if I order right now...... be right back......

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You see this pattern in the story of Israel. Material prosperity and security bring a reversal in their devotion to their native deity. Along comes catastrophe, and voila!, they become devout again. I think this is a really primal reaction to being faced with your mortality. Makes me wonder about the Great Awakenings in Britain and America that occurred periodically. Did these happen in times of material hardship for the masses?

Well, Steve, if we look at 9/11 for instance, the reports I've seen in the past seemed to indicate that those affected by that event were at first provoked to religious questioning and searching, and some people who weren't previously committed to religion turned to religion. However, these studies I remember reading, and I wish I could find them now again, seemed to also indicate that this turn to religion among some people ended up being a quick fix, but in the long run, they took the 9/11 event and went 'south' in their ideologies and again were not religious, and maybe even became less religiously prone.

Or if we take the disasters of World War 1 and 2, while in the U.S. (the social winners of those wars) religious appeal increased somewhat during the 40's and 50's, but in war torn Europe, it is a known fact that these two wars basically tore the heart out of many people in their considerations about faith in God, not the least of which are the Jewish people who now are highly represented among their own ethnic niche as atheists or unbelievers.

So, I'm not sure there really is a 'voila' that comes with disaster. More often than not, most people interpret disaster, whether war, famine, natural catastrophe, etc. as a sign that there is no divine power rather than a reason to 'turn' to being attentive of any divine presence. in fact, if we look at the spiritual and social patterns in the O.T. just before Jerusalem and its first temple were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, we see anything but a 'voila' taking place. Rather, we see a majority of the people of Israel thumbing their nose at the prophets of God, prophets like Jeremiah, and then by proxy at God Himself......and they all go down fighting, except for a small remnant.

For me, what we see in the video you've posted in the OP falls more or less into the expected biblical pattern, part of which is historically seen in the biblical counts of national Israel of old. Another part of which seems to be expected in some way in the book of Revelation.

That's my take on it. In some ways, I hope I'm dead wrong about it...it's not 'good news.' But it's not surprising, either.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

 

[Kenny'sID]

Watch the rest.

Why?

Before we spend the time, a quick rundown on any outstanding parts would be helpful.

 

[Steve Petersen]

And yet during the Victorian Era in Great Britain when industrialization and materialism were increasing Christianity was growing if not thriving. A number of missionary organizations were founded during this time as well as a number or other Christian organizations.

That industrialization came at the expense of labor. People thronged to the cities and were paid starvation wages. They were economically more impoverished than if they had stayed on the farms.

 

[mark kennedy]

You see this pattern in the story of Israel. Material prosperity and security bring a reversal in their devotion to their native deity. Along comes catastrophe, and voila!, they become devout again. I think this is a really primal reaction to being faced with your mortality. Makes me wonder about the Great Awakenings in Britain and America that occurred periodically. Did these happen in times of material hardship for the masses?

What sparked the Great Awakenings was a fire and brimstone sermon by Johnathan Edwards, 'Sinners in the hands of an Angry God'. An Anglican Pastor, John Wesley was also preaching a more compassionate Christian walk.

"When the blizzard that was the industrial revolution howled through the winter of England's soul in the 18th century, it blew the poor people like maple leaves before a November wind into the cities. and it left then, like leaves, piled in random heaps. Housing conditions were outrageous. Ten persons per unfurnished room was a common arrangement. Horse manure polluted the unpaved streets. It was sometimes piled 14 feet high on both sides of some London thoroughfares. Typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and smallpox ravaged unchecked through the population. Some 90% of the populating were poor, 40% desperately poor. Starvation was a daily reality, as reported almost every edition of every edition of every English newspaper. Graveyard operators maintaining gaping 'poor hole' large common graves left open until the daily flow of corpses of nameless nobodies finally filled them. (Here We Stand, Wes Tracy)
​

Wesley was preaching that our duties as Christians wasn't just to attend church and pay tithes but compassion on the suffering masses. This was extended to political theory and he was one of the key people who brought about the Bloodless Revolution. The situation in the colonies was facing a miserable wake of the 7 Years War and the looming War for Independence.

Contrast this with the hundreds of years of political power being accumulated by the Roman Catholic Church that hit it's apex about 1000 AD. The secular arm of the church was being extended to excommunicate the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the rise of the Inquisition and Crusades and the persecution of Waldensians and Cathars, all resulted from a very powerful ecclesiastical authority.

Biblical examples are plentiful but the most telling for me was the circumstances surrounding the eighth century prophets.

Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ (Amos 7:12-15)
​

At that time Ephraim had become the largest and wealthiest of the tribes of Israel, sometimes used synonymously with Israel. The priests and the prophets are drunk, neglected their duties and they are confronted by the prophet Isaiah.

Woe to that wreath, the pride of Ephraim's drunkards, to the fading flower, his glorious beauty, set on the head of a fertile valley-- to that city, the pride of those laid low by wine! (Isaiah 28:1)
​

They ridicule the prophets simple message of repentance, pronouncing terrible judgment that Isaiah would see in his lifetime. Once Hezekiah showed the Babylonian envoys the treasures of the palace the prophet preached the Babylonian invasion was now unavoidable:

Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, “What did those men say, and where did they come from?” “From a distant land,” Hezekiah replied. “They came from Babylon.” The prophet asked, “What did they see in your palace?” “They saw everything in my palace,” Hezekiah said. “There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them.” Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. (2 Kings 20:14-16)
​

Wealth and prosperity have a cooling effect of spiritual vigor. When things are bad often religion is at it's best. At times of tremendous wealth and power it's often at it's worst. This pattern can be seen both in Biblical narrative and more modern church history.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[Grumpmeister Supreme!]

That industrialization came at the expense of labor. People thronged to the cities and were paid starvation wages. They were economically more impoverished than if they had stayed on the farms.

Yes, that as well.

 

[Colter]

Also, there is plenty of "religion" outside of institutional religion. In this age we are seeing the elimination of the superstitious component of religion.

"The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods; and even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily befog the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition which so long obscured the living God of eternal love. The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none.

The gods of primitive men may have been no more than shadows of themselves; the living God is the divine light whose interruptions constitute the creation shadows of all space.

The religionist of philosophic attainment has faith in a personal God of personal salvation, something more than a reality, a value, a level of achievement, an exalted process, a transmutation, the ultimate of time-space, an idealization, the personalization of energy, the entity of gravity, a human projection, the idealization of self, nature's upthrust, the inclination to goodness, the forward impulse of evolution, or a sublime hypothesis. The religionist has faith in a God of love. Love is the essence of religion and the wellspring of superior civilization.

Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal religious experience. Skepticism may challenge the theories of theology, but confidence in the dependability of personal experience affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into faith." UB 1955

 

[jimmyjimmy]

15 minutes long, but informative. Good overview.

Is this something which brings you joy?

BTW, the world is becoming more religious and less religious simultaneously. The middle is losing members.