Why is Christianity dying in the west?

[supremeyingyang]

 

Please, I need some insights to this.

[Danioover9000]

@supremeyingyang

1 hour ago, supremeyingyang said:

 

Please, I need some insights to this.

   Developmental psychology, and the evolution of ideas and the passage of time;.

[hyruga]

It isn't dying. People go back to Christianity when they are old.

Edited March 17, 2023 by hyruga

[DocWatts]

Because Christianity has largely failed to adapt to the needs of people living in complex, pluralistic societies.

An SD-Blue '"one right way" religion that constructs a shared identity from simple moral precepts to follow (don't steal, don't murder) may have been sufficient for someone living in a homogeneous agrarian village hundreds of years ago, but offers little in the way of cultivating the kind of wisdom that is needed in the complex, evolving world we happen to be living in today.

Indeed, the Christian religion has on the whole spent more of its energy trying to hold back the floodgates of change than it has finding ways to adapt its existential Truths to make them more inclusive and relevant in a scientific, multicultural world.

That said there's no reason why Christianity in theory can't take on more nuanced and inclusive forms, but the inertia that comes with institutionalization makes this in practice very difficult. Mining the existential Truths which do exist within Christianity requires the painful process of killing God, that is of looking beyond magical beliefs (ie Jesus being the literal son of God), which is a price not many are going to be willing to pay.

Edited March 17, 2023 by DocWatts

[Hardkill]

Because people in the West are getting smarter and wiser as a collective. 

That means that more and more people western societies have become increasingly skeptical about the ideas of  Christianity or of any kind of religion being supported by any facts.

Furthermore, most people in the West have become increasingly influenced by more secular lifestyles and less so by religious lifestyles. This is because the environments of western societies keep getting more and more modern and the faith on religion gets increasingly replaced by faith on science.

[Romanov]

5 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@supremeyingyang

   Developmental psychology, and the evolution of ideas and the passage of time;.

Passage of time?

[Romanov]

3 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Because people in the West are getting smarter and wiser as a collective. 

That means that more and more people western societies have become increasingly skeptical about the ideas of  Christianity or of any kind of religion being supported by any facts.

Furthermore, most people in the West have become increasingly influenced by more secular lifestyles and less so by religious lifestyles. This is because the environments of western societies keep getting more and more modern and the faith on religion gets increasingly replaced by faith on science.

They’ve become more skeptical of Christianity and less skeptical of other thing as such as scientism. I find it a red flag when someone or a group becomes more skeptical of something because it’s usually accompanied by naïveté in another area. 

[supremeyingyang]

7 hours ago, hyruga said:

It isn't dying. People go back to Christianity when they are old.

In a way is that exactly what I mean, here symbolist in the fact that the adepts of Christianity with their refound cristian Faith die after living a materialist life serving the idol of the hedonistic treadmill.

 

6 hours ago, DocWatts said:

Because Christianity has largely failed to adapt to the needs of people living in complex, pluralistic societies.

An SD-Blue '"one right way" religion that constructs a shared identity from simple moral precepts to follow (don't steal, don't murder) may have been sufficient for someone living in a homogeneous agrarian village hundreds of years ago, but offers little in the way of cultivating the kind of wisdom that is needed in the complex, evolving world we happen to be living in today.

Indeed, the Christian religion has on the whole spent more of its energy trying to hold back the floodgates of change than it has finding ways to adapt its existential Truths to make them more inclusive and relevant in a scientific, multicultural world.

That said there's no reason why Christianity in theory can't take on more nuanced and inclusive forms, but the inertia that comes with institutionalization makes this in practice very difficult. Mining the existential Truths which do exist within Christianity requires the painful process of killing God, that is of looking beyond magical beliefs (ie Jesus being the literal son of God), which is a price not many are going to be willing to pay.

In the last hundred Years, since the Enlightenment, Christianity was a force against the progress. Protestantism Max Weber claimed was the source believe of the capitalistic believe system - you try to reach success to prove yourself and the world that you are in accord with god! Paired with charity to the poor and thrifty attitude. Read 'Poor Richard'! See:

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

"If we are industrious we shall never starve; for, as Poor Richard says, At the working Man's House Hunger looks in, but dares not enter."

...and my favourite:

“We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly, and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement.”

 

7 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Because people in the West are getting smarter and wiser as a collective. 

That means that more and more people western societies have become increasingly skeptical about the ideas of  Christianity or of any kind of religion being supported by any facts.

Furthermore, most people in the West have become increasingly influenced by more secular lifestyles and less so by religious lifestyles. This is because the environments of western societies keep getting more and more modern and the faith on religion gets increasingly replaced by faith on science.

Smarter and wiser, that is the question! Is that the case or is Christianity becomes just out of tune with survival agendas?

 

9 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

@supremeyingyang

   Developmental psychology, and the evolution of ideas and the passage of time;.

You mean Christianity deteriorated due to the time that hast past?

3 hours ago, Romanov said:

They’ve become more skeptical of Christianity and less skeptical of other thing as such as scientism. I find it a red flag when someone or a group becomes more skeptical of something because it’s usually accompanied by naïveté in another area. 

Good point, one needs to get his attention to the blind spot of the sceptic, which makes one more competitive and less prone to make mistakes of evaluation.

 

@hyruga@DocWatts@Hardkill@Danioover9000@Romanov

Good replies!! Time for the corollary Question: Why is Christianity unable to reform???

At this point I should add: I ain't a Christian, nor do I plan to become one. But one thing is christal-clear to me: After 1500-2000 year (depending on region) Christianity had a huge Influence and most of the Intellectual life up to the Enlightenment was published under the label of Christianity and the Church was the biggest Patron for storing and teaching knowledge. Copying books. Latin. Holding a library.

 

[Michal__]

Also, Christianity was supposed to be a serious metaphysical system not the bullcrap you see in churches.

Go to a Christian monastery and maybe, just maybe if you're very lucky there will be one rare person who has reached omniscience. At least temporarily.

[supremeyingyang]

4 minutes ago, Michal__ said:

Also, Christianity was supposed to be a serious metaphysical system not the bullcrap you see in churches.

Go to a Christian monastery and maybe, just maybe if you're very lucky there will be one rare person who has reached omniscience. At least temporarily.

I want to highlight 'serious' - I feel Christianity isn't serious any more?

[Michal__]

1 minute ago, supremeyingyang said:

I want to highlight 'serious' - I feel Christianity isn't serious any more?

No, it isn't. Or at least only very rarely (maybe one in 10000 Christians does worthwhile training in a meaningful dose or probably even less).

[supremeyingyang]

5 minutes ago, Michal__ said:

No, it isn't. Or at least only very rarely (maybe one in 10000 Christians does worthwhile training in a meaningful dose or probably even less).

The average christian does not pray, meditate (chtistianity has this too), read the bible, go to church... What does one need more of a proof that they are not serious. Right?

Edited March 17, 2023 by supremeyingyang

[Michal__]

8 minutes ago, supremeyingyang said:

The average christian does not pray, meditate (chtistianity has this too), read the bible, go to church... What does one need more of a proof that they are not serious. Right?

That's literally about nothing compared to what true Christian mystics do.

Presence training, all day different kinds of contemplation, physical exercises like fasting. Everything in similar doses like you'd see in a Zen monastery.

As I said previously - serious Christianity can lead to omniscience.

Going to church, reading the Bible every morning and praying for less than an hour a day will do literally nothing to get you closer to God union.

That's as absurd as thinking that meditating for less than an hour a day can lead far.

----

Combine that with all the dogma they accumulate by not contemplating the texts seriously and you have a recipe for crippled metaphysical understanding.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Michal__

[supremeyingyang]

1 minute ago, Michal__ said:

That's literally about nothing compared to what true Christian mystics do.

Presence training, all day different kinds of contemplation, physical exercises like fasting. Everything in similar doses like you'd see in a Zen monastery.

As I said previously - serious Christianity can lead to omniscience.

Going to church, reading the Bible every morning and praying for less than an hour a day will do literally nothing to get you closer to God union.

For sure, I talk here about Christian Culture - they are not even doing their Stage Blue watered down version.

[Michal__]

Just now, supremeyingyang said:

For sure, I talk here about Christian Culture - they are not even doing their Stage Blue watered down version.

I literally grew up in the church and know that seeing an omniscient Christian is as rare as seeing a golden turd.

[supremeyingyang]

2 minutes ago, Michal__ said:

I literally grew up in the church and know that seeing an omniscient Christian is as rare as seeing a golden turd.

We agree on this point. What I mean is that most selfproclaimed christians don't do even the bare minimals like reading the bible or praying let alone fasting.

[trenton]

@supremeyingyang the reason Christianity like many religions struggle to reform is because they conflate belief and truth. Questioning these beliefs and threatening the survival of the church is commonly lumped together with killing God. In fact people have been killed over questioning religion and to this day atheism is punishable by death in the middle East.

Religion is deeply problematic in that it is a paradigm lock that keeps people from seeing the world from many perspectives. This leads to many misconceptions about other religions which in turn leads to persecution due to Christians learning about Islam from a biased source like their church. If people were taught the philosophy of other religions, not to subscribe to them but just to understand them, then this would be the key to preventing persecution through clearing up our misconceptions.

So long as the many religions are at stakes with each other by placing the survival of an ideology over truth they will never reach God. A start would be to recognize validity in other religions to see the deep similarities they share. If Christianity for example is close minded to other religions because they are taught that those ideologies are evil, then they will never explore Satanism. Most Christians assume that Satanists are literal devil worshippers. In fact most Satanists are atheists and they use Satan as a symbol of man as an animal. Satanic cults are far from representative of this worldview. Childhood imprinting and indoctrination can hold people back for their entire lives when they are taught an absolutistic morality that demonizes other world views.

Religions certainly do change, but it is a long, slow, and brutal process that takes hundreds of years. Nevertheless some progress is being made. Here are two examples.

1. More divisions of Christianity are embracing same sex marriage. Although most Christians are against homosexuality, some churches integrate scientific knowledge. This includes prenatal hormones which are linked to sexual orientation. Homosexuality can't be a sin if this is how people are born. Furthermore, when the bible says "sodomites" it is not condemning homosexuals, but rather false priests Who are sell outs to other Gods. This is a common misconception that is unfair to gay people because the KJV and NKJV use a misleading term for false priest.

2. More divisions of Christianity are allowing priests to marry. In light of the sex scandals, some Christians are trying to replace unhealthy expressions of sexuality with something healthy, for example sex in marriage rather than shrine prostitution. Some Christians are becoming more open to sexuality because treating it like a sin in practice backfires in many ways. Sometimes it even leads mass shooters to killing a dozen women because they were tempted to have sex with them. Purity culture is deeply problematic because you can't repress sex forever. Your body could not exist if not for sex.

Maybe there are others, but I don't remember off the top of my head.

[Davino]

1: Lack of proper methods to achieve mistical experiences

2: Lack of modern saints that embody the christian principles and path

[hyruga]

Christianity is up against the invasion of social media and the internet. Now, not only do the kids like to play lots of gaming, even the parents do and like to surf YouTube. Fewer people browse christian bookstores, leading to massive closure and less awareness.

The bible has not been updated in more than 100 years. In fact, the Christian community is trying to protect its own tradition from being eroded by new age, new internet craze so it's unlikely the bible will be updated anytime soon save for some cosmetic changes.

So what do you propose that can be added to the Christian books and traditions?

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2023 by hyruga

[Danioover9000]

@supremeyingyang

5 hours ago, supremeyingyang said:

In a way is that exactly what I mean, here symbolist in the fact that the adepts of Christianity with their refound cristian Faith die after living a materialist life serving the idol of the hedonistic treadmill.

 

In the last hundred Years, since the Enlightenment, Christianity was a force against the progress. Protestantism Max Weber claimed was the source believe of the capitalistic believe system - you try to reach success to prove yourself and the world that you are in accord with god! Paired with charity to the poor and thrifty attitude. Read 'Poor Richard'! See:

"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

"If we are industrious we shall never starve; for, as Poor Richard says, At the working Man's House Hunger looks in, but dares not enter."

...and my favourite:

“We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly, and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement.”

 

Smarter and wiser, that is the question! Is that the case or is Christianity becomes just out of tune with survival agendas?

 

You mean Christianity deteriorated due to the time that hast past?

Good point, one needs to get his attention to the blind spot of the sceptic, which makes one more competitive and less prone to make mistakes of evaluation.

 

@hyruga@DocWatts@Hardkill@Danioover9000@Romanov

Good replies!! Time for the corollary Question: Why is Christianity unable to reform???

At this point I should add: I ain't a Christian, nor do I plan to become one. But one thing is christal-clear to me: After 1500-2000 year (depending on region) Christianity had a huge Influence and most of the Intellectual life up to the Enlightenment was published under the label of Christianity and the Church was the biggest Patron for storing and teaching knowledge. Copying books. Latin. Holding a library.

 

   What I mean is, there's no such thing as a supreme yin and yang, ever. Time ultimately heals, and ultimately destroys all your petty BS.