Posted on 03/22/2016 9:00:38 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Fewer Americans say they believe in God or pray regularly — yet more people believe in an afterlife nonetheless, a new study finds.
It's a generational thing, with millennials the least likely generation to say they're religious or to take the Bible literally, the team at San Diego State University, Florida Atlantic University and Case Western Reserve University found.
"In recent years, fewer Americans prayed, believed in God, took the Bible literally, attended religious services, identified as religious, affiliated with a religion, or had confidence in religious institutions," the team wrote in the journal Sage Open.
"The large declines in religious practice among young adults are also further evidence that millennials are the least religious generation in memory, and possibly in American history," said psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University, who led the study.
The team looked at the General Social Survey, in which up to 58,000 people are interviewed annually about a variety of factors, including religion.
They answered questions such as: "What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion" and "Do you believe there is a life after death?"
They found big changes since the 1970s and 1980s.
"In the late 1980s, only 13 percent of U.S. adults expressed serious doubts about the existence of God (choosing one of the less certain response choices such as 'I don't believe in God,' 'I don't know whether there is a God and I don't believe there is any way to find out,' or 'I don't believe in a personal God, but do believe in a Higher Power of some kind,'" the team wrote.
Fewer also believe the Bible is the actual word of God.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
To shut God out of your picture is kind of like that.
You can do it, but you have no logical basis upon which to complain about the picture you get.
I tend to believe that Hell is eternal separation from God.
I extend this to also mean any God-like qualities: life, love, light, purity, etc.
So in my book, Hell is a dark, lonely, filthy place of corruption. Kinda like Detroit. ;-)
One of the horrifying aspects of Hell is the fact that for eternity you KNOW you did this to yourself.
I don’t agree with Mr. Adams viewpoint (and I sure he now has regrets), but this topic reminded me of the quote.
The pope said everyone goes to heaven, atheists and all. That is the public message these days. God, not so much. Jesus - never.
Also, this is a generation brainwashed and terrorized by queer activists whose sexual activity is named a sin in the Bible. How could the Bible be true or the world of God if it gets homosexuality wrong?
My thought was that whether or not their is a God, the Singularity hype is proof it is a powerful impulse built into the species - and atheists while denying a deity then put all their faith in creating one.
Of further interest,the following paragraph describes the NDE experience of German actor Curt Jurgens during cardiac arrest:
"...I had a feeling that life was ebbing from me. I felt powerful sensations of dread (then suddenly everything) turned a glowing red. I saw twisted faces grimacing as they stared down at me (I tried to defend myself but) could no longer shut out the frightful truth: beyond the faces dominating this fiery world were faces of the damned. I had a feeling of despair....the sensation of horror was so great it choked me. Obviously I was in Hell itself (and then suddenly) the black silhouette of a human figure began to draw near...a woman...with lipless mouth and in her eyes an expression that sent icy shudders down my back. She stretched out her arms...and pulled me by an irresistible force (into) a world filled with....sounds of lamentation....I asked the figure...who she was. A voice answered: "I am death." (German actor Curt Jürgen’s, To Hell and Back, Maurice Rawlings, MD, pp. 76-77)
Kind of sounds like the ghosts that C. S. Lewis envisioned in his book “The Great Divorce.”
Unless she somehow turned to Christ after all this, and one never really knows in this mortal coil, she got to be where she could hate God forever. God won’t leave those cold hells alone.
They come up with grand proposals for putting something in God’s place. It rarely fails. Sometimes you’ll see a live-and-let-live atheist, but this is probably actually an agnostic.
No he didn't...pay attention.
All ice cream, no lima beans.
And the beast[5] was taken, and with him the false prophet[6] that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." Rev 19:20
sounds pretty hot to me.
Not sure where you're getting your idea of cold from as it contradicts what's in Luke 16:19-24
It's pretty clear from Luke and other passages that Hell is a real place and it is a place of torment and fire.
19“Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. 20“And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, 21and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. 22“Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. 23“In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. 24“And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’
If so, this is hell:
Monday do your taxes
Tuesday go to the DMV
Wednesday do your taxes
Thursday go to the post office
Friday do your taxes
Saturday drive on the DC freeways
Sunday worship the golden Obama statue
The bible talks about flames in hell. It never says hell is hot. Now Redneck how can that be? Flames are hot aren’t they?
We Rednecks don't hold to that position...
It seems more logical to me, to posit a cold hell than a hot hell. And the bible never actually contradicts this.
Rev_19:20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
Burning sulphur...Brimstone is sulphur...Cold sulphur does not burn...Burning sulphur burns without a visible flame...Rotton eggs smell...
Rev_20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Tormented with very hot fire...
Mar_9:43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
Mar_9:44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
It is not the flesh that goes to hell but the soul...The soul feels pain but can not burn up...Pain forever...
Rev_21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Rev 14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Yer thinking too much...
Apparently if you are Catholic it doesn't matter...They've got their own unbiblical spin on the situation...
For them heaven and hell aren't a place, they are a state of mind...Their pope even says you can be an atheist and be a Catholic Christian and go to heaven...
So the bible then is a book of fiction???
My own view of Hell,would be as a silence eternal and final.
That's no hell...That's nothing...
The MSM, & Marxist love the idea of this...
You assume that this isn’t symbolic. But it has to be, because the reaction between S and O2 comes to completion, while this is perpetual.
And your own attitude is summed up at the end: “Yer [sic] thinking too much.”
Could you in fact be sharing in the coldness of the devil?
Nobody said there wasn’t torment, or even hot fire present. If you want to be picky, hell is actually thrown into that Lake. It could remain cold while the fire in which it is tormented in, is hot. We are talking about a perpetual situation, whereas literal chemical processes come to completion.
And also the point of view needs to be taken into account. To the wicked, righteousness is as a stink, an “odor of death to death.” The occupants of hell remain wicked. The fire is righteous; the sufferers not.
Would you have it that those who meditate on the implications of God’s word are NOT blessed?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.