Posted on 12/29/2017 1:14:14 PM PST by MtnClimber
Sick of tinsel, carols and talk of virgin birth?
In New Zealand, Australia and many other countries, its hard to escape Christmas in December.
But even if you dont believe in Christ or a God, religion can still be a powerful force. Research shows that even nonreligious people may hold unconscious beliefs linked to religion that can affect their psychology.
By many measures, religion in Australia, New Zealand and the USA is declining but Christianity still shapes the culture and politics of these societies, from the holidays celebrated to values officially endorsed.
Its not that surprising that religious symbols and traditions remain in secularised societies. What is surprising is how religious beliefs may remain in and affect the minds of secular people.
Subconscious responses to God A study in Finland explored how religious and non-religious people responded to the idea of God.
The researchers used electrodes to measure how much sweat people produced while reading statements like I dare God to make my parents drown or I dare God to make me die of cancer. Unexpectedly, when nonbelievers read the statements, they produced as much sweat as believers suggesting they were equally anxious about the consequences of their dares.
And thats not simply because nonbelievers didnt want to wish harm on others. A companion study showed that similar dares that did not involve God (such as, I wish my parents would drown) did not produce comparable increases in sweat levels. Together, then, these findings suggest that despite denying that God exists, nonbelievers behaved as though God did exist.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearscience.com ...
But everyone really does know that God exists.
Whether that is translated into becoming saving faith is a different topic.
And just WHERE did you ever get that idea?
That has to be one of the all time weirdest question I've ever heard asked about God.
You continue to quote acts of faith. Not every one in this world has the faith that you possess. To many people faith is like a foreign language. That’s why it is so difficult to argue or reason about matters of faith and religion. Wouldn’t it be great if we all had faith, so that we could support each other in difficult moments?
Nicely done.
"The true light which enlightens every man, was coming into the world." (John 1:9)
There are those who reject it. John, both in his Gospel and his Epistles, writes a lot about people who accept, or reject, the light of faith.
"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19)
That statment is based on the mistaken assumption is that religion drives morality.
Yes and that is why Paul said that if our hope is in this life
only we are most miserable of all men, even unbelievers.
Yeah, God believes in them. That is the critical part.
Probably true, Jesus told the religious leaders of his day
that they were of their father the devil, I do not see any
reason to believe they would be any different today.
That is how I see it, religion is just a symbol of what some
claim to or actually believe.
I believe the Bible tells us to worship God in spirit and in
truth, not in ritual.
Many professed christians worship religion rather than god
because it is more like a blanket contract rather than a personal one, just kind of be in the crowd and sneak in if
there is anything to it.
Agnosticism is to just not know. Atheism is certainty of ignorance.
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