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Why do you men think people are leaving it nowadays…? What are some of the reasons that you men think people simply don’t believe it anymore, or no longer find it attractive…?

Don’t know for sure. But it may be the hypocrisy of Christians supporting homosexuality and such.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 ESV
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Inane threads are destroying Western Christianity.

IMO - people leave religion, most often, because it's hard. It asks for self denial and like most animals, our default condition is to simply satisfy any/all desires.


It's easy to follow a standard when there isn't an alternative. Add temptation (which the world is doing at an accelerating rate) and suddenly the ask seems harder to accomplish. It gets hard - you rationalize the reason why you no longer want to participate and you bail.

I think your question is wrong...

It is less that people leave God... but more that they allow clutter to be placed on top of their Faith by others (...or themselves).

If you can be distracted by a shiny object... my associate can steal your wallet... or Soul.

Yep. That and ammo manufacturers not loading a bunch of 35 Remington and 44 Russian.

Because people are waking up and realizing all religions are a hoax/cult. They can choose if they are atheist or agnostic and not be burned at the cross. Right?

Also, All religions have the same basic principles/concept. And everyone believes their religion is right one. The idiocracy is baffling.
Do you also believe Harry Potter magic to be real? No? But the magic in bible is real! ….. Got it!
and my favorite is we have all met that one or few righteous Christians or Catholics that are a giant POS. But on Sunday’s they are all forgiven.

Sin.

It’s washed out when the woke culture is allowed into the church

Women preachers

Gay pastors

Gay weddings

Not kneeling the whole time and church services in English instead of Latin was a good change.

The central leadership of many denominations have been infiltrated and corrupted. It's almost to the point that in order to find a church that doesn't have a corrupt central governance, you have to go non denominational,...and you have to choose carefully even then.

I believe that just 50 years ago, 90% of Americans identified as Christian. Today that is below 50%.

The turn of making "churches" as businesses has turned people away IMO. The business model is now 14 minutes of praise and worship, less than 40 minutes of a sermon, no longer a call to alter, and making sure the coffee bar has expresso. And definitely no talk of the hard stuff, like working for what you want, LGTQLMNOP stuff.

It's all about feeling good, and nothing about being convicted to something greater than "self".

In a world that is now all about self, faith is about less of self and more of Christ and that becomes very difficult for people.

Now is more important than the future.

antlers;
Morning sir, I trust your Monday is going as well as possible and you've had a decent weekend.

If I may, I'll state up front that I have a tough time figuring out why I do the things I do daily and as it has been pointed out to me many, many times in life, my ability to empathize with anyone else is absent for the most part.

Growing up in a small rural evangelical but pacifistic church where half the congregation was related in some way, I rejected the church and Christ when I was 15 because of the hypocrisy I saw in the lives of the church attendees. My statement or thought was more or less, "If being a Christian is acting like Uncle _____ or Aunt ____, then I want no part of it".

So I left the church, rejected my former beliefs and shortly after that I had the car fall on me when I was working under it. Since I've posted that here a couple times, I'll just say the short version is that "something" lifted the car off of me - miracle #1 - and once family got me to the hospital the top medical experts gave me only a slim chance at surviving and zero chance of full recovery - miracle #2.

Possibly from my mostly Teutonic lineage, I continued to rebel against what I believe was direct Divine Intervention in my life for the next nearly 4 years. Nobody has ever accused me of being the sharpest knife in the drawer - ever...

The best way I can articulate the cause for my rebellion was that it would require me to admit I owed a debt to a Higher Power and if I chose to be a servant it'd mean I would have to make an honest effort to change for the better.

Please don't misunderstand this for me believing that I can in any way, shape or form earn Christ's love for me and the gift of salvation, but for me personally, I really take the book of James to heart which - to me - indicates we should outwardly manifest a positive change for the better.

That's hard for a number of reasons for me personally, it takes daily effort and some days I don't feel like making that effort.

On some levels and with some actions I'm fine with taking responsibility for my actions, again that whole German thing likely, but it's tougher for me to rein in the noncharitable thoughts I have towards many of my fellow humans. I'm commanded to love them antlers and I don't even like them.

It has helped me in my spiritual journey to focus on my own actions and to not look for hypocritical behavior in anyone else. That's between them and God when they cross over is more or less where I'm at with that antlers, but I do get there's areas where a church needs to deal with members whose actions are detrimental to it.

Reading back on this sir, I'm not sure I've answered your question or not exactly? Hopefully somewhat?

Thanks for making me think this morning and all the best to you this week.

Dwayne

I have heard the saying: "There are no atheists in foxholes". If you take the organized religion aspect out of it, the human experience IS hardwired to ask the same fundamental questions of existence.

BTW religion is not the same as spirituality.

In regards to the original question, the institution of organized religion has been displaced somewhat by the nanny state.

Me personally, when I look at the amount of suffering in the world I pray that I can witness the end of times in my human existence on earth.

Religion is a form of control and as a result its as corrupt as politics. How are mega churches in business? Is no one actually reading the bible? If Jesus were alive today, he would be disgusted by what has happened and is happening in his name. Back when they were deciding which books to put in the bible and which ones to toss, who made that decision? If you want to believe that God told them then hand all you money over to the mega churches, Joel Osteen needs a new private jet so he can get closer to the heavens and have more clear conversations with God. If I want to be reminded that there is a higher power, I will go out in the woods before sunrise and watch the world wake up. I am not going to sit in some church and have people tell me what to believe.

Splendid Dwayne.[img]https://images.knowing-jesus.com/i/mark-9-24-lord-i-believe-help-my-unbelief-black[/img]

I see more and more folks who are Christians leaving religion, not their individual relationships with God. There is a huge difference.

Even Jesus decried religion and He was a Jewish Theologian!

As is continually pointed out (and rightly so) by the atheists and agnostics here, religion has caused more human suffering and death than even Communism, and that's saying a lot!

Having a personal relationship with God, minus the religious laws, is the way God intended it to be. It's all right there in the Bible, which has been twisted for centuries by those who would obtain and maintain power and control.


Ed

That's a very good point. Atheists and agnostics never forgive nor are they ever forgiven by other Atheists/Agnostics.

Very relevant topic and interesting comments.

I think that there are several factors. One is that, in most of the "traditional" denominations, distancing behavior over time by younger parents has resulted in far fewer young people being involved in highly relevant Sunday school - and thus, not moving into church attendance and leadership. Not so much a factor in situations where the churches are more evangelistic and not dominated by denominational aspects.

As some have posted - other strong factors as well.

For reasons noted here by others, and other reasons as well, it is not difficult to understand why otherwise thinking people have distanced themselves due to inconsistencies/corruption/falsity in various organizational hierarchies. Most organizations by humans do this to themselves. Such propensity is Biblical.

One huge bonus over time may be that most true Christians will live the fact that Christianity at its root consists of a personal relationship with the Savior and a Triune God, and will demo this in their daily lives. And, with realization that willful and strengthening fellowship with others is a secondary, although often important, activity.

Then again, maybe I am way off base.