I was raised Baptist, leaning agnostic

[Ironpost]

Is this the beginning of the end? I mean we as a country are crumbling, are we to follow in the footsteps of Rome?

[izzie]

1. Well it is still a church ,mine has been said to be a cult

The Southerns do not like mine, seems they put an ad on TV they did not like.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[AlienGirl]

6. What's your favorite part of Shabbat services?

[really annoyed]

3. Nice

I'm agnostic with "Baptist" values. And I don't seem to have a problem with it.

The First Amendment is a nice thing. And I don't really care what other people think about the way I express my "religious" beliefs.

[Samoflange]

4. I was raised the same way

Except i started asking questions in Sunday School like:

"What did god do all that time before he invented the universe? And, if he invented the universe, who invented him?"

or, my most memorable:

"If Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek, why did they slaughter so many people during the Crusades?"

That one got me kicked out of the class and asked to not come back.

Sorry, memories...

Throughout the history of humanity, EVERY SINGLE empire has fallen.

The Roman, French, Spanish, British, Ottoman, Japanese, Soviet, and German (Nazi) empires all rose and fell. Some fared better than others, while some disappeared forever.

I think the American empire is beginning to fail; we're showing all the classic signs:

- overstretched military
- weakening economy
- conservative fundamentalism creeping into government
- apathetic and/or complacent citizenry allowing legitimate dissent to be drowned out by "feel good" jingoistic propaganda

I think we're headed the same way as Britain: they were never really militarily defeated, but their empire was eventually economically and socially diminished by other countries that finally stood up and said "no more."

[Lexingtonian]

5. If as "a country" you actually mean

"this pseudocolonial-reactionary Eurocentric society with its faux civilization and dreams of Empire", you are probably correct. The neobarbaric oh-so-Christian world of "From Here To Eternity" is condemned and dying. Yes, the part of America quite deliberately built to model the Roman Empire in the early 19th century is in selfdestruction- and good riddence to it. It has served its purposes of being a faux European society placed on a continent deserving of something sui generis. All the perennial wars of Western Europe against the North Asian Hordes and the Islamic Hordes and the East Asian Menace are either done or within a half generation of being over. Mission complete, time to dissolve the now-purposeless entity.

Happily, we are the Phoenix- burning up the obsolete forms and creating a truly American, genuine, civilization. Well, in any case something much closer to civilization.

As for your leaving a theist religion (if not an occulticized one, in the case of the Southern Baptists), that's the defining characteristic of joining Modernity. The Creator God has been knocked out by Science, the Supernatural Intervener and Judging God was proven AWOL by the barbarisms perpetrated by and upon the most civilized societies in this century. All religion credible among serious people is now personal, is religious humanism in its actions, is non-theist or post-theist in its theology.

Welcome to the Modern Age. Yes, we've all had to change and adapt our lives to things and thoughts that were once truly alien ones (in the best sense of the word 'alien'). It's either degeneration and The End Of Times, or its merely one more multi-generational transformative change of our society. Think: evolution.