It’s a money-maker, too; YEC guest speakers that come here rake in the bucks.
It’s the difference between a founder who laid down his life for others and one who regularly and enthusiastically took the lives of others (assuming he actually existed, which I’m starting to doubt).
Which is a very bad sign about said churches!
There is big difference between mere historical existence and did he do and say what tradition claims. It’s the same for the historical Jesus who is a a part of Judaism with a God who routinely and regularly takes the lives of others. Dawkins is a cultural Christian and I’m guessing that entails beliefs centered around an anti-Semitic reading of the Bible. He may be a cultural Marcionite.
Another thing from the article that struck me was the shift in gender demographics in younger generations:
But today, these demographic realities are flipping. Gen Z is the first generation in ages where men outnumber women as regular churchgoers.
Every church I’ve ever been to has had more women than men, perhaps because women tend to live longer and retired women end up doing the bulk of the “caring” work, but if that changes, churches may look very different in the next few decades.
I do wonder about that statistic as well. Most older churches are dominated by old groups, so I wonder. Perhaps the surge of the neo-Calvinist bearded bros with their craft beers has something to do with the stats. The article seems to indicate that the culture of masculinity promoted by Mark Driscoll and his kin seems to be driving women out, and may be causing a net loss in church attendance.
Maybe the debate has shifted but Christianity is dying in younger circles is it not? Research shows there are less and less Christians the younger the age group. If less and less people take the Bible seriously there won’t be much of an argument at all. Our phones are the new religion. We might as well call them god because given our screen time (devotion), people practically worship them.
Most people only think religion and science really conflict when people tell them do. Usually this is a fire of a conservatives own making.
And just to tack on to the show mentioned….I’m not sure if anyone watched Bones? I always found the interaction between Booth and Brennan on the issue of faith interesting. They disagreed and had wildly different views on that topic but they still had a wonderful chemistry and partnership.
The lack of young to middle age is nothing new. There has always been a tendency to return to church in later life. People get caught up in jobs, homes and families. When all that has come and gone, and with death getting closer the church becomes something of interest again. The problem is that schools no longer provide a grounding in Christianity.
I am unsure of an answer though.
Richard
My experiences from two small churches during a revival was that the early growth was predominantly men, mostly young adults. The next step included more women, mostly young adults. The third step was that there formed many pairs that started to get children. This led to a growth in children’s activities and later in the activities of older children and teenagers. Children’s activities attracted more families to the church.
When the revival ended, the sex ratio slowly turned towards women forming the majority but there were still many men because most of those men that joined during the revival stayed and were the responsible persons until the younger generation replaced them.
Maybe these experiences were an exception but I would not be surprised if the same happened again if/when we get the next revival.
I haven’t been in churches that do “revivals” in that sense, so it’s interesting that you’ve seen that. In conservative churches like I’ve been in, men are often more “visible,” holding all the major leadership roles, but I have seen a lot more married women who come to church without their husbands than husbands who come to church without their wives (sometimes the husbands were not Christians, and other times they just weren’t social and didn’t like large groups)… in fact, I can only think of one man who regularly attended church without his wife.
But from what I read, this is the first time that the gender shift has been stark enough to show up statistically. My guess would be that movements like #metoo and #churchtoo have had an impact as well, and that young women are becoming more aware of the impacts of gender-based hierarchies, as well as the other reasons given for “Nones” who have been leaving in the past decade.
There are really some interesting things happening in the graphs in that article This one seems to indicate women are leaving the church faster than men, perhaps in response to the factors you mentioned, Laura.
This is tangential to the discussion, but I was wondering if a biologist like you could briefly explain what the evidence is for a LUCA. My understanding has been that it is kind of fuzzy on how the domains Bacteria, Archaea and Eucarya could have arisen from a common ancestor. Is that a solid fact in Evolutionary Biology? It seems to me that the difficulties of finding fossilized microscopic life forms from the period of a LUCA (> 3.5 billion YBP) are enormous. Perhaps there is solid evidence from genetics that a LUCA existed.
The most compelling piece of evidence for me are the molecules involved in translation, the process of making protein from RNA. Transfer-RNA (tRNA) is an important component in this process.
First, there are a set of enzymes that specifically bind to the D-loop of the tRNA and attach a specific amino acid to the top of the molecule. Different D-loops have different sequences, and different enzymes bind to each sequence. This means the amino acid attached to the tRNA is determined by what the enzyme binds to and the sequence of the D-loop.
The anticodon of the tRNA then binds to the complementary bases (A:U, G:C) on mRNA. This adds the amino acid attached to the tRNA to the elongating protein molecule.
The relationship between the enzymes, D-loop, and anticodon are all arbitrary. There is no reason why they have to be what they are. If life had separate origins I would not expect each separate group to have the same tRNA’s, or possibly not even tRNA’s at all. The fact that all life uses the same relationship between amino acids, anti-codons, D-loops, and enzymes is really, really strong evidence for universal common ancestry, at least in my eyes.
And this is just one piece of the puzzle.
Also, a bit on Aminoacyl tRNA synthetase in case you want to go down the molecular biology rabbit hole:
And you can look at this and not see God?
I guess you also think you can win the lottery.
Richard
Yes.
I have the same tRNA and translation systems as my siblings and cousins. Why? We share common ancestry.
Richard
PS all roads do not lead to common ancestry.
What we see is exactly what we would expect to see if common ancestry is true. That’s how the scientific method works. We don’t throw out scientific explanations because someone believes there are supernatural processes that may exactly mimic what we would expect from natural processes. This is what we call the law of parsimony.
Yawn.
You are the one with a one track mind.
Richard
If you think I am wrong, then please tell us what we should expect to see with respect to tRNA and protein translation if common ancestry is true.
I think this is a good example of the differences in how science and faith approach these questions. Scientists are looking for testable and falsifiable explanations of the data. Faith is looking to explain how the natural world interacts with their beliefs. Those are two very different purposes.
I’m guessing that you could care less about anti-codons, D loops, and aminoacyl tRNA synthetase. Well, biologists do care about those things because they are part of the data we are trying to explain and understand through the scientific method.
This is probably why you don’t understand why someone would ask what the evidence should look like if common ancestry is true. You aren’t trying to explain the data in a scientific manner. That’s not the purpose you have set out for yourself, and that’s fine.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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