Religion, Secularism and Homosexuality

[Eric the Green]

(06-16-2016, 12:05 AM)radind Wrote: What I have seen from barn.org is 3 polls conducted over a period of ~ 20 years with the result that the percentage in the USA with a Biblical worldview is ~ 10%.

How would you explain the differing percentages in the results of their various polls? Where is the poll that says 10% have a Biblical view? I don't think it exists. You claim to have seen such a poll; I don't see it.

Quote:No poll from anyone provides proof. One can accept the information in the polls or not. You clearly do not accept the barna results. 

I'm sure they interviewed real folks, but polls results can differ depending on how the questions are framed, and what conclusions are drawn.

Quote:I do not agree with your claims that such views foster hatred.

But you offer no refutation of my view. Views that say we are right and others are wrong foster hatred and division; not among all who believe them, but among some like that pastor Jimenez and Mateen.

Quote:Since our worldviews are in conflict, it appears that we have exhausted this topic.

The topic can never be exhausted. And "dialogue" can only happen when each person responds to the questions and challenges of the other, with genuine interest. But I will be ready to refute you whenever you claim that the "secularist majority" are about to oppress the "Christian minority." It just ain't so.

It is your right to hold your worldview, and I respect that. I may have held it nominally, as a child; but I mostly grew up as a devotee and fan of science and materialism, but with a love of Nature and Music. As an older teenager I threw over this view and moved into Oriental philosophy and mysticism, and then gradually embraced various Western hermetic and esoteric, holistic views, fully switching into this mode in my late 20s.

Myself, I prefer the worldview that says that some are enlightened, in various degrees, and some others are enlightened and don't clearly know it yet. I would put you in the second category. The truth is self-evident to all. It requires no Bible, no preacher, no guru to experience it, however much they might help, or hinder, that experience. It is always there, in everyone. The truth is found in all religions, to one degree or another. Jesus did not come as the only-begotten Son of God to sacrifice his life for our salvation, and to demand that we believe he is the Only Son or else continue to be damned sinners. He came to demonstrate eternal life as the essential truth of our being; that we are all God. He came, in his words, that we may have life, and have that life more abundantly.