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  Topic: You take away peoples’ traditional religion,...< Next Oldest | Next Newest >  
stevestory



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Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 22 2005,16:16   

"You take away peoples’ traditional religion, and you get Charles Manson, the Raelians, and Scientology."

Or you could win the grand prize and get an atheist.

   
rimby



Posts: 15
Joined: Sep. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 23 2005,06:48   

... or Mormon missionaries --- eeeek!

  
sir_toejam



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Joined: April 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 23 2005,11:56   

as brought up later in the thread this came from...

Europe.

Would most compare the bulk of Europe to any of the 3 cults listed by SS?

  
Wonderpants



Posts: 115
Joined: Sep. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 23 2005,12:14   

Quote (sir_toejam @ Oct. 23 2005,16:56)
as brought up later in the thread this came from...

Europe.

Would most compare the bulk of Europe to any of the 3 cults listed by SS?

No. Most people here seem to realise that Scientology is a cult designed to fleece people out of their money, that Charles Manson is an insane murderer, and the Raelians....I don't actually know what they are, but they're not about to take the world by storm.

--------------
Fundamentalism in a nutshell:
"There are a lot of things I have concluded to be wrong, without studying them in-depth. Evolution is one of them. The fact that I don't know that much about it does not bother me in the least."

  
sir_toejam



Posts: 846
Joined: April 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 23 2005,13:39   

okeedokee, but my point wasn't about the definition of "cult" here, or whether the 3 cases above fit the description of "extreme", it was that increasing levels of secularism don't result in anything like the extreme positions implied by the 3 things mentioned in the first post.

Most of Europe being a case in point.  Scandavia being an excellent subset in that it has very rapidly become secularized in the last few decades, and of course has not "imploded" into radical extremist sects.

perhaps i should always spell out what i mean instead of assuming understanding of implied inferrences.

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 23 2005,19:50   

I should have been more explicit in my original post. If you look at everyone in America who rejected the Big Traditional Religions, you're talking about 10% or so of the population. The vast majority of those list themselves as Atheist/Agnostic. That is all you need to know to reject the idea that leaving the big religions means you join a cult.

   
IMind



Posts: 5
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Oct. 26 2005,04:37   

I suspect the number of people that are Atheists or Agnostics is actually well higher than 10% of the population.

Because there are lots of communities that would alienate anyone who was "openly" athiestic or agnostic... etc. but I doubt that's a signifigantly high number....

but there are a large portion of people that identify themselves as a particular religious affiliation just because they were born into it... like racial affiliation...

  
  6 replies since Oct. 22 2005,16:16 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >  

    


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