Ok. It’s a world I’m unfamiliar with. I had Jewish friends (moderate), Islamic friends (moderate), went to a Methodist church (moderate), had Catholic friends (moderate) growing up.
I didn’t meet my first evangelical / religious person (my mother referred to them as “scary christians” ’til I was about 21 yrs old.
The preachers on TV were a joke to me, and I thought the audience was in on the joke for our entertainment.
I still find it hard to believe ppl believed it and to me, were just there for the show.
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I find most “back to basics – ‘let’s get it right this time around” ends up leading into trouble, historically.
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Oh I believe it. It’s just not a world I’m familiar with. Same with Evangelical / Fundamentalism. Baptists to me were always black people when I was in New Jersey (USA). Even living in Florida now, white Baptists aren’t what I’d seen portrayed on the Internet.
My interests went from methodist –> baha’i –> Vipassana meditation (Buddhist I guess? I dunno) –> researched (Unitarian Universalist –> Quaker –> Roman Catholic ) –> Eastern Orthodox (converted – almost became a monk) –> Osho –> agnostic for the past 13 years or so.
I’d go deep into whatever I investigated, but none of it was heavy on Bible study.
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Well, I don’t know who mr college liberal is that you’re talking about but I did do a lot Bible reading in my time and studying.
I went deep into theology, much of the psychological elements of it and such, and gained a decent comprehension of the Trinity, the nature of prayer (and what prayer is -not-) and such, and truth was mostly experiential, not cerebral.
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I’m agnostic through and through
There’ a lot of things I’m agnostic about. It’s what gives me room to learn new things from everybody I meet.
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I doubt most people get past Memes or quoting the greats of their chosen ideological system.
Original thought/research is rare, generally speaking.
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Our addiction to the Internet as a species will continue as we as our power needs. Whatever global warming measures they put into play will have enough loopholes for coal mountains to drive through. Industry will continue.
The only fear to worry about is that someday, you’re gonna die. Beyond that, humanity will continue. Will it be 7.x billion? 20 billions? Will it be 5 million that need to rebuild?
There’s no way to know, but I’d bet that none of us in this forum today will be here to live to see it any kind of apocalypse, nor likely our children, grandchildren or great grandchildren.
Maybe I’m wrong. But end-of-the-world scenarios can easily take us over.
And how much power do you, personally have? Me?
Look around you. Your sphere of influence. You’re infinite in capacity yet our times are short.
Look at the sphere of influence of the leaders? Most of their power is constrained.
Even US and Russia: As angry and bitter and fighty as we get, we ALL want to live to see tomorrow, but we also like to bomb the shit out of some scapegoat somewhere to take away all of our sin.
So, we chose easy targets that can’t destroy us totally and those that can, know WE can do the same and won’t push the button.