re: Poll: Americans moving away from religion

As a religious person, I really would prefer that most non-secular persons would refrain from conversation without a point. Spitting out religious platitudes doesn't benefit anyone. It just leads down a path of knee jerk "rapture," "God is morality," and other really difficult concepts to back up in a short form debate. Those ideas in brief don't buy you any credence or value in what should be an intellectual discussion.

Seriously, if you read the bible, Jesus doesn't walk around to disbelievers and say "Well, you'll pay in the rapture," even if that was the intention.

Those types of comments just feed the beast that is built on this quip:

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but I have to like this trend.

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It was a troll job. Well done.

And liking the decrease of something 1) Important to many people and 2) For the most part, built on Honest and Good principles is extremely petty and spiteful.

(This is not to say that all religions are good and honest, but most the major ones are. Conflating things like Catholicism, Prosperity Gospel and Shinto doesn't help any argument. But that's obviously what ends up happening every time.)

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Divorce rates are high because of boomers, not millennials.

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Probably because they subscribed to moral precepts conditioned into them by religious belief.

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They project to get better actually as more people choose to wait to get married and choose to cohabitate pre-marriage.

And the growing number of folks that just don't get married at all.

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These actions resulted because a growing number of Millennials do not subscribe to religious moral principles. Their actions are based on reality, not moral prescriptions dictated by the church or society, and you get a better, more authentic result. This is one small example of how the declining religious impulse amongst the younger generation is a good thing. Fewer feel pressured to get married prematurely, they live together and explore whether the relationship is a good candidate for marriage first base on compatibility and preference. Therefore, if marriage results, the relationship has been vetted in an authentic manner first and the marriage is more likely to survive long term. Religion and its so called moral principle are not reality based in many instances. They are based on a delusional belief that it is what "God wants". But these are just manmade beliefs created by societies at certain times and places throughout human history.

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societal norms and standards

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Which would be? Would that be a good thing? How would society arrive at this norm or standard? Why would we arrive at this norm? Why one particular norm/standard and not a different norm/standard?

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How would society arrive at this norm or standard?

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we just decide...kinda like how we all kinda decided slavery was bad awhile ago

I think religion can be great for a lot of people and most are rooted in being good people.

I just think none of them have any place in government and sadly there is an absurd amount of legislation guided by Christian beliefs.

Ill never understand how Christians opposed to gay marriage can't separate a marriage being allowed in a court house and a marriage being forced in your church.

Is it the term marriage?

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And that is probably because the concept of the rapture was created by the church centuries after Jesus is said to have walked the Earth. And was based on a complete misunderstanding of what Jesus words were really pointing toward. But that is just a minor thing that we don't really need to concern ourselves with.

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Matt 24:36 "but of the day and hour no one know"

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societal norms and standards

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Sounds a lot like religion.

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genuineLSUtiger

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I completely agree with almost everything you're saying actually. So much of the argument is just semantics once you can get past the equally wrong beliefs that either God is a. a bearded guy in the clouds who punishes you for being bad or b. Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

No surprise. The US is done.

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I just care to keep religion out of legislation entirely.

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Its impossible. At every level of government you have belief systems. They are integral parts of the decision making, when laws are written, when laws or rules and decisions are handed down. You can't get around that.