John. America the melting pot they say. I feel that the closely supervised religions where neighbours keep neighbours in line will be the last holdouts. Among these are the Ultra orthodox Jewry, Islam and a few of the small splinter sects. The recent push to home teaching is a cover for this to allow the young person to be fully brought into sync religion wise before leaving the house/farm etc.
I know that Islam has the 5 prayer periods daily and in Islamic communities there are religious police that make you conform or drum you out. Do the orthodox Jews practice the same sort of supervisory control over their flocks?
Many of my friends are concerned about this 'diaspora' with no return, however there is no effective or coercive way to stop it. We are a free people, and I suppose all religions will wither away in time, and not just Jewry. What of the 1000's of religions that are already gone, and have no-one to mourn them? Mumbo Jumbo I say.
It is interesting to note that if you ask people if they believe in a god, about 95% profess they do. However if you measure church attendance only about 7% attend(with christmas/easter peaks) on a regular basis(It is under 3% in the UK, and around 5% in europe) This tells me that people do not believe, but want to be seen as believers for fear of being ostracised as the old time catholics/islamists do. Social pressure is quite powerful. Clinton did not attend church much before he got into office, that tells me where his head lies. If he was a true believer he would have been a steadfast attendee all his life. What an oily thing to do.
What started this thread?, it seems to be a free wheeling thread, generally attacking you, but I have not read far enough back to get a real feel for your position. Some liken you to a paid promoter, others liken you to a believer in a stock swooping like an avenging angel on disbelievers.
No time to read every post, I wonder if the SEC does?, what a job, looking for undercover touts who promote a particular stock.
Bill |
