Maybe God Doesn't Know What Is In A Person's Heart ....

Do They Think God Doesn't Notice?

Christopher Ingram of Wonkblog brings one of those chuckles we get from affirmation of something we long suspected, or, such as the colloquialism goes, "I knew it!"

There are but three certainties in American life: death, taxes and fibbing about how often you go to church. That last item comes via a new Public Religion Research Institute survey (brilliantly titled "I Know What You Did Last Sunday"), which found that Americans significantly overstate their church attendance to pollsters.

Most polling happens via interviews over the phone, and when we talk to complete strangers we have a tendency to tell them what we think they want to hear. Pollsters have long suspected that this dynamic has been in play with measures of religiosity in the United States, so PRRI decided to test it out. They administered the same survey questions to two groups of people: one group was asked via a traditional telephone survey, while another took the survey online.

Less than one-third of phone respondents (30 percent) admitted to attending religious services seldom or never. But online, freed from the normative pressures of interacting with another human being, 43 percent of respondents said they seldom or never went to church. Similarly, online respondents were less likely to say they went to church weekly or occasionally than were phone respondents.​

This sort of behavior is, to the one, normal and expected. To the other, though, religion—and especially redemptive religion—really isn't suppsosed to be about "what the neighbors think"; it's more supposed to be between the believer and God.

So one really does wonder why they bother lying to people on the phone, unless they also believe God isn't tapping the line. Then again, this is also one of those outcomes that can be rationally grasped within a dialectic of neurosis. And that difference depends entirely on what any given beholder finds significant about the idea.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

​

____________________

Notes:

Ingraham, Christopher. "Americans lie about how much they go to church, even if they don't belong to one". Wonkblog. May 19, 2014. WashingtonPost.com. May 19, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...go-to-church-even-if-they-dont-belong-to-one/

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

We are pressured to lye because we are under constant atack... notably by militant atheist types.!!!

God knows everthang... an he understands why us believers do what we do... an our reward awaits.!!!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Yeah well, the reality is that "what the neighbors think" has always been a big part of religion since the very beginning. It's a pretty defeatist attitude to think that vanity is something we need to be saved from and that only a divine saviour can hope to pull it off; the authors and promoters of such views are basically saying that they themselves are psychopaths and hedonists at heart who can only maintain control because some higher power is constantly talking them out of it.

Religions of peace shouldn't be spending half their precious theological doctrine time talking about wars rather than clever ways to prevent them. Religious leaders should be openly admitting that they're ultimately as dumbf*** clueless as every other human being on the planet, and merely go on faith and what they and their followers think are convincing arguments.

In heaven you get unlimited M-16's with laser rangefinders and digital optical gunsights, and enough high explosive and armor-piercing ammo to last to eternity. There will also be infinitely many atheists and deer for you to hunt at your leisure in your cloud-hopping ATV. Coming soon to a heaven near you: anti-atheist landmines, to make extra extra sure Satan doesn't win.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

That sounds awfully enticing! The only drawback I see is that it's cold as h... ice there. Plus, and I've said this before many times, what if you don't like it there, are you stuck there for eternity? Does God really hold dead souls against their will?

 

OMG :xctd:... whew... after readin half way thru that i had a double orgasm... give me a moment please... :zzz:

Anyhow... when the info about unlimited guns an atheists to hunt becoms more widely disseminated church attendance will double makin Tiassas OP a mute pont :thumbsup:

 

Even thow itss bon chillin' Kold thair?

 

Where did you get that wrong info. :shrug: ;;; the eternity forcast for heaven is 72 an sunny.!!!

 

Thay must hav a wud birnin' stov up thar. I bet thay hav lots uf tres thar 2.

 

Heaven is passive!

 

Whatever God does... God considers good... an God considers M-16's as good.!!!

 

I think it might work like this:

If God really likes you 100% then when you die you get to be right beside God in the extreme cold of Heaven, for eternity. If God rated you less than 100% then you move further away from God, where it's warmer, closer to Hell. As the rating God gave you is lower, the further away from God you get, and the warmer it gets, because you're getting closer to Hell. If God gave you a zero rating then you're in Hell for eternity where it's extremely hot, next to the devil.

So the way I figure, being rated at about 50% is looking a lot like Earth, and a good temp too!

It's like how progressive lenses work...

 

oh boy... this got off track mighty fast...