This accords with my observation that conservatives are very shrewd at seeing the direction of social change but prone to overestimating its speed. That's because they overlook how conservative people can be, which is pleasingly paradoxical.I assent, but note that after a generation or so, things can turn very quickly. Boomers were the last generation to grow up in church. Large numbers disappeared from the pews after confirmation, or entering college, or upon marrying to a different ethnic group (even of similar faith). But a lot Christian-based behavior was retained - it was just seen as something that nice people do. Some values, such as generosity and drawing back from cruelty, kept going anyway, even though they no longer had any foundation.
Personal generosity continues to erode, while the government-imposed version continues to rise. How that plays forward I don't know.
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I think it was C.S. Lewis who replied to a complaint about the ill effects of having chapel no longer be mandatory. Attendance had fallen dramatically between one year when it was mandatory and ten years later, and the claim was that the lack of encouragement had resulted in a loss of faith.
Lewis replied that he knew the event well, and the drop was not a long term decline but instantaneous. The change did not cause, but measured, the lack of faith that had been invisible before.
"Some values, such as generosity and drawing back from cruelty"
These are not intrinsically Christian values and have nothing to do with whether or not you went to church. Believe it or not, some of us do not need the threat of an arbitrary god punishing us in hell forever just to be decent human beings.
Anonymous, I have heard that said, and there are small parts of it that are true. If you care to have that discussion as an actual debate here, give it a try.
You will lose. These are not issues that people have not thought hard about, simply awaiting some clarification from you on the matter. I suggest the opposite - there is much here you have not thought through, and are merely parroting what someone else has taught you and tickles your fancy.
For openers. Notice the generosity of traditionally Christian versus non-Christian nations. Run the numbers. Now run similar numbers for three American groups: no church, church-raised, and currently churched.
The difference is rather stunning, actually.
@Anonymous, I haven't heard many preachers saying that people should give to charity, or risk damnation to Hell.
Is this something that you think happened, or something you've observed?
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Diablo should do something. Torchlight is coming and you'll lose players as soon as it comes if you don't do something good. Diablo 3 Gold"Oh, if you guys get bored, and you run out of content, we'll uh... Try to do something. But right now, we're just focused on getting D3 released."The skill trees and being able to place my stats was part of the fun in D2. You guys just took out the fun parts of the game and said hey we have a RMAH use it Buy Diablo 3 Gold and give us more money for ruining your game.Ill take anything new for diablo! Just think its funny they scramble to keep us interested with this material then pumping out pvp first.
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