Taphophilia Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I had a friend who was also an Ex-Christian, and had spent some time in law school and she learned that law was 20 years behind the times. When we compared Christianity to where it fit in with society, we came to the conclusion that Christianity is 40 years behind the times. Would you say this is accurate? Christianity's attitudes and societal reasonings would more fit into the mid 60's. Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 Honestly? I think Christianity is 2000 years behind the times. 5000, if you're talking about the OT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purple Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 I had a friend who was also an Ex-Christian, and had spent some time in law school and she learned that law was 20 years behind the times. When we compared Christianity to where it fit in with society, we came to the conclusion that Christianity is 40 years behind the times. Would you say this is accurate? Christianity's attitudes and societal reasonings would more fit into the mid 60's. Taph I think it would depend on the brand. UU's are probably less, Oneness Pentecostals are probably more. Course other brands of Christianity would say both of those are not Christian at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cathuria Posted January 19, 2006 Share Posted January 19, 2006 First, on target with what I think is the focus of your question -- perhaps 40 years is too precise, but gives the right impression of some denominations. Religions, particularly fundamentalist ones, tend strongly to conservatism and therefore distrust what is new and trendy, seeing the "good old days" as the right thing to emulate. Those "good old days", of course, being just as mythological as anything else they preach... But I can't help going a bit off-target and agreeing with Gwenmead -- I think humanity showed itself capable of doing just fine without this superstitious horseplop around about the time of Socrates. Christianity, by squelching education and dominating society, gave us a thousand years of the Dark Ages. Behind the times indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Open_Minded Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 First, on target with what I think is the focus of your question -- perhaps 40 years is too precise, but gives the right impression of some denominations. Religions, particularly fundamentalist ones, tend strongly to conservatism and therefore distrust what is new and trendy, seeing the "good old days" as the right thing to emulate. Those "good old days", of course, being just as mythological as anything else they preach... Your comments about "the good old days" are interesting. I did a quick lookup on Wikpedia for 1950s. Following is an excerpt on "Culture, Religion" within the article.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s#Culture.2C_religion Culture, religion Traditional pop music reaches its climax; early rock and roll music (with Elvis Presley in the lead) was embraced by teenagers/youth culture while generally dismissed or condemned by older generations. Brylcreem and other hair tonics have a period of popularity Television replaces radio as the dominant mass medium in industrialized countries. In the West, the generation traumatized by the Great Depression and World War II creates a culture with emphasis on normality and calm conformity. Juvenile delinquency said to be at unprecedented epidemic proportions in USA, though some see this era as relatively low in crime compared to today. Continuing poverty in some regions during recessions later on in this decade. Fairly high rates of unionization, government social spending, taxes, and the like in the US and European countries. Mostly liberal or moderate Western governments, though communism/Cold War play a role in reaction to, and within, domestic politics. Beatnik culture/ The Beat Generation Optimistic visions of semi-Utopian technological future including such devices as the flying car. The Day the Earth Stood Still hits movie theaters. Along with the appearance of the sentence Kilroy was here across the United States, graffiti as an art form develops, especially among urban African Americans; graffiti eventually becomes one of the four elements of hip hop Considerable racial tension with military and schools desegregation in the US, though controversy never truly erupts as later on in the 1960s. The Catcher in the Rye The Twilight Zone premiers as the first major science-fiction show. Rise of evangelical Christianity including Youth for Christ (1943); the National Association of Evangelicals, the American Council of Christian Churches, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (1950), and the Campus Crusade for Christ (1951). Christianity Today was first published in 1956. 1956 also marked the beginning of Bethany Fellowship, a small press that would grow to be a leading evangelical press. Carl Stuart Hamblen religious radio broadcaster. I don't think it's so much about the fundies being 40 years behind the times as they are stuck in the decade of their birth. As cathuria said, "the good old days". Only, they weren't all that great. I wouldn't have wanted to been in any one of the following demographics during the 50s. * a woman * African American * Any minority * Gay/Lesbian * Teenager To be honest I can't even imagine wanting to be a white/protestant male during the 1950s, it still would have been too restrictive. The roles were quite well defined for men as well as women and children. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueGiant Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 It's funny. No matter when you go, it seems that people pine for the "good old days", up to and including some Roman texts, at least. Christianity being 40 years behind the times, I am not so sure, given that Christians are a very large element (unfortunately) of our society, they would have a hand in making the "times." Now as far as the "curve" goes or the cutting edge, then, yeah you could make a pretty strong case that Christians in general are the ass that society's dragging along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 Depends on the sect. The Mo. Synod church where I grew up was about 50 years behind the times. It should come as no surprise that most of the people there were old or middle aged. I was one of a handful of baby-boomers' kids who ended up being forced to go to the church's school. There were probably about a hundred or so of us kids total going to the school. They put some grades together in the same classrooms (1st & 2nd, 3rd & 4th, etc). The school is still around and going strong, last I heard. The liberal church I attended for a while (they were United Church of Christ) was up with the times. They weren't homophobic. Even the pastor did gay marriages, and there was a lesbian pastor who took over when the previous pastor retired, and they had very liberal attitudes, etc. Problem was they still wanted me to literally believe that Jesus existed, and I couldn't do that without historical evidence outside of church propaganda. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merlinfmct87 Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 I think Serenity hit it on the head, it depends on the sect. Some manage to drag the bible into the present... while others choose to take it literally. I think the best way to put it, however, is what gwenmead said, we're a thousand - or two - years behind where we should be. Merlin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Would you say this is accurate? Christianity's attitudes and societal reasonings would more fit into the mid 60's. I'd say you're missing a "0" there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike D Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 I think the pentecostal church is at least 150 years behind the times, at least the one I went to. In my church it was frowned upon if women wore makeup or pants, if their skirt even touched their knees, the men needed to have short hair, dancing and drinking were sins, if you heard rock music you should run out of the room because the devil was surely after you, etc. Seriously I think if they could have forced women to wear bonnets men to wear coveralls and straw hats and trade their cars in for covered wagons they would have done it in a sec..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 You know, this thread highlights one of the major problems with churches. Fundamentalist churches attract people who are afraid of change. A lot of people who go to those churches are so afraid that they would rather follow strict rules in fear of going to hell than try something new, and they would impose their fear on the rest of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted January 22, 2006 Share Posted January 22, 2006 Honestly? I think Christianity is 2000 years behind the times. 5000, if you're talking about the OT. I agree totally; Xianity is a doomsday cult that only had relevance to the times of its first adherents. Its earliest writings clearly indicated the end of the world was to happen during their lifetimes and that no new age was to come. Well, we've seen lots of ages come and go since the death of the last original Xian, and no end of the world. Therefore, Xianity cannot help but be 2000 years behind the times, and any objective reading of the Holah Scripchahs will demonstrate this. Any and all attempts since then to "update" or "further interpret" Xianity beyond its original meaning as a doomsday cult only succeed in reinventing it over and over, and masking its genuine nature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Apostacy Now Posted February 3, 2006 Share Posted February 3, 2006 I think the pentecostal church is at least 150 years behind the times, at least the one I went to. In my church it was frowned upon if women wore makeup or pants, if their skirt even touched their knees, the men needed to have short hair, dancing and drinking were sins, if you heard rock music you should run out of the room because the devil was surely after you, etc. Seriously I think if they could have forced women to wear bonnets men to wear coveralls and straw hats and trade their cars in for covered wagons they would have done it in a sec..... Some fundaMENTAL Baptist churches are as well. I've been "out" of the Christian movement for almost 10 yearas now, but I grew up in an ultr-conservative one that was very similar to what you just described. We were a horse carriage away from being Amish. Utlitmately it just ended up being a re-hash of legalism. All the church members talked about each other behind their backs, but as long as they looked the part that's all that mattered... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnosis of Disbelief Posted February 3, 2006 Share Posted February 3, 2006 Welcome aboard, Apostacy Now! Glad you have found your way out of fundyMENTALism and found your way here! Sounds like your church was even more uptight than mine (and mine was involved with the Christian Reconstructionist movement.... shudder....) Oh, and I love your handle.... Would you say this is accurate? Christianity's attitudes and societal reasonings would more fit into the mid 60's. I'd say you're missing a "0" there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted February 3, 2006 Author Share Posted February 3, 2006 I think the pentecostal church is at least 150 years behind the times, at least the one I went to. In my church it was frowned upon if women wore makeup or pants, if their skirt even touched their knees, the men needed to have short hair, dancing and drinking were sins, if you heard rock music you should run out of the room because the devil was surely after you, etc. Seriously I think if they could have forced women to wear bonnets men to wear coveralls and straw hats and trade their cars in for covered wagons they would have done it in a sec..... Some fundaMENTAL Baptist churches are as well. I've been "out" of the Christian movement for almost 10 yearas now, but I grew up in an ultr-conservative one that was very similar to what you just described. We were a horse carriage away from being Amish. Utlitmately it just ended up being a re-hash of legalism. All the church members talked about each other behind their backs, but as long as they looked the part that's all that mattered... Hi Apostacy Now, Welcome! Most of the Baptists where I was from were like this. They couldn't go to Pizza Hut or a Baseball game because alcohol was served there. Women couldn't wear shorts or pants and it was a sin to go to the movies. Taph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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