Why are there so many churchy people here.

[memphis]

Most people here are nerdy guys under the age of 30. Not a place I'd expect to find the smug religious types. Yet they are very common. What gives?

[memphis]

Funny. I wasn't even thinking about Christmas. It's a subject I've been thinking about for a while.

[memphis]

The gift side of Christmas is so nice at the theoretical level. And in practice, it is so revolting. Reminds me of communism.

[memphis]

Great, another pious lecture from Gustaf.  Just what I always wanted for Christmas!

Questioning the validity of religion is not allowed here. You should know that by now. Religion has a get out of critical thinking free card. Those who dare to violate are terrible, terrible people.

[memphis]

I find it very hard to believe that Torie doesn't resent the massive tax exemption that churches enjoy. He's mentions that he owns quite a few homes.  He could pay a great deal less in taxes iif the churches would carry their own weight. But, alas, party loyalty uber alles. I suppose the cover the churches provide for the GOP provide ample returns on his investment. Torie's no fool.

[memphis]

What is a street sermon? The clergy don't stand on a soapbox on tbe corner and bellow at passersby?

[memphis]

I find it very hard to believe that Torie doesn't resent the massive tax exemption that churches enjoy. He's mentions that he owns quite a few homes.  He could pay a great deal less in taxes iif the churches would carry their own weight. But, alas, party loyalty uber alles. I suppose the cover the churches provide for the GOP provide ample returns on his investment. Torie's no fool.

You way over analyze me Memphis, and I don't think read my texts very closely at all. So many ulterior motives, so little time. Anyway, it is not all about me. I just don't think that way. Why should I? Beyond having some care about the community at large, and its welfare - no man is an island, hard as that may be for your to believe, the marginal utility of more money to me is getting  asymptotically close to zero. I am not really very much interested in either things, or power. So having boatloads of money is pointless - to me.

And yet the Democrats will take away your tax cuts from your cold dead hands...

[memphis]

Ignoring the fact that i havent posted for 11 days, I don't think this forum is very churchy. Even if it was, why is that a bad thing?

Yeah, this forum is only 'churchy' relative to memphis, Joe Republic, and HockeyDude's apparent social circles. It isn't churchy relative to American society or the world as a whole at all.

It's much churchier here than I expected. And that was my entire point. Maybe it's less churchy than other people would expect.  It is true that I am beyond baffled by the culture of religion, but that's rather a different topic and I certainly have no expectation of changing any opinions. Not like anybody has ever been persuaded by political arguments on here either.

[memphis]

Ignoring the fact that i havent posted for 11 days, I don't think this forum is very churchy. Even if it was, why is that a bad thing?

Yeah, this forum is only 'churchy' relative to memphis, Joe Republic, and HockeyDude's apparent social circles. It isn't churchy relative to American society or the world as a whole at all.

It's much churchier here than I expected. And that was my entire point. Maybe it's less churchy than other people would expect.  It is true that I am beyond baffled by the culture of religion, but that's rather a different topic and I certainly have no expectation of changing any opinions. Not like anybody has ever been persuaded by political arguments on here either.

My point is the expectation being flouted by this ULTRA-'CHURCHY' FORUM TWO-FIFTHS OF WHICH GOES TO CHURCH ON CHRISTMAS!!!! seems to have been dictated by an unusually insular social environment. Maybe if you interacted with a broader cross-section of American society more your 'bafflement' would decrease.

Obviously, I expected a forum about political maps to be an insular social environment. Why would you expect otherwise? I, apparently incorrectly, expected it to be less churchy given a few key demographics of the primary users.
On the completely separate issue/threadjack of my experiences with religious people, I have known quite a few of them well. My mother attends synagogue every Saturday morning. During her post-divorce mid-life crisis, she attended every evening for about a dozen years. A close friend is perpetually toying with the idea of embracing Orthodox Judaism. I also have ultra Orthodox family in Brooklyn who were formerly hellbent on evangelizing to me. When I was a child, they frequently tried to get me to leave my parents and live the lifestyle with them. Exposure to religious people has not eased my inability to comprehend the motivations of religious people. Quite the opposite. It's not a judgement value. And I think that you, like most religious people, are needlessly oversensitive to the subject. Nobody is coming to take away your rosaries. You just must understand that it is very difficult for many of us to wrap our heads around the willingness to submit blindly to any ideology, especially one with as checkered a past and as little evidence as any major religion.

[memphis]

Not like anybody has ever been persuaded by political arguments on here either.

I don't think that is accurate.  People change and some of that change has to be due to debate here and places like it.

Citation please? It was foolish of me to speak in absolutes, but it been my experience that everyone here (including me) just wants to mouth off his opinion which he just knows is 100% right. I would love to see a thread where somebody changes his mind after a persuasive debate. Seeing that would restore some of  my faith in democracy.