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[Amiga]

Even amongst Democrats its as high as 72%. Thought it would be worse, probably seems worse because the 20% dominate the media. How dose it make financial sense for entertainment producers to constantly troll the majority of it's target audience?

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/17/be...paign=editorial&utm_content=politics-religion

 

[funkygunther]

Even amongst Democrats its as high as 72%. Thought it would be worse, probably seems worse because the 20% dominate the media. How dose it make financial sense for entertainment producers to constantly troll the majority of it's target audience?

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/17/be...paign=editorial&utm_content=politics-religion

Do you have examples of this entertainment media that pushes overt or blatant atheism? Or do you mean "troll" like gay marriage, abortion etc that wasn't actually being asked in this survey of the religious?

 

[FunkMiller]

Nice to see it dropping so much.

The more America moves towards secularism, the happier and better it will be.

https://www.christiantoday.com/arti...orld-are-among-the-least-religious/127465.htm

https://onlysky.media/pzuckerman/the-happiest-nations-on-earth-are-strongly-secular/

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2018...ile-religious-countries-are-poor-and-unhappy/

 

[winjer]

A few years ago we had conspiracy theories that the jews controlled the media. Now it's the atheists?
This is just more stupid conspiracy theory crap.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

I'm not sure what is attempting to be conveyed in the OP but as a non-believer, that number should be much lower.

 

[Amiga]

Do you have examples of this entertainment media that pushes overt or blatant atheism?

Ricky Gervais, George Carlin, Kevin Smith, Bill Maher, Seth MacFarlane...

 

[winjer]

Ricky Gervais, George Carlin, Kevin Smith, Bill Maher, Seth MacFarlane...

A handful of people. One of them died years ago.
What a grand conspiracy you uncovered.

 

[Zeroing]

Well to be fair, Americans do say, god bless America!

Makes sense

 

[DKehoe]

Ricky Gervais, George Carlin, Kevin Smith, Bill Maher, Seth MacFarlane...

Kevin Smith is religious.

 

[EviLore]

Do you have examples of this entertainment media that pushes overt or blatant atheism?

So lame that everyone is an atheist in the Iliad of all stories.

 

[nush]

I'm not sure what is attempting to be conveyed in the OP but as a non-believer, that number should be much lower.

It's mostly virtue signalers.

 

[reksveks]

One God or many?
What God?
Are they apart of an organized religious community?

 

[Rentahamster]

One God or many?
What God?
Are they apart of an organized religious community?

The question is, quite simply, "Do you believe in God?"

https://news.gallup.com/poll/393737/belief-god-dips-new-low.aspx

The only clarifying clue is that "god" is written with a capital 'G', implying one of the Abrahamic versions of God.

 

[SJRB]

Shockingly high, honestly.

 

[Rentahamster]

How dose it make financial sense for entertainment producers to constantly troll the majority of it's target audience?

A few possibilities for you to think about.

1. The number of entertainers "trolling" God believers isn't actually as high as you think it is.

2. The actual magnitude of the "trolling" you perceive isn't as severe as you think it is.

3. Most of the people in the poll are lying

4. Most of the people's beliefs are superficial so while they might say they believe, they really don't give a shit deep down.

 

[M1chl]

Well to be fair, Americans do say, god bless America!

Makes sense

 

[reksveks]

The question is, quite simply, "Do you believe in God?"

https://news.gallup.com/poll/393737/belief-god-dips-new-low.aspx

The only clarifying clue is that "god" is written with a capital 'G', implying one of the Abrahamic versions of God.

Yeah, it's rather vague but saw the gallup page before your response.

The weird stat for me is the percentages of people who believe that God listens and intervenes. It was 42%.

 

[jason10mm]

I think the OP is referring to the mocking of faith based films, overt religious influences in politics, etc. There does seem to be a general lack of respect of religious writings in the media.

But I don't think that is mocking God or faith directly, more attacking the institutions and foundations of society yo change the base of power, including organized religion.

Plus I think that if 80% say they believe in God, a follow up of "do you go to church more than once a year" and "have you read anything in the Bible in since you were a child" would be MUCH lower, indicating that while there is a fairly widespread belief in God, actual participation and understanding of the entity is way lower.

 

[Zeroing]

That is true.

 

[Rentahamster]

I think the OP is referring to the mocking of faith based films, overt religious influences in politics, etc. There does seem to be a general lack of respect of religious writings in the media.

But I don't think that is mocking God or faith directly, more attacking the institutions and foundations of society yo change the base of power, including organized religion.

Plus I think that if 80% say they believe in God, a follow up of "do you go to church more than once a year" and "have you read anything in the Bible in since you were a child" would be MUCH lower, indicating that while there is a fairly widespread belief in God, actual participation and understanding of the entity is way lower.

Church membership is below 50%

https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.

 

[AJUMP23]

Do you have examples of this entertainment media that pushes overt or blatant atheism? Or do you mean "troll" like gay marriage, abortion etc that wasn't actually being asked in this survey of the religious?

Disney is notorious for not allowing any mention of God in their material. The creators of Frozen talked about it.

 

[Amiga]

Nice to see it dropping so much.

The more America moves towards secularism, the happier and better it will be.

secularism =/= Atheism

https://www.christiantoday.com/arti...orld-are-among-the-least-religious/127465.htm

https://onlysky.media/pzuckerman/the-happiest-nations-on-earth-are-strongly-secular/

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2018...ile-religious-countries-are-poor-and-unhappy/

look at your own charts, UAE and USA are happier than the France. Saudi Arabia is happier than Italy and Spain. Japan and South Korea are way lower than Malaysia.

A handful of people. One of them died years ago.
What a grand conspiracy you uncovered.

Original comment asked for examples of "overt and blatant atheism". not to list everyone in the whole entertainment industry.
And the constant thing about entertainment today is in the themes, the nihilism and sexualization of almost everything, not the direct attacks.

 

[Clear]

The more America moves towards secularism, the happier and better it will be.

You think?
Pretty sure myself people will just substitute in a secular belief system which they will follow religiously. Like Wokism.

Zealotry is the issue, not religiosity.

 

[trikster40]

Is that 80% believe in God or 80% believe in A god? Definitely not buying the 80% number. Polls are stupid, they always seem to find the people they want to skew their numbers.

 

[winjer]

Original comment asked for examples of "overt and blatant atheism". not to list everyone in the whole entertainment industry.
And the constant thing about entertainment today is in the themes, the nihilism and sexualization of almost everything, not the direct attacks.

A lot of this content is done by believers, of several faiths. Atheists are just a small percentage of people in the industry.
You have not proved anything with barely a handful of examples.
If you don't like what content is being done by any media outlet, you can just choose not to watch.

Seems more like you have some religious extremist views, and you are trying to lash out against a world that doesn't care much about what you think.
Trying to create a witch hunt on a group of people, just because they have different religious views, is a very bad mentality to have.

 

[funkygunther]

Disney is notorious for not allowing any mention of God in their material. The creators of Frozen talked about it.

Not mentioning it isn't overt, not being for it or even ignoring it doesn't automatically make you against it.

Amiga , Kevin Smith made a movie about God. Its worth a watch if you need another take on theism. Gervais and Maher are stoically antireligious, with Gervais being the only anti theist so I'll give you them even though I don't think they represent the entertainment industry.

 

[Buggy Loop]

That is shockingly high but then again, when I go from Quebec where we basically threw religion under the bus in mid 20th century, whenever I go to USA there’s more churches per villages than we have Tim Hortons, it’s pretty telling they can operate that many.

 

[Kev Kev]

Not buying this at all.

I’d be surprised if even 50% of Americans still believe in god. Realistically I’d expect the number to be closer to 40%.

 

[Batiman]

So lame that everyone is an atheist in the Iliad of all stories.

If this was pushing atheism, It would probably be more truthful. Achilles would be fighting for his lover boyfriend. The problem is religion that made us only except him fighting for a hot chick. Nowadays if they made this movie and he had a male lover people would just call it woke.

 

[EverydayBeast]

 

[DKehoe]

And the constant thing about entertainment today is in the themes, the nihilism and sexualization of almost everything, not the direct attacks.

Not that atheism is nihilism, but what are some examples of media today where nihilism is a big theme?

 

[FunkMiller]

look at your own charts, UAE and USA are happier than the France. Saudi Arabia is happier than Italy and Spain. Japan and South Korea are way lower than Malaysia.

The links I gave you literally show that the most secular nations are happier. And The French would be miserable if you force fed them nitrous oxide. It’s kind of their thing.

But hey, no skin off my nose. Carry on with your thou shalt nots, and your judgements on others. I’ll be over here partying with the happy heathens.

 

[Straight Edge]

This is so fundamentally wrong I don’t even know where to begin.

Please go look up what secularism is.

And the links I gave you literally show that the most secular nations are happier.

But hey, no skin off my nose. Carry on with your thou shalt nots, and your judgements on others. I’ll be over here partying with the happy heathens.

Please look up what =/= means

 

[FunkMiller]

Please look up what =/= means

Lol. I only read one equal sign. Edited

 

[mortal]

Saying you believe in God and acting as if you believe in God are two different things.

 

[ParaSeoul]

Makes sense have you seen what they go through?

 

[CrankyJay™]

Nice to see it dropping so much.

The more America moves towards secularism, the happier and better it will be.

https://www.christiantoday.com/arti...orld-are-among-the-least-religious/127465.htm

https://onlysky.media/pzuckerman/the-happiest-nations-on-earth-are-strongly-secular/

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2018...ile-religious-countries-are-poor-and-unhappy/

Is that necessarily true? People don’t seem to be nearly as religious as 20-30+ years ago and they seem more miserable than ever.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Nice to see it dropping so much.

The more America moves towards secularism, the happier and better it will be.

https://www.christiantoday.com/arti...orld-are-among-the-least-religious/127465.htm

https://onlysky.media/pzuckerman/the-happiest-nations-on-earth-are-strongly-secular/

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2018...ile-religious-countries-are-poor-and-unhappy/

"Following Finland, in the top ten, are Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel, and New Zealand."

Small countries with mostly homogenuous populaces and strong social systems. Literally the opposite of the US. Also doesn't seem to have much to do with religion.

 

[Vaelka]

Ricky Gervais, George Carlin, Kevin Smith, Bill Maher, Seth MacFarlane...

How tho?
They just mock religion, I don't think that's the same thing as '' pushing atheism '' especially when you're a comedian.
If a comedian makes a joke with racist undertones I don't think that means they're '' pushing racism '' either.

"Following Finland, in the top ten, are Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel, and New Zealand."

Small countries with mostly homogenuous populaces and strong social systems. Literally the opposite of the US. Also doesn't seem to have much to do with religion.

In Sweden you join the church automatically ( if you're baptized I think, which is fairly normal as tradition ).
And a lot of people also get confirmed because you do it when you're young and at the end you get gifts from your family, I never did it because I felt it was a shitty thing to do unless it was genuine and you believed.
But every single other person I knew in class did it, and none of them believed in God.
They only did it for the gifts.

So yeah... I think the numbers are actually quite overinflated in Sweden at least and probably every other Nordic country.
Because a lot of people are members of the church without even realizing it, you have to manually go out of your way to exit the church by going and talking to them and sending in a letter to resign and it's too much work for people.
People just don't care enough about it to do that.

Edit: Funnily enough the only person I know who's actually legit Christian is a Chinese immigrant I went to school with.
Everyone else either don't care at all and don't believe or they're just full on atheist.
And if they're religious they're a Muslim or a Jew by heritage but don't take their faith seriously.
Same honestly goes for the Muslims I know too most of them are only culturally Muslim but don't practice it ultra hard I never even notice it except that they don't eat pork.

 

[dr_octagon]

 

[FunkMiller]

Is that necessarily true? People don’t seem to be nearly as religious as 20-30+ years ago and they seem more miserable than ever.

I don’t think the world is half as miserable as social media and culture make out. Many countries seem pretty okay.

 

[killatopak]

Happy that it is so.

Religion is more than a belief. It is an instillation of core values that make the society greater for what it is. The family unit is one of the core tenets of religion and I strongly believe it makes people happier.

 

[FunkMiller]

But every single other person I knew in class did it, and none of them believed in God.
They only did it for the gifts.

What kind of gifts are we talking? Because if my local church gives me a BMW M4 in gunmetal grey… PRAISE THE LORD!

 

[AJUMP23]

Not mentioning it isn't overt, not being for it or even ignoring it doesn't automatically make you against it.

Amiga , Kevin Smith made a movie about God. Its worth a watch if you need another take on theism. Gervais and Maher are stoically antireligious, with Gervais being the only anti theist so I'll give you them even though I don't think they represent the entertainment industry.

I would say if you do not allow certain content that makes you against it. Disney has recently talked about how they are putting an effort into adding more trans content. So they actively seek to add content that advocates their social agendas while denying content that would speak of a creator.

 

[Vaelka]

What kind of gifts are we talking? Because if my local church gives me a BMW M4 in gunmetal grey… PRAISE THE LORD!

It was basically like having a birthday twice that year for a weekend of your time, so yeah you can imagine that basically every kid wanted that.
During that weekend too you stayed with all of your friends and basically camped at Church.

Imo I just felt like it was a bribe basically and like you shouldn't do something like that just to get gifts.
I am an atheist but I still think it's kinda disrespectful towards people who do believe to do that, but that's my opinion.
I respect religious people so long as they don't disrespect me by trying to police me or others based on their religion.

Is that necessarily true? People don’t seem to be nearly as religious as 20-30+ years ago and they seem more miserable than ever.

The happiest countries in the world are some of the least religious ones.
I dunno tho, I don't think that necessarily has to do with religion.
I think it's moreso because of the welfare systems and people just not having to worry and stress much in their lives.

I also think that the internet makes people seem more miserable because you're exposed to more of it, but I am fairly sure people are happier today in general than they've ever been.

 

[Chaplain]

This is exclusively a Western problem exacerbated a hundredfold by COVID (i.e., the lockdowns). For example, "[Mathematician Dr John Hayward] speaks to Christian Today about why so many UK Churches are facing extinction." Quotes:

• "The majority of the congregations are elderly, they are not adding new people, they are getting older, and their death rate is increasing, and that is why we get this straight line in the data. If they were recruiting people i.e. converting people, and those people were younger, then even if it couldn't completely stop the decline, it would still slow it down because younger people would be added to the church and that would carry it on for another generation...
• The Church doesn't really need more evangelists, it needs more ordinary Christians who have contact with non-Christians and can live out the Gospel with them. It's not just about explaining the Gospel, it's often about living it out. The person who was largely responsible for bringing me to faith was my landlady who would bring out the Bible during mealtimes and ask me what I thought about it. It got me thinking that I should look into the faith a bit more and that's how I became a Christian. I saw her living out her faith...
• Everyone likes to blame the Sixties as that is when church decline accelerated, but that was caused by the population demographics working their way through. The true cause of church decline - its lack of conversions - goes back to the end of the 19th century. The minister, Dr Martin Lloyd-Jones was already warning in his sermons in the 1950s that the Church was going to decline more because it was not converting enough people. He saw the warning signs and was laughed at...
• Christians in the USA have tried to keep the culture Christian by political campaigns. But culture becomes Christian because we spread the faith to people who aren't Christians. We can't artificially keep a culture Christian; we need to concentrate on making converts. Our job is to grow the church and change people. The culture changes because people change.
• The Western Church needs to learn from all the Churches that are growing in parts of the world where the prevailing culture is not Christian at all. The Churches in these parts of the world have learnt to adapt and grow in that environment. The Western Church needs to learn from that model and remember, we're building the Kingdom of God, we're not building the country. We can be involved in the country but we shouldn't spend all our time fighting the culture around us. Rather, we influence it through our witness for Christ...
• A lot of churches today are almost ignorant of Christian history, what God has done in the past, and what Christians believed. It's almost like changing things for the sake of changing things in the hope that it will work. Continuity with the past makes churches strong and helps growth...
• The Church grew quite substantially from the early 1700s to about the 1870s and became very respectable in the eyes of society. When things become respectable, the Church becomes complacent, and is less inclined to seek converts. Consequently, the Church declines, and society slowly becomes more secular. To try and keep up with society and keep its respectability, the Church becomes more secular rather than seek converts, so decline gets worse... Once the Church gained this respectability in society, it was very difficult to see it lost. Yet historically, the Church has always been better when it was on the margins."

So, long before COVID, the warning signs could be seen that what was needed to cultivate a person's faith in God was on the decline due to multiple reasons: "Liberal churches are dying. But conservative churches are thriving. A Canadian study found that conservative churches are still growing, while less orthodox congregations dwindle away." (2017)

"...we found 93 percent of clergy members and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches agreed with the statement “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb.” This compared with 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy members from declining churches. Furthermore, all growing church clergy members and 90 percent of their worshipers agreed that “God performs miracles in answer to prayers,” compared with 80 percent of worshipers and a mere 44 percent of clergy members from declining churches...because of their conservative outlook, the growing church clergy members in our study took Jesus’ command to “Go make disciples” literally. Thus, they all held the conviction it’s “very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians,” and thus likely put effort into converting non-Christians. Conversely, because of their liberal leanings, half the clergy members at the declining churches held the opposite conviction, believing it is not desirable to convert non-Christians. Some of them felt, for instance, that peddling their religion outside of their immediate faith community is culturally insensitive."

Edited

 

[rofif]

It's probably even more in Poland... which is disgusting... as we are giving these church fuckers tons of money for nothing.
I don't think any religion is true. I don't think god exists. I think it's all a load of bs.

IF ANYTHING, we should believe in Sumerian or egyptian gods.
The current crap is not only super boring but also fear mongering and makes absolutely negative sense if you take an outside look at any of these stupid beliefs

 

[Kimahri]

Happy that it is so.

Religion is more than a belief. It is an instillation of core values that make the society greater for what it is. The family unit is one of the core tenets of religion and I strongly believe it makes people happier.

Many religious people like to peddle the idea that these things exist because of religion, yet they exist pretty much in all cultures religious or otherwise.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

“Worse”

Of course if you broadly ask “do you believe in god?” you’re going to get a lot more yes answers than if you asked something specific like “do you live the gospel of Jesus Christ?” or even more specific like “do you identify as Catholic, Mormon, Muslim, etc…?” I’m an agnostic/weak atheist and still would say I try to be Christlike and honest with my fellow man. Does that put me in the 80%?

Honestly whether or not you believe in a higher power seems to not matter too much in the people I know, what seems to matter is their religiosity. The stronger it is, the less happy, and frankly intelligent, they seem. Those who don’t believe but cherry pick the good parts of religious texts and are honest about doing so (vs those who cherry pick the bad parts and claim it’s the true word of god) seem to be good people.

 

[Amiga]

A lot of this content is done by believers, of several faiths. Atheists are just a small percentage of people in the industry.

Referring to the themes of the content produced to the consumer. the themes don't match the likely appeal for the market audience.

You have not proved anything with barely a handful of examples.

Sorry, apparently it is all in my imagination. the themes are the same as they were a decade ago and also the 90's,80's..

Seems more like you have some religious extremist views,

what was extreme in my comments?

and you are trying to lash out against a world that doesn't care much about what you think.

80% of the world I live in agree with me.

Please go look up what secularism is.

You are the one who needs to look it up.

And the links I gave you literally show that the most secular nations are happier.

they literally show religious countries are happier like I cited from your own charts.

If this was pushing atheism, It would probably be more truthful. Achilles would be fighting for his lover boyfriend. The problem is religion that made us only except him fighting for a hot chick. Nowadays if they made this movie and he had a male lover people would just call it woke.

The Greek pantheon were characters in the Iliad. Removing them was like removing Sauron from LotR.