You are from upstate New York?

Tom

Aboriginal? I'm gettin confused.

In short, Sweden has in the last few years problem with rising violence/crime in certain migrant-heavy neighborhoods, so much so that the PM raised the idea of bringing in the military to get those neighborhoods under control. Then the next 34 pages are about the usual do we blame migrants and migration policies, etc., are Sweden's very Liberal politics an example or is it destroying them, etc.

Avers Rock NY or Alice Springs NJ?

Copying Trump who threatened to bring the military into Chicago.

In both cases nothing was actually implemented.

I was being totally facetious.

Since kriss was being grilled on possibly not being "real" Aussie in the other thread.

But I know you were being insincere too.



Back to....Sweden.

I want to go see their Summer Solstice madness and am a bit worried I will see other madness.

True. To be honest, there are so many churches out there that I'm quite confused sometimes - don't know if I met LDS folks, maybe I did, I don't ask people such things so if they don't mention anything...but I was invited for sermons and different activities to a few evangelical churches and I met very nice people there. I have a friend who is a mennonite (or at least her family tradition is, she moved to her home country recently) and the sweetest person, one that is a baptist, a couple belonging to the Pentecostal church... I really don't care if someone is a little bit more religious than the "norm" as long as they're good people. Even my family is very mixed - I mean different "flavours" of Christianity, even my parents belonged to different churches and that was never a problem...same with me and OH, who, funnily enough, now pretends he's also a Greek-Catholic just to make me smile (I took after my father)..he knows that's not an issue and it will never be, I like our traditions though. I love him as agnostic or atheist as he can be, no problem. I think most people I know are agnostics.

Oks, not back to Sweden.

I get what you wrote..I think to try to infer anything about anyone simply knowing their spriritual preferences is bound to be wrong and presumptious, to say the least. People believe for different reasons. Everyone does, no matter what psychologists say.

Gotta say that people who are more than "a little bit religious than the norm" fascinate me, since it is very close to die hard atheists I know from home. Most of people I know are atheists but that is influenced by forced history of a place I am from.

I think people's spiritual preferences are different than our other preferences (hobbies, types of bonds we create, career..), because belief systems are bound to ethics and humbling our egos. Spiritual preferences have that in common. Being expansive, though, in the name of faith..is not really a humbling experience. Or thinking one is better because one has more pure faith or the only real one.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

Yes, this. Fortunately, Christianity at least is on a good path these days. There are talks in favour of historical reconciliations between the Eastern Christian Church and the Catholic one, things unimaginable even a few decades ago. Btw, one of your country men has done great things towards this direction, not everyone was forced out of religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomáš_Špidl%C3%ADk
Neo-protestant churches are being more and more accepted, people fall for what it works for them, less for traditions or purity of dogmas. The community spirit, togetherness, good structure. Switzerland is a great example for this pluralism. There is a church near us who organised all sort of (inter-faith) events (everybody is invited - Christians, Muslims and everything else) This is so contrasting with the jihadist movement in contemporary Islam, which took by storm old, significant regions and intends to do so even here, in Europe. A pity, really. To deny some obvious tendencies it's naivety or intellectual dishonesty*, at best. So that would be all on this theme.
Back to Sweden now.
*I've seen that a lot on this forum, and the tendency to point the finger to a different direction any time this subject has been brought up. For instance, was there any religious group more demonised here than the poor JWs? Even if most people never exchanged more than 2 words with them (if that), and were never really bothered by them. Funny, in a way..

The Evangelical movement in the US is moving in a contrary direction.

Source

How they can reconcile their beliefs with their uncritical support of a twice divorced man who is the subject of over 20 sexual assault allegations and the allegations of affairs with porn stars is very hard to understand.

The evangelicals have lost contact with their Christian roots.

Maybe they just don't fall for all the hype in the media...who knows.

But thanks, you proved my point.

For being the head of a church that admits it's not sure whether God even exists, it's a bit tall to be calling out others for not living up to the letter of their faith.

You believe Trump's two divorces are just media hype?

That, plus the fact that the church in general should stay away from politics....don't you think?

No, but maybe the horny allegations with pornographic nuances - are. Marton, I always suspected you're a Catholic. Divorces...happen. You'll not burn in hell for that.

Not me, we are talking about the Evangelicals?

One of the most basic tenets of US Evangelical Christianity is a strict interpretation of the Bible.
Many evangelical Christians are fundamentally opposed to divorce, as there are passages in the Bible that seem to prohibit the practice.
Furthermore, the evangelical emphasis on morality and preserving the traditional family unit would seem to preclude divorce.

Nevertheless 80% of US Evangelicals support Trump?

Let us talk about Trump and the Evangelicals not me!

And certainly not about Sweden

I always imagined Marton to be a high-church Anglican, maybe not overly pious about it, but nevertheless principled. I think he has conservative leanings and is pretty well read on a broad range of topics, and that he cares about many topics, but that he maybe gives the mainstream media more credence than they deserve.

But I'm probably so wrong in the first bit that he'll snigger when he reads this.

Is the divorce rate among evangelicals genuinely significantly lower than among the rest of the population?

I think mnay Evangelicals support Tump, not because they are deluded into thinking he is one of them, or because he is such a role model, but because he supports the things they support.

That's because you think very high of the Anglicans. Nah, he's Catholic (or he's married with one, same thing lol).

But let's be as principled as he is and respect his wish - meaning we won't debate his religious (non-)affiliation anymore.

We're all *cough* Anglicans. At least that's what the tax office has been told...

Who cares about his divorces?

Tom