I'd like to comment on this with something that happened to me
yesterday:
It was snowy and wet and cold outside. I walked out of my school's
cafeteria to see this preacher guy talking to a cop. I guessed that
the cop was telling him to quiet down because the preacher was
shouting at him. The cop walked away and the preacher kept thumping
his bible and shouting at us students. "SSSSINNERSSS, and
FFFFFFFORNICATERS!!!! You are doomed to hellFFFFFIREEEE!!! I learned
that I was going to hell with that drunkard Princess Diana and that
foul-mouthed Tupac Shakur, along with that evil Pope and slutty Monica
Lewinsky! Watching him dance like he was possesed by deamons was worth
the cold; he was impersonating Princess Di burning in a lake of
hellfirrrrrre. The only people watching him were doing so for sheer
camp value. The only people who took him seriously thought they could
change his mind by reasoning with him. It was more entertaining than a
talkshow. I watched him for a good hour and every woman who passed by
he called a fornicator if she wasn't saved.
The point I was thinking of is, this brand of evangelicalism must appeal to somebody, and you have to wonder what kind of mindset a person has to seriously consider what this guy is saying.
>>Religion (at least as it is traditionally understood), is doomed for
extinction. You yourself acknowleged some of that reality:
>>I find that few people really understand why a lot of christians hold
to
their
faith when there seems to be so much evidence destructive to the
biblical
world-view.<<
The evidence is definitely not shrinking. All of the "evidence" in
favor of
it has been testimonial, erroneous, or outright fraudulent. After this
millenial fever subsides, there will be fewer pieces than ever to
gather up.
The biblical world-view is not a view of anything except the history of
the
biblical world-view. If I had some unusual experience, however I made
sense
of it, it definitely would not be in terms of any biblical world-view.
Might
as well consider the world view of greek mythology if I was going to do
something like that.