April 2009

“Jesus is (not alright) with me”

l3wis April 13, 2009 14Comments

Who is this guy?

More and more people are realizing the ‘ruse’ of organized religion;

In 1990, 86 percent of Americans called themselves Christian; by 2008, 76 percent did. And in South Dakota, the demographic shift in religious identity has been especially steep: 95 percent of South Dakotans self-identified as Christians in 1990; 78 percent did in 2008.

Less people are hypocrites, I guess.

The “none” category of the survey includes atheists and agnostics, as well as people who describe themselves as non-religious, irreligious and anti-religious. It swells to 46 million people by including respondents who either don’t know what religion they are or who refused to give one.

Irreligious? Does that mean you are allergic to Holy water?

That “no religion” segment of the population is who Mike Brazeal, John Collins and others associated with Greg Laurie’s Black Hills Harvest ’09 will target when the Christian evangelist brings his crusade to Rapid City May 15-17.

“That’s a great audience for us to attract, as many of them have been turned off by church and have formed an opinion of Christianity that isn’t always accurate,” Brazeal, director of the Rapid City crusade, said.

No, they have formed an ‘accurate’ opinion, and that is why they don’t bother with religion anymore.

But the political science and art history major from Pierre doesn’t feel any pressure to conform to a largely Christian society, even though she has numerous committed Christians as friends, and her family will be attending Easter services today without her.

“They don’t agree with it, but they know they can’t control it,” she said.

And that is where religion has lost it’s way, trying to control people.