[rivercrow]

Originally Posted by darlets

"Ironically, however, both atheists and committed Christians share one unusual area of common ground: concern about superficial, inert forms of Christianity in America. There are nearly 130 million American adults who describe themselves as Christians, but who are Christian in name only; their behavior includes little related to experiencing and expressing their alleged faith in Christ."

Personally, I think Christianity started to lose some of its power once it started being codified in the early Councils.

More of its esotericism got lost during the de-emphasis of ritual. What ritual is good for is to give the active mind a focal point while stilling it. A reaction was the turn to Eastern religion.

While I think it is possible to find an enveloping experience in modern Christianity, I think that experience is downplayed and denigrated by large parts of the faithful. I'm willing to accept that what the Evangelicals describe as being saved is a similar experience, but I'm not convinced it's a transformative experience, which I think it should be. It's too clean and contained and doesn't seem to change the core--only serves, in many cases, to re-emphasize existing beliefs.

But, who am I to say for sure? I am not the people I speak of.