Do You Know Anyone Experiencing a "Spiritual Hunger"


I recently reviewed something from my life of many decades as a practicing Christian followed by many decades of being an atheist (yes, I'm an old guy). It was the list of things in religion that were and remain unverified. I can't list every one of them here but we've all heard the same ones. There are invisible beings, God wrote the Bible, there is a life when we are dead, there are agreed upon rules of sexuality, the Bible says things that aren't in the Bible, we are here from creation, there was no evolution, etc. All of these have always been preceded by the words, "This is the truth." 

If there were a candid training program for Christian clergy, one unit would be entitled "How to make things seem real when probably they are not." Recently, I've noticed a new one.

Almost every day just now some preacher is telling an audience, "There is today a spiritual hunger among people and we will soon see a huge revival." I've seen this quoted any number of times. If these clergy took a class in how to make things that are not real seem real, they passed. Can any of them tell us what they mean by a "spiritual hunger"?

The claim is followed by the observation there are more young men coming to church than young women. These are numbers coming from churches themselves and not from independent tracking sources. If it is true there has been an uptick in young men joining churches and testifying, why are they doing this? The answer given by TV preachers is a "spiritual hunger." Does it really have something to do with religion or is it happening for other reasons like social life or career advancement? In any case, if data continues to show each generation with fewer believers than the previous generation, some young men showing up in church means nothing. The downward trend continues. Spiritual hunger does not exist if people are leaving religion.

"Spiritual hunger" is another in the long list of myths and falsehoods repeated every week in the world of religion.

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