[HN Gopher] Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for fi...
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Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
Author : cwwc
Score : 566 points
Date : 2021-03-29 13:01 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| muad_kyrlach wrote:
| I can only speak from experience about Christianity: I have found
| very few sects of christianity that don't have some mixture of 1.
| arbitrary claim to absolute certainty regarding the "Will of God"
| --Bible is inerrant, the denomination's understanding of it is
| inerrant, etc 2. Non-sensical "lesson-of-the-week" structure"
| where very few actually make any progress on any lesson 3. blind
| acceptance that the church has to be a functional business. the
| first one is the most hurtful -- the leaders offer certainty when
| certainty is far from possible. It amounts to "God gave you your
| brain, but it's mostly for decoration, you don't need to think
| when it comes to your faith, just accept what we tell you/is
| written." The business side can also be hurtful.
|
| I was reading recently about scientists attempt to measure
| cognitive differences between the religious and non-religious --
| by looking at things like math proficiency. I think that's really
| missing the impact of religion. Religion doesn't make you bad at
| math, but it likely makes you bad at 1. finances -- how much pct
| of your income are you regularly giving away? 2. philanthropy --
| how much of that income really went to helping people vs church
| administration, continuing the Sunday lesson? 3. Political
| engagement -- i would hypothesize that being religious leads
| folks to more frequently vote against their own self-interests.
| [deleted]
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| Whether this is good or bad depends on what the substitute is.
|
| Whatever it is, imo, intellectuals should be more involved in
| communities that cater to simpler folks. Otherwise, these often
| get co-opted by nefarious forces. See Qanon, Trumpism etc.
| Hopefully this is not people jumping to these.
| Applejinx wrote:
| But that IS intellectuals getting involved. QAnon is quite
| cleverly constructed. Just because it uses mechanisms similar
| to Nigerian email scams doesn't mean it's not intelligently
| constructed and administered. There are already intellectuals
| involved, they're just not pursuing disinterested goals.
| BenoitEssiambre wrote:
| I meant non evil intellectuals who oftentimes don't want to
| have anything to do with these communities which leaves them
| open to be manipulated by the evil ones.
| legitster wrote:
| This misses the forest for the trees: Membership is down at
| organizations across the board - scouting, group athletics,
| Rotary clubs, unions, even things like PTAs and neighborhood
| associations and model train clubs.
|
| There is a society wide "apathy" event happening right under our
| noses. Maybe we're just seeing a new generation moving to new
| niche groups that aren't being seen yet. But it seems that
| technology is doing something with our desire to form communal
| bonds.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Membership is down at in-person organizations across the board.
| I doubt the census includes the many different online
| communities I am a part of.
|
| I have friends I have known for 10+ years which I have never
| met in real life. Friendships which are deeper and longer
| lasting than anything I have "in real life".
| randcraw wrote:
| I don't see it as apathy. I suspect people are simply choosing
| to put their time into pursuits other than attending meetings
| with other people.
|
| In the past 20 years, there's been a large rise in the time the
| average person spends on the social web. In the past 10 years,
| with the rise of mobile platforms, that time has gone up even
| more. In addition, streaming media has become very big, thereby
| consuming even more of our free time.
|
| That additional time spent online has to come from somewhere.
| As Sherry Turkle put it, we are increasingly choosing to be
| "Alone Together" probably at the cost of old school forms of
| togetherness like church and social clubs.
| cochne wrote:
| Yes I agree. This seems to be a continuation of the trends
| described in "Bowling Alone". The book argued in 2000 that
| television was a contributing factor. It is probably further
| worsened by the rise in online entertainment since.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| Our "communal bonds" are being replaced by 1-to-n relationships
| between influencers, streamers, content providers and their
| "followers".
| nly wrote:
| For comparison, UK church membership is <10% and forecast to fall
| to to 4% by 2025.
|
| Numbers for those claiming to be of "No religion" range from from
| 50 to 60% depending on region. 38% don't believe in God or any
| higher spiritual power.
|
| The interesting thing is people will identify as Christian on the
| census while also not claiming to subscribe to any particular
| religion in other surveys.
|
| 2021 census (just completed this month) results will be
| interesting
|
| https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html
| xioxox wrote:
| Yes, reading this thread as someone from the UK makes me
| realise the US is very different culturally from the UK. I'm
| sure the proportion of people for whom religion is important in
| their lives is much much smaller in the UK than the US. I think
| most British people only encounter religion at Christmas and
| weddings, unless they're of a religious minority group.
| TinkersW wrote:
| It isn't evenly distributed and the US doesn't have one
| culture, plenty of Americans never encounter much religion,
| particularly in the Western US which is overall less
| religious.
| cronix wrote:
| The US's First Amendment deals with that, in great part to
| get away from the (at the time) Church of England and prevent
| that (mixing church and state) from happening here. It
| doesn't logically surprise me that the country who left that
| scenario to worship freely has higher numbers of religious
| people 300 years later than in the country that still lived
| under much of the corruption for a longer period of time.
| incompatible wrote:
| The groups that take it seriously are more likely to observe
| Diwali or Ramadan.
| wussboy wrote:
| I think part of the problem is that there is no clear tradition
| of "cultural Christian" like there is for "atheist Jew". I
| don't believe in God. I love the high church and choral
| traditions. I attend a church where the minister feels the
| same. Am I a Christian? No. And yes.
| DoingSomeThings wrote:
| No. And yes.
|
| I think there are more of you floating in the pews with you
| than you may expect. As I've grown older it's been hard to
| belong to a dogmatic religion. But I miss those same things
| you describe. I too attend on occasion for those exact
| reasons.
|
| It was startling to me, however, to realize that I'm not
| alone. A large % of people there in the church find value
| even if they don't actually believe. And that's a strange
| comfort that let's me continue to appreciate the tradition
| without claiming the title.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I've been an atheist my entire life, raised by two atheists.
| But I celebrate christmas and easter, attend my friends
| weddings in churches even though they are atheists too, so I
| think I'm a cultural Christian.
| tyxodiwktis wrote:
| This isn't necessarily true outside the US. The running joke
| about Greeks is that they are 98% Greek Orthodox (official
| stats from a while ago) and 40% atheist. You might be atheist
| and communist (a fairly common combo in Greece) but will
| still probably roast a lamb on Easter with your family.
| stephenr wrote:
| In Australia most historically "Christian" holidays are for
| the majority of people just time off to spend with family.
|
| How or why they started or what the religious think of them
| now is irrelevant.
| 8note wrote:
| The traditional Christian holidays are largely former
| Roman holidays, so they're mostly just good times to have
| parties.
|
| Rename lupercalia to Valentine's Day, Saturnalia to
| Christmas, etc. To make Christianity a seamless switch
| for the Roman populace
| wussboy wrote:
| I agree. I first learned that Christian Atheist was
| possible in an Anglican Church in England.
| [deleted]
| ic0n0cl4st wrote:
| Turkey is the same way. The government says 99.8% of the
| population are Muslim by default but it's probably closer
| to 60%.
|
| Until a few years ago religion was listed on government
| identification cards. When you're born your parenrs must
| state a religion for your birth certificate or it is
| automatically listed as Muslim.
|
| You had to go through a burdensome official process as an
| adult to change this, and once you did this you legally
| admitted to Apostasy, which opens you up to discrimination
| (and future consequences if the government were to fall to
| islamists or neo-ottomans).
|
| Furthermore, it was very common to be discriminated against
| by HR departments / hiring managers if Islam was not
| present on your Kimlik (government ID).
|
| This only went away with recent passport and national id
| standards changing in their futile attempts to join the EU.
|
| (Consider that Turkey is by far the most liberal and
| secular Muslim nation.)
| polygotdomain wrote:
| Having married into a Greek family, I can certainly attest
| to this, but I'll shed a bit more light to the sentiment
| behind that statement. To the Greeks, the Greek church is
| part of their cultural identity, rather than a purely
| religious entity. There is a community that stems from the
| church, traditions that are intertwined in it, and just a
| general presence in their daily lives in a way that I don't
| think I've really observed in the US. Oddly enough, it
| doesn't really outwardly express itself as dogma or
| doctrine, in the way that I've noticed with a lot of
| Evangelicals or Catholics in the states. The church is more
| of an ever present fixture in Greek life than a strong
| belief in Orthodox teachings.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| "Cultural Christian" is just what western culture is.
| "atheist Jews" can exist only because they exist in the
| cultural Christian west.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Growing up in the 80's (UK) as a Roman Catholic, I remember the
| services being full on Sunday mornings. Not been since I left
| home at 18, because frankly I stopped believing in God the same
| time I stopped believing in Father Christmas (7?). The only
| reason I went was to make my parents happy.
|
| Now I'm in my 40's I do wonder if the lack of religion in
| society is leading us to a bad place. We know from numerous
| studies that 2 parent families (mother and father) give the
| best outcomes for children (education, jobs, etc). In modern
| no-religion societies, where is the pull for good old family
| values? What we are seeing is better rights and fairness for
| individuals (same-sex marriage, etc) but is that good for
| society as a whole?
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| > What we are seeing is better rights and fairness for
| individuals ... is that good for society as a whole
|
| Yes. This shouldn't even be a question.
| sethammons wrote:
| Why should something be excluded from questioning? I think
| more things should be regularly questioned.
| simplerman wrote:
| As someone who is semi-atheist, I have started to think that
| the invention of God was mostly to discipline children and to
| give them hope. Eventually, those children grew up and told
| same stories to their kids and until one day those stories
| became religion. Then came prophets who decided to prey upon
| these people and sold organized religion.
|
| I say this because I got a toddler and sometimes it is easier
| to make up stories instead of telling truth, like when
| someone dies they go to heaven. Or if you clean up your room,
| then maybe elves will come at night and leave a present. It
| is almost like I can see a religion forming in front of my
| eyes. Sometimes I am using traditional religious stories like
| for life and death questions. And at other times, I am using
| fairytale creatures. This whole thing has made me more
| atheist while at the same time let me appreciate what
| religion does.
|
| Which leads me to Santa Claus. I think Santa Claus is a great
| way to give subtle hint for thinking minds to realize that
| childhood stories are not real.
|
| But can people still feel good without believing in religion?
| Do we have atheist societies? What do atheists tell their
| young kids?
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| > We know from numerous studies that 2 parent families
| (mother and father) give the best outcomes for children
| (education, jobs, etc). In modern no-religion societies,
| where is the pull for good old family values?
|
| That's ironic given that the Church of England was solely
| setup so that the King could divorce his wife)!
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > Now I'm in my 40's I do wonder if the lack of religion in
| society is leading us to a bad place.
|
| It's important to make a distinction between lack of religion
| and lack of community.
| EliRivers wrote:
| _where is the pull for good old family values?_
|
| That's a term that everyone interprets their own way, without
| even realising that they have different values to the person
| standing next to them; different people's "family values" can
| conflict in significant and very incompatible ways.
|
| So what are "good old family values"? If your young,
| unmarried daughter falls pregnant, should you cast her out or
| should you double-down on helping her? Both of those are good
| old family values.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Good old family values would discourage young, unmarried
| women from getting pregnant in the first place. That is
| absolutely not how society works today, so let's start
| there instead of your absurd example.
| pmyteh wrote:
| It wasn't how it worked then, either, at least for any
| value of 'then' in England for the past thousand years or
| so. Yes, premarital pregnancy was strongly discouraged.
| But it still happened _a lot_. And both of GP 's family
| responses were absolutely common at different times, and
| both came from a deeply family-centred place. So I don't
| see it as absurd at all. Religion has always been for the
| sinners as much as the saints.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Is there a causative study that evidences that
| religiosity prevents unwanted teenage pregnancies? My
| understanding is that, even as religiosity is decreasing,
| _so are teenage pregnancies today!_
| ketzo wrote:
| Well, to pick a more contentious example, how would you
| find a marriage partner for that young women?
|
| In many parts of the world, the answer is that her
| parents would either simply pick her partner or heavily
| influence her options. In much of the U.S., that would be
| unthinkable! How do we reconcile those different family
| values?
| jaywalk wrote:
| How about the way my parents found each other:
| traditional dating?
|
| Can we stop trying to go to absurd extremes with
| everything here?
| hexane360 wrote:
| Unless you can demonstrate how to separate what you
| classify as "absurd extremes" from your cultural context,
| I think it's fair to use any examples of stable,
| religiously upheld, prosperous cultures to criticize
| traditionalism for the sake of traditionalism.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| They would also encourage helping the weak, the down-and-
| out, etc.
|
| There was a time in the US when a needy person could walk
| up to nearly _any_ door (except perhaps those of a few
| known scoundrels) and expect to find a meal, a bed for
| the night, clothes if needed, breakfast, and (depending
| on circumstances) some work to do the next day for pay.
|
| The first great awakening had a _profound_ effect on
| society - sermons preached in the 1700s directly
| influenced the US founders, belief in God and moral
| accountability to him became a basic assumption of
| society.
|
| "Family values" is a term that focuses on where Biblical
| teachings have the most impact (the family) but it fails
| to capture the worldview within which such values arise.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > There was a time in the US when a needy person could
| walk up to nearly any door (except perhaps those of a few
| known scoundrels) and expect to find a meal, a bed for
| the night, clothes if needed, breakfast, and (depending
| on circumstances) some work to do the next day for pay.
|
| Do you have a source on this? Genuinely asking because
| I've never heard of this depiction of early America, but
| I'm also a layman and not at all educated on American
| history beyond 101 college. What if you were black or
| East Asian?
| [deleted]
| wonderwonder wrote:
| This is an interesting point, I think its a valid argument
| that as America has fractured into vastly different competing
| social / political groups that the country as a whole has
| gotten weaker. Media now profits on widening those splits and
| people find themselves having less and less in common with
| each other. Religion very likely used to provide a common
| ground to people and as it fades so too does that ground. I
| don't think I have ever believed in God or religion but I can
| understand that it has provided some good. If I was an enemy
| with a very long timeline (say 100 years) I would work hard
| at continuing to widen these faults and differences.
| mhh__ wrote:
| "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How
| shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?
| What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet
| owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this
| blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?
| What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have
| to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for
| us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy
| of it?"
| nsilvestri wrote:
| There is no evidence that heterosexual parents are better for
| children than non-het parents. An important factor is that
| their parents have a stable relationship.
|
| https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01494929.2015.10.
| ..
|
| https://journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/Abstract/2016/04000/Same_Se.
| ..
| Sigmoid wrote:
| Heterosexual couples have been the norm for thousands of
| years, and the traditional family has been proven through
| survival to be a good way to raise children. People don't
| know the long term societal consequences of a homosexual
| marriages. Could be no issue, or it could be Pandora's box.
| Either way, it's stilly to take these studies of <200
| families seriously, especially when there's a clear a
| agenda among political groups to promote normalization of
| homosexuality.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| ^ questioning assumptions is good, even if (or
| _especially_ if) those assumptions underpin the orthodoxy
| of the day.
|
| Beware any religion, ideology, or group that punishes the
| honest questioner.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Yeah, an agenda of having equal rights under the law in a
| nation that supposedly separates church in state, but
| where in practice religious justifications are used to
| deny equality and justice.
| Sigmoid wrote:
| I personally dont believe being gay is a right. Just a
| lifestyle that society happens to tolerate. Using
| equality and justice to defend LGBT means any fetish or
| degenerate behavior that is not socially accepted can be
| justified as oppression.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| I was referring more to single parent households.
| joefife wrote:
| Yeah, screw those widows.
| caslon wrote:
| Despite (in my opinion) missing the point & also leaning
| a bit toward "yay heterosexuality!", what that poster
| said wasn't exactly insinuating anything bad about any
| other group.
|
| When a child has a parent that's died, or a parent that
| leaves, or a parent that _insert 90% of reasons for
| parental absence_ , it's natural that they'll have a
| harder time than anyone else. It's not that the widow
| would be a bad parent, it's that the kid would have to
| deal with the terrible situation of having a parent die.
|
| If you were really wanting to get to the source of truth
| there, though, you'd _also_ show how children that get
| adopted by a non-couple perform. If I had to guess, they
| 're probably doing the best by far, because adoption as a
| single person is only really possible if you're
| _incredibly_ stable.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| is people publicly debating your existence good for society
| as a whole?
| keithnz wrote:
| many of the largely atheist countries seem to be doing ok.
| But atheism isn't really anything other than a lack of belief
| in the claim there is a god. So what becomes more important
| is what you choose to make judgements, and many of the more
| atheist countries tend to have more secular humanist values.
| It's much more worthwhile talking about positive belief
| systems like secular humanism rather than lack of belief.
|
| Also I'd be careful with any kind of statistics that measure
| people who conform more closely with Christian values in
| societies who are largely Christian or structured around
| christian ideals. Being outsiders in any society is often
| problematic because of how the society ends up
| treating/valuing you.
| stephenr wrote:
| > where is the pull for good old family values?
|
| Whose family? Which values?
|
| This honestly just sounds like a "back in my day..." rant to
| be honest.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| It did occur to me that perhaps people who weren't brought
| up in a traditional (mother+father) Christian family might
| not know what "good old family values" means. Not meaning
| to make an assumption about you of course.
| cjameskeller wrote:
| Is this perhaps an intentional parallel to '_Whose Justice?
| Which Rationality?_" by Alasdair MacIntyre?
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| > because frankly I stopped believing in God the same time I
| stopped believing in Father Christmas (7?).
|
| I had a very similar experience. My mother is a (now non-
| practicing) catholic and my father is more or less an
| agnostic. We stopped attending church about the time I was 10
| because our parish had one of the pedophile priests. My
| "faith" died out after I learned that all of these
| supernatural things I was told existed actually didn't, why
| was the existence of god any different.
|
| Personally, I'd say I ended up an agnostic. I don't go around
| telling people what I think they should believe and
| internally I don't really lean one way or the other. One of
| those "unknowable" things, along with whether there is an
| afterlife or not. I kind of hope there is something, I can't
| exactly fathom non-existence.
|
| But as far as "family values" go, I've never felt my parents'
| moral teachings to be any less reasonable without an
| underlying fear of damnation to keep you on track. I'd like
| to think that I'm a good person and that being a good person
| is my own choice and not something I'm told to do "or else".
|
| Maybe it was Stephen Fry who said it, but there is a quote
| along the lines of "I'm commiting as many murders, thefts,
| and rapes as I want - that number is 0" that kind of
| resonates with me.
| simplerman wrote:
| > In modern no-religion societies, where is the pull for good
| old family values? What we are seeing is better rights and
| fairness for individuals (same-sex marriage, etc) but is that
| good for society as a whole?
|
| I understand where you are coming from, I struggle with my
| atheism/beliefs too.
|
| But without doubt, this is good for society. Think about it,
| we had slavery because bible and other religions, approved of
| slavery. Then women had no rights because of religion,
| finally they do. These are good things. I believe
| homosexuality is next big step for humanity. Once this is
| accepted, no one would even think about questioning it.
|
| As for old old family values, I am not really sure what it
| means, but if it means close family ties, then I have seen
| non-religious families who are very close and religious
| families who fight all the time. And vice versa.
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| > Now I'm in my 40's I do wonder if the lack of religion in
| society is leading us to a bad place
|
| I'm an atheist and have considered the same quite a bit. I
| wonder if some people need something to believe and direction
| and religion helps fence these people into society friendly
| pockets.
|
| I wonder today if what I would consider is that overly woke
| pocket (which I respect is very relative to personal views)
| and generally more extreme politics on all sides need
| something to believe in a fight for and religion when done
| well is a brilliant force for good in society this way to
| coral that energy to good places.
|
| ...but at the same time religion can be horribly controlling
| and toxic. And when religion finds absolute power it tends to
| go badly so I think the trade off between too much and too
| little, we are better going towards too little.
|
| Maybe somehow we need to look at the good parts of religion
| and work that into a non-religious society. Even little
| things like I'd love to see shops closed on Sunday again and
| return this as more simple downtime for family, friends and
| self. Also realise we dont need to spend money every day.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > I wonder if some people need something to believe
|
| I totally understand your point (and agree with the stated
| goal of a non-religious society with the "good bits" of
| religion baked in), but, the "some" in your sentence above
| ... there be really scary dragons.
|
| Here's what I mean: would you say that "some" people
| deserve the right to vote while others don't?
|
| The argument that "some" people need religion has the
| implication that they're too dumb to figure out a path for
| themselves without the help of a guiding book.
|
| And that because of their limitations, the only way for
| them to "stick to the book" is to shrink-wrap the message
| into a fairy tale.
|
| In other words, that'd be a world where one part of the
| population (those who don't "need" religion) brainwashes
| and manipulates the other part into "doing the right thing"
| (whatever "right" actually is).
|
| You can see why this line of reasoning is a very slippery
| slope.
| Milner08 wrote:
| Other than my Grandma who is in her 90's and one friend who
| joined a church later in life (his family are atheist) I don't
| know anyone in the UK who goes to church. At least among my
| friends its just not a thing. I find it bizarre how many people
| in America attend church, but I hold nothing against them for
| it.
| nprateem wrote:
| Yeah but they do all the gospel and dancing stuff over there.
| Don't tell me you don't want to FEEL THE POWER
| pratik661 wrote:
| UK has historically had low church membership. Even novels from
| the mid 1800s (Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy) talk
| about how village churches lay mostly empty due to lack of
| adherents
| codeulike wrote:
| The difference in politics is interesting too - in the USA
| politicians have to be shown to be religious - people discuss
| the possibility that Bernie Sanders' might be atheist like its
| a potential major scandal. In the UK its the exact opposite, we
| don't want our leaders to be religious. Its ok for them to go
| to a big church service or lay a wreath or something but if
| they start talking about their 'faith' (as Tony Blair did
| somewhat) we get weirded out.
|
| Jeremy Corbyn's atheism is an interesting example - the right
| wing press found all sorts of ways to vilify or criticise him,
| but his atheism never came up as a criticism - because atheism
| in the UK is a complete non issue. No-one cares. Compare with
| Bernie Sanders.
| zuminator wrote:
| If you're running for major office in the US, announcing your
| fealty to God is a kind of real-world implementation of
| Pascal's wager. That is, if you are openly atheist you will
| earn the condemnation of a large cohort of believers, and
| lose many votes. But if you're religious, only a small few
| atheists will write you off as a candidate. So it's always to
| your political advantage to claim religious adherence, even
| if you're not. Arguably patently insincere lip-service
| actually works better than principled devotion in this
| respect.
| [deleted]
| codeulike wrote:
| _real-world implementation of Pascal 's wager_
|
| Indeed, well put
| thinkingemote wrote:
| It's Holy Week this week (the week before Easter starts) and
| every day there is a service in each parish. UK, Roman Catholic
| churches. You have to book online to reserve a place. A quick
| look at a few parishes in an area for big and small churches
| shows that all the services for each day of the week and
| weekend are booked out in advance.
|
| Obviously the numbers able to fit in the churches are capped
| because of Coronavirus, but it appears as if there are more
| people who are wanting to attend than can. What I can say with
| some confidence is that there is at the very least more demand
| than the capacity.
| gpderetta wrote:
| I might take my kids there. Then again I also took them to
| see Santa.
|
| Unfunny quip aside, it is a social gathering and it is
| undeniably positive for the community.
| mcculley wrote:
| That really depends on the church. Many flavors of religion
| are a net negative for the community.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Possibly. I was mostly talking about the specific mild
| flavour of Roman Catholicism practised by church we
| frequent here in London.
| Milner08 wrote:
| Roman Catholic... in the UK? That makes up a very small
| number of churches...
| dghf wrote:
| Roman Catholicism is the second largest Christian
| denomination in the UK (after the Church of England).
| Something like 7% of the population of England and Wales,
| 16% of the population of Scotland, and 40% of the
| population of Northern Ireland are Catholic. Catholicism is
| the dominant religion in many parts of Northern Ireland,
| and even in some parts of western Scotland.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| It's bigger than you think, it's about the same size as the
| Church of England.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11297461
|
| https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html
| jedberg wrote:
| You have to get tickets to get into Temple on the Jewish High
| Holy Days too. I know because I take my kids. It doesn't mean
| we are religious though. I just like to take them for the
| singing and to see the blowing of the ram's horn, fond
| memories I have from my own youth.
| Balgair wrote:
| Because no-one has yet linked the actual poll, here it is:
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-...
|
| It's a pretty short poll. Here are the highlights that Gallup
| cites:
|
| - In 2020, 47% of U.S. adults belonged to a church, synagogue or
| mosque
|
| - Down more than 20 points from turn of the century
|
| - Change primarily due to rise in Americans with no religious
| preference
| hacknat wrote:
| Correction: _Since the 1940s_
|
| "For the first time" is probably not true. This is since Gallup
| tracked this number. Post WWII church attendance really sky
| rocketed for reasons that are still not fully understood, but a
| lot of people think the emergence of the Evangelical movement
| bears a lot of the responsibility. It's much harder to track pre-
| WWII numbers, but according to the "Mapping America's Past"
| authors[1] church attendance was as low as 35% in the 19th
| century (sometimes).
|
| [1]
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805049274/?coliid=I38DOW2LIAPT9J&...
| perrylaj wrote:
| In mid-century US, religiosity/faith were also promoted by
| capitalists as counters to rising global popularity of
| Communism/Socialism. The 1954 addition of "Under God" to the
| USA's Pledge of Allegiance was marketed (in part) as a means of
| differentiating from the Godless Communists. I'd be surprised
| if this big push toward an obvious "Blessed Nation" wasn't a
| primary driver in the shift.
| hinkley wrote:
| Do you suppose it has anything to do with all the
| infrastructure that had to be built out new for the baby
| boomers? All of a sudden you needed twice as many grade
| schools, then middle schools, etc.
|
| We don't do catholic boarding schools as much any more (too
| much bad PR of several flavors, for example) but they
| definitely did at the time. I wonder if the church-going came
| first or the religious schools did.
|
| I think a number of the traditionally religious immigrant waves
| arrived well before WWI, so that probably doesn't have anything
| much to do with it, unless those groups had far more children
| post WWII...
| captainredbeard wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Awakening
| throw7 wrote:
| I think life, in general, is pretty good and has been in the U.S.
| As a result, it's not surprising to see the numbers decline over
| the years.
|
| That said, religion isn't going anywhere. The metaphysical
| questions we have are still the same since the dawn of mankind.
| lend000 wrote:
| I'm amazed it was that high. Shows how much of a bubble I live
| in.
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| I went to a Protestant Christian school for 9 years and church
| until I was 16. As someone with learning disabilities,
| Tourette's, and (at the time) gender identity issues; Christian's
| made my life a living hell for things I had no control over.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I suspect one factor in the declining membership is shared with
| other mid-century social groups that have also dwindled (e.g.,
| men's lodges): it's easier to find community elsewhere.
|
| For my parents -- born in 1940 -- church and men's service
| clubs/lodges were the primary areas of social interaction outside
| work. Dad ran his own veterinary practice, so his social
| interaction there was limited (I mean, everybody worked for him).
| Mom stayed at home until the late 70s. Church was the center of
| their social life.
|
| Now, nobody wanted to say that out loud; it was all about the
| faith. But that's what it was.
|
| In my life I've had no need for that, because people of my
| generation (b 1970) have generally found other communities of
| support/friendship/connection. None of my friends are Masons,
| either.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Men's lodges, fraternal organizations, and so on around here
| tend to have a religious underpinning of specific faiths, or
| seem to be charities of some kind with a connection to
| religion. As such, I think declining church membership would
| drag them down as well.
|
| I wonder if men's clubs exist which are neither, just
| completely secular. I haven't been able to find any when
| searching, aside from The Club, which technically fits but as a
| bathhouse for hookups, wasn't really what I had in mind. I know
| lodges centered around professions more or less fell apart, and
| perhaps the last vestige of secular groups would be country
| clubs.
|
| It's hard to tell how much of this is just "people aren't
| joiners anymore" and how much is declining church membership.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| men's Groups are now often political in nature.
|
| Social justice groups (which are not that secular, actually),
| libertarians, militias.
|
| Church membership declined. Qanon membership soared.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| So many of the comments here are affirming what I have long
| observed: much anti-religious sentiment ("much", not "all"!) is
| actually a reaction to fundamentalism, which is the bad theology
| of scriptural literalism, which brings heresies like hating LGBT,
| insisting the Bible is also a science textbook, superstitious
| views of certain Middle Eastern lands, and more.
|
| Growing up as a mainline Protestant, I thankfully didn't have
| much of this to react against in my own churches. But we saw the
| bad fundamentalist theology in Southern Baptist or too many
| independent churches (those two mentioned because they were
| dominant where I grew up). I can appreciate the difference.
|
| I'm still happily a mainline Protestant. I'm not instructed to
| hate anyone, I'm not told to vote a particular way. I'm not going
| to church to check in my brain to a charlatan who saves me from
| an angry (false) god. I'm going to be better and to grow my
| relationship with God.
| clairity wrote:
| it also depends on the church and with time. the southern
| baptist church i went to when young didn't have much if any
| extreme fundamentalism. the one i attended for a bit as a
| teenager (not by choice) was a little more fundamentalist, but
| not extreme. i stopped going to church after that.
|
| but really, teasing apart the strains doesn't matter in the
| long run. our gods are changing, just as they always have.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| Since mainline protestantism is in full collapse, is it really
| true the progressive christianity has any chance of surviving
| long term?
| randcraw wrote:
| A lot can change in a couple of centuries. Right now,
| Catholicism is still growing in South America and Africa. As
| people in those regions become better educated and affluent,
| they may indeed follow the evolutionary path of other more
| affluent economies.
|
| But with the resounding recent rise throughout the world in
| populism (which is a form of faith, but in a person or a
| dream rather than an economy), it's hard to know how
| humankind will respond to the challenges of the modern world.
|
| We could choose to retreat from our current immersion in
| fast-paced life via technology and withdraw into one (or
| many) 'simpler' ways of life. If we do it wouldn't surprise
| me if we also choose to reimagine the world that surrounds us
| as being less concrete and more a realm of possibility in
| which choose our own reality.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| I find it perplexing that you describe catholicism as
| progressive, since it maintains strict sexual purity
| standards, a male clergy, anti abortion and homosexuality
| etc.(Perhaps I misread you)
|
| Isnt it true that SA is having extreme growth of the
| prosperity gospel form of fundamentalism too?
| sudosteph wrote:
| I wouldn't write it off yet. The popularity of protestantism
| is very prone to wax and wane with the times. A really
| charismatic preacher or two can make a big impact. Most of
| the mainlines we see in the US today started from just
| itinerant preachers and camp meetings. Personally, I think
| that's because the emphasis on "personal relationships" with
| God lends itself to more of a "social contagion" model of
| popularity, as people seek to imitate friends and neighbors
| who share spiritual experiences. That's not a negative thing
| necessarily. But they can't lean on tradition like the
| Orthodox or Catholics do.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Unfortunately, you are the exception. I grew up in a church
| household and family. It is sad that so many people see the
| bible as a weapon to enforce their point of view instead of a
| manual to direct their own life. It is crazy the amount of hate
| that my "christian" family members post on FB.
| ben_w wrote:
| I was raised liberal Catholic by an atheist father and an
| eclectic hippie New-Age-Catholic-Hindu-dowsing-crystals-
| homeopathy-and-runic[0]-divination mother, for the purposes of
| getting into a good school.
|
| While it is fair to say that one specific fundamentalist young-
| Earth creationist Baptist certainly turned me from "it isn't
| true but it doesn't matter" to "it is actively harmful for
| people to believe this", I should also say that the liberal
| version of Catholicism at my school -- liberal enough to _not
| explicitly condemn_ abortion or homosexuality, even though this
| was the U.K. in the 1990s and Section 28 still in force -- had
| terrible sex education which completely ignored the existence
| of e.g. chlamydia, and I do think that was due to the religion
| given how quickly I learned about it the moment I moved to the
| next step in my education.
|
| The open-mindedness may have been good for me as a teenager
| going through a goth-paganism phase, but it also meant she gave
| my dad homeopathic remedies when he got bowel cancer, and she
| got Alzheimer's 15 years younger than her mother "despite" her
| use of Bach flower remedies for memory.
|
| [0] naturally this meant I learned to read the outer border of
| the Allen & Unwin edition of The Hobbit, and the text in the
| hand drawn maps inside: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-
| content/uploads/2013/...
| [deleted]
| analog31 wrote:
| That's fair, but to play devils advocate, every sect can point
| the finger at some other sect, or at heretics within their own
| sect. No sect will agree to any negative critique, and because
| their doctrines tend to be self consistent, critique is
| pointless anyway. Yet the sects are not completely separate,
| but are collusive to some degree. And individual beliefs may be
| a mishmash of ideas from multiple sects. Indeed for this
| reason, the divisions between sects are not hard edged.
|
| American fundamentalism would have no political power without
| the tacit consent of the mainstream. The predominant sects in
| my state are mainline, yet they voted _en masse_ to outlaw gay
| marriage (before the US supreme court ruled otherwise).
| jboynyc wrote:
| Not just other commenters, the (sociological) science backs you
| up as well: political backlash is a big reason for recent
| disaffiliation. https://sociologicalscience.com/articles-
| vol1-24-423/
| burlesona wrote:
| That's the predictable, and in the end, best outcome. The
| most foolish thing cultural "christianity," could do is pick
| a political party. Now that we're a generation past that, the
| so-called "religious right" has evolved into a thin veneer of
| pseudo-religion over a very specific political faction, and
| that shallow falseness is driving most people away.
|
| As for actual Christianity and those who study it, in many
| ways the teachings of Christ could not be more different than
| the "religious right" advocates today. Christ taught
| followers to love their neighbors as themselves, and not to
| judge other people, because in God's eyes all humans were
| equally and impossibly flawed. When a mob formed to stone an
| "adulteress," as was the prescribed punishment for that
| "crime" in ancient Judaea, Jesus said "let the person who is
| without sin throw the first stone." The mob dissolved, and he
| told the woman she was forgiven.
|
| Note that this is not what the religious-political faction of
| Jesus day wanted either, and in the end they arranged for him
| to be crucified as a result.
| coliveira wrote:
| I emigrated from another country to the US and, having
| participated in religion in the past (even if just for
| socialization), became frightened to discover that American
| churches (at least 90% of them) are nothing more than a
| cover to conservative political activism. I never entered
| into a single one after that.
| burlesona wrote:
| I doubt that the number is 90%, and I have no idea how
| anyone would rigorously measure it, but I understand your
| point.
|
| One of the annoying things is that it isn't even quite
| true to say they preach "conservative," political action.
| There's a particular political philosophy of the
| "religious right," which is really it's own flavor of
| thing and doesn't fit the classical definitions of
| liberal vs conservative that we would have used in say,
| 1980.
|
| That's a lot of what's turning over the Republican Party
| right now. Old-fashioned "conservatives" like Mitt Romney
| and Liz Cheney are being uprooted in favor of... whatever
| you call the hodgepodge of today's Republican ideas.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm not religious, so I don't go to my wife's church, but
| with the pandemic now, they are streaming their services
| on Sundays for the few of their congregation who are
| respecting stay-at-home. Now that it's background noise
| Sunday mornings, I can hear what they're saying, and it's
| essentially a Republican sermon. Sure, the pastor
| mentions Jesus every once in a while, but for the most
| part it's straight up conservative talking points and
| propaganda. If I didn't know it was a church service, I
| would have thought she was streaming Fox News. I know,
| anecdote and sample size of one, but wow.
|
| They're all anti-maskers, too. She had to stop by once to
| deliver something during service, and everyone's packed
| in there singing and shouting, zero masks to be found.
| Pretty scary.
| [deleted]
| Karunamon wrote:
| Jesus also told the woman to "go forth and sin no more" as
| part of being forgiven, which is a significantly important
| detail that often gets overlooked when paraphrasing this
| story.
|
| The entire story of Christ is based on redemption from sin
| - if one tries to eliminate that because having
| extrajudicial demands on one's conduct is not fashionable
| in the modern day, what's left is, objectively speaking,
| not Christianity anymore, not even qualifying as a moral
| framework, and leaves you with nothing more than a nice
| story about a nice guy.
|
| Let us not forget that Jesus was described as fashioning a
| whip (which is not something you do on a momentary whim in
| the bronze age, that takes time and effort, and in this
| case, likely stewing the whole time) and deploying it
| against scalpers in the temple. What the "judge not"
| passage calls for is recognizing that you aren't the
| ultimate authority worthy of meting out punishment at the
| end of the day (which also jibes with significant portions
| of the Israeli covenant and its lethal punishments being
| deprecated), but it _does not_ demand that people remain
| tolerant or silent in the face of sin.
| burlesona wrote:
| I agree with everything you said. I'll also admit, it's
| hard for me to see much difference between today's
| "religious right" and the temple market that Jesus
| personally wrecked.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Agreed.. but I think that intent factors into it a lot
| more than people tend to give credit for. If one of the
| key takeaways of Christianity is "don't sin", then right
| behind it is "you (and everyone else) will screw up, try
| to be better anyways". And that applies just as well to
| things like lying and cheating as it does to scrupulosity
| and being judgmental.
|
| Your typical fundamentalist might be nominally Christian
| by declaration, but they give short shrift to so many
| things they deem not important that it amounts to shallow
| virtue signaling. The moral guidelines are all-or-
| nothing. You either accept it all or you might as well
| save yourself the time because there's no such thing as
| partial credit. Sin is sin.
| fullstop wrote:
| I was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic schools until
| college. When I was in high school I recall having serious
| issues with what they were teaching. Here's a few of the gems
| they left me with: 1. You should only get
| married if you intended on having children. 2. If you
| were unable to have children, the marriage should be annulled.
| 3. Homosexuality was abhorrent and sinful. 4. Women
| should not obtain positions of power in the church. They used
| Adam and Eve to justify their position.
|
| Many years later I found out that the reason why my freshman
| year biology teacher left unexpectedly over the summer was
| because he had been shuffled to another location after
| molesting young boys. He was eventually imprisoned for this,
| after being extradited to Australia. The church and the school
| knew this but said nothing to the parents or the students and
| it was swept under the rug. It was complete silence until they
| were forced to say something at a point where those who were
| molested were fairly far into their lives.
|
| Thinking back on all of this still makes me angry today. A
| priest in my elementary school was brought in and then quietly
| and suddenly left a few months later and I am left with
| unanswered questions.
|
| I don't need that in my life. I don't need religion to be a
| moral person, and from my point of view the system that I was
| raised in was very far from moral. The Catholic church has done
| more to affirm my Atheist .. non-beliefs? .. than anything
| else.
| philsnow wrote:
| > If you were unable to have children, the marriage should be
| annulled.
|
| This depends on a lot of things. If two people get married,
| and one of them already knows that they are sterile or for
| whatever reason cannot have children, but they don't reveal
| that to the other until after they are married, that is
| _grounds_ for the other person to seek an annulment. This is
| not the same thing as saying that the marriage "should" be
| annulled.
|
| If on the other hand, knowledge of the person's sterility
| doesn't arise until after they are married, I don't think
| that's grounds for an annulment.
| gspr wrote:
| Even without the hate, isn't it harmful to indoctrinate
| children into believing in fantasy?
|
| Sure, adding hate makes it far worse, but one fantasy god with
| a fantasy origin story and fantastical powers is one too many.
| ykevinator wrote:
| But god is not real and you speak with some certainty that he
| is. Clutching on to the premise is so much of the problem with
| society. Just because you're a nice believer ( not you
| personally) doesn't mean you're not part of the problem. Belief
| in the supernatural retards consensus on science based
| solutions because it presumes that supernatural based solutions
| are a legitimate alternative.
| dawg- wrote:
| I became an atheist/agnostic as a teenager and now in my late
| 20's I have slowly come back to religion. So I am really
| interested in this topic.
|
| My comment is specifically about online atheist communities,
| because I think they are often toxic to both religion _and_ to
| atheism itself. A lot of these communities are hyper-focused on
| fundamentalism, to their own detriment.
|
| These online atheists communities can be very unfortunate. Your
| noble search for the truth leads you to question religion - but
| then you get caught in an echo chamber spending _a lot_ of
| energy hating on others for their beliefs. A noble pursuit
| devolved into hatred and groupthink. On the other hand,
| fundamentalists took a religion which preaches love and
| acceptance and twisted it into something bitter and hateful. I
| think it 's kind of poetic how much those two communities
| mirror each other.
|
| The fixation on fundamentalism is a combination of two things.
| First, there are people from those fundamentalist churches who
| were damaged in some way and have now swung way to the opposite
| extreme of hating all religion. They grew up learning to see
| the world through rigid dogma, and online atheist communities
| tend to be fairly dogmatic themselves. Not hard to see the
| appeal there. Second, and probably more common, are atheists
| who never had any close contact with fundamentalism but they
| justify their beliefs by taking on the low-hanging fruit. It is
| very easy to pick on young-earth creationists, vehement anti-
| gay groups, prosperity gospel, etc. Those groups' thinking
| really does rely on fear and hate, things that the bible
| actually tells us to reject.
|
| What happens when you tell one of those angry atheists that
| yes, you're a Christian, but you also find evolution to be very
| cool, you know that the universe is billions of years old, you
| are pro choice, and you don't believe everything in the bible
| literally happened? Well, they aren't really sure what to do
| with you. Because they spend all their time congratulating
| themselves for being smarter than the lowest common denominator
| of religion, they aren't really able to have a more
| sophisticated conversation about their beliefs.
|
| As a religious person, it is a bit frustrating that you never
| see atheists confronting the great theologists and religious
| philosophers - Origen, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas,
| Kierkegaard, or even contemporary thinkers like Alasdair
| McIntyre. If Christians' beliefs are really so shallow and
| stupid, those guys should be super easy to refute, right? They
| think that all Christians are anti-science when Christian monks
| were pivotal in the discovery of genetics and the big bang
| theory, among other scientific achievements. They ignore that
| some giants of Enlightenment philosophy, like Descartes and
| Spinoza, were attempting to use new rational methods to affirm
| the existence of God in their major works.
|
| The problem is, when you are an atheist engaging in the really
| complex arguments posed by the most intelligent and eloquent
| religious people of history, the waters become very muddy. You
| might even have to concede, just a little bit, that you take
| your atheism on faith, too. It's much easier to feel good about
| bashing the usual suspects - Joel Osteen, the 700 Club,
| Westboro Baptist and friends. And so a lot of people get sucked
| into that low-level discourse, and never get a chance to make
| the exhilarating journey back to religion. I don't really care
| if someone stays an atheist, many good people are atheists. But
| I do care if they never get a chance to see the promise of
| religion because of toxic echo chambers and groupthink.
|
| As a religious person, I don't hate outspoken atheists. In
| fact, I very much respect them - they are people who care
| deeply about the truth. In that respect, they have something in
| common with any thoughtful religious person.
| awicz wrote:
| This is such a refreshing comment. It's far better to engage
| in dialogue with those whom you disagree in order to
| understand their position opposed to assuming they are evil,
| stupid, or otherwise sub-human. Wouldn't it be wonderful if
| such an approach was applied not only to religious
| conversations but those of politics, work disputes, conflicts
| with your significant other...everything?
| kongolongo wrote:
| >What happens when you tell one of those angry atheists that
| yes, you're a Christian, but you also find evolution to be
| very cool, you know that the universe is billions of years
| old, you are pro choice, and you don't believe everything in
| the bible literally happened? Well, they aren't really sure
| what to do with you. Because they spend all their time
| congratulating themselves for being smarter than the lowest
| common denominator of religion, they aren't really able to
| have a more sophisticated conversation about their beliefs.
|
| I'd say you're being inconsistent with your religion and that
| the religious part of how you came to these views is
| unnecessary. Sure I agree attacking the very worst of
| religion is easy, but even at its very best, religion doesn't
| make a compelling argument for its necessity.
|
| The reason for fixation on fundamentalism is because they
| have the most consistent story that can be argued against.
| Once you start cherry picking whatever pieces of the bible
| seem like it could fit into today's social norms and current
| understanding of the physical world, you're basically showing
| none of it necessary.
|
| What would you say to someone that believes a giant turtle
| created everything, is the one true god and also held those
| same stances on evolution etc? They just prepend the fact
| that a giant turtle created everything and then vanished
| without a trace. Anyone could come up with a number of
| creative stories that are unverifiable or disprovable and
| seemingly are compatible with our current scientific
| understanding of the world. What makes your god or any god(s)
| in particular more reasonable or necessary than the great
| turtle?
| dawg- wrote:
| I think you betray your lack of understanding by
| categorizing any religious belief aside from fundamentalism
| as "cherry picking whatever pieces of the bible...". There
| is a 2,000 year old tradition of hermeneutic interpretation
| of the bible, resulting in dozens of different, more
| nuanced approaches to reading and thinking about the book.
| But you've brushed all that aside as "cherry picking" so
| that your criticism can still be coherent without having to
| make any effort to learn more than you already know. You
| _must_ maintain a narrow, simplistic definition of religion
| in order to retain confidence in your belief system. Isn 't
| that a bit backwards?
|
| One individual making up a story about a turtle is not a
| religion. Religions emerge from thousands of years of
| collective human consciousness. The stories are told and
| retold from millions of mouths to millions of ears. You
| understand that input to a human's cognitive system can
| shape their perception, consciousness, behavior, of course?
| These stories and characters have accompanied us through
| every technological revolution from agriculture to
| smartphones. Repeated through countless generations, they
| have literally shaped us as a species. With that suggestion
| in mind, can you really confront the idea that God is "The
| Word", and that we are "made in his image", without even a
| tiny amount of awe and wonder?
| kongolongo wrote:
| Ok ignoring the appeal to tradition, how would you argue
| for hinduism over christianity or vice versa? Both are
| 2k+ years old with very different beliefs at their core.
| Reincarnation vs an afterlife, single vs many gods.
|
| Nothing about having a long history and nuanced
| approaches over the years answers my question of
| necessitation.
| dawg- wrote:
| Why ignore the main point of my comment? I directly
| addressed one reason why a random turtle god and an
| actual religion are very different.
|
| I was talking _about_ traditions, yes, but to write it
| off as simply an "appeal to tradition" falls very short
| Grieving wrote:
| It's easy to see parallels if you really want to look.
| The cycle of reincarnation is the thing that Hindus want
| to escape from (both seek unity with god), and it can be
| described as monotheistic as well.
|
| Just different approaches to the same divine.
| louwrentius wrote:
| > just a little bit, that you take your atheism on faith
|
| Well, that's the whole point: Atheists don't.
|
| Indeed we can't explain everything, not even close. But we
| don't have any reason to even remotely believe in any kind of
| supernatural power, which in turn begs an explanation it self
| ad infinitum.
| dawg- wrote:
| You don't have any reason _that you have considered_. Which
| is totally fine. The problem comes when atheists believe _a
| priori_ that any argument for God 's existence would be
| automatically false, even the ones they have never heard or
| considered.
| randcraw wrote:
| Your statement suggests there are infinitely many
| hypotheses that posit "a thing exists, but there is no
| evidence for it". Then you say others have failed to
| (properly) consider those hypotheses that _you_ choose to
| believe. (Which may or not be true, but no evidence
| either way is evident.)
|
| However, aren't you also saying you are not willing to
| (properly) consider the infinitely many _alternative_
| hypotheses to your own, much less the negation hypothesis
| of "NOT God"?
|
| Which is better then? To choose to believe in one
| untestable hypothesis or to believe in none?
| louwrentius wrote:
| No, Atheism doesn't mean that by definition a priori God
| doesn't exist. That would be wrong indeed, but I never
| encountered such arguments.
| Grieving wrote:
| I'm not a Christian, but a lot of this matches my experience
| with the overwhelming majority of atheists. There's a severe
| echo chamber effect and ignorance of both Christianity itself
| and especially of other religions, to the point that they
| make wide-ranging pronouncements that only really apply to a
| single perverted branch of a particular religion.
|
| > As a religious person, I don't hate outspoken atheists. In
| fact, I very much respect them - they are people who care
| deeply about the truth. In that respect, they have something
| in common with any thoughtful religious person.
|
| I disagree here though. In a secular world, rejecting
| religion isn't exactly the mark of a radical truth-seeker.
| When I started through my own atheistic phase as a teen, the
| greatest disappointment was the observation that my
| 'companions' in that regard weren't exactly insightful, just
| followers of the zeitgeist; if anything they mirrored the
| fundamentalists in their ignorance.
| gobrewers14 wrote:
| > "that you take your atheism on faith, too." This is a
| nonsensical statement. Atheism is a recognition that there is
| zero evidence for the existence of any gods. It requires no
| faith.
|
| > "Origen, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Kierkegaard, or
| even contemporary thinkers like Alasdair McIntyre ... should
| be super easy to refute, right?"
|
| You're shifting the burden of proof; there is nothing to
| refute. It's not the job of atheists to disprove your
| assertions. Regardless of a persons' intelligence, they
| cannot argue their deity into existence. It either exists or
| it doesn't. None of the aforementioned scholars ever
| presented evidence for their god or demonstrated supernatural
| causation.
| dawg- wrote:
| >Atheism is a recognition that there is zero evidence for
| the existence of any gods.
|
| You're bemoaning a lack of empirical evidence when the
| problem is actually a philosophical one.
|
| >there is nothing to refute
|
| Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like your stance is
| that God doesn't exist because God doesn't exist? Circular
| argument much? Atheism is a positive statement, too.
|
| >It's not the job of atheists to disprove your assertions.
|
| Of course it's not your "job". But I'd rather talk to
| someone who can actually explain why they think what they
| think.
|
| > It either exists or it doesn't.
|
| We are not omnipotent beings. We must strive to gain
| knowledge and understanding of the universe we live in. How
| do you know whether or not it exists?
|
| >None of the aforementioned scholars ever presented
| evidence for their god or demonstrated supernatural
| causation.
|
| Disagree completely, they all presented interesting
| arguments.
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| "As a religious person, it is a bit frustrating that you
| never see atheists confronting the great theologists and
| religious philosophers"
|
| They also conveniently ignore miracles sent from God and seen
| by thousands of people:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
|
| "you are pro choice"
|
| I'm sorry but that is not compatible with Christianity.
| dawg- wrote:
| Why not?
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/abortion/cat
| hol...
| mint2 wrote:
| I don't understand atheist online communities like you talk
| about. I'm very much an atheist, but I'm baffled by anyone
| who desires to have atheist get-togethers. What is the point?
| is it like fake bacon for people who like the taste of being
| preached to and preaching, but are atheist? Religious people
| do it because their are supposed to but what reason would
| atheists do it? When you were exploring atheism why did you
| go?
| dawg- wrote:
| People tend to participate in online communities that
| affirm their sense of identity. Maybe people who get really
| involved are those who see atheism as a more important
| aspect of their identity?
|
| I was definitely turned on to atheism on the internet, but
| I never really stuck around those forums. I grew up in a
| fairly liberal Catholic church, so I didn't really relate
| to all the vehemence against fundamentalism. Even though I
| grew up in a church, I didn't even know about "young earth
| creationism" until I learned about it from atheists on the
| internet. In my science class in Catholic school, we
| learned all about evolution. We used the same textbooks as
| the public schools. I don't remember hearing anything bad
| about LGBT, though I'm sure people talked about it since it
| was the early 2000's and gay marriage was still a real
| widespread controversy, as incredibly dumb as that seems
| now.
|
| Overall I guess my experience was very different from
| someone who grew up conservative protestant and found
| atheism. As a result I never hated religion, just didn't
| believe in it for a while.
| gbrown wrote:
| I think you're missing the bitterness that comes from growing
| up with a set of coping mechanisms and losing them. Moderate
| Christianity, taught by moral and good people, nevertheless can
| lead one to use the thought of eternal life as a psychological
| coping mechanism to deal with the reality of death and
| suffering in the world. If you eventually lose your ability to
| believe in that (which is involuntary for many), it can be
| quite painful.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I had a similar experience as a Catholic in the northeast.
|
| Lately as the politics of old people and loud young people have
| tilted right-wing, and more extreme philosophy is accepted,
| it's disturbing how the theology has followed the money.
|
| I probably sound like a simpleton here, but I've always found
| religion to be a source of peace and solace and a positive
| influence. Some of that is a result of ignoring teachings that
| are more... noxious to me personally or focusing away from
| behavior of the human agents of the church.
|
| Unfortunately, cycles of religious fundamentalism is a feature
| of the American body politic.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| The beauty of protestantism is that there is no ultimate
| arbiter to decide that one sect is "good" or "bad."
|
| You view certain fundamentalists' interpretation as somehow
| "bad?" So what? They probably view your sect as being equally
| degenerate.
|
| What gives you standing to cast this judgment?
|
| The framework of Protestantism allows and accounts for these
| divergent views. So you _really_ can 't throw down the "no true
| Scotsman" fallacy against those sects you disagree with in its
| broader defense.
| brundolf wrote:
| [Posted this under a reply below that got downvoted, so
| reposting here]
|
| I grew up fundamentalist, then swung hard atheist, then ended
| up, as one friend who went to seminary described it, "the most
| christian atheist he knows". I've known Christians ignorant and
| intellectual, hateful and openly loving, urban and rural,
| liberal and conservative, and everything in-between (and these
| are all independent axes, to be clear).
|
| Here's my take: A healthy faith is not about technicalities, or
| about finding a system for understanding the physical world or
| anything like that. If you get obsessed with technicalities you
| become a bitter fundamentalist; if you get fed-up with religion
| but stay obsessed with technicalities you become a bitter
| atheist.
|
| A healthy faith is about _people_. Yourself, your community,
| the world. Cultivating habits of forgiveness and growth toward
| yourself, and openness and love (as well as forgiveness and
| growth) toward others. Having a specific segment of your life
| dedicated to contemplation of the most important things in
| life, and doing so in a community on a regular basis. The
| iconography and the texts, ideally, are just a communal conduit
| for those ideas; symbols people can point to and use to talk
| about their thoughts and feelings around this stuff with
| others, and also to spark new thoughts and points of
| discussion.
|
| Many (not all) of my close friends are christians, and none of
| them have ever tried to convert me (if they were to do that on
| a regular basis, we wouldn't be close friends). Some of them
| don't really think hell exists; most of them don't think some
| magic prayer is all that's needed to keep you out of it; they
| know that spirituality is a matter of the heart, and the heart
| isn't so simple. Most, I think, see that even if hell does
| exist, the best thing they can do for others is simply to love
| them and to help them be better through example and friendship,
| if anything. They know they don't control others and they can't
| force them into anything. They can only be Good and hope that
| it spreads.
|
| I like this quote from Pope Francis:
|
| > We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe,
| Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: we will meet one another
| there.
|
| ADDENDUM: So where has that left me? I don't practice religion,
| though I read from the occasional religious author and I think
| spirituality in the broader sense is a useful metaphor for
| matters surrounding the heart and trying to be a better member
| of the world. I have really nice conversations, even with
| religious people, around those subjects. I've been known to go
| with a friend or relative to the odd church service (as long as
| it's at a church that's reasonably compatible with the above),
| and I often get some benefit from it in the form of meditation
| on myself and my relationship with the world. I've thought
| about finding a church to join for the sake of community,
| though I go back and forth on that since I don't believe in
| even the smallest literal sense (I try to let go of my
| literalism, but I still have mental habits from the days when I
| thought it was all about that, both religious and not). Maybe
| one day I'll find the right church and get past that.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| And what did you gain out of it?
|
| I grew up in a non-fundamentalist Christian cult (catholic) and
| it was at best a massive waste of time. I detest that part of
| my life.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _it was at best a massive waste of time_
|
| Why? Can you expand on that?
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| Because I cannot recall a single good thing I got out of
| the whole experience.
| frogpelt wrote:
| Jesus drove people out of the temple with a whip for
| disrespecting it. He called people (these are all based on KJV
| translation) "generation of vipers", "hypocrites", "whited
| sepulchres full of dead men's bones", he said it would be
| better some people to not have been born, that it would be
| better for some to have a millstone hanged on their neck and be
| drowned in the sea.
|
| None of that was hatred. It was love. He was dealing with
| people's religious and moral failings.
|
| It is not love to tell people they are okay when they are
| morally bankrupt.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| In that case, I will show love by saying that many religions
| are morally bankrupt.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| For me, and many I know, anti-religious sentiment is pretty
| simple. We just think it is science fiction, and thus not good
| to believe it is real. Even if its all very nice and friendly
| and reasonable fiction, it is better to understand it isn't
| real.
| smt88 wrote:
| My anti-religious sentiment goes far beyond that. I could not
| care less if people believe in science fiction. We all
| believe lies, don't we?
|
| My problem is that religions dictate universal truth, which
| is used as a justification to oppress. Many of us were abused
| or oppressed by mainstream religons as children.
| kodah wrote:
| Fundamentalism is still a vague description. I left the
| Catholic church in my teens and was angry for the experiences
| I'd had. As I grew as an adult my ire went from "religious
| institutions" to "certain moral communities".
|
| In any moral community there will be outliers and some of those
| outliers can take hold of a message. You can see this in modern
| day with secular moral communities as well. My main takeaway,
| after 20-some years of evaluating this is that morals are
| something okay to evaluate _your_ group on, but they are not
| ethics. They cannot apply widely, make their way into law, or
| try to shape society because by their very definition they are
| intrinsic to small groups. That doesn 't mean these groups
| can't teach us something, but the foundation of their ideas
| requires subscription and often holistically.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _I left the Catholic church in my teens and was angry for
| the experiences I 'd had._
|
| I know of too many Catholics who say the same. Not growing up
| Catholic, it's hard to relate. Their stories often involve
| excessively strict dogma or scriptural interpretation that
| denies or vilifies innocent human nature. E.g., taking your
| girlfriend to mass to hear an incendiary anti-abortion
| sermon, then losing said girlfriend due to that mass, then
| later ending your relationship with the church out of
| frustration.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| After being raised in a non-Fundamentalist denomination I'd say
| the progressive ones are more insidious and no less harmful.
| Their foundations are all the same text, no matter how literal
| or figurative they interpret it. IME they usually also teach
| the same bad ways of thinking: emotion over logic, testimony
| over hard evidence, authority beyond your understanding, etc.
| brundolf wrote:
| I've seen the churches you talk about, and I would almost
| call them "progressive-fundamentalist". The hallmark of
| fundamentalism isn't really adhering strictly to the text
| (after all, the text is so multifaceted that there's not even
| just one definition of "strict adherence", despite what they
| would tell you). The defining trait is turning the text into
| a battle-cry instead of an invitation for contemplation and
| love and self- and community-work. Progressives are just as
| likely to do this as conservatives.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| I suspect you're setting up a false dichotomy. There are more
| choices on theology than ones that require you to check your
| brain in at the door, such as 1. fundamentalism and 2. feel-
| good pop psychology.
|
| I am not taught emotion over logic. In fact, the Wesleyan
| Quadrilateral (a framework derived from but not described by
| him) has you evaluate beliefs with reason being a co-equal
| base. In confirmation and later in-depth adult classes, we
| were instructed to wrestle with the scripture. For example,
| we dug into the context of the times to understand better why
| certain things would have been said. We acknowledged selected
| verses made no sense. We agreed some parts we have no choice
| but to disregard. We frankly don't take Revelations that
| seriously because it's mostly batshit crazy. :-)
|
| I am not taught testimony over evidence. My church fully
| embraces evolution. We see Genesis for the story and the
| poetry.
|
| Authority beyond understanding: that gets back into the
| theological allegiance insisted on by the fundamentalists
| mainly.
| IsopropylHarbor wrote:
| Methodist Quadrilateral still teaches their followers to
| view issues and compare them to their scripture, then their
| traditions, then reason, and Christian experiences...
|
| Those are literally the four pillars of Wesleyan, which are
| all emotion over logic.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| "reason", one of the "four pillars of [the] Wesleyan
| [Quadrilateral]" is "all emotion over logic"?
| IsopropylHarbor wrote:
| Yes, but you've conveniently left out your other
| pillars...
|
| Reasoning is just the _act_ of thinking. An explanation
| for something which, according to you, should be framed
| around: Scripture, Tradition, and Christian Experiences.
|
| Scripture: Tells you how to feel (emotion) Tradition:
| Tells you this is how we've always felt (emotion)
| Christian Experience: Is a grouping of Scripture and
| Tradition (emotion)
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Reason is also the invitation to use our God-given
| intellect to help us come to conclusions. Otherwise we're
| disparaging God by disparaging that intellect.
|
| Otherwise, yes, the other three bases of the
| Quadrilateral aren't "reason".
| coliveira wrote:
| You just said that beliefs and reason are a co-equal base.
| This is exactly against reason, as reason cannot be bended
| in some cases just because you believe it should not apply
| in certain areas. That's why your denomination continues to
| subscribe to ideas that go against reason like Trinity,
| just to name a very common one.
| folkrav wrote:
| As much as I appreciate your level headed approach of the
| whole thing, the very basis of most religion is based on
| _faith_ that [insert relevant scriptures] are holding some
| truth about the very existence and power of [insert
| omnipotent entity]. I'll be honest, I have a hard time
| putting this very fundamental point as having any basis in
| logic and reason. Even putting beliefs at the same level as
| reason is rather questionable, IMHO.
|
| Edit: I'm not here to tell you you're wrong or to question
| your beliefs. You're very much free to hold them. I'm just
| having a hard time equating religion with objectivity when
| they are fundamentally rooted in something subjective by
| nature.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| I agree with you that it's not based on logic and reason.
| And I am OK with that. The mystery and subjectiveness is
| part of the point and part of reality that we need to
| grapple with.
| sidlls wrote:
| "Mystery" and "subjectiveness" are euphemistic
| descriptions of mythology and fairy tales, used to
| justify some pretty terrific political and military
| policies even today. People who go to church are
| implicitly supporting these things. Some of them have an
| excuse, in that they were simply raised that way and
| never had an opportunity for enlightenment. People who
| should know better don't have that excuse.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _used to justify some pretty terrific political and
| military policies even today_
|
| People who want to war will use any reason they can. Many
| have used religion, unfortunately. Mao and Hitler didn't,
| though.
| Mertax wrote:
| While I should attempt to create objective and rational
| explanation for everything, I think most people recognize
| I'd be hubristic to assume I can do this in all cases.
| Whether or not a belief system has to come into play is
| perhaps subjective. The irony is that I think most belief
| systems have the staying power they do because they
| cannot be entirely discredited through logic and reason.
| grogenaut wrote:
| I went to a Catholic highschool as a non-catholic. It was
| taught by marianists and we had visiting jesuits often.
| They generally taught that you reached your faith through
| logic and exploration and doubt of faith until you hit
| the point where you realize you can't explain it all with
| logic. They were very harsh on everyone's beliefs and
| made you analyze them. It didn't work for me but I
| appreciated the emphasis on critical thinking.
|
| I did enjoy the classes where we just gutted and analyzed
| the bible like any other literary work, they were not shy
| about it and it was fun to watch it shock the "devout
| Catholic kids".
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > They generally taught that you reached your faith
| through logic and exploration and doubt of faith until
| you hit the point where you realize you can't explain it
| all with logic.
|
| So the absence of evidence is evidence of the
| supernatural? Isn't this the god-of-the-gaps?
| folkrav wrote:
| > They generally taught that you reached your faith
| through logic and exploration and doubt of faith until
| you hit the point where you realize you can't explain it
| all with logic
|
| I'm fine with this... until they start proposing that the
| explanation for "you can't explain it all with logic" is
| "therefore there is an almighty God" rather than
| "therefore we don't how it works yet". At this point, my
| level of faith approaches zero (I sit somewhere along the
| lines of agnosticism or apatheism, depending on my mood)
| so you're losing me completely.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| Not sure I follow. If the religious outfit is teaching things
| like:
|
| - This book is a set of moral guidance aimed to cause
| favorable social outcome.
|
| - These stories are myths.
|
| - We should analyze these books to critically determine their
| relevance to our modern lives.
|
| - Your personal understanding of spirituality is unique to
| yourself.
|
| It seems only productive? It seems a much more dangerous
| stance, one even paralleling a fundamentalist stance, that
| there might be nothing to learn at all from scripture and
| millennia of human organized religion and so it must be
| completely discarded.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I haven't encountered a single religion that would teach
| what you just described. Can you name some?
|
| I can't imagine such religion staying around for long, as
| presenting things this way leads to obvious question: what
| makes $holyBook special over, say, Harry Potter? Or Star
| Trek? Or your national fiction writer of yore that wrote
| stories to cheer up their readers in difficult times[0]?
|
| This is not a joke question, by any means. I grew up as a
| Jehovah's Witness, so I had (my religion's interpretation
| of) the Bible down pat. And yet, looking back, even when I
| still believed I already realized my moral compass was
| built 50% on the Bible, and 50% on Star Trek: The Next
| Generation. It's probably the latter that kept me from
| becoming a fundamentalist believer :). Alas, while I could
| easily find a community of people willing to wait for Jesus
| with me, I have a hard time finding people who want to work
| towards the utopian ideals of the United Federation of
| Planets with me.
|
| --
|
| [0] - E.g. Henryk Sienkiewicz in my country.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| Universalists, Reconstructionist Judaism, Quakers with
| unprogrammed worship, virtually any panentheist religion
| which asserts that the concept of God is universal and
| inherent in every element we can perceive. Even early
| Christian Gnosticism had echoes of this style of thought.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| You're missing:
|
| - These myths are the only ones we believe. The other ones
| are false and harmful.
|
| - There is an invisible man who created everything and sits
| in judgment of all of us for the purposes of what happens
| to us in an afterlife that nobody has been able to observe.
|
| - Follow us so that he does not judge you unfavorably.
|
| The problem with the Bible is that the main character is
| God, and so everything that happens in the book affects
| him. The lessons do not give proper ethical cause and
| effect reasons for why you should do or not do something
| except that God is displeased with your humanity. Churches
| can add to these lessons and actually teach ethics, but
| they originate with the idea that a perfect being is really
| bad at creating perfect beings.
|
| Despite how many churches start having pastors with spiked
| hair and jeans and sneakers and tattoos, THAT does not
| change, and it's fundamentally ridiculous and harmful.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| This is a strawman for what you believe all religious
| organizations to be. In fact, you don't even need to be a
| religious organization to hold such beliefs. See:
| Alcoholics Anonymous.
|
| The problem that religious doctrine seeks to address is
| one of how to preserve our sanity when we're inexplicably
| stuck on this rock together. Science doesn't seem to have
| any good explanation for why we're here either -- just
| that we exist and the universe has for a long time too.
| There a multiple colliding personal beliefs of
| individuals on things like: fairness, justice, or
| whatever a favorable outcome socially even might be. I
| think it's fine that people might seriously study the
| mythos of Greek, Abrahamic, and Eastern religion
| together.
|
| People are born without a purpose other than survival and
| it is perfectly normal, if not recommended, that they
| maintain a healthy curiosity about the meaning of their
| existence. The alternative, unless I'm mistaken, is
| nihilism.
| coliveira wrote:
| But you don't need religion for that. The ancients
| already knew this by creating the arts as an expression
| of humanity looking for its meaning. My opinion is that
| modern humans debased art and nowadays have difficulty
| finding things that are meaningful. Religion and
| superstition, on the other hand, have maintained their
| focus.
| gumby wrote:
| > In fact, you don't even need to be a religious
| organization to hold such beliefs. See: Alcoholics
| Anonymous.
|
| Alcoholics Anonymous _is_ an explicitly religious
| organization is it not? To me they certainly cast
| themselves so strongly in that manner that to claim they
| are a not is to make a distinction without a difference.
|
| Note: I have not attended ?A itself but spent time with
| adjacent ?anon groups designed to support people whose
| friends and family members are struggling with addiction.
| The messages I received were, to me, pretty hard core
| religious, and one specific kind of religion in
| particular.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| It isn't a strawman. It is a fundamentally accurate
| description of the major Western religions. The kind you
| would go to a church to.
| whatshisface wrote:
| They didn't keep the Bible around for thousands of years
| because they compared it with other myths and thought it
| was the best, they did it because they thought it was true.
| The "natural selection" argument for the Bible leaves out
| the fact that reading it as a myth is not its "habitat," to
| keep up the analogy. On a comparative mythology basis, the
| winner will probably be a work of fiction written after the
| printing press.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| Who is "they"? This seems like an argument against
| organized religion because of religious hegemony in
| certain cultures.
|
| Certainly people _do_ gravitate towards moral mythology
| whether they like to admit it or not. The popularity of
| superheroes in North American culture speaks to this in
| modern times, most of which appear to be stories about
| defeating evil in ways that parallel those of ancient
| myths.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The argument is that the Bible is a really great myth
| because it survived for so long. The fallacy in that
| argument is that the Bible did not survive as a myth, it
| survived as a written record of events.
| mbg721 wrote:
| The Catholic approach, at least, is that the Bible
| contains a variety of literary styles, and so it's both.
| Some books are records of events, some are letters, some
| are myths in the Joseph Campbell sense of stories that
| are meant relate deeper truths about human nature and
| mankind's relationship with God. Most of the people who
| did this preserving over the centuries didn't subscribe
| so much to literal-minded fundamentalism.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The Catholic approach doesn't allow for swapping out
| biblical myths for other myths, which means that the
| Bible wasn't competing as a myth in their cannon either.
| If there was a form of "natural selection" operating on
| it, it was not operating on it _as a myth_. However I
| grant that "they thought it was true" is a vast
| oversimplification of the many motivations that people
| have had for printing copies of the Bible - which can
| include purely financial ones!
| mbg721 wrote:
| Ah, I think I see what you mean. Yes, most of the
| curation of the biblical canon was settled by the 4th
| century or so, and after that it came along with the
| religion as a fixed entity. But that doesn't mean there
| wasn't some natural selection of myths before that,
| especially those that had already been around for a long
| time before they were written down. Some weren't
| exclusive to Judaism; compare Noah to Utnapishtim in the
| Epic of Gilgamesh.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I don't think 3rd century Christians were comparing
| different accounts and selecting them on the basis of how
| well they would function as allegorical myths. I could be
| wrong, but as far as I know that is a modern invention,
| developed to reconcile the supernatural elements of
| scriptures with the naturalistic worldview that developed
| during the enlightenment. To understand the setting of
| early canonization, you have got to picture a world of
| persecution, faith and martyrdom that is hard for us to
| imagine in our liberal, secular and comfortable world.
|
| I understand that the view of the Bible as a product of
| natural selection is a way to transpose the belief that
| it was not made through purely human forces to a
| philosophical system where all nonhuman forces are
| natural. However, the argument for relevance to modernity
| is severely weakened by this rebasing. It is not the
| present environment that determines the shape of the
| animal, but the historical environment, and while the
| survival of a species is a testament to its adaptation
| for the historical environment, it is not a testament to
| its adaptation for the present environment. Since the
| historical environment was a combination of true faith,
| and later illiberality, there is no reason to think that
| it should be adapted for the modern environment of the
| allegorical view and religious freedom. That is why I do
| not think the naturalistic view works as a justification
| for the providence of the scriptures.
| bushbaba wrote:
| I've met a handful of Jewish rabbis who teach exactly this
| btw.
|
| However their comment is not the stories are "myths". But
| instead are verbal stories that likely greatly exaggerate
| the situation to teach us a lesson and keep us engaged.
| eslaught wrote:
| I'm not sure the narrative you're trying to paint here actually
| works. If you dig deeper into the actual poll, it says:
|
| > In addition to Protestants, declines in church membership are
| proportionately smaller among political conservatives,
| Republicans, married adults and college graduates. These groups
| tend to have among the highest rates of church membership,
| along with Southern residents and non-Hispanic Black adults.
|
| From the actual first-party news article on the poll:
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-...
|
| For better or worse, conservative (both politically and
| theologically) people seem to be holding on to their Christian
| faith in greater numbers (at least marginally) than their more
| progressive or liberal leaning counterparts.
|
| Anyway, as someone who almost left the faith, I would agree
| with the overall narrative that Christianity became ineffective
| in the late 20th century. Personally though, I would attribute
| it to a lack of focus on youth and issues relevant to youths. I
| can't find it now, but I'm pretty sure I saw a poll that
| indicated most people who leave do so in the transition from
| high school to college. That certainly lines up with what I
| observed, most people just didn't care enough to keep going
| (regardless of what branch they were in). I would have been one
| of them myself, if I hadn't been able to find a college
| Christian community that was dramatically more vibrant than
| what I grew up with. But overall I think I'm one of the lucky
| ones.
| randcraw wrote:
| Yeah, I suspect this news story (and poll) only scratches the
| surface as to identifying the multiple demographic trends
| afoot. Most notable to my eye was the 15% drop in church
| membership between GenX and Millenial. Of course, to do that
| metric justice we'd need to monitor change in that age group
| over time. Are today's 18-to-30 year olds so different than
| 18-to-80 year olds were in the 1970's or 1990s?
|
| I suspect the range of ages that are today's Millenials has
| forever been less traditional than other age groups. That's
| unsurprising given they have the least personal history of
| any adult group to weigh when deciding their life's
| priorities, and are likely to think least about their
| relationship to others in their family (since they just left
| the parents behind and have yet to add any more). At that
| age, the need to join another 'family' and adopt a bunch of
| new familial responsibilities is likely to be less compelling
| a notion than it may be a few years hence.
| [deleted]
| m0llusk wrote:
| My own experience being raised mainline Protestant was a bit
| different which might be illustrative: My parents were not at
| all devout, but still took wisdom and moral lessons from the
| Bible, especially from the teachings of Jesus. At the same time
| the preachers in town leaned right in their beliefs and focused
| on reading and interpreting more obscure passages. This
| resulted in a modest ongoing tension about what exactly it all
| meant. Then one Sunday School a conservative leaning preacher
| taught the kids how to spot witches. That was the last straw
| and we never went back to Mass or Sunday School and gradually
| withdrew from everything else with Easter and Christmas being
| the final holdouts. So I drifted to atheism but still find
| wisdom in the Bible and dare to compare the passages that focus
| on Jesus to stories of the Buddha. Culturally there is still
| quite a bit of influence there, but the fundamentalist
| component is a massive division like a great wall.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Witches? Seriously? That's just looney crap.
|
| I take it that "last straw" means the "straw that broke the
| camel's back". I just hope that stories like that won't be
| conflated with healthy practice of Christianity in people's
| minds.
| krastanov wrote:
| I get your point, but isn't this the "no true Scotsman"
| fallacy? I know Christians like you exist and I like that
| most media portrays "good" Christians to look basically
| like the prototype you described. However, I have
| personally met only one Christian of this type and all my
| other interactions have been with the fundamenlist
| caricatures described elsewhere here. (Who is vocal about
| their Christianity might be skewing my observations, but
| this is a problem in its own: why are only the
| fundamentalists vocal around me)
| nicbou wrote:
| You've probably met a lot more, but only noticed the more
| intense ones.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _isn 't this the "no true Scotsman" fallacy_
|
| You have a point. The definition of Christian is
| flexible, so how do you define "true"-ness? In my
| denomination, you'll find a wide variance of views on
| whether Mormons are Christian, for example.
|
| > _all my other interactions have been with the
| fundamenlist caricatures described elsewhere here_
|
| Like what you later intimated and what someone else said,
| I'll bet significant money that it's because they are so
| vocal. They are called capital-E evangelicals for a
| reason. The United Methodist church is lowercase-E
| evangelical; very much not in your face.
| whatanattitude wrote:
| Mass is very much not main line Protestant.
|
| Spotting a witch would be no different than spotting any
| other sinner who exists. We are everywhere. At the end of the
| day we are all sinners and will all stand accountable for our
| sins on the day of judgement. We can either be found in
| Christ forgiven or on our own.
|
| You can say you don't believe it and it's all a fairy tale.
| That's fine but most Christians are only warning others of
| the eternity that waits based on the special revelation of
| Christ in the Bible.
| DaedPsyker wrote:
| This isn't an excuse, more curiosity, but did that take place
| during the mass hysteria about supposed satanic cults?
| coliveira wrote:
| This demonstrates the big flaw of Christianity. Even thought
| there are millions of sincere, loving and friendly Christians
| around the world, the whole thing is based around a book that
| espouses views that are exactly what you call fundamentalism.
| Sooner or later someone will be confronted with the
| fundamentalist ideas about women, non-christians, and sexual
| diversity (for example), and start spreading the hate ideas
| contained in parts of that book.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Are there clear examples of that in the Bible (New
| Testament) or is it just how people interpret it?
|
| Edit. I'm not challenging or arguing any point. I was
| genuinely curious.
| sudosteph wrote:
| There are, but it's worth noting that they are all quotes
| from Paul, not Jesus.
| coliveira wrote:
| You mean, the same Jesus who appointed only men to be his
| disciples, while the women in his entourage were
| servants? It seems that Paul was just putting into words
| his practice.
| sudosteph wrote:
| Funny you mention that! Yes, the four gospels that were
| canonized by a patriarchal church organization do seem to
| paint a picture like that. But the Gospel of Thomas, and
| other ancient "heretical" texts tell a different story,
| where Jesus explicitly acknowledgd women as equals and
| Mary as the favorite disciple. So even some very early
| Christians would disagree with Paul here.
| [deleted]
| jazzyb wrote:
| Women shouldn't speak in church:
| https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/14-34.htm
|
| Homosexuality is unnatural:
| https://www.biblestudytools.com/romans/1-27.html
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Eph 22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as
| you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the
| wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of
| which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to
| Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in
| everything.
|
| Cor 33 For God is not a God of disorder but of peace--as
| in all the congregations of the Lord's people.
|
| 34 Women[a] should remain silent in the churches. They
| are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as
| the law says.
|
| Tim 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume
| authority over a man;[a] she must be quiet.
|
| I think those constitute clear sexism and/or misogyny?
| tdozi wrote:
| I'll add this as a great overview and resource for the
| context around that letter(and all the others):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y71r-T98E2Q
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Take out the writings of Paul (who never actually met
| Christ) and the whole thing becomes so much less
| problematic.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Have Christians all agreed to take out the gospel
| according to Paul?
| josefx wrote:
| I can't remember ever being in a church where women were
| required to stay silent. So not quite dropped but at
| least not enforced by most. Ask me again once everyone
| dropped miles for metric.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| There are plenty of modern Christian sects where I'm
| certain men do get more of a voice than women.
| coliveira wrote:
| The day Christians remove Paul's letters from the Bible,
| then your argument will make sense.
| prewett wrote:
| Paul claims to have met Christ on the road to Damascus
| (Acts 9:3-6) [1] and claims apostolic authority because
| of it (Acts 15:3-8) [2]. Furthermore, other apostles
| agreed that he had, or at least that he had the correct
| message (Gal 2:6-10) [3] and that his writings had the
| force of scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16) [4]. It is a letter
| from Peter, the head of the church in Jerusalem, claiming
| equating Paul's writing with "the other Scriptures", so
| you can't take out Paul's writing by claiming that that
| the original apostles did not believe what Paul wrote.
|
| [1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+9&v
| ersion=...
|
| [2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Cori
| nthians...
|
| [3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatian
| s%202&v...
|
| [4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Pete
| r+3&ver...
| kaesar14 wrote:
| It's all in the Bible.
| dawg- wrote:
| There are many different ways to read the bible. Mainly,
| the bible is not a literal instructional manual unless
| you are a fundamentalist. And fundamentalists suck. For
| others, it's a written record of humanity's relationship
| with God. It's also a collection of writings from a
| number of different authors and genres - it has history,
| poetry, letters, and so on. The old testament was written
| by people thousands of years ago who had an imperfect
| understanding of God, nature, humans, society, etc.
|
| In large part, the story of Jesus demonstrates how we
| should reject those archaic rules of our ancestors and
| act according to very simple principles; nonviolence,
| love for God, and love for all humans.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| I have no real bone to pick with Christianity. The asking
| comment was for examples of sexism and misogyny in the
| Bible which I provided.
| onwchristian wrote:
| Note: this is a bit cherry-picking out of context, which
| I'll admit sometimes happens in Christian circles as
| well. But I think understanding the context and culture
| of the time can make things a bit more clear. Yes, the
| culture of the time had a different handling of gender
| roles, and some of that persists in other cultures around
| the world to this day. These were letters written to the
| Christians in the churches of the day. Likely the content
| would be written slightly differently if it were written
| to a church in the modern day USA.
|
| For example: Ephesians 6 goes on from what you clipped:
| 25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as
| Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26
| to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of
| God's word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a
| glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other
| blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28
| In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as
| they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife
| actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own
| body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for
| the church. 30 And we are members of his body.
|
| This seems to me to indicate that husbands should be
| self-sacrificing and putting their wives' needs above
| their own. All the submission indicated here is similar
| to the way that Christ (the Son) submits to God the
| Father. These would have been very strong and shocking
| words in that culture, that normally would have allowed
| for husbands to have complete "rule" over their wives,
| and instead is urging husbands to self-sacrifice for
| their wives. So if anything, it would have been improving
| the standing of women rather than "keeping them down."
|
| If you're married, have you ever willingly given up on
| your own desires, instead following your spouse's
| needs/wants? Have they ever done the same for you? This
| seems to be what this passage is encouraging.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| I'm not cherry picking out of context. The following
| lines don't make it any better to me. The text is
| ultimately still saying women should bow and submit to
| their husbands decisions in all things, as long as their
| husbands treat them well. Yeah, I get that this was
| 'progressive' for its time. I still find it absurd people
| follow text like this as holy.
|
| Your interpretation is well and dandy but perhaps as a
| society we need to stop holding text that's so dated in
| such high regard, where many peoples interpretation is
| far less optimistic and charitable than yours.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| I think you're committing a historical fallacy. What
| you're saying is like condemning Abraham Lincoln because
| he said things that today we'd find unsavory or
| unenlightened. Fact is, Lincoln was highly progressive in
| his days.
|
| Yes, the scriptures include things that are problematic,
| especially in the context of today's mores. But in so
| many cases, understanding the norms of the times really
| helps understand the "why", which is important.
| coliveira wrote:
| However, people don't go around claiming that Lincoln was
| God's chosen one and that his word is sacred. That's why
| we're fine in understanding that Lincoln was a man of his
| time and many things he said should nowadays be
| considered garbage. This is not how religion sees the
| Bible and the words of Jesus and other prophets.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| The historical fallacy would be saying that early
| Christians were reprehensible because of their views
| independent of the time they existed in. I never said
| that. What I am saying is that following the teachings of
| those people 2000 years later is what's foolish, as we've
| come quite a long way in moral development since then.
|
| In the case of Abraham Lincoln, he deserves credit for
| being progressive for his time in his pursuit of
| abolition. Does that mean we should follow his views on
| the inequality of white and black people, because he was
| progressive then? No, we've come a long way since then.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| I think we're more on the same page than not.
|
| For Lincoln, celebrate his accomplishments and how he
| helped us progress. For the difficult things, understand
| they are artifacts of his time. They are important to
| understanding him and can further help color who he was.
|
| Reasonable Christians do the same with the Bible.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Lincoln was a person. The Bible is meant to be the actual
| teachings of divinity. That's a key difference.
|
| If we're meant to update for modern morality maybe we
| need a Newer Testament. Until then, the ambiguity of the
| words of long dead shepherds leave quite a lot to be
| misinterpreted, as well-intentioned your interpretation
| may be.
| garmaine wrote:
| It's worth noting though that all your quotes are from
| the various post-gospel letters, not quotes from Jesus.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| It's all in the Bible.
| dntrkv wrote:
| My problem with this perspective is that, sure, the bible
| had some teachings that could be considered an
| improvement at the time. But if it really is a divinely
| inspired text, the teachings wouldn't be just a slight
| improvement of the norms at the time, but would
| consistently teach equal standing of every person.
|
| And considering we have the old testament which was full
| of, let's be honest here, barbaric teachings but
| apparently were appropriate for the time. You would think
| by now we would have the New Testament V.96 that would
| contain teachings that are relevant today, not forcing
| you to pick and choose just the good parts.
| cat199 wrote:
| Ah yes, the old 'ephesians is mysogyny' out-of-context
| quote, which always manages to completely omit the lines
| which follow:
|
| Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and
| gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her,
| having cleansed her by the washing of water with the
| word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself
| in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
| that she might be holy and without blemish.1 28 In the
| same way husbands should love their wives as their own
| bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no
| one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes
| it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are
| members of his body. 31 o"Therefore a man shall leave his
| father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two
| shall become one flesh." 32 This mystery is profound, and
| I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
|
| won't get into the others, i'm quite sure there are
| cohesive rebukes / contextualization elsewhere
| kaesar14 wrote:
| How does saying a husband should respect and love his
| wife mean that wives having to submit to their husbands
| isn't misogynistic? Yes, treat them well, but women must
| bow to their husbands in all decisions. It's a clear
| reinforcement of a power dynamic that ultimately means
| men control all the power in society.
| f154hfds wrote:
| It's hard for me to see how you're reading Ephesians 5 in
| good faith. Wives submit to your husbands, husbands
| sacrifice your lives for your wives (like how Jesus ya
| know, was crucified for his Church). And you read this as
| misogynistic?
|
| This is not by far the most problematic Pauline passage
| in terms of male/female roles. Taken at face value this
| is some pretty deep advice for how to have a functioning
| marriage where two people need to make decisions for
| their family and don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on
| everything.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Yes, the husband in a family making all the decisions as
| long as they respect their wife is for sure misogynistic.
|
| Your interpretation of this being advice for a family to
| function even when they don't see eye to eye everything
| makes no sense to me. So if a man and woman in a marriage
| don't see eye to eye on an issue, the man makes the
| decision as long as he's kind to his wife? A wife may
| have her opinion, but really she has to submit in all
| things to their husband?
|
| I'm all for husbands loving their wives, but maybe text
| that clearly says that men have the power of decision
| making in a household could be interpreted as
| meaning...men have the power in a relationship.
| f154hfds wrote:
| Perhaps we're working with two different definitions of
| misogyny?
|
| "hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women"
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misogyny
|
| Where does power come into it exactly?
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Power has everything to do with prejudice. Divinely
| ordaining men with the power of the household is
| prejudice against women.
| f154hfds wrote:
| 'Power' in the Christian context is quite a lot different
| from your impression I think:
|
| > And Jesus called them to him and said to them, "You
| know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles
| lord it over them, and their great ones exercise
| authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.
| But whoever would be great among you must be your
| servant, and whoever would be first among you must be
| slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be
| served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for
| many." Mark 10:42-45
|
| To read Ephesians 5 without this in the background is
| totally misconstruing the text.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| How does that contradict the idea that ultimately women
| are to submit to the will of men in the household?
| coliveira wrote:
| Your explanation doesn't make sense because the roles are
| unequal. The text requires sacrifice from men but
| subservience from women, creating a hierarchy of powers
| inside the family. Your interpretation would be
| acceptable if the text said that both women and men had
| to sacrifice and submit to each other.
| prewett wrote:
| The husband is to love his wife as he would himself;
| moreso, actually, he is to love his wife in the way
| Christ loved the church--who sacrificed his life for the
| well-being of the church (namely so that we could have an
| intimate relationship with God). It is with this
| understand of what a husband is that the wife submits to
| the husband. Submission is not unquestioning obedience,
| unless you insist on taking the most fundamentalist
| interpretation. And a husband that insists on
| unquestioning obedience is failing to even love his wife
| as himself, and certainly not with Christ's self-
| sacrificing love.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Your interpretation is certainly kind and would probably
| lead to a great way of life - my issue is still this text
| can easily be interpreted to be far less charitable and
| imply that the power of household decisionmaking lies
| with the husband, so long as he respects and loves his
| wife. Respecting and loving your wife is really, really
| up to interpretation. There are plenty of people now and
| throughout history who would not interpret this text the
| same way you have.
|
| The text unequivocally gives different instructions for
| men and women, and the instructions given to men imply
| having the power in a relationship. Your interpretation
| doesn't sway my reading of the text as it is.
| codycraven wrote:
| I'm one of the fundamentalists everyone here seems to
| hate. My wife is a very strong willed person and she does
| submit to my decisions (never because I ask or demand it)
| but because we see Christ submit to the will of the
| father. Just as I submit to Christ.
|
| For clarity, I in no way rule over my wife, and am in no
| way of more value than her. The Bible makes it clear that
| all people are of the utmost value because they are made
| in the image of God.
|
| For additional context, yes my wife submits to me, but I
| make no decisions without her consent. I don't even buy a
| $5 item off Amazon without talking to her. My Biblical
| role is to serve my wife and family which I'm thrilled to
| do each day, just as we see Jesus serve his disciples
| when he washes their feet.
|
| What I'm trying to get to is that please do not mistake a
| fundamental view of the Bible as misogyny. Any teaching
| or text can be cherry picked without context to make any
| view look evil and cruel.
| tpush wrote:
| Your description of the dynamic between you and your wife
| is incoherent. You assert that she submits to you, but
| then you say that you make no decisions without her
| consent. So when she does not give her consent, she
| doesn't submit to you? Or does she simply always gives
| her consent, because the submission to you is a
| predicate. But then asking for her consent is a complete
| sham, a pretense to give her some agency in your mind.
|
| Irrespective of those contradictions however, a social
| dynamic in which the woman must axiomatically submit to
| the man is always inherently misogynistic no matter the
| justifications, be they religious or not.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| I'm confused. You say your wife submits to you, then you
| provide examples of how that is not the dynamic in your
| home.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| So your wife submits to you, but she also independently
| makes decisions which you come to an agreement on?
|
| That's great for your family, does that mean a family
| where the wife makes all the decisions and controls the
| power is immoral?
| coliveira wrote:
| The verses you mention don't negate the previous ones.
| Yes, they said the husbands should love their wives, as
| long as the wives are subservient to their husbands,
| i.e., both things are considered necessary.
| yonaguska wrote:
| The New Testament is often mistakenly touted as a
| "reformation" from the Old Testament, and cherry-picked
| apart into a more progressive form of Christianity, but,
| it's not all that different from the Old Testament in
| actuality. New Testament also defines dress codes for
| women and re-affirms a patriarchal family heirarchy.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _it 's not all that different from the Old Testament in
| actuality_
|
| Um, have you actually read them? They are miles apart.
| Can you find me the reams of legal codes or origin
| stories in the New Testament, for example?
| sudosteph wrote:
| Agree completely. While both texts do largely focus on
| people of Jewish origins, there is not a lot of actual
| overlap on content. Some of the NT books are seen as
| prophetical, so that lines up to some degree - but even
| those read very different.
|
| It's not just content that differs either - the literary
| style of the NT also deviates greatly, since it borrows
| much more from hellenized culture than the OT. Especially
| the synoptic gospels. For example, John, was composed
| using a layered "onion" type narrative structure which
| was popular in other greek texts.
|
| They're even so different, that one form of heresy that
| was more common back in the day (Gnosticism), would
| sometimes claim that the OT deity was a false-god (the
| demiurge), because how else do you explain such a
| personality change?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Taking the scriptures literally and limiting yourself
| only to direct recommendations from New Testament (i.e.
| no backlinking to Old Testament), at the very least,
| treatment of women in New Testament is pretty old-school
| patriarchal[0].
|
| It's interesting to observe the ways various Christian
| groups try to navigate their way around gender roles in
| their communities. You have a full spectrum here. From
| some fundamentalist US churches that will take everything
| super-literally, through groups like Jehovah's
| Witnesses[1] who sort-of take this literally, but make
| reasonable exceptions[2], through Catholics in Western
| countries, where most believers probably haven't even
| heard or thought about these passages, and any semblance
| of adhering to them is likely seen as more traditional
| than religious - all the way to lenient Christian groups
| that allow women priests.
|
| In my experience, all Christianity is like this. Every
| group in every location[3] has their own specific
| understanding of which words are to be taken literally,
| which ones figuratively (and to what degree), and which
| ones to be completely ignored.
|
| --
|
| [0] - E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_Timothy_2:12,
| https://www.openbible.info/topics/head_coverings and
| related references - literally, women should not teach,
| not usurp authority of a man, should wear head covering
| when performing the subset of religious functions they're
| allowed to, etc.
|
| [1] - If I seem to focus on JWs too much in this thread,
| that's because I spent 20 years being one.
|
| [2] - E.g. over at Jehovah's Witnesses, there's a lot
| that would technically qualify as "praying or
| prophesising" where women are't required to cover their
| heads, and men are not required to uncover theirs. Also
| definition of "cover" is "with a hat or similar",
| probably not what the authors had in mind.
|
| [3] - As I understand it, Catholics in the West and in
| Africa are essentially two different religions. The
| former, having lived with it for centuries, ignore or pay
| lip service to all the rules that the latter obey to the
| letter.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _treatment of women in New Testament is pretty old-
| school patriarchal_
|
| It reflects the mores of the times, which were different
| than ours. People 2000 years from now will certainly look
| at us and be aghast at some of our norms.
|
| My denomination has had woman pastors since the mid
| 1800s.
| barnesto wrote:
| Why are you singling out Christianity? The same could be
| said for any of the book based religions.
| coliveira wrote:
| I know, but the concern about Christianity is that it is
| a majority religion in the West, with strong political
| power. This has to be focus at least where I live.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| > the whole thing is based around a book that espouses
| views that are exactly what you call fundamentalism
|
| But I think your degree of fundamentalism-ness is defined
| by your relationship to that book. If you see it as
| completely inerrant, then yeah, you're instantly in trouble
| because it can be trivially shown to be in self-conflict.
|
| If you're willing to examine the book critically and in
| context, you do a lot better. Obviously the risk with this
| is that those doing that interpretation are entrusted with
| a lot of power over what people believe. But I think
| there's a middle ground here between the medieval
| Catholicism that the reformation reacted against (where the
| Word is obscured to the point that even the secondary texts
| like the liturgies weren't given in the vernacular) and the
| rugged individualism of modern evangelicals (where it's
| Bible-or-bust and writers like Rob Bell are excommunicated
| for daring to suggest that universalism might actually be
| consistent with the character of Jesus).
|
| I would see this wide middle ground as a place where we
| agree on a _very_ short list of actual fundamentals
| (something like the Nicene Creed, basically), and other
| than that people are free to study and believe what they
| want, as long as it isn 't hurting others.
| coliveira wrote:
| > If you're willing to examine the book critically and in
| context, you do a lot better.
|
| Yeah, but in that case you have to concede that the Bible
| is not miraculous inspired, so why is it any better than
| other books such as the Vedas or the Iliad? This is the
| whole problem in the foundation of religion.
|
| It also shows the blindsight of progressive Christians:
| they're following a religion that at the foundation goes
| against things they believe. For example, new testament
| writers say that Jesus came to save from the sin of Adam,
| but if no Adam and Eve existed, the explanation does't
| work anymore.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I don't think a literal Adam is necessary for the "sin of
| Adam" to be a thing, particularly if you're in a mindset
| already where the purpose of Christ's time on Earth was
| to establish a kingdom, rather than just to deliver some
| pleasant homilies and maybe troll a few pharisees on the
| way to his real intention, which was dying and being
| resurrected.
|
| In any case, the Bible can absolutely be miraculously
| inspired and still be subject to critical examination.
| Looking at the history of how the individual books have
| been studied, translated, and selected, it's obvious that
| the text itself had always been very much interwoven with
| academia and tradition.
| prewett wrote:
| The fundamentalist interpretation is only one way to read
| the biblical text, and it tends to ignore the context the
| text was written for.
|
| Women: Jesus' ministry was financially supported by women.
| Jesus explicitly did not condemn the woman caught in
| adultery like the Pharisees did although he did not condone
| her conduct, either. Jesus taught to women (e.g. Mary,
| Martha's sister) while the rabbis forbid it; one rabbi said
| he would rather burn the Torah than teach to a woman, and
| the Torah was so sacred that they put old unusable Torah
| scrolls in the walls of the synagogue rather than the
| trash. A woman dealing in purple cloth hosted one of the
| early churches (and probably led it after Paul left). A
| woman is mentioned with the title apostle.
|
| Homosexuality: nowhere does the Bible hate homosexuals. It
| says that it is a harmful behavior and is not to be
| tolerated in God's people because it leads to death. It is
| not "hate" to consider someone's behavior unhealthy, or
| even to disapprove of someone's behavior. We don't "hate"
| thieves because we disapprove of thievery. In fact, most
| people hate thievery and think it is so harmful to society
| that it should be repressed, but it does not mean we must
| hate thieves. American LGBTQetc seem to require love to
| look like complete acceptance and consider anything else as
| "intolerance", but that is a false dichotomy.
| tdozi wrote:
| I would posit that the most fundamental idea in the Bible
| is that humanity has fundamentally continued to be selfish
| and prideful while God has continually chosen to extend
| grace and keep his promises to people (mainly covered in
| the Old Testament). He dis this to the ultimate extent by
| living with us and dying on the cross so that all of the
| promises could be fulfilled once and for all (new
| testament).
|
| It is exactly the selfish and prideful that decide to
| leverage select words/passages/ideas out of context for
| their own power over others rather than their inward
| correction of self.
|
| Lastly, I'd add that many of the passages/letters written
| were to the audience of CHRISTIANS. I bible doesn't really
| demand that non-Christians apply any of this to their lives
| until the first foundational stone is set. Paul even writes
| to this effect in 1st Corinthians.
| thechao wrote:
| As a non-practicing Jew, I found the Jefferson bible very
| inspiring. Stripping the religious trappings from the
| teachings tempers the whole thing; I really like the
| _humanity_ : it's a story about a man with his own foibles,
| attempting to teach himself & others to be better people.
| Balgair wrote:
| For those that are confused as to what a 'Jefferson Bible'
| is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible
|
| " _The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth_ , commonly
| referred to as the Jefferson Bible, is one of two religious
| works constructed by Thomas Jefferson. The first, _The
| Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth_ , was completed in 1804,
| but no copies exist today. The second, _The Life and Morals
| of Jesus of Nazareth_ , was completed in 1820 by cutting
| and pasting with a razor and glue numerous sections from
| the New Testament as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus.
| Jefferson's condensed composition excludes all miracles by
| Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, including
| sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection
| and most other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as
| divine."
|
| https://uuhouston.org/files/The_Jefferson_Bible.pdf Free
| here
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yes, a surprisingly short read.
|
| Reading it I couldn't help but see Jesus as something of
| a troll. Like in this passage:
|
| _JESUS went unto the mount of Olives._
|
| _And early in the morning he came again into the temple,
| and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and
| taught them._
|
| _And the scribes and Pharisees brought in a woman caught
| committing adultery; and when they had set her in the
| midst,_
|
| _They say unto him, Master, this woman was caught
| committing adultery, in the very act._
|
| _Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be
| stoned: but what sayest thou?_
|
| _This they said, to test him, that they might have cause
| to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his
| finger wrote on the ground._
|
| _So when they continued asking him, he lifted up
| himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among
| you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her._
|
| _And again he stooped down, and with his finger wrote on
| the ground._
|
| _And they which heard it, began going out one by one,
| beginning at the eldest: and Jesus was left alone, and
| the woman standing in the midst._
|
| _When Jesus had lifted up himself, he said unto her,
| Woman, whither are they gone? hath no man condemned
| thee?_
|
| _She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither do I
| condemn thee: go, and sin no more._
| datenhorst wrote:
| Funnily enough, this passage is generally considered a
| later addition to the Gospel of John: https://en.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/Jesus_and_the_woman_taken_in_a...
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| Jesus was the ultimate troll to the religious
| authorities, that's why they killed him.
|
| Another great example of his trolling was when he was
| cornered by a bunch of people wanting to stone him to
| death:
|
| >31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone
| him, 32 but Jesus said to them, 'I have shown you many
| good works from the Father. For which of these do you
| stone me?' 33 We are not stoning you for any good work,'
| they replied, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere
| man, claim to be God.' 34 Jesus answered them, 'Is it not
| written in your Law, 'I have said you are 'gods''? ( _He
| 's quoting the 82nd Psalm of the Old Testament here_)[1]
| 35 If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came
| --and Scripture cannot be set aside-- 36 what about the
| one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent
| into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy
| because I said, 'I am God's Son'? 37
|
| [1]82 Psalm if the Old Testament: I said, 'You are
| "gods"; you are all sons of the Most High.'
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| "... But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the
| princes."
|
| Great quote.
| leetrout wrote:
| I brought this up in Sunday school at a baptist church
| and it didn't go over well...
|
| I said we are gods on this Earth because of our power to
| initiate the creation of a new life and the power to end
| a life.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| That's great hahaha. There are some who believe that's
| actually what Jesus was trying to say: the he was _a_ son
| of god (there was no definite article "the" in ancient
| greek), and that everyone else is too (essentially what
| the Buddhists and Hindus claim); but that message was
| misunderstood, misinterpreted, censored, and modified to
| suit political ends.
|
| There are a number of more esoteric quotes attributed to
| jesus like the one I posted above which make this case
| quite compelling
| Balgair wrote:
| If you have that list, I would be very interested to see
| it! I've never heard of this interpretation, and my
| ancient greek is very poor. Not trying to be snarky, or
| clappingback, or anything, I am actually genuinely
| interested.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| I first stumbled upon this theory in an Alan Watts
| lecture. Here is relevant clip from the lecture:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2DbsuzTt6g
|
| There are many quotes where Jesus spoke about the union
| of all people within him and within god. This is
| basically the same as the Buddhist concept of Indra's
| Net: the divine unity and mutual interpenetration of all
| things.
|
| > _" There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male
| nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus"_
|
| > _" I in them and you in me, that they may become
| perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent
| me and loved them even as you loved me."_
|
| > _" For just as the body is one and has many members,
| and all the members of the body, though many, are one
| body, so it is with Christ."_
|
| This idea seems to be the logical basis for many of his
| more commonly known teachings:
|
| > _" Do to others whatever you would like them to do to
| you."_
|
| > _"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the
| same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with
| the measure you use, it will be measured to you._
|
| > _" whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers and
| sisters, you do unto me"_
|
| This last quote seems to indicate that when people
| realized all of the above, they would also realize their
| equality with jesus as children of god; which is
| essentially blasphemy to the modern day mainstream
| interpretation of the King James translation.
|
| > _" Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on
| me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater
| works than these shall he do; because I go unto my
| Father."_
| Balgair wrote:
| Thank you!
| roody15 wrote:
| Why is he a troll here? Seems like a solid message.
| saghm wrote:
| When he was asked about what to do with the woman who was
| brought in, he immediately started ignoring everyone and
| started doodling in the dirt, and then continued doing so
| as everyone slowly left. That's a little trollish
| (although not necessarily in a bad way!)
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| The stories have Jesus trolling the Pharisees and others.
| Imagining the reactions and situation behind some of
| these stories are strong LOL moments.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Seems like the scribes and Pharisees that are trying to
| troll Jesus and he trolls them back?
|
| To be clear, I think Jesus is trolling the _right_ way.
| :-)
| Noos wrote:
| Except that without the supernatural part, it was a
| wandering, homeless religious teacher who got himself
| killed at an early age teaching things which got his
| followers killed too, and end up being pointless.
|
| "Blessed are the meek; for theirs is the kingdom of
| Heaven." Except there is no kingdom of heaven, after all;
| and the meek are not blessed but oppressed. The
| supernatural stuff was there to show that the oppressive
| nature of the world and its cruelty was not the only thing;
| there was hope beyond it in the world to come, which gave
| the strength to believe in something absurd.
|
| Otherwise its just John the Baptist; a person preaching who
| ended up dead on the whims of the powerful.
| utopcell wrote:
| Nobody hates you. The gallup just shows that your belief system
| is slowly becoming irrelevant. If you can still draw anything
| from it (while leaving the rest of the competing sects alone),
| all the more power to you.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| 1. Stance on abortion among your brothers in church? As if
| brothers should even have one that matters?
|
| 2. Do you follow the edict that if you're not baptist then by
| definition you go to hell? How do you reconcile this with
| having friends or anyone at all you care about who are then
| going to hell?
|
| Point is, I'm not sure there is any middle ground that's
| acceptable. I don't come here as an atheist, just as someone
| who's trying really hard to believe but finding no acceptable
| ground to stand at all. The only smart people I find religious
| (especially Christian) are ones who were born and grew up
| forced to go to church. Typically they'd give up on practising
| it in their teens, basically break every rule in their book for
| two decades and then somehow rediscover it because now it's
| convenient to find some community and higher purpose in their
| life. The ones who convert from elsewhere when they are adults
| are almost always gullible and did so for the most
| transactional reasons you can think of.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _Stance on abortion among your brothers in church_
|
| Denominational stance is reluctance:
| https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-what-is-the-
| unite...
|
| > _Do you follow the edict that if you're not baptist then by
| definition you go to hell_
|
| I am not Baptist. But the ones I speak to, who are dedicated
| fundamentalists, seem to believe that I am going to hell
| since I am not and will never be "saved" in the way they
| prescribe. Furthermore, in their view, nearly everyone who
| existed before Jesus's time is condemned to Hell except for a
| select few who foretold of Jesus's coming. Crazy theology!
|
| Also, keep in mind that Baptists have diversity. The Southern
| Baptists are the firebrand fundamentalists. There are others
| that are almost indistinguishable from mainline
| Protestantism.
| coliveira wrote:
| The idea of hell was widespread in ancient times. For
| example, the Greeks believed it. They also believed that
| everyone went to hell. This is exactly the mythology that
| christians spread nowadays. The only difference is that
| Christians believed that the few who accepted Christ would
| be rescued from Hell, the same way Eurydice was saved by
| Orpheus (hence the idea that the church is the bride of
| Jesus). It is all a rehash of ancient myths.
| brundolf wrote:
| I think calling it a rehash is unfair. I would call it
| "independent discovery", where the same general lived
| human experience gives rise to the same general ideas
| about the universe and society and right and wrong.
| Religion is a technology for dealing with the experience
| of being a person.
| coliveira wrote:
| I don't think it is independent discovery, because
| Christianity was born at a time when Greek ideas were
| widespread (Palestine having been a Greek-dominated area
| for centuries before the arrival of Romans). I believe
| there was an amalgamation of elements from ancient Hebrew
| religion with other pagan myths mainly from Greece.
| brundolf wrote:
| "Independent" may have been overstating it, I just think
| something is being lost when we frame one religion (or
| even a subset of its concepts) as being purely derivative
| of another. Just because ideas are similar doesn't
| necessarily mean they have the exact same origin, and in
| fact I think it's much more interesting to look at the
| cases where they _didn 't_ have the same origin, because
| it tells us something about ourselves as human beings.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Mainline Protestant typically relatively neutral leaning pro
| choice.
| KMag wrote:
| > 2. Do you follow the edict that if you're not baptist then
| by definition you go to hell? How do you reconcile this with
| having friends or anyone at all you care about who are then
| going to hell?
|
| I'm not a Baptist, but presumably nearly all of them find it
| sad and unfortunate and feel compassion for most of humanity.
|
| I'm not sure what you're getting at, though. Only believing
| things that make you happy isn't a very good philosophy of
| life.
| brundolf wrote:
| > Point is, I'm not sure there is any middle ground that's
| acceptable.
|
| I grew up fundamentalist, then swung hard atheist, then ended
| up, as one friend who went to seminary described it, "the
| most christian atheist he's ever met". I've known Christians
| ignorant and intellectual, hateful and openly loving, urban
| and rural, liberal and conservative, and everything in-
| between.
|
| Here's my take: A healthy faith is not about rules at all, or
| about finding a system for understanding the physical world
| or anything like that. If you get obsessed with rules you
| become a bitter fundamentalist; if you get fed-up with
| religion but stay obsessed with rules you become a bitter
| atheist.
|
| A healthy faith is about people. Yourself, your community,
| the world. Cultivating habits of forgiveness and growth
| toward yourself, and openness and love toward others. Having
| a specific segment of your life dedicated to contemplation of
| the most important things in life, and doing so in a
| community on a regular basis. The iconography and the texts,
| ideally, are just a communal conduit for those ideas; symbols
| people can point to and use to talk about their thoughts and
| feelings around this stuff with others, and also to spark new
| thoughts and points of discussion.
|
| Many (not all) of my close friends are christians, and none
| of them have ever tried to convert me. Some of them don't
| really think hell exists; most of them don't think some magic
| prayer is all that's needed to keep you out of it. Most, I
| think, see that even if it does, the best thing they can do
| for others is simply to love them and to help them be better
| through example and osmosis, if anything. They know they
| don't control others and they can't force them into whatever.
| They can only be Good and hope that it spreads.
|
| I like this quote from Pope Francis:
|
| > We must meet one another doing good. 'But I don't believe,
| Father, I am an atheist!' But do good: we will meet one
| another there.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| You say that most Protestants are loving people but that
| doesn't seem to be the case at least in the US.
| Evangelicals are not the only group to vote
| republican/trump, but they are the vast majority. Very few
| Christians seem to see the problems (fundamental ones) with
| that regime but just want to vote for a madman because
| their goals are met at the expense of literal death and
| suffering (see Birx's statements from yesterday).
|
| Again to iterate, it's not just Christians who voted and
| continue to vote for him, it's also a bunch of other
| people, but the common denominator seems to be an undertone
| of selfishness and heartlessness, people who are afraid of
| everyone else and want their life to not change the world
| be dammed, so yeah can't really see anyone supporting this
| ideology to be a good person.
| brundolf wrote:
| > You say that most Protestants are loving people
|
| I didn't say that actually, though I also wouldn't say
| the inverse. I don't really know the exact answer, and I
| don't really think it's important here.
|
| > Very few Christians seem to see the problems with that
| regime
|
| It is important to note that Evangelical != Protestant,
| and Protestant != Christian, and Christian != Religious
| person. There are huge gaps between each sub-category and
| the parent category; evangelicals may be one of the
| larger categories in the U.S., and may be largely
| Trumpist (though even then, not all of them), but they
| hardly represent the whole of religion.
|
| > the common denominator seems to be an undertone of
| selfishness and heartlessness
|
| I feel an immense amount of anger towards Trump and his
| entire movement, not despite but _because_ many of my
| family-members have aligned themselves with it. And yet,
| outside of those contexts, I still see them being good
| and kind to their loved ones and others. I 've also come
| to see that their alignment is largely based in fear -
| which, even if it's ill-founded and driven by false
| narratives, is an emotion I can feel sympathy for.
| Wrestling with this dichotomy - seeing the evil they've
| confused with good and the ways it's changed them, while
| knowing that they are still my loved ones and they still
| contain some goodness underneath - has been one of the
| most stressful and difficult things I've had to grapple
| with in my entire life.
|
| But one thing I've held onto from my religious days is
| the principle that human beings are not simply good or
| evil. All of us contain good and evil, and (both as
| individuals and as people with individuals that we care
| about) it's a question of identifying and nurturing the
| good, and trying to let go of the evil, each day anew.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > I feel an immense amount of anger towards Trump and his
| entire movement, not despite but because many of my
| family-members have aligned themselves with it.
|
| > Wrestling with this dichotomy - seeing the evil they've
| confused with good and the ways it's changed them, while
| knowing that they are still my loved ones and they still
| have bits of good underneath - has been one of the most
| stressful and difficult things I've had to grapple with
| in my entire life.
|
| Hear, hear. It was hard for this to come to a reckoning
| last year with everything else bad going on.
| gameman144 wrote:
| > the common denominator seems to be an undertone of
| selfishness and heartlessness, people who are afraid of
| everyone else and want their life to not change the world
| be dammed, so yeah can't really see anyone supporting
| this ideology to be a good person.
|
| This seems to be a pretty close-minded view. Sure,
| selfishness and heartlessness could be a big motivator to
| vote one way. But as someone who knows Christians who
| voted for Trump, here are a few reasons which I'd argue
| _aren 't_ due to moral failings:
|
| * Some strongly believe abortion is murder, and are
| worried about the number of lives thus being
| extinguished.
|
| * Some believe that there is a growing anti-religious
| sentiment in their opposition, and they vote against that
| anti-religious sentiment. Every one of these friends is a
| strong proponent of religious pluralism.
|
| * Many Christian voters come from less urban, less
| affluent areas of the country. These voters felt ignored
| by mainstream candidates, and Trump courted them better
| than most candidates in decades, actually speaking to the
| day-to-day issues of that constituency.
|
| * Many Christians have different moral views than society
| at large. When viewing males as "the head of the
| household" is considered sexist and oppressive, couples
| that (both) opt in for such a household-model will
| understandably not be drawn in by progressive rhetoric
| castigating them for it.
|
| Again, this isn't to paint a rosy picture saying "Bad
| people of group X are just as likely to vote either way".
| But to say that you can't see _anyone_ supporting an
| ideology to be a good person under the hood is going to
| lead to a lot of animosity in life.
| Noos wrote:
| I grew up being bullied by people because I was different.
| I was a mess honestly, a weird, smelly kid who was a bit of
| an eyesore. These are people who were nice to each other,
| and people who would have been seen as caring, loving and
| kind people to their families and others that liked them. I
| was even mocked by one of my teachers.
|
| Very few people think they are not forgiving, loving and
| caring. Many people will open the book, find the things
| that reassure them they are loving, caring, and a wise
| person, and close it happy.
|
| Your friends don't try to convert you because they hide
| themselves around you. If they tried, you would cut them
| out of your life, despite your empathy; just mentioning
| that you will pray for someone can make them angry. If they
| persisted, really believing their friend was in danger of
| losing eternal life, you would end the friendship.
|
| Really, all the stuff you say sounds nice, but secular
| people only show love to people who they think are lovable.
| When you become one of the unlovables, they will cheerfully
| drop what you say and bring out the knives, and your
| philosophy is worthless to stop it.
| brundolf wrote:
| I don't want to minimize your experiences, but you're
| taking those experiences and projecting them onto people
| and things (both those I mentioned as well as entire
| categories) that aren't really tied to them.
|
| > people who would have been seen as caring, loving and
| kind people to their families and others that liked them
|
| Good and evil can exist within the same person. Evil can
| also masquerade externally with the signifiers of good. I
| don't know the people you're talking about so I can't
| really comment on them specifically; but being a human
| means being a paradox.
|
| Not that that excuses what happened to you. It sounds
| like that was very hard and I'm very sorry to hear about
| it. I can't really speak more to it or to the people
| involved because again, I don't know much about it. I
| simply don't believe that even the worst human on earth
| is irredeemable or worthless in principle, whether or not
| they ever change in practice. Of course that doesn't mean
| they should be left to get away with doing whatever they
| want to whomever.
|
| > Many people will open the book, find the things that
| reassure them they are loving, caring, and a wise person,
| and close it happy
|
| The other half of "nobody is completely good or evil" is
| that life is a never-finished journey of self-work. Doing
| what you describe is a trap that many people fall into,
| sure. But I don't think it invalidates the efforts of
| people who decide to do otherwise.
|
| > Your friends don't try to convert you because they hide
| themselves around you. If they tried, you would cut them
| out of your life, despite your empathy; just mentioning
| that you will pray for someone can make them angry. If
| they persisted, really believing their friend was in
| danger of losing eternal life, you would end the
| friendship.
|
| With respect, you don't know them. My parents, unlike my
| friends, do try periodically to convert me, and I haven't
| cut them out of my life. It causes friction between us,
| sure, and they've learned that and they've dampened it
| some. But we make the relationship work.
|
| When it comes my friends, I simply know they aren't
| hiding themselves. We talk openly about this stuff
| sometimes; we have good conversations. We don't avoid it
| like I have to with my parents. I don't mind when my
| friends say they'll pray for me, because I know they're
| saying it out of open love, and not passive-aggression.
| We respect each other's agency, we know we're on
| different journeys. I've known people who weren't that
| way. I've seen the hollowness of ulterior motives behind
| their smiles and their social gestures. I know the
| difference.
|
| Real relationships go beyond and above disagreements, and
| the ones I get to pick for myself are with individuals
| who can tolerate nuance and paradox.
|
| > Really, all the stuff you say sounds nice, but secular
| people only show love to people who they think are
| lovable. When you become one of the unlovables, they will
| cheerfully drop what you say and bring out the knives,
| and your philosophy is worthless to stop it.
|
| I'm not sure where this came from (though I'd be happy to
| hear more about it). Above you seemed to take issue with
| religious people, but here you mention secular (non-
| religious) people
| fossuser wrote:
| I grew up mainline Protestant too before throwing it away (I
| was young ~12 which makes it easier). My objection is to the
| broken nature of the reasoning and how that tends to corrupt
| evidence based reasoning elsewhere most of them time (though
| weirdly not always - people are inconsistent).
|
| If the fundamentalists are a problem, maybe there's a problem
| with the fundamentals?
|
| Obviously religious people remain the vast majority and being a
| good person or not is largely disconnected from religiousness.
| It's difficult for me though to not think that a religious
| person's reasoning is broken in some way, and to be more
| skeptical of how they verify ideas in general.
|
| If they can't get something basic right, why would they be
| right about something more complicated?
|
| A lot of the rationalization of religious people is complicated
| in a way that suggests they have some underlying idea of what
| the accurate world model is (they just want to believe
| otherwise):
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CqyJzDZWvGhhFJ7dY/belief-in-...
|
| One thing I credit the internet for is allowing me to read and
| learn enough to escape it. I think most people will end up with
| whatever belief system they grow up surrounded by.
| garmaine wrote:
| > If they can't get something basic right, why would they be
| right about something more complicated?
|
| Compartmentalization.
| fossuser wrote:
| I think that's the reason it's possible, but how can you
| trust they've compartmentalized the right thing?
|
| Basically you can be a great surgeon and religious, but you
| can't be a great evolutionary biologist and a creationist
| (at least not without some _serious_ blinders).
|
| If I'm talking to a doctor that's a creationist and they're
| skeptical about a vaccine - my prior would be that it's
| more likely this doctor was corrupted by anti-vaxx
| pseudoscience woo than has an accurate model of the
| vaccine's risk. I'd want to talk to someone who I know
| doesn't have a core example of corrupted reasoning.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| I find your example is more strongly of the corruption of
| fundamentalism on the person rather than of
| compartmentalization.
| splithalf wrote:
| I'd prefer my scientists to be less confident in their
| understanding of the world, and more humble about their
| knowledge. Maybe reading Kuhn does that for most people
| today, but there's a long tradition of religion
| fulfilling a similar function, allowing "mystery" back
| in, emphasizing the imperfection of man. Religion should
| instill an attitude of "I don't know, but I want to
| know." That's the right attitude for discovery.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _If the fundamentalists are a problem, maybe there's a
| problem with the fundamentals?_
|
| That line would only hold if fundamentalists have correctly
| identified the fundamentals. I wage they have badly missed
| it, which is why their theology is so bad.
|
| > _being a good person or not is largely disconnected from
| religiousness_
|
| Being a good person is not the primary point of religion. It
| is rather a hoped for outcome. Religion is not therapy.
| fossuser wrote:
| The thing that scares me about it is when people believe
| crazy things, they're more likely to believe other crazy
| things. This means even if most people most of the time are
| perfectly pleasant, they can get swept up in other stuff
| that gets out of hand and hurts people. If you can't
| persuade someone with evidence based reasoning because
| their position is based on 'faith' or belief in the face of
| contrary evidence I don't know what to do with that.
|
| There are forms of religious people that dismiss all the
| 'crazy' things and just have some vague mysticism - which
| is probably the least harmful form, but is a little odd to
| me. People like to feel a part of something grand I suppose
| - but we already are. Existence is pretty amazing even
| without the human religious myths being true. Maybe one day
| the myths will be just a part of our collective history (as
| many older ones currently are).
| Noos wrote:
| Everyone is crazy in their own way. There is no
| rationality strong enough to remove the crazy from
| people, and smart people over time have formed their own
| craziness not bound by religion or mysticism.
|
| This site for example is pooh-poohing religion now, but
| five minutes later will gush over LSD's power to give
| pseudo-spiritual epiphanies. It used to love stoicism,
| which was shopworn even in the Victorian age. Probably in
| a year from now some other retread of old belief system
| will be rediscovered, maybe EST or Theosophy, or
| something.
| rayiner wrote:
| > The thing that scares me about it is when people
| believe crazy things, they're more likely to believe
| other crazy things
|
| I don't think that's true at all, and possibly the
| opposite is true. Comparing Bangladesh, where I'm from,
| to America, people here are a lot less religious. But I
| wouldn't say the net amount of "crazy" believes is
| different. People in Bangladesh are a lot more down to
| earth and less likely to believe in faddish ideas that
| tend to fill the vacuum in the absence of religion.
|
| American culture around eating and fitness, and
| particularly the "clean food" stuff is a good example of
| this. It's for the most part completely unscientific, but
| fervently believed.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > People in Bangladesh are a lot more down to earth and
| less likely to believe in faddish ideas that tend to fill
| the vacuum in the absence of religion.
|
| How do you square this position with all the social media
| fueled mob lynchings/murders in Bangladesh?
|
| One example: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49102074
|
| I'm not claiming the US is any better, we have mass
| shootings and all kinds of violence, but generally not
| lynch mobs (at least in the 21st century)
| Noos wrote:
| if you've ever talked to non-fundamentalists, usually they
| just regurgitate whatever the contemporary secular morality
| of the moment is with a mild religious gloss, and they
| suffer in membership much worse than the fundamentalists
| because it's obvious.
|
| Fundamentalism is usually just taking the source material
| seriously at what it says; liberal Christianity tends to
| try and reinterpret the source material to fit contemporary
| mores. It's impossible to justify homosexuality in the
| scriptures for example; most progressive arguments end up
| just setting fire to the inspiration of the bible to do so,
| by saying "they weren't really speaking about
| homosexuality" or "why should we trust what Paul says about
| it?"
|
| Fundamentalists are disliked, but they are a lot more
| logically and internally consistent than the mainline.
| Mainline is just the halfway stop to atheism, honestly.
| sethc2 wrote:
| Exactly. Fundamentalists miss the actual fundamentals.
|
| People mistake the American Evangelical Christianity that
| is a few hundred years old for the church established by
| the apostles nearly 2000 years ago. That church was it
| which considered the weak as equally valuable as the
| strong, that insisted on helping the poor, that believed
| men and women both to be of the utmost value. That
| established hospitals to care for the sick. All of these
| things were not the norm. The weak were considered less
| valuable. Women were not worth as much as men. Sick people
| should be avoided. The poor aren't worth helping.
|
| People are rightfully scornful of American evangelicalism,
| but they throw the baby out with the bath water and try to
| pretend that the orthodox (in sense of true and right)
| church has not done tremendous good in this world.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _People mistake the American Evangelical
| Christianity..._
|
| Hell, people mistake American Evangelical Christianity
| with "true Christianity". Far too many allow themselves
| into being duped into thinking that the loudest, most
| odious, and most forceful are the most legitimate
| claimants to Christianity.
|
| Barf.
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| > People are rightfully scornful of American
| evangelicalism, but they throw the baby out with the bath
| water and try to pretend that the orthodox (in sense of
| true and right) church has not done tremendous good in
| this world.
|
| There's no "true and right" church. In fact the non-stop
| schism of the christian faith is evidence that the views
| espoused by christians are incredibly incoherent. One
| model to use is that the bible is a map and your
| interactions with actual people are the actual road. And
| you're trying to navigate your life with this map. You
| have a few options: - Trust the map no
| matter what (fundamentalists) - You end up also
| arguing about how the map *really* reads, because it's
| incoherent at its core! Denominations are started by
| people trying too hard to ascertain the "fundamentals."
| - Trust the road no matter what - Is your map
| even relevant then? What's the difference between this
| and being an atheist? - Trust the road when you can
| see it and can't argue with it, trust the map otherwise
| - This leads to shit like voting against progress because
| you are ignorant to the harm it does. Since the map is
| incoherent you still end up drawing incorrect conclusions
| in directions that are harmful.
|
| These basically all suck and cause problems vs the
| strategy of "live in the world, and use some other map."
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| To take a counter example, do you believe that the
| Catholic Church has had a pattern of covering up for
| pedophiles in its clergy? If so how far back does that
| pattern go? Why shouldn't we assume it goes back hundreds
| of years, or the full 2000 year history of the church?
|
| By the way, that same old church taught wives to obey
| their husbands and to this day does not allow them to be
| clergy. The notion that women are not worth as much as
| men was not recently introduced.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Virtually every youth-serving organization used to not
| handle abuse of youth properly. I am not going to pin
| this just on the Catholic Church. Other youth-serving
| organizations, like sports, other churches, YMCAs, etc.
| were all deficient.
|
| I am a volunteer in the Boy Scouts of America. Its
| market-leading and pioneering youth-protection programs
| are still examples to this day, and the vast majority of
| claims in its current bankruptcy process are from before
| these programs started. Society has changed, and youth
| are much better off for it.
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| "Virtually every youth-serving organization used to not
| handle abuse of youth properly."
|
| This again? The existence of others committing the same
| crimes does not indemnify the Church.
|
| Love the "Society has changed" argument. Clearly,
| recognizing that pedophilia is wrong by the Church is a
| product of changing times...not like they moved clergy
| from parish to parish to avoid them being caught.
| happilyFIREd wrote:
| Nice try with the 'whatabout-ism', but nearly by
| definition the non-religious groups are less
| sanctimonious.
| sethc2 wrote:
| I'd say the church from Rome has always had problems like
| any group of humans. Collectively the churches
| established by the apostles I'd say got the truth right.
| Though if I were to pick a date where they went seriously
| wrong and led to what you saw at the time of the
| reformation and today I'd say 1054 AD
|
| As for women being treated poorly that is not something
| the church introduced, but has practically been done by
| men since time began. If you read early church history
| you'd probably realize that your moral basis itself is
| founded upon the work church did.
|
| If you're someone who is open minded you should try to
| hear good arguments from another perspective. I'd
| recommend Dominion by Tom Holland perhaps - https://www.a
| mazon.com/dp/0465093507/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm...
|
| What I've found is people who actually don't believe
| their opinions strongly avoid books challenging those
| opinions, while those who do are perfectly willing to be
| challenged, because they are confident their opinion is
| the right one.
|
| For example a person who weakly believes in a free market
| will avoid reading Marx, a person who strongly believes
| it will. And vice versa for let's say Ayn Rand.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| If the whole point of an organization is morality, and
| the organization doesn't do any better in that arena than
| society at large, I don't see much point in the
| organization.
|
| On the topic of the treatment of women, you'll note the
| original assertion was that this was something the church
| was especially good at, and I pointed out a sexist
| practice core to the church as currently practiced, not
| in the dustbin of history.
| sethc2 wrote:
| Well my guess is you haven't been to many non
| evangelicals churches nor looked at how they act or
| behave. The church reveres a woman above all other humans
| save him who was both God and man. Orphanages were setup
| by churches. Hospitals, schools, homeless shelters. They
| do that explicitly because of their beliefs.
| fossuser wrote:
| You can read the bible directly and see problems with
| fundamentals (I did).
|
| It's just the 'no true scotsman' fallacy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
| LadyCailin wrote:
| I contest that organized religion, particularly
| Christianity has done net positive to the world though.
| From the crusades til now, Christianity has always seemed
| to demonize other groups, and for people in those groups
| especially (non-Christians, gays, women), the church has
| not done any good for them whatsoever.
|
| But even I accept your argument that they had, why is
| organized religion the only way to achieve that good? Why
| not provide societal benefit through secular and people
| focused governance, for instance? Why does the teachings
| of thousands of years old people have to do anything with
| it, even if we do cherry pick them and only listen to the
| parts that we as a modern society agree are good? When
| you draw your philosophy from a book that says at the end
| "don't change this or you're going to hell", then it's
| little surprise that extremists arise with what are
| actually fairly reasonable interpretations of the Bible.
| sethc2 wrote:
| See, but even your straw man is based on that post schism
| period. And the church is what taught us that even those
| traditionally "on the fringe" should be valued and not
| discarded. You're taking up the position the church
| convinced the world of to argue against her. I really do
| think your beef (and a legitimate one) is with
| evangelical Christianity (and possibly Roman Catholics
| but probably less so). You should read up on where those
| traditions arose from.
|
| The question really is did Jesus rise from the dead?
|
| Was Plato actually on to something when he said there
| were more "real" things which made our reality look like
| shadows.
|
| The reason the church will continue to be is because
| there is no higher symbol than that of Jesus. There is no
| getting beyond that idea. Once you see it, there is no
| going back. So I'd be very careful reading old books if I
| were you.
|
| Even quantum mechanics is starting to make us realize we
| might not understand what really constitutes reality.
| That at the deepest levels there is two eternally
| existing relationships.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| > The reason the church will continue to be is because
| there is no higher symbol than that of Jesus.
|
| Do Hindus agree? Do Muslims? Do Buddhists? If not, are
| they wrong? Why?
|
| The statement you made is an opinion of a group, stated
| as a fact. There is nothing wrong with groups having
| opinions, but they shouldn't be pushed to others as
| facts. That's the source of many past and present
| conflicts.
| sethc2 wrote:
| A lot of christians foolishly think there is not any
| truth beauty or goodness in other world views and refuse
| to learn from them. There is a lot a Christian can learn
| from Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, even Mormons,
| and probably a whole ton of other religious beliefs. They
| can learn from Greek myths, eastern myths and so on.
|
| I actually just wish non christians would just at least
| take the story of Jesus as a myth or legend that they
| could still learn from like other enduring myths. That
| would at least give the idea behind it the respect it
| deserves given its huge influence. The story of Moses
| even if just fiction is still a powerful story. I mean
| have you never read a book like Les Mis or LOTR or
| something and not seen the power those stories have for
| good?
| sethc2 wrote:
| Oh don't get me wrong. I know this is my opinion. And I
| don't think Hindus and Muslims don't have very high
| symbols and good world views.
|
| I'm just saying from what I've seen the symbol that
| Christ is it is very high and explains the world well.
| I'd love to have discussions over coffee with people with
| different cosmological explanations of the world.
|
| The question why this isn't something to be discarded is
| because a billion people share my opinion and we aren't
| unreasonable for having it.
|
| The idea that the most powerful king took up the side of
| the poor and needy, and aligned himself with them is an
| idea that I can't see being defeated. The hero looking
| like he lost only to win once for all, to set the
| captives free is a story that is endlessly being
| recreated in books from people of all world views.
|
| True though, to many, Christ is the symbol of what
| they've seen in American Evangelical Christianity and
| that symbol might just die out, but the one taught in the
| 1st century till now I can't imagine ever dying out.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > The reason the church will continue to be is because
| there is no higher symbol than that of Jesus. There is no
| getting beyond that idea. Once you see it, there is no
| going back. So I'd be very careful reading old books if I
| were you.
|
| Many countries in Europe have >50% of young people who
| identify as non-religious [1]
|
| Don't the declining numbers of religious people in Europe
| contradict that statement? Younger generations in these
| traditionally Christian countries are very aware of the
| symbol and idea - and many are in full agreement with
| many of the values you mention, except they just don't
| believe the mystical part (and refuse many of the
| conservative stances from the church).
|
| If this happened in countries that have had Christianity
| as their foundational identity for hundreds of years, why
| can't it happen elsewhere?
|
| [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/christi
| anity-n...
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| > Why not provide societal benefit through secular and
| people focused governance, for instance?
|
| Because they weren't. That's the point. The culture at
| the time didn't care to support anyone but the most
| powerful.
|
| Could a non-religious approach have fixed it? Maybe, but
| none emerged that did so. Not 2000 years ago, anyway.
|
| So Christianity entered the scene at a time when no one
| was doing these good things, and gave people a reason to
| rally behind them.
|
| Even today, statistically speaking, Muslims give far more
| of their income to charity than any other group, and if
| I'm not mistaken, Atheists ranked last. (Christians only
| marginally performed better, which says a lot about the
| state of modern Christianity.)
|
| So why is that? I _think_ it has to do with tribalism.
| You can 't form a strong tribe around NOT believing
| stuff. Not believing in something isn't enough of a
| reason to form strong social bonds and take on major
| projects.
|
| Does that mean you can't come up with a good secular
| belief that people can rally behind? Of course not.
| Liberalism was a secular idea that made massive changes.
| Same for democracy. But you need a flag to rally around.
|
| "Disbelief" makes for a poor flag. It's not much of a
| rallying cry.
|
| What's more, the rationalist/atheist community tends to
| be very strongly individualist. Individualism, almost by
| definition, isn't particularly interested in things like
| hospitals or caring for the poor.
| [deleted]
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > Obviously religious people remain the vast majority and
| being a good person or not is largely disconnected from
| religiousness.
|
| Religiosity is highly inversely correlated with criminality
| amount Americans.[1] Religious people also donate
| significantly more money to charity. To a large extent
| religious participation _does_ seem to make people behave
| more pro-socially.
|
| It's certainly not the only way to promote ethical behavior.
| But even as an atheist, I'll freely admit that religion
| serves a pretty beneficial important role in our society. A
| role that we haven't really figured out how to replace with
| secular counterparts.
|
| [1] http://marripedia.org/effects_of_religious_practice_on_cr
| ime... [2] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/30/r
| eligious-p...
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > To a large extent religious participation does seem to
| make people behave more pro-socially.
|
| That's different from religiosity correlating with "being a
| good person" though, which I'm interpreting as "the ability
| to act both morally and independently".
|
| It does seem that some people _need_ religion to be a good
| person, because they lack the moral structure to do without
| (due to trauma or bad parenting or whatever). For those
| people, religion allows them to function in society with a
| set of business rules, but they still tend to lack a solid
| moral /ethical decision matrix to function on their own or
| act outside the contexts they have rules for.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Charity - religious people are more likely to donate to
| religious organisations. In fact roughly a third of all
| donation money in the US goes to supporting religion.
|
| Large churches are quite astonishingly wealthy and also tax
| exempt, so it's not clear why they need the money more than
| any number of smaller charities and social programs.
|
| Crime: There isn't any _reliable_ evidence that religion
| reduces crime in general. It may make certain kinds of
| crime less likely, but it 's very difficult to disentangle
| all of the influences - because of course religion also
| affects crime reporting, and defines which actions can even
| be considered crimes. This can be a huge problem for
| victims who live in the same religious community as
| perpetrators.
|
| One textbook example is the history of child abuse in
| Catholicism. It didn't show up in crime figures for a very
| long time because the Church worked hard to cover it up.
| The truth didn't come out until the political power of the
| Church was reduced to a level where it could no longer do
| that.
|
| Another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_La
| undries_in_Ireland
|
| There's a good case for considering the possibility that
| religion actually encourages these kinds of abusive
| cultures - whether or not they're considered criminal at
| the time.
|
| So there really isn't an argument that religion serves a
| beneficial role. It has some benefits, but it also causes a
| lot of social and political distortions, some of which are
| extreme and persistently harmful.
| randcraw wrote:
| Does that include war?
|
| Throughout history, religious leaders have very rarely
| opposed killing "the enemy". Likewise it's a rare soldier
| in a time of war who is insists on obeying, "Thou shalt not
| kill".
|
| Yet if this is true, then how do you define religiosity if
| it overlooks willingly acting in contradiction to the most
| essential laws that a faith and its faithful claim to
| believe?
| zdbrandon wrote:
| > Throughout history, religious leaders have very rarely
| opposed killing "the enemy".
|
| The 20th century would like a word with you.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| You are assuming causality there. It could be that an
| individual's mindset could lead to both less criminality
| and more religious participation. It's not obvious that
| sending criminals to church would make them less criminal.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| One of your sources is overtly Christian and the other is
| quite conservative[0]. Here is an academic survey of such
| studies; seems a lot more nuanced: https://www.researchgate
| .net/publication/261834488_Religion_...
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times
| tstrimple wrote:
| > Religious people also donate significantly more money to
| charity.
|
| Religious people donate significantly more to their
| churches. Whether that's charity which actually goes on to
| help people is highly variable. You can say we haven't
| really figured out how to replace them, but to me it seems
| pretty clear. Replace a patchwork of "charities" with an
| actual support network which works for everyone and not
| just parishioners. Fund it through taxes. You know, the was
| every single other developed nation in the world handles
| things. The whole "charity is just as good as sound policy"
| thing has never panned out and is why we have so many
| medical bankruptcies as just one example.
| elcritch wrote:
| You make strong assertions that would be difficult to prove
| in general and based on a lot of assumptions (e.g. that
| materialistic reductionism is the only accurate worldview). I
| believe the viewpoint you espouse that religious people have
| broken reasoning is bit myopic in understanding human
| rationality and intellectual pursuits as well. Humans are
| complicated as is our understanding of reality we all share.
|
| Good counterpoints are people like Donald E. Knuth, who is a
| preeminent mathematician, Turing Award recipient, and also a
| devout Lutheran [1]. He gave a talk on science and religion
| at Google even that gives a more nuanced view on science and
| religion [2]. There's also Francis Collins, head of the Human
| Genome project who is a devout Christian as well. Other non-
| western examples include Ramanujan who attributed his
| mathematics to "divinity" [3]. Of course otherwise rational
| scientists can also become besot with irrational pursuits and
| beliefs, like Linus Pauling obessions with Vitamin C [4].
|
| More broadly the religious concepts implicit in the Judeo-
| Christian creation mythos (and other major world religions)
| also encourage (in many scholars opinions and mine as well) a
| view that the world is a result of rational thought and not
| purely a choatic war that man happens to be besot by and
| perhaps might survive. For example compare the differences of
| Genesis to the Enuma Elish "There is no suggestion of any
| primordial battle or internecine war which eventually led to
| the creation of the universe. The one God is above the whole
| of nature, which He Himself created by His own absolute will.
| The primeval water, earth, sky, and luminaries are not
| pictured as deities or as parts of disembodied deities, but
| are all parts of the manifold works of the Creator. Man, in
| turn, is not conceived of as an afterthought, as in Enuma
| Elish, but rather as the pinnacle of creation." [5]. It's my
| belief that the inception of science (not mere technologists
| vs philosophers as the ancient Greeks or Romans had) is
| encouraged by a societal belief that the world has rational
| underpinnings and isn't just mad chaos.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth 2:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPpk-1btGZk 3:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan 4:
| https://quackwatch.org/related/pauling/ 5:
| https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/creation-and-
| cosmogony-...
| fossuser wrote:
| I don't mean to imply that a religious person can't be
| outlier smart in other ways (Knuth being a great example
| but there are many others), but that doesn't mean something
| isn't broken with their world view. People are wildly
| inconsistent by default (myself included) and it takes
| great effort to try and recognize these kinds of failures
| in order to correct them.
|
| In fact, the smarter the person is - the more complex their
| rationalizations typically are.
|
| As far as finding major religions support a rational world
| view, it's too easy to cherry pick religious text examples
| to support anything so I won't do that here. I'll just say
| that while I'd like that to be true, I think that it's not.
| elcritch wrote:
| Your comment does directly imply that you don't trust
| their overall decision making and/or rationality based on
| your personal worldview. I believe that's bordering on a
| vary narrow and limiting view of human rationality,
| culture, and worldviews. Though yes I would agree with
| you to an extent as overly dogmatic religious beliefs
| leave little for other viewpoints or venues of thought as
| well.
|
| > it's too easy to cherry pick religious text examples to
| support anything
|
| Certainly it's easy to cherry pick religious texts --
| though there is some serious non-religious scholarly
| works in these areas as well but it's an area fraught
| with assumptions. The point being that it's not
| completely unreasonable to argue that (some) major world
| religions do promote aspects of rational worldviews
| (those being an orderly universe governed by knowable
| discernible rules). Perhaps your rationalistic or
| atheistic worldview is more correct but as with the view
| that certain religions promote rationality, that argument
| is fraught with challenges as well. That's my primary
| point.
| bjourne wrote:
| > If the fundamentalists are a problem, maybe there's a
| problem with the fundamentals?
|
| "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is often
| quoted as the fundamental tenet of Christianity.
|
| > If they can't get something basic right, why would they be
| right about something more complicated?
|
| Donald Knuth is a devout Christian and he has been right
| about lots of very complicated things.
| mgh2 wrote:
| This is a precursory investigation into some beliefs, using
| logic instead of emotion: https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-
| we-trust-2978dacc8c22
| goatcode wrote:
| >If the fundamentalists are a problem, maybe there's a
| problem with the fundamentals?
|
| What people call fundamentalists are often not all about the
| actual fundamentals. Rather, they're stuck on one or another
| bad, but still old idea. Actual fundamentals do not reflect
| the hateful, angry, bitter image that's conjured up by the
| term "fundamentalist."
| rayiner wrote:
| As someone who went in the opposite direction, I observed as
| I got older that "evidence based reasoning" is less useful
| than I had assumed. Nearly everyone has beliefs about the
| world that are based on faith whether they call it that or
| not. Very few political premises are based on scientific
| evidence that's well established as say anthropogenic climate
| change. For the most part the data is mixed and hard to
| interpret and peoples' views aren't really based on the data
| anyway. (Try talking with a gun control advocate. First note
| that homicides went down in Australia after gun buybacks.
| Note reaction. Then note that homicides were going down at
| the same rate before gun buybacks as after gun buybacks. Note
| reaction.)
|
| And basing your world views on faith is fine because for the
| most part evidence based reasoning can't really tell you how
| to structure your communities and economies and raise and
| educate your children. Not for metaphysical reasons, just
| because the strong conclusions you can reliably reach with
| the current state of social and political science is just
| very limited.
| fossuser wrote:
| I don't disagree really - there's still space for intuition
| and making a guess in places with limited information. I
| also agree most people are using evidence to drive
| motivated reasoning for a pre-existing conclusion rather
| than using it to try to struggle towards whatever the truth
| may be.
|
| The god question is pretty old though, and most of the
| religious arguments are pretty clearly wrong/bad. They've
| lost most of their ground to actual experiments and the
| scientific method. I suspect this is why we see church
| attendance continuing to decline.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| The answer to "we don't have enough information," is not to
| reason less.
| elihu wrote:
| Many decisions aren't primarily based on reason/logic,
| but on priorities and preferences. Having more
| information rather than less is almost always a good
| thing, but it's a lot more useful when you already have
| some goal in mind.
| randcraw wrote:
| > And basing your world views on faith is fine because for
| the most part evidence based reasoning can't really tell
| you how to...
|
| I can't agree with either point: 1) basing your view on
| faith is equally as good as non-faith, or 2) expecting a
| world view based on _any_ belief will reliably lead you to
| draw conclusions that won 't be bad.
|
| Both of these assume that beliefs are primary in shaping
| "your world view" and that that view is what shapes how you
| interact with the world. In fact, what's important isn't
| what you believe; what's important is how you choose to
| _think_. It 's the questions you choose to ask. It's how
| willing you are to start _without_ multiple choice answers
| and then go looking for a multitude of possible solutions.
| And it 's whether you're willing to accept partial and
| interim solutions, and sometimes, [shudder] no answer at
| all.
|
| I know it's not popular to look for answers and then be
| willing to say, "Nope. I can't answer this." But as you
| point out, sometimes it's impossible to answer a question
| with a definitive yes or no. Sometimes you have to gather
| more information. And the useful part of your world view is
| how you choose to go about becoming more informed.
|
| If you don't look any further and just guess, or just trust
| someone else to tell you how to think (especially someone
| who won't explain their sources or their reasoning), then
| you will make a lot poor choices in your life, regardless
| of whether faith is part of that formula or not.
|
| If instead you seek out others whom you know are better
| informed, and if you ask questions yourself and try to test
| those answers yourself, that will serve you far better than
| will any belief system. But most of all, if you are willing
| to stop your quest at some point and say, "I can't answer
| this question definitively" and accept that you have two
| choices: a) a tentative best answer that seeks to work
| around what you don't know, or b) that you simply refuse to
| answer now and accept that "I don't know", now THAT's
| enlightenment. In my opinion, that's a world view that will
| minimize error and make fewer mistakes. Beliefs be damned.
| rayiner wrote:
| The problem is that for the most part all this asking
| questions and becoming informed doesn't get your average
| person anywhere. I read a lot and know a bunch about a
| lot of things but at the end of the day I'm left with
| "the science" Lessing us without firm conclusions about
| pretty much everything I might care about.
|
| And "I don't know" isn't really a practical answer. You
| have to raise your kids now, decide what to feed your
| kids now, vote now, not wait around for conclusive proof.
|
| And people who say "beliefs be damned" don't actually
| mean it. They embrace beliefs and value judgments all the
| time. Does scientific evidence tell us we're all equal
| and created in God's image? No, it's something we choose
| to believe, and even people who aren't religious believe
| a secular version of that as an article of faith. (Which
| is good!) Science says the average IQ of people in
| Bangladesh (where I'm from) is 82, a standard deviation
| lower than Americans. What do I choose to believe about
| Bangladeshis? Most decent Americans don't say "well the
| best answer we have is Bangladeshis aren't as smart as
| Americans." They start from a belief about equality and
| work backward from there. The death penalty, how to treat
| murderers, criminal justice, civil rights. Science more
| or less doesn't have the answers we need to these human
| problems.
| bhupy wrote:
| I found a good articulation of this here:
| https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/the-holy-church-of-
| christ-w...
|
| "Suddenly we've got numerical infinities on that ethics
| spreadsheet, inputs that win out against any finite moral
| optimization. Where to put the infinities on the
| spreadsheet is of course the entire point of this
| metaphysical endeavor. We need the axiomatic moral
| imperatives, whether they be human life or free speech or
| something else, to which everything else loses in the moral
| calculus. The rest is mere arithmetic.
|
| And this is precisely where the rationalist worldview grows
| mute: there's simply no way to derive the absolute moral
| principles that should rule our lives from lab experiments,
| and any such proposal will necessarily require a faith-
| based leap--the 'dignity' of human life, the sanctity of
| private property, etc.--not very different than the tzelem
| Elohim or Imago Dei of Genesis. Science is absolutely mute
| here. There's no such thing as a 'scientific ethics' or a
| 'scientific foreign policy', and the people who claim as
| much are precisely the same naifs who treat science as a
| body of knowledge rather than an epistemology, i.e., those
| who've never actually practiced it."
| tptacek wrote:
| There is no strongly-held opinion anywhere in the world
| that you can't play that rhetorical trick on, which may be
| why there are whole papers that have been written about why
| it's almost never persuasive to deploy gotcha statistics
| that way.
| leetcrew wrote:
| is this a rebuttal or an agreement? I think the point of
| the example was that most people can't rigorously defend
| their strongly held opinions. they just throw gotchas at
| each other.
| tptacek wrote:
| You know, I think you're right. Sorry about that! Just
| read my comment as an especially annoying yes-and.
| austincheney wrote:
| > If the fundamentalists are a problem, maybe there's a
| problem with the fundamentals?
|
| That is pretty ridiculous. It's like saying if there is bad
| science the scientific theory is broken.
| jariel wrote:
| " before throwing it away (I was young ~12 which makes it
| easier). My objection is to the broken nature of the
| reasoning and how that tends to corrupt evidence based
| reasoning elsewhere most of them time "
|
| Age 12 is pretty young to come to that conclusion.
|
| Also, it's not about direct rational inquiry, yes it can
| sometimes a source of aberration, but that would be missing
| the point.
|
| Spirituality is about who you are, your relationship to the
| greater good.
|
| 'Reasoning' is just a tool of the mind.
|
| Science is a tool, not a Truth.
| progman32 wrote:
| > that would be missing the point.
|
| Which is?
|
| > Spirituality is about who you are, your relationship to
| the greater good.
|
| It can be, for some people. Not all. My personal
| relationship to the greater good has more to do with
| reasoned arguments rather than spirituality.
|
| > 'Reasoning' is just a tool of the mind. Would you agree
| it's a highly important tool?
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| Religion is just a tool too. It's just not wielded by the
| flock, but rather by someone that wants to control the
| actions of the flock.
|
| Spirituality can be something else altogether, but usually
| just boils down to magical thinking.
| hooande wrote:
| Isn't Spirituality also a tool, that enables you to
| understand and improve your relationship to the greater
| good?
|
| All tools have value, in some context or another
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| > If the fundamentalists are a problem, maybe there's a
| problem with the fundamentals?
|
| Not a bad argument, but if we need religion to be 100%
| accurate then we'd only ever support the most modern and
| innovative religion.
|
| The issue is that most religions (including my own) place
| tremendous importance on the accuracy of teachings that go
| back hundreds or thousands of years. It was impossible for
| the original authors to know what we know today, yet we
| either fault them for it or declare any advances in knowledge
| to be heretical. Clearly, both of these positions are wrong
| in the extreme.
|
| And yet, there's a good reason for that, too. If we subject
| religion to every modern idea, then the religion doesn't
| really stand for anything. It simply mirrors society back at
| it.
|
| I don't know the solution to this. There may not be one
| (short of saying "f--- religion" as a whole, which I think
| would be a terrible mistake).
|
| If anyone has ever participated in a 12-step program, you can
| see this in action in a much more modern way. Every program
| has an unchanging dogma, based on the assumption that the
| founders hit on something special and right, and that any
| changes would risk watering it down. As a result, you end up
| with programs that have ideas that would have been very
| mainstream when they were founded, but are now largely viewed
| as wrong-headed or even cruel. And yet, these programs
| continue to be a lifeline to many people who would have
| otherwise spiralled into self-destruction.
|
| Again, what's the solution? Heck if I know...
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| >If they can't get something basic right, why would they be
| right about something more complicated?
|
| Can you steelman what the basic thing is that religious
| people get wrong?
| fossuser wrote:
| A lot of the creationist arguments stem from "irreducible
| complexity" or a misunderstanding of natural selection (the
| "eye just formed itself somehow"). Both of these things
| sound reasonable when explained in isolation to someone who
| grew up with religion, but natural selection is much
| stronger (light sensing cells benefit survival way before
| they're an entire eye) etc.
|
| It's the 'watchmaker' argument - things must have come from
| a creator because nothing can ever just exist. This always
| ignores the natural follow up - who created god then? There
| is no good answer for this (and it just creates an infinite
| regress).
|
| Religious steelmans are weird, because the arguments out
| front are not the real objections or even the real debate
| (which makes things confusing). The real debate is more
| about belief in belief, tribal affiliation, perceived
| morality, and identity. The arguments out front are mostly
| rationalizations to try and explain away contrary evidence.
|
| Religious people are arguing from a position entirely
| driven by motivated reasoning. They're not trying to
| uncover the truth, they're trying to defend what they
| already _know_ to be true.
|
| You see this occasionally on the atheist side too
| (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4Bwr6s9dofvqPWakn/science-
| as...) the difference though, is the evidence is there if
| you care to look.
|
| If there was real compelling evidence of supernatural
| behavior I'd change my mind, but whenever it's been claimed
| and tested - it's bullshit.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| Indeed, I've known a lot of religious people like the
| ones you speak of. And I've known and read from many
| other "religious"/deist people who think those types of
| people are silly.
|
| >If there was real compelling evidence of supernatural
| behavior I'd change my mind, but whenever it's been
| claimed and tested - it's bullshit.
|
| How is it possible to test for "supernatural behavior"?
| soylentcola wrote:
| Maybe I'm just being snarky or missing the real meaning
| of the term, but I think of "supernatural" as something
| that is beyond any capacity to test or prove. Anything
| that can be proven would fall under my definition of
| "natural", even if it's beyond my capacity to explain or
| understand.
|
| By definition, I'd consider any sort of gods, demons,
| ghosts, or whatever to be either nonexistent or something
| that exists (which would imply that it's something
| natural and operates in some currently unknown way).
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| >I think of "supernatural" as something that is beyond
| any capacity to test or prove.
|
| I agree. It's worth noting that the fundamental nature of
| our consciousness _could_ fall into that realm, judging
| by how it is scientifically impossible to isolate and
| control for, and is thus seemingly indefineable.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Free will is supernatural. That is why leading atheists
| posit that it doesn't exist.
| fossuser wrote:
| > ""How is it possible to test for "supernatural
| behavior"?
|
| - "I'm a psychic and can tell what's in these containers
| without looking"
|
| - "I can detect water with magic rods"
|
| - "I can heal you with the power of god"
|
| It's worth watching An Honest Liar about the life of the
| Amazing Randi.
|
| What's interesting is even when Randi shows people how
| they're being tricked they refuse to believe it.
|
| The above examples are pretty easy to test (and people
| do), but believers just ignore the results or make up
| reasons why results don't matter or can't be tested.
| loveistheanswer wrote:
| Those are of course easy strawman examples of charlatans
| trying to make money.
|
| This Carl Sagan quote is relevant:
|
| >An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not
| exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the
| existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence.
| Because God can be relegated to remote times and places
| and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great
| deal more about the universe than we do to be sure that
| no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God
| and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me
| to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with
| doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little
| confidence indeed.
| fossuser wrote:
| Sure - technically every atheist should be agnostic in
| the sense that you can never know anything with 100%
| confidence, but pragmatically you live as if you're an
| atheist. In the strict sense I'm "almost certain there is
| no god", but no one can be truly certain given the nature
| of the things Sagan points out.
|
| Just because something is hard to prove with certainty
| doesn't mean the probability is equally likely. You can't
| really be a strict atheist about magic sea fairies
| either, but you probably are (in the sense you that you
| think they don't exist). Priors matter for things.
|
| While many of those people were charlatans, many of them
| are also earnest. The water rods people really believe
| they can detect water with the sticks and have stories
| about how they helped a friend with a leak and such.
|
| Many astrology people really believe they can make
| personality predictions (they can't unless they're vague
| enough to be predictive of nothing). It's not all
| conartists.
| simplify wrote:
| As a religious person, I don't see how the issues you
| describe are any lesser in non-religious populations.
| You're misplacing your blame; society would still have
| these problems _without_ religion, and it 'd arguably be
| worse, too.
| svieira wrote:
| > things most have come from a creator because nothing
| can ever just exist.
|
| This isn't the "watchmaker" argument, this is the
| "principle of sufficient reason" argument applied to
| existence. The principle of sufficient reason is "an
| effect must have a cause sufficient to explain it".
| Things exist _right now_, but (so goes the argument) they
| didn't always exist (that is they are not things-which-
| must-by-their-very-nature-exist). Therefore, the fact
| that they exist _right now_ needs a cause that operates
| _right now_. The causal chain of why-does-this-
| contingent-thing-exist-right-now cannot be infinite.
| Therefore, the causal chain must terminate in some being
| that must by its very nature exist.
|
| This argument was not made by Christian theists, but by
| Aristotle over 300 years before Christianity came into
| existence. It was rediscovered by Christian theists a
| millenium and a half later (in the 1200s) and accepted
| because it matched what God said of Himself to Moses 1200
| years before Aristotle (Exodus 3:14)
|
| https://biblehub.com/exodus/3-14.htm
| fossuser wrote:
| Thanks - I think this does a better job clarifying that
| bit better than I did (which notably doesn't address the
| infinite regress issue).
|
| The watchmaker argument is more narrowly the creationist
| 'eye can't have just formed itself' argument (basically
| the eye must have been made by some sophisticated
| watchmaker: god).
| svieira wrote:
| When you say "which notably doesn't address the infinite
| regress issue" are you talking about what you said or
| what I did? (Just trying to understand if I wasn't clear
| enough in my explanations).
| fossuser wrote:
| I think you clarified where the 'something can't come
| from nothing' argument originates from (and that it's
| separate from the watchmaker one).
|
| My point was just that as an argument the answer being
| 'god' isn't very compelling when it then just moves the
| question to 'where did god come from', nothing is
| actually explained by this.
|
| In my experience with religious people you get
| unsatisfactory answers to that, so adding massive
| complexity (god) as an answer doesn't really help when it
| can't answer the underlying question (it just introduces
| a new and more complex one). This is ignoring all the
| other problems with the god hypothesis which don't hold
| up either.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| This line of reasoning is totally unconvincing to pure
| naturalists like me.
|
| I simply believe that the universe exists, and that we'll
| likely never know anything beyond that, as the big bang
| appears to be the limit of what evidence is possible to
| measure.
|
| What I don't see is anything that necessitates turning
| the fact that the universe exists into a principle that
| the ultimate "cause" must be a being that frankly behaves
| like a abusive patriarch while threatening humanity with
| eternal torture.
| svieira wrote:
| "That the universe exists" isn't a sufficient explanation
| since we know that it doesn't exist of necessity (since
| it is composed of parts). The argument doesn't say
| anything about what this "First mover" is like, only that
| it must be sufficient to explain the effects it produces
| (which includes being-a-person since that's qualitatively
| different than not-being-one). It's only when you come to
| the realization that to-be is the same as to-be-beautiful
| is the same as to-be-true that things start to look
| vaguely like the God of the burning bush and the problem
| of pain starts to raise its head (and then you have to
| meet the cross and either break on it or be saved by it).
| fossuser wrote:
| I'd recommend Max Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe
| which goes into some of the more modern theories beyond
| The Big Bang (Inflation Theory, MWI of QM) - I thought it
| was pretty interesting and didn't know about.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)
|
| My interpretation of the comment you replied to wasn't
| that they were trying to justify the argument, but just
| clarify what the argument specifically was (and where it
| came from).
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| What you may not see is that everything is incredibly
| intelligible.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Of course it is: it's a work of human writing, by people
| who were quite serious thinkers of their era.
|
| But you can't use the content of the bible to prove the
| existence of the supernatural any more than you could use
| Beowufl to do the same.
| [deleted]
| gaoshan wrote:
| Grew up Protestant and rejected it because of the hypocrisy I
| saw around me. I saw "good church going people" who I knew were
| not good people and I saw how they were able to use the
| authority of their positions to exert influence. I also found
| that asking too many inconvenient questions in youth group
| meetings led to uncomfortable situations. It became clear that
| the religion part of things had little to no impact on how
| good, bad or decent the people practicing it were. People were
| good or bad, religious people simply had a metaphysical
| framework they could use to excuse themselves... and the bad
| ones would do just this. Led me to reject confirmation and
| leave altogether. Now it's been 40 years and I am more
| convinced than ever that I made the correct decision. Religion
| is fundamentally flawed as I see it practiced around me and
| needs to be kept out of civil society strictly and completely.
| You want to practice it in your home or church? Go for it. You
| want to inject it into civil society (schools, government,
| etc)... you need to be stopped utterly and completely.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Just curious: which denomination were you?
| gaoshan wrote:
| Generic Presbyterian. The vanilla ice cream of religions.
| prophesi wrote:
| Do you know if it was PC USA (which is more mainline) or
| PCA (which is more evangelical/fundamentalist)? It's
| actually a pretty huge split in that denomination.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_in_the_United
| _St...
| gaoshan wrote:
| This was PC USA.
| api wrote:
| I've talked to people of the younger generations (in the USA)
| who are not even aware that there is anything other than
| fundamentalist literalism. Either the Earth is 6000 years old
| and Jonah literally rode in the belly of a whale, or there is
| no God.
|
| This sets up a situation where you have to be willfully
| ignorant or lie to defend the existence of God, since this
| stuff is bollocks.
|
| In reality fundamentalist literalism is a relatively recent
| (19th century) theological development, but it's taken over
| completely in many US denominations.
|
| A further wedge has been driven by the total politicization of
| religion. Many also believe that you must be a far-right
| Republican to be a Christian. If you'd asked me as a teenager
| or early 20-something what it meant to be a Christian I'd have
| thought "you have to support the military and vote Republican."
| pbourke wrote:
| > In reality fundamentalist literalism is a relatively recent
| (19th century) theological development
|
| I was under the impression that it began with the Protestant
| Reformation - specifically Calvinism (16th century)
| api wrote:
| Hmm... my answer may have been US-centric. I was thinking
| of this kind of thing:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals
|
| Early 20th century though, but the antecedents go back to
| the 19th.
|
| This is regarded by some as the foundational text of 20th
| century American fundamentalism. Written and published by
| an oil tycoon, of course.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| Well given the logical definition of God 6 day creation and
| riding in a whale are not a problem at all, anything is
| possible. I never saw a 6000 year old Earth in the Bible
| though.
| kaybe wrote:
| The idea is to assume we have an unbroken record of
| genealogy in the bible and add up all the lifetimes of
| people mentioned, which gives the ~6000 years. [0]
|
| I'm not sure whether there is any basis for this assumption
| in the text though..
|
| [0] https://creation.com/6000-years
| luxuryballs wrote:
| Yeah I don't think there is, and doesn't need to be
| either. If you believe it's the Word of God then it's got
| just what it was suppose to have in it, nothing more and
| nothing less. Most of the debated things are just not
| that important on the scale with things that are cut and
| dry, by design.
|
| It's like the science thing, there is science in the
| Bible, but the Bible is not a science book. Science is
| more of a way to describe the function of the lego blocks
| that make up the world around us, the Bible is more
| concerned with how the lego blocks came about and what
| the cosmic purpose of them is. Which is why science and
| Bible are never at odds, just like how metaphysics is
| never at odds with physics. Or how things like gravity
| and light are well beyond the scope of biological
| evolution.
| kongolongo wrote:
| The reason fundamentalists are so appealing is because they at
| least try to maintain some level of consistency.
|
| How does one know which parts of the bible to accept or which
| parts are metaphor and which parts are literal or which version
| of the bible to believe? At least the most literal
| interpretation always tries to be consistent.
|
| What makes any interpretation better than scriptural
| literalism? Is it the fact that some happen to agree with
| current social trends? Seems like the source material is flawed
| and unnecessary in the first place.
| randcraw wrote:
| I think fundamentalists care less about consistency than
| closure. They want to minimize mystery and unknowns by
| insisting that even some very implausible parts of the Bible
| are expressly and unquestionably true. Similarly, Catholicism
| seems also to be quite formal about Biblical interpretation,
| but willing to let the church decide which tenets should be
| explicit vs metaphor. In contrast to both, I understand that
| Orthodoxy is less concerned about closure and more willing to
| leave 'lesser' questions unanswered or remain ambiguous.
|
| Religious truth isn't decided only by scripture or church
| hermeneutics. Sometimes it's just what your community chooses
| to care about (or not).
| hajile wrote:
| The whole implausible argument always struck me as lacking.
|
| You accept the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent god, but
| then say they couldn't possibly do anything supernatural
| because that would go against the science they created.
| billti wrote:
| Totally agree. I'm not religious at all, but at least being a
| "fundamentalist" seems intellectually honesty. If you believe
| your religious text is the true word of an all powerful God,
| surely it's infallible? What gives you the right to pick and
| choose which parts to take literally or not?
|
| Would an all powerful God who wants "true believers" to find
| salvation leave them for thousands of years muddling through
| with just an ambiguous and inconsistent book to live by?
| 2ion wrote:
| > which brings heresies like hating LGBT
|
| This is funny to read because LGBT and a series of other
| movements cause me to feel much the same as I do about
| "religious" fundamentalism. Excessive self-styling and
| countering any adverse ideas with a refusal to compromise or
| cede any ground. Not tolerating adverse ideas and
| manifestations thereof in daily life but "calling it out" and
| attacking them constantly.
|
| Extremism in opiniated/constructed ideas, polarized cancel
| culture etc has become much more popular and dominating in the
| public discourse and media than it has been for the past 50+
| years.
|
| I just don't get how fundamentalists can remain so busy going
| on about their fundaments. It's all very tiresome.
| [deleted]
| tootie wrote:
| Fundamentalism is corrosive and detrimental to society. I don't
| get angry at moderate religious views but I still think they're
| laughable superstition. I respect your right as a human to
| believe I just think it's silly.
| loceng wrote:
| Seeing those same comments in this thread reminded me of
| something Jordan Peterson questions: with this decline of
| religious-based narratives for guidelines, what is replacing
| it?
| Breza wrote:
| It's so refreshing to see somebody who has had a similar
| experience to my own. I've never been a member of a church like
| the ones that people describe in a lot of the comments. We
| focus on devotion to God and improving the earth. For example,
| here's how we marked our church's 100th birthday:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/on-its-100th-birthday-a...
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > ...bad theology...heresies...
|
| Without "scriptural literalism" how do you know what bad
| theology and heresy are? Is good theology not simply that which
| most closely corresponds to Scripture? Your comment makes sense
| on a Roman Catholic view - in which the traditions of the
| church are authoritative - but not on the Protestant view (sola
| Scriptura).
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Some are led by consensus and "spirit-leading." Like the
| Quakers.
| snicker7 wrote:
| Speaking as a person of faith, religion has been largely
| obsoleted by social media and political tribalism. Most people
| get their moral compass from Instagram or Twitter or whatever.
| Celebrities, op-end writers, talk show hosts, and corporations
| have become the bishops of the new American moral universe.
| [deleted]
| soared wrote:
| I don't think anyone is getting their morals from Instagram.
| timbit42 wrote:
| The think the OP was also implying "lack of morals" when they
| said "morals".
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Find the influencers of our generation and you'll find the
| moral role models.
| justupvoting wrote:
| A lot of clever folks in here attempting to tailor the Emperor's
| new clothes.
|
| As to whether church membership slipping below the 50% mark is a
| good or bad thing for America, I'm agnostic.
| renewiltord wrote:
| HN has a strong bias in the same direction as Malcolm Gladwell
| and the "well ackchually"s of the Internet.
|
| This constant search for a counterintuitive result or
| explanation means that most comments on things just end up with
| a massive contrarian bias.
|
| This makes sense. After all, no one is writing "oh cool" and no
| one is upvoting that.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Church membership i think ignores the fact about the explosion in
| alternative beliefs and practices.
|
| For example, meditation, san pedro, ayahuasca use etc has
| exploded tremendously and I think there is a significant cross
| section of the former religious population that have found relief
| from daily hustle via these alternative non-denominational
| activities.
| [deleted]
| gobrewers14 wrote:
| Great news. At some point, hopefully humanity will realize
| religions are the myths of our less enlightened ancestors and we
| can all move on to something more interesting and productive.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Having the Church community while growing up was great. But the
| fact that admission to this community required total
| philosophical adherence is just bizarre.
|
| Frankly, growing up in the church left me with a broken moral
| code. It was only once I left it in my teens and had to work
| things out for myself that I feel like I could properly ground
| myself ethically. Having a moral system imposed on you can do
| that.
| umvi wrote:
| You'll have a broken moral system imposed on you either way
| then, if not by a church than by the shifting values of
| politics and society. You'll never derive an absolute moral
| code by yourself, you are forced to accept the changing values
| of society or risk being ostracized. Most people just allow
| their morals to shift with society rather than dig in their
| heels or try to develop an absolute moral code.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Why would my morals be based on other people's beliefs? They
| simply boil down to a question of 'does this harm others, in
| a provable way?'
| umvi wrote:
| > They simply boil down to a question of 'does this harm
| others, in a provable way?'
|
| And when there are interest groups pumping money into
| research to ensure the thing does not harm others in a
| provable way?
|
| It's like cigarettes in the 40s. Tobacco usage was both
| moral and socially acceptable because big tobacco pumped
| money into the research to ensure the perception was that
| it did not cause harm.
|
| That was eventually disproven, but it took decades, and we
| no doubt have modern day "big tobaccos" pumping money into
| research to ensure their product/ideology/etc. is "proven"
| not to cause harm. You may think something is moral now but
| will change your mind later. For example, you may think
| it's perfectly fine for a person to attend church today,
| but what if research comes out later that religion provably
| harms children, would you then be on board with banning
| religion? And if so, doesn't that disturb you that a
| slightly different society might come to an equally
| "proven" conclusion that atheism provably causes harm to
| society?
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| To expand on my moral philosophy, I think someone should
| be free to do as they please unless there is evidence
| that it harms someone else. Harm is defined by the
| preponderance of evidence. A few contrarian papers
| sponsored by big corporate interests aren't going to
| change that. I take a fairly firm stance on what
| constitutes evidence, and when in doubt, lean towards
| individual freedom over society's view of something.
| umvi wrote:
| > A few contrarian papers sponsored by big corporate
| interests aren't going to change that.
|
| It's more than that. Not just big corps but sometimes
| prominent scientists, or political movements have agendas
| and biases that influence research (studies related to
| racism, sexism, and diversity/equity come to mind). There
| are also research "cabals" that won't let you publish
| research contrary to the groupthink. And on top of all
| that there is a "reproducibility crisis" that especially
| impacts social science/medicine.
|
| > and when in doubt, lean towards individual freedom over
| society's view of something.
|
| I think this is the right stance. Too many people (in my
| opinion) cherry pick papers on topics that do not have a
| "preponderance of evidence" (or have even been reproduced
| a single time) in order to fight for policy changes or
| otherwise bolster their stance.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > You'll have a broken moral system imposed on you either way
|
| I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how moral
| systems work, one that is perpetuated by the church.
|
| In Christianity, there is a specific "source" of morality,
| one that's (supposedly) infallible and unquestionable. This
| leads to problems when the infallible-unquestionable source
| of morality endorses things like slavery [1]: if it's
| unquestionable and infallible, how can your moral system be
| adapted to address this shortcoming? (This is usually
| handwaved away by theists by saying something like "oh that's
| the old covenant", or "that was a different god", which uses
| strange internal doctrinal shenanigans to somehow justify
| this supreme perfect being's obvious moral shortcommings, and
| looks to everyone outside the religion like someone just
| playing the cup game.)
|
| Outside of religion, there is no single "source" of morality.
| There's a codified system of laws that our societies adhere
| to, certainly, but there's plenty of examples of how the laws
| do not codify morality (e.g. I am not required to be even a
| minimally-decent Samaritan to anyone I encounter on the
| street). Morality instead is something that an individual has
| to build for themselves, as a framework for decisionmaking in
| the wider world: how do you choose between your available
| actions? what are your guiding principals?
|
| Some decide that, for various reasons, they cannot support
| industrial animal agriculture, and turn vegan. Some decide
| they fundamentally disagree with the structure of our police
| forces. Some turn pacifist--but all come to these conclusions
| through their reasoning. They absolutely can (and do) borrow
| reasoning from other sources, but it's impossible for it to
| be 'imposed' on them because there is no 'higher power' that
| has the absolute moral right.
|
| This is something that's frustrated me when trying to engage
| with religious people on other moral issues; a few months ago
| I was talking to my mom about the concept of wealth
| redistribution, as to me it seemed incredibly immoral that
| people like Jeff Bezos can have an insane amount of wealth
| while we still have children in our schools who can't afford
| lunch or library books or are even homeless. My mother
| (Christian) couldn't get around the idea that she had no
| right to impose her perceived morality on another: that it
| would be wrong to support laws requiring the redistribution
| of wealth. She had similar issues with LGBT rights: she could
| see the harm caused to LGBT people, and did not want to
| participate in that harm, but struggled to support them
| because she felt like codifying moral support for something,
| which she didn't have the power to do.
|
| This removal of one's own ability to develop and test morals
| is part of what disturbs me greatly about the church. It
| makes it very difficult to demonstrate when people make
| mistakes, how they have harmed other people, and how they
| might go about avoiding that in the future.
|
| [1]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+21&v
| ersi...
| umvi wrote:
| > My mother (Christian) couldn't get around the idea that
| she had no right to impose her perceived morality on
| another
|
| I mean... you probably can't get around that idea either.
| Or do you believe that any and all of your rights can and
| should be taken away if a majority of the people agree you
| shouldn't have those rights anymore (even if the majority
| are religious nutjobs who decide you should not have a
| right to consume alcohol because it's immoral)?
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > even if the majority are religious nutjobs
|
| This is generally why I 'advocate' for atheism
| speficially, and street epistemology [1] generally: I
| want people to be able to effectively reason through
| their morals and beliefs, because I believe that will
| lead to a generally better society--or at the very least
| will make it easier for people to identify when they're
| arguing from different base assumptions.
|
| My issue w.r.t. moral agency in religious folks is it's
| difficult to start having conversations around things
| like LGBT rights because their default stance is
| (paraphrased) "It doesn't matter what I think is 'right'
| or not, because I'm not the one who gets to say what is
| 'right' or not--that's God's job."
|
| So before we can even get to the concept of "when (if
| ever) can you impose these moral beliefs on another"
| they're refusing to engage with the concept of a morality
| where that question matters.
|
| To answer your specific question, no, I don't believe
| "any and all of [my] rights can and should be taken away
| if a majority of the people agree you shouldn't have
| those rights" because it doesn't align with my own moral
| perceptions: I don't think the majority is obviously
| correct. (For example, I am illegal in 71 countries and
| can be legally executed in 12. Perhaps not a strict
| majority, and I"m using laws as an indicator of moral
| policy, but certainly a lot of people--regardless, I do
| not agree with these things.)
|
| That said, my perceptions __can be flawed__. I would hope
| that the tools I use to build them, and my willingness to
| discuss/argue/test them with others will prevent them
| from being egregiously wrong, but it is still possible
| that they would remain wrong. This makes it possible for
| me to correct my moral system where it is found lacking.
|
| [1]: https://streetepistemology.com/
| rbanffy wrote:
| > But the fact that admission to this community required total
| philosophical adherence is just bizarre.
|
| My grandpa's best friend was a catholic priest. I remember him
| saying that you really don't need to go to the church if you
| don't want to, but, if you did good deeds selflessly, always
| tried to make things right (in the sense of least global damage
| possible) and to avoid wronging others, you'd be a good enough
| catolic to pass any reasonable judgement day test.
|
| Which is something I would suspect my idealized Jesus would
| stand behind.
|
| The only time I saw him actually working as a priest, was when
| my grandpa died and he delivered his eulogy.
| p_l wrote:
| It's also the official doctrine of Catholic Church since
| Vatican II...
|
| Thing is, application of it by clergy is not exactly
| universal :(
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| Not really. If you are, muslim yes. But if you are
| Catholic, then one of your duties is mass every Sunday and
| not doing so is a mortal sin.
| rbanffy wrote:
| There are diverging views on the subject. For some, it
| suffices to act according to what Jesus taught. For
| others, the more strict observation of rituals is a
| necessity.
| aeneasmackenzie wrote:
| This is false. It is true that the church teaches that you
| can be saved without going through the church, but this
| does not apply if you are aware of the church. Invincible
| ignorance does not apply to those who are not ignorant.
| p_l wrote:
| I believe the main issue is whether one refused god or
| not (i.e. catholic who renounced the faith). Being aware
| of faith but not practicing while still fulfilling the
| requirements does count, iirc.
| mustafa_pasi wrote:
| No, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. I mean, this is one of
| the mayor schisms between Protestant and Christian
| churches.
|
| You can check the catechism if you want. It puts it in
| black on white.
| Loughla wrote:
| 100% that second paragraph. Growing up with morals imposed on
| my, via the threat of fire and brimstone was weird. I did what
| I had to do, because I was told to do it or else.
|
| Being an adult and doing the right thing, simply because it's
| the right thing, and developing my own moral and ethical code
| of conduct has greatly reduced my stress and anxiety.
| jrs235 wrote:
| I hear you. This, reliance on the Old Testament fire and
| brimstone teaching is a failure of the church. The Law (and
| the fire and brimstone) is important to show how we (no one)
| can live up to being prefect and our need for forgiveness and
| love. We are to do things out of love, not out of fear.
| bshep wrote:
| Pretty much sums up my experience as well, I grew up going
| to church and every week it was 'follow the church or go to
| hell' and 'you are all sinners going to hell'.
|
| As an adult ( in a different geographic area ) I've been to
| church with my wife and its a much more positive
| experience.
|
| In the end my 'belief' is in a moral code and not in a
| religion.
| sarabad2021 wrote:
| > But the fact that admission to this community required total
| philosophical adherence is just bizarre.
|
| I don't think it's bizarre at all. With the church removed from
| western society something will fill the vacuum. And truly it
| already has. Our society requires complete unquestioning
| philosophical adherence to its new religion. What happened
| during the French revolution? They turned the churches into
| "Temples of Reason" all the while lopping off the head of
| anyone that did not wholly and totally adhere to their new
| moral code. Even in the end the god of this new moral code met
| his fate by the monster he created. Believe me what is
| happening is not what anyone here should want. For all of you
| who are thinking and reasonable. Read the history:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_d...
| mattnewton wrote:
| Dechristianization does not equal the french revolution any
| more than the rise of national catholicism equals Franco's
| fascist dictatorship. Plenty of western nations have dropped
| the church as it failed to adapt to modern liberal society,
| and plenty of atrocious regimes have been aided and abetted
| by the blessings of churches.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > And truly it already has.
|
| I don't think you're arguing that it's the same motivation as
| the French revolution, so it would help to elucidate your
| point if you said what you think that new thing is. It would
| also help to explain how you think that enforced
| philosophical adherence by all of western society applies as
| there are still 47% of Americans who DO belong to a religious
| institution.
| sarabad2021 wrote:
| I agree that it isn't the same motivation but we're on
| trend to seeing a similar result. If we do get to that
| extreme then by that time, we'll have a new moral system
| which won't allow these types of conversations, in the same
| way certain extremist sects of christianity didn't allow
| dissidents to live. However, the form of christianity that
| we have now simply hurts peoples feelings. Hardly cause for
| such outrage. Though today hurting someones feelings is the
| equivalent of violence and there is no way to be forgiven
| except a life of apologizing and groveling. Exciting time
| to be alive.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| You're still avoiding saying what you think that trend
| is.
|
| > However, the form of christianity that we have now
| simply hurts peoples feelings. Hardly cause for such
| outrage.
|
| I believe there are still abusers hidden in Catholic
| Church are there not?
| sarabad2021 wrote:
| Yes, there are abusers and that is heinous. The catholic
| church has done unspeakable amounts of damage to
| Christianity. However, that damage was done by going
| against the teaching of Christ who warned against such
| evil saying: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who
| believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a
| great millstone were hung around his neck and he were
| thrown into the sea." Mark 9:42. There will be justice. I
| can't imagine having a worldview where these evil people
| just die and cease to exist. Totally escaping justice.
| krastanov wrote:
| And many can not imagine a worldview that relies on
| justice being provided by some entity after death. I
| would call that "escaping justice".
| sarabad2021 wrote:
| Actually that entity demands both. Man's justice and
| God's justice.
| 8note wrote:
| Jesus was pretty specific about who should be casting
| stones, and that generally people are not qualified to do
| so
|
| Man's justice is forgiveness, not punishment
| jmcqk6 wrote:
| >And truly it already has. Our society requires complete
| unquestioning philosophical adherence to its new religion.
|
| Obviously, since speaking heresies like this will get you
| killed. /s
|
| Take a step back, disengage from the culture war, and take a
| look at what is actually happening.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| But it can cost you a job, and your place in society
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| ...so can religion? I mean we literally had to implement
| laws to say you can't get fired for your religion, so
| clearly it was a problem.
| allemagne wrote:
| People have been talking about the vacuum that Christianity
| has left or will leave in Western society for over a century.
| Most of the time, however, those who complain about this then
| completely miss the point.
|
| The new organizations, ideologies, and new-age pseudo-
| religions "filling the religion-shaped hole" in society
| aren't inherently "lesser" than religion (or necessarily
| better). They are simply filling the niches in an ecosystem
| that many traditional religious structures by and large
| refuse to adapt to.
|
| Yes, the sudden decrease in religiosity in society is
| probably just trading one set of problems for another, but if
| individuals didn't think that leaving their church was in
| their best interests then they wouldn't have left in the
| first place. Secularization is an inevitable consequence of
| freedom.
|
| Religion and Christianity itself probably won't ever go away
| for the same reason it has clung to life for millennia: it
| will change and adapt to those new needs. It's only the
| stubbornly complacent sects and congregations who will
| dwindle and go extinct.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| People can be wrong about what's in their best interests...
| Just because people left doesn't mean it was good overall.
|
| In fact, I think one of the keys to any religious belief
| (even the current scientism that's in vogue today) is that
| people are not the sole knowers of what's best for
| themselves.
| boudin wrote:
| You have to put things in their context though. Not saying
| that the years of chaotic and arbitrary killing that followed
| the revolution was great, but religion was a different thing
| in France back then. It was also (and foremost) politics and
| a system of power before being a religion. I wouldn't attach
| the world "moral" to the catholic church back then because it
| definitely had none.
| tfehring wrote:
| In response to your first paragraph: I was raised Catholic, and
| for a long time I've been a little bit envious of my Jewish
| friends' ability to still associate themselves with their
| religious identity even after they no longer identify with the
| theistic elements of it. "If you leave you'll burn in hell for
| eternity" was effective for a long time, and it worked on me
| for much of my childhood, but it doesn't seem like a very
| effective retention strategy at this point.
|
| Of course, I don't really care to associate with most Catholics
| as they stand today anyway. But that might be different if
| Catholics and "I was raised Catholic"s had a more formal shared
| identity in the same sense that religious and secular Jews do.
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| If you want more solid evidence that the Catholic Church is
| the right one, check out this miracle:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
| bko wrote:
| Having an imperfect moral system imposed is better than having
| no moral system imposed. You have a context for which you can
| deviate, but if morality is all relative, many will be lost.
| You need something to ground yourself to. That's where familial
| culture and religion come in. One isn't necessarily better than
| another, but its useful to have as a starting point
| eloff wrote:
| I completely disagree that religion is the only moral system.
|
| If you are not religious you still have a moral system. In
| the West this had been heavily influenced by Judeo-Christian
| values, but if you look at countries without that influence
| you still see a lot of similarities in morals.
| bko wrote:
| I never said its the only one. It's one that has survived
| over thousands of years. Other places in the East may have
| their own values imposed outside of the context of
| religion. But it still exists.
|
| The West for all its flaws based on Judeo-Christian values
| has its merits. For one, a Japanese person would be more
| likely to be accepted as an American than an American be
| accepted as a Japanese.
|
| Religion isn't perfect, but it stood the test of time. It
| helped guide most of my bloodline to today (apart from a
| brief detour due to communism). Theoretically you can
| create a moral system and a way of imposing it outside of
| religion but I think that's dangerous. How sure are you
| that your new moral system you just thought of will serve
| your future generations to be happy and productive members
| of society? I personally wouldn't gamble my children's fate
| on it
| todd_t wrote:
| "Religion-based" morality is dangerous and it evolves
| _with society_. What was acceptable by religion 300-500
| years ago isn 't acceptable today. And yet, God is the
| same yesterday, today, and forever? No thanks.
| eloff wrote:
| You said you don't have a moral system without religion.
|
| That's preposterous.
|
| You also don't end up with a moral system you just
| invented. But how much of it is due to religions present
| and past is a fair question.
|
| Religion is universal, it must clearly serve some purpose
| and convey some advantage to humans. I'm not arguing it
| has no value.
|
| It's also unclear if you could get rid of god based
| religions if they would not just be replaced with
| something else similar to a religion. Woke culture makes
| me wonder.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Supernatural beliefs are universal. Religion is not.
|
| Further, Christianity was the first "religion" to insist
| on its exclusivity. Others were either "people" religions
| ("Jews believe this"), animistic/traditional
| spiritualities, or highly polytheistic systems that
| willingly absorbed or included other gods / belief
| systems easily.
|
| Christians were the first to come along and say: you
| [anyone in humanity] will burn eternally if you don't
| practice this belief exclusively, only we are correct.
| And not only that, by the 3rd century they were executing
| each other for disagreements about very arcane subjects
| (consubstantiality, etc.) And then later killing non-
| Christians as well.
| eloff wrote:
| > Supernatural beliefs are universal. Religion is not.
|
| Can you point me at a pre modern culture that didn't have
| religion? I don't know any off hand.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It really depends on your definition of religion. We tend
| to superimpose Abrahamic religious models onto how we see
| "pagan" practices, but in reality many belief systems
| wouldn't fit what we call religion now. Almost all of
| them, including traditional Roman beliefs didn't include
| any notion of their own supremacy or unique truth, for
| example. The gods were not "perfect" beings or all-
| knowing they were just ... more powerful people. What you
| _believed_ was less important than what you practiced
| (sacrifice, etc.) Christianity was the first to make
| _belief_ primary.
|
| And this goes back to what I was saying at the start of
| this thread: the church community is nice. But it is tied
| to an insistence in belief. Like, you have to have these
| ideas in your head. That's actually kind of f*cked up if
| you think about it, and kind of an aberration in the
| context of spiritual practices in all of human history.
| Most of the time it was: put this idol in your house or
| give a sacrifice for a good harvest and we're good.
| Nobody cared if you believed it or not. It's a series of
| practices to hopefully alter the world. And some good
| stories to go with it.
|
| The Romans were incredulous at the early Christians not
| because of what they believed ("sure, Christ, why
| not...") but because they refused to follow along in
| community practices (no sacrifices to the emperor or city
| gods) and insisted that _only_ their beliefs were
| correct.
| eloff wrote:
| > It really depends on your definition of religion.
|
| From Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/religion
|
| 2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of
| religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices 4 : a cause,
| principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and
| faith
|
| I think that applies universally or very nearly so to
| human societies - which is amazing because very little is
| so universally human.
|
| > many belief systems wouldn't fit what we call religion
| now
|
| I see that as just a blind spot caused by our Judaeo-
| Christian heritage, not a fundamental issue.
|
| You've got some interesting points though about how
| Christianity differs from pagan religions (actually I
| think it applies to Judaism and Islam as well.)
| 8note wrote:
| Having an imperfect moral system that's not imposed seems
| just as good as one that is imposed.
|
| What's so good about having somebody else decide your moral
| system?
| asdff wrote:
| We were only briefly religious growing up to satisfy some
| elders in the family, but in truth the community around our
| church was no stronger or any different than any other family
| based community we were in while growing up. You could have a
| just as strong of a family community with your kid in rec
| league sports, for example, because ultimately people just want
| to have a good time and you don't need a belief system for that
| when a plate of food will do.
| baryphonic wrote:
| > Frankly, growing up in the church left me with a broken moral
| code. It was only once I left it in my teens and had to work
| things out for myself that I feel like I could properly ground
| myself ethically. Having a moral system imposed on you can do
| that.
|
| How did you derive your moral code yourself? Any action you
| take has side effects in the outside world, and so some
| minimal, common understanding of morality is necessary for any
| beneficial interactions with the world and especially other
| people (I'll leave God aside for a second). Did you rely on the
| authorities of non-theistic moral authorities in the past, and
| if so, how did you examine the bases of their moral beliefs?
| Were you just relying on personal feelings and maybe some
| experiences? Did you discover the joys of hedonism?
|
| I want to understand.
|
| Edit: looking at some other comments, it seems you might be
| referring more to "fire and brimstone" preaching? I never
| experienced that growing up, despite being on the conservative
| end of mainline Protestantism and still practicing today, so I
| can kind of understand the reaction.
|
| I'm still curious though.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Not who you were asking, but I had a similar experience.
|
| Ultimately what I ground my beliefs in is empathy, and the
| understanding that my actions have an impact on other people.
| The second very important piece is every human being counts
| equally.
|
| Our society and inner psychology is complex. So we'll mess up
| and cause harm at times. Occasionally it will be intentional.
| But I think it's straightforward to understand committing to
| this as a guiding principle.
|
| If you do that, and also agree with every human being
| counting equally, then I've got no problem with you or your
| faith. What disturbs me is how many people use religion as
| justification for inequality, or how they use concepts of
| forgiveness and grace to avoid fully owning and learning from
| their moral failures.
| mattnewton wrote:
| I sort of feel the opposite, that a moral code that appeals
| to some authority is much poorer than one justifiable by some
| first principles. You can get a lot of milage out of just
| assuming that you do not want to be hurt in some ways and
| that other people are like you in that regard, and iterate
| from there.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| > How did you derive your moral code yourself?
|
| By thinking about it.
|
| I also read a lot of Spinoza.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I can only speak for myself, but I drastically simplified
| things down to 'If it doesn't hurt anyone, it's probably ok'
|
| Just because a very old book says that X, Y, or Z is sinful,
| doesn't mean those actions are immoral if there's no harm to
| anyone.
| asdff wrote:
| You don't need religion to learn about morality. Watching Mr.
| Rodgers or reading Winnie the Poo would do. As you get older
| you can get into Machiavelli and start really becoming a
| principled person.
| kickout wrote:
| I also enjoyed the Church community while growing up. It was
| important and no really 'religious' at the same time. Its hard
| to replace now that I have my own children. We don't go to
| church but are most certainly not 'anti-religious'. Like other
| comments, the sense of community was strong. I think society
| will be worse off as these communities erode or lose favor
| pmiller2 wrote:
| > Having the Church community while growing up was great. But
| the fact that admission to this community required total
| philosophical adherence is just bizarre.
|
| If you're not talking about the capital "C" church (which I
| interpret as the Catholic Church), then, it doesn't, really.
| You can be a Unitarian Universalist and believe in just about
| anything you want. Their entire philosophy is almost literally
| "be excellent to each other."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism#Belief,...
| the-alchemist wrote:
| There's pockets of us UUs all over! Is someone asks me
| whether I got to a church, I have to ask, "Wait, what's your
| definition of a church?" Some of us Unitarians would prefer
| to drop the whole "Church" name entirely and call ourselves
| "Communities."
|
| - Yes, you can believe whatever you want. Everyone is just
| genuinely curious about your journey. "My father was Jewish,
| my mother was Catholic, and I'm Wiccan now." is something
| that people legitimately say all the time, and never in jest.
|
| - We "believe", if that's even the right word, that no one
| has it all figured out. There's great wisdom in all the
| world's traditions--and some nonsense too. Let's talk about
| it with respect.
|
| - The way we teach sex ed is top-notch, educationally and
| psychologically. It's called "Our Whole Lives" because we
| know, from a vast empirical literature as well as our own
| personal stories that human sexuality is a complex, life-long
| activity. Our sex ed teacher is usually a guy called Mike.
| Mike is gay, and everyone agrees he is the best one to teach
| that class, for a variety of reasons.
|
| - We encourage our kids to explore their own spirituality, in
| a "make your own religion" activity. We ask the kids
| themselves whether they think there is a god or not (or
| gods), and help them however we can.
|
| - We vote whether our minister stays or goes.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Better to join a church/synagogue/whathaveyou that DOESN'T
| require total philosophical adherence.
|
| There's a similar problem in political circles, as politics has
| in many cases (especially last 5 years) replaced religion.
| Adherence is mandated by many, but the healthiest political
| circles/communities do not require strict adherence but instead
| allow healthy debate.
|
| And in part, it is a difference in tradition. In Minneapolis, I
| was loosely connected with some Christian community houses
| (which were wonderful BTW), and one of the people who lived
| there was a (secular) Jewish person who made a kind of funny
| observation: She noted how Jewish people tended to get together
| and bond over arguments over the Torah, but in an evangelical
| Christian Bible study, everyone would "get together and just
| AGREE on everything!"
|
| I tend to enjoy the process of philosophical/theological
| arguing as well, although I come from a evangelical Christian
| background, not a Jewish one. It's just way more interesting to
| argue over stuff. And there is way less agreement out there on
| a lot of these topics.
|
| Whether we talk about social justice, the ultimate fate of the
| universe, simulation theory, politics, utilitarianism, right
| and wrong and how that can or cannot have fundamental
| scientific bases. And also how spiritual vs physical interact
| with ideas as powerful entities themselves... Materialism is
| probably true on a literal basis, but ideas themselves have
| immense power, analogous to what the Ancients would talked
| about spirits ...is the Self a physical thing like a brain, or
| an idea or thought process or software that runs on the brain?
| How is that similar to the idea of a soul? Is it any different,
| and is dualism viewed from that perspective really incompatible
| with materialism? Why are people so resistant to the idea that
| a strong AI could have consciousness like a human or animal? If
| materialism is basically true (probably is), then it seems
| there's nothing that one couldn't effectively simulate. And why
| couldn't we be in a simulation at this moment? Who runs this
| (possible) simulation and what are their goals? How is this any
| different from theological questions, and can we bring better
| insight to them? Are there things like "love" & "kindness" that
| we OUGHT to follow as our guiding principle _in spite_ of lack
| of evidence of their utility? Is "right and wrong" purely
| situational or should they transcend merely being useful?
|
| Anyway, these ideas, which one might think are obsolete with
| modern science, aren't going away even from a purely
| materialist perspective. And neither do I think the need for
| community is going away any time. But it sure would be nice if
| we got rid of the "must have strict philosophical agreement"
| requirement that many (but not all) religious and political
| communities have.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| "Better to join a church/synagogue/whathaveyou that DOESN'T
| require total philosophical adherence."
|
| I'm a philosophical materialist and I don't believe in any
| kind of deity or supernatural world. There is no "church"
| that would have any place for someone like me, other than
| maybe the Unitarians, and, well, honestly, they're not that
| interesting.
|
| I hung out in Marxist study groups and Trotskyist groupings
| for a while in my 20s. That was my replacement for a bit. :-)
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yeah, the political groups have very similar community
| effect. The healthier ones allow philosophical differences
| and debate.
| lettergram wrote:
| I'd like to see a comparison between synagogue membership over
| time.
|
| My wife and I are not actively religious but think it's
| definitely a great framework and moral code. Particularly, it
| creates a community one can choose to leave or join of good
| people, working together for the common good of each other.
|
| I grew up Lutheran and don't necessarily believe in god, but I
| believe in the value code. Which is really what's important. I
| think that's what's lacking these days, tbh.
| [deleted]
| jandrese wrote:
| I grew up attending church weekly but never considering myself
| religious. As an adult I don't attend but it does leave a hole in
| my life. That hole is having forced social interactions with
| members of the community each week. Without church it's much
| harder to keep up with what everybody is doing, making
| connections, and networking.
|
| It's very hard to organize and keep running secular social clubs.
| A lot of the infrastructure churches take for granted has to be
| managed manually and you're at the mercy of venue operators and
| have to do your own membership drives to get people to show up.
| It's a lot more work than most people expect.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Even though I'm an atheist this concerns me since Church is one
| of the last remaining civic organizations.
|
| People need to be apart of an community. In the before times
| that's how you made friends and meet partners. Now every single
| indicator of courtship is at all time lows , mental illness is
| off the charts and we're all miserable.
|
| I don't have a solution but I'm afraid of the future we're
| entering.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >Now every single indicator of courtship is at all time lows,
| mental illness is off the charts and we're all miserable.
|
| I'm guessing this has far more to do with political and
| economic changes than decline in religion.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Religion isn't the point, you need to be a part of a
| community to meet people. It's very rare for you to be able
| to make real friends, or find a mate by staring at a screen
| all day. Church provides one mechanism, but in the old times
| you could also join a bowling league or an elks club.
|
| Now instead of being a member of a community where your
| actions are held to account, you can hop on Twitter and call
| all types of people names. And for what, just so you can
| spread your anger to other people ?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Actually church is a long way down the list in terms of
| meeting a new partner:
|
| https://www.eharmony.com/blog/how-you-meet-your-spouse-
| matte...
| offtop5 wrote:
| I think you're missing my point, church is one of a
| multitude of ways to be involved in your community, and
| being involved in your community is the best way to meet
| a partner. Aside from that, being a part of a community
| is a fundamental part of mental health. Lost connections
| is a great book on this topic.
|
| And come on, you couldn't find a better source than an
| online dating site when coming up with courtship
| statistics ? Overall marriage rates are at all time lows.
| Strange how this coincides with the advent of online
| dating.
|
| https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-
| communities/articles/...
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| _being involved in your community is the best way to meet
| a partner._
|
| Except that's not what the figures show, if you don't
| like e-harmony their are plenty of other sources just a
| Google search away.
|
| _Overall marriage rates are at all time lows. Strange
| how this coincides with the advent of online dating._
|
| Marriage rates have been falling in the US since the
| eighties, well before the advent of online dating.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/marriages-and-divorces
|
| Just because you want something to be true doesn't mean
| it is.
| [deleted]
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| Curious about how high that number is for ethnic minorities.
| Anecdotally, minorities (black, Asian, Hispanic) tend to be more
| religious.
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| lol was downvoted for this
|
| classic hacker news
| CountDrewku wrote:
| They also tend to be more conservative and I think that's
| starting to change their voting habits. A lot are leaving the
| left.
|
| Edit: Ok just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not
| true. Minorities in this country are highly religious. Take a
| look at how many blacks and Hispanics voted for Trump this
| election.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| They tend to be conservative on cultural issues, but "left"
| on economic issues and the true "triumph" of the hard right
| and the failure of the "left" has been that they tied these
| two things so closely together that people routinely vote
| against their own interests on economic issues because of how
| they feel about cultural issues.
| darksaints wrote:
| You're not wrong, at least about hispanics. Many hispanics in
| the US come from failed socialist states, so they tend to
| come to the US looking for capitalism. And they tend to be
| religious and socially conservative.
|
| Luckily for the democratic party, the republican party has
| doubled down on anything racist they can get their hands on,
| so many hispanic voters that would probably like to vote
| republican actually vote democrat.
|
| Now if the republican party actually decided to reverse
| course on immigration issues and create a legal economic
| immigration regime with a statutory path to citizenship, they
| would probably lose a handful of trump supporters but they
| would likely gain a supermajority of the hispanic vote. And
| that could be an unstoppable political force for decades.
| Hell, I could probably be convinced to vote republican again.
| whymauri wrote:
| You're being downvoted, but this can be true in the Hispanic
| community. One must realize that a third-generation Cuban
| American in Miami lives a totally different experience than a
| naturalized Colombian carpenter in East Boston, both of which
| might struggle to relate with the trials and tribulation of a
| Mexican or Guatemalan teenager who crossed the border alone
| during the past four years.
|
| So yes: some fractions of the Hispanic community are highly
| conservative (the Cuban abuelitas and abuelitos playing
| dominos on Sundays LOVE to vote) and others are quite
| literally the opposite. One thing to note is that _Spanish-
| language media_ leans conservative -- I think this is what
| you 're talking about. Previously immobilized voting blocks
| in South Florida are leaning conservative partially because
| the news coverage of 2020 has been from a conservative angle.
| jessaustin wrote:
| TFA links to the Gallup site [0], which doesn't have as much
| about this as one would expect, but does say that "Non-Hispanic
| Black adults" are at 59% and Hispanic Americans are shockingly
| low at 37%.
|
| [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-
| falls-...
| wayneftw wrote:
| If Alan Watts or someone like him were speaking near me every
| Sunday, I'd be there every week.
| agensaequivocum wrote:
| As a practicing Catholic this is greatly troubling. I truly want
| all to be saved. I fear "progress" that so many non-religious
| people will tolerate and irreligious will promote. This is not
| new. Abortion has been pushed for decades and is the greatest sin
| of our age. Our generation will be looked back upon the same way
| we look back at slave holders/traders. Those who dehumanizing the
| vulnerable to the point were we can kill them because they are
| not persons. 60 million have been killed since legalization in
| the US.
| timbit42 wrote:
| Well, the Bible dehumanizes the unborn so...
| jhgb wrote:
| > I truly want all to be saved.
|
| But what are irreligious people supposed to do when multiple
| large groups of people want to "save" them in mutually
| incompatible ways? Seeing as the largest religious group
| accounts for something like 30% of the world's population,
| being religious means at least a 70% chance of being wrong even
| if there is something supernatural (100% if there isn't).
| That's a terrible stat figure for life- (and death-)changing
| decisions.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I enjoyed my pretty low key episcopal church upbringing. There
| was very little dogmatism, and mostly it created a framework for
| community activities and service. Many of my friends in youth
| group were agnostic or atheist. And the church felt welcoming to
| everyone.
|
| I wish something could replace this in my life. Something that
| felt softly mandatory that brought people together in a spirit of
| togetherness and service.
| mehlmao wrote:
| Do you mind if I ask why you aren't going to a church now? I
| had a very similar experience growing up involved in an
| Episcopalian church. I met a lot of interesting people who
| really cared about the community. Not long after I graduated
| and moved away, the church split over the introduction of Young
| Life (and their associated fundamentalist beliefs) as a
| replacement for the home-grown youth group.
|
| It wasn't until I was an adult that I learned about my church's
| past. The priest there in the 80's molested kids who were part
| of the Boy Scout troop that met in the church's basement. Some
| church members found out, they contacted the diocese, and he
| was shuffled away to another state.
|
| I was horrified. Older church members, people I had a great
| deal of respect for and spent most of my life looking up to,
| let him get away with it. They didn't go to the police, they
| went to the church, which allowed him to keep abusing children.
|
| Looking for that sense of togetherness and community service,
| I've tried going to other churches since then. But deep in my
| mind, I know that all of the true believers will look the other
| way. The church I grew up in was a good influence on me and I
| met a lot of great people, but now that I'm getting close to
| having children of my own, I don't think there's any church I'd
| feel was right to take them to. The odds of anything awful
| happening are low, but knowing that these communities would not
| help them has completely turned me away.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I probably don't go because of a mix of:
|
| 1. Loss of faith in the institutions behind church (for
| reasons you cite). Similar debate around having a gay bishop
| in the episcopal church
|
| 2. I personally don't hold christian beliefs
|
| 3. Local church politics: My family wasn't involved in
| running the church, so we rarely saw the "politics". But in
| one local unitarian church I started to go to, the hardcore
| churchgoers seemed to always have some controversy, usually
| around left-leaning ideals.
|
| Like many things these days, it's hard to just be casually
| involved. Those casually involved get turned-off (like the
| same reason I rarely go on twitter). And the vocal, hardcore
| folks stay involved, creating various biases towards
| extremism or a certain point of view.
| KboPAacDA3 wrote:
| As a believer that Jesus is God and he controls the whole
| universe and the lives of all people, I am not too concerned
| about church membership percentages in a particular nation in
| history. Whoever God calls to be his children will follow him,
| and they will find each other. Jesus is the head of the church,
| and people who don't believe in him have no part in it. I would
| hope that unbelievers would hear the good news of Jesus and be
| drawn to him and have their hearts changed.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I grew up in a fundamentalist christian church. I'm now an
| agnostic deist (I don't know if god exists, but if he does, there
| doesn't appear to be much evidence that he intervenes much in his
| creation). My moral code has evolved and simplified from biblical
| to 'if it doesn't hurt anybody, it's fine'.
|
| Frankly, I can't be bothered with any belief system which relies
| exclusively on a 2000 year old book and isn't measured by real
| world effects today.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I see religion as being a useful counterbalance to government
| power. I'm a little concerned how cultish politics is getting in
| the US. Racism is the new original sin. You can just call anyone
| racist to publicly condemn them as unforgivable sinners. I was
| very concerned about Churches being burned down in last year's
| Riots, the cult of personality around Trump, and the new woke
| culture that sees individuals as only members of some
| oppressed/oppressive group.
|
| Transhumanism which I feel started with the abuse of steroids, is
| already upon us, and soon tech will give us the power to change
| and manipulate human DNA. Turns out many people don't like their
| bodies and would like to change them on mass. Will the changes
| have unforeseen consequences? Seems to me like things could go
| horribly wrong. The ultimate irony would be that we would end up
| looking like the depicted deformed and grotesque biblical demons.
| The obesity pandemic is already pushing many people that way. And
| thats probably a consequence of injesting too much plastic, and
| damaging hormone levels and pure gluttony.
|
| I think at its best, Religion abstracts some useful concepts like
| humility, guilt, responsibility, and so on, into stories and
| parables and makes the insignificant individual feel like their
| life is important and part of a grander story. It adds the
| practice of rituals, and adds more exposure to art, music and
| community and self reflection, and reduces death anxiety. And it
| marks significant life milestones with community celebrations.
|
| Is it better to be a realist, or is it better to add a layer of
| mental abstraction around reality. And feel like you are part of
| a (Movie) script and act accordingly.
| antattack wrote:
| Last thing one should want is to give religion power. People
| need better education, more tolerance and less judgement.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| But that in itself is a value judgment. You go from an "is"
| to an "ought" on how humans should behave. There's no logical
| reason why we "ought" to do any of these things. These are
| just a reflection of your values, and what you perceive in
| your mind would make the world a better place.
|
| This is the same type of religious "value" based thinking you
| are criticizing without realizing it.
|
| Why is "education" more important than a million other
| things. What if my son values playing sports more. He could
| easily make the argument that the world would be a better
| place if we played more sports. For one, less obesity. For
| two, more fun. We all be happier if we just played more
| sports. Why should I take your value judgments over my sons.
| antattack wrote:
| Human senses and feelings are easily fooled and influenced.
|
| Scientific method have been established to overcome our
| personal selection, information and unconscious biases.
|
| We need education to teach us how to learn, apply our
| knowledge and, most importantly, be aware of what we don't
| know when making decisions or forming opinions.
|
| EDIT: I don't understand why one would have to choose
| between sports and education.
| busterarm wrote:
| There's some interesting points made here. At the very least, I
| think there would be an immense value to society to add to our
| school curricula education about liking and taking care of our
| bodies.
|
| Not just Health and Gym classes.
| msla wrote:
| Historically, religion and government go hand-in-hand, and use
| each other to reinforce their own power.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Now let's tax churches, like Frank Zappa suggested :)
| speeder wrote:
| I am from Brazil... To be honest this would be a complete
| disaster here.
|
| 1. My city main hospital, belongs to Catholic Church, same
| applies to many other cities.
|
| 2. Many of our leading universities, doing research and
| important work, belong to Catholic Church, notably PUC-RIO, the
| creators of Lua language.
|
| 3. Protestant churches here are the major organizations driving
| away drug dealers, some took the donations to build better
| light system in public parks, provide free food, counseling,
| and so on.
|
| 4. We have an hospital considered one of the best of world for
| certain treatments, to the point people from first world
| countries sometimes come here for this hospital, and it belongs
| to a Jewish organization.
|
| And the list goes and goes on... a lot of public infrastructure
| here belongs to religious organizations, if the government
| taxed them the result would be the government suddenly needing
| to spend a ton of their own money replacing what these
| organizations are doing, and I doubt it would work well, for
| example the government-owned hospital in my city killed people
| more than once for stupid reasons (including giving penicilin
| to a guy that warned them he was allergic!), so the population
| rely on the catholic hospital instead.
|
| EDIT: reading a sibling comment made me remember another
| important one: the religious organizations here are major
| drivers for cultural education, for example our public-owned
| orchestras are often filled with church-trained people, ditto
| for audio engineering, theather and many other "art"-related
| professions.
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| But would it be a disaster. For a 'church' hospital, the
| money they take in then goes to fund the hospital. Largely
| expenses meet income so there is very little tax to pay
| assume they dont pay sales tax on medical good like many
| countries.
|
| The churches that will pay high taxes are the ones that have
| the income but dont spend it and put it into investments to
| build their wealth.
|
| So in this way, I think taxing churches and also charities
| makes sense. There will be some fringe cases but largely
| those that do things with their funds will not be effected
| and those that hoard funds or use it to circumvent taxes will
| be the ones paying.
| ncphil wrote:
| Here in the US many major church organizations, including the
| Roman Catholic Church and mainline protestant groups
| (Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran) used to invest seriously
| in the same kinds of things. I think they lost a lot of
| credibility to the extent that their conduct of those "public
| interest" activities were indistinguishable from their
| private sector competitors (e.g. in recovery of medical
| debt). Withdrawing from these activities (for whatever
| reason) only compounded that problem.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Bear in mind that the OP says US (not Brazil). I can't speak
| to conditions in Brazil, and don't intend to cast aspersions.
| When I say 'let's', the 'us' is Americans, specifically
| United States. Our experience isn't entirely the same as
| yours.
| tim333 wrote:
| You could have tax exemptions for hospital and universities.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Ehhh Christian churches are some of the largest charitable
| donators in the world. Unless those taxes are going to the same
| places to help people I'd vote no. The government isn't going
| to spend it on things that help people and we know that.
| [deleted]
| Applejinx wrote:
| Who is 'we'? Sounds like you are a strongly political church
| advocate making a political argument.
|
| I don't grant you the unilateral right to decide what places
| 'help people': that is a political question, and I didn't
| vote for you. You may not be particularly representative. In
| fact, according to the OP, you're not a majority here, so
| your attitude is not democratic, though it is still
| political.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| You live in this country and church taxation is expressly
| forbidden by the 1st amendment for obvious reasons. I also
| do not attend church so that argument is moot and you can
| stop trying to attack me on that basis.
|
| Being a majority on an internet forum is obviously not
| representative of the entirety of the US and is a pretty
| silly argument for changing an amendment, as is assuming
| that because people don't attend church they want it taxed.
|
| Maybe you should take some time actually understanding the
| constitution instead of dedicating your time to inane
| internet attacks?
|
| Pro tip - stop trying to control things you dislike, it's
| extremely anti-progressive and reeks of the same sort of
| intolerance ultra conservative religious groups display.
| Ironic eh?
|
| Lastly, this country is not a 100% democracy and it's a
| Republic for a reason. That reason is so that the minority
| get a say in what happens and don't get stomped out. This
| is a good thing and you'll realize it when you're not in
| the majority at some point.
| saddestcatever wrote:
| Wouldn't it be similar to corporate tax?
|
| Tax profits, so that any existing donations would be tax
| deductible?
| sithlord wrote:
| Unsure exactly what you mean, church costs - donations =
| taxable "profits"?
|
| Not sure I really agree with taxing donations - I do think
| that it would cut down on how much churches bring in (as in
| people would be less likely to donate), and are able to
| distribute as a commenter above said.
|
| Now, I do believe that all other related income should be
| taxed by churches, whereas I think only "unrelated" income
| is taxable now. So for example:
|
| Church makes original christian music and makes income from
| spotify (or other sources)
|
| Church records their services and puts them on youtube (and
| monitizes them)
|
| Church rents out building for weddings or other events.
|
| etc
|
| (some of these may or may not be currently taxable, I am
| not an expert but my quick search seems to think they may
| not be)
| ben7799 wrote:
| The churches can say they have no profits, but there's a
| lot of money getting spent on dubious things that a
| typical non-profit doesn't have.
|
| So you can tax the golden altars they build, or the
| private jets the pastors fly around on, or the castles
| the leaders live in.
|
| There's a huge sham in all this.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Let's not pretend non-profits don't fall victim to the
| same bs. All you need to do is look at the Susan G. Komen
| foundation.
|
| People willingly donate to these places so if they don't
| care about it why should we?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| If we started taxing churches, what would kill them would
| be the property taxes. Some churches are sitting on
| immensely valuable property.
|
| In my opinion we shouldn't be taxing church graveyards, we
| should give the buildings an exemption if they use the
| buildings for non-denominational community events like so
| many churches do, and we should definitely be taxing their
| paved parking lots.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Why? What do we need that money for? If you don't like it
| then just don't go to church and the problem is solved.
| Obviously less people are attending so it sounds like it'll
| just solve itself in the future. No one is making anyone
| attend church and give offerings. It's just letting the
| government double dip on taxes at that point. Everything
| given to a church is essentially a donation to begin with
| and you want to have it taxed a second time after the
| church gets it?
|
| It's a waste of time to tax them and it's not going to be
| used for anything helpful in this country. After seeing
| where the US government is blowing our tax money on these
| supposed "stimulus" bills I can't understand why anyone
| would support taxing more things in this country.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It 's a waste of time to tax them and it's not going
| to be used for anything helpful in this country_
|
| If this is the best argument for not taxing churches,
| then I switch positions and say tax them and reduce my
| taxes. (But do it properly, which likely requires some
| Constitutional hand wringing.)
| CountDrewku wrote:
| That'll never happen and you know it. It'll be tax the
| church and your taxes will continue to rise. It's just as
| silly as the idea that taxing the rich more will reduce
| your tax.
|
| How about you just leave the churches alone and admit
| you're being biased because you dislike religion? The
| burden is on you to prove we need that tax money for
| something since you're proposing a change to something
| that's been in place since the US's inception and is a
| main tenet of the constitution.
|
| And there's also the MAIN reason which is the fact that
| it's expressly against the 1st amendment since it would
| give the government the free reign to tax any religion it
| dislikes out of existence and break church/state
| separation.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Given that corporations, which _are_ taxed, have adopted
| totalizing ideologies that demand you "bring your whole self
| to work" and attend group therapy sessions, and that they are
| now ostentatiously "values-driven", I can see a point in not
| distinguishing between them and religions. Pretty soon they'll
| have us singing hymns and attending confession. I'd hate if,
| when they finally go all in on that, they get taxed _less_.
| prirun wrote:
| I grew up going to a Christian church: Sunday school when I was
| younger, then youth choir on Wednesday nights, then regular
| church service for a couple of years in my early teens. I sort of
| grew out of it as I got older, because as I started thinking
| about it more, it made less and less sense.
|
| For example, I distinctly remember our youth group leader, who
| was the wife of the minister, saying in one of our classes that
| we have to fear God. I didn't get it, and asked her "Why are we
| supposed to fear someone that loves us?" She didn't have a good
| answer, because there isn't one; it's another one of those things
| the Bible says that makes no sense. At some point, for me, there
| were too many of those and I could no longer pretend that
| Christianity made sense.
|
| To me, the Bible is a major problem for Christianity. If you
| believe the whole thing, it makes no sense. If you don't believe
| the whole thing, then it becomes a fragmenting thing where some
| groups pick and choose these parts and other groups pick and
| choose different parts. But once you go down the road of "I only
| believe part of it, you can't take it literally, la la la",
| you're on a very slippery slope.
|
| The Bible is a story book, written by man. It has some good
| stories, some good advice, and some bad advice. There is no hard
| scientific evidence that any of the miraculous things that
| supposedly occurred really did occur.
|
| Religious people believe that the Bible is the "word of God". One
| of my big problems with the Bible is that if it truly was the
| word of God, doesn't it seem reasonable that he would give us
| some clues about how we fit into the universe? I mean, our whole
| planet is a spec of dust in the grand scheme of things. If God
| invented all this, and the Bible is a sort of road map, wouldn't
| it make sense to talk a little about the other parts of the
| universe - the overwhelmingly huge part - and not just our little
| planet?
| pnathan wrote:
| You've accepted a literalist & inerrantist frame of the Bible,
| which is a very new way of reading the Bible. There are more
| sophisticated atheisms out there. :)
| nanna wrote:
| Church, synagogue or mosque. Not just church.
|
| Also how about updating the link to direct to the Gallup poll
| itself?
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-...
| gabythenerd wrote:
| I am impressed that numbers are that high, looking from the
| outside the US doesn't look particularly religious. It might be
| lower still, I don't think young people answer cellphone surveys
| all that much.
| matsemann wrote:
| Surveys like that are often designed to get a representative
| group. It's not like they call thousand people on random and
| keep their responses outright.
|
| After a while a certain demographic will be "full" and as such
| the effort will be to get responses for the groups not
| adequately represented yet.
|
| Or another way is to weigh the answers. If you get 90%
| responses from elderly and 10% from young, you cannot just use
| the average. But can use models to apply those groups' answers
| to how big the group is in the demographic of the country.
| ryneandal wrote:
| Much of the heartland is _very_ religious. Drive across the
| country and in the flyover states you'll see A LOT of anti-
| abortion/sin billboards.
| derwiki wrote:
| "Hell is Real" was always my fave
| city41 wrote:
| It's not just the "flyover" states, its more rural areas.
| I've seem many religious billboards in Oregon and California.
| [deleted]
| beaconstudios wrote:
| you're probably thinking of the main metropolitan and coastal
| cities, which I also associate with atheism. The heartland and
| southern states on the other hand are more religious.
| Renaud wrote:
| >looking from the outside the US doesn't look particularly
| religious.
|
| I am genuinely wondering how you can get to this feeling about
| the US where religion permeates a lot of the social and
| political spheres.
|
| For a Western country, I am actually quite amazed at the
| prominence of religion in the US, and by religion, I mean
| Christianity and its various incarnations. Looking at it from
| the outside it's actually really weird.
| matsemann wrote:
| I think it's because many deem compassion as one of the main
| religious messages, and that's not something a European would
| think it's much of in the US (based on media and the right
| leaning politics).
| [deleted]
| veddox wrote:
| > For a Western country
|
| That's the key. For a Western country, the US has a
| remarkable level of religious influence on social and
| political life. Many non-Western countries, on the other
| hand, are vastly _more_ religious - the state is often
| officially aligned with a certain religion, and religion is
| permeates all parts of society.
| jordanmorgan10 wrote:
| It's interesting to read a HN thread regarding theology. It seems
| there is quite an interest in the topic, and affirms another
| thing I tend to see: That many in this field identify as a
| Christian but don't really seem interested in saying so unless
| it's in a thread which expressly mentions it. Maybe it's my own
| bias and I'm just viewing it that way, as a Christian myself, as
| it feels hard to talk about it within the tech sphere with nuance
| and empathy.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > That many in this field identify as a Christian but don't
| really seem interested in saying so unless it's in a thread
| which expressly mentions it.
|
| Wouldn't it just be off-topic in other threads though? It's not
| a surprise it doesn't come up when it's not the subject of a
| given conversation. I have all sorts of interests that I don't
| tend to bring up until there's a conversation specifically
| about them.
| ketzo wrote:
| Cultural Christianity versus theistic Christianity in action.
| Anecdotal, but many, _many_ more people had to go to church as
| kids than actively believe today.
|
| The problem is that this leads to people who feel entitled to a
| space in the conversation (because it was part of their
| upbringing), but bring very little love or understanding to it.
|
| (And I say this as someone who was raised in the Church and
| left it pretty early on).
| viscoelastic wrote:
| It maybe that I'm in my own personal bubble but it strikes me
| that so many people still invest a significant time and effort
| into propagating a delusional interpretation of reality. On some
| level I bear them no ill will, they are free to lead their lives
| in whatever way it brings meaning and fulfillment. However many
| people attending a Christian church seem to have aggressive
| opinion on how others should live their lives.
|
| The biggest flaw with religion is their story of an afterlife
| without any proof or evidence. The consequence is that billions
| of followers of this delusion devalue the importance of their
| current biological existence, and that of others. They are told
| they will have an infinite and wondrous existence in a made up
| paradise. When this shared delusion is the dominant world view it
| leads to easily excusable murder and abuse of human beings. For
| example the genocides of indigenous people by European colonizers
| or slavery.
|
| I suspect our ancestors in a thousands of years will look at this
| early childhood stage of humanity in shame and contempt for what
| cruelty this insanity allows.
| swiley wrote:
| At least where I leave you're not allowed to go to church and
| haven't been for a year. I'm surprised the numbers are this high.
| timbit42 wrote:
| This poll is about membership not attendance.
| datavirtue wrote:
| The spread of information has allowed people to form their own
| moralistic code and spiritual journey that doesn't rely on having
| an institutional infrastructure. They are choosing religions that
| reject elite priesthoods, a trend now going back for thousands of
| years starting with Zarathustra. I consider this progress.
| analog31 wrote:
| I think there's a rhetoric out there, that "everybody needs a
| religion," and that identifies any vehemently held ideology or
| close-knit social group as a religion. It's tautological. This
| is exacerbated by the difficulty of forming a general
| definition of "religion" that isn't riddled with exceptions.
| Defining "religion" broadly enough to include all religions
| makes it end up including everything else too.
|
| But "your group is a religion too" seems like a combination of
| confirmation bias and _tu quoque_ fallacy.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| replace "religion" with "philosophy" and it reads better -
| after all, religion is just philosophy.
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed, but "your group is a philosophy too" doesn't have
| the same rhetorical impact.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| because people don't care about philosophy, but they care
| about religion - either being for or against their or
| others' religions. Mainly because many religious people
| don't think of it as philosophy, and atheists think of it
| as worthless.
| bad_good_guy wrote:
| Why do you assume these people are choosing religion at all?
| arbitrage wrote:
| > They are choosing religions that reject elite priesthoods
|
| Do you have an example of such in the modern age? I don't
| really see many people I know "choosing religions that reject
| elite priesthoods"
| flyingfences wrote:
| Quakerism would fit the bill, though I don't know how many
| people are choosing it these days.
| xattt wrote:
| This is hard to define as there is ambiguity between religion
| and spirituality.
|
| Even a subscription to pure scientific worldview is a
| religion in itself.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| QAnon?
| PeterisP wrote:
| QAnon seems to have many parallels with "prophetic"
| religions where you don't have a priesthood class
| organizing specific groups of followers e.g. parishes, but
| you have a priesthood class interpreting the words of a
| prophet and popularizing these interpretations; in this
| case "priesthood" isn't a formal distinction, but de facto
| you tend to have specific minority of people fulfilling
| this role.
| danbruc wrote:
| _They are choosing religions that reject elite priesthoods
| [...]_
|
| They choose no religion.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Religion doesn't have to equal church and rigid dogma. The
| word is probably ruined in our society by it's connotation.
|
| My religion changes often based on new information, ideas,
| and philosophical exploration.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| They choose politics.
|
| https://www.economist.com/united-
| states/2021/03/27/religious...
| [deleted]
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Actually they're choosing Islam, which is now by far the
| fastest growing religion in the world:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/06/why-
| muslims...
| thefounder wrote:
| Religion is a way of life. You surely have one, it's just not
| very ritualistic.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| _A_ , not _the_. I don 't think you can argue with any sort
| of coherency that rejecting religion is a religion, unless
| you reduce the concept of religion down to a belief, in
| which case some people's religion is "bigfoot".
| hobofan wrote:
| I can understand that viewpoint (e.g. avid sports fans are
| a prime example), but it always seems to be a talking point
| of religious institutions themselves, with the goal of
| people thinking "oh, I'm bound to have some form of
| religion anyway, so I'll just stay with my current one".
| danbruc wrote:
| Having a religion may be a way of life but not every way of
| life is a religion. At least as long as we are not
| stretching the definition of religion into meaninglessness.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I've grown tiresome of this trend to redefine words with
| well-known and universally understood meanings to basically
| "whatever I want it to mean".
| 987yghj wrote:
| They have chosen new religions and a new elite priesthood, they
| just have different names.
| joeberon wrote:
| Agreed, it's been replaced by pure materialism/physicalism
| lapetitejort wrote:
| There's probably an appreciable percentage (I have no
| source for this) of people who leave organized religion
| because of the gaudiness of megachurches and grand gilded
| cathedrals. Materialism is not unique to the modern era or
| secularism.
| igetspam wrote:
| Perhaps that's for the better. I didn't "choose" the religion
| thrust upon me as a kid. Somewhere around the age of 10
| though, the inconsistencies were too many to ignore and I
| "lost" my faith. I spent many years wrestling with that and
| the contradictions between what I was being told and what I
| was witnessing, even in my own family. The damage it did to
| me has never really been undone. There are things in this
| world that I recoil from because of dogma that I don't even
| believe. I became and actual good person, without being
| shackled to some deity or set of books, later in my life. I
| pushed everything away because of distrust and anger when I
| was younger. I can't begin to imagine the good I could have
| done, had not been stunted early on.
|
| We don't need religion and shame on any parents that push it
| on their kids. They don't know better and they can't consent.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| This avenue of thinking are messing with language. And
| language is what we organize and coordinate with as human
| beings. So stop this!
|
| Religion is a very precise definition. By which your comment
| is not only technically wrong but also practically harmful.
|
| Definition of the religion according to dictionary is: "the
| belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power,
| especially a personal God or gods."
|
| So no, they are not choosing new religions. And their
| "priests" do not claim to be shadow of the divine, and
| certainly do not threaten them with afterlife.
| visarga wrote:
| > And their "priests" do not claim to be shadow of the
| divine, and certainly do not threaten them with afterlife.
|
| Oh yes, if you look at the peddlers of righteous outrage we
| have today, and their continuous infighting, there's no
| difference. Dare to deviate from the line? Wrongthink!
| Cancelled! Even their own people fall pray to this as they
| get accused of not being outraged enough by their comrades.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Hmm...not the definition I found. Relativism abounds but it
| can't be "it depends" all the way down. We at least need to
| agree on definitions before we start arguing.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| It is not a problem with langauges. For that we have
| dictionaries. It must be a problem with whatever
| "relativism" happens to be.
|
| I've searched and took the above defition from the Oxford
| dictionary before commenting.
|
| Just checked Meriam Webster and Cambridge, of course the
| words differ, but the meanings seemed functionally
| equivalent.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| So deep
| 987yghj wrote:
| Much sarcasm.
| msla wrote:
| The sad thing is how many people think deepity nonsense like
| what you sarcastically posted here is worth consideration, as
| opposed to being not-even-wrong level laughably bad
| philosophy.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Wokeism is the new thing in elite west coast culture. It's
| just not officially classified as a religion because it's
| less organized
| gruez wrote:
| scott alexander sort of covered that.
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/30/new-atheism-the-
| godles...
| [deleted]
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What will be interesting to observe is how the US adapts to the
| ongoing need for the dozens of community-gluing charity
| responsibilities churches have historically taken on in American
| towns and cities. As church membership diminishes, the resources
| to do those tasks also diminish.
|
| They can certainly be taken on by other charities; I'm curious
| how frictionless that process will be.
| harles wrote:
| Oh good, HN can finally settle all questions of religion and
| moralism.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| My experience with religion came via Mark Twain.
|
| "In high school or at some point in my high school years, I read
| Huck Finn. There was a part in the book where Huck has to save
| Jim and if he saves Jim, he knows the church has taught him that
| he will go Hell. Huck denies the teaching of the church and saves
| his friend."
|
| The following is my recollection of the book, it might not be
| exactly accurate but it is the way I remember it and or want to
| remember. Keep in mind, I read this close 30 years ago, so I read
| it without our current revisionist/racists history perspective.
| Please try to take my comments and thoughts only in the light of
| religion.
|
| I do remember that reading that passage or that part in the
| story, saying to myself. "FTS"! I can't reconcile this in my
| conscience. Religion is definitely the opiate of the masses. Look
| no further than the last few US elections. At that point, I
| disavowed any organized religion and started listening to Bad
| Religion.
| tommilukkarinen wrote:
| Rising standards of living seem to have correlation to
| suppression of religious instinct.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_instinct
|
| I had difficulties understanding religion, until I had few
| religious experiences in the span of few years. Looking back, it
| was most definitely some sort of brain chemistry.
|
| As environment becomes more stable, brain probably has less
| chances to get into religious channnels.
| jimmytucson wrote:
| Link to the actual Gallup article is better:
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-...
| agomez314 wrote:
| Bishop Barron had a good writeup on this in his meeting to the
| conference of US Bishops:
| https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/the-usccb-meeti...
| Alenycus wrote:
| Bishop barron is great, as a practicing catholic strikes a
| great balance between the more liberal and traditional wings of
| the church.
| drewg123 wrote:
| I used to think that the lower church membership went, the better
| off we'd be as a nation, because we'd be more rational on
| average. I still think so, but I'm less hopeful now. The events
| of the last few years have called that idea into question, as the
| rampant irrationality that I used to associate with
| fundamentalists seems to have moved from the pulpit to the
| airwaves and now to social media.
| busterarm wrote:
| Sadly, fundamentalism does not limit itself to religion. Yet no
| matter how much you draw the obvious parallels in the
| social/political sphere, the teams are decided and criticism of
| any kind labels you a heretic.
|
| Fundamentalists lack critical self-awareness.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Edgy opinion: religion is useful for guiding the human
| inclination to look for causes and reasons. All people will
| believe all kinds of nonsense, some people fanatically, so it's
| useful to make sure these people have healthy outlets. Lower
| church membership may not be the atheist utopia one desires,
| especially in the west with our rampant and unapologetic
| individualism.
| randomopining wrote:
| Obviously the overrated part of church is the ceremony and
| mystique, and the past wrongs of the church.
|
| The underrated part is the sense of community and communal
| energy... which even though I'm agnostic, I envy, and would
| consider going some day.
| chi_features wrote:
| I'm not a church-goer and now in my late thirties have seen many,
| including myself, have significant crises ending up therapy of
| some kind. Thankfully, these crises have all had successful and
| revelationary outcomes. Crises such as financial, relationship,
| burn-out, questioning purpose, depression. In all cases it's been
| a revelation for the people involved because they were simply
| unequipped to deal with the situation; didn't have the tools in
| their toolkit.
|
| It dawned on me that as a kid I did go to church as part of
| school, and there I would receive almost daily "counselling", or
| at least broaching life issues, challenges and philosophical
| concepts regularly.
|
| When not a church-goer, where does one get this same level of
| regular counselling, self-improvement or self-analysis? I'm not
| advocating religion though I feel like the concept of meeting
| regularly and talking about big issues is very positive, and I
| feel overlooked.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| I became a church-goer (mosque-goer) recently and I never tell
| this to people in person, but that is truly the best place for
| counseling for weaning off addictions, etc.
|
| I know everyone will link me to a story of someone in a Church
| who did Churchy Narcanon or something and died or how these
| programs are ineffective, etc. But I'm not talking about
| programs and therapy, I'm talking about the message that you
| are in control of your destiny and you are responsible for what
| you do in this world even if no one sees it.
|
| That simple message is something you'll never hear in any
| therapists office, no doctor's office, no social scientist will
| tell you this, no think tank, no shelter, no rehab clinic. Most
| people today are too afraid to say this. They want to blame
| someone else for the issues you have. The government, your skin
| color, racism, sexism, ageism, unfairness in life, inequality,
| capitalism, wokeness, cancel culture, etc. Everyone has
| somewhere else to blame. I found in the church (mosque) that
| people are willing to be honest with you and tell you that you
| are designed and made to be able to handle the trials and
| tribulations of life, and you are the only one who can do that
| for you and you are responsible for the choices you make while
| trying to do that, and it's not easy, the solution isn't easy,
| but it wasn't ever meant to be.
|
| I struggled with addictions for a while and that message was
| what got through to me after attempts at therapy, counseling,
| etc. Etc. Sure not everyone can do well with it but so many
| more can than think they can.
| [deleted]
| arbitrage wrote:
| the church i belonged to growing up rejects my basic personhood.
|
| good riddance.
| lootsauce wrote:
| "Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-
| to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as
| atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody
| worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the
| compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or
| spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or
| the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some
| inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much
| anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship
| money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life,
| then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's
| the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you
| will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you
| will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one
| level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as
| myths, proverbs, cliches, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of
| every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front
| in daily consciousness."
|
| David Foster Wallace
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This is just some philosophical mental masturbation and many
| others have done it better. To say everyone worships something
| is to conflate worship with desire, ambition, and god knows how
| many other emotions. It's all kind of silly and just plain
| oversimplification.
| lordylord wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MzyBv4yOPU
| booleandilemma wrote:
| I could never take this guy seriously. I mean, he killed
| himself. Why should we listen to what he has to say?
| jumelles wrote:
| What a horrible sentiment.
| [deleted]
| RankingMember wrote:
| Do you also not take Alan Turing's works seriously?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This doesn't make sense. You can't argue with Turing's math
| and algorithmic discoveries/creations (unless you can prove
| them wrong) but you certainly can some of his flawed
| philosophies. QED False equivocation.
| ben509 wrote:
| I discount Turing's works because of his suicide. I think
| the Turing award ought to be renamed.
|
| Consider all the love and respect directed at Robin
| Williams after he died. The perverse reality is that for
| someone in a suicidal frame of mind, that kind of love
| makes "I'd be better off dead" far more credible.
|
| I think the other extreme, outright condemning someone,
| probably doesn't work either, as it's liable to make a
| person with suicidal feelings feel trapped.
|
| So I settle for disapproval, that suicide is a permanent
| stain on someone's legacy, in the hope that it nudges
| someone to stick it out for another day.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| This is completely different. Turing was a genius and one
| of the founders of computer science.
|
| DFW was kind of a loser, imho, who abused his girlfriend
| and her son.
| borepop wrote:
| Turing's work has some independent value, it's not just a
| mess of philosophical/moral opinions like Wallace is
| offering up in this speech. If nothing else, Wallace's
| suicide illustrates to me what a gulf there is between
| "saying things that sound wise" and actually living wisely.
| One has very little to do with the other.
| caslon wrote:
| A suicide doesn't mean your life wasn't lived wisely. He
| was suffering from a clinically-diagnosed depressive
| disorder, was told to stop taking antidepressants by his
| own doctor, and was recommended to try electric shock as
| an alternative. His suicide was less "stupid man is sad"
| than "Wow, look! The medical industry isn't even trying
| to fix depression."
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| Given that there topic seems to broadly be about
| happiness and personal satisfaction, you could argue that
| someone suffering from depression is either wholly
| unsuited to the task or someone with excellent
| perspective. I don't think it's overly surprising that
| suicide undermines your credibility on those topics with
| some people.
| bckr wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think the useful discussion is whether a
| wise person / person with wisdom would commit suicide, or
| whether a person who committed suicide could be
| considered wise.
|
| The useful discussion is "Is this person's way of
| thinking probably going to help me improve my life?"--if
| someone committed suicide, I would think twice about
| thinking similarly to that person.
|
| To illustrate why, I'm depressed. I don't have direct
| control over this. But I do have some control over what I
| think. If I bow to the thoughts "this life is not worth
| living", yeah, I become more likely to slit my wrists.
| But if I think "I'm not going to identify with these
| thoughts. I'm going to eat lunch and that will probably
| make me feel better", I think my life will be longer and
| better.
|
| Not saying you can think yourself out of clinical
| depression, but I'm going to be careful about what I
| decide to think, and who I'm going to model in my
| thinking.
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| Aaron Swartz
| rmah wrote:
| In that quote, Wallace is just morphing, conflating, and
| fudging the definition of the word "worship". He says people
| "worship" (with a variety of subtly different meanings) a
| variety of things and then, implies that because we can use the
| same word, "worship", to describe those activities, they are
| equivalent. I despise this rhetorical technique. I find it both
| insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Unless you can elaborate and distinguish different kinds of
| "worship", your accusation is overblown. Maybe he used this
| word simply because it was the best choice available to
| capture and communicate the underlined meaning?
| seppin wrote:
| I think you are right and I think people are attacking the
| quote because he chose to "attack" atheism.
| Kinrany wrote:
| 1. To believe in something unobservable by conventional
| means.
|
| 2. To value something over anything else.
|
| The word "atheist" clearly implies the first, and he never
| explains what meaning of the word "atheist" he uses in his
| "there are no atheists". So this is either a rhetorical
| trick, or a tautology that defines "atheist" as, roughly,
| "someone who doesn't value anything that much", but never
| goes anywhere with this definition.
| temp8964 wrote:
| Apparently he is not comparing religion and atheism. He
| also mentioned money, beauty, etc. You seems miss the
| point of the quote as a whole. Even atheism is not
| worship. Atheists, as human, still need something to
| worship on, like everyone else. But again, the focus is
| really not atheists.
| CRConrad wrote:
| > Atheists, as human, still need something to worship on,
| like everyone else.
|
| [Citation needed]
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| Actually he's making philosophical commentary about the
| nature of what people dedicate themselves to. But if you want
| to get emotionally wrapped up in the definition of a word and
| ignore the message, go for it.
| thatcat wrote:
| Exactly, he's pointing out that the revaluation of all
| religious values does not lead to atheism, but to
| individually chosen principles that must also be based on a
| faith due to the uncertainty that such beliefs are meant to
| deal with. Even athiesm itself can be viewed as a
| fundamentalist religious belief that is based on faith.
| chmod600 wrote:
| It is not logically rigorous, but it illustrates a point.
|
| Can you expand on why the distinction you are drawing is
| important?
| andagainagain wrote:
| Trying to steel man David Foster Wallace here, I would say
| his point is that, if you define "religion" instead as a
| sort of personal philosophy, then we all have one. And
| because we all have a philosophy of some sort, we all have
| desires, rules, and some sort of ethical principles, we
| don't have atheists.
|
| The point he has relies on a faulty premise. When people
| talk about religion and atheism, they aren't using the
| definition of Wallace. They're using the strict definition
| - non-theist. Not a theist. They don't believe in god. they
| are saying absolutely nothing about the rest of their
| philosophy.
|
| He RELIES on changing the definition of religion into
| something it very clearly isn't. And he does this in order
| to provide evidence that people, who obviously exist, must
| not according to his definition. It's like saying
| "Homosexuality doesn't exist, because all homosexuality is
| is is rejecting the beauty of certain genders. But we all
| recognize the beauty of our mothers and brothers and fellow
| humans, and the grace they give and the home they provide.
| No human would be human without loving thy neighbor".
|
| It's insulting. And other than that, it has absolutely no
| value, intellectually, morally, or otherwise.
| pkghost wrote:
| I could not disagree more. Wallace's use of language here is
| instructive, poignant, and immensely useFUL.
|
| I'll bet you're an engineer, data scientist, or other
| technical professional, not simply b/c you're here, but b/c
| your response to Wallace's use of ambiguity and multiple
| layers of meaning reveals as much about the nature of your
| own relationship with language, which I'd guess prefers that
| things should be clear, precise, and have singular meaning.
| (I'm certainly oversimplifying you, so apologies.)
|
| Look into "cognitive decoupling", and you may find a
| dichotomy that illustrates some of your reaction to Wallace.
|
| https://everythingstudies.com/2018/05/25/decoupling-
| revisite...
| OOPMan wrote:
| Sounds like the usual post-modern rubbish to me...
| Kinrany wrote:
| Regardless of words being context-dependent and having
| uncountable number of meanings, in the context of a single
| argument a word should generally only have one meaning.
| pkghost wrote:
| Again, I could not disagree more with your interpretation
| of what's happening here.
|
| I'd recommend you, too, read the article I linked in the
| comment above. To characterize Wallace's words as an
| "argument", as if he were a lawyer in the court of being
| --as if such a thing exists--, is to employ cognitive
| decoupling, and to miss the point.
|
| There's nothing wrong with C.D.--it's absolutely useful
| and necessary to have contexts in which words mean one
| thing and one thing only, but it's equally if not more
| necessary to have contexts in which that constraint does
| not hold, in which we are free to make meaning by use of
| metaphor and non-literal comparison. Indeed, it's the
| only way in which we can point to dimensions of
| experience that do not yet have names; it's how language
| evolves and expands, it's how technical domains come into
| existence.
| equality_1138 wrote:
| Here is a glaring example of debating semantics in hopes to
| discredit the actual meaning of something or attempt to kill
| the topic altogether. Appears to be a bad outcome from the
| rise of STEM worship.
| mcavoybn wrote:
| Given the degree of your outrage, I think something other
| than "rhetorical technique" has triggered you here. Then
| again, maybe you are just really really opinionated about
| "rhetorical techniques" and following strict definitions of
| words? In that case, you must despise the vast majority of
| stories and literature because of their metaphors, parables,
| and subtly different meanings...
| andagainagain wrote:
| This is obviously incorrect. If someone is making an
| argument then there is a higher bar of what word usage
| means than stories about santa clause. And using words like
| "religion" with completely different, fuzzier, less
| meaningful definitions in order to make a point that
| doesn't address the topic of religion being discussed is in
| fact worthless at best. Manipulative and dishonest at
| worst.
| mcavoybn wrote:
| It's up to the reader to decide what is worthwhile for
| them.
|
| Also, whether that quote is relevant or not is not what
| is being argued. The original dispute (on a surface
| level) was about a "rhetorical technique". Now you say it
| is manipulative and dishonest, which is a completely
| different thing and obviously false.
| OOPMan wrote:
| Most things people say that try to conflate atheism with
| theism are insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _In that quote, Wallace is just morphing, conflating, and
| fudging the definition of the word "worship"._
|
| You're not wrong, but he gets close to it. Generally,
| Aristotle stated that at the end of the day the final thing
| we want is happiness, the trick is to figure out what will
| get us there. Aristotle wrote his Nicomachean _Ethics_ as one
| answer.
|
| (Saint) Thomas Aquinas had another, which Bp. Robert Barron
| espouses on:
|
| > _One of the most fundamental problems in the spiritual
| order is that we sense within ourselves the hunger for God,
| but we attempt to satisfy it with some created good that is
| less than God. Thomas Aquinas said that the four typical
| substitutes for God are wealth, pleasure, power, and honor.
| Sensing the void within, we attempt to fill it up with some
| combination of these four things, but only by emptying out
| the self in love can we make the space for God to fill us.
| The classical tradition referred to this errant desire as
| "concupiscence," but I believe that we could neatly express
| the same idea with the more contemporary term "addiction."
| When we try to satisfy the hunger for God with something less
| than God, we will naturally be frustrated, and then in our
| frustration, we will convince ourselves that we need more of
| that finite good, so we will struggle to achieve it, only to
| find ourselves again, necessarily, dissatisfied. At this
| point, a sort of spiritual panic sets in, and we can find
| ourselves turning obsessively around this creaturely good
| that can never in principle make us happy._
|
| * https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/541169
|
| In the modern world, many people's "highest good" is wealth,
| pleasure, power, and/or honor.
| elmomle wrote:
| It's pretty clear that that "worship" here refers to where we
| practice focusing our heart's yearnings, not to a set of
| religious rites. Synonyms of this meaning of "worship"
| include "revere" and "venerate".
| ggggtez wrote:
| No. Because he opens his thought with saying that "Atheism"
| doesn't exist. Atheism isn't a rejection of "yearning" or
| "reverence". It's a rejection of religion.
|
| He's just playing word games, and you are falling for it.
| btilly wrote:
| Correction. Atheism isn't a rejection of religion. It is
| a lack of belief in God or gods.
|
| The canonical example of the difference is that plenty of
| religious Buddhists are also atheists.
| aksss wrote:
| Yes, I know a few atheists whose fervor walks, talks, and
| quacks like a religious zealot.
| Cookingboy wrote:
| I absolutely agree. It's just your typical pseudo-
| intellectualism rant here. It starts with a provocative
| declaration and then backed up with some explanation that
| is _technically_ true, but doesn 't offer any actual
| insights or value.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| I mean, theres some truth on both sides.
|
| From a christian/jewish/islamic perspective whatever you
| focus most on is your 'idol' - the bible talks alot about
| worshipping money, for instance.
|
| In that sense, then whatever you focus on in life is
| idolatrous worship, an atheistic religion.
| kriops wrote:
| "there is actually no such thing as atheism"
|
| There is no truth to that whatsoever.
| meowkit wrote:
| Hyperbole. Of course atheism exists, but its used as an
| engaging opener.
|
| Contrary to some other comments in this thread, the
| people complaining about the literal truth value are the
| ones falling for the author's writing technique, not the
| other way around.
|
| Don't interpret it literally. Its used to assemble an
| idea that anything can be worshipped/venerated, not to
| make the argument that atheism doesn't exist.
| wellpast wrote:
| I think you've already fallen for literalness as the only
| way to interpret or value anything. Which is unfortunate
| because all of the momentous truths in life (ie, that
| matter to _corporeal_ beings, to _us_ ) are not of the
| literal variety. You probably know this on some buried
| level but you cling to the literalness anyway. Why?
| nnvvhh wrote:
| "Just playing word games," he's a writer! Not everything
| written is documentation.
| acdha wrote:
| He's a writer, sure, but that doesn't mean that bad
| writing is not fair game for criticism. Redefining words
| is a common technique in this style of apologetics to
| avoid having to engage with an argument intellectually
| and it being used by a famous writer doesn't make it more
| worthy.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| The crux of organized religion is being so vague that an
| individual can pick whatever parts of it fits into their
| own self-image. Thats what OP is tapping into in their
| quote. The Bible is re-written every 100 years to
| accommodate this.
| cobri wrote:
| >>"The Bible is re-written every 100 years to accommodate
| this."
|
| This is provably false.
|
| "It cannot be too strongly asserted that in substance the
| text of the Bible is certain: Especially is this the case
| with the New Testament, of early translations from it,
| and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of the
| Church, is so large that it is practically certain that
| the true reading of every doubtful passage is preserved
| in some one or other of these ancient authorities. This
| can be said of no other ancient book in the world."[1]
|
| As an example, the New Testament is 25x more accurately
| copied across manuscripts than the Iliad [2].
|
| "The variant readings about which any doubt remains among
| textual critics of the New Testament affect no material
| question of historic fact or of Christian faith and
| practice."[3]
|
| [1] Kenyon, "Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts", p.
| 23
|
| [2] Bruce M. Metzger, "Chapters in the History of New
| Testament Textual Criticism", cited by Geisler and Nix,
| "A General Introduction to the Bible", pp. 366f
|
| [3] F.F. Bruce, "The New Testament Documents: Are They
| Reliable?" p. 15
| causality0 wrote:
| I believe he meant that the collective interpretation of
| mainstream religious leaders changes over time and is
| radically different from one century to the next.
| Terretta wrote:
| That doesn't hold water either, or Thomas Aquinas
| wouldn't still be considered by so many as "the highest
| expression of both natural reason and speculative
| theology" and the basis for modern clergical study.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
| btilly wrote:
| It definitely does hold water. Here are several examples.
|
| Until the Counter-reformation, Catholics were not allowed
| to lend money at interest due to the ancient prohibition
| against usury. After that point Catholic doctrine was
| changed to say that this was one of the commandments for
| the ancient Jews that was not intended for Christians.
| The Bible didn't change, but doctrine did. (This despite
| the fact that the only point in the Bible where Jesus is
| portrayed as acting angrily was throwing the
| moneychangers out of the temple. And why was their
| presence wrong? Because they were engaged in usury!)
|
| The doctrine of papal infallibility is accepted by all
| Catholics today. Yet it was not part of Catholic doctrine
| until 1870.
|
| Until 1616, the Catholic Church had no official doctrine
| on astronomy. In fact Copernicus dedicated his book to
| the Pope. And then the Copernican theory was ruled
| contrary to scripture. Catholics were banned from reading
| various books about it. A century later, the bans on the
| books were lifted. A century after that, the Catholic
| Church declared that the Copernican theory was in accord
| with scripture.
|
| In all of these cases Scripture didn't change. Jesus
| still threw the moneylenders out of the temple for usury.
| Peter still received the keys to heaven. And Joshua bid
| the Sun to stand still, and not the Earth. But the
| beliefs that people had based on these passages /did/
| change.
| causality0 wrote:
| A minor point, Jesus has anger issues a number of times
| in the Bible, not just with the moneylenders. As an
| example, the time he got mad at a tree for not having
| fruit and cursed it to never bear fruit again.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Exactly. Just look at how the attitude to homosexuality
| has shifted in the church (which I think is a great
| thing). They didn't change the text, but they changed the
| emphasis and the oral sermons.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| Love how you uses sources the HN audience is extremely
| sympathetic with, in order to argue against the
| groupthink. a great comment.
| belorn wrote:
| This redefining of the word worship do not work at all for
| me. We do not worship cooking food. The words do not
| describe well a hobby. It is negative associated with
| personal relationships. Worshiping a pet sound crazy.
| cdblades wrote:
| It is also redefining atheism and religion.
| marc_abonce wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that this equivalence is only
| possible in the English language (and maybe other Germanic
| languages?) where apparently the word _worship_ means a lot
| of concepts (adoration, veneration, reverence) that in
| Romance languages are actually separate. In fact, the
| disagreement over this words is one of the most important
| differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.
|
| I don't know how does this distinction work in other
| religions, but based on Wikipedia[1] it looks like
| adoration, veneration and reverence may also be different
| on many of them.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration
| constGard wrote:
| In all fairness, this same rhetorical technique was commonly
| used in the faith that I was raised in. We were often taught
| that one could violate the Jewish/Christian commandment to
| "have no other gods before me" by placing more importance on
| material goods or hobbies (your car, your boat, sports, etc.)
| than worshiping God.
| krapp wrote:
| Judaism was a monotheistic religion surrounded by
| polytheists, their concern was maintaining their cultural
| integrity and identity.
|
| Other commandments (though shalt not covet, etc) are
| concerned with materialism and greed. "Though Shalt Have No
| Other Gods Before Me" is pretty clearly about precisely
| what it says on the tin.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Not necessarily.
|
| "Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and
| they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly
| things."
|
| - Philippians 3:19
| aljarry wrote:
| Letter to Philippians is much younger history, though. I
| don't recall Old Testament ever mixing meaning of "gods"
| and hedonism.
| 8note wrote:
| Especially keeping Seleucid influence down when they
| tried to hellenize Israel
| incompatible wrote:
| Does this apply to husbands and wives as well as cars?
| johnfn wrote:
| He's really not, though. He means that these are the
| activities from which people derive purpose. People derive
| purpose from religion, or money, or beauty, or status.
| nnvvhh wrote:
| You must be fun at parties.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Pretty straightforward to me. Worship here just means
| prioritize.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Feel free to assign the meaning you find most convenient to
| random words, but the fact is, we are in the thick of a
| thread about religion, in which Wallace's excerpt is being
| used to make a point ...
| seppin wrote:
| It's pretty clear what his intentions were and what he
| was trying to say. It's not like he gave the term a
| completely unrelated meaning. "What one focuses on
| everyday and builds your sense of self and worth around"
| is a very good definition of worship, imo.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Oh yeah i am sidestepping that cause his quote doesn't
| really apply to religion. It's just a way to appeal to
| people who see no difference between money and ethics in
| a nice way.
| mywittyname wrote:
| This sort of conflations are typical in social commentary
| situations, comedy especially. This is absolutely something I
| could see done in an act done by Carlin or Williams.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I despise this rhetorical technique. I find it both
| insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless._
|
| It is etymologically correct though: _condition of being
| worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown._
|
| * https://www.etymonline.com/word/worship
|
| From the root worth "worth": _weorth "significant, valuable,
| of value; valued, appreciated, highly thought-of, deserving,
| meriting; honorable, noble, of high rank_.
|
| * https://www.etymonline.com/word/worth
|
| What do you hold in highest regard in your life? Family?
| Truth/honesty? Other? (Saint) Thomas Aquinas said that the
| four typical substitutes for God are wealth, pleasure, power,
| and honor.
|
| None of those things are necessarily bad in themselves--some
| amount are often necessary for life, and can be be used to
| achieve good things--but chasing them for the sake of
| themselves without a higher principle to guide you once
| achieve them has probably caused many people problems over
| the course of history.
|
| Asking yourself " _what is the highest good in my life?_ what
| do I 'worship'?" can be a good spiritual/moral exercise.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| It is sad that so many people do not understand WHY religion is
| worse over other things mentioned here.
|
| These things are SHARED among many things, along with religion;
|
| - we humans tend to form social hierarchies
|
| - we all want to be belong
|
| - we want to be the hero of our story
|
| - life is hard, and death is terrifying, so we need lullabies
|
| - some rules/codes required wherever there are more than 1
| person alive. Be it religious, moral or written/legal.
|
| - we all need some ideal to work towards
|
| This however, is SPECIAL to religion;
|
| Religion makes it a habit in believers to believe without
| evidence, forbits questioning, and delays answers to
| "afterlife". Hence takes away the power of understanding and
| reasoning.
|
| It installs a backdoor to people's minds so to speak. From
| which all the other bullshit are welcome to come in and also
| take a seat in their mind.
|
| Oh wait, there was this video that was explains these more
| elegantly than I can. Okay I've found it:
| https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/1357915846731997185
| igorkraw wrote:
| I prefer Camus personally. The act of rebellion against ...well
| everything, but in this case against things to worship, against
| stories that try to hide the absurdity of the universe seems to
| me a narrative much less likely to be led astray in harmful
| ways, since it gives you no power or secret insight, only
| personal despair and personal happiness.
|
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/
|
| https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Camus
|
| "I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends
| it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that it is
| impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning
| outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human
| terms. What I touch, what resists me -- that I understand. And
| these two certainties -- my appetite for the absolute and for
| unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a
| rational and reasonable principle -- I also know that I cannot
| reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying,
| without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing
| within the limits of my conditions?"
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I love Camus as well. His idea of absurdism really struck a
| chord with me. We're on this ride in life where we just keep
| passing through absurd situations.
|
| It's a really comical extension to an existentialism.
|
| "Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?"
| abootstrapper wrote:
| I guess this makes sense if you define "atheism" as "not
| obsessing over something" and "worship" as a synonym for
| "unhealthy obsession." I take issue with those definitions, and
| also with the premise that an adult must have an unhealthy
| obsession over something.
|
| What if I told you, I don't believe in god, nor obsess over
| money or beauty. Oh, I guess I "worship" all things in
| moderation and healthy relationships.
| jacurtis wrote:
| > ...pretty much anything else you worship [other than
| religion] will eat you alive. If you worship money and
| things... then you will never have enough, never feel you have
| enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual
| allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age
| start showing, you will die a million deaths before they
| finally grieve you.
|
| This is implying that worshiping religion/god/spirituality is
| exempt from extreme obsession. But I have to contest that
| religion can create far more extreme of obsessions than other
| forms of "worship" that Wallace references such as beauty,
| money, etc..
|
| I grew up religious (in a high-demand religion) and saw that
| the religion created extremists among most of our church
| members. While an obsessive "worship" of losing weight can lead
| to anorexia, we see a good thing become bad. Being interesting
| in beauty isn't bad by itself, but an obsessive/extreme version
| can lead to depression and many other things.
|
| Religion is no exception (even though Wallace seems to exclude
| it). An obsession over religion leads people to over analyze
| their life in the search of being perfect. It forces them to
| make unnecessary sacrifices for a reward that they will never
| actually attain. I've seen it tear apart families as bad as
| alcohol abuse or domestic violence can. There is a very dark,
| evil side to religion. The religion I was involved with put so
| much pressure on people to live life a certain way, to be
| perfect, that it was unattainable. The religion's goal is to
| enforce compliance and promote unity through shared suffering.
| But it has negative effects too. I've lost many close friends
| (including one roommate) who committed suicide from church
| pressures. Prescription drug abuse is particularly bad within
| the community that I grew up in, I personally know several
| people who have life-long addictions to prescription opioids
| that started from church pressures. I have seen domestic
| violence and child sexual abuse, all justified (and protected
| and buried) under religious arguments. My personal experience
| with religion shows consequences that far exceed those of other
| obsessions such as wealth, beauty, fitness, drugs, and so on.
| So I would be very careful about giving religion a "pass".
|
| Are all religions bad? Probably not. I know plenty of people
| who have healthy relationships with religion. But the bad stuff
| is definitely there too, and it is FAR from rare. And I am only
| talking about relatively tame religions too. We can go even
| more extreme and start discussing the effects that religion
| have had on promoting unspeakable acts such as the holocaust,
| the crusades, the jihads, 9/11 attacks, the inquisition, Boston
| marathon bombs, numerous mass shootings, Incan & Mayan
| sacrifices, the KKK, witch hunts, wacko in waco, jim jones mass
| suicide, and this is a short list.
|
| I am no longer religious myself (it was a religion imposed on
| me by my parents), but I have no problem with other people
| being religious. I would just caution that there are extremes,
| and religion is an easy one to fall into an extreme. You are
| literally discussing something that is "out of this world" and
| can not have any proof. The rewards are infinite (eternal life,
| glory without end, etc), which makes them more desirable to
| attain and justifies more extremes to earn. They also self-
| exclude and discriminate other people (your religion is right,
| everyone else is wrong or evil). The stakes that religion
| creates are simply so high, that it is easy to fall into the
| obsessive and extreme category, more so than worrying about an
| obsession over wealth or fitness.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| The orthodox and catholics call this scrupulpsity, the low
| churches lack the vocabulary to deal with it
| [deleted]
| grae_QED wrote:
| I think Wallace is right in a sense. But I think 'worship' is
| the wrong word and if we're interpreting this literally then
| no, there is such thing as atheism.
|
| I get the sense people too often take this quote out of context
| to suggest atheism is some form of religion. Wallace was a
| master of the metaphor. I don't believe that he meant this
| literally. I think he could have used the word 'nihilist'
| instead and gotten the point across but I understand why he
| didn't.
| aftergibson wrote:
| Conflating and oversimplify yet wholeheartedly highfalutin.
|
| Must be DFW.
| simplerman wrote:
| I know religious folks who are the most miserable people ever.
| Because they get jealous when someone else worship more than
| them. They will criticize and belittle everyone they can. And I
| know atheists who are way more chill than so called
| hippie/spiritual/religious folks claim to be. Just because one
| is atheist doesn't mean they will be greedy capitalist or sex-
| addict or something else.
| jandrese wrote:
| I find the idea that faith can't eat you alive to be strange
| given that we have so many examples of that happening in real
| life. Faith is no different than money, power, allure, etc...
| in that regard.
|
| That's one reason people turn to atheism in the first place, to
| avoid getting gobbled up by religion.
| petre wrote:
| I really don't understand why some people have to turn to
| atheism when not participating in organised religion is quite
| easy enough. This is what the article implies, church
| membership as opposed to faith. Why even bother to deny
| something that others believe without proof and needlessly
| argue about it? Maybe it makes them happy, more secure. Vocal
| atheists usually annoy me more than christian evanghelists,
| mostly because of the negative message.
| methodin wrote:
| Because the U.S. still has not even come close to mastering
| the separation of church and state which means depending on
| where you live it will confront you frequently whether you
| like or not. Burying your head in the sand does nothing if
| you believe the premise of that separation is virtuous. I
| am not atheist myself but I have yet to see anyone I know
| be vocal about their atheism, yet I know many that are
| vocal about their religious views. I am curious where you
| see vocal atheists enough that they annoy you?
| petre wrote:
| Most of the ones I've met acted pretty much like Dawkins
| and got all worked up by their beliefs, mocked
| churchgoers and called them names. Maybe it preocupies
| them a great deal but I did not care to hear any of it,
| nor asked about it, it was them who sought to share their
| opinion on the matter.
|
| I also live in a country where the separation between
| state and church is also not clear enough. The church is
| quite openly corrupt and gets laughed at by my generation
| and is becoming less relevant every year.
| cbozeman wrote:
| > Maybe it preocupies them a great deal but I did not
| care to hear any of it, nor asked about it, it was them
| who sought to share their opinion on the matter.
|
| Congratulations, now you know how most American atheists
| feel about religious people and their beliefs.
| acdha wrote:
| I don't know about your country but here in the U.S.
| vocal religion is used to justify racism, sexism, refusal
| of medical care, and employers dictating their religious
| views on marriage, reproduction, etc. on their employees.
| Richard Dawkins is annoying, to be clear, and I am deeply
| skeptical of some of the factors in how he singles out
| Islam but as far as I'm aware he's never tried to prevent
| someone from seeing a doctor or said that a stranger
| shouldn't be allowed to get married without his approval.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Personally, I've seen churches eat way more people alive than
| greed or any other power allure.
|
| Beauty consumes people at the beginning of life, but most get
| away from it at the start of adult age. The only other things
| that come close are political ideologies and personality
| cults.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I have minor criminal cousin named Jake, Jake doesn't claim
| to be anything else, unlike most Christians I've known who
| feel morally superior yet hold some of the least
| humanitarian ideas I've ever known. At least cousin Jake
| doesn't lie to himself about what he is.
| goldcd wrote:
| To cut to the chase "bullshit"
|
| I am an atheist. I am without god. I respect no external
| judgement upon me.
|
| Am I pure? Have I fallen victim to the seduction of mammon and
| the innumerable trinkets of existence - of course I have, and
| accept I will until the day I die.
|
| Do I worship myself and take excessive pride in my self-stated
| virtues - clearly I do, as you can see if you've read this far.
|
| But outside of my petty rhetoric, I know I came from nothing
| and at the end of my life-span I will return from whence I
| came.
|
| I find this comforting.
|
| There's no game to win, no test to pass, no heaven to enter -
| just a feeling of solidarity with those I share my temporal-
| blip-in-the-light with.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| > is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you
| alive
|
| I've seen plenty of people who have dedicated themselves to
| religion, made it completely consuming (ie go to church every
| day, God is the only thing they talk about, and the Bible is
| their only frame of reference), and they are unhappy because
| Religion itself has eaten them alive.
|
| How wrong Wallace was.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Here's what's actually true and not at all weird: religious
| people from evangelical religions draw parallels to non-
| religious people by pretending that every human is born with
| the need to venerate something. It's how they rationalize their
| evangelism. They have to, because admitting that other people
| do not share these imperfections is akin to admitting that some
| people do not need what they have to share. The fun thing about
| lying is that if you wrap it up in enough gift wrapping, people
| will tire out and accept it as truth rather than spending the
| time to uncover the lie.
| ggggtez wrote:
| Spoken like someone with white privilege.
| CanceledAccount wrote:
| What does race have to do with this?
| OOPMan wrote:
| Tarring
| nimbius wrote:
| forgive me if im not moved by the edict of an alcoholic
| misogynist trying to assuage his own fears of moral impropriety
| and existential castaway after failing twice to join the
| Catholic church. Wallace enrobes the exhausted and derisive
| narrative of evangelicals confronted with an alternative to the
| almighty they themselves find personally intolerable in an
| almost comically dismissive tone. At least Thomas Aquinas had
| the decency to avoid Reducto ad Absurdum when he published his
| metaphysical treatise.
|
| Had we only outlawed the semiconductor im sure Gallup would
| enjoy a more sterling report of gods children, however i myself
| may be amiss. Christian Evangelism on the whole has seen a
| marked decline since its apex during the second Bush
| administration.
| nyghtly wrote:
| Here's the full speech for anyone who took an interest in this
| excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
|
| In my opinion, it's one of the best graduation speeches of all
| time.
| sharkweek wrote:
| I have absolutely tried to hard wire the "choose how to
| think" into my brain. It is never easy.
|
| His example of the swerving SUV racing through traffic _maybe
| just possibly_ driving that way because of a personal
| emergency stuck with me. I don 't have to assume the worst of
| people who are acting in a way I don't agree with, and to
| consider this anytime I'm getting worked up over something
| can be quite helpful.
| hexane360 wrote:
| I much prefer Stephen Colbert's Northwestern commencement
| speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6tiaooiIo0
|
| And a transcript: https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/sto
| ries/2011/06/colb...
|
| > But if we should serve others, and together serve some
| common goal or idea - for any one you, what is that idea? And
| who are those people?
|
| > In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love,
| because, as the prophet says, service is love made visible.
|
| > If you love friends, you will serve your friends.
|
| > If you love community, you will serve your community.
|
| > If you love money, you will serve your money.
|
| > And if you love only yourself, you will serve only
| yourself. And you will have only yourself. So no more
| winning. Instead, try to love others and serve others, and
| hopefully find those who love and serve you in return.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| first time in 80 years, anyway.
|
| for rather more of the 19th century than we think, regular church
| attendance was more like 35% of the country.
| dbatten wrote:
| Thanks for pointing this out.
|
| There's a big difference between church attendance and church
| membership... Unfortunately, the original linked article
| glosses over the difference, while the original Gallup study
| digs into it. According to Gallup, approximately half of the
| recent reduction in church membership can be attributed to
| people becoming less religious, while the other half is
| explained by people who still attend church regularly, but
| avoid formal "membership" in a congregation.
|
| And, to your point, the historical data is very telling. My
| understanding is that the idea that basically everybody in the
| US used to be super religious and go to church all the time is
| largely a myth. In fact, I believe the high-water mark for US
| church attendance as a percentage of the population was
| actually around 1990. (Source: Sociologists of religion Rodney
| Stark / Roger Finke. Their book "The Churching of America"
| attempts to get historical stats on this question, and includes
| this graph: https://madeinamericathebook.files.wordpress.com/20
| 10/03/fin...)
|
| Take from these stats/trends what you will. Just adding some
| additional context to the discussion.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| > while the other half is explained by people who still
| attend church regularly, but avoid formal "membership" in a
| congregation.
|
| I wonder if this can be explained by an increase in people
| moving around compared to a hundred years ago. I am a member
| of the church I was raised in, but I am not local enough
| attend. I do visit when I am with my parents but otherwise it
| doesn't make sense. I wouldn't go join another church though
| - even though I do attend other services in my city, I am not
| a member at those churches
| dbatten wrote:
| Yeah, likely part of it. I think there's also been a rise
| in non-denominational and "seeker-sensitive" churches that
| just don't have any concept of membership at all...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| membership != attendance. There's a joke somewhere about people
| who only attend church for their baptism and their funeral.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| "C and E C of E" is a well known trope. (read: christmas and
| easter church of england)
| yostrovs wrote:
| Imagine ordering from Amazon, but not being a Prime member.
| That should help put things in a more materialistic
| perspective.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Any source for that?
| xyzelement wrote:
| There's a great discourse in one of Dan Brown's books about
| whether people leave religion because they have found better
| answers elsewhere, or because they have stopped asking the
| questions.
|
| Separately, I observed that that the areligious are much more
| likely to have few or no kids while the religious folks put a
| much greater emphasis on it. As the secular world moves towards a
| place where there's no pressure to marry and procreate at all,
| how long before it is once again relegated into a demographic
| minority?
| ckdarby wrote:
| > how long before it is once again relegated into a demographic
| minority?
|
| 2-3 more generations to go I suspect based on personal
| experience where it'll be less than 10%.
|
| My grandparents were religious and my grandma prior to covid
| hadn't missed weekly service her whole life.
|
| My parents were "partial" religious meaning they went to major
| events and still have an identity linked to their religion.
|
| I grew up in a religious environment. Decided that belief and
| faith system wasn't for me in my teenage years and once on my
| own became an atheist.
|
| My wife and I will raise our children without it being in a
| religious environment.
| WJW wrote:
| There was a religious leader making a similar argument some
| time back, but I don't think it holds together all that well.
| After all, back in the middle ages the amount of churchgoing
| people was near 100% and religions were promoting big families
| then just as much as now. So if religious parents "out-produce"
| their non-religious counterparts how did we ever get to the
| current situation where a majority is not religious?
|
| The answer is of course that children choose their own way and
| don't stay religious just because of their parents.
| analyte123 wrote:
| It could be because contraception didn't exist in the Middle
| Ages.
| anonylizard wrote:
| From basic evolutionary biology, there is no universall
| "fitness", only situational fitness. In the middle ages, in a
| world without contraception, with extreme pressures to
| marriage, without pornography or any other non-intercourse
| sexual releases, being religious or not matters little in
| fertility rate. Although in frankness, it still did, that's
| how rome became christian in the first place, Christians
| married later (so had higher chances of survival), and
| treasured their baby girls instead of exposing them to death,
| small fertility advantages added up expontentially over time.
|
| In the 21st age, the environment has shifted so much against
| irreligious/low commitment people in terms of reproductive
| fitness, due to those above factors heavily selecting against
| them. Literally only religious people, no matter what part of
| the world you are looking at, are able to maintain above
| replacement fertility. Irreligious people' population
| decline, in the long run, at least 25% every generation, will
| be far faster than they can "convert" religious people. Look
| at the amish and mormon fertility rates, read decades of
| research by Eric Kaufmann, and the answer is rather self
| evident
| simiones wrote:
| "religiousness" is not likely to be an inheritable genetic
| trait, so the children of a religious person may or may not be
| religious themselves, and vice-versa. The overall culture is
| likely to have a more powerful impact on this than solely
| parenting.
| criddell wrote:
| You don't think that the children of religious parents are
| more likely to be religious than children of atheists?
| Falling3 wrote:
| Because of genetics or the fact that they were raised by
| religious parents?
| Jedd wrote:
| I'm tempted to think that the correlation isn't religion per
| se, but rather a pragmatic attitude towards the 7b people on
| the planet today.
|
| If you're reasonably 'rational' (but not especially religious)
| you're not going to look at those numbers and think procreation
| is compelling for the sake of keeping the tribe alive.
|
| OTOH if you're thinking that your particular religion needs a
| numbers boost, then the imperative may feel differently.
| ramblerman wrote:
| If you take away the "god" element, and adopt a Nietschze
| approach to religion/culture, i.e. its utility over
| generations, and where it ends up.
|
| Then areligious would seem to be a pretty useless offshoot, if
| its always doomed to die out.
|
| Perhaps a third state exists, with purpose and optimism to
| bring children into the world, but not born out of abrahamic
| religions.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I think that areligious is not a state in itself but a void
| to be filled. There are secular truths or causes that people
| adopt and follow with the same passion as those that follow
| religion.
| Someone wrote:
| There's out- and inflow, too ((children of) the religious
| becoming areligious and vice-versa).
|
| I expect those to more than compensate for the religious having
| more kids, on average.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > how long before it is once again relegated into a demographic
| minority?
|
| Many children of religious people are areligous, which is a
| primary reason how we got to < 50% church membership in the
| first place.
| dotsam wrote:
| People seek power, and God can be thought of as the highest form
| of power. Religion empowers some people by building a
| relationship between them and the supreme power of God. It also
| offers other empowering benefits like community, tradition and
| sense of purpose. But our will to power can be satisfied in many
| ways, and the opportunities for pursuing power have increased
| over time. Organized religion is being out-competed by
| alternative sources of satisfaction of the will to power.
| wwarner wrote:
| For the life of me, I cannot remember his name and I cannot find
| a reference, but there is a post-war German theologian who
| _celebrated_ the kind of personal Christianity that doesn 't
| require a church hierarchy, arguing that acting independently
| with the values of the faith without being told what to do is the
| best outcome.
| randcraw wrote:
| Well Martin Luther certainly qualifies, but I can't guess what
| war you have in mind that took place before 1517.
| justinzollars wrote:
| Observation (please don't hate me):
|
| Originally I am from Ohio and I've lived in SF for 12 years. I am
| not very religious. In college, I lived next door to a cult like
| "Young Life" Christian club.
|
| I notice people with extreme left wing fervor in the Bay Area
| behave in a similar manner to the Young Life crew. My thesis is:
| Their political beliefs are an independent variable and are not
| important. Had they grown up in a red state, their personality
| type would have been selected for and they would have become
| religious young life members rather than left wing activists.
| People who are right wing in the bay area, have more in common
| with those who were not religious in the midwest, going against
| the grain of society.
|
| In short politics has become a modern religion and is replacing
| religion. And your personality type is being selected for, in
| your proclivity to join a group; either religious or political.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| So "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." They all want to
| lord over me, whether religious or political. The distinction
| isn't important to me as I'm forced to bear _their_ crosses
| regardless.
|
| FWIW I don't hate you. :)
| consumer451 wrote:
| At the risk of sounding very cold-hearted I am very happy to see
| this happening.
|
| At its core, belief in a higher power is magical thinking.
|
| Considering the problems we face as a species, we can no longer
| afford magical thinking.
| avasylev wrote:
| I've never been religious but for 30+ years I always considered
| myself christian. If asked on such survey, I'd answer with the
| church I used to go twice a year for Christmas and Easter. One
| day I watched Ricky Gervais give interview on Cobert show (who's
| religios). And geez those jokes made me realize I'm actually and
| atheist. Now I would answer with no affiliation. From my friends
| observation, many are on the same edge, where practically they
| are gone from church, but may still show up on survey. In such
| cases those membership rates are going to drop a lot and fast.
| kaydub wrote:
| My wife and MiL both stopped going to church and no longer will
| go to their old church due to it becoming a mouthpiece of
| Trump(ism).
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| This may be a very bad idea.
|
| But as (in the words of the at-present top comment) a
| fundamentalist adhering to scriptural literalism (aka a
| conservative Lutheran) [addendum: who does not hate everyone], I
| feel compelled to offer to answer questions anyone might have for
| me, so AMA.
|
| I don't really want to individually respond to everything
| throughout the rest of the comments, but I will begin by saying
| that most churches have either very little by way of actual
| bible-based doctrine, or very little by way of in-depth theology.
| (Prosperity gospel/megachurches fall in the latter, a decent
| portion of other churches - eg. the Roman Catholic Church - fall
| in the former.)
|
| Responses will be sporadic throughout the day, I'm a bit busy at
| the moment, but I'll do my best to get to it.
| Context_free wrote:
| > adhering to scriptural literalism
|
| What scripture? As Bart Ehrman has written in his books
| condensing scholarly tomes for the layman, there are many
| scriptures, and we don't have the originals. The Comma
| Johanneum being the clearest passage that there is a trinity is
| not found in the Greek until the 15th century. Mark thought to
| be the earliest gospel, it ends without a clear resurrection
| from the earliest manuscripts - a resurrection was tacked on
| later. The story of the adulteress Jesus refused to condemn is
| not found in the earliest scriptures. And on and on. Much of
| contemporary scripture were things invented centuries after the
| events recorded.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| Scholars are pretty divided on the long ending of mark , it's
| TRUE to say the oldest codices do not include it, but some
| old manuscripts do.
|
| There's also some slight of hand being done by Erhman, the
| codex Vaticanus does not include the ending but the scribe
| has left space for it at the end of the chapter, showing that
| they had access to it and were debating putting it in... So
| you can say 'oldest manuscripts don't have it' but that isnt
| as conclusive as one might assume... This slight of hand is
| extremely common in Erhmans work.
|
| As far as the woman taken in adultery, this passage is found
| in early manuscripts/lectuonaries but its position is being
| moved around d. Erhman is more committed to selling books and
| impressing undergrad baptists at UNC than be is with nuanced
| treatment of the facts...and his background as a low church
| protestant shines through all his work.... From an easterner
| perspective it's far less persuasive
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| What do you think of the many miracles that the Catholic Church
| has received?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| I don't know enough about those events to make a judgement.
| Is this intended to lead to a broader question as to my views
| about the Catholic church?
| xivzgrev wrote:
| Here's some to kickstart things. Genuinely curious
|
| 1) did you grow up in the church you currently belong to or did
| you join later? If the former, did you ever explore other ones?
| Why/why not?
|
| 2) there can be doubt about what the Bible literally says given
| the number of authors, editors, and time involved. For example,
| someone chose x word when translating to English, that also
| could have meant y. Or, x book was included and y book was not.
| What are your thoughts on this?
|
| 3) there are a lot of rules in the Bible, especially one like
| Letiviticus (sp?). As someone adhering to literalism, do you
| aspire to follow them all? If not, which ones do you? If so,
| how do you deal with (likely) not following them all?
|
| 4) how do you keep your faith nourished / going in today's
| society, where membership in churches is declining and Internet
| denizens can have a lot of skepticism toward religion?
| sumtechguy wrote:
| I can help here as I have a similar background.
|
| 1) yes I did. I did not join later. I have attended many
| other church's. Many are trying to put butts in seats and are
| focusing on which distortion peddle gets more people in than
| using the scriptures and lessons in those words to do it. If
| you read the gospels you will find them full of life lessons
| you can apply right now, today.
|
| 2) This is an issue. What is more of an issue is the way
| words can and do change meaning over the years. So you can
| have a translation from 100 years ago and it takes on a
| different meaning. All because the choice of words they used
| just happens to mean something similar now vs then. The cure
| is to read many translations. Also keep things in context.
| There are online resources which you can use if you are
| unclear on a particular meaning in that context and go back
| to the original texts. Context for many translations is also
| the context of the year it was translated. There are also
| some translations that leave things out, or change the
| meaning, because they decided for you what you should hear so
| you have to watch out for those.
|
| 3) Many of those rules are wiped clean at the end of the 4
| gospels. As the price has been paid. But there is a simpler
| price to pay.
|
| 4) It is good to find a church in your area that sticks to
| the gospels. Does not try to be trendy and use worldly
| lessons replacing gospel. That does not mean they do not talk
| about world events, but that they do not take on fads. There
| is also a _huge_ amount of youtube and individual pages you
| can go to. In many ways the internet has made it even easier
| to converge all of these resources. Remember many searching
| engines try to tailor your search to what you like. So you
| may not even be seeing them.
|
| I would also add many times you find that if it is out of
| context it is someone trying to distort a meaning. The trick
| is do not feed the trolls and ignore them.
| CivBase wrote:
| I'm not OP, but I felt compelled to offer my own response to
| this one. Hopefully some people find my perspective
| interesting.
|
| 1) I grew up in a different church - the Catholic church. It
| felt more like a social club than anything else so I grew up
| with barely any understanding of the religion to which I
| supposedly subscribed. I became somewhat jaded towards large,
| organized religious organizations and floated around a few
| smaller-scale churches as I tried to learn more about
| Christianity and, in particular, the Bible. I no longer
| attend a "church" but I regularly attend lecture-style bible
| studies put on by a local middle school teacher.
|
| 2) One of the things that appeals to me about the Bible study
| I attend is that it's very _very_ slow compared to most
| churches. We often spend an hour doing nothing but covering
| as few as one or two verses. That time is spent analyzing the
| text by comparing translations, linking it to related verses,
| explaining the Hebrew /Greek words used in various
| manuscripts, filling in historical context with what we know
| from archeology and other ancient records, and comparing
| interpretations of various theologians and denominations.
| Often times the teacher will present his own interpretation,
| but invite us to be critical and point to other possible
| interpretations.
|
| One thing I've discovered since leaving the Catholic church
| is that studying the Bible goes far beyond just listening to
| sermons and reading what ever hard copy happens to be most
| accessible to you at the time. It's hard work and I'm not
| surprised most people aren't interested. I doubt I'd get far
| if there weren't scholars and teachers compiling and
| presenting the information for my benefit.
|
| 3) This question inclines me to believe you don't understand
| a fundamental aspect of Christianity, which is that God's sun
| (Jesus) was made a sacrifice so that humans would no longer
| be bound by sin or the laws of Moses. Christianity teaches
| that people are saved by faith alone, not by adhering to laws
| or refraining from sin. Or course, part of that belief
| suggests a desire to recognize and refrain from sin. I do not
| use grace as an excuse to sin, but I recognize that I fail
| from time to time and so does everyone else. Also, while
| societies values sometimes align with those described in the
| Bible, I do not expect non-believers to adhere to Christian
| values nor do I have any desire to enshrine Christian values
| in secular law.
|
| 4) It's interesting how many people have strong opinions on
| Biblical Christianity without knowing hardly anything about
| it. I still consider myself a complete novice, but I know
| enough to recognize how shallow a lot of the criticism is. Of
| course, there is also plenty of intelligent criticism and I
| don't pretend to have all the answers nor can I promise that
| future me wont be persuaded to abandon his faith. But so far
| I simply haven't seen anything that compels me to believe the
| Bible is wrong.
|
| Some people believe science and the Bible are at odds with
| one another, but I don't see how. I've had no trouble
| embracing both and I'm perfectly capable of differentiating
| between knowledge based on science and knowledge based on the
| Bible.
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| 1. Grew up there.
|
| 2a. "Verbal inspiration" - while the words were written by
| people and they certainly did recount their experiences in
| their own styles (perhaps involving consulting others who had
| been there), but God (through the Holy Spirit) breathed into
| them the words they were to write (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16).
| Basically God's not going to be like "eh oh well whatever if
| the Bible just goes away."
|
| 2b. Translation is, inherently, inexact. This is why it's
| good for pastors to learn Greek and Hebrew; but there are two
| main points I'd like to make here. The first is that while
| not all of the meaning may be conveyed perfectly, there is a
| lot of effort that has been put into ensuring that the
| essence will remain there. The second is that, when the
| meaning may be initially unclear, let Scripture interpret
| Scripture.
|
| 2c. As for which books are included and which are not, I
| haven't researched this enough to give a thorough answer.
|
| 3. Laws are divided into three categories: civil, ceremonial,
| and moral. Civil is laws to govern the nation of Israel,
| which don't apply today. Ceremonial laws related to the
| worship life of Israel. Jesus is, in essence, the fulfillment
| of these laws (cf. Romans 10:4, Acts 15); as such, we are no
| longer required to follow them. This leaves the moral law,
| God's will for believers. Most of the 10 commandments fall
| into this category (as summarized further by Jesus saying
| "love God and love your neighbor"). Anyway (as pointed out
| below), Jesus kept the entire law because we, with our sinful
| nature, cannot.
|
| 4. I'm lucky enough to have a church that believes what I
| believe near me; regular bible studies and a few online
| devotions that I follow also help.
|
| This was a but rushed to finish; sorry. Feel free to follow
| up.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| The entire point of the law was to show that it couldn't be
| followed, they nearly always failed miserably, even the most
| famous and well regarded people in the Old Testament that
| were spoken very highly of like Abraham and David had their
| fair share of major fuck ups. The point was to show that we
| couldn't do it, we were fundamentally flawed and needed
| Christ to take the burden on our behalf, and needed to be
| wholly remade through death, "born again" literally as a new
| creation, into a new lineage, that of Christ, after dying to
| the lineage of Adam that we inherited from our parents. It
| was never about doing enough right to outpace the wrong, it
| was always lineage and inheritance that determined our fate.
|
| This paved the way for the Holy Spirit to come at Pentecost
| and basically kick off the church which has been growing and
| spreading from there ever since, and the church has only ever
| grown, never has it lost numbers, because it's not an
| institution of man measured by attendance, those who are born
| again and counted cannot become "un" born again.
|
| It also says that the path to life is narrow and few find it,
| there was never a heavenly expectation that they would ever
| be in the majority, despite that there is also a desire for
| all to be saved.
|
| The difference is the human view and the God view. We were
| instructed to have the human view and act accordingly, spread
| the gospel far and wide because we didn't know where the seed
| would fall and take root even though God knows, he didn't
| want us to be choosy, that is his domain. All part of this
| grand cosmic theater that is infinitely beyond my limited
| perspective.
| freddybobs wrote:
| What's your take on the dead sea scrolls ?
|
| How do the aspects of the early church align with scriptural
| literalism? Specifically the split of the early church between
| Paul and Jesus brother James. James was Jesus's choice to lead
| the church in his absence. A direction which aligned more with
| Judaism - including circumcision, and kosher foods. Yet later
| Christianity revolves around Paul at odds vision. Paul was a
| Roman who 'saw the light' whilst being sent after Jesus. He
| never met Jesus. His version of 'Christianity' didn't require
| those aspects - not least because adult male Romans who were
| interested in Christianity, weren't too keen on circumcision.
|
| If this is correct, it means modern Christianity, is not based
| on Jesus stated future direction of his church.
|
| What does your 'scriptural literalism' say about this? If your
| literature doesn't cover these aspects - then what is decided
| is canonical and what is not? Presumably such a distinction has
| to be outside of said literature - and therefore not 'scriptual
| literalism'. Implying 'scriptual literalism' itself is not
| grounded.
|
| I should probably also say that it seems to me that claiming
| 'scriptual literalism' is a defensive position against claims
| of subjectivity. It is 'literal' and therefore not subjective.
| This is a fallacy - as there is always subjectivity and
| interpretation in human understanding, and certainly in
| interpreting something as nuanced and contradictory as the
| bible.
|
| This might come across as somewhat aggressive questioning, and
| I'm sorry for that - but I am legitimately curious how it
| works.
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| Indeed, some points were a bit unclear. This is literalism in
| the sense of "God is real, created the world, Jesus lived and
| died to save you from your sins", not "there is no figurative
| language in the bible" or "the Bible is a bunch of stories
| about how to be a good person."
|
| One important phrase in interpreting Scripture is "let
| Scripture interpret Scripture." (cf. 1 Cor 1:18f, Romans
| 11:33-35, 2 Cor 10:5 - our reason is not capable of fully
| understanding God, so we interpret it as his Word says and
| leave it at that.)
|
| I should point you toward the Council of Jerusalem for part
| of the early history of the church, and I'm not really sure
| where you're coming from with the rest.
|
| As for the rest (mostly about the history of biblical
| manuscripts), could you please put what I missed into a
| couple more clear questions?
| cat199 wrote:
| > If this is correct, it means modern Christianity, is not
| based on Jesus stated future direction of his church.
|
| One view is that this was resolved at the council described
| in acts, and all agreed. The view that there was some paul-
| led split that is covered up by the selection of the NT canon
| is often used by detractors of christianity, who typically
| try to frame Jesus as purely a jewish reformer, and that Paul
| was some 'kook' that invented his own religion (despite the
| texts that he was working with, rather than against, the rest
| of the apostles).
|
| YMMV, but probably useful to be just as skeptical to sources
| on both sides when trying to ascertain what might have
| actually happened historically
| Context_free wrote:
| > It is 'literal' and therefore not subjective. This is a
| fallacy - as there is always subjectivity and interpretation
| in human understanding, and certainly in interpreting
| something as nuanced and contradictory as the bible.
|
| At the sermon on the mount, Jesus said "you are the salt of
| the earth". A literal take would be Jesus was saying the
| listeners were salt. You can be subjective and think this is
| a metaphor, but allowing for metaphors in the bible puts an
| end to literalism.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| the universally considered authentic Pauline epistles are
| commonly dated from the mid 40s to the late fifties AD.... So
| any arguments made about church leadership 'before' then are
| arguing from a very small body of evidence (luke/acts) ...
| rather a less persuasive argument than the iron clad one you
| present here.
| phd514 wrote:
| I'm not sure where you're getting some of these ideas. Paul
| was very much a Jew. He trained under Gamaliel, one of the
| most prominent Jewish rabbis of the time. He did also have
| Roman citizenship, but those two things were not mutually
| exclusive.
|
| Also, James, while prominent in the early church, was not in
| any sense Jesus's choice to lead the church. The closest
| thing to a single designated leader of the church was Peter
| though that is a point of contention between Roman
| Catholicism and Protestantism. Nowhere are circumcision or
| kosher foods required for Christianity, either.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| Thanks for doing this!
|
| (Don't have questions; just encouraging more not-mega church
| public Christianity.)
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| You're welcome!
|
| Hopefully it goes well.
| Balgair wrote:
| A quick google search for 'contradictions in the {bible, new
| testament, jesus, etc.}' turns up a fair few pages. Viewing
| them either gives the answer as zero full-stop, or a long list
| of subject and their relevant citations. In looking at the
| citations, there does seem to be merit to the contradictory
| claims. I'll admit that the contradictions are a bit 'small'
| and may not always alter the main theme or may mix up the new
| and old testaments, but they seem to exist nonetheless.
|
| I may not be all that up to date on what 'scriptural
| literalism' is exactly defined as, but as a lay person that
| would mean to me that contradictions would be a difficult
| circle to square.
|
| What do you make of such contradictions and how do they affect
| your adherence, if at all?
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| Looking through the top few, most appear to be intentional
| misinterpretation, one has to do with much of the Old
| Testament law not applying in the New Testament (see above or
| below somewhere), different focuses (i.e. something being
| mentioned somewhere but not somewhere else doesn't mean it
| didn't happen, the other may have just had a different
| focus), etc.; if you have anything specifically you want me
| to take a look at I can, but it generally seems to be a
| combination of poor understanding of the Bible, failure to
| let Scripture interpret Scripture, trying to use the human
| mind to understand the full mind of God, etc.
| phd514 wrote:
| I think it's helpful to point out that the Bible contains a
| variety of types of literature including historical narrative,
| poetry, etc., some of which uses figurative language that is
| not intended to be taken literally.
|
| We all understand this when we use modern language such as
| "sunrise" which is not literally true (the sun does not
| actually "rise" in the sky though it appears that way to the
| casual observer) even though we're educated enough to
| understand basic astronomical phenomena such as the rotation of
| the earth giving rise to daytime and nighttime.
|
| A Biblical literalist who takes figurative language in the
| Bible literally would end up making the same mistake that
| someone taking "sunrise" literally would. This is not at all an
| attempt to classify as figurative language all controversial or
| supernatural claims of the Bible (its claim that Jesus was
| crucified, buried, and raised from the dead is clearly
| supernatural and impossible to classify as figurative), but so
| many of the lists of contradictory claims in the Bible rely on
| wooden interpretations of what is pretty clearly figurative
| language.
| throwaway0b1 wrote:
| Thank you for making this point. It is important to recognize
| that the Bible does make use of a variety of literary
| techniques (eg. psalms, parables, etc. especially). However,
| there are vast swathes of history throughout; it isn't just a
| book of fictional stories.
| CivBase wrote:
| I think when people talk about a "literal" interpretation of
| the Bible, they mean that it uses human language (including
| figures of speech like "sunrise", number
| rounding/approximation, etc) to describe literal, historical
| events with exceptions for explicit fictions or metaphors
| (such as psalms or parables).
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| Cultural politics has replaced religion. I'm sure if you did
| another poll, 90% of the US would say they are tightly aligned
| with a single political party and would not befriend/marry/hire
| someone of a different party. Tribalism and belief systems aren't
| going away, they're just changing the wallpaper.
| Animats wrote:
| Not only that, this is self-reported info from a poll.[1] Self-
| reported church attendance in the US is about 2x higher than what
| churches report actually showing up. Adherents.com used to have
| statistics on this.
|
| [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-
| falls-...
| tgorgolione wrote:
| I just came here to say that I really appreciate most of the
| civil discussion going on here on all sides. Doesn't seem
| entirely one-sided or extremely negative. Thanks everyone for
| keeping it that way!
| [deleted]
| knodi wrote:
| I'm not surprised and about time. Churches are taken over by the
| GOP propaganda and used as a blunt weapon to spread lies and
| false information by the GOP to steal their votes.
| lykahb wrote:
| There is an idea of "God-shaped hole" that is an urge to have a
| belief in something transcendent or greater than oneself. As the
| organized religion is in decline, politics or activism seem to
| become a substitute that provides belief, sense of community, and
| a vision for improving the world. This also explains why there is
| so little rational discussion across the divide of the political
| spectrum in the US.
|
| The same political views can come from observations and
| reasoning, or they can be ingrained as a belief and be a part of
| one's [group] identity. In the former case a rational discussion
| is possible. In the latter case it turns into a challenge of
| one's personal integrity and devolves into a fight of the
| righteous against the heretical other side.
| ccn0p wrote:
| The Christian church has gone through an interesting time in
| 2020. Many churches have lost attendance as pastors closed their
| doors or tried to stay out of politics, while other stronger
| pastors who have kept their doors open despite lockdowns and are
| speaking up against the US government with respect to threats
| against religious freedom (eg see H.R. 5) -- those churches are
| stronger and more vibrant than ever.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| I'm not 100% sure who and what you're referring to (having
| followed only my own church of late), but it's worth vaguely
| agreeing with the sentiment that successful religious
| establishments have some meaning -- and moreover, a meaning
| that's materially different than what the secular world around
| them has to offer. If they're just an extension of whatever is
| popular these days, people will simply cut out the middleman.
| timbit42 wrote:
| This poll is about membership, not attendance.
| _1100 wrote:
| The absolute bias and lack of any self awareness present in
| your statements here is fascinating.
|
| There really is only the One Way for you, isn't there?
|
| Call me brave, but I would counter that there may, in fact, be
| at least one other way to interpret ideas like "strong",
| "freedom", and "vibrant".
| ccn0p wrote:
| Isn't everything a bias in some way? But point taken. I don't
| attend multiple churches, I attend one, and it, like others
| of its ilk, has been under attack, so observations are of
| course my own. But if you want to mute the language some,
| let's s/strong//, s/freedom/choice, and s/vibrant/well-
| attended.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Under attack how, exactly? By being asked to close during a
| pandemic?
| _1100 wrote:
| Ask: Do this hard thing for the greater good
|
| His Church's Response: No
|
| This person obviously has no interest in understanding or
| conversing outside of bad faith arguments and victimhood.
| Not worth the trouble.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Do you have any evidence to back up the causal relationships
| you're inferring?
| jl6 wrote:
| Just remember that the lake gets saltier the more it evaporates.
| for_i_in_range wrote:
| "God does not exist; but don't tell my servant, lest he slit my
| throat in the night." - Voltaire
| anonAndOn wrote:
| The comedian Emo Philips has a well-known joke about religion
| that may explain some of the decline in membership...
|
| "Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do
| it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you
| believe in God?"
|
| He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said,
| "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He
| said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said,
| "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern
| Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern
| Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
|
| He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too!
| Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern
| Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern
| Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
|
| Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879,
| or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of
| 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region
| Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over."
| [deleted]
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| This is a somewhat funny joke but it doesn't actually map to
| reality. Inter-Christian conflict is almost nonexistent in 2021
| and has been so for probably a generation.
|
| Edit: by "conflict" I mean actual real violent conflict. Not
| people arguing on Reddit. People literally killing each other
| (or pushing them off bridges) because they are "heretics." This
| doesn't happen much at all anymore in the Christian world. Even
| the edge cases like Northern Ireland have little to do with
| actual religious differences. That issue is mostly political in
| nature and revolves around the relationship of Ireland to Great
| Britain, not the intricacies of the Christian religion.
|
| It's easy to observe the difference when you look at the Muslim
| world, where there still is a lot of violent conflict and
| people being persecuted or killed because they are "heretics."
| kajecounterhack wrote:
| Maybe you need to clarify by what you mean by conflict -- do
| you mean violent conflict? Because ideological conflict and
| schism seems quite high between denominations, christian
| branches, and even within congregations. E.g Rob Bell vs
| Francis Chan / Tim Keller on whether hell is real and if Rob
| Bell is going there. A lot of evangelical groups today are
| "non-denominational" meaning they face these ideological
| clashes within their congregations.
|
| I mean, as an atheist it seems obvious that they're all
| facing the problem of ill-defined views causing confusion.
| There's no ground truth so everyone's just interpreting it
| how they feel is right, whether that's by focusing on literal
| biblicisms or focusing on real world feedback / interpersonal
| relationships, and the lines are drawn around litmus test
| issues across the spectrum of christian beliefs.
| simonh wrote:
| The violence is just the punchline that makes it a joke. The
| point is how ludicrous it is that people take these minuscule
| differences in dogma seriously, and just how seriously they
| do take it. That's what maps to reality.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| In the us it's conservative christians against everyone else
| (mostly evangelicals but multiple other groups too, and they
| also fight among themselves).
|
| The group that isn't fighting much is liberal christians (I
| try to define them as accepting homosexuality) and non
| believers. Those are the groups not fighting.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| As an atheist apostate who was raised in a fundamentalist,
| Baptist, Christian church in the Great Lakes region, it hits
| pretty close to home.
|
| I was last in church a couple weeks ago for a funeral; it was
| a little weird hearing about the ways people from various
| highly-similar churches talked about Grandma's spiritual
| history as she was enlightened from her Christian Reformed
| early childhood to know a living and true God. Did she know
| the theological differences at age 10? We talked about the
| effect she had as the matriarch of our extended family
| bringing everyone together for decades by sponsoring an
| annual summer trip to a nearby Bible conference ground, and
| about how she justifiably ended that when the Bible
| conference lost their way and endorsed some speakers with
| relatively minor theological differences.
|
| It's not "conflict" in the sense of the Spanish Inquisition -
| no one, as far as I know, would genuinely push someone off a
| bridge for being in a different sect - but around here they'd
| pray for the person to accept the truth, call for church
| discipline/excommunication/speaking bans if in a position of
| power, or they'd leave the church and find a slightly
| different sect that didn't make the wrong call on whatever
| issue was brought up by the council of 1912.
|
| There's a paradox of intolerance at play: A group that aims
| to be universally tolerant cannot actually tolerate
| intolerance, and fundamentalist Christianity advocates a
| singular, accurately understood, unique truth at its core.
| You can and tolerate love those who hold different theologies
| all you want, but if you believe in one absolute universal
| truth as a lot of Christian culture does, then anyone who
| believes even a little bit differently is not right, which is
| to say, by definition, they're _wrong_.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Karl Popper was a moron. You can tolerate intolerance just
| fine by assuming there will be someone equally intolerant
| of such intolerance.
|
| I wish people would stop quoting that denthead. It's as
| silly as people claiming the Qu'ran has passages
| specifically commanding them to blow people up.
| alexeldeib wrote:
| Your conclusion is definitionally the same as Popper's?
| Intolerance of intolerance is the solution. It is only a
| "paradox" in that unlimited tolerance leads to this
| seemingly backwards outcome of the triumph of
| intolerance.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The difference is that Popper thinks you yourself must be
| the intolerant one. I'm saying that if intolerance
| exists, then someone else will take care of it because
| they too must surely exist.
| Grieving wrote:
| Taken to its logical conclusion, nothing can be tolerated
| but tolerance itself.
|
| Kind of an inversion of Chesterton's 'Tolerance is the
| virtue of the man without convictions.'
| ddoran wrote:
| The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland may be over but there is
| still tension and violence in Northern Ireland between a
| subset of Catholics and Protestants. The sectarian violence
| still happens but does not get reported internationally
| because the scale is so much lower than it was up to 2010,
| but to say Inter-Christian conflict has been non-existent for
| a generation (25 years?) is wishful thinking at best.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| See my edit.
| [deleted]
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Idk, man... about two years ago, I heard an evangelical dude
| say Catholics aren't even Christians. As a Catholic, I found
| it a bit startling to learn that I am - by default - going to
| hell.
| Rule35 wrote:
| You don't know, they might be of the opinion that a good
| life dedicated to Jesus may be enough, regardless of how
| you dress it up.
|
| But, from outside, they appear to be at least half right.
|
| The catholic church seems to be less _CHRIST_ ian and more
| ... Trinity-ian. I assume it's a fairly large difference on
| the ground as one is all about a single person, born a
| regular man, who brings forgiveness for unintentional sins.
| The other, a story about a much more conscious god who
| manifests himself in a young body and proceeds to lecture
| on morality and the afterlife.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Pop by r/catholic and you'll come across some people's
| hush-hush Catholic views that Martin Luther was evil by
| leading away millions to eternal damnation because there's
| no salvation outside The Catholic Church.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| No doubt. I've known some pretty insulated, hateful
| Catholics.
| slumdev wrote:
| The Church has always taught that schism and heresy are
| mortal sins, and the teaching hasn't changed, even if
| most clergy don't talk about it.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Catholicism also teaches that every non-Catholic person is
| going to hell.
| epistasis wrote:
| Catholicism isn't monolithic apparently, because that
| does not appear to be the first answer in a web search:
|
| https://www.catholic.com/qa/do-non-catholic-christians-
| go-to...
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| This says non-Catholics who have not committed a mortal
| sin can go to heaven, which includes "have no other God
| before me." Further, I'm pretty sure they consider the
| sacrament of baptism necessary to go to heaven, defacto
| ruling out every non-catholic.
|
| _edit_ I 'm apparently somewhat misremembering things,
| and any non-catholic without a mortal sin has a supposed
| chance, but I still would say that rules out all non-
| catholics.
| slumdev wrote:
| To be a little more precise, Catholicism teaches that
| every person in Heaven is a Catholic (even if they
| weren't necessarily a Catholic on earth.) It admits
| baptism by desire and the possibility of salvation of
| those who are invincibly ignorant.
|
| But, at the same time, Catholic tradition has always
| maintained that even most Catholics end up in Hell.
| There's even biblical support for the idea in the
| "wide"/"narrow gate" language of the Gospels.
|
| So, if Catholicism is the one true Faith, and even most
| Catholics end up in Hell, why would anyone reason that
| those outside of the one true Faith have good odds?
| relaxing wrote:
| That's not true. It was long debated, and finally
| clarified in the Vatican II (in the mid 1960s.)
|
| Any Catholic still saying that today is going against the
| Church.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Was it because the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon
| from Revelations, or because it's secretly a pagan religion
| that worships Saints and the Virgin Mary as gods? I love
| the rationales people put forward for that kind of stuff.
|
| For a Guy purportedly trying to bring salvation to
| humanity, some Jesus's followers do seem to relish
| opportunities to keep the everyone they can out of the
| Kingdom.
| mulmen wrote:
| I have been told the same thing. In my case it was just
| that they didn't know other forms of Christianity existed
| other than their own.
| Igelau wrote:
| > a pagan religion that worships Saints and the Virgin
| Mary as gods
|
| Sometimes I put on my 2edgy4u atheist cap and needle my
| lapsed-Catholic wife with that notion. It looks like a
| duck and a quacks like a duck, call it veneration if you
| like -- it's still a duck. And I do point out that
| there's nothing wrong with that. Given the choices I'd
| rather worship a once-mortal mother goddess than a
| tripartite sky-father who spends most of the book being
| terrible.
| simplify wrote:
| This is only true as far as how most Christians and churches
| are so casual in their beliefs, there's no meaningful
| difference in their lifestyle vs a non-believer's.
| haberman wrote:
| I don't think that's true. Churches are deeply divided on
| some core issues, and in some cases are splitting over these
| differences: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/united-
| methodist-conserv...
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| That link is about Methodists splitting over a fairly big
| issue (gay marriage) and not the minute differences
| referred to in the parent comment.
| haberman wrote:
| I was replying to "Inter-Christian conflict is almost
| nonexistent in 2021". That's a fairly categorical
| statement, and seems plainly false.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| And yet our society is more polarized than ever. From your
| anecdote, one would think that declining religion would result
| in peace and love overflowing in society, but we see the
| opposite. Public morality cannot be maintained without
| religion; we will sadly see the end result of that in coming
| years.
| ouid wrote:
| Are you claiming that marginally declining religiosity is the
| dominant factor to be considered in the breakdown of "public
| morality"? Among such factors as 50 years of stagnant wages
| and the rise of social media?
| mahogany wrote:
| > Public morality cannot be maintained without religion
|
| Do you have evidence or arguments for this, or is this just a
| feeling? I can see an argument for the statement "religion
| can be and has been used to maintain public morality" but
| that's not what you said, so I'm curious about your
| reasoning.
| Alenycus wrote:
| What is morality? It is not a physical material phenomenon
| and it is not scientific, so if it exists it is by
| definition supernatural or its synonym metaphysical
|
| Once you are discussing the supernatural, you are
| discussing religion.
| mahogany wrote:
| Since the topic of this thread is about church
| membership, I would assume religion in this context
| refers to organized religion, rather than such an
| abstract definition, in which case someone can believe in
| the supernatural without being religious.
|
| But in either case, I'm a little confused. Wouldn't this
| line of reasoning apply to laws as well? They aren't
| physical or (necessarily) scientific. And are you saying
| that any study of metaphysics is necessarily religious in
| nature? Perhaps we are using different definitions of
| religion.
|
| If you are making an argument that notions of morality do
| not (or did not) arise from science, or that morality
| arose from religion, I think that would have weight to
| it. But that also doesn't imply that morality cannot
| continue to exist without religion. For example, it's
| plausible to me that a sense of shared community is
| something that can "maintain morality" in a society. We
| may have lost a sense of community in part due to the
| decline of churches, but I don't see why it would require
| them to exist.
| hkarthik wrote:
| It's an interesting argument that you lay out, and as
| agnostic that came from a religious family, it's something
| that I've personally grappled with. In the absence of
| religion, where do people find their moral and ethical
| compass? I wasn't raised atheist, and when I ask atheists
| this question they often dismiss it as not important or
| obvious. I feel like that's half the reason religion
| persists, because they actually attempt to answer such
| questions with respect.
| leetcrew wrote:
| so depending on how you phrase that question, it can be
| perceived as an insult. it almost implies that, by default,
| an atheist wouldn't have a moral compass. I'm not saying
| you think that, just that it's a plausible interpretation
| for someone who's already feeling a bit defensive. also
| some atheists are just obnoxious.
|
| but maybe I can answer your question. I think of morality
| as a way to rationalize the emotions I feel when someone
| treats me a certain way or I treat someone else a certain
| way. my morals are rules I can feel good about following.
| ddoolin wrote:
| I don't feel very defensive about it, but it is
| definitely insulting to me because to be an insult is
| about their intent. As far as my dad knew, I was Catholic
| until 3 months ago (when in reality I've been off that
| for 20 years) and suddenly I don't have a moral compass.
| He'll attribute what I have to my upbringing despite him
| being in absentia for nearly all of it. Cue eye rolling.
| Tarsul wrote:
| compassion and empathy shouldn't come from believing in
| God. It should come from believing that humans are all the
| same, meaning that you shouldn't do to others what you
| wouldn't want to be done to yourself because otherwise how
| could you expect other people to treat you fairly if you
| yourself don't do it? At least that's where I stand and I
| attribute this feeling of compassion a lot more to cartoons
| of the 80s and 90s than I do to what I learned in the
| church. I'm not in the church anymore because I don't
| believe in God. But I believe in values and if being in
| church helps to give you good values then church is worth
| it for society. I see this pragmatically.
| tomp wrote:
| > In the absence of religion, where do people find their
| moral and ethical compass?
|
| You do all the same things, except: (1) you can make your
| own choices depending on your own reasoning (e.g. you can
| independently decide whether circumcision/being gay is good
| or bad, independent of what any religion says), and (2)
| you're doing things to be _good_ , not to please _god_.
|
| In fact, I consider people who are "moral" just because god
| says so / you fear the consequences / you want to go to
| heaven to actually be immoral. It's akin to only helping in
| an accident if the person is rich - you're not doing it
| because it's the right thing to do, you're just doing it to
| get something in return.
|
| _Edit:_ you can also pick any number of philosophical
| frameworks of morality. Personally I oscillate between
| golden and silver rules.
| Alenycus wrote:
| 1. This view also takes the idea that morality can be
| reached by reason on faith I am not saying I fully
| disagree, but even the concept of morality at its core is
| not rational.
|
| 2. It is possible to be religious and do good for the
| sake of good. Most religious people I know do. I would
| hope that even if I knew I was going to hell, I would
| still live the rest of my life on accordance with God's
| will as it is the right thing to do.
| tomp wrote:
| Well, if you're both religious and do good for the sake
| of good, then you can still be good without being
| religious. So that solves (1).
|
| Morality is "rational" as a solution to a game theoretic
| problem. You can also derive it via evolution (which is
| _also_ a game theory solution).
| peferron wrote:
| I'm atheist, and my answer is simply empathy I guess? I
| just try to treat others in the same way I want to be
| treated.
|
| People who say that morality can't exist without religion
| are scary. If they suddenly lose their faith, are they
| going to start hurting others? What if their religion has
| blind spots that doesn't tell them how to behave in a
| specific situation, or tells them that groups like gays and
| non-believers are fair game?
| rjtavares wrote:
| Have you considered that it is not important, that it is
| obvious?
|
| As a person that wasn't raised religious, the concept that
| you need religion to find a moral and ethical compass seems
| weird to me. My parents taught me values, I learned them,
| society reinforced them. They made sense to me, and I feel
| bad when I don't follow them. The mechanics of it are
| pretty simple.
| equality_1138 wrote:
| This seems to be a very privileged position to have. That
| if you were taught strong ethics by parents and the right
| social network, then everyone can obviously/simply have
| the same?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Your comment squares with that guy on the $5 bill and the
| penny.
|
| "When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad.
| That's my religion."
|
| -- Abraham Lincoln
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Your line of reasoning is similar to "where does food
| come from? The grocery store, obviously!"
|
| The underlying question is not how _YOU_ got your moral
| compass but where do the people who taught you yours -
| and eventually society as a whole - get theirs.
|
| If it's a set of principles that civil society generally
| agrees upon, then the rest are implementation details
| that will vary from situation to situation.
|
| If it's a set of whims of the people in power and will
| vary regularly and constantly, then "damnation" comes
| from breaking today's rules.. maybe without even knowing
| what they are.
| rjtavares wrote:
| Your line of reasoning is similar to "Food comes from
| animals and plants. But where does animals and plants'
| food comes from?". Do you want to go all the way up to
| the Big Bang?
|
| You learn your ethics from a combination of your parents
| and society, and you update your beliefs during your
| life, you share them to a younger generation. Repeat
| since humans acquired a conscience until humans cease to
| exist. That's all there is to it.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| No, that isn't all there is to it. You are simply
| ignorant of the foundations of your beliefs.
| rjtavares wrote:
| I can assure you I am not: they include the Roman Empire,
| the Catholic Church, the Enlightenment, the French
| Revolution, and Marx.
|
| However, the question was:
|
| > In the absence of religion, where do people find their
| moral and ethical compass?
|
| That's what I was answering to.
| hkarthik wrote:
| I think having a moral compass is important, because a
| lot of people will optimize for themselves in the short
| term, and screw up society in the long term. But I don't
| think this is obvious at all to people unless they're
| taught, or if they are really good at learning from their
| own mistakes.
|
| I think others have pointed this out to you, but there is
| a high dependence on people learning this through good
| parenting, good teachers, and being around the right
| people, all while having security for things like food,
| shelter, etc.
|
| Some of those things get wrapped up in the over-arching
| term called "privilege" but I think there is something to
| be said for the fact that you can't assume most people
| are securing these things. But you can assume that in the
| absence of this kind of security, many people (maybe even
| most) will lose their moral compass.
| ddoolin wrote:
| I think nowadays they can come from other people. Pretty
| much anyone/everyone (so maybe "society" is a good stand-
| in?) But, originally, perhaps when times were a lot
| different, the word of the Lord, whichever is your flavor,
| was more useful in keeping people on a more-fulfilling
| track. People with strong family ties likely didn't need to
| be as devout and so the church provided a good net for
| those alienated from society for many reasons. These days
| we're a lot more likely to have support and a lot less
| likely to be outcast (or at least not so severely) for
| being different.
|
| I am also agnostic-raised-Catholic and this type of
| question is posed a lot. I don't struggle with it since I
| feel like I know the answer...BUT A) It's difficult to
| articulate, B) I can't really prove it, and C) it's also
| that I just know "the Bible" is very likely NOT the answer
| which just crosses one possibility off a list.
| NortySpock wrote:
| > Where do people find their moral and ethical compass?
|
| I agree that atheists cannot point to a single book that
| everyone should use to define their moral and ethical
| compass, but I do think that utilitarianism (either act-
| based: "we should act always so as to produce the greatest
| good for the greatest number" or rule based: "we ought to
| live by rules that, in general, are likely to lead to the
| greatest good for the greatest number") provides a healthy
| starting framework.
|
| Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36 (10 min)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a739VjqdSI
| prophesi wrote:
| I'd argue that the polarization is a direct result of the
| rise of evangelical Christianity. And as church membership
| decreases, their perceived persecution will fan the flames of
| their crusade against soft drugs, LGBTQ+, and trans rights to
| name a few.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >crusade against soft drugs, LGBTQ+, and trans rights to
| name a few.
|
| So then why have those crusades all but evaporated?
|
| Weed is on its way to being federally legal. Hard drugs are
| becoming legal or decriminalized in some jurisdictions.
| Trans people are pretty much universally accepted/tolerated
| as being a thing that isn't going away with the remaining
| conflict more or less related to all the gender based stuff
| that's been codified in law over the years.
| iamatworknow wrote:
| I mean no offense by this, but this opinion seems to be
| colored by your direct experience. There's is still A LOT
| of intolerance to these things to be found in the world.
| You're just not being exposed to it, most likely.
| gbear605 wrote:
| Just in the last few weeks, three states have passed new
| laws targeting the healthcare of transgender people and
| twenty five other state legislatures are considering
| them. It's unfortunately not going away. [1] It's not one
| of the issues you mentioned, but another similar crusade
| is abortion rights. It's looking like the Supreme Court
| will have hearings potentially leading to the end of Roe
| v Wade, and a number of states have enacted laws limiting
| abortions, though some of them were struck down by
| previous Supreme Court rulings.
|
| [1]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/transgender-
| rights-in-the-...
| 0_____0 wrote:
| ? how do you explain the relative stability of largely
| secular nations then?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| The two most destructive regimes of the twentieth century
| were explicitly secular. The stability of modern Western
| Europe is more of a historical consequence of Pax Americana
| and the Cold War than secularism.
| julianlam wrote:
| ... and what exactly are these two destructive regimes?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Do I really need to point that out? Nazi Germany and the
| Soviet Union.
|
| If one wants to play "edgy contrarian" and argue that the
| United States was somehow worse than either of those,
| well...the U.S. is technically secular too.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Believing that the communist countries were not religious
| countries is a common fallacy of the Westerners.
|
| In reality communism was a religion and more precisely a
| variant of the Christian religion, but this fact was
| disguised by changing the names of all things related to
| the Christian religion.
|
| Just a few of the correspondences between Christianity
| and Communism (shown as traditional word => communist
| word for the same concept):
|
| Christian => atheist
|
| Pagan => Christian
|
| Prophets => Marx, Engels & Lenin
|
| Holy Scriptures => the published works of Marx, Engels &
| Lenin
|
| Christian martyrs => communist illegalists
|
| Pope => general secretary of the Communist Party of the
| Soviet Union
|
| Cardinals/patriarchs => general secretaries of communist
| parties
|
| Priests => members of the communist parties having
| functions in the party hierarchy
|
| Religious teaching in schools => Political teaching in
| schools
|
| Priest of a military unit => Political second-in-command
| of a military unit
|
| Heretics => oppositionists to the party leadership
|
| Happy life in the afterlife => happy life in the future
| _truly_ communist society
|
| Holy Inquisition => Committee for State Security
|
| ... and so on.
|
| Writing a complete dictionary about all the words used by
| Christianity with their replacements in Communism would
| take a very long time.
|
| While the communist vocabulary looks very different, the
| meanings are exactly the same as in Christianity.
|
| All the communist countries were not countries free of
| religion, but on the contrary, they were countries were a
| monotheistic-like religion was intermingled with all the
| administrative & government institutions and where all
| the other religions were aggressively persecuted,
| including the true atheists or agnostics (i.e. not the
| _communist atheists_ , which was the code name for the
| believers in the communist religion).
|
| The claim that the communist countries were not religious
| was just propaganda, they were countries where there was
| no separation between the religion and the state.
|
| Likewise false was the claim that the communist countries
| had a different economic system, in reality their
| economic system was an extreme form of capitalism, where
| everything was dominated by monopolies.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| It's not that you are wrong, per se, because communism is
| indeed descended from a Christian culture and full of
| many Christian ideas. Overall, it functioned as a quasi-
| religious system.
|
| However, the Soviets actively rooted every religion
| during their rule, especially Orthodox Christianity. So
| if we are to consider Soviet communism a form of
| Christianity, it's unclear how useful this actually is.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Your counter-argument does not work. It actually provides
| one more similarity between Communism and the various
| variants of Christianity and it makes stronger my
| analogy.
|
| Yes the communists persecuted the other religions,
| inclusive by imprisoning and/or killing many Catholic
| priests and many Orthodox priests.
|
| However, this is exactly what was previously done by some
| kinds of Christians against other kinds of Christians,
| e.g. during the many conflicts between Protestants and
| Catholics and between Catholics and Orthodox Christians.
|
| Some people downvoted me, but this also just validates my
| affirmation that most Westerners are not aware of these
| facts and they do not understand Communism.
|
| I have grown in a country occupied by communists, so I
| know from direct experience how Communism works, not from
| the fantastic depictions typical for the Western movies
| or novels.
|
| When I was in school, there was nothing that I hated more
| than the mandatory classes of communist religion, the so-
| called Political teachings.
|
| Also, due to the stupidity of one of my colleagues, a
| teacher discovered that I had a Bible and, because of
| that, I was almost expelled from High School a short time
| before the final exam, but I was very lucky due to some
| special circumstances and I could avoid the expulsion.
|
| Many years later, after communism failed, I believed that
| the new generations of students will escape my fate and
| they will no longer waste time with the mandatory
| religion classes.
|
| Unfortunately, my hope was wrong, because the mandatory
| Political teachings classes were not deleted from the
| curriculum, but they were replaced by mandatory Christian
| religion classes.
|
| So nothing has changed, when the Communist religion was
| mandatory, I had almost lost my career because it was
| supposed that I might be Christian, but if I were a
| student today, I would have similar problems if I would
| attempt to criticize in school the Christian religion,
| for exactly the same reasons that were applicable to
| Communism.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| But again the thing is, if you're going to take this line
| of thought, then secularism itself is really just a
| variation of Christianity. And at that point, of what use
| are the distinctions we are making? If Soviet communism
| is a kind of Christianity, it's certainly a kind
| significantly different enough to notice and bracket off.
| Certainly it has little use for say, The Bible, or
| priest-like figures, or various other things that do tie
| together the different branches of Christianity.
| adrian_b wrote:
| No, there are tremendous differences between secularism
| and Christianity, while Christianity and Communism have
| identical consequences for the life of a typical citizen.
|
| Communism, Christianity, and also the other monotheist
| religions, are extremely intolerant against the believers
| of any other religion.
|
| Secularism is the opposite, at most you could say that
| secularism is like many polytheistic religions, where it
| was considered normal that everyone believes in their own
| gods and for the other people it does not matter which
| are those gods.
|
| The life of a normal citizen of a communist country was
| very similar, for example, to the life in Italy or Spain
| 600 years ago, when the Church was more powerful. It
| might have actually been worse, because the Communist
| Party might have been more powerful than the Catholic
| Church ever was.
|
| Permanently you had to be very careful with everything
| you said, because if you ever contradicted some dogma
| written in the Holy Communist Scriptures or some
| interpretation given by a High Communist Priest, you
| could be singled out as an heretic and be excommunicated,
| with very bad consequences.
|
| Regarding the Communist dogmas, everything was based on
| "have faith and do not doubt". It was absolutely
| impossible to have any discussion about communism based
| on rational arguments or on experiment results.
|
| Like Christianity, Communism blocked any kind of
| scientific research that could contradict in any way its
| Holy Scriptures. To make progress in any career, you had
| to either be or simulate that you are a true believer and
| you had to display frequently your faith in the Communist
| religion.
|
| It does not matter what words are used by Christianity or
| Communism, wherever any of them succeeded to control the
| state institutions, the consequences were the same for
| the citizens, no freedom of speech and severe
| discrimination between believers and non-believers.
|
| Secularism was precisely the reaction against this,
| having the purpose of allowing the freedom of speech and
| religion.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Not sure whether you intended this or not, but your
| statement could be extended to imply that secular
| societies become destructive ones? Which would be quite a
| stretch - there are many secular stable countries and
| many unstable, highly religious ones as well.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| No, that isn't what my comment says and it's not what I
| intended. Please, read what I actually wrote.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Fair enough.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| Depends on how you define secular. Most secular states are
| simply neutral and promote plurality of culture and
| religion, i.e. allowing choice. The other type of secular
| state is one which is openly hostile to religion.
|
| The US is becoming openly hostile to religion, as many of
| the comments in this thread evidence, which is distinct
| from neutrality. I agree with religious freedom as such,
| with everyone being on equal standing.
|
| If you define secularism as the USSR or China, I would
| disagree with their long term stability, or even with
| liking their regimes.
| tootie wrote:
| How about church membership
| prophesi wrote:
| Funnily enough, one of the most secular countries,
| Sweden, has a 50%+ church membership. But it's an
| anomaly; church membership is still a good litmus test
| for secularity everywhere else.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Sweden, has a 50%+ church membership.
|
| Could it be that in Sweden, you get some sort of tax
| rebate or discounts at supermarkets if you are officially
| registered with some religion?
| meheleventyone wrote:
| If it's anything like Iceland people get auto-registered
| as members. Much better to look at things like church
| attendance rates.
| Arainach wrote:
| The evidence doesn't support your claim. The least
| religious countries are among the most stable and most
| peaceful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_rel
| igion_by_coun...
|
| Their crime and imprisonment rates are far below those of
| the US. Even on an individual level, the presence of non-
| religious individuals is assocated with a series of
| positive societal effects: https://www.researchgate.net/p
| ublication/227616923_Atheism_S...
|
| Religion isn't necessary for public morality, and as
| America has shown, is often actively harmful. America is
| full of people who assume that they are good people
| BECAUSE they go to church rather than because of their
| acts. By and large, these are generally not good people.
| Instead, they're among the most judgmental and least
| helpful members of society.
|
| To paraphrase Gandhi, "I like your Christ, not your
| Christians". The religious in modern society can't even
| be bothered to read the Cliff Notes of their own book,
| otherwise they'd be focused on helping the poor and
| remembering that rich people have trouble getting to
| heaven rather than going around promoting guns, no taxes,
| and slashing social safety nets.
| hkarthik wrote:
| I think the argument could be made that most of the top
| countries you mentioned are linguistically and racially
| homogenous. I don't really have a conclusion on whether
| religion helps or hurts a more racially diverse
| population but just something worth pointing out.
| jmartrican wrote:
| I don't think China is racially homogenous.
| equality_1138 wrote:
| A Gallop poll serves as your evidence for religion's
| impact on stability and peace? This is pie-in-the-sky
| cherry picked data, stylized as a scientific inquiry.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| I am trying to avoid a flaming discussion here but am
| also trying to moderate your comment. I am trying to
| promote guns, no taxes, and slashing social safety nets
| but am also spending much time, talent, treasure on
| helping of those needy. I am disagreeing with state force
| but am also disagreeing with selfishing. I hope that the
| comment here is clarifying your view on the generalised
| population.
| nybble41 wrote:
| Same here. Frankly if the GP's "Cliff Notes" version
| tells them that the Bible says to agitate politically for
| taking away other people's means of self-defense, or for
| seizing other people's property by force to be
| redistributed to the GP's preferred causes, then the GP
| really needs to put down the abridged version and read
| the original. Pacifism and charity are portrayed as
| virtues, to be sure, but it says nothing about forcing
| those virtues on others, and doing so strays about as far
| from the core message as it's possible to get.
| Arainach wrote:
| The Bible's thoughts on self defense, taxation, and even
| "forced charity" aren't obscure - they're well known
| direct quotes.
|
| https://biblehub.com/context/matthew/5-38.htm
|
| https://biblehub.com/mark/12-17.htm
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Jesus teach importance of forgivenes but also realise
| there exist bad people. Luke 22:36 "Then said he unto
| them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and
| likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him
| sell his garment, and buy one."
|
| On tax, Jesus was giving that response to an entraping
| question from Pharisees they asked because He had in past
| criticised of harsh tax policy. Force tithing is not a
| thing of New Testament but old.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > The US is becoming openly hostile to religion
|
| I don't think the US is becoming openly hostile to
| religion.
|
| It is becoming hostile to religion in the public sphere,
| a good thing if there ever was one.
|
| Just like your sexual practices, keep your religion at
| home and please stop bothering other people with it.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| People wonder if they are only temporarily stable, since
| the only subset groups that are reproducing at replacement
| rates are the religious.
| gbrown wrote:
| Religion isn't a genetically inherited.
| DVk6dqsfyx5i3ii wrote:
| There is a decline in Christianity but there is not a decline
| in religion. The religions many preach today are non-theistic
| and secular but they are religions nonetheless and they don't
| tolerate heretics.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > Public morality cannot be maintained without religion
|
| This tired, offensive and a thousand time debunked old trope
| requires imo a little more argumentation than the "it is
| thus" justification you just provided.
|
| I'd recommend reading Hitchens, specifically [1] where he
| addresses that lame claim at length.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Is_Not_Great
|
| [EDIT]: here's a good summary from the man himself:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOHgrnaTxk0
| Alenycus wrote:
| Ive read Hitchens, and I am not impressed.
|
| Subjective morality is ultimately simple preferance and
| ultimately just a battle of wills. I, and most other
| religious people, do not consider such a "moral order" to
| be morality at all.
|
| Objective morality, with a judge above all judges who is
| justice itself, is the only way "justice" and morality mean
| anything at all.
| jfengel wrote:
| As opposed to the actual battles engaged in by the
| various religious groups over morality.
|
| To which I say: have at it. I'll get some popcorn. Too
| bad about all the bystanders. But I'm sure they'll be
| happy knowing that they died in the service of objective
| morality.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| "Objective" morality is a misnomer for religious
| morality, it's just subjective morality ascribed to some
| mythical authority figure (and, even if that figure
| actually exists, for most religions, given the diversity
| of different moral systems ascribed to the divine judge,
| those are clearly misascriptions, largely reflecting the
| personal subjective morality of the people doing the
| ascribing.)
|
| I'm personally religious, but the myth of objectivity is
| a very, very dangerous thing; in masks the ways that man
| creates God in his own image.
| Alenycus wrote:
| I am not claiming to have perfect vision of this order,
| but I am asserting that it exists and we have no choice
| but to sit in it's judgment. We can argue and and discuss
| about the specifics, but when I and other religious
| people are discussing morality, that is what we are
| trying to do. To make our morals and actions more in line
| with the ultimate objective morality.
|
| I do not mean this as a flame, but I honestly do not
| understand why a person who believes in subjective
| morality would even discuss morality at all. If all
| morality is simply in the eye of the beholder, moral
| progress is impossible and it is not possible for one
| view to be superior to another.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Hitchens' knowledge of religion and philosophy borders on
| 0%. I would not reference him in any way if you intend to
| make serious arguments.
| ur-whale wrote:
| >Hitchens' knowledge of religion and philosophy borders
| on 0%
|
| A rather bold claim, backed by little evidence and easily
| debunked by a metric ton of counter-evidence.
|
| As example of counter-evidence, I offer:
| - The man spent a large fraction of his life studying
| religions of all ilks - He wrote a number of
| carefully researched books on the topic of religion.
| - From his quoting the bible, the coran, jewish sacred
| texts on the fly in the middle of debates with random
| religious folks (and usually tearing them a new one in
| the process), I feel confident he had at least skimmed
| most of those. - No one can accuse Hitchens
| of being dumb, I very much doubt he'd get into high
| visibility, in-depth public debate about a topic without
| having researched it thoroughly.
|
| Given the above, I would say the claim that "his
| knowledge of religion borders on 0%" is - to remain
| unsarcastic, however hard that is - highly unlikely to be
| correct.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Anyone with a modicum of knowledge on religious studies
| finds his, and all of the other books by the "New
| Atheists" (with the possible exception of Dennett) to be
| laughable. I'm sorry, they simply don't have much of an
| intellectual foundation in anything.
|
| Here's an example:
|
| _Chapter eleven discusses how religions form, and claims
| that most religions are founded by corrupt, immoral
| individuals. The chapter specifically discusses cargo
| cults, Pentecostal minister Marjoe Gortner, and
| Mormonism. Hitchens discusses Joseph Smith, the founder
| of Mormonism, citing a March 1826 Bainbridge, New York
| court examination accusing him of being a "disorderly
| person and impostor" who Hitchens claims admitted there
| that he had supernatural powers and was "defrauding
| citizens".[31][32] Four years later Smith claimed to
| obtain gold tablets containing the Book of Mormon. When
| the neighbor's skeptical wife buried 116 pages of the
| translation and challenged Smith to reproduce it, Smith
| claimed God, knowing this would happen, told him to
| instead translate a different section of the same
| plates._
|
| And where does our concept of corruption or immorality
| come from? Hitchens just lacks basic knowledge of meta-
| ethics. He doesn't seem to realize that modern democratic
| rationalist values are themselves descendants of
| Christian ideas.
|
| This is the foundational problem of the New Atheists and
| of the "rational" set in general. They either don't know
| or don't understand the foundations of modern ethics,
| _all_ of which has roots in religion.
| ur-whale wrote:
| This is the second 100% dogmatic and not backed by any
| argument answer you provided.
|
| This is not really surprising coming from a religious
| person, dogma being after all the intellectual foundation
| of religion.
|
| But I wonder: is there anything else you could use in
| your discourse toolbox?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| > This is not really surprising coming from a religious
| person, dogma being after all the intellectual foundation
| of religion.
|
| First off, I'm not religious. Second off, this kind of
| personal attack is not welcome here.
|
| As I already said, _every_ scholar of religious studies
| finds the books by Hitchens, Dawkins, etc. to be amusing
| at best. I can 't educate you on the academic study of
| religion in a HN comment. If you are actually interested
| in reading criticism of such people and not just bashing
| non-atheistic people, I suggest looking into comparative
| religion and religious studies.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > his kind of personal attack is not welcome here.
|
| This is not a personal attack.
|
| You stated facts without backing them up. Twice. This is
| being dogmatic. My apologies for assuming you were
| religious given the fact you're defending religion, it
| was a fairly reasonable assumption to make
|
| > As I already said, every scholar of religious studies
|
| You are now moving from being dogmatic to using "appeal
| to authority" [1], another well known logical fallacy [2]
|
| I'm still waiting for a properly argumented backing of
| the various statements you made above.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=appeal+t
| o+autho...
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| > This is not a personal attack.
|
| Yes, it is, and again, it's not welcome here.
|
| Read the criticism section of the Wikipedia article you
| posted yourself. There are more than enough intelligent
| criticisms written of the book.
|
| If you think that my not writing you a lengthy essay
| explaining _why_ Hitchens is uninformed is somehow
| indicative that he isn 't, I'm not sure what to tell you.
| Religion is a complicated topic. Pretending that we can
| solve it in a paragraph is naive at best.
|
| As I already said, if this interests you, read more about
| religious studies. I am simply saying that "the educated
| opinion on this topic is that Hitchens is just a popular
| writer, not a serious thinker on religion." If you
| disagree with that, well, take it up with the academic
| community?
| ur-whale wrote:
| > If you think that my not writing you a lengthy essay
| explaining why Hitchens is uninformed is somehow
| indicative that he isn't, I'm not sure what to tell you.
|
| I'm simply saying that since the beginning of this
| conversation, you're stating facts without providing a
| shred of evidence, other than "go educate yourself on the
| subject".
|
| This is how conversations usually go in my experience:
| when you state a fact, you back them up by - at least - a
| modicum of evidence instead of dropping them as self-
| evident and walking away.
|
| But given your last answer, one thing you definitely
| cannot be accused of is lack of consistency.
| jeffwass wrote:
| Emo Philips has another joke which I think was voted somewhere
| as funniest joke ever, and is a great take on western religion
| :
|
| "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle.
| Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole
| one and asked Him to forgive me."
| nikolay wrote:
| It's weird how many Americans are completely unaware of the
| second largest branch of Christianity (or better call it "the
| trunk" and everything else - "a branch") - the Eastern Orthodox
| Church, which is the original Christianity without a pope,
| indulgences, inquisition, and other things, which have nothing
| to do with the early Christianity.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Prior to the East-West Schism, and from the beginnings of
| organized Christianity, the entities which became the Eastern
| Orthodox Churches after the schism had the same Pope, with a
| somewhat different role, as Western Christianity.
|
| Some of them also have had things not unlike the inquisition,
| though they don't call it that.
|
| And, of course, outside of the Eastern Orthodox and maybe the
| "Old Catholics", even those Christians who disagree with the
| Roman Catholic position don't see the Eastern Orthodox as
| having a particular claim to original Christianity.
|
| EDIT: for example, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the
| Church of the East are, in their current form, older than the
| Eastern Orthodox, and from their perspective the branch
| containing both sides of the 1054 Schism is a divergence from
| "original Christianity" in the same way that Western
| Christianity is viewed by the Eastern Orthodox.,,
| today20201014 wrote:
| I can understand the belief that Eastern Orthodoxy is more of
| a "trunk" than more recent "branches", but what about core
| ideas that predate Jesus? e.g. the immortality of the soul
| was reasoned by Plato (Republic, circa 350BC); heaven and
| hell have been portrayed by Virgil (Aeneid, circa 19BC).
| Aren't these the "trunk", and the Hebrew Bible and Jesus
| another branch?
| nikolay wrote:
| Trees have roots, too.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Yes, also Christians in the US are mostly Protestants, which
| purposely moved away from the things you mentioned.
| Breza wrote:
| I'm a Lutheran and I've studied the works of Luther. When I
| learned about the Orthodox church as an adult, I really
| liked what I saw. If Luther had been an Orthodox priest, I
| wonder if he would have launched his gentle rebellion (and,
| later, his not-so-gentle rebellion).
| commandlinefan wrote:
| So it's like the relationship between modern agile
| methodologies and the original agile manifesto then?
| nikolay wrote:
| No, it's more immutable vs mutable... or accepting messages
| with bad public key signatures.
| RhodoGSA wrote:
| Rarely does anyone ever ask my religion but when people do i
| tell them Hellenism (Belief in the greek gods). People often
| give me a quizzical look - but when you study the 'religion'
| you find interesting beliefs that help you in modern day.
|
| For instance, claiming you don't have 100% complete faith in
| the myths and gods wasn't a heretic offense. Everyone respected
| the fact that the stories were arch-types that displayed
| courage, anger, revenge, ect.
|
| Also, if someone else came up to you from Egypt and believed in
| an entirely different pantheon you respected their opinion and
| could see similarities in your own religion.
|
| Christianity from the very early days (The skims' under
| Constantine) was a very absolute one. There was a right and
| wrong. There was only one god and you are wrong and a heretic
| for believing in another.
|
| That's why Hellenism works so well for me. I do not claim to be
| a moral precept but i do offer you this; A peace treaty. You
| can believe what you want to believe as long as you respect my
| own moral reasoning. In the grand scheme of things as long as
| there is no direct harm to you for my actions you must accept
| and respect them but i do not have to bow to them. It cannot be
| a suicidal pact, meaning if i do not believe in YOUR GOD, slip
| up and don't call you a 'They' or say somethings 'Gay'.
|
| I truly believe one of the biggest problems with current
| society is everyone believes they are a moral precept and have
| all the answers. Love your neighbor.
| jfengel wrote:
| Note that they understood the myths to be archetypes, but
| outright atheism was a charge punishable by death. That's
| what they got Socrates on.
|
| Also note that they were pretty limited in their tolerance.
| If people got pissed at you, they wrote your name on a piece
| of pottery (ostrakon). If enough names were gathered, you
| were banished -- the root of the word "ostracized".
|
| On the upside, they were very tolerant of transgender and
| intersex individuals. Note in particular the case of
| Callo/Callon, who changed their sex and pronouns.
| simonh wrote:
| >Also, if someone else came up to you from Egypt and believed
| in an entirely different pantheon you respected their opinion
| and could see similarities in your own religion.
|
| More than that, they believed each others gods were cultural
| representations of the same actual gods. After all there is
| only one sky. It doesn't make any sense to think that our sky
| god is different from their sky god, or our sun god is
| different from their sun god, though being gods they can
| manifest in different forms.
|
| But then it's shocking how many people seem to think that
| Christians, Jews and Muslims worship different gods. There's
| only one god of Abraham, which arguably Hindus call Brahman.
| They're all just names and stories, there's only one
| reality*.
|
| * citation needed
| krapp wrote:
| >More than that, they believed each others gods were
| cultural representations of the same actual gods.
|
| Ironically, Christianity kind of did the same thing, rather
| believing everyone else's gods were just demons or
| sorcerers in league with Satan. In further irony, this led
| to a lot of syncretism of pagan beliefs and rituals into
| Christianity.
| birken wrote:
| I'm certainly not a religious expert, but from my
| understanding Christianity's main innovations were not
| monotheism or absolute morality. Those concepts had been
| around for a very long time and Christianity adopted those
| ideas that from others and then added their own innovations
| on top of that.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Magical thinking will never die. Just look at Qanon, health and
| wellness, and Ruby vs. Python.
| yalogin wrote:
| Looks like I am the only person surprised that the membership is
| this high, even more so that it was in the 70% range just 20yrs
| ago.
|
| I admit my guess is based on my interactions but I was expecting
| it to be in the 20-30% range.
| timbit42 wrote:
| If you are thinking of Christianity, this poll included Judaism
| and Islam. Christianity's numbers are around 33%.
| e_commerce wrote:
| "Official" church membership way down, membership at new
| dangerous religions like BLM and Wokeness way, way up!
| eruci wrote:
| Maybe people are leaving church because they have started asking
| questions.
|
| Not the kind of questions religion 'asks', which are answers in
| disguise.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Not all religions and churches are declining. Islam is the
| fastest growing religion in the world[1].
|
| In Europe is growing especially fast if compared to local
| demographics. Cyprus is 25% Muslim. France nearly 10%[2].
|
| 1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/06/why-
| muslims...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Europe
| galangalalgol wrote:
| The notion that people have suddenly become smarter or more
| objective or more rational has been blasted tume and time
| again, both by uncovering new past instances of rationality and
| by new blunders reminding us that it is our reason that evolved
| to serve our intincts, and thinking our reason is actually in
| charge is thus delusional. When people's physical needs are
| being met well, they become less religious. Look at relgious
| growth in undeveloped countries as an example. Those people
| aren't less intelligent than us, and if we point to education,
| we have data indicating our quality of education is decreasing
| while religious affiliation falls as well. Even with physical
| needs being met, people have certain needs that religons were
| meeting. We should be careful what part of aociety picks up
| meeting those needs. Politics? Yikes we know what happens when
| the passion and absolute certainty of religion gets infused
| into politics, we are seeing it now. Science? Belief harms
| science, science requires skepticism even of our best axioms to
| avoid dogma. Don't drown people who ask questions your theory
| can't answer. If we dont find a safe outlet for those residual
| needs, we are better off keeping religion around to fill them
| without giving it any temporal power.
| eruci wrote:
| Maybe.
| listless wrote:
| If they threw in the religion of "Anti-Racism", I'm guessing it's
| closer to 100.
|
| Human beings seem to need religion. If we find ourselves in a
| void, we just create new ones.
|
| https://www.persuasion.community/p/john-mcwhorter-the-neorac...
| pengaru wrote:
| Maybe if they'd stop molesting children and protecting the
| molesters when it happens they'd have more members.
|
| At this point if you're a member you're arguably complicit in
| some sick organization facilitating child abuse.
|
| Good Riddance.
| currymj wrote:
| Fanny Holmes (wife of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.) once said, when
| asked why she belonged to the Unitarian Church,
|
| "In Boston one has to be something, and Unitarian is the least
| you can be."
|
| Unitarianism by the 20th century didn't have any dogma, even
| atheists and agnostics could be members, and accepted that all
| religious traditions had spiritual wisdom to offer. But because
| it had evolved from Christianity it had institutional legitimacy,
| in a world where church membership was a social requirement.
|
| People's beliefs might have changed less than we think over time,
| despite the common perception that nearly everyone in the US was
| hyper-religious until the last few decades.
|
| There might be other factors around the decline in church
| membership -- perhaps related to the decline in participation in
| secular community groups as well.
| cwwc wrote:
| Superb point. To quote Holmes, 'Most people are willing to take
| the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will
| use it as a rudder by which to steer.'
| drewg123 wrote:
| My great Aunt who is 95 belongs to a UU church, and remembers
| when the Universalists merged with the Unitarians. She says
| "The Universalist brought too much God stuff into church and
| wrecked it"
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Living in Massachusetts, what I've found is that the UU still
| requires a strict adherence to very left-leaning politics.
|
| The dogma shifted from a religious dogma to a political one.
|
| For example: https://barnstableuu.org/about/history.html
|
| > In the early 19th century there was considerable theological
| debate in the "churches of the standing order" in New England.
| Many churches actually split over this debate, the
| traditionalists becoming Congregationalists and the liberals
| becoming Unitarians.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Late 30s here who was dragged to church by parents and
| grandparents but who isn't exposing our kids to religion.
|
| It's pretty straightforward for us: you don't need fairy tales to
| be a good person and to come to terms with death (which comes for
| everyone). "Be happy, be kind." If others choose to observe,
| that's their choice.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| On the other hand, we are a people of stories. Stories help to
| explain abstract concepts and elucidate our values. Everyone
| has a belief system, even if they are unaware of it.
| ScaredOfDying wrote:
| Do you have any advice/resources for coming to terms with death
| as a non-believer?
|
| I've had existential dread for as long as I remember, but it's
| gotten far worse as I've slowly lost what faith I had over the
| years.
|
| There's a certain irony in being so scared of death that it
| ruins your life.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| "Man is like a dog tied to a moving wagon. If the dog refuses
| to run along with the wagon he will be dragged by it, yet the
| choice remains his: to run or be dragged."
|
| We're all default dead in the long run, make the most of what
| time you have with whatever brings you joy and happiness.
| Choose to run.
| baryphonic wrote:
| What is a "good person?" And do you really think people who
| believe in God are just listening to "fairy tails (sic)" so
| they can be face the reality of death? Is that really the best
| portrayal of Christians you can come up with?
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| Not OP, but yes, I think that any consumer of organized
| religion is doing it because fairy tales are easier than life
| and death is scary. That is all it really is, right?
| KMag wrote:
| Not all religions posit an afterlife.
|
| Though, I guess a meaningless death is scarier than death,
| and nearly all religions are attempts to form meaning in
| life when there's no empirically obvious meaning.
| kylebyproxy wrote:
| IMO, that's the most insidious aspect of organized
| religion. Rather than acknowledging death as an engineering
| problem to be solved and overcome, it teaches people to
| embrace death and conditions followers to not even consider
| fighting back.
| spaced-out wrote:
| Exactly this. Humanity is reaching the point where we can
| truly transcend our biological limitations, yet many
| follow ideologies that tell them to not even consider
| this, and instead put their faith in some sort of magical
| after-death utopia obviously born our of generations of
| wishful thinking.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Christians base their belief system on a collection of
| stories from 2000+ years ago and the idea of a deity and
| other planes of existence (edit: "Heaven" and "Hell") of
| which no proof exists. Please correct me if any of the above
| is inaccurate.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| That was the premise that an investigative journalist had
| in mind when he started an investigation to demonstrate
| precisely what you said to the rest of the world. Rather
| than starting with his assumptions and arguing against a
| strawman, he went to verify every fact he could and went to
| talk to experts. Instead of proving Christianity is a sham,
| he ended up converting to Christianity and writing a book
| about it: https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-
| Personal-Inve... .
|
| TL;DR: Christians wouldn't say that we base our beliefs on
| a collection of stories. We base our beliefs in the
| historical fact of the Resurrection. Perhaps we'll find out
| we're wrong some day, but having considered the best
| evidence we have (and the book I linked to walks through
| why that evidence is compelling), Christianity is a
| reasonable position to hold.
| baryphonic wrote:
| We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was born
| as a human despite being divine; ministered to people he
| encountered, performed many signs, taught profound moral
| truths (e.g. through parables, small debates with the
| leaders of the time, or even breaking up angry lynch mobs),
| and then became a scapegoat who suffered, died, was buried
| and came back.
|
| Everything else follows from that, at least in
| Christianity.
|
| I suppose I believe in "other planes of existence" (is this
| supposed to be Heaven and Hell or something?), but those
| are contingent upon the truth of Jesus' suffering, death
| and resurrection. I guess I'd say I think we already exist
| in another "plane" which is immaterial and inaccessible in
| this life, but is nonetheless real.
|
| I suppose I also "believe in a deity," but not with the
| connotations you seem to be suggesting. God is not some
| component of existence or reality or the universe,
| independent of other things; He is the only source of what
| it means to exist. I would say I don't even believe that
| God exists, but that He is below or outside of existence,
| as He caused everything else to exist that exists. If
| someone believes in God as a sort of Santa Claus or Jinn
| granting wishes, then no, I don't believe in that kind of
| "deity" either. That's just silly nonsense.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > We base our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus, who was
| born as a human despite being divine
|
| The teachings of Jesus _are_ a collection of stories from
| ~2000 years ago. That Jesus is /was divine is something
| which there is very little evidence for. But even if he
| was, his teaching are a collection of stories from 2000
| years ago.
| nonotreally wrote:
| I think you've conceded too much ground here.
|
| There is _no_ evidence for the divinity of Jesus. These
| are simply stories from ~2000 years ago.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I feel like the Bible constitutes some kind of evidence
| for the divinity of Jesus. _Weak_ evidence for sure. But
| evidence none the less. As I see it, even "Jimmy down
| the bar told me..." constitutes evidence of some kind.
| nonotreally wrote:
| Isn't that just anecdote?
| gumby wrote:
| There is no evidence the guy existed, either. They are
| most likely just stories meant to motivate a movement --
| nothing wrong with that in principle. Especially given
| that a lot of the message is "be kind".
| baryphonic wrote:
| If you really believe that there's _no_ evidence Jesus
| the man existed, then I wonder what you would consider
| evidence of any ancient person existing, or even evidence
| of any fact in general. The evidence does exist, and it
| is in fact convincing evidence, at least of historicity
| (even the Gospels are evidence, though several
| extrabiblical sources mention the historical Jesus as
| well, including ones opposed to Christianity like
| Josephus). IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly
| strong, too, but can only be resolved as a matter of
| faith and not solely empiricism.
|
| Also, Jesus said quite a bit more, and quite a bit more
| often than "be kind," though admittedly that's sort of
| the Therapeutic Moral Deism version spewed out popularly
| and in a lot of churches today.
|
| I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity living
| in harmony with one another, but that this requires
| living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty terrible
| when we try to lean on our own understanding.
| gumby wrote:
| > then I wonder what you would consider evidence of any
| ancient person existing, or even evidence of any fact in
| general.
|
| Without opening up a broader epistemic discussion: the
| question of the existence of specific people is quite a
| reasonable question. Because Socrates rejected writing,
| there is some question as to whether he really existed or
| was a rhetorical invention of his student plato. On the
| other hand, say, Sophocles is described by various
| contemporaneous sources. Caesar, Augustus and Marc Antony
| pretty definitely existed -- there is a lot of surviving
| contemporaneous evidence.
|
| On the other hand the existence of a much more recent
| figure, Shakespeare, as the author of a body of work is
| still hotly debated in some circles (there is evidence
| that someone by his name was alive at the same time, but
| was that the person in question?)
|
| There are no contemporaneous accounts of the life or
| death of Jesus; even Josephus whom you mention was born
| after the events described in the gospels.
|
| > I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity
| living in harmony with one another, but that this
| requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty
| terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.
|
| That's a particular stance that requires judging terrible
| people who claim to have religious backing to have not
| been in alignment with a god. Both sides in a war claim
| divine support, after all. It's quite possible to live in
| harmony without any gods.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > IMO, the evidence of divinity is fairly strong, too,
| but can only be resolved as a matter of faith and not
| solely empiricism
|
| If the evidence of Jesus's divinity isn't empirical
| evidence, then what sort of evidence is it? I've always
| thought of faith as meaning "belief despite the lack of
| evidence".
|
| > I'd agree that Jesus' ultimate vision is humanity
| living in harmony with one another, but that this
| requires living in harmony with God, too. We're pretty
| terrible when we try to lean on our own understanding.
|
| In general people seem to be pretty terrible if they lean
| on religious understanding too. I don't see much evidence
| that religious people are more moral than others.
| Personally I'm a big fan of Jesus's vision of living in
| harmony with one another, but I don't see why this needs
| to have anything to do with a god.
| Galaxeblaffer wrote:
| I'd go as far as Jesus being a collection of stories
| himself along with his teachings. There's no good
| evidence he even existed. None of the authors of the
| bible was even alive when Jesus supposedly lived. The
| youngest of the authors(cant remember which one) was born
| a couple of years AFTER Jesus supposedly was killed. Not
| even 1 text from any historian at the time has any
| mention of Jesus Christ.
| baryphonic wrote:
| Beyond the narratives in the gospels, Jesus the man is
| attested to in several extrabiblical sources. See, for
| example, Eusebius and Josephus. We have more evidence
| that the historical Jesus was real than, say, Cicero. And
| of course the gospels themselves and the existence of the
| apostles (also real) who almost all went to their deaths
| proclaiming that this Jesus guy was real are in fact
| evidence that He was.
|
| Very, very few serious Bible scholars, even the atheist
| "textual criticism" ones, deny that the man Jesus of
| Nazareth existed. And almost all of them will acknowledge
| that, for example, the creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3 dates
| to within a few years (possibly months) of Jesus death.
| The denial of the historical Jesus is more a meme in New
| Atheist Internet forums, rather than a serious
| examination. It's about as serious as Ancient Aliens.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > If someone believes in God as a sort of Santa Claus or
| Jinn granting wishes, then no, I don't believe in that
| kind of "deity" either. That's just silly nonsense.
|
| Isn't that a teaching of Jesus?
|
| > 9 "Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give
| him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a
| snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to
| give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
| Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
| (Matthew 7:9-11)
|
| > He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I
| tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed,
| you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,'
| and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
| (Matthew 17:20)
|
| So why don't you believe in that?
|
| I'm an atheist and can certainly see why it'd be silly to
| think that if you just pray hard enough god will grant
| your desire, but that's what the bible teaches.
| Otherwise, what's even the point of prayer?
|
| And before you say "Oh, it was metaphorical" I'd point
| out the Lord's prayer where Jesus specifically prays for
| food. (Give us this day our daily bread). What is more
| good than for god to give a starving person food? Yet
| plenty of Christians starve, is it because they didn't
| believe enough?
| baryphonic wrote:
| If God is the source of all that exists, then wouldn't He
| be the source of "daily bread"? This doesn't imply that
| the bread magically appears (though admittedly the OT has
| manna in the desert), nor does it mean that sustenance
| doesn't derive from human labor. All it implies is that
| God is all-powerful, the creator of everything, and this
| is a request that He look after our material as well as
| spiritual well-being.
|
| Also, I won't concede that things in the Bible are not
| often rhetorical or metaphorical when they in fact are.
| The Gospels themselves are full of the disciples having
| no friggin clue what Jesus is talking about, and asking
| him to "speak plainly." I think for maybe a child who can
| only interpret things literally, the concept of God as
| wish-granter might make sense.
|
| Also, your own citation conditions the grant on "good"
| gifts. What are good gifts in God's eyes?
|
| Ultimately, this is a matter of faith whether you believe
| this or not. But I only ask that you reconsider your
| juvenile straw-man of what we believe.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > though admittedly the OT has manna in the desert
|
| Didn't Jesus split the loaves and the fish to feed
| thousands? Didn't Jesus turn water into wine? Or were
| those also metaphors? Why was manna in the desert literal
| while Jesus miracles metaphors?
|
| The only reason you are saying "Oh, those were just
| metaphors" is because believing them literally is crazy.
| You have to insert meaning into Jesus's words because
| otherwise what he's told you is obviously false (and
| Jesus can't say something false, right?).
|
| And yet the bible is filled with miracles both in the old
| and new testament. Miracles that directly contradict the
| notion that "Oh, they were speaking metaphorically when
| they said god would do miracles!"
|
| Ultimately, this is a matter of reality whether you
| accept it or not. I only ask that you reconsider your
| juvenile beliefs.
| baryphonic wrote:
| You're misunderstanding me. I believe God did, can and
| still does perform miraculous signs. That was never at
| issue.
|
| I said that the simplistic Jinn-granting-wishes
| interpretation of God is silly and is not what I believe.
|
| There is no actual contradiction.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Do you believe god performs miracles based on prayer?
|
| If you do, that's a "Jinn-granting-wishes interpretation
| of God". If you don't, why don't you? Given the scripture
| references I gave you (and there are plenty of others),
| NT and OT are all about performing magic based on spell
| casters saying the right magic words the right way.
|
| Of course, in modern times there are plenty of examples
| of failed Jutsus. (Not enough faith! Not in God's plan!)
| And I'd contend that all the examples of successful spell
| incantations are no more convincing than a wiccan's
| spells. The success rate of Buddhism has curing cancer
| will exactly mirror the success rate of Christianity or
| the Roman parathion interfering with humanity.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You have to insert meaning into Jesus's words because
| otherwise what he's told you is obviously false
|
| Jesus didn't describe the miracle of the loaves and
| fishes, he was described as having performed it. Even if
| one accepts the traditional authorship of the Gospels
| (which even modern Christian scholarship doesn't
| consistently), Christ isn't the traditional author, just
| the subject (a small percentage of each of the Gospels is
| words attributed by the author of the gospel _to_ Christ,
| but that 's not the description of any miracles, though
| it's often the takeaway message associated with a
| described miracle.)
|
| > And yet the bible is filled with miracles both in the
| old and new testament. Miracles that directly contradict
| the notion that "Oh, they were speaking metaphorically
| when they said god would do miracles!"
|
| This is really only a contradiction if you assume that
| nothing in Bible can itself be metaphorical.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Biblical authorship is a huge issue all unto itself.
| Particularly if you are someone that believes the new
| testament is the word of god. The only sources we have
| were written 90+ years after the events they describes.
| It's very likely that Jesus said and did nothing written
| in the bible. Hell, it's even possible he did not exist
| as a person (Though, I tend to believe he did, I don't
| think Christianity would have formed without Jesus
| existing).
|
| > This is really only a contradiction if you assume that
| nothing in Bible can itself be metaphorical.
|
| Christianity has this interesting trick where their
| sacred texts are metaphorical whenever they say something
| they don't like or impossible. What good is the bible if
| it's all metaphors yet nobody agrees on which parts are
| metaphors?
| unknown_apostle wrote:
| The elders used this logic to mock Christ suffering on
| the cross for many hours: "He trusted in God; let him
| deliver him now".
|
| And yes, Christ told us to ask for the things we need,
| including material things.
|
| Other reasons for prayer: thanking God; glorifying God;
| offering things to God, like our happiness or our good
| works but also our misery and our flaws. Contemplation;
| meditation; or just being silent and inviting Him to do
| the talking.
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Sounds accurate, from a super high level, except for the
| "other planes of existence" part. I'd need to dig into that
| with you to understand more.
| [deleted]
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| What counts as evidence?
|
| Some of the Catholic miracles sure seem pretty solid to me
| in terms of conveying God's will to us.
|
| Like the one in Fatima, which was witnessed by thousands of
| people:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun
| elteto wrote:
| So we should accept the 2000 year old book based on a
| miracle from 1917?
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| In terms of evidence occuring in modern times, I think
| the various miracles in the 20th century are strong
| candidates.
|
| One might also look into the testimonies of various
| exorcists in modern times for evidence that the
| supernatural exists:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhhi7Fk3ueI
|
| We also have stigmata, such as those received by Padre
| Pio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padre_Pio
|
| Just trying to offer a few more things that count as
| evidence from modern times.
| vidarh wrote:
| Thousands of people producing wildly inconsistent
| stories, including many who reported not seeing anything
| at all, and a wide range of photographers who all failed
| to get a picture of the purported "miracle".
|
| Get a bunch of people convinced they'll see a miracle and
| make them stare at the sun, and sure, you'll be able to
| get a lot of people saying they've seen a lot of things.
| nonotreally wrote:
| Every single miracle we have investigated seriously has
| been proven to be perfectly normal.
|
| As an example:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/23/india-
| blasphem...
|
| Just because something is unexplained _currently_ does
| not give any weight to the idea that it was a miracle.
|
| Millions of people saw David Copperfield vanish the
| Statue of Liberty as well... But I certainly wouldn't be
| tempted to pretend he _actually made it vanish_
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823GNH4Rczg
|
| We don't have a _single_ example where the opposite has
| been true.
| unknown_apostle wrote:
| When you use that word "we", are you also speaking for
| me?
| nonotreally wrote:
| _Humanity_ doesn 't have a single example where the
| opposite has been true.
|
| Yes. I am speaking for all of humanity here.
|
| _I welcome evidence to the contrary._
|
| But that is kind of the point...
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/05/fatima-and-the-
| atheis...
|
| _The miracle was also seen by sailors on a British ship
| off the coast of Portugal. Foley recounts an experience
| in England. He gave a presentation on Fatima at a college
| in England and was told by one of the teachers that her
| grandfather saw the miracle from his ship and wrote about
| it to his wife -- "without obviously understanding what
| it meant or its significance."_
|
| _And finally, what most convincingly shows that the
| miracle was not only in the minds and perception of the
| witnesses is the fact that the crowd at Fatima felt the
| heat of the sun as it approached them, and their clothes
| and the ground -- which had been soaked by torrential
| rain -- were dry at the end of the miracle._
|
| How does one claim this is just some optical mirage?
| vidarh wrote:
| One doesn't. At least not _only_ an optical illusion.
| There is no consistent set of reports. Given that the
| reports are all wildly inconsistent and contradictory,
| and many reported seeing and feeling nothing at all, it
| 's clear the reports can not be be taken at face value.
| nonotreally wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| In addition, the default shouldn't be "therefore
| miracle".
|
| The default assumption should be "humans are easy to
| trick".
|
| My claim here, is that if we put our brightest minds on
| this, they will come back with a terrifically mundane
| explanation for it. In the same way that weeping statues
| are _always_ just water from a pipe somewhere.
| hajile wrote:
| The incompleteness theorem proves unequivocally that our
| formulations that describe the universe are either
| incomplete (aka wrong) or cannot be proven correct. The
| question of planes of existence or deities sits at least on
| equal footing.
|
| The most fundamental question is where everything came
| from. Even the Big Bang theory requires starting materials.
| The more generic -1 + 1 = 0 is neither useful nor has any
| mechanism for initialization.
|
| Is little wonder that so many scientists tend toward
| simulationism. This is just god(s) with different trappings
| where unprovable metaphysics are studied through modern
| math and curves instead of ancient math and geometry.
|
| It seems observational true that humans have an innate
| desire for god that is not seen in other species.
|
| As a final note, the Bible teaches a final end of the
| wicked along with the final destruction of Satan along with
| the wicked (this was the proclamation at the beginning of
| the Bible telling them that if they sinned, they would
| cease to exist, through the major prophets like Isaiah's
| woes against "the king of Tyre" to the New Testament
| talking of a final destruction of the wicked. The current
| tales of hell entered into Christian theology in the 3-400s
| when the mainstream denomination mixed in ideas from the
| pagan Roman religion. For this reason, you won't find
| eternal torment for a few years of sin anywhere in the
| Bible.
|
| Likewise, Heaven is simply the place where God resides
| (being called New Jerusalem). It is told that the city will
| descend to earth after judgment is complete. People don't
| go to Heaven after death as some other plane of existence
| in the Biblical text. Instead, we see the archangel
| contending with Satan to raise Moses from the dead.
| Likewise, we see people raised from the dead when Jesus is
| raised. This would be unnecessary if they were already in
| Heaven. In fact, the whole Second Coming would be
| unnecessary if that were what was actually taught. Once
| again we see this idea entering from the same pagan sources
| at the same time.
|
| Putting aside whatever people have told you and reading the
| book yourself, you'll find something much different than
| the interpretations and sophistries people layer on top.
| This remains true whether you read as a believer or a non-
| believer (myself having experienced both at different times
| in my life).
| cogman10 wrote:
| > What is a "good person?"
|
| I know why you are asking this, but honestly it's a silly
| question.
|
| Most humans have empathy. Most humans know "things and people
| that hurt others are bad. Humans helping others are good".
| For the few that don't, we've got legal codes built on the
| same principles.
|
| The bible has very little morality in it that's "good" and a
| lot of really questionable moral statements. For example,
| beating slaves is OK so long as they recover in a day or 2
| (Exodus 21:20-21). These questionable moral passages have
| been used to make a lot of good people, bad people. From
| justifying slavery, anti-"race mixing", anti LGBT+ rights,
| etc. So why hold it up as a good moral code? Because Jesus
| said "love one another"? He also said "No, I have come to
| divide people against each other! 52 From now on families
| will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against--
| or two in favor and three against." (Luke 12:49-56)
|
| > And do you really think people who believe in God are just
| listening to "fairy tails (sic)" so they can be face the
| reality of death?
|
| That's a large part of it. Most believe in god because their
| parents taught them to believe in god. They continue to
| believe in god usually because of the fear of what happens if
| that world view is challenged or changed. A lot take
| "Pascal's Wager" very seriously, the believe because "If I'm
| wrong, I'll go to hell". Many believe because they are
| constantly reinforcing that belief, they surround themselves
| with others that believe.
|
| Unless you are a fundamentalist, you'll look at the bible and
| see it's mostly a bunch of impossible tales. Most people
| don't seriously believe that god decided to kill the
| population of the world in a great flood because they broke
| his rules, they try and make it an allegory (or fairy tale).
|
| So, stripe out all the tales that are allegories and what are
| you left with?
|
| > Is that really the best portrayal of Christians you can
| come up with?
|
| It's a pretty charitable portrayal. A less than charitable
| one is one that sees them as trying to force everyone into
| christian law. It's watching as they constantly push hate
| filled rhetoric into the public space because "The bibles
| says this is a sin". A less than charitable view of
| Christianity is one that sees all the megachurch pastors
| preaching a prosperity gospel to bilk old women out of their
| retirement savings. Those of us outside of religion see the
| most popular religions as cons draining capital while
| providing little in return other than "feel good"s. For all
| the good you can point that a religion might do, the most
| successful religions have multimillion dollar buildings,
| large salaries for their preachers, and starving
| parishioners.
|
| You opened asking what is a "good person". I'd say a good
| person is one that doesn't take money from the poor and give
| nothing in return. Most christian churches can't be called
| "good".
| hajile wrote:
| > Exodus 21:16 KJV And he that stealeth a man, and selleth
| him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put
| to death.
|
| The only lawful way to enter slavery was debt. Jews were
| freed in seven years and non-Jews in at most 40 years. This
| would actually be indentured servitude. Barbaric by today's
| standards, but eminently humane by all other standards
| until the last 100 years or so.
|
| > Exodus 21:20-21 KJVS [20] And if a man smite his servant,
| or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he
| shall be surely punished. [21] Notwithstanding, if he
| continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is
| his money.
|
| The punishment implied here is death (an eye for an eye).
|
| Someone owes you a ton of money. How do you get it from
| them? Today, large scale professional lenders spread out
| risk, but that wasn't always the case. Instead,
| historically, not paying meant selling them into slavery to
| recoup what loss you could. Now, how do you ensure you get
| your money through their labor?
|
| The logic follows. Likewise, if killing your slave risks
| your own death, it's not something you'll take lightly. If
| you did give out such a beating, you'll be praying they
| pull through and are likely to never do it again. This
| falls into a similar category:
|
| > Exodus 21:18-19 KJVS [18] And if men strive together, and
| one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he
| die not, but keepeth his bed: [19] If he rise again, and
| walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be
| quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall
| cause him to be thoroughly healed.
|
| In fact, I don't think there was a penalty if the slave
| fought back against such a beating.
|
| Even so much as knocking out a tooth was reason to be
| forced to free your slave.
|
| > Exodus 21:26-27 KJVS [26] And if a man smite the eye of
| his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he
| shall let him go free for his eye's sake. [27] And if he
| smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's
| tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.
|
| Once again, such severe restrictions did not exist anywhere
| else in all known history. Jesus said that some
| restrictions (he directly referenced divorce) were less
| that God really desired because of humanity's stubbornness.
| Divinely inspired or not, they were still revolutionary in
| their morality.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > Divinely inspired or not, they were still revolutionary
| in their morality.
|
| That's not a game you can play with an all knowing all
| powerful arbitrator of absolute truth.
|
| It would have been so easy for god to say "Hey, slavery
| is absolutely wrong and immoral and I don't condone it".
| So why didn't god? Why didn't god speak out against rape
| (instead putting a price tag on it and selling the woman
| to the rapist)? Why did god command genocide? Why did god
| kill millions? Why didn't god give basic health and
| hygiene advice? "boil water before drinking it to avoid
| death"? Why did god mark animals as "unclean" rather than
| just saying "Hey, you need to cook pork more so you don't
| get sick".
|
| See, that's the problem with an all knowing being. God
| can't be fallible or else it's not God. The fact that you
| and I can come up with what we'd both agree are moral
| rules not found in the bible is very problematic. Things
| like "Woman deserve to be treated equally", "Hitting your
| child is wrong", "It's ok for people of different races
| and nationalities to marry each other", "Inflicting pain
| on heretics is wrong". All problems of history easily
| addressed. Yet instead, god felt the need to talk about
| not eating shellfish and the right way to trim your
| beard.
| spaced-out wrote:
| >Barbaric by today's standards, but eminently humane by
| all other standards until the last 100 years or so.
|
| Why are we judging the laws of an omnipotent being by the
| standards of humans thousands of years ago? Why can't we
| judge his laws by the standards of today? Why can't he
| have made the societies he ruled better for the poor,
| women, slaves, etc... He could have told the Israelites
| that women should be equal to men, why didn't he?
| hajile wrote:
| The core tenet of the law as seen by Christians today is
| justice tempered with mercy because of love and the the
| death of Jesus in payment for that mercy. If you break a
| windows, society is out the cost of that window. Justice
| demands payment by the breaker are the expense of
| something else they could do with the money. Mercy is
| when the window owner takes that debt theirselves. The
| debtor walks away free, but the owner must now still pay
| the price.
|
| "The borrower is slave to the lender."
|
| While modern societies hold this to be untrue in name, it
| is very true in principle. Countries that owe large debts
| do what they're told. Companies do the same. Even on an
| individual level something like student loans follow you
| forever. Even sin is referred to as an unrepayable debt
| to God. To take debt without repaying would be theft.
|
| Even today, direct theft or deprivation of property or
| life is grounds for enslaving people for decades in
| something called prisons. You're only complaint here is
| about what debts to people and society are punishable by
| slavery.
|
| It's also worth noting that debtors prison and indentured
| servitude existed over a half century after slavery was
| ended and slavery as punishment is still explicitly
| allowed under the US constitution.
|
| To reiterate, the slavery presented in the Bible as a
| means of repaying debt is actually what we'd call
| indentured servitude. In contrast, slavery as practiced
| in the US was absolutely indefensible according to the
| Bible. The Bible proclaimed the slave traders as worthy
| of death. All the massive abuses would have immediately
| led to slaves being released and more than a few slave
| owners being executed. Finally, with all slaves being
| freed every 40 years making multigenerational slavery
| impossible (don't forget that freed slaves were also to
| be provided with a means to sustain themselves --- the
| oldest source of "40 acres and a mule").
|
| Has society actually improved on this point? At most
| we've replaced it by stealing from every individual and
| giving that to pay the debt of others, but a group buying
| a slave's freedom also existed with the difference that
| the money was to be volunteered rather than taken by
| threat of force.
|
| The Bible clearly says enslavement without cause is
| injustice worthy of death. Once debt is accrued, someone
| must pay. The old law gives justice at all costs (forgot
| to mention, but slavery was a court matter). Jesus
| differed in teaching that while justice was fair, mercy
| and the self sacrifice of forgiving debt was better. By
| the way, this argument is rather similar to the one given
| by the original abolitionists who were almost universally
| fundamentalist Christian sects.
|
| Now, the burden of proof is on you. Prove without
| religion that slavery is immoral and indentured servitude
| is unjust.
| everdrive wrote:
| >No, I have come to divide people against each other! 52
| From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of
| me, and two against--or two in favor and three against."
|
| This is somewhat oblique to the point you're making, but I
| find a lot of bible passages totally incomprehensible. What
| is Jesus saying here? That families will likely be for or
| against him, and that families will consist of 5 members,
| and each family will have an uneven split? (2-3 vs 3-2) It
| seems like a very pedantic and odd way to make the point I
| believe the author is trying to make. Does this rely on an
| old colloquialism? Is there some reason it's phrased so
| strangely? Would it not have sounded strange to
| contemporary ears?
|
| I actually had a bit of a shock when I finally read old
| Greek writing: Herodotus, Plato, etc. Everything they write
| is meant to be clearly an precisely understood. Depending
| on the translation, the writing feels simple and modern. I
| had naively expected all old writing to be like the bible:
| incomprehensible, metaphorical, nonsensical.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Because you are comparing the best and most well known
| authors of the period to the writings of a crazy
| underground offshoot of a minority religion. Masters of
| the craft vs that guy that believes in lizard people.
|
| If you want a fascinating case study, look at what
| happened with the "book of mormon". It's a hot mess of
| gobbledygook and plagiarized stories yet to mormons it's
| the best book ever written.
|
| Meanwhile, you had literary giants like Charles Dickens
| and Victor Hugo writing time honored classics in the same
| time period which are still very readable and accessible
| today.
| IsopropylHarbor wrote:
| > What is a "good person?"
|
| "How we ought to live,"
|
| -Socrates
| whatshisface wrote:
| "How ought we to live?"
|
| "How we ought to live."
|
| I think that's a bit circular, Socrates.
| majewsky wrote:
| Well yeah, that's the Munchhausen Trilemma. When looking
| for a final reason, if you don't want to make an
| axiomatic argument like "because God", you must end up
| either going in circles or down an infinitely deep rabbit
| hole. Since none of these options are satisfactory, the
| search for a final reason is doomed from the start
| (though it can still be fruitful).
| peterlk wrote:
| > you don't need fairy tails to be a good person and to come to
| terms with death
|
| I don't think this is true in general. I have a pet theory that
| much of the conspiracy theory following we are seeing is
| actually a weakening of church. People need spirituality - it
| doesn't matter where that spirituality comes from (except for
| local social pressures - but those aren't relevant to this
| point). If they're not getting spirituality from church, it has
| to come from somewhere. So people latch on to conspiracy
| theories because it provides higher purpose in their lives.
|
| If you are teaching your children to be good and to not fear
| death, you need some philosophical backbone with which to unify
| these ideas. You may well be able to provide that, but not
| everyone is. Religion serves as a common philosophical
| substrate for discussions that people don't know how to have.
| It is imperfect, and definitely not as good as thoughtful
| parenting in my opinion, but it fills some of the gaps.
| randcraw wrote:
| > [religion] fills some of the gaps.
|
| But what does it fill the gaps _with_? All monotheistic
| religions demand that you believe that an all powerful deity
| underlies and motivates everything in the universe. That 's a
| pretty bold premise, especially since we're told that belief
| must be based not on evidence but solely on blind faith.
|
| A 'gap filler' like that doesn't passively serve only to
| connect one social principle with others. In the case of
| Christianity, it compels you to believe that all of human
| existence arises from an invisible monarch who rules the
| universe and will damn you to eternal hell if you disobey
| Him.
|
| If a 'gap filler' is what you seek to give life a bit more
| meaning and coherence, religion is a very inelegant way to do
| just that.
| praisewoke wrote:
| > much of the conspiracy theory following we are seeing is
| actually a weakening of church
|
| I completely agree. Critical Theory / Wokeness / Social
| Justice is a new secular religion on the rise for the
| sophisticated and cults of personality are there for the
| unsophisticated
| ccn0p wrote:
| Agreed. God help us all.
| etrautmann wrote:
| I think you have a reasonable point embedded in a false
| dichotomy. People need to feel a sense of purpose, and that
| can come from spirituality, engagement with a community,
| service, fulfilling work, etc.
| dntrkv wrote:
| > I have a pet theory that much of the conspiracy theory
| following we are seeing is actually a weakening of church
|
| Except the vast majority of conspiracy theorists I know are
| devout Christians and the stats seem to tell a similar story.
|
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-qanon-has-
| attracted...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| We raised our kids the same. Even allowing that they might want
| to go to church themselves. While I suggested it only once or
| twice they were not interested.
|
| I think we all know what is right and wrong. And regarding
| death, none of us know anything at all.
|
| Religion then might offer a sense of community and also solace
| for those times when there is nothing you can do but suffer.
| And for that I wish I could have found a religious community
| that I was comfortable with and could have shared with my
| children.
|
| The closest I ever came was a Quaker Meeting my mother took my
| sibling and I too when we were young. Perhaps I should have
| tried harder to find another but it didn't seem as important as
| other aspects of raising children -- finding as much time to do
| stuff with them, take them traveling, etc.
| gher-shyu3i wrote:
| > to be a good person
|
| It's the other way around. The religion needs to be
| investigated to see if it provides proof of its correctness,
| and if it does, there really isn't reason not to accept it
| other than wanting to follow personal desires.
| justaman wrote:
| It goes beyond fairy tails. There is a sense of community that
| (for the most part) only religion has been able to maintain in
| the information age.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Any crawfish boil in Louisiana will disabuse you of that
| notion.
| nonotreally wrote:
| That's a lie that religions keep perpetuating. Many social
| groups exist that are just as fulfilling.
|
| My gym for example is full of people who actively work in the
| community, help each other and gather multiple times per week
| to better themselves and encourage their community.
|
| Religion has nothing to offer that secular society cannot
| offer.
|
| It does offer a lot of downsides though.
| dagw wrote:
| _Religion has nothing to offer that secular society cannot
| offer._
|
| While this might be true in theory, I have not found it
| true in practice. I am no longer religious and I have not
| attended church for 20+ years, but despite trying many of
| these secular 'alternatives' to church I have yet to find
| anything as open, welcoming and socially supportive as I
| found church.
|
| edit: Yes, I know this isn't everybody's experience, and
| yes some churches can be extremely bigoted, exclusionary
| and downright evil to people they perceive as 'others'.
| randcraw wrote:
| What you say about churches being welcoming agrees with
| my experiences too, from what I've seen of others, given
| that I don't attend. But I think faith is only part of
| the reason for attending.
|
| Essential in the choice to join a church is the desire to
| seek out a kind of 'marriage', where for better and
| worse, you promise to look out for others in an extended
| family and to help them when they need you. That sense of
| belonging is one of the big things that brings everyone
| in a church together -- the wish to be part of a
| community that regularly joins together and where you can
| share your life with others.
|
| Membership in a social club can't do that.
| nonotreally wrote:
| In the strongest possible terms, I reject this entirely.
|
| I'm trying to put into words how much I disagree and why,
| but I'm failing. Others have done a better job than I
| can.
|
| I can only recommend you read the strong counter opinions
| to your position.
|
| I wish you well. But I wont participate in these groups.
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Membership in a social club can't do that.
|
| As someone who has been involved in both Churches,
| Church-associated social clubs, and no -Church social
| clubs, yes, it absolutely can; in fact, what you describe
| is explicitly part of the concept of many non-Church
| social clubs, some of which evolved from (or in the
| tradition of) organizations which started as sub-church
| organizations within churches by which this function was
| more tightly expressed for members than in the broader
| church.
|
| But even where it isn't explicitly part of the deal, it's
| very common to evolve as an implicit part of a social
| club.
| danans wrote:
| > Religion has nothing to offer that secular society cannot
| offer.
|
| Similar to ethnic nationalism, it can and throughout
| history has provided the glue that holds groups together
| when they are in conflicts with other groups.
|
| Unlike a secular club, religion cements this power inter-
| generationally by insinuating itself into the key human
| institutions of marriage, reproduction, child rearing, and
| membership in the religion. If you look at any ethno-
| religious state in the world (i.e. many middle eastern
| countries), they function this way.
|
| The experiment of a secular national identity (based on
| shared beliefs about people's rights and dignity) is the
| only institution that can effectively fulfill this aspect
| of religion, but as we are now seeing, it can also stumble
| if it doesn't tend to the needs of its constituents well
| enough.
| nonotreally wrote:
| I accept this.
|
| But I don't actually see how that is different than
| religion. Religions have failed many times throughout
| history.
|
| Modern society has been working well enough for a while
| now. How long do we have to do it before we can ditch
| these superstitions?
| randcraw wrote:
| Do you imagine that one of the social groups you belong to
| would willingly play the role in your life that church
| members often do? Would someone from one of your groups:
|
| - drive you to a doctor appointment?
|
| - repair your house when you can't (perhaps due to injury)?
|
| - take you in for a few days after a crisis at home?
|
| - prepare a week of meals for you, if needed?
|
| These are fairly commonplace roles that I've seen filled
| routinely by members of a church that I've seldom seen
| arise from other social networks. And never from a health
| club.
|
| I don't attend church but I've regularly seen this kind of
| extended community in others who do. The role churches play
| of an extended family is incomparable to any other social
| network I know. This degree of compassion and service to
| non-family members seems to require a greater common bond
| than just sweating together.
| nonotreally wrote:
| Yes to all of this. I have either participated in or can
| think of examples of all of these examples from this gym
| group.
|
| People are people. We don't need gods to make us care
| about each other.
| jordanpg wrote:
| While I agree that there is something important to be said
| for maintaining a sense of community, it obviously does not
| require any kind of supernatural belief to do so.
|
| I would argue that the cost paid by society due to the
| institutionalized anti-intellectualism embodied by the church
| and largely embraced by the government far exceeds whatever
| communitarian benefits the church itself contributes to
| society.
|
| Let's find those benefits elsewhere.
| praisewoke wrote:
| > it obviously does not require any kind of supernatural
| belief to do so.
|
| How is this so obvious? Where's the counterexample? I've
| never lived it
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Some alternative church-like organizations further out on
| the no-theism-required spectrum (maybe more limited in
| area affected).
|
| - Ethical Cultures Society
|
| - Unitarian Universalist Church
|
| - Quaker meetings (for non-pastoral Friends, theism is
| present but not necessary).
| fader wrote:
| You've never seen a non-religious club? Or a political
| group? Or a volunteer society?
|
| There are plenty of non-religious communities all over
| the world. Look at any co-op if you want an example.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| But the thing is, these non-religious communities tend
| not to be stable long-term, they're not as well-
| coordinated, and don't seem to influence people's
| behavior all that much.
|
| Abstracted from all particulars of a given belief system,
| religions seem to be a refined, hyperoptimized form of
| community building.
| nonotreally wrote:
| This isn't true.
|
| Secular society is an example of this. We have common
| goals that we work towards.
|
| We don't have words for "gather once a week and do xyz"
| in many context, but that doesn't stop us for doing it.
|
| Join an electronics club and meet up every week for the
| next 10 years. People do this ALL the time and it isn't
| an issue.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Yes, we've had to create our own social fabric that a church
| would've been, but as our loved ones and friends are spread
| across the country and world, a weekly gathering would do us
| little good.
|
| The challenge is to build community without the judgement
| that comes along with the beliefs required to attend a
| church. We strongly support LGBTQ+ folks, the idea of ethical
| non monogamy, people who elect to be child free, etc, which
| through our travels and experiences with religious believers,
| we've found incompatible with any church social fabric.
| splithalf wrote:
| You may find that you judge others, and others judge you,
| without the help of religions. Some would say that's one
| theme of Christian belief, "judge not, lest we be judged
| ourselves." You are ironically doing what you find fault
| in, judging others. "Christians are too judgmental." Well,
| so are non-religious folks and they don't have any
| scripture or religious leaders to remind them to be humble,
| not to cast stones, turn the other cheek, love thy
| neighbor. If nothing else look for counter examples, the
| many people of faith who do a lot of good in the world
| through charity and spiritual work. I assure you, these
| people exist. Don't fall prey to confirmation bias and a
| culture that stigmatizes faith and spirituality as
| unsophisticated and oppressive, it's literally the opposite
| of the truth if you look at it empirically.
| praisewoke wrote:
| Woke scolds are more judgmental than any old church marm
| but have no God they feel they should humble themselves
| before. The leaders of the Intersectional crusade see
| themselves as the highest moral paragons and the whole
| faith lacks self awareness
| nonotreally wrote:
| More judgemental than the church? How do you reconcile
| the entire gay communities experience with this
| statement?
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| > _...without the judgement that comes along with the
| beliefs required to attend a church._
|
| You're responding to fundamentalism and certain non-
| fundamentalist denominations that take fundamentalist views
| on selected issues.
|
| Look at recent denominational schisms: Episcopal Church
| (United States), the United Methodist Church (resolution is
| on the table but delayed due to the pandemic), etc. The
| people on the right side of history and the church are
| winning, and the bigots and fundamentalists are splitting
| off.
| gspr wrote:
| > There is a sense of community that (for the most part) only
| religion has been able to maintain in the information age.
|
| Would it not be healthier to center that community around
| something real? It doesn't have to be something serious, but
| something _real_ would be good.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| > a sense of community
|
| I'm sorry to see the downvotes since this as an intelligent
| point. I'm not religious but one thing I do envy in my
| church-going friends is fellowship.
|
| I'm a man in my 60's, and maybe all this is not applicable
| for the majority of folks here. But people don't have groups
| like clubs or bowling leagues very much anymore. Watching TV
| at home is fine, but not enough. (I'm in a club that is now
| breaking up, as these things do, and I think there is a very
| good chance I will not see these friends regularly again,
| which is too bad.) Of course, I could volunteer at a food
| bank, etc., but people I know that are in a church seem to
| find it more natural.
| justaman wrote:
| In my experience nothing has been able to replicate what
| religion does for communities. Every Sunday hundreds of
| people get together and chat over coffee before service.
| This mass gathering offers the opportunity to find other
| people with similar interests which in turn leads to small
| groups. Some will say, "That's what meetup.com is for.". I
| agree, meetup.com is great, but it doesn't have that
| central core of hundreds of people before splitting up into
| smaller groups. Meetup.com cuts out the larger group
| entirely and pushes people into smaller groups
| automatically. That's an important thing that gets lost.
| gumby wrote:
| I meet like minded friends from the group classes at they
| gym, working at a homeless shelter, some conferences,
| being on the school board. "Like minded" means these
| aren't folks with whom I only discuss things related to
| how we met.
|
| That's kind of how society works, right? If you go to
| some sort of religious festival it's merely another form
| of this.
|
| I'm not even particularly gregarious.
| jordanpg wrote:
| Much like claims about morality, the claim of the religious
| to be the only glue that can hold communities together is
| an obviously false claim that the religious get to make
| with a straight face because of the moment in history that
| we live in. In the United States, the primacy of
| Christianity over the last few hundred years has resulted
| in a culture that maintains nonsensical claims like these
| enshrined and untouchable.
|
| Of course, this had to change eventually because the
| underlying supernatural theories are self-evidently false.
|
| For minus the supernatural claims, religious is just
| another secular organization which fosters certain cultural
| and social beliefs, like many, many, many others. There is
| nothing special about religion and there never has been.
| Human beings do not _require_ certain questions to be
| answered with recourse to magic in order to function. See
| the atomic theory for a counterexample.
|
| I beg the moderates among us to agree that community is
| good, but to insist that it need not come with ridiculous
| magic strings attached.
| splithalf wrote:
| You don't care about it's positive influence on other people? I
| understand feeling like you are enlightened and psychologically
| adjusted such that you don't need anything beyond science and
| your own intellect, but surely you see the positive effects it
| has on other people, and cultures? Do you really think a world
| without black churches is a better world?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| If people need to fear a God or Hell to be a good person,
| there is value in the stability that generates. Plenty of
| people out there who do believe and still do terrible things
| to others.
|
| If someone has a positive experience at church and it adds
| value to your life, I'm not judging nor do I have anything
| bad to say about the value it provides.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| My black kids are doing just fine without a church and I've
| got to wonder why you think they need one.
| splithalf wrote:
| That's a crazy leap to make from my statement which was
| that killing off black churches would not make the world
| better. That is the key counter factual for those who claim
| religion has no benefit to society, or even stronger claims
| that it retards our moral progress. I think the evidence is
| clear if you're honest about the data. Faith helps people
| with life's difficulties. I'm certainly not saying any one
| group needs faith more than any other group. No Christian
| person will ever make such a claim which is antithetical to
| the core premise of Christianity, universal brotherhood.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| > No Christian person will ever make such a claim which
| is antithetical to the core premise of Christianity,
| universal brotherhood.
|
| Ah yes, no true Christian.
|
| A visit to the American South will disabuse you of that
| notion.
| undefined1 wrote:
| I agree, but beware that many people end up filling a religion
| shaped hole with other things. look at how many of our fellow
| atheists have joined the church of social justice. adhering to
| a new kind of religion and dogma. things you can't say,
| heretics who must be cast out, good vs evil, original sin,
| preachers, zealots, self flagellation. it's all there, except
| for a path to redemption.
|
| https://reason.com/2020/06/29/kneeling-in-the-church-of-soci...
| gumby wrote:
| > religion shaped hole
|
| Your statement presumes that there is something innate about
| religion.
|
| There are billions of people who live completely off the line
| of explicitly atheistic <-> avowedly devout. They are by
| their nature not generally considered in such discussions.
| nicbou wrote:
| I'm not sure if it makes sense to connect those two. Is there
| any more political zealotry among atheists than among the
| religious?
| oblio wrote:
| I think that at some level you need a belief system. There
| will always be things beyond us, so at some level the only
| thing we can do is guess. But we shouldn't let those guesses
| dominate our life and we should re-evaluate them completely,
| say, at least every decade.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| QAnon is also a filler of this void.
| mrfusion wrote:
| I think a lot of people have thrown the baby out with the
| bathwater so to speak. There's so much value in being spiritual
| but we get offended by the extremes of religion and toss it all
| away.
| karmasimida wrote:
| I don't care about religions in general. It is not necessary to
| my daily operations, and I have no interests to have it
| intertwined with my life either.
|
| Why would I assume there is some God anywhere anyway?
| timbit42 wrote:
| Before science was a thing, people used the idea of God to
| explain the unexplainable. Today science explains those things
| for us.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Science cannot explain love, nor why it is better to love
| than to be selfish. Science says survival of the fittest, so
| why aren't we all killing each other in a quest to stand atop
| the pile of bones?
|
| There is more to the universe than what it observable. This
| in and of itself does not mean there is or is not a God.
| Spirituality provides us the motivation to be ethical and
| good instead of selfish and evil.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I had a unique experience growing up in a religious family (that
| is very tolerant and respectful of all world religions) while
| simultaneously being immersed in Scientology via a private school
| experience.
|
| The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been
| hypocrisy. So many people just want to belong to a group, or were
| raised in it and know nothing better. They don't practice what
| they preach.
|
| I can't help but think the world will be better off when we
| abolish big religion.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I think hypocrisy is inevitable for a couple of reasons.
|
| 1) In theory, people go to church because they want to improve,
| not because they are already perfect. It's not hypocritical to
| make mistakes.
|
| 2) Hypocrisy is everywhere. No one really does scrum, no one
| really does TDD, no motivational speaker is happy all the time,
| and no christian is without sin. This shouldn't be surprising.
| symfoniq wrote:
| The world will be better off when we abolish freedom of belief?
| That doesn't sound like a world I'd want to live in.
| visarga wrote:
| There's a long way from freedom of belief to the kind of
| identity politics practiced by religious groups. Ironically
| religious people are under the risk of getting cancelled by
| their own group if they dare wrongthink, so they are less
| free.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >There's a long way from freedom of belief to the kind of
| identity politics practiced by religious groups. Ironically
| religious people are under the risk of getting cancelled by
| their own group if they dare wrongthink, so they are less
| free.
|
| Are we discussing organized religions or political parties?
| Your comment could apply to either.
| whalesalad wrote:
| When I say abolish big religion I mean the way it's
| integrated so tightly in society. The war on drugs, abortion,
| non profit tax avoidance, so many fucked up things stem from
| the belief that my religion is better than yours and you need
| to believe what I believe.
|
| You can believe whatever the hell you want - but it's not for
| you or society or anyone else to decide how I can live my
| life.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > When I say abolish big religion I mean the way it's
| integrated so tightly in society.
|
| There has never existed a society that didn't have a
| religion. Everyone has a religion, what they take to be the
| highest good, what they worship. It just so happens that
| those who naively brush off what they take to be "religion"
| simply, probably tacitly, take on some vulgar and crude
| variety.
|
| > The war on drugs, abortion, non profit tax avoidancee, so
| many fucked up things
|
| You realize that your views are also views, right? You
| presume some kind of objectivity while denying that right
| to others. Sounds kind of intolerant to me, especially if
| we go by your own prejudices.
|
| You also appear to have scapegoated religion for various
| things you don't like (mind you, things like the opposition
| to abortion is a moral question, not a sectarian one,
| though sadly, the myth that it is seems to persist,
| probably because it allows militant pro-choice types to
| exploit "religious freedom" as a way to frame it as a
| "private matter" since religion under a liberal regime is
| subordinated to liberal doctrine, which has the interesting
| effect of elevating liberalism to the rank of state
| religion).
|
| > the belief that my religion is better than yours and you
| need to believe what I believe
|
| Hold on. Two things are being conflated. First, if there is
| one truth, then either a religion is true (or at least
| contains some truth), or it isn't (or contains falsehoods).
| That which is true should be accepted, that which isn't
| shouldn't. The idea that religion is just a thing we
| believe simply because we wish to believe it is absurd. You
| believe something because you have good reasons to believe
| it, not because you wish it to be the case.
|
| Second, what do you mean by "you need to believe what I
| believe"? This has nothing to do with what others believe.
| It has everything to do with whether something is true. Of
| course, you shouldn't try to force anyone to believe
| anything, even if it is or you think it is true, though any
| society will punish or constrain someone _acting_ on wrong
| beliefs in some cases. All legal and judicial systems do
| this, obviously, and they can do this with a tangible
| tenacity.
|
| I'd also add that there what falls under "religion" differs
| enough that it makes no sense to criticize "religion"
| categorically. This kind of approach typically conceals a
| particular real or imagined religion that the person in
| question has in mind, perhaps particular experiences, and
| from which that person hastily generalizes to "religion" as
| a category. The error here should be obvious, especially if
| you take into consideration what I've already written,
| namely, that everyone has some kind of religion, however
| vague or crude or mundane or insane.
| scythe wrote:
| >The war on drugs
|
| WoD wasn't started by religious authorities at all, but by
| (secular) technocrats. Whether the motivation was really
| public health or political persecution is disputed, but
| blaming the Church is just silly. Some quasi-religious
| justification was used, but that's just political strategy.
|
| >non profit tax avoidance
|
| All religions are guaranteed equivalent tax privileges in
| the United States Constitution, as Madison intended and the
| courts have affirmed.
| liaukovv wrote:
| As you said yourself, people do it to belong to a social
| circle.
|
| What are you replacing this extremely important function with?
| Vacuum?
| WJW wrote:
| Sports, online forums, student fraternities, social clubs of
| every variety, etc. There are many ways to get active in
| society that don't involve beliefs in higher beings.
| mantas wrote:
| None of these bring the whole (or even the majority of)
| community together. It's just social bubbles further
| fragmenting society.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| in theories these are perhaps able to replace a religions
| activities. in reality we are notice large decreasing in
| socialisation in young people and so this replacement is
| maybe not working so well as in theories. even social clubs
| you have mention are on declining also. one go to rotary or
| others and it is all old persons. have a shared value
| system is making for great connecting between persons.
| Mertax wrote:
| Few of these instill purpose and influence behavior of a
| person in the same way that religion does. You might
| disagree, but I would argue that the virtues extolled by
| the vast majority of religious organizations are good
| ideals to be striving for and wonder what is going to
| replace this?
| [deleted]
| RankingMember wrote:
| I can only speak for myself, but I try to treat the
| people I encounter well because people that don't are, in
| my experience, dicks. No higher power necessary. I've
| also found in my life that trying to derive purpose from
| some external motivator (religion, self-help books, etc.)
| is a recipe for temporary motivation only. Real, lasting
| change comes from self-discovery and discipline, in my
| opinion.
| gregkerzhner wrote:
| I would love to see stats on religious prevalence and
| incidence of crime, homocide, etc. My guess is that such
| stats won't put religion (especially Christianity) in a
| favorable light.
| [deleted]
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| You mean self-righteousness and a superiority complex.
| The person who lives a decent life because it is right
| for everyone is morally superior to someone who lives a
| decent life because he fears of being cast into a lake of
| fire.
|
| And even then, Christians murder more people in the US
| than anyone, per-capita or otherwise.
| ISL wrote:
| Those activities don't help much when you encounter the
| really big challenges in life.
|
| Spirituality offers frameworks for dealing with, and often
| embracing, many of the questions for which there may never
| be a satisfactory answer.
|
| Whether you believe the postulates of a religion or not,
| there a ton of higher-level lessons to be learned from
| those who do.
| WJW wrote:
| You make it seem like religion is some sort of
| prerequisite for gaining wisdom, while at best it seems
| to be orthogonal. For example, reading philosophy from
| both modern and ancient sources can provide the framework
| you mention without ever getting all that close to the
| trappings of traditional religions.
|
| There are tons of higher level lessons to be learned from
| both religious and non-religious sources.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| The problem is not with the goal, it's the quality of those
| circles. There are groups without much hypocrisy, mysticism
| and abuse.
| Loughla wrote:
| >The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been
| hypocrisy.
|
| This is, consistently, what I hear from friends and family as
| to why they have drifted away from the Catholic church, and is
| solidly my own reason as well.
|
| You see people, day-in-day out being terrible, judgmental,
| hateful people, except on Sunday when they're in the front row
| being holier than thou. It grates on you, and leaves a bad
| taste. It's even worse, because those people tend to be the
| ones who gravitate toward leadership positions within your
| local church.
|
| My theory is that people have always felt that way, but it was
| harder to nail down these awful people _before social media_.
| Now that everyone puts everything on social media, it 's easy
| to see, in plain black and white print, that the deacon really
| is an asshole.
|
| The one thing that I do genuinely lament from the death of
| large religious congregations (at least in my part of the
| states), is that there are no replacement social constructs for
| people to gather and feel a sense of community. I'm certain
| this has something to do with the splintering of American
| discourse; not the religion inherently, but the social aspect
| is lacking and legitimately missed by most folks.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > You see people, day-in-day out being terrible, judgmental,
| hateful people, except on Sunday when they're in the front
| row being holier than thou.
|
| But you see this nearly everywhere, with every type of
| organization/group. A prime example would be politicians and
| political groups who constantly talk about how they want to
| help people, but then throw those same people under the bus
| to get what they want. This is not something unique to any
| one type of organization.
|
| From my experience, there are lots of good people in most
| religious organizations. I would venture to say, at least in
| the northeast US (which is where most of my experience is),
| it's the majority of the people. However, as with any
| organization, it's common for the bad apples to be the ones
| that rise in power, because they don't care who they hurt to
| get do so. This, too, is true everywhere.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Those other institutions are also losing credibility. Fewer
| people than ever claim membership in unions, political
| parties, and public office holders and legislatures as
| groups are continually setting new records for low approval
| ratings.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > Fewer people than ever claim membership in unions,
| political parties,
|
| That is exactly the opposite of my experience.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Fewer people than ever claim membership in unions,
| political parties,
|
| > That is exactly the opposite of my experience.
|
| How so? Union membership has undergone a well-documented
| decline. While politics/political ideology does seem a
| lot more prominent, the role of the political parties has
| seemed to wither. Political activity seems much more
| ephemeral and individual.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > This is, consistently, what I hear from friends and family
| as to why they have drifted away from the Catholic church,
| and is solidly my own reason as well.
|
| I was raised Catholic and decided, as a teenager, that I
| didn't want to be Catholic as an adult.
|
| > My theory is that people have always felt that way, but it
| was harder to nail down these awful people before social
| media.
|
| IMO, two things:
|
| 1: The changes in the 1960s to the English (native language)
| mass
|
| 2: The shift towards conservative politics
|
| Have you been to a latin mass? (The old-style mass that the
| Church conducted until the 1960s.) It's a very different
| experience than modern Catholicism, and much more similar to
| eastern-style worship.
|
| But, more importantly, the latin mass has a lot less
| preaching. It's a meditation, and then a social gathering
| afterwards. It's a lot more universal in the sense that you
| don't really have to explicitly align with the beliefs to
| still be comfortable with the community. (Edit: As in, if you
| don't believe in the whole Jesus thing, you can just enjoy
| the chanting at let your mind drift away.)
|
| But, the thing that really turned me off of the Catholic
| church was the drift towards conservative politics. I
| attended a friend's wedding where the church had a massive
| anti-abortion billboard over their parking lot for the whole
| town to see. Another time I went to a mass in honor of some
| deceased family members and there were posters in the church
| advocating that members vote against marijuana legalization.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| At least the abortion thing makes sense: Catholics believe
| that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception,
| so abortion is effectively murder. It would be odd for the
| church to not openly oppose it.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| They also believe that state sanctioned executions are
| murder, yet somehow the vast majority of Catholic
| adherents tend to be less willing to make political or
| advocacy decisions based on that.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I'm not here to defend hypocrites, just to point out that
| there is nothing inherently unreasonable about a Catholic
| church putting up an anti-abortion billboard.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > Catholics believe that the soul enters the body at the
| moment of conception,
|
| They don't, though, or at least they didn't always. No
| less a Church authority than Saint Thomas Aquinas said
| ensoulment didn't happen before quickening. The total
| prohibition on abortion is a relatively recent
| theological innovation, and this insistence that it has
| always been thus is one of the things above mentioned
| that leaves a bad taste in people's mouths can they can
| plainly see it isn't true.
| svieira wrote:
| St. Thomas also held that _contraception_ was wrong, not
| merely abortion, so the fact that ensoulment didn 't
| happen before quickening (in his learned opinion) didn't
| change his understanding of how moral contraception and
| abortion are (he believed they were both gravely sinful).
|
| St. Thomas said ensoulment happened at quickening because
| the science of the time said that the zygote was a simple
| thing. Given that understanding, St. Thomas held that the
| rational soul was not necessary to explain the
| developments that happened and in fact, that the soul
| which animated such simple matter must be simpler. Modern
| science tells us that the zygote is anything but simple
| and so St. Thomas' objection on the basis of a "simple"
| material component are incorrect. St. Thomas also said
| that all that he had ever written was "so much straw"
| after receiving a mystical experience of God's love (not
| _wrong_, just completely inadequate).
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Spend a little time researching how the Catholic church
| used to oppose infanticide. The anti-abortion stance
| makes a lot more sense when put into historical context.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Well, when I went to a steakhouse in India, I didn't need
| to cross a picket line. Nor did I see billboards
| condemning me for eating beef.
|
| > It would be odd for the church to not openly oppose it
|
| There's a difference between politics and religion.
| Getting back to my point, my opinion is that treating
| abortion as a _political_ issue is one of the many
| reasons why people leave.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > Well, when I went to a steakhouse in India, I didn't
| need to cross a picket line.
|
| The comment was specifically about how it didn't seem
| unreasonable for the church to publicly oppose abortion,
| in response to a billboard on the church's property.
|
| > the church had a massive anti-abortion billboard over
| their parking lot
|
| It wasn't about the members of the church protesting at a
| hospital or other facility that performs abortions.
| Admittedly, that does happen in some places, but it's not
| what was being discussed.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| The Catholic opposition to abortion is very similar to
| the Hindu opposition to consuming beef.
|
| Talk to some people from India about political/religious
| issues there. Eating beef, meat, and/or eggs is as
| offensive to some people in India, for religions reasons,
| as abortion is in the US.
|
| Yet India doesn't have the same mass exodus from its
| churches as the US does.
| bitcurious wrote:
| > In northern India, cow slaughter is illegal in all the
| states, with Jammu & Kashmir and Jharkhand leading the
| list in the terms of severity of punishment. A person
| found guilty of cow slaughter can be sent to 10 years
| imprisonment in these two states.
|
| > Kerala is the only state in the south where there are
| no restrictions on the slaughter and consumption of cow
| meat
|
| https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-
| india/bee...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| That law in Kashmir is from RPC and was abolished when
| state was abolished (and isn't enforced in Muslim
| majority areas). Furthermore you can read DN Jha on how
| Brahmins ate plenty of beef in Vedic times until
| Buddhists showed up.
| [deleted]
| YinglingLight wrote:
| 2013 is calling, it wants its fedora back.
| gottebp wrote:
| As one who loves the Catholic faith, despite the failings of
| its members, and who yet also fails to live it well -- I agree
| with you that hypocrisy is a massive problem.
|
| The group Jesus is harshest with in the Gospels is in fact the
| hypocrites. He even calls them white washed tombs full of dead
| men's bones! What a lamentable state of things.
|
| G.K. Chesterton's words in "What's Wrong with the World" come
| to mind where he points out "The Christian ideal has not been
| tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left
| untried." Perhaps this applies to all major belief systems
| though, and not Christianity alone.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "I can't help but think the world will be better off when we
| abolish big religion."
|
| So those people who want to belong to a group and believe in it
| without seeing what might be better can move into political
| groups for their identity? The actions and methods are human
| nature, so I think they will just move to a different domain.
| Applejinx wrote:
| The OP says 'U.S.'. US churches ARE political groups, in
| practical terms.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Any organization is political. The difference is whether we
| are talking about the organization or the members. Most
| members are not that politically involved. There are plenty
| of people who are very religious and participate in the
| religious ceremonies. If these people no longer had that,
| it's possible some of them would move into material
| participation in political parties, offices, etc.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| > So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised
| in it and know nothing better. They don't practice what they
| preach.
|
| And it's not necessarily a bad thing when you frame it as a
| cultural institution. For many people, they grew up with the
| church and its traditions. Their families and friends share the
| same traditions, and it's part of their identity. They may not
| believe in the supernatural stuff or even feel aligned with the
| moral system, but it's still part of their culture.
|
| You could say that's hypocritical, but we expect a an attitude
| of humility in regards to many cultures who have even more
| "backwards" practices than this. I think we ought to apply the
| same attitude here.
| whalesalad wrote:
| It becomes a problem though when you don't subscribe or even
| understand the core tenets of your faith - and yet it _is_
| your identity. So you vote with your friends and family even
| if you don't know what you're voting for. And when you feel
| your tribe being threatened, you get defensive and defend
| your tribe - even when you don't know what you are defending.
|
| That is why the US has become so divided recently. That is
| why the blind devotion to a cause should be questioned by
| every believer. "Wait a sec, do I really believe this? Do I
| really want this to be my identity?"
|
| You can be a good person without being a Catholic or a
| Muslim.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Sure, there are some people out there like that, and it's
| true for every culture, and it's true that people ought to
| think for themselves.
|
| I think we can agree that religion and goodness can run
| orthogonally, but let's not be so paternalistic to assume
| that people are unable to participate within a community's
| cultural traditions without sacrificing their ability to
| think for themselves.
| Guthur wrote:
| The hypocrisy is that they preach and ideal and fail to achieve
| it?
|
| One thinks this is because ideals are meant to strived towards
| but not necessarily achieved.
|
| A solution of throwing out ideals because they are hard to
| achieve and a little myopic in my opinion.
|
| What i find an interesting thought is that you either believe
| these teachings are from a higher power or they are just from
| man.
|
| The former had obvious implications, but the with the latter
| you will then need to answer the question is it written by
| lunatics or people that actually knew what they were doing?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > The hypocrisy is that they preach and ideal and fail to
| achieve it?
|
| No, I don't think that's the case. I think the hypocrisy is
| that they _don 't_ try. What turns people off of organized
| religion is seeing so many who participate with words but not
| with their hearts. Of course when you have Jesus Christ as
| your role model you're going to fail to live up to it a lot
| of the time, but if you're not at least trying then in what
| sense are you a Christian?
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| I'm not religious in the slightest, but the hypocrisy has
| always been fairly obvious from the outside.
|
| That said, I have serious doubts religion and hypocrisy are
| aligned anymore than the other sources of truth - especially
| when followed without applying critical thinking skills.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| You went to Delphian?
|
| I had a coworker who went there. He had, uh, stories.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Delphi Academy was actually next door. I attended a school
| called Renaissance. All of the "Applied Scholastics" schools
| are a joke.
| DonnyV wrote:
| Good!!! We can finally move forward as a species without the
| chains of religion.
| propogandist wrote:
| There's no call out of how churches and places of worship /
| community were all shutdown through 2020 for fear of the virus.
| lazyninja987 wrote:
| I am interested in one more detail. average family income for all
| church members.
|
| I have observed hindus, muslims, christians, jains. My
| observation so far is, religious fervor is directly to 2 factors.
|
| 1. is that religion a minority in a given state ? 2. whether you
| grew up in prosperity (not wealth, but above middle class)?
|
| societies which are poor tend towards fundamentalism. religion
| gives some sort of escape place where poor might forget their
| harsh reality and usually its provides some sort of alt-reality
| that their after life is going to be good. rich people who
| already seen those comforts dont search for such answers.
|
| Also, if that particular religion is minority in a country, the
| religion offers companionship and keep the group close. also, it
| forms the main identity of that group which is difficult to get
| away from.
|
| for the above reasons, In india, there are a lot of atheist
| hindus, but not many athiest muslims or atheist christians.
| krastanov wrote:
| I have the impression this does not necessarily apply to the
| US. There are plenty of examples of... vicious(?)
| fundamentalists that are rich and of the ethnic majority.
| lazyninja987 wrote:
| ketzo is accurate. if a rich person is supporting
| fundementalism, its mostly to consolidate their power and
| protect his/her wealth.
|
| Rich hindus allways have means to do so with out resorting to
| fundementalism.
|
| for example, ambani supported congress (which is anti-hindu),
| and when congress got weak, he started support BJP (which is
| pro-hindu). In both cases it is to protect his own interests.
|
| Same is happening in US.
| ketzo wrote:
| I think that the people about whom you're talking tend to use
| fundamentalist religion as means to enforce existing power
| structures from which they benefit; there's a reason that
| modern American conservatism is so inextricably tied to the
| evangelical churches, and why Southern Baptism was once used
| to justify the capture, sale, forced labor, and breeding of
| human beings with different skin colors.
|
| I guess what I'm saying is that your point is not mutually
| exclusive with the comment to which you're replying, and that
| extreme religious values can have multiple "purposes,"
| explicit or implicit.
| [deleted]
| mrfusion wrote:
| Ten years ago I would have said this is a good thing. But now I'm
| actually terrified of whatever replaces religion for these
| people.
| bushbaba wrote:
| A post religious society might not be a better one.
|
| Religious institutions bring a sense of community and belonging.
| They are a large powerhouse in many social programs. Heck most
| children likely are preschooled through religious institutions.
|
| I fear that post religion we could very well end up worse off.
| whiddershins wrote:
| In my opinion the main problem for religion right now is the
| failure to explain their arguments at the highest intellectual
| level, publicly, consistently.
|
| Once I was exposed to better theology and philosophy of
| Christianity I was blown away. Edward Feser's 'The Last
| Superstition' helped open this up.
|
| I have no idea why the level of discourse is on average so
| primitive, I think church leaders have been systematically
| underestimating the populace.
| cableshaft wrote:
| I grew up Protestant but have considered myself Agnostic for a
| while.
|
| However, lately I've been having the urge to dig into
| spirituality more, as I'm starting to suspect there can be
| something there, it's just that, except for a single sermon I
| sat in about people destroying natural rock formations that
| have been around for millions of years on a whim (yeah the
| pastor actually said millions of years), I haven't found
| anything that seemed worth reflecting on in church services
| I've attended in a very long time.
|
| The book you posted seems interesting, I'll give that a read. I
| also found Tolstoy's 'A Confession' very interesting back in
| the day. Do you have other resources you would recommend I
| check out?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Francis Schaeffer, _He Is There And He Is Not Silent_.
| whiddershins wrote:
| Jordan Peterson's lectures on Genesis are pretty great. I
| only listened to the first few but they are very powerful.
|
| Are you looking primarily for Christianity or spirituality in
| general?
|
| Braving the Wilderness (I haven't finished this one)
|
| _For addiction_ : Breathing Underwater
|
| New Seeds of Contemplation
|
| _By reputation_ : any CS Lewis, Bertrand Russel, and more
| contemporary is David Bentley Hart
|
| Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch
|
| The Four Agreements
|
| Basically that's what I'm see in my kindle at the moment that
| is relevant.
|
| edit: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is incredible I hear
| the Bhagavad Gita is great Start Where You Are by Pemma
| Chodron is great
| cableshaft wrote:
| > Are you looking primarily for Christianity or
| spirituality in general?
|
| I'll take either. Thank you for those.
| CivBase wrote:
| > I have no idea why the level of discourse is on average so
| primitive, I think church leaders have been systematically
| underestimating the populace.
|
| They're not underestimating the populace. They're catering to
| them in a desperate attempt to stay economically viable. The
| big beautiful building, supporting staff, production equipment,
| etc doesn't pay for itself.
|
| Many churches are operated as businesses - ones which have
| realized that the easiest, most profitable mode of operation is
| to refrain from teaching/challenging your supporters as much as
| possible. Mix in a sense of tradition, some political activism,
| and a touch of self-righteousness and you've got yourself a
| recipe for a successful organization. At least until your
| congregation passes away and their children realize they have
| no use for you.
|
| There are still a few churches out there which use the
| hellfire-and-brimstone approach, but it's not very effective on
| Gen X and younger. Nowadays, I'm certain it drives more people
| away from Christianity than it brings in.
| rantwasp wrote:
| lol. you really fail to understand why everything is dumbed
| down? it's because 1) people don't have a lot of time 2) a lot
| of people don't need or can't understand the arguments. why
| bother?
| bobthechef wrote:
| Oh, yes. Quoting Fulton Sheen:
|
| "There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate
| The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they
| wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be."
|
| In this case, I would include the majority of Catholics who are
| oblivious today about the very basics of what the Church
| believes, much less why, and practice it seldomly on one hand
| or cliquishly on the other. When the culture becomes hostile to
| the faith, it is little wonder that many fall away if all that
| kept them there was vacuous habit and social inertia.
| Obviously, if your ideas are primitive and stupid, and the
| culture within the Church enters a malaise, and the promised
| rewards of defecting and joining the popular chorus seem so
| enticing, then you will experience defections and apostasy. The
| intellectual mediocrity of people like Dawkins impresses only
| the uneducated or the mis-educated.
|
| But frankly, the kinds of apostasies we're seeing in the US are
| mostly a formality. Those defecting are effectively apostates
| already. They're just not going through the motions anymore,
| either because they're tired of faking it, or because the
| social incentives of putting on appearances no longer seem to
| exist. You might even fear being seen as a "weirdo", though you
| will find that most people will admire, even feel intimidated
| by, a well-informed and educated Catholic who unapologetically
| and without a feeling of shame or cowardice is frank about his
| beliefs.
|
| Of course, FWIW, the Church itself is growing in numbers. It is
| growing rapidly in Africa and in Asia, though Catholics, and
| more broadly, Christians are the most persecuted group in the
| world (persecution also tends to produce more conversions). The
| West is undergoing a period of cultural decadence. Whether it
| will survive or whether the carcass will rot out completely, I
| don't know. At the moment, it looks like the future of the
| Church is on those continents.
|
| Feser has written a few other books that others might also find
| useful. I have greatly enjoyed his writing. Some find Peter
| Kreeft, himself a convert, a good introduction (his
| "Apologetics" for instance), and I've heard some good things
| about Scott Hahn. These are probably good entry points before
| venturing into the vast literature of the last few millennia.
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| "There are not one hundred people in the United States who
| hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate
| what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be."
|
| Oh, that's crap. There are more than 100 victims of child
| sexual abuse by Catholic clergy where the Church itself
| covered up the crime. You can play with definitions however
| you want, but that is not a misperception of the Church, but
| a realistic view of the actions of the Church.
|
| I've been Catholic, and the Church exists to extend the
| existence of the Church. Any other action is in service to
| that goal.
| Alenycus wrote:
| Catholic priests are less likely than the general
| population to be predators. You only hear about it because
| the media Is hostile to the church. School districts across
| the country have done similar things in terms of cover ups
| but I don't hear the outage there.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I guess there's someone willing to defend anything.
|
| I don't see anything about the general population, but to
| bring up schools is whataboutism. Unfortunately predators
| seek out jobs that will put them close to children. The
| Catholic Church coverups go up to the chain of command
| and they continue to let pedophile priests serve. These
| issues were well known to the church but they let abuse
| continue and did not turn priests over to the police. Are
| you not outraged by this? If your son or daughter was
| abused by a priest who has been abusing others for
| decades would you not blame the church?
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| So the Church, an organization that sets itself up as the
| moral arbiter between God and man, doesn't have more of a
| moral responsibility than school districts across the
| country?
|
| And there is plenty of moral outrage for coverups, no
| matter the source.
|
| Please. People hate the Church because it says it is one
| thing and is another. The media is critical of the Church
| because the Church has tried to make itself the authority
| on people's behavior, yet itself behaves in a
| reprehensible manner. Maybe it should just go back to
| being the Mafia's bank and just obliquely supporting drug
| cartels and human rights abuses via loans?
|
| Your whole comment is just whataboutism. You've an
| opportunity to refute the assertion that the Church
| knowingly covered up abuse of children, and you've
| decided that if others have done it, it can't be that
| bad.
| svieira wrote:
| The Church only claims that it is a hospital for sinners.
| It doesn't claim that it is a country club for saints
| relaxing on earth for a vacation. The surprise that such
| a hospital should be full of those who need its cures is
| not Biblical. The sadness that it is so, on the other
| hand, _is_ , so thank you for your moral outrage!
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| And no one is claiming that there aren't sinners in the
| Church, and no one is outraged that there are. The
| problem is that the "hospital" was moving abusers around
| from floor to floor to avoid responsibility.
|
| Heck, if the Church defrocked the abusers (those in need
| of its "cures") when they were reported, and took actions
| to keep them from abusing and answer for their crimes to
| the legal authorities, no one would have this
| (particular) problem. But the Church didn't, because it
| was protecting itself. The Church is more important to
| the Church than the victims of those crimes.
|
| Hence, the Church exists to ensure the existent of
| itself, and all it's actions are in service of that
| singular goal.
|
| Frankly, moral outrage at child sexual abuse and the
| systematic cover up of the abuse and protection of the
| abusers is justified. If the Bible is written in such a
| way that such moral outrage is a sickness, then it is
| truly awful foundation to base your morality upon.
|
| But thank _you_ for minimizing the responsibility of
| those covering up the crimes and ensuring that they could
| continue.
| svieira wrote:
| My point is that the Church is not the churchmen and that
| those who cover up others crimes, like those who commit
| them are all in the beds. You do not see the Divine
| Physician and so conflate those under judgment with the
| One Who judges the living and the dead.
|
| Moral outrage is not a sickness - moral outrage is
| thinking God's thoughts after Him and so is to be
| commended!
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| The Church is composed of the people in it. And should be
| judged by the actions of those that comprise it,
| otherwise you are abandoning all agency, and it may as
| well be dismantled as it could not be responsible for
| anything it does.
|
| Also, no evidence of any god exists, but that is another
| argument. Let's stick with arguments that postulates the
| existence of a God in the Catholic tradition.
|
| First, according to the Bible, papal infallibility has
| whatever the Church does held as law in Heaven. Stupid
| rule, but there you are. Therefore, if we judge that
| covering up and enabling child abuse is immoral, then the
| Church is by its own rule, immoral. Well, that doesn't
| work out so well for the Church. So let's leave that
| aside.
|
| The Catholic Church (and other denominations) tries
| explain evil (and thus side step the "All Good, All
| Power, and All Knowing -- pick two problem of God), but
| claiming that it is all part of God's greater plan. The
| difficulty here is that it doesn't side step the problem,
| but tried to solve it by adding a layer of abstraction to
| it. What you end up with is that God's plan has to be
| definitionally immoral because it came from the mind of
| God.
|
| The answer is, of course, who can know the mind of God?
| It sort of kicks the can down the road much the way the
| Millerites (now Seventh Day Adventists) do on the end of
| the world and QAnon does with Trump coming back (was it
| January 20th? Or March 6th? Or March 20th?). Evil exists
| because God's plan demands it, but somehow removes the
| responsibility of God's plan from God.
|
| So, the children were abused by the men acting in God's
| name because God's plan demanded their suffering, but God
| owns none of the responsibility because you can't
| possibly understand the reason that God required the
| suffering of those children. Nice work, if you can get
| it.
|
| Free will (in the Catholic tradition) allows the ability
| to see the harm that actions do upon others, but somehow
| we are supposed to turn a blind eye to that done under
| the protection of God. Because those children were
| clearly not under the protection of God.
|
| Divine Physician, indeed. Physician, heal thyself.
| shireboy wrote:
| I haven't read Feser, but I do agree there is a huge gap
| between, say, the theology and level of discourse of C.S.Lewis
| and Tolkein and popular megachurch pastors. Culturally it's
| interesting to me - all but the most die-hard atheist will
| likely see some value and truth in Tolkein's work even if they
| disagree with his theology and choice of church. They may not
| agree, but would respect him. Where are today's Inklings?
| __aintit__ wrote:
| >Where are today's Inklings?
|
| As someone who has read and studied the Inklings extensively,
| I think the fact that these few misfit professors had such an
| impact is astounding in that they were able to do it.
|
| To be clear - their level of thought and depth was immense
| and powerful. All impact is merited. I think these sorts of
| collections of intellectual individuals are not as rare as we
| might think; they just don't break out into wider society in
| the way (in particular) Lewis and Tolkien did.
|
| The average person of today (anecdotal citation here) is less
| read, less cultured, less knowledgeable of language, history,
| religion, philopsophy, and literature than the average person
| of yesteryear. Maybe this has something to do with it.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| The Inklings were overall extremely well-read and literate.
| Literally professors on mythology, linguistics/etc. Not
| necessarily fair to compare the general population to them.
| ;)
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The average person of that time was far less educated.
| Because only the elite went to university.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| Speaking of CS Lewis, everyone should read his cosmic
| trilogy. It's so astounding that I'm surprised it didn't get
| the attention that the Narnia books did, and the third book
| is on par with 1984 and Brave New World, written as a modern
| fairy tale yet also as a sci-fi in the tradition of HG Wells.
|
| It's such a good series and probably paints a better
| understanding of what a fallen world means and what a proper
| relationship with God is like, yet using sci-fi literalism
| instead of religious dogma.
| shireboy wrote:
| Yes! Some of my favorite, and definitely less well known
| than Narnia.
| christiansakai wrote:
| I thought I knew what Christianity was, growing up in church.
| After I attended a theological seminary, I realized I knew
| nothing. Also I stopped debating religion with people online
| because I realized majority of religion debates are extremely
| shallow, yes even those with popular sciences like Richard
| Dawkins are shallow.
|
| On the other hand, being just a regular member of my church, I
| also don't want to bring my background when I talk with my
| church community. Majority of people don't have the education
| that I had, and to explain half-assedly will just confuse them
| more.
| phd514 wrote:
| I've come to a similar place after doing graduate work in
| Christian theology. The theology, philosophy, and literature
| of the Bible is the most-studied of any book in the last two
| millennia and pretty much any question or objection that can
| be raised about it has been addressed by some of the greatest
| minds in history. You might not find their conclusions
| satisfactory, but a serious criticism of Christianity must at
| least acknowledge and engage with that work.
| christiansakai wrote:
| Pretty much. 100%
| lookdangerous wrote:
| I agree.
|
| I grew up in a conservative congregation with a difficult-to-
| understand theology. I went through some dark and nihilistic
| points in my life but after being exposed to Jordan Peterson's
| study of Christianity as the mythology that underpins the
| culture of the west I developed a deep appreciation for these
| ideas and now consider myself a Christ follower.
| Alenycus wrote:
| Reading dostoesvsky brought my back to the church on a
| spiritual and emotional level, and the Abolition of Man and
| Mere Christianity bt CS Lewis brought me back on an emotional
| level.
| sarabad2021 wrote:
| The same can be said of science in that science can't explain
| the supernatural or the after-life. Science was never meant to
| explain those things but we have tried to make it a replacement
| by trying to naturalize everything. Things that go beyond this
| realm of understanding and reason.
| jwalgenbach wrote:
| There's a lot of conceit in this notion that just because
| _you_ can't understand or explain something means that it
| goes beyond understanding and explanation.
|
| Religion exists because of that conceit, that notion that
| either something is immediately explainable or that it is
| supernatural. Science exists because the idea that something
| isn't understood now doesn't mean that we (as a species)
| won't ever understand it.
|
| We stand on the shoulders who have come before us, and not
| one of them was a god.
| wussboy wrote:
| In my opinion it explains both perfectly well: The human mind
| is not perfect and sometimes it gets confused, believing that
| the supernatural is real and that there is life after death
| even though time and again these phenomena turn out to have
| completely naturalistic explanations. If you want to go one
| level deeper I encourage you to read Darwin's Cathedral where
| you'll learn this tendency to believe in the supernatural is
| not a bug but a feature.
| seneca wrote:
| > Science was never meant to explain those things but we have
| tried to make it a replacement by trying to naturalize
| everything. Things that go beyond this realm of understanding
| and reason.
|
| Criticizing a flashlight for being a poor saw is a flaw in
| the criticizer, not the flashlight.
| 34679 wrote:
| The whole point of science is to explain "the supernatural".
| Lightning was once considered "supernatural". Now it isn't.
| Science did that. Science does not acknowledge the existence
| of an afterlife because there is no evidence to support such
| a conclusion.
| jawns wrote:
| Americans' religious affiliations and degree of religious
| adherence tend to follow a generational step-down pattern.
|
| For instance, in my grandparents' day, both religious affiliation
| and religious adherence were relatively high. In Philly, where my
| mom grew up, Catholic schools were practically overflowing, and
| parents expected that the school would _supplement and support_
| the religious upbringing they were receiving at home.
|
| Then in the next generation, there was a shift. Religious
| affiliation remained relatively high, but religious adherence and
| attendance began to decrease. Those Catholic schools continued to
| bring in students, but there was a marked difference; parents who
| were not particular devout themselves expected that the school
| would _replace and make up for_ the religious instruction that
| many of the kids were not receiving at home. These people might
| still have identified themselves as Catholic, but they weren 't
| really actively practicing their faith.
|
| Nowadays, Catholic schools are largely on life support, because
| the decrease in religious affiliation that was precipitated by
| the decrease in adherence/attendance has now cut down enrollment
| to a much smaller number of families who either have high
| devotion or who have low devotion but see the schools as better
| than the public alternatives. Parents who in the previous
| generation might have sent their kids to Catholic school to
| replace the religious instruction they weren't getting at home
| have instead decided to disaffiliate and not give their kids
| outsourced religious instruction. Whereas in previous
| generations, they might have continued to identify as Catholic
| even though they were inactive, in this generation it's much more
| common to just shed the identity.
|
| Obviously, I'm just painting a small part of the picture, of
| Catholicism in the mid-Atlantic region. Many other parts of the
| country with other religious makeups have followed different
| patterns. But I think we can basically predict what the religious
| landscape is going to be like over the next generation or two by
| following this step-down pattern. (This assumes that religiosity
| will continue getting weaker, which is not necessarily a sure
| thing. Religious revivals have been relatively common throughout
| history.)
| danpalmer wrote:
| It looks like the U.S. is running along a similar trend to the
| U.K. (and I'd guess many other countries, but I'm from the U.K.).
| Church attendance falls, followed by membership, followed by
| people considering themselves "religious".
|
| One of the tricky things in the UK over the last 3 censuses has
| been accurately capturing this, so that government funding and
| policy can be best targeted. People think "I celebrate Christmas
| so I'm a Christian", while never attending church, not
| identifying with any particular type of Christianity, not being
| able to talk about the content of the Bible even in a very
| general sense, and only generally thinking that there's probably
| some sort of god or something, and hopefully an afterlife.
|
| This was so ingrained that the British Humanist Association (I
| believe humanism in the US is very different, here it's a secular
| belief system) had a big campaign during the previous census
| (2011) titled "If you're not religious, for God's sake say so!".
|
| Despite not going to church or really taking part in any
| organised religion, people really don't want to be non-religious.
| I think we could better recognise this sort of generic
| "spiritualism".
| freedomben wrote:
| Are there individual churches that are doing really well and
| bucking the trend?
|
| Maybe an individual church can't tell us much about the broader
| trends, but it would be interesting to see if people are moving
| to more extreme churches, or more liberal, etc.
| kypro wrote:
| Although I believe religion is outdated and in many ways I'm
| happy to see it in decline in the West, I do worry about the side
| effects the decline of religion has.
|
| It seems to me that people my age today (late twenties, early
| thirties) are extremely self-centred and struggle to see any
| higher pursuit in life than self-satisfaction. This is in
| contrast to the few religious people I know who are far more
| family focused and believe in self-sacrifice in the pursuit of
| what they believe to be morally good - charity, children,
| community, etc.
|
| As a teenager who went to a catholic school I often found myself
| in trouble for mocking things we were taught from the bible, but
| as I've grown up I've come to appreciate religion and the role it
| has historically played in our society.
|
| For example, my sister has made a lot of bad decisions in life -
| drug use, having a child to get a council house, arrested for
| violent behaviour, etc. Something that made me reflect on my
| attitude towards religion was that I realised my sister would
| likely be in a much better place today if we lived in a more
| religious society. Many of the legal things she did for self-
| satisfaction would have been look down upon just a few decades
| back and if that happened she may not be the way she is today. I
| see this all the time as someone who grew up in a poor area of my
| city, the lack of religion promoting family values and self-
| sacrifice is clearly hurting those on the lower end of the
| socioeconomic ladder the most. Almost everyone young female in my
| family is a single mother living in government housing today,
| many struggling with drug addiction and mental illness. This just
| wouldn't have been the case in past decades.
|
| If you educated and middle-class you're far more able to go a bit
| crazy in your twenties before you you settle down in your
| thirties. If you're able to responsibly navigate between self-
| satisfaction and self-sacrifice then religious values are less
| important and perhaps even seen as a burden in your life, but if
| you have less self-control and perhaps don't have the intellect
| to form your own secular spiritual meaning to life, then what
| else is lack but the pursuit of self-satisfaction?
|
| Sorry for the ramble. This is a topic I think about a lot because
| I'm so split in my thoughts towards religion today. I don't think
| we should go back to religion, but I suspect we might need to
| find a substitute for it.
| ookdatnog wrote:
| > I realised my sister would likely be in a much better place
| today if we lived in a more religious society.
|
| I'm really not so sure about that. For instance, the top 10
| states in terms of teenage pregnancy in the US is mostly
| dominated by religious states[0]. I'm not sure I've ever seen a
| stat like crime, drug use, etc, where the more religious states
| perform better than more secular states.
|
| Of course, other factors might influence these stats. But at
| the very least it seems that, even if religion isn't actively
| harmful, it doesn't seem to be helping all that much.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_pregnancy_in_the_Unite...
| ; the data is from 2010 though
| pnathan wrote:
| Quick note: your sister's story was also common enough in the
| 1880-1950 timeframe. She'd also have been considered a loose
| woman, immoral, etc, and come under vicious religious censure.
| Now, statistically, would that have improved things more
| generally? I don't know. But it was a thing.
|
| If we were to spin the clock back to pre-industrialization and
| its concomitant labor crunching, I don't know that period of
| history quite as well.
|
| While I think the lack of good religious thinking is causing
| all sorts of odd misfires across society, I'm not sure it would
| improve "bad choices" though. C.f. canturbury tales...
| some-guy wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat. I grew up Christian and then became a
| very "online atheist", but since the mid-2000s I've become more
| worried about the lack of what feels like a real in-person
| community.
|
| My wife is Reform Jewish and one thing that I have come to
| appreciate is what seems to me a good balance between community
| and a good dose of secularism--I agreed to help raise our
| children this way with her for this reason (without converting
| myself). The most dogmatic thing you could maybe argue is some
| kind of allegiance to Israel, but this isn't present as much in
| the younger / millennial Bay Area Jewish community that I've
| witnessed.
| forrestbrazeal wrote:
| My personal observation (having left a fundamentalist background,
| though still identifying as Christian) is that hardcore young-
| earth creationism of the Ken Ham variety has driven a ton of
| deconversion in my generation.
|
| Ken Ham & his ilk have been teaching for decades, explicitly and
| repeatedly, that if you do not buy into their specific 6-day
| literal interpretation of Genesis, then you might as well be an
| atheist. [0] This line works great to rile up the faithful,
| but...
|
| Fast-forward to today, and you have an entire generation of young
| adults who can no longer square YEC with reality, going: "Huh, I
| guess I'm an atheist then?"
|
| Ham-flavored fundamentalism rules huge swaths of orthodox
| Christian tradition out of bounds, and it's been devastating for
| the future of the American church.
|
| [0] https://www.au.org/blogs/wall-of-separation/a-flood-of-
| nonse...
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| How did you personally abandon fundamentalism and end up still
| identifying as Christian? I grew up learning from Ken Ham
| (literally shook his hand at summer camp), but I'm now a
| genuinely atheistic apostate and I can't comprehend what you
| have left of Christianity when you abandon a literal
| understanding of the Bible.
|
| Young Earth Creationism pseudoscience is one reason, but there
| are tons of others. Ham, I think, is mostly right: Either (1)
| it's all true, in which case you have all the problems of
| fundamentalism and have to disbelieve science. Or (2) or some
| subset of the factual claims it makes are true - the Bible as
| miraculously inspired and truthful, YEC, the very existence and
| nature of the supernatural, Old Testament miracles, New
| Testament miracles, eschatology, and so on - but as Ham
| eloquently points out, once you abandon one of the claims that
| the supposedly truthful book makes, you call them all into
| question. Or (3) none of it is true, it's all fiction, in which
| case you can use whatever you want as a moral framework, but it
| has no special value. In that case, it's merely a socially
| evolved construct like every other superstition throughout the
| history of our species.
| forrestbrazeal wrote:
| I don't know you, but I love that you commented on this
| because your history and perspective is a _perfect_ example
| of the phenomenon I 'm talking about.
|
| TO your question, I don't claim to have all the answers (let
| alone all the "Answers in Genesis") but I've come to
| understand there's a lot more nuance to a "literal"
| understanding of the Bible than Ken Ham may have led you to
| believe.
|
| A couple of resources I've found helpful when navigating the
| intersection of historic Christianity and modern science are
| biologist Joel Duff [0] and physicist Aron Wall [1]. (Fun
| side note on the latter: he's the son of Perl creator Larry
| Wall.)
|
| [0] https://thenaturalhistorian.com/ [1]
| http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/
| brundolf wrote:
| Trumpism (and the past couple decades of political lead-up to
| it among fundamentalists) being the other big one. I think
| these are the two major forces that actively drive people away.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Except, mainline Protestants are shrinking at a much faster
| rate than evangelicals. If church attrition was driven by a
| rejection of fundamentalism we wouldn't expect Unitarians and
| Episcopalians to be losing members faster than Baptists and
| Pentecostals.
| forrestbrazeal wrote:
| There are certainly other factors at play in the decline of
| mainline Protestant churches. I'm not sure that
| evangelicalism's problems (subject of my comment) imply
| anything about whether they should be shrinking faster or
| slower than other types of churches.
| benja123 wrote:
| I am agnostic, but, I don't necessarily see this as a good thing.
|
| I was raised Jewish and as a kid we would go to the reform
| synagogue on and off throughout the year. My parents are
| completely secular (atheist and agnostic), and yet that did not
| stop my mom from becoming President of the local reform
| synagogue, so at least for a period it was a big part of my life.
|
| The main benefit of the synagogue, and I assume it is the same
| one you get from being involved in your local church, is the
| community that is built around it.
|
| When someone was sick, someone died or someone needed help,
| people from the community were always the first ones to help.
| They would took care of the poor, help the weak and also the
| elderly. They would lead food drives and volunteer efforts.
|
| I have yet to find any community that is as strong and as helpful
| as the one that was built around the local synagogue. There is
| something unique about places of warship that drives people to be
| more generous and helping. My only assumption is the communities
| they build are passed down from generation to generation with
| their own traditions which makes them stronger.
|
| As an adult, I don't go to synagogue at all. The weird thing is I
| miss it even though I hated it as a kid.
|
| One last thing. I see a lot of hatred for religion in the
| comments and as of late in general. Please don't hate! Understand
| that extreme anti-religion is no better and no less dangerous
| than people that take religion to the extreme. Yes, religion has
| caused or been excuse for a lot of bad and intolerant behavior.
| You aren't going to end intolerance by being intolerant yourself.
| Assume best attentions, judge people by how they act and help
| through education to change their misconceptions.
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| Hopefully the declines will continue so that we approach the
| levels in Scandinavia over the next few decades. Religion has
| been a force of oppression and division for far too long. It has
| negatively affected my life, to the point that I am nearly
| estranged from my parents due to religious conflict, so my
| loathing of it is perhaps more personal than most here.
|
| 400 years ago I would have been executed for my atheistic views.
| 200 years ago I would have been a social pariah. Today my views
| are largely accepted in silicon valley and among millenials and
| zoomers on the internet, though I still face discrimination in
| the bible belt where I happen to live. Progress is being made,
| however slowly it may seem at times.
| arunc wrote:
| Just curious, would this slow down the rate of conversion to
| Christianity around the globe (India, Africa, etc)?
| CedarMills wrote:
| As a believer and someone who attends church regularly, this is
| sad but not unexpected. From my own personal experience - if the
| church cannot answer questions clearly, their members will look
| for answers somewhere else. A lot of churches unfortunately are
| so elementary in their teaching or turn to "feel good preaching"
| (see Elevation Church). The longterm effect is that a person ends
| up being tired of getting the same "baby food" and they look to
| other places. The churches where theology is solid (and clear)
| tend to be stronger in number and in regular attendance.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Agreed - especially in the face of obvious sinful behavior in
| the case of Trump that they somehow can't speak out against.
| dagw wrote:
| I grew up attending church, and on the whole have nothing but
| good things to say about the whole experience. It gave me both
| spiritual and moral support when I needed it the most and some
| of the best people I have ever known, I got to know through
| church. In fact in ways I mourn the loss of both my faith and
| my 'church'.
|
| However once I realized that, on a very fundamental level, the
| core of what they where claiming as true wasn't in fact true, I
| felt I had no choice to walk away.
| xtracto wrote:
| I was "in touch" with religion for 12 years (my parents sent
| me to a very catholic school even though both are atheists)
|
| My experience was seeing huge amounts of falsehood and
| hypocrisy as religious people followed and repeated all the
| rituals of the mass but in the day to day life they just did
| not care about others and pretty much ignored what their
| religion taught them.
|
| Thank God after those 12 years I saw everything I needed from
| religion to get as far away from it as I can.
| chmod600 wrote:
| It depends on the religion. Some are just better at
| applying religious teachings to lifestyle than others.
|
| In my opinion, Catholicism (for all it's good qualities) is
| too theoretical and abstract. It's easy to walk out of
| church without any real takaways that you might apply to
| your ordinary life.
| aftergibson wrote:
| Catholicism is so mired in needless hierarchy and
| ceremony that it severely inhibits any genuine value it
| might provide.
|
| It hit home as a teenager during Easter Sunday mass. A
| priest enters the church, wearing his extra religious
| garb, a crucifix is carried behind him. The procession
| take several steps, the worshippers then kneel down and
| immediately stand back up. Several more steps, then
| kneeling and standing. Then several more steps, then
| kneeling and standing.
|
| The third time I stood up I felt like it was outside my
| body looking at myself. Following the crowd with
| absolutely no idea why or the meaning behind it. To me, I
| looked like an idiot. My father was religious his entire
| life, so afterwards I asked him what the ceremony
| represented, he had no idea. I went to church less and
| less after that.
| yepguy wrote:
| Unfortunately this is an example of exactly what
| CederMills said above about failing to properly teach the
| faith. There is an incredible amount of meaning imbued
| into every moment of a Catholic mass, and the more of it
| you understand the more engaging it is to attend and
| participate.
|
| Earlier this year I attended a 90 minute "walkthrough" of
| the mass where my priest explained the structure and
| meaning of a normal everyday mass. At the end of it he
| had still only scratched the surface, but it was probably
| more explanation than most (ex-)Catholics ever receive on
| the topic.
| honatommy wrote:
| I think religion is primarily cultural and based on
| traditions. A lot of people do not go for their faith,
| only cause they are used to it. I wonder how many people
| stopped going because of the pandemic, then realized they
| didn't miss it.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Is this the religious equivalent of a parent making the kid
| smoke a carton of cigarettes at once, to turn them off
| smoking?
| xtracto wrote:
| Haha it could very well have been that! In reality what
| happened is that we lived in a small town (in Mexico,
| called Campeche. Late 80s and 90s) and the only quality
| schooling at that place and time was catholic schools.
| tracedddd wrote:
| A carton would be challenging. As a dumb smoking teenager
| I competed to smoke a whole pack and even then it made me
| quite nauseous. Took about 5 or 6 cigarettes back to
| back.
| walshemj wrote:
| Or they want a good education I recall my mum saying that
| if we had stayed where I was born, they would have tried
| to use my Grandfathers (ex headmaster in another school )
| to get me into King Edwards.
|
| That is THE King Edwards Tolkien's Alma mater and is
| normaly first or second ranked in the UK.
| soco wrote:
| I feel and felt the same. As many other commenters mentioned,
| a church must be a few elements in order to be sustainable: a
| community, a set of beliefs, an organization... and each one
| of these can be more or less important for the individual,
| and each on of these can go awry in its own way, often
| without affecting in the same way the other individuals or
| the other elements. Thus the discussion becomes even more
| difficult, when individuals have different experiences on
| each one of those dimensions. I think calling the debate
| "comparing apples with oranges" is a _massive_
| understatement.
| dagw wrote:
| Yea. In some ways I feel slightly uncomfortable speaking up
| for or defending the church in any general way. For as
| positive as all my experience have been and all the good I
| have seen churches do, I have also seen churches (even
| churches within the same general denomination as the church
| I attended) completely destroy the lives of people.
| brundolf wrote:
| I was in the exact same place as you about 10 years ago.
|
| A key thing for me (I'm still not religious, though I'm
| religion-adjacent in some ways) was seeing that religion -
| despite what some would tell you - is at its best when it's
| not made to be about material truths at all. Its truths,
| really, are truths about the human condition and how best to
| live it out.
|
| In this sense, even as someone who doesn't believe in
| metaphysical spirits, the heart of what they're claiming (if
| you really dig down deep past many of the surface-level
| particulars) contains a lot of truth.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| What would that be?
|
| I've encountered this claim more often than I've encountered
| actual fundamentalist churches I think are making any sort of
| strong claim about the world.
|
| So I'm curious to hear what people think is wrong.
| soco wrote:
| I mentioned in a parallel comment that I had similar
| experiences, so I'll jump in until the other commenter
| does. And to keep spirits cooler, I'll mention my
| experiences in martial arts. I gained my black belt in
| Aikido in a wonderful dojo, wonderful teachers, doing many
| activities together otherwise. I found a few lifetime
| friends there and love as well, so it was definitely more
| than "training", it was a real community. Yet I'm not going
| there anymore for a dozen years already. The entire
| teaching is based on life energies and ki flows which...
| just weren't there for me. I was able to progress nicely
| also without them - faking them to be more honest, I could
| have been continued growing in the technique, but what was
| the point continuing something I don't believe in? What was
| the point in rebelling and showing them how simple
| sportmanship gets the same peace of mind, does the same
| precision, builds the same attitude towards "martial" and
| life in general? People are good if they choose the good,
| and not everybody needs the supernatural element in order
| to stay good. And I don't mean a fear of supernatural
| punishment, but in my Aikido case, a belief in supernatural
| and benevolent support.
| zests wrote:
| I read a book by Eckhart Tolle that gave me two
| takeaways. The first was that the book was full of
| nonsense. The second was that it was clear why this
| nonsense was so effective for people.
|
| What are the downsides to suspending scientific accuracy
| for the purposes of doing Aikido?
| klibertp wrote:
| The same as with every other sport: injury. You don't
| want to risk injury by extrapolating a faulty training
| method from magical thinking. In my experience, the arts
| and systems geared more towards full-contact spars have
| way, way less Ki/Qi in them.
| soco wrote:
| I did it for years _for myself_ but at some point when
| you 're supposed to tell _your pupil_ to bend more
| forward to not obstruct the ki flow, you just can 't
| bring yourself to do it anymore... you can't bear the
| dissonance anymore.
| mythrwy wrote:
| "All models are wrong, but some are useful"
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| > The entire teaching is based on life energies and ki
| flows which... just weren't there for me. I was able to
| progress nicely also without them - faking them to be
| more honest, I could have been continued growing in the
| technique, but what was the point continuing something I
| don't believe in?
|
| I had a similar experience -- in Kung fu and Buddhism.
|
| Beliefs are a model of the world: just because a model
| isn't phrased in terms of my core beliefs doesn't mean it
| has nothing to teach me.
|
| In the case of Kung fu and Buddhism, I don't believe I
| would understand things as well as I do (physics,
| physiology, neurology) without having taken the time to
| understand what those other models were trying to express
| about the world.
|
| To use an analogy: just because I have an irresolvable
| dependency conflict with a new piece of software doesn't
| mean it has nothing to teach me about software and
| programming.
| 8note wrote:
| I think the question still stands: what's the point of
| staying in the versionthat doesn't match your core
| beliefs vs finding an equivalent that does?
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > What would that be?
|
| not OP, but I would presume "the claim" is that (a) there
| is a God, (b) the church knows which one, and (c) they know
| what he wants.
|
| For comparison, I (atheist) normally state my position as
| "There is insufficient evidence to conclude there is a
| God," so any statement about there being any god, or about
| what influence they should/do have on our lives I treat as
| a "claim," which requires supporting evidence.
| dagw wrote:
| _So I'm curious to hear what people think is wrong._
|
| We know there is a God AND the Bible is some sort of
| authoritative (most would claim the most authoritative)
| description of who/how God is and how he wants us to behave
| towards him.
|
| Often there is also a third correlating claim that our
| interpretation of the Bible is the most correct
| interpretation.
| hootbootscoot wrote:
| Tell that to all the practitioners of all the other
| religions... "um sorry folks, you are wrong, we are
| right"
|
| I have issues with 1) "God told me to tell you" (any
| human claiming to represent God to their fellow humans.
| They surely would be devoid of ulterior motives, right?)
|
| 2) This collection of hitherto uncompiled writings
| (including a wholesale incorporation of Judaism) that
| were uncontestedly written by humans, some of which we
| know the names of, has now become a singular "book" and
| it's the world of God, shut up or else, etc.
|
| I smell humans, not divinity.
|
| Oh, and YES you nailed it on the last point. Witness the
| smug way some Evangelicals dismissively tell a Catholic
| "but I am CHRISTIAN"...
| drumttocs8 wrote:
| I grew up in a church that was very serious about "serious"
| preaching- Primitive Baptist, very focused on Calvinist
| doctrine and what could be considered scriptural literalism. It
| was definitely not "baby food"... but they still could not
| answer some questions clearly, and that is because it is an
| invention of man rooted in a prescientific understanding of the
| world. I would argue that church are losing members not because
| it is being watered down, but because it is losing relevance.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| Original anabaptists were not calvinists... primitive
| baptists are inherently unserious
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Never thought I'd see the day when HN would turn into the
| Reformed Pub!
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Don't give them any bright ideas...they'll turn into the
| Reform Club next
| psychometry wrote:
| The most "solid" theology is just shaky philosophy, though.
| sarabad2021 wrote:
| I see no issues with Christianity from a philosophical
| standpoint. It explains things which our beyond our
| natural/physical world. Those things impact how we live in
| this world. I'm curious what you mean in your statement,
| please unpack your claim.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The parent is referring to the (actually, legitimately,
| really bad) philosophy that you can find in the most
| puffed-up theology books. It comes from the same process of
| domain envy that makes some philosophers put the worst math
| ever in _their_ papers, except it started several hundred
| years earlier. To cut one slice through it, I can point you
| to a page of _100% fallacious_ arguments[0] that only
| survived as long as they did because they had a popular
| conclusion.
|
| [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-
| arguments/
| User23 wrote:
| The very page you link lists a logically sound
| ontological argument[1]. It appears to me that you're
| judging the argument fallacious because you don't like
| the conclusion.
|
| [1]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-
| arguments/#Go...
| whatshisface wrote:
| The fallacy in that one is thinking that accepting those
| axioms is any different than directly accepting the
| conclusion. :) Stating a bunch of axioms and deriving
| something doesn't prove what you derived, except in a
| technical sense of the word "prove," not in a useful
| sense related to determining the truth. Even if we accept
| that Godel's logic was sound, there is plainly no more
| reason to believe in his starting point than there is to
| directly believe in the end.
| [deleted]
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Claiming that Anselm's ontological argument "survived"
| for centuries is rather misleading. Being known as a
| thing did not mean it was viewed as a viable argument. It
| was subjected to some harsh criticism literally as soon
| as it appeared, and whenever it was brought up in later
| centuries (and not very often, because it was something
| of a curiosity) it was treated more critically than
| reverently.
| michaelt wrote:
| It depends what philosophical questions you want an answer
| to.
|
| If you're asking "What happens to us after we die?" then
| the church has as good an answer as anyone, because
| nobody's bringing any hard evidence to the table.
|
| If you're asking "How should I act and think to be a good
| person?" then religion has some ideas - some of them really
| good ideas, like the golden rule - but it's a huge question
| touching on almost everything. And some of today's
| questions require a lot of extrapolation over and above the
| words of the bible.
|
| If you're asking natural philosophy questions, like "what
| is lightning" or "what do we need to do to prevent future
| flooding" then you probably won't reference religion at all
| (except perhaps when you get back to moral questions, like
| if your flood defence displaces people)
| gspr wrote:
| > It explains things which our beyond our natural/physical
| world. Those things impact how we live in this world.
|
| (1) These two statements seem to me to be incompatible. We
| live in the natural world. If something "outside the
| natural world" (whatever that nonsensical statement means)
| affects the natural world, then surely it's partly part of
| the natural world?
|
| (2) It is not my business to define what e.g. christians
| believe, but if I am not mistaken the actual resurrection
| of an actual man is quite central. How is this not a
| (bold!) claim about the natural world?
| Digory wrote:
| "Naturalism" posits that natural laws are the only rules
| that govern the structure and behavior of the natural
| world.
|
| So "beyond the natural world" would be shorthand for
| alternatives to naturalism; the idea there are rules that
| govern the 'natural world' beyond natural laws or things
| that can be measured or observed scientifically.
|
| The resurrection is a prime example of rules "beyond the
| natural" impacting our natural world.
| psychometry wrote:
| What exactly is there to unpack? You have modern-day humans
| going around believing that an omnipotent God impregnated a
| human female so that his son could sacrifice himself for
| the sins of humanity. It's patently absurd (though really
| no more absurd than any other religion).
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| I would advise you to head down to your local university
| and take a religious studies course covering a bit of the
| Bible. It's usually split into OT/NT.
|
| What you will find there is that we know that the Bible is
| an amalgam of a script that was pieced together by many,
| many human authors. It is trivial today to tell because we
| can cross-reference Koine Greek versus translations and
| authors chose different words consistently for the same
| concepts.
|
| So, no. Not really beyond the natural/physical world at
| all. Just one lie of many competing lies.
| objectivetruth wrote:
| I would advise you to head down to your local church and
| meet some more Christians so you don't keep presuming
| we're all ignorant of Biblical studies, analysis,
| exegesis, and historical interpretation.
|
| What you may _also_ find there is that telling a person
| that the amalgams of history, philosophy, and
| spirituality that make up that person 's religion "one
| lie of many competing lies" is an incredibly
| disrespectful and ineffective way to discuss religion
| with that person.
| postingawayonhn wrote:
| For me it raises more questions than it answers.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's like saying "the most solid philosophy is shaky math."
| Yes, while plenty of philosophers have physics envy and wish
| that they were mathematicians, it's not necessarily the best
| philosophy that is written from that perspective.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's always fascinating to me to observe the small distance
| between the two in some philosophies.
|
| The Discourse on the Method of Descartes, in which his famous
| phrase _je pense, donc je suis_ occurs also includes a
| preceding segment where he considers whether he can know
| anything at all, or whether he 's a disembodied consciousness
| fed false information by evil demonic powers (if you will,
| the "Matrix hypothesis"). He rebuts that hypothesis with a
| simple assertion that a just and loving God wouldn't allow
| such an arrangement of events to be the true nature of
| reality.
|
| Depending on your bent, that can either allow the discourse
| to continue or put the brakes completely on it.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| It's a question of whether or not you buy into the set of
| assumptions. _If_ you do, you can avail yourself of any one
| several strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and
| world-views, which many of history 's great minds have
| reasoned about and scrutinized. Catholicism, Orthodoxy,
| Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of
| time on this stuff.
|
| It's the on-the-fly, off-the-cuff, brand new, modern
| theology/philosophy which tends to end up shaky, simply
| because it's been done with fewer resources and has seen far
| less attention.
| [deleted]
| whatshisface wrote:
| If you're not allowed to change the orthodoxy, then the
| contribution of that generation's greatest minds would by
| definition be heterodoxies. So what you are really saying
| is that we should expect the most-patched-up theology to be
| found in the most recent versions. :)
| vkou wrote:
| > It's a question of whether or not you buy into the set of
| assumptions. If you do, you can avail yourself of any one
| several strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and
| world-views, which many of history's great minds have
| reasoned about and scrutinized. Catholicism, Orthodoxy,
| Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of
| time on this stuff.
|
| As an atheist, I do not find[1] those philosophies to be
| particularly coherent or self-consistent - but obviously,
| my criticism is only superficial. So, I'll do one better.
|
| A large number of theistic philosophers share my opinion on
| this - hence the innumerable schisms within Abrahamic
| religions. Those philosophers looked at their religion,
| found inconsistencies in it, and forked it.
|
| The problem is that the survivors of those schisms
| (Catholicism, Eastern orthodoxy, Russian orthodoxy, the
| Anglican church, Protestantism in its many flavours, Sunni
| Islam, Shiite Islam, etc, etc, etc) did not survive because
| of their logical or intellectual rigour, or because they
| were more consistent or coherent then the parent branch
| that they splintered off from. They survived because they
| won political, violent power struggles. They survived
| because might made right. They survived because some
| influential autocratic warlord was personally swayed by
| their ideas, and imposed his will on his subjects and
| neighbours.
|
| Less successful heresies (that, to me have about as good a
| _claim_ at providing strong, coherent, self-consistent
| philosophies and world-views as their parent religions)
| have gone extinct. Not because their arguments or ideas
| were bad, but because they didn 't have enough spear-tips,
| sword-points, and gun-muzzles behind them.
|
| This sort of selection process does not seem to be like it
| leads to accurately determining which of these systems
| survived because they are _actually_ strong, coherent,
| self-consistent, and which survived because they were
| better at killing heretics.
|
| [1] My impression of religion is that it tends to identify
| its inconsistencies and incoherentness, and neatly package
| it into a black box that it does not engage with, and
| expects you to have faith. You get a highly self-consistent
| system, as long as you don't look inside the box.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The problem is that the survivors of those schisms
| (Catholicism, Eastern orthodoxy, Russian orthodoxy, the
| Anglican church, Protestantism in its many flavours,
| Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, etc, etc, etc) did not survive
| because of their logical or intellectual rigour, or
| because they were more consistent or coherent then the
| parent branch that they splintered off from. They
| survived because they won political, violent power
| struggles.
|
| Actually, in many cases, they survived because _neither_
| side won the power struggle. E.g., Both sides of the
| Chalcedon( /Ephesus) schism, the East-West Schism, the
| Protestant/Catholic schism, the Old Catholic/Catholic
| schism , the Catholic/Anglican schism (even in England),
| the reverse schisms between the Uniate Churches and their
| previous Church of the East/Oriental Orthodox/Eastern
| Orthodox communities, etc. survive.
| vkou wrote:
| Yes, you are correct. 'Won' is a loaded term there - but
| my point was drawing a distinction between heresies that
| are still around, and ones that very convincingly lost
| the struggle for their survival.
|
| From my understanding of European history, that didn't
| happen because their rhetoricians and intellectuals sat
| down to peacefully hash things out over tea and crumpets.
| They didn't survive because of the strength of their
| arguments - but because of the economics behind them, and
| because of the caprices of the particular personalities
| involved.
|
| I'm willing to accept that in the past two centuries,
| these processes of religious selection have changed
| substantially [1] - but the fact that this entire
| argument is painted in the framework of major religions
| that were established _long before_ the end of European
| religious wars leads me to believe that 'how religions
| splintered in 500 AD' is far more relevant for surveying
| the modern religious atlas than 'how religions splintered
| in 1900 AD.'
|
| [1] As long as we close our eyes to that Sunni-Shiite
| thing that's still on-going, and is likely to keep going
| for the foreseeable future.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Appealing to history's greatest minds is a weak appeal to
| authority. Several of history's greatest minds also spent
| significant time on pursuits such as alchemy. It does them
| no disservice to suppose that given modern tools and
| knowledge they would have formed different opinions. But
| now we have the ability to explain evolution, brains,
| astronomy, energy, weather, etc.
|
| Whatever your take on religion is, pointing to the opinions
| of people living in a much more inscrutable world is not
| good evidence.
|
| Personally I fall into the camp that omniscience
| omnipresence and omnibenevolence are just logically
| incompatible with the christian belief of a good god.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Excuse me. You will notice that I am not talking about
| authority. I'm talking about self-consistency in the
| theology of major world religious.
| [deleted]
| yxwvut wrote:
| This is the fundamental problem, though. There's an
| internal consistency so long as all evidentiary
| evaluation is predicated on the underlying assumption
| that the attestations are true. Confirmation bias does
| not make a firm foundation for truth-seeking. Once you
| realize that your standard of evidence could just as
| easily support any number of (contradictory) belief
| systems (were you to start from the premise that that
| particular religion, not yours, was true) the whole thing
| begins to crumble.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| You would think that putting Islam and Protestantism in
| the same comment would indicate to a reader that I'm well
| aware that the same standard supports mutually exclusive
| visions of reality but I guess that doesn't do enough to
| _evangelize_ atheism or agnosticism or rationalism or
| whatevertheheck so go ahead and have a fun thread
| (without me)
| oblio wrote:
| > Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam:
| all of them spend a lot of time on this stuff.
|
| They did spend a lot of time and they mostly failed. In
| many cases those school of thought that ultimately failed
| were also squashed during a religious power struggle (which
| is gives organized religion a bad outlook).
| filoeleven wrote:
| The American evangelical movement is particularly rabid, and
| subscribes overwhelmingly to Christian nationalism. It is
| entirely too mixed into politics, and is trying to create a
| theocratic state where "everyone must live like Christians (for
| my definition of Christian)."
|
| One of the high points for me regarding religion in the past
| couple years was finding The Holy Post podcast. One host is
| Phil Vischer, AKA Bob the Tomato, the creator of Veggie Tales.
| I have some fundamental (heh) disagreements with their
| perspective at this point, but they remind me of what I thought
| the church was while growing up within it, and they still
| largely reflect what I think it should be. They acknowledge
| that there's lots of room for disagreement, they don't think
| they have all the answers, and they strike me as genuinely
| loving people.
|
| If I had heard more people talking like them 20 years ago, I
| might not have left the church. It's not a question of "baby
| food" so much as "cultural identity," and the cultural identity
| of the American church is largely flag-waving rah-rah
| nationalism. Not sure what stats you're referencing, because
| megachurches are still quite popular here and quite clear on
| their "theology."
|
| If you the parent poster are not located in America, please
| disregard this post entirely.
| cwwc wrote:
| I get this, but wouldn't the flip side be the brightness and
| relief that hypocrisy is being culled through this? Just a
| thought -- but if you stop acting in a way (attending church)
| that doesn't jive with what you believe, that seems to be
| revealing truth (something which all ca rejoice over, even if
| it's a tough truth).
|
| On the other hand -- if it is people that are losing their
| faith, that is perhaps different, and I can see your concern.
| CedarMills wrote:
| I think the word hypocrisy is thrown around easily. I think
| churches have made mistakes and there are no excuses for them
| - but painting every single church and every single believer
| with a broad brush and calling everyone a hypocrite is
| intellectually dishonest.
|
| My personal worldview - at the end of the day, we're human
| and should see others as humans who make mistakes and give
| enough grace for them to try to improve.
| rchaud wrote:
| What are the questions that church leaders are getting from
| their flock these days? Some big questions are being debated in
| society, sure, but the church's position on a lot of things is
| set in stone, is it not?
|
| Maybe this is my ignorance talking, but I thought those with
| active church membership continue to go to participate in
| social events and make friends/partners?
| objectivetruth wrote:
| The Christian Church has been getting steadily less
| monolithic for the past 1700 years or so.
|
| Some of the topics being discussed in our (US) church in the
| past couple of years:
|
| * the devastating personal and economic toll of the pandemic
| and how we can help individually and in aggregate
|
| * race relations in the US and the history of injustices
| caused by racism, including police brutality, and how we can
| respond in our daily lives
|
| * LGBTQ-related topics, including the ability of people of
| different sexual identities to participate fully at all
| levels of the church hierarchy
|
| * the environmental impact of our actions at the personal
| level all the way up to the institutional level as it
| pertains to human-caused climate change
|
| You can find many churches in the US with people that believe
| in every possible belief related to all of these issues.
|
| No, it's not just potlucks and singles nights :-)
| bko wrote:
| What are those questions for which you seek answers that you
| believe some churches are not adequately addressing?
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Take a look at the popularity of "prosperity gospel" with
| poor and middle class individuals. This is as a response to
| the inequality and social immobility brought about since the
| mid 70s. I'll leave out explicit mention of the "C word,"
| because I'll get downvotes for it, but the sociological
| analysis is fascinating on its own.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology#Socioecono.
| ..
| bko wrote:
| Whats the alternative for those less fortunate?
|
| I mentored kids for much of my life and you can bet I told
| them they could be anything they want if they set their
| mind to it. What should I preach? That they're victims and
| screwed because of accident of geography/genetics? Is that
| a useful framework for life?
|
| You can say that you teach them the system is unfair will
| help them break it. But that amounts to political
| indoctrination if you're not careful. Instead, teach them
| to change the world themselves by being kind to those
| around them.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| There is no separating economics from politics, really.
| If God can't deliver, people have to, and that's
| inherently a political position.
| bko wrote:
| So indoctrinate your children into your current political
| ideology?
|
| Sure, many people do that. Not exactly a new or novel
| idea, but personally I'm not a fan.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean by "your children" and "your
| current political ideology," but, no matter what you do,
| children are going to acquire a political ideology,
| there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it, and
| there's no guarantee at all that you're going to like
| their ideology. Most of them get at least the initial
| version of it from their parents. A lot of peoples'
| ideology gets shaped in early adulthood, when they're
| either at school or on their own for the first time. My
| parents didn't raise a communist, but that's what they
| got, for better or worse.
|
| I have never personally known a clergy member to be
| particularly political, but we know that a large part of
| the US is politically driven by religious forces. Like it
| or not, church and state are not fully separated.
|
| I guess what I'm saying is that none of what I've written
| here was particularly intended as advice to you in your
| position as a religious teacher of children. I will say,
| however, that Jesus himself did have some explicitly
| political teachings. Matthew 19:24 comes to mind:
|
| > And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to
| go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to
| enter into the kingdom of God.
|
| Do with this what you will.
| bko wrote:
| > I will say, however, that Jesus himself did have some
| explicitly political teachings. Matthew 19:24 comes to
| mind
|
| Sounds like there's something you got out of religion
| after all!
| pmiller2 wrote:
| No, I have never been religious. I did, however, read the
| entire Bible in high school for a literature class. Well,
| okay, except for all those pages of "this dude begat that
| dude, and so on...." I just mentally substituted "uh,
| yeah, Methuselah was old and Jesus was descended from
| King David and all those dudes."
|
| That's not nearly as strange as it sounds, because one
| really does need to understand the Bible to really grasp
| the nuances of much of Western literature.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > What should I preach? That they're victims and screwed
| because of accident of geography/genetics? Is that a
| useful framework for life?
|
| > Whats the alternative for those less fortunate?
|
| (disclaimer: atheist)
|
| Your stance is a classic of church thinking: remove the
| agency from the people in the situation, and delegate it
| to god, saying he will fix the problem __somehow__, but
| they need'nt involve themselves.
|
| The alternative is honesty and historical accuracy. To
| try to conceal or ignore what forces in their past have
| done to minimize them is to make it impossible for them
| to decide for themselves how they want to deal with these
| problems--you're removing their agency.
|
| Maybe they'll choose to dedicate their lives to
| researching genetic problems, or to correcting social
| injustice, raising awareness of subconscious bias or
| changing how certain systems in our culture purposefully
| minimize portions of the population.
|
| This attitude, that being kind to those around them will
| bring change, while noble, is incredibly naive and
| shortsighted. Nearly every major social change in United
| States history was brought about through groups of people
| uniting and demonstrating their combined force, demanding
| the rights they'd been denied.
|
| > You can say that you teach them the system is unfair
| will help them break it. But that amounts to political
| indoctrination if you're not careful.
|
| Your alternative will lead to stunted critical thinking,
| and serves only to prevent the questions many
| deconverting folk have asked of the god they believed in:
| "How is this fair?", "How could you let this happen?",
| "How will you fix this?"
| [deleted]
| yalogin wrote:
| Interesting. Can you give a few examples of what questions
| these are?
| Freak_NL wrote:
| There does not seem to be a shortage of church variety to
| choose from. It's not about churches not being able to answer
| questions clearly; the reality is just that fewer people
| believe in gods.
|
| For comparison: in the Netherlands we already dipped below 50%
| in 2017, and the number of religious people keeps dropping
| steadily.
|
| In 2019 the remaining religious minority was composed of 20.1%
| Roman Catholics, 14.8% protestants (various types), 5.0%
| Muslims, and 5.9% adherents of other religions.
|
| Edit: bear in mind that this is people who consider themselves
| religious. The percentage of people actually member of a
| church/mosque/whatever is below 30%.
| CivBase wrote:
| > There does not seem to be a shortage of church variety to
| choose from.
|
| I think this is a deceiving metric. Most churches are less
| places of worship or religious education and more social
| clubs dressed up in religious phrases and iconography. There
| are so many of them because each is designed to appeal to a
| particular social group, but they all feature a very similar
| watered down message that just reinforces the congregation's
| preexisting beliefs. They tend to focus less on education and
| more on community events, activism, fundraising, and growing
| their community - just like any other social club.
|
| If you're looking for a church that genuinely _teaches_ its
| congregation, that 's much harder to find. They don't tend to
| be as successful in terms of growth or wealth. To teach
| someone, you must either add to what they know or challenge
| something they think they already know. Most people don't
| like being challenged - they'd rather go somewhere that
| reinforces what they already think or just ditch religion
| altogether.
|
| It's no surprise that the social club churches are
| disappearing. Even the least devoted members of a church
| congregation feels bad leaving, just as they might feel bad
| cancelling a gym membership they never actually use. But
| their kids often have no such attachments.
| subpixel wrote:
| Even if one believes, the notion that these often corrupt,
| sometimes malignant control organizations we call churches
| are a necessary expense of both time and money is a harder
| sell in the modern world.
|
| The social role that churches play is where the opening
| raises real concern. What comes after organized religion may
| well look more like conspiracy theory.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| I would argue several modern problems trace to the collapse
| of churches as a social institution:
|
| - loneliness
|
| - lack of dating/marriage
|
| - lack of community infrastructure
|
| - lack of elder care
|
| If you look at existing charities, much of the rubber meets
| road work gets done by churches or church affiliated
| groups.
|
| You don't have to like the message or the people, but I
| think it's pretty obvious ditching churches without a
| replacement was a mistake.
|
| Edit: reply here since rate limited //
|
| > Yes, this can obviously vary by church--but it's a
| fallacy to claim that churches as a whole prevented
| loneliness.
|
| No, you're the one making a fallacy: your mothers singular
| bad experience doesn't refute that churches made a
| statistically positive impact, which was my claim. You just
| told an emotional anecdote then declared that I'm wrong due
| to a straw man. (I never made a universal claim.)
|
| > an entire generation growing up in the shadow of the 2008
| financial collapse, as well as unprecedented debt from
| college
|
| Okay?
|
| The downwards trend in dating and marriage didn't start in
| 2008 and doesn't seem to hold across cultures -- there's a
| clear cultural component related to social changes in the
| US.
|
| If you're saying you think the collapse of churches is on
| par with excessive college debt as to why two-ish
| generations aren't flourishing: I agree.
|
| That's _my_ point.
|
| > it's a self-selecting population that inherently
| echochambers, making it difficult to relate to outside
| groups, thus further damaging community
|
| This sounds like a stereotype more than a fact -- and is
| exactly counter to my experience, where multiple churches
| collaborate on things like homelessness charities.
|
| That fine grained social structure is a necessary layer of
| how governments distribute resources effectively, one very
| poorly replaced by private actors. (In my experience.)
|
| > you don't give any supporting arguments for them
|
| I must have missed yours.
|
| > you quite nicely fit the churchgoer stereotype in that
| way
|
| Here's the crux of it: you're making faulty arguments
| because you need me to be wrong for your stereotypes to be
| right.
|
| Eg, calling me a "churchgoer stereotype" when I don't
| attend church and you made similarly unsupported arguments.
|
| You're just a bigot: factually wrong and stereotyping
| people.
| hackflip wrote:
| We threw out the baby with the bathwater.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I think you're likely ignoring other confounding effects;
|
| > - loneliness
|
| I'm not convinced churches ever solved this meaningfully
| --my mother left her church specifically because they
| never treated her as an equal adult, being a single
| parent. She was lonely _within_ the church. Yes, this can
| obviously vary by church--but it's a fallalcy to claim
| that churches as a whole prevented loneliness.
|
| Especially not for those subjugated *by* the church
| (LGBT, single parent, unmarried, women [depending on
| doctrine]...)
|
| > - lack of dating/marriage
|
| * an entire generation growing up in the shadow of the
| 2008 financial collapse, as well as unprecedented debt
| from college, climate change, etc. driving down the
| desire to start a family
|
| > lack of community infrastructure
|
| This is much more influenced by increasing polarization
| and tribalism, which churches have helped cause by
| providing a platform and existing insular in-group--it's
| a self-selecting population that inherently echochambers,
| making it difficult to relate to outside groups, thus
| further damaging community.
|
| Overall, you make these claims that churches are
| significant in these ways, but you don't give any
| supporting arguments for them--you quite nicely fit the
| churchgoer stereotype in that way.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| Followup to embedded reply;
|
| > You just told an emotional anecdote then declared that
| I'm wrong due to a straw man
|
| ...
|
| > That's my point.
|
| ...
|
| > ...and is exactly counter to my experience...
|
| ...
|
| > Here's the crux of it: you're making faulty arguments
| ...
|
| Apologies; You didn't provide any evidence or elaboration
| on claims in your original post, just that "I think it's
| pretty obvious ditching churches without a replacement
| was a mistake," so I did make assumptions about your
| motivations etc. It would have been better of me to ask
| "Why do you think churches would have addressed these
| problems?" instead of blindly countering what I thought
| your arguments were.
|
| That said:
|
| > I must have missed your [supporting arguments].
|
| I'd thought I gave several possible counter-arguments to
| your points--which you then responded to? I'm confused as
| to what you 'missed'.
|
| > Eg, calling me a "churchgoer stereotype"
|
| I did not call you a churchgoer, I said you fit the
| stereotype, in that you made claims without bothering to
| effectively support them (at the time); you may consider
| this 'bigoted' to stereotype in this manner, but to me
| it's a chronic frustration with defenders of churches.
| I'll grant that it's implied that I called you a
| churchgoer, but the specifics there are beside the point.
|
| At this point I would also add on the stereotype that,
| when your ideas are confronted, you act as if you're
| under "attack" and are being "oppressed," a la "war on
| christmas."
|
| > You're just a bigot: factually wrong and stereotyping
| people.
|
| I'm not certain I agree with that definition of 'bigot';
| I'm also not certain you've demonstrated my factual
| incorrectness.
|
| I'm also rather frustrated around the disconnect of you
| treating churches as a roughly homogenous group (as in
| "ditching churches without a replacement was a mistake",
| "[most charity] work gets done by churches", "several
| modern problems trace to the collapse of churches"), yet
| when I similarly generalize it's "stereotyping" and I'm a
| bigot.
|
| We clearly have different experiences w.r.t. churches, as
| most people do. I have plenty of friends who have a
| litany of issues with the churches they grew up in; I
| have several other friends and family members who have
| had wonderful experiences in their churches. Both of
| these common classes of experience (you may call them
| anecdotal, I call them endemic) existing in the same
| space makes it very frustrating to me when people make
| claims around the positivity of churches with little
| support and ignoring these widespread flaws. You say it
| was a mistake to ditch churches without "a replacement"--
| I'd claim there are many whose lives are better off for
| having not been subject to the whims of their church, and
| calling it a mistake to abandon them is to ignore the
| church's share in their own faults where they exist.
|
| > [saying churches are a self-selecting population that
| inherently echochambers] sounds like a stereotype more
| than a fact
|
| People who go to church literally self-select in that
| they all believe in __roughly__ the same doctrine, god,
| etc. Even more so if you account for the fact that
| "church shopping" is a thing where people try to find one
| that "fits," and then they get their general beliefs
| reinforced by going. I really don't see what's a
| stereotype here.
|
| The "outside groups" they struggle to relate to is
| demonstrable by things like how they interact with LGBT
| people, or folks of other religions, or atheists. There
| are certainly examples of where some churches do these
| things well, but again your claim of "ditching churches
| without a replacement was a mistake" __does not__ makes
| these distinctions, and ignoring them is tantamount to
| ignoring the harm churches--generalized or no!--have done
| to these groups.
| RankingMember wrote:
| > I would argue several modern problems trace to the
| collapse of churches as a social institution: > -
| loneliness
|
| > - lack of dating/marriage
|
| > - lack of community infrastructure
|
| > - lack of elder care
|
| Do you have any evidence to back this argument up?
| greedo wrote:
| Haha. My mom was divorced and told by the church that she
| couldn't remarry. Not because it was against church
| policy, but because the rector at our parish was against
| it. So she had to petition the bishop who basically
| ordered the rector to allow it (and forced him to
| officiate). So I'm pretty sure that at least this church
| didn't give a flying hoot about whether my mom was
| lonely, or seeking marriage etc.
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| I think you are looking for a regular socially democratic
| government, not a church.
| bopbeepboop wrote:
| Why would a government be involved in any of those
| things?
|
| That sounds like a Soviet-style dystopia.
| subpixel wrote:
| Only the state-sponsored dating, which I'm sure is not
| what the commenter was implying!
|
| If you've never lived in a society that offered socialist
| advantages like affordable health care, elder care,
| government-funded community engagement programs, etc.
| then I guess it's easy to be scared by things you don't
| understand.
|
| I'm not putting this on you, but when people turn to
| religion with fear already pulsing through their veins,
| good things never happen.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| I no longer see "believing in God" as being necessary per se
| to practice or benefit from religion. More important is the
| self-discipline it can create through repetition and habit.
|
| Religion has the same function as "branding" - it's an
| efficient short-cut to bypass intensive, and possible
| unavailable intellectual rigor for some. And because Bell
| Curves are truly reality, providing a moral and ethical
| framework that works for everyone and that is internally
| consistent ENOUGH absolutely matters.
|
| NOTHING we can ever know will be absolute truth or knowledge.
| You can make a simple proof by physical volumes of an
| individual and of the universe, combined with Shannon's Law.
| Humans must always come up short on knowledge and
| understanding of the universe as a result.
|
| Like all things (even science) you can take a thing too far
| and exceed its limits of explanation or prediction. But
| that's unavoidable in a static system sense; which is why you
| dynamic systems defined by reliable and simple rules and
| waypoints. Religion absolutely provides that in a minimal
| effort form.
|
| And we shouldn't project upon "average" and "below average"
| for what we might be familiar with or assume about intellect.
| Again: Bell curves for all things are reality. The biggest
| mistake that intellectuals make is that EVERYONE is just like
| them and thinks exactly the same way. Nope. Not even on a
| good day.
| cjameskeller wrote:
| Agreed. This was a major component in my switch from
| Protestant/Baptist to ("Greek"/Eastern) Orthodox. Having
| thousands of years of prior religious & philosophical
| discussions to draw from, as well as the experiences of people
| living under all manner of political regimes provides a much-
| needed grounding against whatever may be the current, trendy
| topics.
|
| And a direct result of that history is that the Church mandates
| certain practices to shape one's willpower: fasting (roughly
| half the year, in total, though "fasting" here means small
| vegan meals), some form of tithing &/or charitable work,
| explicit self-examination (not only standard prayers, but also
| Confession with a priest, who helps make a plan against bad
| habits, as well as an annual event where everyone in the parish
| asks forgiveness of each other) etc.
| ur-whale wrote:
| This approach, "religion as an operator's manual to living
| one's life" is one of the very rare arguments in defense of
| religion I can vaguely resonate with.
|
| Unfortunately this argument entirely fails to support all the
| rest of the luggage, especially the metaphysical hokum: you
| can perfectly chose to live your life according to a set of
| rules that will help you (and others) without having to
| justify it via the existence of some bearded dude sitting on
| a cloud.
| joshuacc wrote:
| > some bearded dude sitting on a cloud
|
| You do realize that this idea is explicitly condemned by
| Christianity, Judaism, and Islam?
| ur-whale wrote:
| You do realize that, when talking about a bearded man on
| a cloud, I was making a point about the fact that most of
| what the three monotheistic religions you mention (BTW 3
| out of many, many equivalently deluded things) are
| essentially fairy tales designed to control the minds of
| men?
|
| If at one time the bearded man on a cloud was the useful
| tool of the day to manipulate crowds and was later
| "condemned" because better ways were devised to keep the
| flock believing, in what way does that affect my argument
| that 90% of religion is utter, unprovable, fairy-tale BS?
|
| [EDIT]: and yeah if you insist on plowing the dirt of
| literal interpretation, I'll point you to this argument
| made by another poster : please take a look at the first
| image that pops when querying google for "god" and come
| back and tell us that the argument has no basis.
|
| https://images.google.com/search?q=god
| eszed wrote:
| You're right, but there is value in the community of
| accountability that churches provide. Fasting, tithing,
| charity work, and self-examination are objectively
| worthwhile, but not things I'm likely to muster up the
| will-power to do on my own, at least not regularly. It's
| like physical exercise: easier to get yourself off your ass
| when you go to the gym with a friend, or join a regular
| class.
|
| Also, even though I don't really believe there's any
| "metaphysical hokum" going on behind it, I'm still moved
| (aesthetically, and -- dare I say? -- spiritually) by
| liturgy and church architecture. I'm sitting in the same
| place, while seeing and smelling and saying the same things
| that people have for hundreds or thousands of years. That's
| pretty cool, and I always feel better afterwards. So, even
| if I'm rationally convinced that it's a psychological
| (rather than metaphysical) effect, it's still worth doing.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > easier to get yourself off your ass when you go to the
| gym
|
| Yeah, I hear you, but this is where we part ways: to me
| it's not a matter of willpower, but rather one of - a
| sin, I know - pride: I can't bear the idea that I'm
| walking the path of my life using the equivalent of moral
| crutches.
|
| As to your second argument: no argument there, not
| everything about religion is bad, even if, in the case of
| beautiful churches, you could argue that the way they
| were erected wasn't necessarily "ethical".
| redsummer wrote:
| Of the hundreds of communes that have been started in the
| US, those that were just secular or political never lasted.
| And the only ones which flourished were religious. People
| need to believe in a higher power, rather then just
| themselves, otherwise their communities just dissolve.
| hudon wrote:
| > bearded dude sitting on a cloud
|
| That's a strange straw man. No God-fearing person I know
| believes in such a thing. God is not a being, but rather is
| _being itself_. In fact, when Moses asked God what his name
| was, God replies something like "I am who am". If you
| prefer an Aristotelian frame, he is the "unmoved mover" [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover
| today20201014 wrote:
| God is a being in Genesis. He walks through the Garden.
| rbp wrote:
| Some Christian commentaries interpret this as God in the
| person of Jesus Christ: https://www.blueletterbible.org/C
| omm/guzik_david/StudyGuide2...
| joshuacc wrote:
| And when someone is in love we say they "walk on clouds."
| That doesn't mean we're literally ascribing the power of
| levitation to them.
| today20201014 wrote:
| > That doesn't mean we're literally ascribing the power
| of levitation to them.
|
| Exactly, it's figurative language. My point is that when
| we read in scripture that
|
| > Moses asked God what his name was, God replies
| something like "I am who am".
|
| the notion of Moses asking God may also be figurative.
| deergomoo wrote:
| If you search Google Images for "god" there's an awful
| lot of bearded men sitting on clouds, so it must be at
| least a somewhat popular belief
| petre wrote:
| Most likely caricatures than popular belief, or
| caricatures that shape popular belief. Maybe this is why
| muslims get angry when others make depictions of their
| prophet?
| ur-whale wrote:
| > God-fearing
|
| I rest my case.
| krapp wrote:
| God, as portrayed in the OT, is clearly a being. God has
| specific thoughts, agency and expresses emotions. God
| _gets tired_ after making the universe and takes the
| weekend off. God _despairs_ of humanity and decides to
| kill everyone in a flood. God calls himself a _jealous_
| God. God even argues with Jonah about a houseplant (Jonah
| 4) and haggles with Ezekiel over what kind of excrement
| to bake his bread over (Ezekiel 4).
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| The internet and the ability to discuss these issues
| anonymously has exacerbated irreligion faster than communism
| ever could. And unlike stalinist/maoist regimes, people are
| doing it on their own free will.
| avasylev wrote:
| Could you please share which churches you think have solid
| theology?
| luxuryballs wrote:
| Calvary Chapel churches are usually pretty solid.
| [deleted]
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Like their prediction of Jesus return in 1981?
| adkadskhj wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. The thing that drove me away from faith
| was feeling like it was a set of truths that required obscuring
| the rest of life to keep true.
|
| To me faith is something that you _have_ to understand through
| the lens of your life. There is no understanding faith before
| life. Your experiences allow you to understand faith. Which
| isn't to say that life is more important than faith, not at
| all, just that life is the lens in which you view faith.
|
| In that mindset, faith seems exceptionally deep and complex.
| Full of discussion, learning, change. Not a black and white
| truth, but a series of learnings and understanding. You can't
| learn (in my mind) without change, and so the idea of a churn
| that teaches absolute truths felt fundamentally broken to me. I
| think faith is a journey in knowledge. And so many churches
| seem almost aggressive towards knowledge. They favor rote
| memorization, i think, as a method to avoid change. To avoid
| their doctrine as being mutable.
|
| This mindset also seems pervasive into how these people behave
| in life, too. Just like how children need to learn to think
| critically, adults need to practice thinking critically. Such a
| strong emphasis on rote memorization has wide affects, i think.
|
| No grand statements here, and i mean no offense to religion.
| Just my thoughts on _some denominations_.
| dookahku wrote:
| i mostly got tired of being told i going to burn and choke and
| scream forever and ever, amen, because i like guys and gals.
| and if i disagreed, the pastor made sure i got punished.
|
| the long term effects wast that this not a healthy thing to
| tell a young teenager, and it's time for society to move on.
| 49531 wrote:
| As someone who was raised in a religious home who no longer
| attends any church I think it's less to do with not answering
| questions and more to do with a hostile rejection of religion
| generally. It wasn't until I had children of my own that I
| realized I needed to distance myself from religion. I know
| there is a large variety of what is taught from religion to
| religion and sect to sect but I'd like to steer clear from any
| organization that takes a negative view on basic things like
| homosexuality. I cannot fathom exposing my (or any) kids to
| that kind of worldview.
| CedarMills wrote:
| I think it heavily depends on the church and community. One
| of the reasons we are staying in our current church is
| because we're open to a wide community (multi-ethnic) with
| the same core values. Our kids grow up in this community but
| at the end of the day, it will be their decision if they
| decide to no longer attend.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I also grew up in a Christian house and am now atheist--I
| never understood how people could reconcile "church
| shopping" for a community that aligns with their views
| (e.g. not homophobic) with the notion that the core
| religious concepts are supposed to be infallible. If you
| disagree with various churches on some
| doctrinal/sociological point, how do you know that your
| current church is correct on God existing, or knowing what
| he wants?
|
| Part of my de-conversion was driven by what looked to me
| like people willfully deceiving themselves that it was
| possible to "choose" a church who fit their worldview,
| without treating the cosmology claims the church inherently
| makes with the same skepticism.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I also grew up in a Christian house and am now atheist
| --I never understood how people could reconcile "church
| shopping" for a community that aligns with their views
| (e.g. not homophobic) with the notion that the core
| religious concepts are supposed to be infallible. If you
| disagree with various churches on some
| doctrinal/sociological point, how do you know that your
| current church is correct on God existing, or knowing
| what he wants?
|
| That doesn't actually seem like a problem specific to
| religion, but a problem with truth, generally. If anyone
| believes their beliefs are true, they have to reconcile
| that with the fact that people disagree, which usually
| proceeds by believing those people are in error or that
| the differences aren't significant. I don't think
| Christians actually believe that the truth is something
| easy to access, given the emphasis on faith and belief
| that everyone is flawed, etc.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > given the emphasis on faith and belief that everyone is
| flawed
|
| Forgive my possibly abrasive tone, but "given the
| emphasis on faith and belief that everyone is flawed"
| falls apart when the focal point of the church and the
| religion it purports, the god, is held to be infallible.
|
| The notion that all these disparate groups can cite the
| same 'source of truth' as their guiding principles, yet
| come to such significantly different conclusions as to
| fight wars over them shows those principles aren't as
| useful or reliable as members of any church make them out
| to be.
|
| That's where my frustrations come in: churchgoers seem
| inherently aware of these intense differences, yet don't
| seem to question the reliability of their text (or view,
| or belief, or...) despite all these alternative
| conclusions from the same tools and evidence.
|
| (In Street Epistemology the "Outsider Faith Test" is used
| to demonstrate this; broadly phrased, "If it is possible
| for a person of Hinduism to use faith to justify their
| belief in their god(s), and it's possible for a Christian
| person to use faith to justify their belief in their god,
| yet those beliefs are in opposition to one another, is
| faith a reliable tool to determine what is true?")
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Forgive my possibly abrasive tone, but "given the
| emphasis on faith and belief that everyone is flawed"
| falls apart when the focal point of the church and the
| religion it purports, the god, is held to be infallible.
|
| Not really. That only falls apart under particular
| assumptions (e.g. an assumption that a perfect thing will
| only create other perfect things, or that perfection will
| be the particular kind you imagined it must be).
|
| > (In Street Epistemology the "Outsider Faith Test" is
| used to demonstrate this; broadly phrased, "If it is
| possible for a person of Hinduism to use faith to justify
| their belief in their god(s), and it's possible for a
| Christian person to use faith to justify their belief in
| their god, yet those beliefs are in opposition to one
| another, is faith a reliable tool to determine what is
| true?")
|
| I've got a pretty clear sense that there are regions of
| truth that our "reliable tools" cannot access. Faith is
| basically the hope that some of those regions can be
| accessed in other ways.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > there are regions of truth that our "reliable tools"
| cannot access
|
| This is a contradiction in terms. If you have a set of
| tools such that some tools reliably determine truth and
| some don't, inherently that latter set can't be used to
| "access" other "regions of truth." Put differently, when
| I examine the universe with my reliable truth-tools
| (roughly, the scientific method), I see no reason to
| believe that these other regions of truth that my tools
| cannot detect exist. If I use tools that are demonstrably
| flawed, like faith, I can conclude those things are true,
| but why would I use known-bad tools to reason with?
|
| It almost feels like a weird inverted understanding of
| object permanence; I can't see into the other room, so I
| cannot reliably determine what is inside it. It's
| possible since I left it that a ninja suck in and left a
| million dollars in my couch cushions, then retrieved it
| later--I would have no way to detect that from here, so
| my 'tools' can't determine that. Why would I choose to
| believe in the ninja?
|
| It is possible that you could come to believe something
| that is true by faith (as in, "I have faith we live in a
| heliocentric solar system, although I cannot prove or
| determine this with my current set of tools"), you cannot
| use faith to prove that what you believe is true. A
| practitioner of Street Epistemology, Anthony Magnabosco,
| has a very good conversation [1] with someone on that
| very topic.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmFyiLICAa8
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This is a contradiction in terms. If you have a set of
| tools such that some tools reliably determine truth and
| some don't, inherently that latter set can't be used to
| "access" other "regions of truth." Put differently, when
| I examine the universe with my reliable truth-tools
| (roughly, the scientific method)...
|
| You'll notice I put "reliable tools" in quotes. I do not
| think they are as reliable as you do. For instance, to
| give a secular example, they're unlikely to be able to
| give an answer to the simulation hypothesis. Say physics
| ultimately derives from a certain configuration in
| Conway's Game of Life, and that configuration is in-fact
| running on some kid's Hyperpentium 4 PC. Science _may_ be
| able to access the truth of the configuration and game
| rules, but it 's totally blocked from probing the region
| of truth beyond that. However, that block is one way, and
| the kid's totally capable of editing the configuration to
| add a message "LOL U DOODS R IN MY PC." Now (with or
| without the message) you may decide to have utter faith
| in your tools, and deny or dismiss as meaningless what
| they can't perceive, but that's just denial or averting
| your eyes. There is truth there, it's just outside the
| grasp of your tools.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I'm perfectly content to leave things such as the
| simulation hypothesis as "I don't know."
|
| This is another tool in the Street Epistemology toolbox,
| one normally done at the start of the conversation: you
| display a container of tic tacs and ask if there's an
| even or odd number in there--your conversation partner
| shouldn't be allowed to closely examine the tic tacs.
| There is a 'true' answer, but it's impossible to
| determine from their vantage point: as such, what use is
| either stance? The only "correct" answer is to
| acknowledge while there may be a true answer, they're
| unable to determine it from there and as such they don't
| know.
|
| My tools are perfectly reliable in the sense that they
| are reliable indicators of truth where they can be
| applied, e.g. to things that can be observed. You're
| completely correct in that if we are in a simulation they
| can only probe the bounds of the problem, and offer no
| answer as to if we are indeed in a solution (beyond if an
| observable event occurs that would indicate such)--but I
| don't feel compelled to choose a "side" on that issue,
| and I remain skeptical of people who choose to do so in
| the absence of evidence--the same skepticism I regard
| folks who believe in a god with an absence of evidence.
| They may be correct, depending on the claims they make
| about that god and it's ability to influence the
| universe, but I see no reason to allow that possibility
| to influence my life and decision making, just as I don't
| allow the simulation hypothesis to influence my decision
| making: having seen no evidence, why would I affect
| change in my life for this thing?
|
| It seems as though we've disagreed on the meaning of
| "reliable tools"--I don't mean omniscient, I simply mean
| they're the best way I've found to believe things that
| are true with regard to reality; put differently, they
| don't yield false positives. (Though it's wholly possible
| for me to reach false conclusions, I am only human.)
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This is another tool in the Street Epistemology
| toolbox, one normally done at the start of the
| conversation: you display a container of tic tacs and ask
| if there's an even or odd number in there--your
| conversation partner shouldn't be allowed to closely
| examine the tic tacs. There is a 'true' answer, but it's
| impossible to determine from their vantage point: as
| such, what use is either stance? The only "correct"
| answer is to acknowledge while there may be a true
| answer, they're unable to determine it from there and as
| such they don't know.
|
| So, I should conclude that I don't know if LIGO has ever
| detected gravitational waves? I am unable to determine
| that from my vantage point.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| You could ascribe reasonable certainty that folks using
| the scientific method have accurately modeled the
| universe, as determined by their documented and
| repeatable experiments.
|
| I've previously seen people phrase that as "having faith
| in the beliefs of others," which usually boils down to
| semantics on what "faith" means: I believe it is likely
| those people have observed the things they say they have,
| because of the nature of the scientific community and how
| these experiments are structured.
|
| I also think we're getting rather far off the specific,
| original issue: the existence of a god. In my experience
| this has been the kind of thing a single individual can
| experiment with and reason around--at least, in all the
| ways people tend to give evidence for their belief in
| god:
|
| (1) hearing him communicate with them in some way
|
| (2) seeing him influence the universe in ways they'd
| expect a god to
|
| (3) believing a god must have been necessary to create
| the universe due to its complexity/beauty/etc.
|
| You'd contended (please do correct me if I've
| misunderstood your argument) that the tools I suggested--
| the scientific method--were incapable of determining what
| lies behind the observational curtain, which I agree is
| certainly true: if you can't observe a thing or its
| effects in any way, you cannot determine its existence.
| The thing we seem to get hung up on is what we should
| believe about what lies behind that curtain.
|
| My stance is to take the null hypothesis and assume
| nothing exists beyond the curtain; at the very least, not
| a god that interacts with our world and the people in it
| as the Christian faith claims. In short, "I have not seen
| sufficient evidence to conclude a god exists."
|
| Your stance seems to be that it is acceptable to believe
| facts about things beyond this curtain; that we are not
| in a simulation, that there is a god, etc, framed as
| having faith in those facts being true, despite
| observational tools not functioning in this realm.
|
| The tic-tac example wasn't supposed to be an indictment
| of extrapolative beliefs from experience ("these people
| have reliably observed the universe before / predicted
| things / modeled things for years, it seems reasonable to
| continue to trust their motivations and methods"), just a
| demonstration of when "I don't know" is a more correct
| answer over taking a stance when observational tools have
| reached their limit.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I also think we're getting rather far off the specific,
| original issue: the existence of a god.
|
| Huh? I picked up that you're kinda evangelical and were
| drifting there, but that's not where we started and it
| wasn't actually the conversation I was having.
|
| > My stance is to take the null hypothesis and assume
| nothing exists beyond the curtain;
|
| Isn't that a little unreasonable? You see a floor, so you
| assume nothing exists on the other side because it blocks
| your vision?
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| > Isn't that a little unreasonable? You see a floor, so
| you assume nothing exists on the other side because it
| blocks your vision?
|
| You keep taking my statements to strange extremes; I'm
| going to try to avoid metaphors for clarity.
|
| I use observation and experimentation to determine true
| things about the world. I extend my belief in these
| things to other humans in the world who I believe
| practice observation and experimentation effectively;
| scientists, mostly.
|
| When we reach the limits of these observation and
| experimentation based tools, like with the simulation
| hypothesis, I stop and say "I don't know." By the fact
| these things and their effects cannot be experimented on
| or observed, they also cannot affect my life, so why
| bother making conclusions that I can't verify and won't
| affect me anyway?
|
| In the case of a god who created the universe, has an
| interest in my life, has declared certain things to be
| "right" and certain things to be "wrong," and
| hypothetically takes action in my life (e.g., the common
| Christian understanding), this is well within what can be
| observed and experimented on. As such, I take the null
| hypothesis like a good scientist: I don't assume there is
| some god and begin running experiments to determine
| _which_ one is there, I assume there is _no_ god and
| begin looking for any evidence that shows there is _any_
| god.
|
| In my experience thus far in life, I have not encountered
| any evidence that makes me suspect there may be any god
| of any kind, and certainly not the one of the Christian
| description.
|
| Your original statement was:
|
| > I've got a pretty clear sense that there are regions of
| truth that our "reliable tools" cannot access. Faith is
| basically the hope that some of those regions can be
| accessed in other ways.
|
| The implication I read here is that you believe in things
| that cannot be demonstrated through observation and
| experimentation, and that it is reasonable for people to
| use faith to support these beliefs.
|
| My frustration is with people who make claims about
| things in those regions without any way of actually
| demonstrating them, and then making life- and policy-
| based decisions around those beliefs that affect me and
| others in the world.
|
| I've tried to convey why this seems unreasonable to me,
| and you keep taking my points to strange extremes that
| seem disconnected from our original discussion.
|
| To return to your floor metaphor (which may be a poor
| choice on my part): I see a floor, and I assume there is
| no dragon in the basement that I must not aggravate
| because I've never seen any sign of any dragon, why would
| I worry about that?
| fock wrote:
| while I think this is a sensible stance for most highly
| educated people, for most this just is something they can
| not cope very well with. And I think that these "simple"
| minds are then prone to all the other cults out there
| (like QAnon - what is it else than replacing things
| people can't know about with faith.) - and from their
| teachings these are _much_ worse.
| LargeWu wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but there's plenty of
| disagreement on what those concepts even are.
|
| td;dr: Denominations vary wildly, and it's almost
| impossible to separate one's personal biases from
| choosing a congregation.
|
| For example, Catholicism is very heirarchical, stating
| that one cannot receive salvation except through the
| Catholic Church. Methodism states that good acts + belief
| are the gateway to heaven. Lutheranism promises salvation
| to all that believe in Christ.
|
| Or take the infallibility of the Bible. The Roman
| Catholic faith places a lot of emphasis on church
| doctrine, which is based on the Bible to be sure, but
| also a lot of church constructs. Baptists believe in a
| very literal interpretation of the Bible. Mainline
| protestants emphasize historical context and nuance. ELCA
| does not even claim the Bible is the literal word of God.
|
| Plus, individual congregations within a denomination
| might have differences in emphasis, sociopolitical
| leanings, etc. It's important to know that "The Church"
| is in many cases, and especially for Protestant
| denominations, made up of congregations from the bottom
| up, and reflects the aggregate of its membership.
| skissane wrote:
| > stating that one cannot receive salvation except
| through the Catholic Church
|
| The contemporary position of the Catholic Church is that
| non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians _can_ be
| saved. What you 've said there will be read by many
| readers as saying that only Catholics will be saved,
| which is not the Catholic position at all, in fact it is
| the condemned heresy of Feeneyism.
|
| Now, the Catholic Church also teaches that when non-
| Catholics and non-Christians are saved, they are saved
| _through_ the Catholic Church - but in a mystical rather
| than visible way - so what you 've said is literally
| true, but is prone to misinterpretation.
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| I talk about this more in another reply [1], but I'll
| restate here:
|
| If it's possible for all these varied denominations to
| come to wildly different conclusions about god, the
| world, and his desires for us, all based off the same
| source materials and epistemological tools (e.g.,
| faith)--differences that're important enough to have
| fought wars and divided nations over--why then do people
| believe these source materials and tools are still a
| reliable way to determine how one should live their life?
|
| The fact that these huge disagreements exist is evidence
| to me that the bible specifically and religious texts
| generally aren't reliable systems to learn about the
| world.
|
| What frustrates me is people who "church shop" seem to be
| aware of this, because they're seeking a church that is
| similar enough to their existing beliefs yet the
| indicators of that are difficult to find because even
| within the same denomination a specific population can
| hold different beliefs, yet they don't extrapolate to the
| wider issue of the base beliefs being the issue.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26624502
| LargeWu wrote:
| Because on the main point, they're all pretty much
| aligned: Salvation is achieved through Jesus's death on
| the cross. And fundamentally, it's the only thing that
| really matters in Christianity.
|
| In that respect, shopping for churches is mostly
| irrelevant. What you see as fundamental differences are
| really more social than theological, in which case the
| shopping around makes a lot of sense.
|
| "the bible specifically and religious texts generally
| aren't reliable systems to learn about the world."
|
| I think most mainline Christians would reject the notion
| that the Old Testament is a factual historical record.
| (Less so for Evangelical and Pentecostal, however).
| Religion teaches us "why", not "what".
| tenacious_tuna wrote:
| My experience in life with self-identified Christians has
| largely been in the context of those people disagreeing,
| on moral grounds, with actions I take or people I support
| --almost always citing religion in their reasoning. It's
| possible the people I've dealt with just aren't
| components of this "mainline christianity" you're
| familiar with, but they use the same tools to believe
| these things. To me, those tools are egregiously flawed,
| and I have a vested interest in making sure those tools
| don't get used to believe false things that bring harm to
| myself or my neighbors.
|
| > Because on the main point, they're all pretty much
| aligned...
|
| Historically, wars have been fought over these
| disagreements--both within only Christianity, and in the
| wider religious space.
|
| I think it's worth considering other religions personally
| because it's what led to my de-conversion: I couldn't
| answer the question of why, other than being raised in
| it, I should believe Christianity over, say, Buddhism or
| Islam. As I regarded other religions with skepticism,
| when I was a Christian, I should also regard
| Christianity.
|
| While the specific point I've made previously deals with
| selecting a denomination and a church within that
| denomination it's also true that people choose religions
| for similar (flawed?) reasoning.
|
| Further:
|
| > What you see as fundamental differences are really more
| social than theological...
|
| I'm not sure I'm convinced on this. Take gay marriage,
| for example: I vividly recall being 12 in our church,
| sitting in on a conversation between my (single) mother
| and our pastor, on how to deal with people who chose to
| sin in our lives, specifically referring to my father who
| was openly gay at the time. The church we went to was
| firmly against homosexuality, but was of the love-the-
| sinner-hate-the-sin cloth. On the upshot, they were
| relatively kind to those of the LGBT community, but they
| did still make it clear they did not support their
| "choices" and largely ostracized them--with reasoning
| that, in their view, was ensconced in theology.
|
| While LGBT rights have certainly been a social issue
| throughout the world, I think dismissing this
| "difference" between my church and the one on my college
| campus who made a point of welcoming LGBT members is to
| minimize these actual theological differences. There's
| part of me that wonders if this is a bad-faith
| maneuvering (not on your part, but organized religion as
| a whole) to downplay socially repulsive beliefs without
| having to sacrifice their supposed moral authority.
|
| > I think most mainline Christians would reject the
| notion that the Old testament is a factual historical
| record.
|
| This certainly hasn't been true across history, and even
| now I harbor doubt. Perhaps I've only dealt with more
| fundamentalist types than you, but the opposite has been
| true in my experience, and is definitely not true of the
| more loudmouthed Creationist/Ken Ham style evangelicals.
| While they may not be representative of the majority,
| *they are affecting policy* in many regions of the
| country. My mother, an elementary teacher, frequently
| voices her frustrations that she's not allowed to pose
| creationism as an "alternative" to evolution in her
| classes science units--something that is allowed in
| several other states[1, though from 2014].
|
| You see similar flaws in other arenas, too: my
| grandparents view climate change as an issue outside of
| human concern, squarely in God's hands, in part because
| they believe in life-after-death and the eventual
| rapture, so while they should do reasonably well to
| steward the planet, they don't think we're going to be
| here forever so it doesn't matter if Earth becomes an
| unlivable rock; while some may suffer the effects of an
| adverse climate, it won't matter when everyone's in
| heaven.
|
| I also wonder about what motivates these changes in how
| doctrine is viewed. Supposing your right, what drove the
| digression that the Old Testament is not factual? I doubt
| it was the Church deciding on its own, outside of
| societal pressure. I'm sure it's because of pressure from
| those who found fault in the Old Testament teachings--
| those who were condemned by it, or ostracized by the
| churches of their time, and the Churches granted this
| concession without wholly usurping their power. But what
| about the next issue? Maybe folks are believing less in
| Noah's Ark, but how will they contend with folks who're
| trans, or polyamourus, or take issue with abstract (i.e.,
| not historical) teachings of the bible like not rebelling
| against kings, for they have been ordained by God [2]?
|
| [1]: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/sci
| ence/201... [2]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se
| arch=Romans%2013&ver...
| wonderwonder wrote:
| This is not an attack, just something I have wondered and
| your comment "Salvation is achieved through Jesus's death
| on the cross." reminded me of it. Jesus dying essentially
| allowed God to forgive humanity and allow for salvation.
| Why worship a God that was willing to destroy humanity
| and required a blood sacrifice of his own son instead of
| just saying, you know what, I forgive you. Why is an
| entity like that worthy of worship for any reason other
| than fear? Please note, not trying to attack your faith
| here, just wondering on your opinion.
|
| Edit: Thought about it a little more and I guess fear is
| a pretty legitimate reason to do so. If one truly
| believes that if one does not worship then an eternity in
| hell is on the plate then worshipping does make sense but
| it cant be anything except a Stockholm syndrome style of
| worship.
| thrww20210329 wrote:
| You might enjoy this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vw_X7IkXB0
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