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Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

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Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#51

Post by skissane »

avar wrote: post #9
skissane wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But will the membership decline continue in the long-run? Within the Catholic church, there is a traditionalist/conservative minority, who are growing basically through having a high birth rate – rejecting contraception and pre-marital sex, they tend to marry young and have lots of kids. Not all of those kids will follow in their parents' footsteps, but the majority of them probably will. Though these conservatives/t…

Europe has entire countries where pretty much 100% of the population were extremist Catholic zealots with huge families by modern standards just a couple of hundred years ago. Today those countries have some of the lowest birth rates in Europe, e.g. Spain and Italy[1] pretty much trail the pack. The data suggests that your hypothesis is false. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_European_U...

I'm not sure the idea that "100% of the population were extremist Catholic zealots" is really true. Rodney Stark [1] argues that people overestimate the religiosity in past decades and centuries. The genuinely devout have never been the majority. The difference is, that even if the average person back then wasn't hugely interested in religion, there was strong social pressure to give the appearance of caring about it. Nowadays, that social pressure is gone, in many countries, and people who are disinterested in religion are free to be honest about their disinterest.

And should big families in Catholic-majority countries 100-200 years ago be attributed to Catholicism? Well, other countries, with completely different religious beliefs (e.g. Muslim-majority countries, India, China) also had big families. Most people back then, whatever their religion was, had big families due to primitive contraceptive technology, high infant mortality, economic value of child labour, less years spent in education, lack of educational and career opportunities for women, etc. Nowadays, there is a correlation between religiosity and family size, but that link is historically novel; for most of human history, the devout and the non-devout had big families alike.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/3711936

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#52

Post by someonenice »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #49
ykevinator wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus there is growing consensus that God cannot exist.

Can I try to convert you? Great! Thanks for your implied consent. Here goes: The "One" god of Christianity comes more from Neoplatonism than Judaism. The Neoplatonic Oneness, which was washed out in various times in Christian history, is fully commensurable with contemporary science. Oneness can be experienced as the common mystical experience of "we are all one, man!" But for Neoplatonists, it only made sense that t…

"... individual soul (called Atman) is not different from Ultimate Reality (called Brahman). He also taught that there is only one essential principle called Brahman and everything else is a kind of expression of that one Brahman..... "

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#53

Post by mcv »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #49
ykevinator wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus there is growing consensus that God cannot exist.

Can I try to convert you? Great! Thanks for your implied consent. Here goes: The "One" god of Christianity comes more from Neoplatonism than Judaism. The Neoplatonic Oneness, which was washed out in various times in Christian history, is fully commensurable with contemporary science. Oneness can be experienced as the common mystical experience of "we are all one, man!" But for Neoplatonists, it only made sense that t…

This is very much Gospel of John. Other gospels are less into this Logos stuff, but John clearly loved it.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#54

Post by iguy »

gambiting wrote: post #29
roel_v wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"from property" In my Dutch town, there are churches that have been converted to hotels, a night club, several bicycle parkings, an award-winning bookshop that promptly went bankrupt, an indoor playground and a slew of restaurants. Others are just torn down. It seems the church has a preference for the last, but many of the expensive ones to maintain (i.e., the ones they want to get rid of first) are monuments and ha…

In the meantime, Poland is not only building lots of new churches, it even builds new cathedrals adorned in gold[0]. Even the little town I'm from(only 20k population) has 3 churches, and they are all full of gold and it's common knowledge that the local priests are most likely one of the wealthiest people around. [0]This was only finished in 2004, and is the most disgustingly oppulent building I have ever seen: http…

Does this enthusiasm for building gold-plated cathedrals (and religion in general) also translate to enthusiasm for monastic life? Would be interested to hear about that aspect.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#55

Post by mcv »

hos234 wrote: post #3

As membership declines, just wondering what happens to all the cash the Churches are sitting on, from property, to art, to chuch tax collections. Going to be interesting to see what the next (younger) gen of church leaders do with it...maybe they need an innovation center to modernize the useful aspects of religion.

Do churches have so much money? Young churches are frequently short on money (which they need primarily to rent a building and to hire a preacher). Older churches have lots of buildings, but are rarely swimming in cash these days.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#56

Post by pluma »

recursinging wrote: post #40

The village I live in has a "Kloster", with nuns making up about 15% of our population. The article is accurate in that the number of practicing nuns is sinking and certainly not sustainable. Here they have diversified in a number of directions. There is a school, an old folks home, and a hotel. The picturesque location, combined with the historic buildings makes all these quite competitive, and successful. I'd go so…

Keep in mind that in Germany these "church operated" services are heavily subsidised by the German state via regular taxes (not the "church tax" registered church members pay directly to their church via the tax office). In some cases this can be as much as 100% of the operating costs and salaries (although the business is operated in accordance with church labor laws rather than secular laws, allowing e.g. certain forms of discrimination and removing certain protections).

Maintaining churches, monasteries and church operated services is almost never about finances.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#57

Post by dschuetz »

incompatible wrote: post #22
dschuetz wrote: post #15

Is there any possible modern approach to a traditional catholic monastery? I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up wit…

We could try science / engineering monasteries as described by Neal Stephenson in Anathem?

That's an interesting idea. Definitely worth thinking about. An R&D monastery, where the inhabitants support each other by rotating duties and service for day-to-day life, with dedication to science, engineering and philosophy. Sounds great to me.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#58

Post by dschuetz »

factsaresacred wrote: post #25
dschuetz wrote: post #15

Is there any possible modern approach to a traditional catholic monastery? I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. The idea of a monastery is to dedicate yourself completely to introspection and philosophy, and serving the monastery with its inhabitants, no matter what religion or philosophy. Why are they having so much trouble to keep up wit…

> I think, they are dying out, because of their rigid traditions which rarely make sense in our modern world anymore. Living a monastic life has never been appealing to the broad population. But to say that an ascetic life devoted to introspection doesn't 'make sense' is misguided. The modern world in predominately a sedentary lifestyle spent between a cube and a couch, interspersed with frenzies of gluttony, consump…

You misunderstood. It's not the idea of living in introspection that isn't making sense anymore. It's the traditions that I meant, the rigid traditions of serving god and faith inside a monastery. Those aren't making sense to the most people today. Because the have failed to adapt to a modern understanding of how the world/anything works.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#59

Post by cyxxon »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #49
ykevinator wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus there is growing consensus that God cannot exist.

Can I try to convert you? Great! Thanks for your implied consent. Here goes: The "One" god of Christianity comes more from Neoplatonism than Judaism. The Neoplatonic Oneness, which was washed out in various times in Christian history, is fully commensurable with contemporary science. Oneness can be experienced as the common mystical experience of "we are all one, man!" But for Neoplatonists, it only made sense that t…

As an atheist, I really liked your comment, and yes, I am more open to what you wrote, but... I am not one bit more open towards the Religion, because that is as far removed from what you wrote here as it is possible, I think.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#60

Post by dsego »

gambiting wrote: post #29
roel_v wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"from property" In my Dutch town, there are churches that have been converted to hotels, a night club, several bicycle parkings, an award-winning bookshop that promptly went bankrupt, an indoor playground and a slew of restaurants. Others are just torn down. It seems the church has a preference for the last, but many of the expensive ones to maintain (i.e., the ones they want to get rid of first) are monuments and ha…

In the meantime, Poland is not only building lots of new churches, it even builds new cathedrals adorned in gold[0]. Even the little town I'm from(only 20k population) has 3 churches, and they are all full of gold and it's common knowledge that the local priests are most likely one of the wealthiest people around. [0]This was only finished in 2004, and is the most disgustingly oppulent building I have ever seen: http…

Croatia is also regressing back towards middle ages, with a huge influence from the church on politics and everyday life. There are the Croatia-Vatican agreements whereby the church is guaranteed hundreds of millions in funding from the tax payers and there is religious education (catechism) as a regular school subject in public schools. Many monumental churches are being built, and it is well known many priests drive nice cars and live a comfortable, dare I say lavish, lifestyle.

Here is one example in Knin, one of the poorest towns in the country.

> Situated at the site of an old bolt and screw factory, 3 million euros has been invested to construct the Gospe Velikog Hrvatskog Krsnog Zavjeta (Our Lady of the Great Croatian Baptismal Vow) Church in Knin (Šibenik-Knin County). The 1,024 square-metre Church will seat over 700 people when finished, making it Croatia’s largest Church.

https://www.croatiaweek.com/photos-building-on-biggest-churc...

Or look at this monstrosity in Split (15 million HRK, roughly 2 million EUR)

https://www.24sata.hr/news/novi-dom-skromnih-franjevaca-u-sp...

And lets not forget the luxurious episcopal conference palace covered with marble and onyx, with a cost of 16,5 million euros.

https://www.jutarnji.hr/Fotogalerije/najluksuznija-zgrada-cr...

In the meantime, cities can't even buy new buses without EU funds. It's disgraceful.

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