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Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

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Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#121

Post by magduf »

telesilla wrote: post #120
rpmisms wrote: post #95

For all those in this thread talking about monasteries without having ever been in one, please try the experience. If there's an Orthodox monastery near you, try seeing if you can stay for a few days. They generally aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but even staying for a few days and following the lifestyle will give you insight into why the monastic life is a valuable and valid choice in our increasing…

Actually it seems to be a growing industry: monasteries are opening up their rooms to paying guests. We stayed in one in Italy recently, south of Napoli. It was like a very, very quiet hotel with a peaceful garden and a resident cat. I'd have happily stayed longer. I was also in one last year in Belgium, it was part of a larger church establishment but the location was so central it was like staying in a nice hotel.…

>It was like a very, very quiet hotel with a peaceful garden and a resident cat.

The cat is a great selling point. They should make sure to point that out on their webpage; it'd be a bonus point for me.

I stayed at an AirBnB residence in Germany when I traveled there, and they had a bunch of cats. Getting to talk to a local, and have cats around, was a nice experience.

>Both were without luxuries of a 4 star hotel but very well appointed and with excellent breakfasts, and locations.

4-star hotels don't have cats, so that's a negative when comparing them to places like this.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#122

Post by gtycomb »

mantoto wrote: post #116
gtycomb wrote: post #115

Recently I was in India and certain circumstances connected me with a facility for the elderly run by an order of Catholic Nuns. I visited them quite a few times and while inside those closed gates there was this sense of reverence, peace, and shall I say holiness in many ways truly tangible. And when they bid me goodbye at the main gates, even as we stood there chatting a little while, the town or village people wal…

By being social you mean? I also know my neighbors and I'm friendly with them.

more than that, I'd say. The young auto-rikshaw man on my way to the bus station from those gates was telling me about his kidney disease and how those sisters helped raise the substantial money for a transplant ...

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#123

Post by tathougies »

telesilla wrote: post #120
rpmisms wrote: post #95

For all those in this thread talking about monasteries without having ever been in one, please try the experience. If there's an Orthodox monastery near you, try seeing if you can stay for a few days. They generally aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but even staying for a few days and following the lifestyle will give you insight into why the monastic life is a valuable and valid choice in our increasing…

Actually it seems to be a growing industry: monasteries are opening up their rooms to paying guests. We stayed in one in Italy recently, south of Napoli. It was like a very, very quiet hotel with a peaceful garden and a resident cat. I'd have happily stayed longer. I was also in one last year in Belgium, it was part of a larger church establishment but the location was so central it was like staying in a nice hotel.…

Monasteries have always opened their rooms to guests. Its part of the rule of Benedict to offer hospitality, including food.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#124

Post by ssvss »

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 Oneness is what the followers of Advaita(Non-dualism) call as Brahman or the Buddhists call as Nirvana(Nothingness). I have seen arguments that Plato was also influenced by Eastern philosophy, but I don't know much about it.

I was interested in Advaita for a long time, and used to read Upanishads which expound about it. but recently I have come across a different school of thought, which calls this Oneness/Brahman/Nirvana as Self/I. Ramana Maharishi who died 70 years back was a recent proponent of it. but I have seen references to it from different cultures too, like the hebrew word YHWH meaning Self, and the Persian word for God "Khuda" meaning Self in Old Persian.

I recently came across Bernadette Roberts, who is a Catholic Nun, who seems to have not heard of the concept of Self from Advaita/Hinduism, but have reached to similar opinions about Self from her own contemplation/Prayers in her monastery. and in this video she explains it from her perspective as a Christian Mystic. She also has some books, which I haven't read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb5496uQ3lk

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#125

Post by tathougies »

mcv wrote: post #55
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.

Catholic religious priests (religious here means they are part of an order, like monks) cant be paid a salary. They have to rely on alms and their orders money since theyve taken personal vows of poverty

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#126

Post by tathougies »

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...

The difference is as follows

With the growing educational opportunity of catholic women, many decided to not have large families. Many people believe that this trend will continue. In my experience however it will not. The traditionalist Catholics tend to be more highly educated than their laxer counterparts. The women are educated but have rejected their mothers desire to put work ahead of family.

I think the sudden decline in catholic family size is mainly due to the suddenness of the changes to educational possibility for men and women and the rapid industrialization the world experienced in the past century. However we're at the tail end of that and educated catholicd are no longer making the same choices as their parents. I think this demographic effect will be a short blip in the history of the church.

Speaking from my own experience as a rather traditional catholic (we dont use contraception and dont plan on it which puts us firmly in the crazy category according to most), all our friends and their wives who are also forgoing contraception and are planning for large families are highly educated. We are graduates from top schools. Mothers often have advanced degrees in stem subjects. Others are actually working towards their doctorates. Still want kids and as many as God gives.

This is my experience in the san Francisco bay area and the fact that there are so many traditional catholics here in the knowledge sector despite the bay areas reputation of ireligiosity is telling. Catholics are quite a cosmopolitan bunch as well and we get quite a few international catholics popping through (including many from spain) and i think the trend checks out -- even among the Spanish catbolics, the highly educated ones are more likely to be traditional

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#127

Post by dharmach »

gtycomb wrote: post #115

Recently I was in India and certain circumstances connected me with a facility for the elderly run by an order of Catholic Nuns. I visited them quite a few times and while inside those closed gates there was this sense of reverence, peace, and shall I say holiness in many ways truly tangible. And when they bid me goodbye at the main gates, even as we stood there chatting a little while, the town or village people wal…

Same investment can fetch more souls to church in India so it makes sense to invest there and not in Germany.

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#128

Post by drak0n1c »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #65
cyxxon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nice! Success. I too am an atheist of person gods. This ineffable oneness of the universe, though... It's got me intrigued. It's not a person. It's like, I'd imagine that most alien civilisations would have at some point a spiritual belief system aligned to it. And, I'd argue that it hits at the core of Christianity -- and holds some hope for its future. Like, wouldn't it be nice if Christianity could somehow evolve?…

I'm sure you're also a fan of Baruch Spinoza then - he was expelled from his Jewish community for having very similar thoughts about God, however he never converted to Christianity. His books were also put on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Catholic Church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#129

Post by sdenton4 »

mgnn wrote: post #33

The Concent of Saunt Leibniz. We can try turning old monasteries into concents à la Neal Stephenson's Anathem. People can go for a year in a unarian math to just study. Maybe a four consecutive years in such a math get equivalent recognition to a university degree. Whether it is the traditional monastic discipline or the Cartasian discipline, the required basic infrastructure is probably similar. Jeejahs stay outside…

My thoughts exactly! I don't have a whole lot of patience for prayer, but near-infinite time for mathing it up sounds amazing...

Re: Germany's Vanishing Monasteries

#130

Post by _pmf_ »

neuronic wrote: post #100
_pmf_ wrote: post #99

Mosques are thriving.

And this is bad how? I live in a German population center with many many mosques and it affects me in exactly zero ways. I know _no one_ who regularly visits a mosque, let alone trying to convince others to join. We have religious freedom in our constitution. Aside from some stupidly minor exceptions, Germans aren't somehow converting to Islam. They are leaving religion in general .

Do you know how little boys, from age 3, are disciplined even in moderate mosques (specifically, Palestinian) in Germany? That was enough reason for me.

Glad you are not affected.

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