431–440 of 1001 posts
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.
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.
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 w…
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.
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...
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…
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 unf…
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.
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…
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…
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).
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.
> 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 spir…
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.
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…
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 m…
Compartmentalization.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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?'
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?