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Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

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Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#471

Post by forrestbrazeal »

dcolkitt wrote: post #455
forrestbrazeal wrote: post #433

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. […

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.

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.

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#472

Post by stephenr »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #167
nly wrote: post #35

For comparison, UK church membership is 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 http…

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…

> 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.

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#473

Post by gspr »

sarabad2021 wrote: post #122
psychometry wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most "solid" theology is just shaky philosophy, though.

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.

> 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?

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#474

Post by mgh2 »

gonehome wrote: post #428
AuthorizedCust wrote: post #102

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…

This is a precursory investigation into some beliefs, using logic instead of emotion: https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#475

Post by dotsam »

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.

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#476

Post by rayiner »

gonehome wrote: post #428
AuthorizedCust wrote: post #102

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…

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.

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#477

Post by [deleted] »

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #442
gonehome wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Religio…

[deleted]

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#478

Post by brundolf »

dagw wrote: post #209
CedarMills wrote: post #93

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 sa…

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 a…

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.

Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time

#480

Post by gspr »

justaman wrote: post #186
toomuchtodo wrote: post #145

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.

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.

> 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.

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