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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

#681

Post by jandrese »

lootsauce wrote: post #606

“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…

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.

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

#682

Post by nimbius »

lootsauce wrote: post #606

“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…

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.

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

#683

Post by twobitshifter »

ramblerman wrote: post #59
xyzelement wrote: post #14

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 marr…

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.

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.

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

#684

Post by antattack »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #333
antattack wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last thing one should want is to give religion power. People need better education, more tolerance and less judgement.

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…

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.

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

#685

Post by jandrese »

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.

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

#686

Post by nikolay »

today20201014 wrote: post #674
nikolay wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

Trees have roots, too.

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

#687

Post by rmah »

lootsauce wrote: post #606

“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…

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.

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

#688

Post by ur-whale »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #289
CodeGlitch wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

> 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.

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

#689

Post by nathanaldensr »

timbit42 wrote: post #633
karmasimida wrote: post #410

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?

Before science was a thing, people used the idea of God to explain the unexplainable. Today science explains those things for us.

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.

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

#690

Post by Teknoman117 »

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…

> 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.

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