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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

#701

Post by rayiner »

randcraw wrote: post #604
rayiner wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 interpre…

> And basing your world views on faith is fine because for the most part evidence based reasoning can’t really tell you how to... I can't agree with either point: 1) basing your view on faith is equally as good as non-faith, or 2) expecting a world view based on any belief will reliably lead you to draw conclusions that won't be bad. Both of these assume that beliefs are primary in shaping "your world view" and that…

The problem is that for the most part all this asking questions and becoming informed doesn’t get your average person anywhere. I read a lot and know a bunch about a lot of things but at the end of the day I’m left with “the science” Lessing us without firm conclusions about pretty much everything I might care about.

And “I don’t know” isn’t really a practical answer. You have to raise your kids now, decide what to feed your kids now, vote now, not wait around for conclusive proof.

And people who say “beliefs be damned” don’t actually mean it. They embrace beliefs and value judgments all the time. Does scientific evidence tell us we’re all equal and created in God’s image? No, it’s something we choose to believe, and even people who aren’t religious believe a secular version of that as an article of faith. (Which is good!) Science says the average IQ of people in Bangladesh (where I’m from) is 82, a standard deviation lower than Americans. What do I choose to believe about Bangladeshis? Most decent Americans don’t say “well the best answer we have is Bangladeshis aren’t as smart as Americans.” They start from a belief about equality and work backward from there. The death penalty, how to treat murderers, criminal justice, civil rights. Science more or less doesn’t have the answers we need to these human problems.

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

#702

Post by TimTheTinker »

Sigmoid wrote: post #584
nsilvestri wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no evidence that heterosexual parents are better for children than non-het parents. An important factor is that their parents have a stable relationship. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01494929.2015.10... https://journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/Abstract/2016/04000/Same_Se...

Heterosexual couples have been the norm for thousands of years, and the traditional family has been proven through survival to be a good way to raise children. People don't know the long term societal consequences of a homosexual marriages. Could be no issue, or it could be Pandora's box. Either way, it's stilly to take these studies of <200 families seriously, especially when there's a clear a agenda among political…

^ questioning assumptions is good, even if (or especially if) those assumptions underpin the orthodoxy of the day.

Beware any religion, ideology, or group that punishes the honest questioner.

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

#703

Post by throwaway823882 »

rmah wrote: post #687
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.

Actually he's making philosophical commentary about the nature of what people dedicate themselves to. But if you want to get emotionally wrapped up in the definition of a word and ignore the message, go for it.

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

#704

Post by __turbobrew__ »

legitster wrote: post #542

This misses the forest for the trees: Membership is down at organizations across the board - scouting, group athletics, Rotary clubs, unions, even things like PTAs and neighborhood associations and model train clubs. There is a society wide "apathy" event happening right under our noses. Maybe we're just seeing a new generation moving to new niche groups that aren't being seen yet. But it seems that technology is doi…

Membership is down at in-person organizations across the board. I doubt the census includes the many different online communities I am a part of.

I have friends I have known for 10+ years which I have never met in real life. Friendships which are deeper and longer lasting than anything I have “in real life”.

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

#705

Post by objectivetruth »

rchaud wrote: post #121
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…

What are the questions that church leaders are getting from their flock these days? Some big questions are being debated in society, sure, but the church's position on a lot of things is set in stone, is it not? Maybe this is my ignorance talking, but I thought those with active church membership continue to go to participate in social events and make friends/partners?

The Christian Church has been getting steadily less monolithic for the past 1700 years or so.

Some of the topics being discussed in our (US) church in the past couple of years:

* the devastating personal and economic toll of the pandemic and how we can help individually and in aggregate

* race relations in the US and the history of injustices caused by racism, including police brutality, and how we can respond in our daily lives

* LGBTQ-related topics, including the ability of people of different sexual identities to participate fully at all levels of the church hierarchy

* the environmental impact of our actions at the personal level all the way up to the institutional level as it pertains to human-caused climate change

You can find many churches in the US with people that believe in every possible belief related to all of these issues.

No, it's not just potlucks and singles nights :-)

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

#706

Post by ur-whale »

antonzabirko wrote: post #697
rmah wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Pretty straightforward to me. Worship here just means prioritize.

Feel free to assign the meaning you find most convenient to random words, but the fact is, we are in the thick of a thread about religion, in which Wallace's excerpt is being used to make a point ...

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

#707

Post by alfiedotwtf »

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…

> We know from numerous studies that 2 parent families (mother and father) give the best outcomes for children (education, jobs, etc). In modern no-religion societies, where is the pull for good old family values?

That’s ironic given that the Church of England was solely setup so that the King could divorce his wife)!

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

#708

Post by booleandilemma »

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 could never take this guy seriously. I mean, he killed himself. Why should we listen to what he has to say?

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

#709

Post by randcraw »

throwawaygal7 wrote: post #415
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…

Since mainline protestantism is in full collapse, is it really true the progressive christianity has any chance of surviving long term?

A lot can change in a couple of centuries. Right now, Catholicism is still growing in South America and Africa. As people in those regions become better educated and affluent, they may indeed follow the evolutionary path of other more affluent economies.

But with the resounding recent rise throughout the world in populism (which is a form of faith, but in a person or a dream rather than an economy), it's hard to know how humankind will respond to the challenges of the modern world.

We could choose to retreat from our current immersion in fast-paced life via technology and withdraw into one (or many) 'simpler' ways of life. If we do it wouldn't surprise me if we also choose to reimagine the world that surrounds us as being less concrete and more a realm of possibility in which choose our own reality.

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

#710

Post by tmpz22 »

elmomle wrote: post #691
rmah wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's pretty clear that that "worship" here refers to where we practice focusing our heart's yearnings, not to a set of religious rites. Synonyms of this meaning of "worship" include "revere" and "venerate".

The crux of organized religion is being so vague that an individual can pick whatever parts of it fits into their own self-image. Thats what OP is tapping into in their quote. The Bible is re-written every 100 years to accommodate this.
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