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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

#841

Post by nnvvhh »

ggggtez wrote: post #738
elmomle wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No. Because he opens his thought with saying that "Atheism" doesn't exist. Atheism isn't a rejection of "yearning" or "reverence". It's a rejection of religion. He's just playing word games, and you are falling for it.

"Just playing word games," he's a writer! Not everything written is documentation.

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

#843

Post by btilly »

ggggtez wrote: post #738
elmomle wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No. Because he opens his thought with saying that "Atheism" doesn't exist. Atheism isn't a rejection of "yearning" or "reverence". It's a rejection of religion. He's just playing word games, and you are falling for it.

Correction. Atheism isn't a rejection of religion. It is a lack of belief in God or gods.

The canonical example of the difference is that plenty of religious Buddhists are also atheists.

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

#844

Post by simplerman »

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…

As someone who is semi-atheist, I have started to think that the invention of God was mostly to discipline children and to give them hope. Eventually, those children grew up and told same stories to their kids and until one day those stories became religion. Then came prophets who decided to prey upon these people and sold organized religion.

I say this because I got a toddler and sometimes it is easier to make up stories instead of telling truth, like when someone dies they go to heaven. Or if you clean up your room, then maybe elves will come at night and leave a present. It is almost like I can see a religion forming in front of my eyes. Sometimes I am using traditional religious stories like for life and death questions. And at other times, I am using fairytale creatures. This whole thing has made me more atheist while at the same time let me appreciate what religion does.

Which leads me to Santa Claus. I think Santa Claus is a great way to give subtle hint for thinking minds to realize that childhood stories are not real.

But can people still feel good without believing in religion? Do we have atheist societies? What do atheists tell their young kids?

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

#845

Post by pmyteh »

jaywalk wrote: post #398
EliRivers wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

where is the pull for good old family values? That's a term that everyone interprets their own way, without even realising that they have different values to the person standing next to them; different people's "family values" can conflict in significant and very incompatible ways. So what are "good old family values"? If your young, unmarried daughter falls pregnant, should you cast her out or should you double-down…

Good old family values would discourage young, unmarried women from getting pregnant in the first place. That is absolutely not how society works today, so let's start there instead of your absurd example.

It wasn't how it worked then, either, at least for any value of 'then' in England for the past thousand years or so. Yes, premarital pregnancy was strongly discouraged. But it still happened a lot. And both of GP's family responses were absolutely common at different times, and both came from a deeply family-centred place. So I don't see it as absurd at all. Religion has always been for the sinners as much as the saints.

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

#846

Post by equality_1138 »

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.

Here is a glaring example of debating semantics in hopes to discredit the actual meaning of something or attempt to kill the topic altogether. Appears to be a bad outcome from the rise of STEM worship.

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

#847

Post by viscoelastic »

It maybe that I'm in my own personal bubble but it strikes me that so many people still invest a significant time and effort into propagating a delusional interpretation of reality. On some level I bear them no ill will, they are free to lead their lives in whatever way it brings meaning and fulfillment. However many people attending a Christian church seem to have aggressive opinion on how others should live their lives.

The biggest flaw with religion is their story of an afterlife without any proof or evidence. The consequence is that billions of followers of this delusion devalue the importance of their current biological existence, and that of others. They are told they will have an infinite and wondrous existence in a made up paradise. When this shared delusion is the dominant world view it leads to easily excusable murder and abuse of human beings. For example the genocides of indigenous people by European colonizers or slavery.

I suspect our ancestors in a thousands of years will look at this early childhood stage of humanity in shame and contempt for what cruelty this insanity allows.

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

#848

Post by wellpast »

ggggtez wrote: post #738
elmomle wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No. Because he opens his thought with saying that "Atheism" doesn't exist. Atheism isn't a rejection of "yearning" or "reverence". It's a rejection of religion. He's just playing word games, and you are falling for it.

I think you've already fallen for literalness as the only way to interpret or value anything. Which is unfortunate because all of the momentous truths in life (ie, that matter to corporeal beings, to us) are not of the literal variety. You probably know this on some buried level but you cling to the literalness anyway. Why?

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

#849

Post by simplerman »

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…

> In modern no-religion societies, where is the pull for good old family values? What we are seeing is better rights and fairness for individuals (same-sex marriage, etc) but is that good for society as a whole?

I understand where you are coming from, I struggle with my atheism/beliefs too.

But without doubt, this is good for society. Think about it, we had slavery because bible and other religions, approved of slavery. Then women had no rights because of religion, finally they do. These are good things. I believe homosexuality is next big step for humanity. Once this is accepted, no one would even think about questioning it.

As for old old family values, I am not really sure what it means, but if it means close family ties, then I have seen non-religious families who are very close and religious families who fight all the time. And vice versa.

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

#850

Post by marc_abonce »

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".

It's worth pointing out that this equivalence is only possible in the English language (and maybe other Germanic languages?) where apparently the word worship means a lot of concepts (adoration, veneration, reverence) that in Romance languages are actually separate. In fact, the disagreement over this words is one of the most important differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.

I don't know how does this distinction work in other religions, but based on Wikipedia[1] it looks like adoration, veneration and reverence may also be different on many of them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration

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