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The vital art of talking to strangers

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Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#121

Post by Zababa »

graeme wrote: post #25
emptyfile wrote: post #9

Yeah, talking to strangers is not a thing in my country. Can't say I care for it.

I highly doubt this is true of any country. All countries are full of humans. Anyone making this claim has a severe sampling problem. If you personally don’t talk to people, you can be under the impression that nobody talks to people. The people that do talk to people can read signs for who wants to talk and they talk to each other. The false impression is further reinforced if you go outside the country because as a…

People are people, but people interact differently depending on the country. Here in France, what we often hear about the USA is that they have very different social norm. The usual story is: someone goes to the USA, they are successful, everyone is nice with them, they have tons of friends, then suddenly something bad happens to the person, and all of their friends disappear/refuse to help. So from that I deduce that people in France in general (at least in my sphere) have less but deeper friendships. That's not a judgment of value of course, but that's one way countries can differ.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#122

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

iammisc wrote: post #119
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds a lot like what you're saying is "only christians matter", or worse "everyone should either be christian or pretend to be", because I can't see that working any other way. If jews go to temple and christians go to church, and muslims go to mosques, then they don't have to be exposed to each other's opinions. If jews and muslims pretend to be christian and go to church then they can't expose any opinions tha…

I think this is a valid criticism, but seeing as that we've replaced church with ... nothing, I still find it difficult to imagine that my vision of society would be worse than the one we're living in. The truth is that despite decades of trying, the secular regular get-together groups for people without any unifying interests or socioeconomic status have utterly failed. For most people, church is the only place they…

Church attendance isn't about "unifying interest" or socioeconomic status? The unified interest is obvious: salvation through christ, and churches tend to serve a relatively small community which is likely to be of very similar socioeconomic status. That's not even to mention the abject racism that led to black christians having to set up their own churches (which white people often subsequently burnt down).

The olden days where "everybody" went to church every week still had tons of social problems.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#123

Post by iammisc »

abeyer wrote: post #120
iammisc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the people who left the church because they found some of the teachings abhorrent, I would assume they were rejecting the church's authority, not rejecting God. If every conservative that rejected the church's authority decided to stay at home from church, the church would be empty. I get you don't like the church... like I really understand this viewpoint. But why reject the church goers? The pope, the bishops…

> I still show up for the community. Always have, and likely always will. Just stick around. Why would I choose to do this somewhere that the leadership rejects me and tells me I will burn in hell? I know that many individuals within the church may not agree, but plenty will, and culture is set from the top. It's not like there aren't more social/community options than I could possibly find the time to participate in…

> Why would I choose to do this somewhere that the leadership rejects me and tells me I will burn in hell?

Because of the people in the church? Because of the fact that 'the leadership' is just the guy preaching, whereas the actual community is run by everyday people (well in my experience it is).

> It's not like there aren't more social/community options than I could possibly find the time to participate in that _don't_ have religious ties.

Well that's exactly it. People say there are myriad options and then don't participate, because they don't have time. Whereas in a church, you have to go. It's an obligation. Which makes it easier for people of all backgrounds to show up.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#124

Post by iammisc »

nate_meurer wrote: post #117
iammisc wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The SBC was and remains the largest christian organization in the US, and it was founded for the express purpose of defending slavery. The Catholic church is by far the largest christian organization in the united states. SBC is a distant second: https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/top-10-largest...

Ok, allow me to amend my statement: The SBC was and remains the largest protestant organization in the US, and it was founded for the express purpose of defending slavery. If you dismiss such things as mere "picking and choosing", you're unlikely to to be able to understand viewpoints to which you're inclined to disagree.

> If you dismiss such things as mere "picking and choosing", you're unlikely to to be able to understand viewpoints to which you're inclined to disagree.

You said the SBC was the largest Christian denomination. Then, when that was false, you changed it to 'largest Protestant organization'.

I mean, you can restrict things down to anything to prove a point. Did you know my McDonalds down the block has the highest sales revenue of any McDonalds in inner NE portland between the hours of 5 and 7PM? It's just crazy that we're blessed with such a prestigious example of fine business in my area.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#125

Post by iammisc »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #122
iammisc wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a valid criticism, but seeing as that we've replaced church with ... nothing, I still find it difficult to imagine that my vision of society would be worse than the one we're living in. The truth is that despite decades of trying, the secular regular get-together groups for people without any unifying interests or socioeconomic status have utterly failed. For most people, church is the only place they…

Church attendance isn't about "unifying interest" or socioeconomic status? The unified interest is obvious: salvation through christ, and churches tend to serve a relatively small community which is likely to be of very similar socioeconomic status. That's not even to mention the abject racism that led to black christians having to set up their own churches (which white people often subsequently burnt down). The olde…

Salvation through christ is -- from a secular perspective -- such a nebulous interest, it might as well be a community club.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#126

Post by popctrl »

emptyfile wrote: post #9

Yeah, talking to strangers is not a thing in my country. Can't say I care for it.

I grew up outside of Detroit, MI. Talking to strangers does not seem like much of a thing there. The first time I spent more than a week outside of Michigan was in Oklahoma. I would be walking down the street and people would not just say hello but ask me how I was doing and then actually listen and make conversation. At first I thought they were trying to scam me or something. When they'd approach, I would step back, take a mental inventory of my pockets, and evaluate my surroundings. Eventually I realized they were just being friendly!

People may have a different experience if they are more extroverted, but some places really are friendlier than others.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#127

Post by jvalencia »

munificent wrote: post #64
mc32 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This already assumes people are good and get along and are high trust. What if I’m in a crew am a nice talker and get to scope things out for my crew as we chit chat? It’s the same thing that did in the lonely hearts clubs. Swindlers came in to the rescue and take advantage of a lonely set of people. In this case people who are open and inviting and trusting of random strangers.

> This already assumes people are good and get along and are high trust. It does assume most people are good, but that is something I believe deeply in my bones. (A simple logical argument is this: if people were on average harmful, we would all choose to be hermits. Since we don't, it implies that in aggregate our human interactions are a net benefit to us personally.) It does assumes that people can choose whether…

The problem is that it only takes a small percent to ruin it for all. If one in 10 people is awful, and you have 10 meetings with an even random distribution, then everyone will have a story about how they got swindled.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#128

Post by bittercynic »

iammisc wrote: post #100
bittercynic wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the people who left the church because they found some of the teachings abhorrent, I would assume they were rejecting the church's authority, not rejecting God. From their perspective it may be the church who split with God, and they are trying to stay on the path by getting away from the church. This is coming from an areligious atheist, so I must acknowledge my lack of experience with this even though I've read…

> For the people who left the church because they found some of the teachings abhorrent, I would assume they were rejecting the church's authority, not rejecting God. If every conservative that rejected the church's authority decided to stay at home from church, the church would be empty. I get you don't like the church... like I really understand this viewpoint. But why reject the church goers? The pope, the bishops…

I don't think you have to reject the churchgoers to reject the church. Some of the people I feel closest to are devoutly religious. When we eat together I pray with them as a matter of respecting their tradition and participating in the culture, and it is an enjoyable thing to do.

The church has gone out of its way to be unwelcoming to many people, and I just don't want to be part of it. I've been to one church service where the preacher spent a large fraction of the sermon vitriolically condemning atheists. I'm not going to argue with him, but I'm also not going back for more.

I'm not trying to mess up anyone else's tradition, but if churches are shrinking and losing power I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

Re: The vital art of talking to strangers

#129

Post by edmundsauto »

nine_k wrote: post #61
edmundsauto wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a rosy view of religion, although I accept that is your experience and perspective, and thank you for sharing it. To me, church attendance is about making the in/out group very clear. You may feel close to different political views based on your single church or flavor of Christianity, but that's still a pretty limited group. I think church membership has become undesirable because 1) fewer people believe in…

It's not about religion per se, but about a common religion which has rituals that make people meet each other more, piercing their bubble of like-mindedness (smaller than the religion). It's like going to a supermarket makes you see people more varied than your family circle and your chosen TV show characters. (It does not nudge you to talk to these people, though.)

I am not a religious person or church goer, but are the perspectives really that different? To me, it looks like a church is a self selected group of geographically proximate people who tend to look alike and dress alike. You don't usually see much ethnic diversity in a church photo.

It's more diverse than sitting at home, but I think exposure to a few TV shows has more diversity of thought, ethnicity, sexuality, etc., compared to going to church.

I'm not saying its bad for people to get together and talk. I see that church was an important mechanism for this in the past. However, I can't get past the negatives (supernatural belief, child abuse, kowtowing to authority, shame, ostracism) to believe it will continue to be a net positive.

What we need is more of what I think the Unitarians are after - non denominational community.

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