What we "need" is for people to worship Jesus Christ and get their butts to church.
Please don't induce religious flamewars on HN. There's nothing more off-topic, uncivil, and tedious.
The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
131–140 of 183 posts
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#132Alain de botton has pondered about this as well. http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0?languag... Rituals, let's just call them recurrent events, are a great way to bring people together. When people get together lots of good things can happen. However it has to be tied to something that people care about, not just some made-up gathering without purpose. The ancient greek agora comes to mind.
The recurrence is a real key to something like this. Without that, I think laziness steps in and no one organises or attends.
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do we need that? Reasons, please.
Salvation
Okay, I've cooled down a bit and I'll say this: You're free to believe whatever you want to believe. Can I just request that, in the future, you don't come in guns blazing and saying that all people need is Jesus? It's great if Christianity is working for you. Try and understand that it doesn't work for everyone.
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am happy with my faith. I've gone through a crisis of it. I've come out much stronger on the other side. Specifically to the extreme, during that time I re-evaluated possible philosophic systems. I am an absolutist. I think there is Truth. Without a god, I needed to see if there was any system that provided a similar world view. Existential nihilism does. It says that the only fact we have is that nothing fundament…
>> If I were to throw away one system of belief with that behavior, why would I adopt another? You seem comfortable with the arbitrariness of your faith now. So why not any other? A hypothetical true-believer in the Flying Spaghetti Monster would (by most reasonable criteria) be moving in the right direction if he/she were to become a Christian instead. Even though both faiths may be unanchored, there are wider consi…
I do see how one can say it's arbitrary. There is a set of rules that we didn't make, that a god imposes on us. We may know why for some rules. We might not know others. The system could be called arbitrary.
My reason is entirely based on experience. I have not felt the spirit of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, nor his noodlely appendage. I have felt the Spirit. This makes it not arbitrary. It's rooted in God. It's rooted in the absolute.
That's why if I ever stopped believing in the Trinity, I would be a nihilist. It's a good starting point. It admits that everything is arbitrary. As such, I think we could build on it to a Utilitarian system. We all agree that core set of values is arbitrary, but that it's build on avoiding pain. Avoiding pain is an arbitrary metric, but well, the majority doesn't want to be kicked, so let's agree that we shouldn't do that to each other.
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#135The US used to have that. You can still see the remnants if you look. Rotary International, Kiwanis International, the Independent Order of Foresters, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry - all those secular fraternal organizations still exist. The core of these organizations was small business owners, a group which once ran their…
My father-in-law is very involved with the local Rotary where we live. I've attended a few meetings and play in the annual golf tournament. I've recently thought that they need to adapt in order to attract younger people (I'm 40 and I feel young around them) or a new organization needs to start (see my other comment in this thread). What I like about the group is they build real, face-to-face relationships with one a…
Rotary has the lesser known Rotaract program for 18-30s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotaract Here in the Cayman Islands the Rotaract club is pretty active. (My father is a Rotarian, but I haven't felt like joining Rotaract, yet.)
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the specific case of Jehova, Eph 2:7 addresses this question: "So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus." -NLT
This is just begging the question--why does she need to be able to point us out in all future ages in the first place? What use does that have?
Great question honestly. Apparently this is an outcome that is greatly valued by Jehova. That's the best I can do. Eternity future is almost as vaguely addressed as eternity past.
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the specific case of Jehova, Eph 2:7 addresses this question: "So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus." -NLT
How does that answer the question? Can you break it down simply?
In this question I saw one of the classic agnostic lines of thought which is "If there is a God, why would he care about us at all? Why would he care what we think, say and do? We can't be the center of the Universe. We can't be the focus of all creation. That's just hubris."
I love this question, because its humble, searching, sincere. Why does God want our praise? He, or any deity, is far far above it. Why go through all this trouble creating this elaborate mess just to talk to a bunch of specks of protein. None of it, none of Christianity made sense to me. The purpose behind it all. Its just stupid.
But there it was in Ephesians 2:7, God's reason. I was relieved because it is a selfish reason. I couldn't stand the idea that God is just love love love... it was just giving and getting nothing in return. And it didn't reflect the Jehova of the Old Testament. But Ephesians says he did it for the glory. Who's going to be the witness of that? What peer-group or other beings would God point to and say "There I did it, I'm amazing."? I have no clue. However, this is so refreshing to me, because it shows that God is possessive and jealous, and very much like us, who were "made in his image".
But, I have to agree with agnostics... humans are far from the center of the universe. God is. Its his game. His strange, fearsome, terrible, wonderful work.
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#138We already have plenty of secular communities. Hacker News, sports fans, standup comedians, book clubs, students in college, nerdfighters, groups organizing around hobbies and interests, groups of friends. Community forms not because religion has something sepcial about it, but because people tend to form communities around any subject they are interested in. Just because religion used to be there, doesn't mean we ha…
As someone who is deeply involved in a church I feel your comment illustrates the problem. You appear to think you have a greater depth of relationship/community than you do.
I have noticed that the set of values is very much the binding force that holds, at least the church community that I am part of, together. I have very different interests with the people I have most to do with, but we live by similar moral codes. It's hard to describe but very different to what you are discussing. And the level of involvement is much higher than normal relationships.
Tightly woven communities are absent from modern lives as there has been a big push for individualism and materialism.
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I thought the resurrection of christ was the whole point of anything describable as Christianity? Yes: "But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." 1 Corinthians 15:12-…
I don't think it's very useful to quote the bible as a source of what Christians believe. So far as I can tell, only a tiny sliver of Christians believe the work in its entirety.
I've always assumed the reason is because only a tiny sliver of Christians have actually read the whole bible - so they probably have no idea what it says. A quick google search seems to confirm my assumption [1].
Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure a belief in the major parts of the bible are necessary, are they not? I mean, I thought the resurrection of christ was the whole point of anything describable as Christianity? Without that, well is that 'church' ?
The whole point of Christ dying was to forgive sins. In the old testament they would sacrifice animals and use the blood of the animals to wash away sin. People would sacrifice animals at the temple with a Priest and collect the blood to wash away their sins. Christ was God's sacrifice to end that practice Christ's blood was shed to wash away our sins. Christ was dead for three days to build a bypass from hell into h…
> When you visit a (fundamental) church you see elderly people, and the sick and disabled, the sort of people who need God. You don't see very many of the young adults who are healthy, if there are any young people they come in with their parents.
An observation of the fundamental church at large reflects your statement. I would delimit that statement though to say that there are pockets of thriving 'resistance', so to speak. I happen to belong to a fundamental church that bucks the trend of an ageing population.