Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #94

Loughla wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. This is, consistently, what I hear from friends and family as to why they have drifted away from the Catholic church, and is solidly my own reason as well. You see people, day-in-day out being terrible, judgmental, hateful people, except on Sunday when they're in the front row being holier than thou. It grates on you, and leaves a bad taste. It's e…

> This is, consistently, what I hear from friends and family as to why they have drifted away from the Catholic church, and is solidly my own reason as well. I was raised Catholic and decided, as a teenager, that I didn't want to be Catholic as an adult. > My theory is that people have always felt that way, but it was harder to nail down these awful people before social media. IMO, two things: 1: The changes in the 1…

[deleted]

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

#132

Post by gregkerzhner » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

Mertax wrote: post #80

WJW wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sports, online forums, student fraternities, social clubs of every variety, etc. There are many ways to get active in society that don't involve beliefs in higher beings.

Few of these instill purpose and influence behavior of a person in the same way that religion does. You might disagree, but I would argue that the virtues extolled by the vast majority of religious organizations are good ideals to be striving for and wonder what is going to replace this?

I would love to see stats on religious prevalence and incidence of crime, homocide, etc. My guess is that such stats won’t put religion (especially Christianity) in a favorable light.

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

#133

Post by seneca » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

sarabad2021 wrote: post #96

whiddershins wrote: post #89

In my opinion the main problem for religion right now is the failure to explain their arguments at the highest intellectual level, publicly, consistently. Once I was exposed to better theology and philosophy of Christianity I was blown away. Edward Feser’s ‘The Last Superstition’ helped open this up. I have no idea why the level of discourse is on average so primitive, I think church leaders have been systematically…

The same can be said of science in that science can't explain the supernatural or the after-life. Science was never meant to explain those things but we have tried to make it a replacement by trying to naturalize everything. Things that go beyond this realm of understanding and reason.

> Science was never meant to explain those things but we have tried to make it a replacement by trying to naturalize everything. Things that go beyond this realm of understanding and reason.

Criticizing a flashlight for being a poor saw is a flaw in the criticizer, not the flashlight.

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

#134

Post by whalesalad » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #128

whalesalad wrote: post #28

I had a unique experience growing up in a religious family (that is very tolerant and respectful of all world religions) while simultaneously being immersed in Scientology via a private school experience. The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised in it and know nothing better. They don’t practice what they preach. I can’t help bu…

> So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised in it and know nothing better. They don’t practice what they preach. And it's not necessarily a bad thing when you frame it as a cultural institution. For many people, they grew up with the church and its traditions. Their families and friends share the same traditions, and it's part of their identity. They may not believe in the supernatural stuff or ev…

It becomes a problem though when you don’t subscribe or even understand the core tenets of your faith - and yet it is your identity. So you vote with your friends and family even if you don’t know what you’re voting for. And when you feel your tribe being threatened, you get defensive and defend your tribe - even when you don’t know what you are defending.

That is why the US has become so divided recently. That is why the blind devotion to a cause should be questioned by every believer. “Wait a sec, do I really believe this? Do I really want this to be my identity?”

You can be a good person without being a Catholic or a Muslim.

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

#135

Post by beaconstudios » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #99

datavirtue wrote: post #5

The spread of information has allowed people to form their own moralistic code and spiritual journey that doesn't rely on having an institutional infrastructure. They are choosing religions that reject elite priesthoods, a trend now going back for thousands of years starting with Zarathustra. I consider this progress.

I think there's a rhetoric out there, that "everybody needs a religion," and that identifies any vehemently held ideology or close-knit social group as a religion. It's tautological. This is exacerbated by the difficulty of forming a general definition of "religion" that isn't riddled with exceptions. Defining "religion" broadly enough to include all religions makes it end up including everything else too. But "your…

replace "religion" with "philosophy" and it reads better - after all, religion is just philosophy.

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

#136

Post by _nckn » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #89

In my opinion the main problem for religion right now is the failure to explain their arguments at the highest intellectual level, publicly, consistently. Once I was exposed to better theology and philosophy of Christianity I was blown away. Edward Feser’s ‘The Last Superstition’ helped open this up. I have no idea why the level of discourse is on average so primitive, I think church leaders have been systematically…

I thought I knew what Christianity was, growing up in church. After I attended a theological seminary, I realized I knew nothing. Also I stopped debating religion with people online because I realized majority of religion debates are extremely shallow, yes even those with popular sciences like Richard Dawkins are shallow.

On the other hand, being just a regular member of my church, I also don't want to bring my background when I talk with my church community. Majority of people don't have the education that I had, and to explain half-assedly will just confuse them more.

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

#137

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

Guthur wrote: post #75

whalesalad wrote: post #28

I had a unique experience growing up in a religious family (that is very tolerant and respectful of all world religions) while simultaneously being immersed in Scientology via a private school experience. The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised in it and know nothing better. They don’t practice what they preach. I can’t help bu…

The hypocrisy is that they preach and ideal and fail to achieve it? One thinks this is because ideals are meant to strived towards but not necessarily achieved. A solution of throwing out ideals because they are hard to achieve and a little myopic in my opinion. What i find an interesting thought is that you either believe these teachings are from a higher power or they are just from man. The former had obvious impli…

> The hypocrisy is that they preach and ideal and fail to achieve it?

No, I don't think that's the case. I think the hypocrisy is that they don't try. What turns people off of organized religion is seeing so many who participate with words but not with their hearts. Of course when you have Jesus Christ as your role model you're going to fail to live up to it a lot of the time, but if you're not at least trying then in what sense are you a Christian?

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

#138

Post by 34679 » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

sarabad2021 wrote: post #96

whiddershins wrote: post #89

In my opinion the main problem for religion right now is the failure to explain their arguments at the highest intellectual level, publicly, consistently. Once I was exposed to better theology and philosophy of Christianity I was blown away. Edward Feser’s ‘The Last Superstition’ helped open this up. I have no idea why the level of discourse is on average so primitive, I think church leaders have been systematically…

The same can be said of science in that science can't explain the supernatural or the after-life. Science was never meant to explain those things but we have tried to make it a replacement by trying to naturalize everything. Things that go beyond this realm of understanding and reason.

The whole point of science is to explain "the supernatural". Lightning was once considered "supernatural". Now it isn't. Science did that. Science does not acknowledge the existence of an afterlife because there is no evidence to support such a conclusion.

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

#139

Post by aeneasmackenzie » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

p_l wrote: post #125

rbanffy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the fact that admission to this community required total philosophical adherence is just bizarre. My grandpa's best friend was a catholic priest. I remember him saying that you really don't need to go to the church if you don't want to, but, if you did good deeds selflessly, always tried to make things right (in the sense of least global damage possible) and to avoid wronging others, you'd be a good enough cato…

It's also the official doctrine of Catholic Church since Vatican II... Thing is, application of it by clergy is not exactly universal :(

This is false. It is true that the church teaches that you can be saved without going through the church, but this does not apply if you are aware of the church. Invincible ignorance does not apply to those who are not ignorant.

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

#140

Post by subpixel » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #129

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…

There does not seem to be a shortage of church variety to choose from. It's not about churches not being able to answer questions clearly; the reality is just that fewer people believe in gods. For comparison: in the Netherlands we already dipped below 50% in 2017, and the number of religious people keeps dropping steadily. In 2019 the remaining religious minority was composed of 20.1% Roman Catholics, 14.8% protesta…

Even if one believes, the notion that these often corrupt, sometimes malignant control organizations we call churches are a necessary expense of both time and money is a harder sell in the modern world.

The social role that churches play is where the opening raises real concern. What comes after organized religion may well look more like conspiracy theory.