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

#301

Post by zuminator » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #201

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…

The difference in politics is interesting too - in the USA politicians have to be shown to be religious - people discuss the possibility that Bernie Sanders' might be atheist like its a potential major scandal. In the UK its the exact opposite, we don't want our leaders to be religious. Its ok for them to go to a big church service or lay a wreath or something but if they start talking about their 'faith' (as Tony Bl…

If you're running for major office in the US, announcing your fealty to God is a kind of real-world implementation of Pascal's wager. That is, if you are openly atheist you will earn the condemnation of a large cohort of believers, and lose many votes. But if you're religious, only a small few atheists will write you off as a candidate. So it's always to your political advantage to claim religious adherence, even if you're not. Arguably patently insincere lip-service actually works better than principled devotion in this respect.

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

#302

Post by MisterBastahrd » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #235

paulryanrogers wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After being raised in a non-Fundamentalist denomination I'd say the progressive ones are more insidious and no less harmful. Their foundations are all the same text, no matter how literal or figurative they interpret it. IME they usually also teach the same bad ways of thinking: emotion over logic, testimony over hard evidence, authority beyond your understanding, etc.

Not sure I follow. If the religious outfit is teaching things like: - This book is a set of moral guidance aimed to cause favorable social outcome. - These stories are myths. - We should analyze these books to critically determine their relevance to our modern lives. - Your personal understanding of spirituality is unique to yourself. It seems only productive? It seems a much more dangerous stance, one even paralleli…

You're missing:

- These myths are the only ones we believe. The other ones are false and harmful.

- There is an invisible man who created everything and sits in judgment of all of us for the purposes of what happens to us in an afterlife that nobody has been able to observe.

- Follow us so that he does not judge you unfavorably.

The problem with the Bible is that the main character is God, and so everything that happens in the book affects him. The lessons do not give proper ethical cause and effect reasons for why you should do or not do something except that God is displeased with your humanity. Churches can add to these lessons and actually teach ethics, but they originate with the idea that a perfect being is really bad at creating perfect beings.

Despite how many churches start having pastors with spiked hair and jeans and sneakers and tattoos, THAT does not change, and it's fundamentally ridiculous and harmful.

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

#303

Post by datavirtue » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #15

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.

They are choosing religions that reject elite priesthoods [...] They choose no religion.

Religion doesn't have to equal church and rigid dogma. The word is probably ruined in our society by it's connotation.

My religion changes often based on new information, ideas, and philosophical exploration.

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

#304

Post by tenacious_tuna » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

bopbeepboop wrote: post #262

subpixel wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would argue several modern problems trace to the collapse of churches as a social institution: - loneliness - lack of dating/marriage - lack of community infrastructure - lack of elder care If you look at existing charities, much of the rubber meets road work gets done by churches or church affiliated groups. You don’t have to like the message or the people, but I think it’s pretty obvious ditching churches without…

I think you're likely ignoring other confounding effects;

> - loneliness

I'm not convinced churches ever solved this meaningfully--my mother left her church specifically because they never treated her as an equal adult, being a single parent. She was lonely _within_ the church. Yes, this can obviously vary by church--but it's a fallalcy to claim that churches as a whole prevented loneliness.

Especially not for those subjugated *by* the church (LGBT, single parent, unmarried, women [depending on doctrine]...)

> - lack of dating/marriage

* an entire generation growing up in the shadow of the 2008 financial collapse, as well as unprecedented debt from college, climate change, etc. driving down the desire to start a family

> lack of community infrastructure

This is much more influenced by increasing polarization and tribalism, which churches have helped cause by providing a platform and existing insular in-group--it's a self-selecting population that inherently echochambers, making it difficult to relate to outside groups, thus further damaging community.

Overall, you make these claims that churches are significant in these ways, but you don't give any supporting arguments for them--you quite nicely fit the churchgoer stereotype in that way.

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

#305

Post by Gustomaximus » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #100

Applejinx wrote: post #3

Now let's tax churches, like Frank Zappa suggested :)

I am from Brazil... To be honest this would be a complete disaster here. 1. My city main hospital, belongs to Catholic Church, same applies to many other cities. 2. Many of our leading universities, doing research and important work, belong to Catholic Church, notably PUC-RIO, the creators of Lua language. 3. Protestant churches here are the major organizations driving away drug dealers, some took the donations to bu…

But would it be a disaster. For a 'church' hospital, the money they take in then goes to fund the hospital. Largely expenses meet income so there is very little tax to pay assume they dont pay sales tax on medical good like many countries.

The churches that will pay high taxes are the ones that have the income but dont spend it and put it into investments to build their wealth.

So in this way, I think taxing churches and also charities makes sense. There will be some fringe cases but largely those that do things with their funds will not be effected and those that hoard funds or use it to circumvent taxes will be the ones paying.

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

#306

Post by MisterBastahrd » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

justaman wrote: post #186

toomuchtodo wrote: post #145

Late 30s here who was dragged to church by parents and grandparents but who isn't exposing our kids to religion. It’s pretty straightforward for us: you don’t need fairy tales to be a good person and to come to terms with death (which comes for everyone). “Be happy, be kind.” If others choose to observe, that’s their choice.

It goes beyond fairy tails. There is a sense of community that (for the most part) only religion has been able to maintain in the information age.

Any crawfish boil in Louisiana will disabuse you of that notion.

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

#307

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #143

psychometry wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most "solid" theology is just shaky philosophy, though.

It's a question of whether or not you buy into the set of assumptions. If you do, you can avail yourself of any one several strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and world-views, which many of history's great minds have reasoned about and scrutinized. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of time on this stuff. It's the on-the-fly, off-the-cuff, brand new, modern theo…

[deleted]

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

#308

Post by whatshisface » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #235

paulryanrogers wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After being raised in a non-Fundamentalist denomination I'd say the progressive ones are more insidious and no less harmful. Their foundations are all the same text, no matter how literal or figurative they interpret it. IME they usually also teach the same bad ways of thinking: emotion over logic, testimony over hard evidence, authority beyond your understanding, etc.

Not sure I follow. If the religious outfit is teaching things like: - This book is a set of moral guidance aimed to cause favorable social outcome. - These stories are myths. - We should analyze these books to critically determine their relevance to our modern lives. - Your personal understanding of spirituality is unique to yourself. It seems only productive? It seems a much more dangerous stance, one even paralleli…

They didn't keep the Bible around for thousands of years because they compared it with other myths and thought it was the best, they did it because they thought it was true. The "natural selection" argument for the Bible leaves out the fact that reading it as a myth is not its "habitat," to keep up the analogy. On a comparative mythology basis, the winner will probably be a work of fiction written after the printing press.

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

#309

Post by AuthorizedCust » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #280

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…

1. Stance on abortion among your brothers in church? As if brothers should even have one that matters? 2. Do you follow the edict that if you’re not baptist then by definition you go to hell? How do you reconcile this with having friends or anyone at all you care about who are then going to hell? Point is, I’m not sure there is any middle ground that’s acceptable. I don’t come here as an atheist, just as someone who’…

> Stance on abortion among your brothers in church

Denominational stance is reluctance: https://www.umc.org/en/content/ask-the-umc-what-is-the-unite...

> Do you follow the edict that if you’re not baptist then by definition you go to hell

I am not Baptist. But the ones I speak to, who are dedicated fundamentalists, seem to believe that I am going to hell since I am not and will never be "saved" in the way they prescribe. Furthermore, in their view, nearly everyone who existed before Jesus's time is condemned to Hell except for a select few who foretold of Jesus's coming. Crazy theology!

Also, keep in mind that Baptists have diversity. The Southern Baptists are the firebrand fundamentalists. There are others that are almost indistinguishable from mainline Protestantism.

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

#310

Post by Karunamon » Mon, Mar 29, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #259

jboynyc wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just other commenters, the (sociological) science backs you up as well: political backlash is a big reason for recent disaffiliation. https://sociologicalscience.com/articles-vol1-24-423/

That’s the predictable, and in the end, best outcome. The most foolish thing cultural “christianity,” could do is pick a political party. Now that we’re a generation past that, the so-called “religious right” has evolved into a thin veneer of pseudo-religion over a very specific political faction, and that shallow falseness is driving most people away. As for actual Christianity and those who study it, in many ways t…

Jesus also told the woman to "go forth and sin no more" as part of being forgiven, which is a significantly important detail that often gets overlooked when paraphrasing this story.

The entire story of Christ is based on redemption from sin - if one tries to eliminate that because having extrajudicial demands on one's conduct is not fashionable in the modern day, what's left is, objectively speaking, not Christianity anymore, not even qualifying as a moral framework, and leaves you with nothing more than a nice story about a nice guy.

Let us not forget that Jesus was described as fashioning a whip (which is not something you do on a momentary whim in the bronze age, that takes time and effort, and in this case, likely stewing the whole time) and deploying it against scalpers in the temple. What the "judge not" passage calls for is recognizing that you aren't the ultimate authority worthy of meting out punishment at the end of the day (which also jibes with significant portions of the Israeli covenant and its lethal punishments being deprecated), but it does not demand that people remain tolerant or silent in the face of sin.