A lot of clever folks in here attempting to tailor the Emperor's new clothes.
As to whether church membership slipping below the 50% mark is a good or bad thing for America, I'm agnostic.
Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
361–370 of 1001 posts
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you don’t need fairy tails to be a good person and to come to terms with death I don't think this is true in general. I have a pet theory that much of the conspiracy theory following we are seeing is actually a weakening of church. People need spirituality - it doesn't matter where that spirituality comes from (except for local social pressures - but those aren't relevant to this point). If they're not getting spir…
> much of the conspiracy theory following we are seeing is actually a weakening of church I completely agree. Critical Theory / Wokeness / Social Justice is a new secular religion on the rise for the sophisticated and cults of personality are there for the unsophisticated
Agreed. God help us all.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#363Great news. At some point, hopefully humanity will realize religions are the myths of our less enlightened ancestors and we can all move on to something more interesting and productive.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#364As 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…
I grew up in a church that was very serious about "serious" preaching- Primitive Baptist, very focused on Calvinist doctrine and what could be considered scriptural literalism. It was definitely not "baby food"... but they still could not answer some questions clearly, and that is because it is an invention of man rooted in a prescientific understanding of the world. I would argue that church are losing members not because it is being watered down, but because it is losing relevance.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#365Earlier 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…
I haven't encountered a single religion that would teach what you just described. Can you name some?
I can't imagine such religion staying around for long, as presenting things this way leads to obvious question: what makes $holyBook special over, say, Harry Potter? Or Star Trek? Or your national fiction writer of yore that wrote stories to cheer up their readers in difficult times[0]?
This is not a joke question, by any means. I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, so I had (my religion's interpretation of) the Bible down pat. And yet, looking back, even when I still believed I already realized my moral compass was built 50% on the Bible, and 50% on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's probably the latter that kept me from becoming a fundamentalist believer :). Alas, while I could easily find a community of people willing to wait for Jesus with me, I have a hard time finding people who want to work towards the utopian ideals of the United Federation of Planets with me.
--
[0] - E.g. Henryk Sienkiewicz in my country.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#366If Alan Watts or someone like him were speaking near me every Sunday, I'd be there every week.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#367I grew up in a fundamentalist christian church. I'm now an agnostic deist (I don't know if god exists, but if he does, there doesn't appear to be much evidence that he intervenes much in his creation). My moral code has evolved and simplified from biblical to 'if it doesn't hurt anybody, it's fine'.
Frankly, I can't be bothered with any belief system which relies exclusively on a 2000 year old book and isn't measured by real world effects today.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#368Earlier 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.
I suspect you're setting up a false dichotomy. There are more choices on theology than ones that require you to check your brain in at the door, such as 1. fundamentalism and 2. feel-good pop psychology. I am not taught emotion over logic. In fact, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (a framework derived from but not described by him) has you evaluate beliefs with reason being a co-equal base. In confirmation and later in-dep…
You just said that beliefs and reason are a co-equal base. This is exactly against reason, as reason cannot be bended in some cases just because you believe it should not apply in certain areas. That's why your denomination continues to subscribe to ideas that go against reason like Trinity, just to name a very common one.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#369Bishop Barron had a good writeup on this in his meeting to the conference of US Bishops: https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/the-usccb-meeti...
Bishop barron is great, as a practicing catholic strikes a great balance between the more liberal and traditional wings of the church.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the problem is that there is no clear tradition of “cultural Christian” like there is for “atheist Jew”. I don’t believe in God. I love the high church and choral traditions. I attend a church where the minister feels the same. Am I a Christian? No. And yes.
This isn’t necessarily true outside the US. The running joke about Greeks is that they are 98% Greek Orthodox (official stats from a while ago) and 40% atheist. You might be atheist and communist (a fairly common combo in Greece) but will still probably roast a lamb on Easter with your family.
Turkey is the same way. The government says 99.8% of the population are Muslim by default but it’s probably closer to 60%.
Until a few years ago religion was listed on government identification cards. When you’re born your parenrs must state a religion for your birth certificate or it is automatically listed as Muslim.
You had to go through a burdensome official process as an adult to change this, and once you did this you legally admitted to Apostasy, which opens you up to discrimination (and future consequences if the government were to fall to islamists or neo-ottomans).
Furthermore, it was very common to be discriminated against by HR departments / hiring managers if Islam was not present on your Kimlik (government ID).
This only went away with recent passport and national id standards changing in their futile attempts to join the EU.
(Consider that Turkey is by far the most liberal and secular Muslim nation.)