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

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

#571

Post by ddoran »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #550
anonAndOn wrote: post #514

The comedian Emo Philips has a well-known joke about religion that may explain some of the decline in membership... "Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me…

This is a somewhat funny joke but it doesn't actually map to reality. Inter-Christian conflict is almost nonexistent in 2021 and has been so for probably a generation. Edit: by “conflict” I mean actual real violent conflict. Not people arguing on Reddit. People literally killing each other (or pushing them off bridges) because they are “heretics.” This doesn’t happen much at all anymore in the Christian world. Even t…

The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland may be over but there is still tension and violence in Northern Ireland between a subset of Catholics and Protestants. The sectarian violence still happens but does not get reported internationally because the scale is so much lower than it was up to 2010, but to say Inter-Christian conflict has been non-existent for a generation (25 years?) is wishful thinking at best.

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

#572

Post by shadowgovt »

psychometry wrote: post #105
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…

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

It's always fascinating to me to observe the small distance between the two in some philosophies.

The Discourse on the Method of Descartes, in which his famous phrase je pense, donc je suis occurs also includes a preceding segment where he considers whether he can know anything at all, or whether he's a disembodied consciousness fed false information by evil demonic powers (if you will, the "Matrix hypothesis"). He rebuts that hypothesis with a simple assertion that a just and loving God wouldn't allow such an arrangement of events to be the true nature of reality.

Depending on your bent, that can either allow the discourse to continue or put the brakes completely on it.

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

#573

Post by boomboomsubban »

germinalphrase wrote: post #553
ceilingcorner wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a somewhat funny joke but it doesn't actually map to reality. Inter-Christian conflict is almost nonexistent in 2021 and has been so for probably a generation. Edit: by “conflict” I mean actual real violent conflict. Not people arguing on Reddit. People literally killing each other (or pushing them off bridges) because they are “heretics.” This doesn’t happen much at all anymore in the Christian world. Even t…

Idk, man... about two years ago, I heard an evangelical dude say Catholics aren’t even Christians. As a Catholic, I found it a bit startling to learn that I am - by default - going to hell.

Catholicism also teaches that every non-Catholic person is going to hell.

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

#574

Post by meepmorp »

germinalphrase wrote: post #553
ceilingcorner wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a somewhat funny joke but it doesn't actually map to reality. Inter-Christian conflict is almost nonexistent in 2021 and has been so for probably a generation. Edit: by “conflict” I mean actual real violent conflict. Not people arguing on Reddit. People literally killing each other (or pushing them off bridges) because they are “heretics.” This doesn’t happen much at all anymore in the Christian world. Even t…

Idk, man... about two years ago, I heard an evangelical dude say Catholics aren’t even Christians. As a Catholic, I found it a bit startling to learn that I am - by default - going to hell.

Was it because the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon from Revelations, or because it's secretly a pagan religion that worships Saints and the Virgin Mary as gods? I love the rationales people put forward for that kind of stuff.

For a Guy purportedly trying to bring salvation to humanity, some Jesus's followers do seem to relish opportunities to keep the everyone they can out of the Kingdom.

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

#575

Post by progman32 »

jariel wrote: post #539
gonehome wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up mainline Protestant too before throwing it away (I was young ~12 which makes it easier). My objection is to the broken nature of the reasoning and how that tends to corrupt evidence based reasoning elsewhere most of them time (though weirdly not always - people are inconsistent). If the fundamentalists are a problem, maybe there’s a problem with the fundamentals? Obviously religious people remain the vast m…

" before throwing it away (I was young ~12 which makes it easier). My objection is to the broken nature of the reasoning and how that tends to corrupt evidence based reasoning elsewhere most of them time " Age 12 is pretty young to come to that conclusion. Also, it's not about direct rational inquiry, yes it can sometimes a source of aberration, but that would be missing the point. Spirituality is about who you are,…

> that would be missing the point.

Which is?

> Spirituality is about who you are, your relationship to the greater good.

It can be, for some people. Not all. My personal relationship to the greater good has more to do with reasoned arguments rather than spirituality.

> 'Reasoning' is just a tool of the mind. Would you agree it's a highly important tool?

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

#576

Post by gaoshan »

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #520
gaoshan wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grew up Protestant and rejected it because of the hypocrisy I saw around me. I saw "good church going people" who I knew were not good people and I saw how they were able to use the authority of their positions to exert influence. I also found that asking too many inconvenient questions in youth group meetings led to uncomfortable situations. It became clear that the religion part of things had little to no impact on…

Just curious: which denomination were you?

Generic Presbyterian. The vanilla ice cream of religions.

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

#577

Post by lykahb »

There is an idea of "God-shaped hole" that is an urge to have a belief in something transcendent or greater than oneself. As the organized religion is in decline, politics or activism seem to become a substitute that provides belief, sense of community, and a vision for improving the world. This also explains why there is so little rational discussion across the divide of the political spectrum in the US.

The same political views can come from observations and reasoning, or they can be ingrained as a belief and be a part of one's [group] identity. In the former case a rational discussion is possible. In the latter case it turns into a challenge of one's personal integrity and devolves into a fight of the righteous against the heretical other side.

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

#578

Post by cochne »

legitster wrote: post #542

This misses the forest for the trees: Membership is down at organizations across the board - scouting, group athletics, Rotary clubs, unions, even things like PTAs and neighborhood associations and model train clubs. There is a society wide "apathy" event happening right under our noses. Maybe we're just seeing a new generation moving to new niche groups that aren't being seen yet. But it seems that technology is doi…

Yes I agree. This seems to be a continuation of the trends described in “Bowling Alone”. The book argued in 2000 that television was a contributing factor. It is probably further worsened by the rise in online entertainment since.

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

#579

Post by rjtavares »

hkarthik wrote: post #563
brobdingnagians wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet our society is more polarized than ever. From your anecdote, one would think that declining religion would result in peace and love overflowing in society, but we see the opposite. Public morality cannot be maintained without religion; we will sadly see the end result of that in coming years.

It's an interesting argument that you lay out, and as agnostic that came from a religious family, it's something that I've personally grappled with. In the absence of religion, where do people find their moral and ethical compass? I wasn't raised atheist, and when I ask atheists this question they often dismiss it as not important or obvious. I feel like that's half the reason religion persists, because they actually…

Have you considered that it is not important, that it is obvious?

As a person that wasn't raised religious, the concept that you need religion to find a moral and ethical compass seems weird to me. My parents taught me values, I learned them, society reinforced them. They made sense to me, and I feel bad when I don't follow them. The mechanics of it are pretty simple.

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