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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

#591

Post by bopbeepboop »

soco wrote: post #299
bopbeepboop wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would that be? I’ve encountered this claim more often than I’ve encountered actual fundamentalist churches I think are making any sort of strong claim about the world. So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong.

I mentioned in a parallel comment that I had similar experiences, so I'll jump in until the other commenter does. And to keep spirits cooler, I'll mention my experiences in martial arts. I gained my black belt in Aikido in a wonderful dojo, wonderful teachers, doing many activities together otherwise. I found a few lifetime friends there and love as well, so it was definitely more than "training", it was a real commu…

> The entire teaching is based on life energies and ki flows which... just weren't there for me. I was able to progress nicely also without them - faking them to be more honest, I could have been continued growing in the technique, but what was the point continuing something I don't believe in?

I had a similar experience — in Kung fu and Buddhism.

Beliefs are a model of the world: just because a model isn’t phrased in terms of my core beliefs doesn’t mean it has nothing to teach me.

In the case of Kung fu and Buddhism, I don’t believe I would understand things as well as I do (physics, physiology, neurology) without having taken the time to understand what those other models were trying to express about the world.

To use an analogy: just because I have an irresolvable dependency conflict with a new piece of software doesn’t mean it has nothing to teach me about software and programming.

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

#592

Post by throwaway0a5e »

prophesi wrote: post #546
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.

I'd argue that the polarization is a direct result of the rise of evangelical Christianity. And as church membership decreases, their perceived persecution will fan the flames of their crusade against soft drugs, LGBTQ+, and trans rights to name a few.

>crusade against soft drugs, LGBTQ+, and trans rights to name a few.

So then why have those crusades all but evaporated?

Weed is on its way to being federally legal. Hard drugs are becoming legal or decriminalized in some jurisdictions. Trans people are pretty much universally accepted/tolerated as being a thing that isn't going away with the remaining conflict more or less related to all the gender based stuff that's been codified in law over the years.

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

#593

Post by jwalgenbach »

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,…

Religion is just a tool too. It's just not wielded by the flock, but rather by someone that wants to control the actions of the flock.

Spirituality can be something else altogether, but usually just boils down to magical thinking.

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

#595

Post by simplify »

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…

This is only true as far as how most Christians and churches are so casual in their beliefs, there's no meaningful difference in their lifestyle vs a non-believer's.

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

#596

Post by loceng »

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…

Seeing those same comments in this thread reminded me of something Jordan Peterson questions: with this decline of religious-based narratives for guidelines, what is replacing it?

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

#597

Post by ceilingcorner »

ddoran wrote: post #571
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…

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.

See my edit.

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

#598

Post by kajecounterhack »

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…

Maybe you need to clarify by what you mean by conflict -- do you mean violent conflict? Because ideological conflict and schism seems quite high between denominations, christian branches, and even within congregations. E.g Rob Bell vs Francis Chan / Tim Keller on whether hell is real and if Rob Bell is going there. A lot of evangelical groups today are "non-denominational" meaning they face these ideological clashes within their congregations.

I mean, as an atheist it seems obvious that they're all facing the problem of ill-defined views causing confusion. There's no ground truth so everyone's just interpreting it how they feel is right, whether that's by focusing on literal biblicisms or focusing on real world feedback / interpersonal relationships, and the lines are drawn around litmus test issues across the spectrum of christian beliefs.

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

#600

Post by agensaequivocum »

As a practicing Catholic this is greatly troubling. I truly want all to be saved. I fear "progress" that so many non-religious people will tolerate and irreligious will promote. This is not new. Abortion has been pushed for decades and is the greatest sin of our age. Our generation will be looked back upon the same way we look back at slave holders/traders. Those who dehumanizing the vulnerable to the point were we can kill them because they are not persons. 60 million have been killed since legalization in the US.
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