61–70 of 130 posts
I wonder what kinds of communities will replace religious communities. I worry that people may tie their identities to political tribes more and more. What communities provide a healthy sense of identity and belonging that are not religious or political?
The world is finally moving to a post-theological era.
Less conflict around religion, and more social progress without it standing in the way. That sounds pretty good to me.
I just wanted to come here and show some respect for religious communities that work very hard to help people and the world become a better place. On hacker news, I would hope we can be rational and respectful about beliefs that are important to (many real and good) people. There are many religious people/beliefs that I agree with - and many I disagree with - we can discuss that like adults. But sarcastic, unkind rem…
But if you look at who's demographics are shifting older, a negative trend is why there is so much of a resugence of extreme variants of fundamentalism in the US. Fascism, monarchism, and theocratic proponents are very loud right now and visibility stunts from organizations like WBC and 1488-christian-identity people exist because fundamentalist religious folks feel this pressure very hard right now.
These folks know their ideology is failing to grow substantially, so they're trying to increase visibility and capture more disaffected, frustrated, or sympathetic people in their particular brand of self-sustaining fundamentalist thought.
Many of them have failed to form a cohesive and accepted national identity (the way mormonism has), so outrageous stunts like public displays of swastikas or protesting solider's funerals (because "gays aren't stoned or hung so god killed this solider") are really the easiest way to try and reclaim some prominence in American discourse.
More moderate religions are faring better because they focus on providing a sense of community without all those embarrassing and controversial fundamentalist tenants. I am no longer religious, but I have lots of friends who are happy in moderate churches that claim growth. We're even seeing advertisements in San Francisco for a specific kind of communal church with vague kinds of unitarian values, focusing on community. They're VC funded! They have an App!
Coming Apart by Charles Murray is an incredibly important book that goes into detail about this including immense amounts of statistical data. The core of American civilization is based on Judeo-Christian values and the fact that faith in those are rotting away is directly leading to slow-motion social collapse. I understand the average HN reader is probably areligious (the book goes into the class dynamics of why th…
Seems a bit convenient to his point of view. Western democracy is much more strongly associated with Greek city-states like Athens and the ancient Greek leagues than Judeo-Christian theology.
Does religion cause the evils of human nature, or is religion merely a means of expression for the evils of human nature? I see people glad that religion is decreasing, but is there evidence that the evils of human nature are decreasing, or are they merely taking different forms?
To be honest, I believe what's killing the Protestants is the new faith in wealth. When someone drives a Bentley or Porsche, lives in a huge mansion and still portrays himself as a "man of God" it's just too much to swallow. Eventually even the dumbest of folks realize that the money they give to him/her is just making that individual wealthier and they're never going to get anything. It's truly the penultimate Ponzi Scheme. Except the folks at the bottom never get back a penny! And, the Feds aren't able to go after the perps at all due to "freedom of religion."
I just wanted to come here and show some respect for religious communities that work very hard to help people and the world become a better place. On hacker news, I would hope we can be rational and respectful about beliefs that are important to (many real and good) people. There are many religious people/beliefs that I agree with - and many I disagree with - we can discuss that like adults. But sarcastic, unkind rem…
can we not say anything about the ones that ruin people’s lives? or is that too unkind? sorry for being unkind to people who abandon their gay kids.