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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

#71

Post by tiborsaas »

liaukovv wrote: post #40
whalesalad wrote: post #28

I had a unique experience growing up in a religious family (that is very tolerant and respectful of all world religions) while simultaneously being immersed in Scientology via a private school experience. The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised in it and know nothing better. They don’t practice what they preach. I can’t help bu…

As you said yourself, people do it to belong to a social circle. What are you replacing this extremely important function with? Vacuum?

The problem is not with the goal, it's the quality of those circles. There are groups without much hypocrisy, mysticism and abuse.

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

#72

Post by lazysheepherd »

987yghj wrote: post #17
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 have chosen new religions and a new elite priesthood, they just have different names.

This avenue of thinking are messing with language. And language is what we organize and coordinate with as human beings. So stop this!

Religion is a very precise definition. By which your comment is not only technically wrong but also practically harmful.

Definition of the religion according to dictionary is: "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods."

So no, they are not choosing new religions. And their "priests" do not claim to be shadow of the divine, and certainly do not threaten them with afterlife.

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

#73

Post by CountDrewku »

saddestcatever wrote: post #26
CountDrewku wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhh Christian churches are some of the largest charitable donators in the world. Unless those taxes are going to the same places to help people I'd vote no. The government isn't going to spend it on things that help people and we know that.

Wouldn't it be similar to corporate tax? Tax profits, so that any existing donations would be tax deductible?

Why? What do we need that money for? If you don't like it then just don't go to church and the problem is solved. Obviously less people are attending so it sounds like it'll just solve itself in the future. No one is making anyone attend church and give offerings. It's just letting the government double dip on taxes at that point. Everything given to a church is essentially a donation to begin with and you want to have it taxed a second time after the church gets it?

It's a waste of time to tax them and it's not going to be used for anything helpful in this country. After seeing where the US government is blowing our tax money on these supposed "stimulus" bills I can't understand why anyone would support taxing more things in this country.

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

#74

Post by dbatten »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #67
dbatten wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for pointing this out. There's a big difference between church attendance and church membership... Unfortunately, the original linked article glosses over the difference, while the original Gallup study digs into it. According to Gallup, approximately half of the recent reduction in church membership can be attributed to people becoming less religious, while the other half is explained by people who still atte…

> while the other half is explained by people who still attend church regularly, but avoid formal "membership" in a congregation. I wonder if this can be explained by an increase in people moving around compared to a hundred years ago. I am a member of the church I was raised in, but I am not local enough attend. I do visit when I am with my parents but otherwise it doesn't make sense. I wouldn't go join another chur…

Yeah, likely part of it. I think there's also been a rise in non-denominational and "seeker-sensitive" churches that just don't have any concept of membership at all...

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

#75

Post by Guthur »

whalesalad wrote: post #28

I had a unique experience growing up in a religious family (that is very tolerant and respectful of all world religions) while simultaneously being immersed in Scientology via a private school experience. The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised in it and know nothing better. They don’t practice what they preach. I can’t help bu…

The hypocrisy is that they preach and ideal and fail to achieve it?

One thinks this is because ideals are meant to strived towards but not necessarily achieved.

A solution of throwing out ideals because they are hard to achieve and a little myopic in my opinion.

What i find an interesting thought is that you either believe these teachings are from a higher power or they are just from man.

The former had obvious implications, but the with the latter you will then need to answer the question is it written by lunatics or people that actually knew what they were doing?

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

#76

Post by darksaints »

CountDrewku wrote: post #6
yhoneycomb wrote: post #2

Curious about how high that number is for ethnic minorities. Anecdotally, minorities (black, Asian, Hispanic) tend to be more religious.

They also tend to be more conservative and I think that's starting to change their voting habits. A lot are leaving the left. Edit: Ok just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not true. Minorities in this country are highly religious. Take a look at how many blacks and Hispanics voted for Trump this election.

You're not wrong, at least about hispanics. Many hispanics in the US come from failed socialist states, so they tend to come to the US looking for capitalism. And they tend to be religious and socially conservative.

Luckily for the democratic party, the republican party has doubled down on anything racist they can get their hands on, so many hispanic voters that would probably like to vote republican actually vote democrat.

Now if the republican party actually decided to reverse course on immigration issues and create a legal economic immigration regime with a statutory path to citizenship, they would probably lose a handful of trump supporters but they would likely gain a supermajority of the hispanic vote. And that could be an unstoppable political force for decades. Hell, I could probably be convinced to vote republican again.

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

#77

Post by ccn0p »

The Christian church has gone through an interesting time in 2020. Many churches have lost attendance as pastors closed their doors or tried to stay out of politics, while other stronger pastors who have kept their doors open despite lockdowns and are speaking up against the US government with respect to threats against religious freedom (eg see H.R. 5) -- those churches are stronger and more vibrant than ever.

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

#78

Post by AcerbicZero »

whalesalad wrote: post #28

I had a unique experience growing up in a religious family (that is very tolerant and respectful of all world religions) while simultaneously being immersed in Scientology via a private school experience. The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised in it and know nothing better. They don’t practice what they preach. I can’t help bu…

I’m not religious in the slightest, but the hypocrisy has always been fairly obvious from the outside.

That said, I have serious doubts religion and hypocrisy are aligned anymore than the other sources of truth - especially when followed without applying critical thinking skills.

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

#79

Post by RHSeeger »

Loughla wrote: post #52
whalesalad wrote: post #28

I had a unique experience growing up in a religious family (that is very tolerant and respectful of all world religions) while simultaneously being immersed in Scientology via a private school experience. The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. So many people just want to belong to a group, or were raised in it and know nothing better. They don’t practice what they preach. I can’t help bu…

>The thing that underscores all of my experiences has been hypocrisy. This is, consistently, what I hear from friends and family as to why they have drifted away from the Catholic church, and is solidly my own reason as well. You see people, day-in-day out being terrible, judgmental, hateful people, except on Sunday when they're in the front row being holier than thou. It grates on you, and leaves a bad taste. It's e…

> You see people, day-in-day out being terrible, judgmental, hateful people, except on Sunday when they're in the front row being holier than thou.

But you see this nearly everywhere, with every type of organization/group. A prime example would be politicians and political groups who constantly talk about how they want to help people, but then throw those same people under the bus to get what they want. This is not something unique to any one type of organization.

From my experience, there are lots of good people in most religious organizations. I would venture to say, at least in the northeast US (which is where most of my experience is), it's the majority of the people. However, as with any organization, it's common for the bad apples to be the ones that rise in power, because they don't care who they hurt to get do so. This, too, is true everywhere.

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

#80

Post by Mertax »

WJW wrote: post #51
liaukovv wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you said yourself, people do it to belong to a social circle. What are you replacing this extremely important function with? Vacuum?

Sports, online forums, student fraternities, social clubs of every variety, etc. There are many ways to get active in society that don't involve beliefs in higher beings.

Few of these instill purpose and influence behavior of a person in the same way that religion does. You might disagree, but I would argue that the virtues extolled by the vast majority of religious organizations are good ideals to be striving for and wonder what is going to replace this?
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