751–760 of 1001 posts
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-...
Late 30s here who was dragged to church by parents and grandparents but who isn't exposing our kids to religion. It’s pretty straightforward for us: you don’t need fairy tales to be a good person and to come to terms with death (which comes for everyone). “Be happy, be kind.” If others choose to observe, that’s their choice.
Do you have any advice/resources for coming to terms with death as a non-believer? I've had existential dread for as long as I remember, but it's gotten far worse as I've slowly lost what faith I had over the years. There's a certain irony in being so scared of death that it ruins your life.
We’re all default dead in the long run, make the most of what time you have with whatever brings you joy and happiness. Choose to run.
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Agreed. This was a major component in my switch from Protestant/Baptist to ("Greek"/Eastern) Orthodox. Having thousands of years of prior religious & philosophical discussions to draw from, as well as the experiences of people living under all manner of political regimes provides a much-needed grounding against whatever may be the current, trendy topics. And a direct result of that history is that the Church mandates…
This approach, "religion as an operator's manual to living one's life" is one of the very rare arguments in defense of religion I can vaguely resonate with. Unfortunately this argument entirely fails to support all the rest of the luggage, especially the metaphysical hokum: you can perfectly chose to live your life according to a set of rules that will help you (and others) without having to justify it via the existe…
That's a strange straw man. No God-fearing person I know believes in such a thing. God is not a being, but rather is _being itself_. In fact, when Moses asked God what his name was, God replies something like "I am who am". If you prefer an Aristotelian frame, he is the "unmoved mover" [0]
I'm not a church-goer and now in my late thirties have seen many, including myself, have significant crises ending up therapy of some kind. Thankfully, these crises have all had successful and revelationary outcomes. Crises such as financial, relationship, burn-out, questioning purpose, depression. In all cases it's been a revelation for the people involved because they were simply unequipped to deal with the situati…
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I could never take this guy seriously. I mean, he killed himself. Why should we listen to what he has to say?
Do you also not take Alan Turing's works seriously?
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…
There does not seem to be a shortage of church variety to choose from. It's not about churches not being able to answer questions clearly; the reality is just that fewer people believe in gods. For comparison: in the Netherlands we already dipped below 50% in 2017, and the number of religious people keeps dropping steadily. In 2019 the remaining religious minority was composed of 20.1% Roman Catholics, 14.8% protesta…
Religion has the same function as "branding" - it's an efficient short-cut to bypass intensive, and possible unavailable intellectual rigor for some. And because Bell Curves are truly reality, providing a moral and ethical framework that works for everyone and that is internally consistent ENOUGH absolutely matters.
NOTHING we can ever know will be absolute truth or knowledge. You can make a simple proof by physical volumes of an individual and of the universe, combined with Shannon's Law. Humans must always come up short on knowledge and understanding of the universe as a result.
Like all things (even science) you can take a thing too far and exceed its limits of explanation or prediction. But that's unavoidable in a static system sense; which is why you dynamic systems defined by reliable and simple rules and waypoints. Religion absolutely provides that in a minimal effort form.
And we shouldn't project upon "average" and "below average" for what we might be familiar with or assume about intellect. Again: Bell curves for all things are reality. The biggest mistake that intellectuals make is that EVERYONE is just like them and thinks exactly the same way. Nope. Not even on a good day.
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> But the fact that admission to this community required total philosophical adherence is just bizarre. I don't think it's bizarre at all. With the church removed from western society something will fill the vacuum. And truly it already has. Our society requires complete unquestioning philosophical adherence to its new religion. What happened during the French revolution? They turned the churches into "Temples of Rea…
People have been talking about the vacuum that Christianity has left or will leave in Western society for over a century. Most of the time, however, those who complain about this then completely miss the point. The new organizations, ideologies, and new-age pseudo-religions "filling the religion-shaped hole" in society aren't inherently "lesser" than religion (or necessarily better). They are simply filling the niche…
In fact, I think one of the keys to any religious belief (even the current scientism that's in vogue today) is that people are not the sole knowers of what's best for themselves.
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It's a question of whether or not you buy into the set of assumptions. If you do, you can avail yourself of any one several strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and world-views, which many of history's great minds have reasoned about and scrutinized. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of time on this stuff. It's the on-the-fly, off-the-cuff, brand new, modern theo…
> It's a question of whether or not you buy into the set of assumptions. If you do, you can avail yourself of any one several strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and world-views, which many of history's great minds have reasoned about and scrutinized. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of time on this stuff. As an atheist, I do not find[1] those philosophies to b…
Actually, in many cases, they survived because neither side won the power struggle. E.g., Both sides of the Chalcedon(/Ephesus) schism, the East-West Schism, the Protestant/Catholic schism, the Old Catholic/Catholic schism , the Catholic/Anglican schism (even in England), the reverse schisms between the Uniate Churches and their previous Church of the East/Oriental Orthodox/Eastern Orthodox communities, etc. survive.
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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.
So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong. We know there is a God AND the Bible is some sort of authoritative (most would claim the most authoritative) description of who/how God is and how he wants us to behave towards him. Often there is also a third correlating claim that our interpretation of the Bible is the most correct interpretation.
I have issues with 1) "God told me to tell you" (any human claiming to represent God to their fellow humans. They surely would be devoid of ulterior motives, right?)
2) This collection of hitherto uncompiled writings (including a wholesale incorporation of Judaism) that were uncontestedly written by humans, some of which we know the names of, has now become a singular "book" and it's the world of God, shut up or else, etc.
I smell humans, not divinity.
Oh, and YES you nailed it on the last point. Witness the smug way some Evangelicals dismissively tell a Catholic "but I am CHRISTIAN"...
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This approach, "religion as an operator's manual to living one's life" is one of the very rare arguments in defense of religion I can vaguely resonate with. Unfortunately this argument entirely fails to support all the rest of the luggage, especially the metaphysical hokum: you can perfectly chose to live your life according to a set of rules that will help you (and others) without having to justify it via the existe…
> bearded dude sitting on a cloud That's a strange straw man. No God-fearing person I know believes in such a thing. God is not a being, but rather is _being itself_. In fact, when Moses asked God what his name was, God replies something like "I am who am". If you prefer an Aristotelian frame, he is the "unmoved mover" [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover