Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spoken like someone with white privilege.
What does race have to do with this?
Tarring
Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
801–810 of 1001 posts
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#802Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
This is completely different. Turing was a genius and one of the founders of computer science.
DFW was kind of a loser, imho, who abused his girlfriend and her son.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#803Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the problem is that there is no clear tradition of “cultural Christian” like there is for “atheist Jew”. I don’t believe in God. I love the high church and choral traditions. I attend a church where the minister feels the same. Am I a Christian? No. And yes.
This isn’t necessarily true outside the US. The running joke about Greeks is that they are 98% Greek Orthodox (official stats from a while ago) and 40% atheist. You might be atheist and communist (a fairly common combo in Greece) but will still probably roast a lamb on Easter with your family.
Having married into a Greek family, I can certainly attest to this, but I'll shed a bit more light to the sentiment behind that statement. To the Greeks, the Greek church is part of their cultural identity, rather than a purely religious entity. There is a community that stems from the church, traditions that are intertwined in it, and just a general presence in their daily lives in a way that I don't think I've really observed in the US. Oddly enough, it doesn't really outwardly express itself as dogma or doctrine, in the way that I've noticed with a lot of Evangelicals or Catholics in the states. The church is more of an ever present fixture in Greek life than a strong belief in Orthodox teachings.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#804Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty clear that that "worship" here refers to where we practice focusing our heart's yearnings, not to a set of religious rites. Synonyms of this meaning of "worship" include "revere" and "venerate".
This redefining of the word worship do not work at all for me. We do not worship cooking food. The words do not describe well a hobby. It is negative associated with personal relationships. Worshiping a pet sound crazy.
It is also redefining atheism and religion.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#805Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was "in touch" with religion for 12 years (my parents sent me to a very catholic school even though both are atheists) My experience was seeing huge amounts of falsehood and hypocrisy as religious people followed and repeated all the rituals of the mass but in the day to day life they just did not care about others and pretty much ignored what their religion taught them. Thank God after those 12 years I saw everyth…
It depends on the religion. Some are just better at applying religious teachings to lifestyle than others. In my opinion, Catholicism (for all it's good qualities) is too theoretical and abstract. It's easy to walk out of church without any real takaways that you might apply to your ordinary life.
I think religion is primarily cultural and based on traditions. A lot of people do not go for their faith, only cause they are used to it. I wonder how many people stopped going because of the pandemic, then realized they didn't miss it.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#806Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't read Feser, but I do agree there is a huge gap between, say, the theology and level of discourse of C.S.Lewis and Tolkein and popular megachurch pastors. Culturally it's interesting to me - all but the most die-hard atheist will likely see some value and truth in Tolkein's work even if they disagree with his theology and choice of church. They may not agree, but would respect him. Where are today's Inklings…
>Where are today's Inklings? As someone who has read and studied the Inklings extensively, I think the fact that these few misfit professors had such an impact is astounding in that they were able to do it. To be clear - their level of thought and depth was immense and powerful. All impact is merited. I think these sorts of collections of intellectual individuals are not as rare as we might think; they just don't bre…
The average person of that time was far less educated. Because only the elite went to university.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#807For the life of me, I cannot remember his name and I cannot find a reference, but there is a post-war German theologian who celebrated the kind of personal Christianity that doesn't require a church hierarchy, arguing that acting independently with the values of the faith without being told what to do is the best outcome.
Well Martin Luther certainly qualifies, but I can't guess what war you have in mind that took place before 1517.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#808Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that quote, Wallace is just morphing, conflating, and fudging the definition of the word "worship". He says people "worship" (with a variety of subtly different meanings) a variety of things and then, implies that because we can use the same word, "worship", to describe those activities, they are equivalent. I despise this rhetorical technique. I find it both insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless.
I could not disagree more. Wallace's use of language here is instructive, poignant, and immensely useFUL. I'll bet you're an engineer, data scientist, or other technical professional, not simply b/c you're here, but b/c your response to Wallace's use of ambiguity and multiple layers of meaning reveals as much about the nature of your own relationship with language, which I'd guess prefers that things should be clear,…
Regardless of words being context-dependent and having uncountable number of meanings, in the context of a single argument a word should generally only have one meaning.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#809Having the Church community while growing up was great. But the fact that admission to this community required total philosophical adherence is just bizarre. Frankly, growing up in the church left me with a broken moral code. It was only once I left it in my teens and had to work things out for myself that I feel like I could properly ground myself ethically. Having a moral system imposed on you can do that.
Having an imperfect moral system imposed is better than having no moral system imposed. You have a context for which you can deviate, but if morality is all relative, many will be lost. You need something to ground yourself to. That's where familial culture and religion come in. One isn't necessarily better than another, but its useful to have as a starting point
Having an imperfect moral system that's not imposed seems just as good as one that is imposed.
What's so good about having somebody else decide your moral system?
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#810“Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble…
In that quote, Wallace is just morphing, conflating, and fudging the definition of the word "worship". He says people "worship" (with a variety of subtly different meanings) a variety of things and then, implies that because we can use the same word, "worship", to describe those activities, they are equivalent. I despise this rhetorical technique. I find it both insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless.
This sort of conflations are typical in social commentary situations, comedy especially. This is absolutely something I could see done in an act done by Carlin or Williams.