Magical thinking will never die. Just look at Qanon, health and wellness, and Ruby vs. Python.
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
#822Maybe people are leaving church because they have started asking questions. Not the kind of questions religion 'asks', which are answers in disguise.
Not all religions and churches are declining. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world[1].
In Europe is growing especially fast if compared to local demographics. Cyprus is 25% Muslim. France nearly 10%[2].
1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/06/why-muslims...
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#823Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you also not take Alan Turing's works seriously?
Turing's work has some independent value, it's not just a mess of philosophical/moral opinions like Wallace is offering up in this speech. If nothing else, Wallace's suicide illustrates to me what a gulf there is between "saying things that sound wise" and actually living wisely. One has very little to do with the other.
A suicide doesn't mean your life wasn't lived wisely. He was suffering from a clinically-diagnosed depressive disorder, was told to stop taking antidepressants by his own doctor, and was recommended to try electric shock as an alternative. His suicide was less "stupid man is sad" than "Wow, look! The medical industry isn't even trying to fix depression."
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#824“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…
> ...pretty much anything else you worship [other than religion] will eat you alive. If you worship money and things... then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.
This is implying that worshiping religion/god/spirituality is exempt from extreme obsession. But I have to contest that religion can create far more extreme of obsessions than other forms of "worship" that Wallace references such as beauty, money, etc..
I grew up religious (in a high-demand religion) and saw that the religion created extremists among most of our church members. While an obsessive "worship" of losing weight can lead to anorexia, we see a good thing become bad. Being interesting in beauty isn't bad by itself, but an obsessive/extreme version can lead to depression and many other things.
Religion is no exception (even though Wallace seems to exclude it). An obsession over religion leads people to over analyze their life in the search of being perfect. It forces them to make unnecessary sacrifices for a reward that they will never actually attain. I've seen it tear apart families as bad as alcohol abuse or domestic violence can. There is a very dark, evil side to religion. The religion I was involved with put so much pressure on people to live life a certain way, to be perfect, that it was unattainable. The religion's goal is to enforce compliance and promote unity through shared suffering. But it has negative effects too. I've lost many close friends (including one roommate) who committed suicide from church pressures. Prescription drug abuse is particularly bad within the community that I grew up in, I personally know several people who have life-long addictions to prescription opioids that started from church pressures. I have seen domestic violence and child sexual abuse, all justified (and protected and buried) under religious arguments. My personal experience with religion shows consequences that far exceed those of other obsessions such as wealth, beauty, fitness, drugs, and so on. So I would be very careful about giving religion a "pass".
Are all religions bad? Probably not. I know plenty of people who have healthy relationships with religion. But the bad stuff is definitely there too, and it is FAR from rare. And I am only talking about relatively tame religions too. We can go even more extreme and start discussing the effects that religion have had on promoting unspeakable acts such as the holocaust, the crusades, the jihads, 9/11 attacks, the inquisition, Boston marathon bombs, numerous mass shootings, Incan & Mayan sacrifices, the KKK, witch hunts, wacko in waco, jim jones mass suicide, and this is a short list.
I am no longer religious myself (it was a religion imposed on me by my parents), but I have no problem with other people being religious. I would just caution that there are extremes, and religion is an easy one to fall into an extreme. You are literally discussing something that is "out of this world" and can not have any proof. The rewards are infinite (eternal life, glory without end, etc), which makes them more desirable to attain and justifies more extremes to earn. They also self-exclude and discriminate other people (your religion is right, everyone else is wrong or evil). The stakes that religion creates are simply so high, that it is easy to fall into the obsessive and extreme category, more so than worrying about an obsession over wealth or fitness.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#825“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…
Conflating and oversimplify yet wholeheartedly highfalutin.
Must be DFW.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#826Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you can elaborate and distinguish different kinds of "worship", your accusation is overblown. Maybe he used this word simply because it was the best choice available to capture and communicate the underlined meaning?
1. To believe in something unobservable by conventional means. 2. To value something over anything else. The word "atheist" clearly implies the first, and he never explains what meaning of the word "atheist" he uses in his "there are no atheists". So this is either a rhetorical trick, or a tautology that defines "atheist" as, roughly, "someone who doesn't value anything that much", but never goes anywhere with this d…
Apparently he is not comparing religion and atheism. He also mentioned money, beauty, etc. You seems miss the point of the quote as a whole. Even atheism is not worship. Atheists, as human, still need something to worship on, like everyone else. But again, the focus is really not atheists.
Getting downvoted. Worship here obviously means something other than religious. Worship money, wealth, power, etc. is commonly used in language. It's pointless to fixated on the narrow meaning of the word.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#827Having 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.
> 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. How did you derive your moral code yourself? Any action you take has side effects in the outside world, and so some minimal, common understanding of morality is nec…
You don't need religion to learn about morality. Watching Mr. Rodgers or reading Winnie the Poo would do. As you get older you can get into Machiavelli and start really becoming a principled person.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#828“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…
I know religious folks who are the most miserable people ever. Because they get jealous when someone else worship more than them. They will criticize and belittle everyone they can. And I know atheists who are way more chill than so called hippie/spiritual/religious folks claim to be. Just because one is atheist doesn't mean they will be greedy capitalist or sex-addict or something else.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#829As 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…
i mostly got tired of being told i going to burn and choke and scream forever and ever, amen, because i like guys and gals. and if i disagreed, the pastor made sure i got punished.
the long term effects wast that this not a healthy thing to tell a young teenager, and it's time for society to move on.
Re: Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time
#830“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…
Here's what's actually true and not at all weird: religious people from evangelical religions draw parallels to non-religious people by pretending that every human is born with the need to venerate something. It's how they rationalize their evangelism. They have to, because admitting that other people do not share these imperfections is akin to admitting that some people do not need what they have to share. The fun thing about lying is that if you wrap it up in enough gift wrapping, people will tire out and accept it as truth rather than spending the time to uncover the lie.