Gallup: U.S. church membership dips below 50% for first time • Hacker News Board

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

#931

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

rmah wrote: post #687

lootsauce wrote: post #606

“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.

> In that quote, Wallace is just morphing, conflating, and fudging the definition of the word "worship".

That quotation is one paragraph in a much longer essay. It may be useful to go to the full source:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_Water

* https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI (where he originally delivered it as a speech)

The key phrase is "day-to day trenches of adult life".

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

#932

Post by dooopy » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:19 AM UTC

God is Santa for adults. The parents/relatives who tell the lie are the politicians and religious leaders.

If you do what we say you'll get heaven/presents, if you don't listen you get hell/coal.

These kids are not falling for it anymore.

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

#933

Post by yellowapple » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #287

CedarMills wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it heavily depends on the church and community. One of the reasons we are staying in our current church is because we're open to a wide community (multi-ethnic) with the same core values. Our kids grow up in this community but at the end of the day, it will be their decision if they decide to no longer attend.

I also grew up in a Christian house and am now atheist--I never understood how people could reconcile "church shopping" for a community that aligns with their views (e.g. not homophobic) with the notion that the core religious concepts are supposed to be infallible. If you disagree with various churches on some doctrinal/sociological point, how do you know that your current church is correct on God existing, or knowi…

> how do you know that your current church is correct on God existing, or knowing what he wants?

The answer is that you don't, and unfortunately society doesn't look too kindly on taking copious amounts of psychedelics and wandering the desert for a month, so unfortunately it ain't as straightforward to rediscover it from first principles like Jesus did.

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

#934

Post by lalaland1125 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

dawg- wrote: post #336

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #102

So many of the comments here are affirming what I have long observed: much anti-religious sentiment (“much”, not “all”!) is actually a reaction to fundamentalism, which is the bad theology of scriptural literalism, which brings heresies like hating LGBT, insisting the Bible is also a science textbook, superstitious views of certain Middle Eastern lands, and more. Growing up as a mainline Protestant, I thankfully didn…

I became an atheist/agnostic as a teenager and now in my late 20's I have slowly come back to religion. So I am really interested in this topic. My comment is specifically about online atheist communities, because I think they are often toxic to both religion and to atheism itself. A lot of these communities are hyper-focused on fundamentalism, to their own detriment. These online atheists communities can be very unf…

> As a religious person, it is a bit frustrating that you never see atheists confronting the great theologists and religious philosophers - Origen, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Kierkegaard, or even contemporary thinkers like Alasdair McIntyre. If Christians' beliefs are really so shallow and stupid, those guys should be super easy to refute, right?

The main issue with most of these philosophical arguments is that they don't prove anything even worth refuting. Almost all of them simply attempt to prove the existence of a deistic God that does not meaningfully interact with the world (beyond creating it or sustaining it).

Deistic Gods by their vary nature don't provide any meaningful knowledge. Believing that there was a creator doesn't provide any useful information about how to help live your life or how the world works.

As a starting point I don't think there are any good arguments for why a person should believe that the bible was influenced/written by God any more than other books.

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

#935

Post by throw0101a » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

rcoveson wrote: post #924

throw0101a wrote: post #868

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I despise this rhetorical technique. I find it both insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless. It is etymologically correct though: condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown. * https://www.etymonline.com/word/worship From the root worth "worth": weorþ "significant, valuable, of value; valued, appreciated, highly thought-of, deserving, meriting; honorable, noble, of high rank . * ht…

> Thomas Aquinas said that the four typical substitutes for God are wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. The most typical substitute for Catholic god throughout human history is probably some other god (or group of gods), followed by non-theistic religion, followed by non-religious pragmatic ethics of some sort. I really don't think the quote is relevant outside Thomas' church culture. That's especially true for moder…

> you probably don't even know God in Thomas' opinion.

Deus autem est ipsum esse. God is being itself. See Summa contra Gentiles for details.

Or, if you prefer Boethius, see De Trinitate: quod divina substantia est ipsum esse et ab ea est esse. The divine substance is being itself, and from it comes being.

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

#936

Post by Kinrany » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:26 AM UTC

notJim wrote: post #887

pkghost wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

That article is 6000 words long, any chance you can summarize?

At the risk of being uncharitable, "you're using cognitive decoupling" is roughly equivalent to "you're using logic".

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

#937

Post by mbrodersen » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:30 AM UTC

lootsauce wrote: post #606

“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…

Nope. I for one don’t worship anything. Everything is flawed and imperfect. But there is still love, happiness, beauty in this world. Right next to hate, despair and ugliness.

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

#938

Post by chmod600 » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:30 AM UTC

alexashka wrote: post #879

chmod600 wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not logically rigorous, but it illustrates a point. Can you expand on why the distinction you are drawing is important?

Because the absence of logical rigor is what enables charlatans to continue to make a living off of people's desire to believe in something that is not so. This is a problem that's bigger than religion - when people can't tell when they're being bullshitted to or when they use emotion instead of reason to decide on matters that significantly affect their lives and lives of others (not just which flavor of icecream to…

Logic - at least rigorous logic - is much more limited in applicability than we'd like to believe.

Religion probably has the most influence over family structure, a topic where it's hard for me to imagine that logic would play a leading role.

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

#939

Post by chkaloon » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:36 AM UTC

What US society is struggling with is what to replace church with. It provided community and mutual support, but combined it with a myth that many could not accept any longer. The big question is what can provide the community and mutual support without the binding myth. There hasn't been a replacement thus far that has taken hold.

Also, the combination of online life and recently the pandemic has weakened what local community life still exists.

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

#940

Post by benchaney » Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #868

rmah wrote: post #687

Earlier 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 despise this rhetorical technique. I find it both insulting, intellectually dishonest and useless. It is etymologically correct though: condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown. * https://www.etymonline.com/word/worship From the root worth "worth": weorþ "significant, valuable, of value; valued, appreciated, highly thought-of, deserving, meriting; honorable, noble, of high rank . * ht…

>It is etymologically correct though: condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown.

The etymology is not even close to being relevant. Conflating two different meanings of the word "worship" and implying their equivalence is dishonest and deeply unsound. That is true even if it is the definition of worship fits in both cases.