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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

#991

Post by memling »

psychometry wrote: post #277
sarabad2021 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no issues with Christianity from a philosophical standpoint. It explains things which our beyond our natural/physical world. Those things impact how we live in this world. I'm curious what you mean in your statement, please unpack your claim.

What exactly is there to unpack? You have modern-day humans going around believing that an omnipotent God impregnated a human female so that his son could sacrifice himself for the sins of humanity. It's patently absurd (though really no more absurd than any other religion).

> What exactly is there to unpack? You have modern-day humans going around believing that an omnipotent God impregnated a human female so that his son could sacrifice himself for the sins of humanity. It's patently absurd (though really no more absurd than any other religion).

If we're in the business of bad-faith expositions of positions we disagree with, what's so attractive about the alternative that unfathomable aeons ago nothing exploded into something that coalesced in such an improbable way that a bunch of incredibly complicated chemical reactions happened (with no known mechanism for selection, mind you) to produce a biological organism capable of assembling electrons transmitted through the aether to another organism that could make snarky replies?

I'm sure you can reduce nearly any argument into silly-sounding caricatures of itself, but it's not a useful method for actually understanding what's true (or if truth even exists).

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

#992

Post by pnathan »

kypro wrote: post #882
pnathan wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick note: your sister's story was also common enough in the 1880-1950 timeframe. She'd also have been considered a loose woman, immoral, etc, and come under vicious religious censure. Now, statistically, would that have improved things more generally? I don't know. But it was a thing. If we were to spin the clock back to pre-industrialization and its concomitant labor crunching, I don't know that period of history…

Sure, it happened, but the rate of single parenthood has historically been in the single digits. Today I believe around a third of children are born into single parent families. To be fair I don’t think it’s entirely a lack of religion to blame for this trend though. I think a less religious but more culturally conservative society would also see lower levels of single parenthood. It seems likely to me to be partly t…

So this is something that I am personally very confused about as well. My wife and I both grew up poor (how poor depends on who's asking, we had food, we had clothes, we had housing, but not per se that very much more); both our sets of parents have maintained traditional morality around kids. To this day, I am always confused when people from similar economic places make substantially worse choices. We really weren't that special.

A few books:

- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005T5O9QW/ This is a survey of late 90s Philadelphia very poor mothers, who decided to have kids very young. I think you might find this a fascinating work, harmonious with your family's experience, even if it's from a different time and place.

- https://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia-ebook/dp/... This is a discussion of American lenses on the past and how we often misread propaganda or middle class expectations as being what really happened.

I also am sort of loafing my way through a book, "Taming the Troublesome Child", on the professionalism of social work around children - I actually was hoping to learn how troubled kids were handled in the past, but it's actually about "social work". Ah well. A lot of what it is indicating is that poverty and, to some extent, immigration status (in the US) had a heavy interplay in how families were treated by social workers, considered by society, and understood. At least in the Northeastern US.

I don't mean to say your sister thought ahead, or that you shouldn't be bothered by her choices, or any of that. For what it's worth, I noticed years ago that the really smart kids struggled in school. I have a few pet theories, mostly related to systemic disconnection in society (and here that circles back to churches - a good church design is a cross slice of society, not just 'the rich church', or 'the black church', etc). Individuals have a chance to shine brightly or be a dark spot against a statistical haze. It's always sad when someone really sets up a failure and pain pattern.

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

#993

Post by memling »

benchaney wrote: post #940
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…

>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.

> 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.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, but it seems to me that Wallace is actually arguing the point: that these two senses are in fact an artificial distinction, that people are inherently religious, that they are inherently worshipers, at least of a sort. It seems like he is saying that wherever we find our identity is a god that we worship.

Now one can argue, of course, that idols only exist if God exists, and if (or since) God does not, Wallace is ipso facto wrong.

On the other hand, one might also make the argument that the polytheistic impulse is really a transfer of worship of a particular thing to a properly-named deity with some window dressing, and that all moderns have really done is to disown the deities and ritual while maintaining an attachment to their blessings.

Is that fair? I don't know. But I would wager that Wallace isn't being disingenuous here, even if he's being provocative. I was under the impression he was at least nominally an atheist.

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

#994

Post by asdff »

wolfhumble wrote: post #896
asdff wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I never grew up with watching Mr. Rodgers and only really know about him through the recent film about him, but it definitely seems that his Christian faith shaped his children programs, see: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/how-mister-rogers-faith-sh...

At the end of the day, the basic moral tenets of the christian faith can be found in every other faith, this aspect of the christian faith is the least unique IMO. "Love thy neigbor," being able to let things go, and helping the less fortunate are also in fact Buddhist rhetoric. Mr. Rodgers leaned on his faith because that's the philosophy he knew and understood how to use examples from. If his mother raised him with Eastern philosophy instead of scripture, he probably would have put up words from the Buddha which convey a similar message instead of that bible verse.

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

#995

Post by Pokepokalypse »

constGard wrote: post #717
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.

In all fairness, this same rhetorical technique was commonly used in the faith that I was raised in. We were often taught that one could violate the Jewish/Christian commandment to "have no other gods before me" by placing more importance on material goods or hobbies (your car, your boat, sports, etc.) than worshiping God.

That's very common.

And so intellectually insulting, that it's probably responsible for a non-trivial slice of that 50% drop in church attendance.

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

#996

Post by Gustomaximus »

ur-whale wrote: post #688
Gustomaximus wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I'm in my 40's I do wonder if the lack of religion in society is leading us to a bad place I'm an atheist and have considered the same quite a bit. I wonder if some people need something to believe and direction and religion helps fence these people into society friendly pockets. I wonder today if what I would consider is that overly woke pocket (which I respect is very relative to personal views) and generally…

> I wonder if some people need something to believe I totally understand your point (and agree with the stated goal of a non-religious society with the "good bits" of religion baked in), but, the "some" in your sentence above ... there be really scary dragons. Here's what I mean: would you say that "some" people deserve the right to vote while others don't? The argument that "some" people need religion has the implic…

I dont see the slippery slope. You're way over reading into 'some'.

Some simply means, some people need to believe in something, and others dont. You cant thing this is an all or nothing position?

And the leap to conclusion with: "implication that they're too dumb to figure out a path for themselves". I've not said or implied that anywhere, nor do I see that is a obvious implication. Taking this step is creating offence where there was none.

And then concluding this could mean these people need to be brainwashed to believe the preferred format. That's a leap on a leap that had nothing to do with what I said, and pulling a worst case scenario into some semblance of the conclusion to focus on.

And not trying to have a go at you, but I do this you've over read on a work and made fallacious leaps in logic flow to a worse case. We can do that with any scenario. I cant see why it has any significant reason to be the focus point based on the previous comment, so I dont see why this is slippery slope as maybe it could happen but there is no direction from previous to align those events.

But that's me, and some people will agree, and some wont :)

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

#997

Post by mensetmanusman »

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #958
goldcd wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll agree with you that I find their reasoning faulty (I did), but what I dislike about my atheism is that I get lumped in with people who'll tell theists that "they're wrong" To my mind, most of the planet's population have got to the 'right place' (show love and compassion to those you meet) - and how we all got to this same place is immaterial. I'm without a doubt an atheist to my core - but doesn't stop me admir…

As a teenager I was that guy you don’t like. Vocal about my right to not believe, not participate, and not be coerced into religious stuff. Quick to anger by what I saw as violations of church/state separation in my public school. Quick to tell folks how wrong and stupid they were stupid for believing it. Now it makes me cringe. Like you, still Atheist to the core. But I can really appreciate many of my childhood chu…

I was like this, while getting my PhD@MIT went to RCIA@Harvard and changed. One thing that helped was realizing that I believe in free will, which is supernatural (and why many leading atheists reject it). Since belief in free will is an act of faith, it opened my eyes and the world gained color.

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

#998

Post by mensetmanusman »

lazysheepherd wrote: post #859
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…

It is sad that so many people do not understand WHY religion is worse over other things mentioned here. These things are SHARED among many things, along with religion; - we humans tend to form social hierarchies - we all want to be belong - we want to be the hero of our story - life is hard, and death is terrifying, so we need lullabies - some rules/codes required wherever there are more than 1 person alive. Be it re…

“ Religion makes it a habit in believers to believe without evidence, forbits questioning, and delays answers to "afterlife". Hence takes away the power of understanding and reasoning.”

I haven’t found this to be true, but it is definitely possible in fundamentalist circles.

I have found atheists who run from the question and don’t want to engage with ‘is there meaning, or is there no meaning?’

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

#999

Post by hprotagonist »

ekianjo wrote: post #22
hprotagonist wrote: post #13

first time in 80 years, anyway. for rather more of the 19th century than we think, regular church attendance was more like 35% of the country.

Any source for that?

https://www-tc.pbs.org/fmc/book/pdf/ch6.pdf

gives 41% in the first decade of the 20th century, quoting the US Census Bureau.

"Unaffiliated with any church" was the majority position of the US from then until at least 1950, it seems: https://rmadisonj.blogspot.com/2015/03/sunday-mornin-comin-d...

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

#1000

Post by importantbrian »

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #958
goldcd wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll agree with you that I find their reasoning faulty (I did), but what I dislike about my atheism is that I get lumped in with people who'll tell theists that "they're wrong" To my mind, most of the planet's population have got to the 'right place' (show love and compassion to those you meet) - and how we all got to this same place is immaterial. I'm without a doubt an atheist to my core - but doesn't stop me admir…

As a teenager I was that guy you don’t like. Vocal about my right to not believe, not participate, and not be coerced into religious stuff. Quick to anger by what I saw as violations of church/state separation in my public school. Quick to tell folks how wrong and stupid they were stupid for believing it. Now it makes me cringe. Like you, still Atheist to the core. But I can really appreciate many of my childhood chu…

In the reformed community they have a term for this called being a "cage-stage calvinist." I think it's a useful concept in general. New converts to anything whether it's religion, non-religion, programing paradigms, even superhero fandoms, etc tend to be like that. Especially when those new converts are also young people.
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