Churches close their doors as fewer Americans attend
Summary
Churches across the U.S. are grappling with dwindling attendance and financial instability, forcing many to close or sell properties.
The Diocese of Buffalo has shut down 100 parishes since the 2000s and plans to close 70 more. Nationwide, church membership has dropped from 80% in the 1940s to 45% today.
Some churches repurpose their land to survive, like Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church, which is building affordable housing.
Others, like Calcium Church in New York, make cutbacks to stay open. Leaders warn of the long-term risks of declining community and support for churches.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/churches-fight-stay-open-attendance-dwindles/story?id=116905100Open linkView original on lemmy.world790
Comments414
Good.
Fantastic news, less grifting. Now shutdown mega churches.
Good.
Great news! Maybe we can finally tax these cults as well.
Taxing them would force more closures. Do it.
Considering scientology has their tendrils in a fair bit of Hollywood, that might actually backfire on government coffers. If they demand their members strike, the film industry is going to be in for pain.
No way would SAG strike over Scientology getting taxed. Scientology are parasites and we'd all be better off without them.
Not SAG, just the cultists. There's enough of them in prominent roles that it would cause financial damage (including to themselves), delays, and problems.
If it's not a real strike, then they're replaceable. A "bye Felicia" sort of situation.
That's easier said than done when it's a lead actor refusing to work during filming. They'll be breaching a contract, sure, but replacing them is going to waste money and time in recasting, rescheduling, refilming, etc.
Would they actually do it, knowing they're in for a multimillion dollar lawsuit? Probably. The Cult of Scientology practices excommunication, and it's a strong motivator for indoctrinees.
No, we don't want to tax them. Remember "no taxation without representation". Taxing them means allowing their influence in government.
Not to say that they aren't already influencing our government, but taxing them just opens up the floodgates for it to be done on an official level.
That's the point. They are influencing the government by picking political sides, which officially disqualifies them from tax exempt status but that's something that's never been enforced.
Does it? What makes them different from explicitly political nonprofits? Or do those not get tax-exempt status?
We tax businesses. We shouldn't be allowing businesses or churches to influence government. I believe "no taxation without representation" is meant only to be applied to people.
No representation without taxation
They're made of people, those people vote. I also don't think companies should have a right to representation beyond what the individuals that make up that company have as private individuals
As churches decline we're losing what is, essentially, a free communal space. Church was a place where people built community.
We need to replace it with something, not just cheer because a shitty religion is dying.
So you're saying we should have more boardgaming conventions?
I'm all in on that proposal.
Missed you at the latest city council meeting. See you at the next one!
Most of the council members have a restraining order against me.
Not conventions. A convention requires paying for a convention space, and that requires making attendees pay for admittance or getting sponsors to pay in their stead so they can sell products. That's not community.
The power of churches is they are entirely free and not commodified. That's what makes them communal. We'd need something like a communal boardgame hall, supported by donations that anyone can come to without needing to pay anything.
Where I live, the library serves this purpose. They even have advertised game nights for various age groups on weekly to monthly basis. Maybe reach out to your public library and see if they would host.
That sounds amazing. We have nothing like that here.
Do you mean that you have no library, or the library doesn't have a game night? If the latter, you could try to start it; it'd just be a matter of getting their permission to use the space, setting a schedule, and putting up a sign. It might not take off immediately; it'd probably help if you brought a friend or two the first few times, but if there's interest in your community, I bet folks would start coming once it became clear something was happening.
I mean my local library has, like, six tables and 10 book shelves. My town has 1200 people. What you're talking about isn't realistic.
All I'm getting at is, you have this - it's the library. If you have the population to support a boardgame hall, you have the population to support a gathering at the library. Even if this doesn't apply to you, it surely applies to other people who might not have considered the possibility.
Seconded. This would be far more productive than a religion with an obvious agenda/motive, you could build real communities without ties to guilt, tithing, less freedom, etc.
I like the way you think!
I think you don't understand "Free". They weren't free.
Use required, at the very least, selling your soul. But more pragmatically, a flat 10% tax- which frequently funded ostentatious lifestyles of the priests and pastors; and sacrificing your children to pedos.
But sure. It created "community"...
But since souls aren't real it was free.
Tithes are voluntary. Taxes are enforced at the tip of a sword or the barrel of a gun. Quiet different.
I think they meant soul as in personhood or however you want to put it, its metaphorical speech ya pedant.
Secondly tithes are socially enforced to what degree depends on what group we are talking about but at minimum there is an expectation that you pay it, you also get fuck all out of it making it a completely empty transaction unlike taxes which gives roads, fire departments, libraries, et cetera.
Okay, but they did get something out of it. They got the Church, and the services it provided them. We can replace that with tax funded secular institutions, but it doesn't seem like that's happening.
Instead the church dies and nothing replaces it.
Around here the churches require you to submit your personal finances so that they can tell you how much you need to tithe in order to attend services.
What the actual fuck lol‽
I remember my roommate telling me his fiance was running around the house looking for the checkbook just before church. She was beside herself. He was like, WTH, I have cash if you cannot find it, we'll just throw that in the plate. She was like, "NO, they track the amount, it has to be a CHECK."
He was nominally Protestant, and she was Catholic. He was quite taken aback by this rather grotesque practice...these days, do they have a QR code to scan and take cash apps? I think I can guess the answer...
i.e. places you need to spend money
Indeed, it's a real quandary. The current choices for "public" spaces have mostly been a choice between religion or commerce.
If only there were more truly public spaces for people to congregate that were neither. Where just congregating and just doing something together (or alone, but among others in the same building) was not considered a criminal act ("loitering").
I think about this a lot. And yes, for things like board games and other meetups. A well lit, warm, safe space for people to meet in public, and without having to engage in commerce. Without having to profess a belief in some creed.
Honestly a community hall that fills similar roles to the library as others mention would be awesome. You could get people running community brunches on weekends, you could get holiday parties and rooms for groups to meet. You could use it to host food not bombs or other food giveaways. You could let it be what churches are supposed to be, but replace the pastor and pews with a meal space and some administrators
Hell yeah, my wife won't play Arcs with me. I fully support more board gaming.
That "community" is a judgmental indoctrinating shithole that destroys people.
Good riddance.
Okay, but that community also kept me from being homeless as a child. I got to eat food when otherwise I wouldn't.
We need to replace it, we can't just let community die with nothing in its place.
Yes. Schools and libraries.
Neither my local library nor school has a weekly get together where we all hang out and talk.
Also, uh, not everyone has kids. Do they not deserve community?
My local library has weekly reading days, crochet club, adult focused book clubs, and regular events.
But the thing is that people in the community helped start those things. If your library doesn't have any you should probably talk to them about starting something. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to be involved and increase the amount of people that visit!
Bullshit. Libraries have book & game clubs. They host speakers, authors, and musicians. They offer short classes in typing, office software, graphics software. All of it is free of charge. You could easily spend 4-5 nights a week hanging out at a library chatting of you wanted.
Yeah they don't all do that. I was suggesting we expand the usage of libraries and schools to be the community center everywhere, because it has proven to work in many places. And it can do more.
Yeah, sadly, I remember growing up in an extremely rural area and the "library" there was literally one room, almost nothing in the way of content, no activities, and not even inter-library loan. Thankfully, my mother worked in the next county over, so we'd use that library system.
When I contrast that library with the Jefferson County Library and Denver County Library in Colorado....it's breathtaking. Those two library systems are quite awesome! But I know there is quite a range of offerings that are called "libraries" in this country, depending on the tax base and/or population.
My little library that serves the 1200 people spread out over seven villages in my county doesn't have any of that.
Do you think I'm lying? Or am I just too stupid to know what the little library connected to the elementary school offers?
Perhaps you could meet the people who work in the library and try to organize something with them? Community gatherings need a push to start happening and people willing to organize them. If you miss these oportunities, create them, it's not that hard and it's very rewarding.
Wow congrats! And did you know not all churches are seen as community centers? You’re arguing against one persons anecdote with your own.
I doubt you are lying; I've seen very tiny libraries in my day, including the one that was nearest to me growing up...
The school was about what you said feeding kids. And yes, a lot of libraries have reservable meeting space now. More should for exactly the reason you are saying. I am agreeing with you about needing to fill the void, and saying we should expand schools and libraries to better and more consistently do that. Currently they probably only do that in blue states.
It sounded like you were telling me that there wasn't a problem, because schools and libraries exist.
Schools and libraries aren't filling the void. They can, if we make them, but it's not automatic.
Yeah, my bad. They do in some places, and I want them to do so in more. I also would like to reduce thier dependence on local government for funding.
Libraries actually almost always have multiple events a week. You may want to check your local branch out. Also, you're describing a very extroverted interest.
We need more than that. We need places where people go regularly and choose to interact with each other. Church sucks, but seeing your neighbors, engaging in community activities like celebrating births and marriages and holidays and just regularly seeing each other and being reminded of your connections to each other are important. People talk about modern isolation and by giving up community activities and spaces that's what we get.
I have seen birthday parties in the reservable spaces of libraries. Sounds perfect. Just need to expand that style of library to more places.
That charity likely came from the community, not just the church. In my little town I can't give money or food to any groups other than churches. So that's where my money goes, despite not belonging to a church.
You're right, and I am not defending the Church. We need ways for the community to express its charity without the church, because the church is dying.
My daydream is that the building remains open, the community remains welcome, there are helpful lectures on dealing with life's hassles, and potluck dinners in the basement, and it's all on a voluntary pay-what-you-can basis — sorta like a church, only without the god.
Hm, community co-ops? Do tell more.
It didn't use to be. I remember most churches on the 80s had a message of, "try to be a good person" and then everyone would hang out and chat. Pretty chill space. Can't stand going to any churches now.
I guess you were never guilt tripped after being forced to watch Hell's Bells.
Also, Chick Tracts were huge in the 80's and those are not "chill and be a good person" kind of things. Nor is slut shaming. I could go on.
Chick tracts are still around. Someone left this awful one on my car last year after this latest war in Israel and Palestine started up. The short version is it starts with environmental disaster fears over pollution and food shortages and ends with needing a world war against Israel to bring Jesus back from the dead to save our souls.
https://dn790008.ca.archive.org/0/items/chick-tracts/chick%20tracts/End%20times/The%20Great%20Escape%21_text.pdf
Yeah, I think the experiences vary. I rejected xtianity as dogma very early on, so I would have noticed people trying to push narratives. Yes, there were the kooks and the zealots, but I remember some of those types of churches the other poster mentioned where they'd put on things that were teen and/or family-focused and I'm not sure I remember hearing any god-talk when you'd walk in. Some of them were my friends' church, some of them were friends of my parents who invited the family over for a potluck in the basement kind of thing...it could be parents would get the pitch, but I was not getting any of that as a kid/teen...
Then there are the cases where you'd go to some VBS (Vacation Bible School) - I don't think it went craaaaazy into the pitch, but the religion was definitely there and are projects would involve something with the name of Jesus in it....
We'll replace it with more commercial real estate squatting.
See you in the Library.
The library isn't community, you can't even talk to people there. It's a quiet place by its very nature.
And squatting? That's better, but it's ephemeral. You can't get attached to your squat, the cops can come at any moment and then everyone has to bail and find a new squat. That's not good enough.
You do know that the vast majority of libraries have events going on every week? From dozens of book clubs through movie clubs. Heck, my local library had a troupe of mongolian gymnasts come through that was ridiculously fun.
Libraries are way more a public forum than churches ever will be. Go to any bible belt church in the south wearing a rainbow and you likely won't even be let in through the front door. Or walking in with the wrong color skin.
I cannot speak for the South, but I do see that quite a few churches in Colorado seem to have prominent signs outside saying "EVERYONE is welcome" etc.
I imagine like Scouts of America, many churches have to adapt or die. But Colorado is definitely not the South....
sure. but how long are they welcome for? And how much do you need to align your culture and beliefs and how act and talk and dress, and even sway to the music, to stay welcome?
Even in churches that supposedly celebrate diversity... there will always be some sort of overriding homegenousness. Even if it starts with "we recognize the value in people different from us", anyone who doesn't gets asked to leave; and it's just a different kind of sameness.
Oh, of course, but I'd say that holds true for so many institutions. Just try to truly be yourself on the job, for example... LOL.
But yeah. This is probably why I don't go to church.
No. I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe if you're in a city? My local rural library does jack shit, it just has a few shelves and a computer lab. That's not community, not the way the local rural church is with soup kitchens and holiday events.
It sounds like your library is underfunded, but you should check with them anyway because they probably are doing things, you just don't hear about them for various reasons. Local governments love to cut library funds and then use the lack of use to cut it further, and making it hard to know what events your library does is part of that.
My local library suffers from the same issue, but we at least have a community center the town built with meeting rooms and a gym that you can use for events. The closest city just renovated one of their libraries to include a second floor with meeting rooms and a cafe. I think another one had kitchen space added to it.
Churches are really just community space that got a pass from conservatives and capitalists in the rush to commidify every part of the human experience.
Every library is underfunded, and yes, that's because the right hates communal spaces. We don't have a community center, there's like, 1200 people spread out over a 15 mile strip of seven different villages. There's the church, and nothing else.
Skill issue. The local library in my home town does a readalong every weekend and a bunk fund every month.
Churches aren’t community centres and they are highly exclusionary. Libraries are vastly undersold to the public but they do still offer TONNES of services and hold all kinds of community events. I’ve personally seen them as part community centre, part summer camp, or part theatre, among other things. They offer programs to help the homeless, they let you use the internet for free, and they are places of learning that aren’t spewing nonsense. They do so much for the community and they don’t even require you to do or believe anything in return.
Churches only have as much of a community as anything else that gathers weekly. My weekly social dances have the same thing, someone else might have a big game night at a board/cardgame shop, and others may go to the pub. One place near me has a giant folk music jam you can just roll up to to play or watch. Churches aren’t only not the only place to go for community but they’re also not even that good at it.
This fact (and I see this in the Denver area, too - the libraries here have always just blown me away in their excellence, although maybe some areas have even better ones) is why I think the libraries are under assault by the right. They seem to just fundamentally hate the idea of building healthy community as an alternative to the only public interaction that seems to compute for them, and that is commerce.
The first murmurings I heard of this was right after 9/11 - there seemed to be this concern about terrorists using the Internet w/o monitoring or something. Also, they were worried about "porn". And "freeloaders" reading books/watching movies without paying Amazon! In any case, it seemed rather piecemeal, but you could tell that the qons probably never really loved libraries (just like their hatred of the USPS) but were trying to formulate something to put an end to it.
Then, in more recent years, they seemed to have arrived at the trans thing and this narrative of librarians being "groomers" and they have really cranked up the assault on librarians and libraries....
It’s simple, they can’t fathom the idea that they wouldn’t get something in direct return for doing a job and that’s the corr philosophy of libraries. They will, of course, underpay any and all staff and claim “that’s market rate and you should be happy” so we aren’t allowed to be mad when we don’t get paid.
Libraries are a thing that genuinely exist for the love the game. Every conservative so broken by the system that they genuinely believe that the only way to enjoy work is by being lazy, because any passion has been stripped from them, cannot understand this. They cannot understand doing something and allowing that betterment to come around later to help fund the library.
Conservatives are wildy unimaginative and full of a hatred they’re too emotionally stunted to control. They turn that hatred on the weak and vulnerable instead of their bosses who kick them in the teeth every morning and in the ass when they leave work later. Libraries are happy places, and they left true joy behind a long time ago.
I agree with all of that. It is fairly obvious to me that a lot of qons just generally hate humans that are not their immediate family (and in some cases, they hate even them). See how they treat the notion of ANY public spaces, unless they are of the xtian kind. I mean, the notion of making benches impossible to sleep on, so that the homeless have nowhere to go. The way they treat libraries. And public schools.
I think some of this hatred of public services/goods even underlies some of their hatred of USPS, since it is something that benefits nearly everyone.
One one level, I kind of understand how some uppercrust qon douches like Elon might have an aversion to public goods because they have accrued such obscene wealth that they don't need them. But when the person that is barely scraping by, but glued to Faux and waving their silly donvict flags? I just don't understand how these people are dragged into the same mindset. I get that a few whites/men get annoyed at seeing anyone else benefit from government services in any way whatsoever, so I guess that is at least part of it.
Churches aren't good enough, but the are certainly community centers.
We don't have any of that shit, and a pub is not a communal space. You have to pay for it.
We have a church. A shrinking church that will die when all the boomers die. That's it.
Ok, so it sounds like the church is a bad community investment but if the building is repurposed into a community centre run by the municipality then that’s the best option, no? It can even hold religious services for multiple religions now that it’s just a building.
Also you could totally have dances in a church! The social dances where I’m from are held in the basement of a church on Fridays. Before it moved to a community centre the organization where I live now held them in a church that had been converted like I mentioned above.
Your issue is a lack of imagination, not a lack of church.
Oooo fuck yea that’s awesome! The conversion in England sounds fun too :P
But yea that’s very uplifting to hear about, I’m glad the architect to make that work and that the town has taken to it so readily.
you misunderstand it's the corporate landlords squatting on the prime real estate they snapped up from the church so their competition can't move into town. I'm sure they'll attempt to murder anyone trying to survive on their vacant land.
Unfortunately the internet is now the new 3rd space.
Religion advocated for bad policies in government which dug their own grave.
I don't feel bad they're closing down.
The internet isn't a third place! Not only do you have to pay to access it, but more importantly, it isn't a physical place. None of us are people here. We're strings of characters on a screen behind pseudo-anonymous handles. You can't help me, I can't help you.
This is not community. It can't be.
I think you're a person. You should be more kind to yourself. That kind of talk never gets us anywhere.
Not on the internet. I'm a string of characters. I don't have a face, I don't have a voice, I don't have a body, I am a handle and a comment tree. I cease to exist as soon as you aren't paying attention to this comment chain. I could be a bot, you have no idea.
The internet can never be community. We are only human when we do human things. This digital space isn't human at all.
I mean, why are you even here then? Exchanging information IS a human thing, and we're (probably) all people behind the screens. I agree that physicality is a necessity for a 3rd space, but I disagree that it's necessary for community.
To say that we can't help people with our words strikes me as rather pessimistic.
I'm here for fun, not community. None of this shit matters. It's not real.I don't know why I'm here. Just to get ganged up on and hurt myself.
i feel the downvotes kinda proved your point...
._. *patpat*
It do be like that sometimes...
But even having fun maybe matters too?
I'm sorry you got ganged up on... I, at least, enjoyed reading your comments.
Edit:
It just occurred to me that tone really doesn't come across on the internet, and "Why are you even here then?" could be read in an accusatory way, when I really didn't intend it as such. I meant it in more of an interrogatory sense, and I wasn't trying to be mean. I was curious. ._.
You have as much right to be here as anyone else!
Tell that to the numerous thriving online communities.
Like this one? You think this is community? You don't even know anyone's names.
I mean, does that matter that much? Your irl name is just an identifier that points to you. Just like queermunist is an identifier that also points to you.
I've seen you before, I've read some of your comments. I wouldn't say I know you per se, but I at least recognize your name in passing and have an inkling of what to expect from you.
You could almost think of it as we both go to the same school, but have different friend groups so maybe never really interact, but still know each other exists.
And some of the more prolific users I understand a bit more of. And some of the smaller communities I'm part of I know all of the regular users a little bit better.
But you're right, it's a bit harder than in person because you can't put a face or mannerisms to the handle, but I think you can still know people here a little bit.
Bullshit. There are millions of communities on the internet. Maybe not the kind of communities you personally want, but communities just the same. Don't gatekeep how others interact with different social groups.
Also there are countless communities that exist both online and in meatspace. You can enjoy people in the real world, go home and resume those connections via internet with the same people. Those people don't cease to exist when they're not physically standing in front of you.
These are not just letters on a screen. They were put here by a human being named Kevin. I have an entire life, history, interpersonal connections, my own thoughts and feelings. Tomorrow you will likely see more things that I write along with everyone else who's part of This community.
There are no communities on the internet, there are ephemeral places where people go to waste time. That's it. That's what the loneliness epidemic is. People are killing themselves because the internet is not community and it can never be one.
Have you ever wondered why people on the internet are so nasty? It's because we can't actually see each other as people here. Yes, you assume every commenter is a person, but your subconscious can't see it. There's no face, no voice, no body, no presence, and its even worse with pseudo-anonymity. This isn't community. You don't even know my fucking name.
I have an entire life, history, interpersonal connections, my own thoughts and feelings and none of that is on the internet. Here I am a floating text box for you to yell at and talk down to, and for all you know I am a bot. You will never care about me or anyone else on a forum the way you will a real person, no matter how much you insist otherwise. You can't, because this isn't a community. We are all perfect strangers that are here to beat each other up for fun.
We can't help each other here. You have to log off.
You're projecting.
I actually fell in love with someone after dating in virtual reality during COVID. After several months she moved to my state, and we've been together for four years now. Seems pretty fuckin real to me.
I have met some of the closest friends I have ever had on the internet. There is a space on the internet I go to every day to interact with people who I am close with as people I grew up with. We've met up in person and were just as good friends.
I also have friends around the world I have spent years sharing my life with and theirs with me- photos, videos, things they've written or drawn, questions, deep conversations... and I've never met them in person. I have a dear friend in Turkey who I have known since the 1990s and we've never met. I love him like a brother because we've helped each other through so much even though we're on opposite sides of the planet.
You need to stop projecting your experiences on everyone else.
Another brilliant take from someone on .ml
See, this kind of nastiness proves my point. I'm not human to you, I'm a random encounter in the posting RPG.
You just want to hurt me so you can win. That's not community.
You're obviously human. Not someone i would talk to in person, but still human.
Sorry, Im pretty sure thats all were likely to get. The way things are going well be lucky to have public schools in 20 years, let alone a bunch of new publicly funded community spaces.
The internet can form community but it's not the same. I'm about to move across the country and crash with a friend I met through the internet; and I've only seen her irl twice. That whole friend group are some of my best friends. And they aren't even the only close friendships I have through the internet.
But also, I've done the only socialize online thing and it broke my mind in college and again in the pandemic (which is when I met both friend groups I mentioned earlier). I need physical places where I can interact positively with other physical humans. I need physical places that I can coexist with other people and that's what an actual third space is. And I've seen what only existing on the internet does to people and it's not good
Yes yes thank you, this is what I meant. I know I pissed a lot of people off by saying that internet communities aren't real, but what I meant is that they aren't a replacement for community. The distance, the lag, the lack of a face or voice or body, the time zones, there's so many elements that make internet "community" into something that I struggle to call community.
If people want to call it community then fine, but it's not a neighborhood or a workplace or (in the earlier example) congregation.
A third place has nothing at all to do with what is and isn't paywalled. If I rented a Boeing 787 to take day trips with my friends every day for the next month, that'd still be a third place. It has everything to do with the first place being home and the second being work. It also has nothing, therefore, to do with "community" or "not community".
Even if we work under your (completely wrong) definition of third places as inherently fostering tight-knit community and not just being a place for you to exist around other people, smaller communities absolutely have the opportunity to do this. Roblox was one of my main third places when I was a kid, and it was a better third place than I could've had in real life. I met actual, real friends who I talked to daily for years and who accepted me. Right now I work on Wikipedia, which if you spend long enough there unambiguously has a community among the more experienced editors. I'm even in a Discord server where I joined for the project, ended up joining the team, and now feel like I'm good friends with the people there. Even Lemmy I'd say is small enough to start seeing a lot of familiar faces over time.
The Internet isn't inherently bad at fostering community. It's just that the modern Internet places a fuckload of emphasis on being in gigantic, uninteractive pools of people like Twitch chats that fly at a million miles a second and require you to spend $500 for a streamer to blink in your direction; a shitty short-form video service where you can comment and like but aren't seriously befriending anyone outside of extreme edge cases; a gigantic link aggregator where what you say is almost always drowned out immediately; multiplayer games that have new lobbies every match; etc.
I don't think the people you meet on Roblox or Wikipedia can be community the way a church can. Even if you want to force the definition of community to include ephemeral, non-physical, and paid places then you have to accept that a church fills a far different kind of communal void than the internet. People at your church can come to your house and help you do stuff. That's huge! You'd struggle to get any kind of real, tangible help from an internet place. Maybe some money, but that's it.
That just doesn't feel like community to me.
Real community is when people are in a cult whose authority figures systematically molest children. Got it.
Any other words of wisdom, oh one so ignorant of what a third place is?
Real community is when people can go to each other's houses and help with difficult chores, or can cook food for each other and eat together, or can take care of one another when they are sick, or hide from government agents who come to kill their neighbors.
Death to Christianity. I am not making any defense of the church. In fact, I literally said we need to replace it. 🙄
Religion in general fosters these sorts of toxic power structures because it's based on fucking nonsense.
I know you're getting dragged in the comments / downvoted, but the premise that the internet is not a fully reasonable 'third' place has some rationality, as does the premise that churches have been this 'third' place for many. And I think 'third' places are where leftist community-engagement thrives, even in religous settings.
I mention leftist simply because many here are commenting from leftist Lemmy instances, myself included. Historically -- and for a moment, consider this outside the typically nonreligious, leftist approaches to community building -- churches have occupied a helpful, physical 'third' place like this for centuries.
When they are healthy, churches have been relationship hubs of solidarity and mutual aid. They have also been regularly used platforms from which to mobilize for social justice and collective action -- even today, I know of some churches that are engaged directly in social justice and collective action for queer communities, debt reduction / removal, resource sharing, and more. Liberation theology is gravely leftist, as well, and comes from Latin American churches with leftist clergy and non-clergy at the helm of both theory and praxis. The Civil Rights Movement was borne out of black American churches, and suffrage movements met in churchhouses as much as anywhere else. This list goes on.
Liberation / radical inclusivity activities can spring from any setting where people gather regularly and talk about change. While the internet can make that sometimes easier, it has been historically in-person, where folks gather, that these movements find momentum time and again. 'Third' places are historically and functionally physical.
Theory is great for the internet, and even some community-engagement through internet discussions on theory is great. Some, but not all.
Praxis happens offline, though, in anti-technofeudally controlled arenas.
I don't know how people can insist "the internet is a community!" then then use downvotes as if that shit isn't toxic to community.
Pay-to-use can not be the basis of community.
Unfortunately we have to pay monthly tribute to our landed lord to be in any community.
Sorry, I meant "can not" in the sense that we can't let that be the basis of community.
Commodified spaces and hobbies alienate people who can't afford to pay. The church, at least, allows the poor to attend.
Reminds me of Gramsci. In the first instance we have the object: sex. In the second instance we have a reflection of the object: porn. In the third instance we have a reflection of the reflection: pornographic art. Then in the final instance we have a reflection with no object as a reference: AI porn. In this last instance the real thing has been replaced entirely by a simulacrum.
"Grandma, what was it like when people had sex? Before we all lived in the Metaverse?"
You pay for nearly every third space.
Bars,bowling alleys, sports leagues, internet, and even churches.
In every space you are a name with a personality
Of course there are no people online. We're all dogs using the internet while the humans are at work.
Yall are dogs to right?
Like , say, a community center? I took karate when I was 12 at my local community center.
Having a karate class in a now defunct church sounds amazing.
Absolutely.
But every rural shithole community has a church. Only cities have community centers.
That's opportunity cost - they would have money for a community center if they didn't spend it on the church.
They don't have the money to spend on the church either, that's why churches are closing.
Per capita contributions haven't gone down nearly as much as attendance, though. Churches are losing money because the public is rejecting them on principle.
Not what I meant.
I mean, people aren't going to church, and they're just spending the money on themselves. Bills and shit. People who stop going to church aren't donating it to their community center, which means community centers are not replacing churches.
I thought we were discussing what could be? Or what ought to be? I understand that community centers have not already replaced churches.
My daughters (public) school choir had to pay $2500 to rent a church for their winter performance last year. Well, didn't have to, but the teacher wanted a different space than the school and apparently everyone thought that was an acceptable amount of money for a 2 hour performance. I was pretty upset when I learned the cost.
Why not both?
We need a new religion that worships reality with clerics who are trained in humanities, epistemology, and combatting disinformation.
EDIT: Apparently reality isn't as popular as I'd hoped.
Do you mean science?
Not exactly. Science is a particular discipline/methodology for discovering reality. In theory it could apply to everything, but it's not the most practical tool for a lot of things.
History in particular is something that politicians (especially Republicans) lie about constantly, but we don't generally include history as one of the sciences. I'm not saying that science doesn't contribute to our knowledge of history, but the scientific method doesn't typically come into conversations about whether slavery actually happened.
Whether slavery happened has nothing to do with religion. History is studied. It is a branch of science. Idk what you're going on about.
Going on about? You asked a question and I answered it. Why be dickish about it?
Your answer doesn't make sense.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Secular_religions
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Humanism
We aren't doing both. That was my point?
If you're not sure whether that's your point, we're not gonna be much help.
We need communal spaces that aren't churches. That's my point. I think I was pretty clear about that too.
They basically just repeated what I said, and so I was confused about what they think my point actually was.
As much as I'm happy to see churches go, I agree with this. I used to go to church even as a non believer for this reason. Outreach into the community is much easier when backed by an organization that is trusted, and has resources at their disposal.
While I like that the church is less popular, you are right. A sense of community is needed for a social species like us humans. This is how street gangs work, they recruit young and probably lost/lonely kids and make them feel like they are part of something.
In sectarian societies, there are community centres, free library’s and non-religious community groups with public spaces.
Even in Capitalistic societies, shopping centres and shopping malls are a place for communities to grow.
The myth that Community requires Region was created by religions so they could more easily control their indoctrinated (just like capitalism).
It's not just religions drying up, it's all of the old hierarchical social clubs. Their membership are aging and dying off, and they're not doing anything to recruit Millennials or GenZ. The internet opened up vast opportunities for non-work social contact and relaxed the demand that people gather in one physical place at a fixed time with rules to minimize chaos.
Okay, we are physical beings and we need to gather in physical spaces.
We can't all just be alone in our homes screaming at each other on the internet.
I'd bet a lot of American churches could fairly easily be converted into small music venues.
Architecturally sure but zoning wise probably not. I can actually sympathize with nimbys in this scenario, locked into a mortgage next door to a church vs next door to a music venue with a liquor license are two totally different scenarios.
A lot of American Protestant chuches already are music venues in the sense that they hold 2 or 3 services a day, which involve 15-45 minute musical sessions, with mics, amps, audio leveling/equalizing equipment, etc.
These are the ones I am referring to.
No, not the insane, literally stadium sized mega churches.
Just your run of the mill, Protestant chuch serving a few hundred people, built in the last 20 years in America.
Plenty of these are built in the middle of residential neighborhoods.
With zoning laws... these of course vary widely, but generally, as long as you aren't playing music outside of basically daylight hours, you are fine.
I've even actually seen some definct churches converted into night clubs, but that is the scenario where zoning laws and permits become more of a hassle.
As far as just... a daytime, small to medium music venue?
Probably any defunct church that was originally designed to accomodate daytime, amped up worship services, or retrofitted for such, is already built according to relevant noise regulations.
... Also, you can have a music venue without a liquor liscense.
Unless you mean like a cafe or restaurant that also happens to have live music sometimes not really. It's not really financially viable. A 50-200 person venue that doesn't serve alcohol and only has shows during the day is not a niche that exists.
A lot of them are built with acoustic architecture, so definitely. Also lecture halls, debate halls, maybe even public theater.
I like all of those ideas!
they weren't free. Attendance required a 10% income tax.
Only in Germany. In America, that is optional. In fact, most of these closings could be avoided if all members gave 5%. Average is much lower.
Just because no one is taking it directly from the paycheck does not mean it’s “optional”. Religions in general, and Christianity in particular are very good at coercing donations.
Most the places that are closing are closing because they never managed to get kids in and brainwashed and their core followers are aging out of an income.
Is this a Catholic thing? I've been forced to attend many different churches and none of them forced my family to pay anything.
It's not free, though... I've watched my mother give obscene amounts of money to the church. She even did it when I was growing up, and we had NO extra money to give.
So yeah, cheer. Replace these with something better, like an affinity club with upfront dues that are significantly cheaper.
I agree wholeheartedly. I don't know what the replacement would be, however. I keep thinking about that when I think about trying to bootstrap something in my community. Something that somehow (?) is supported to keep the heat and the lights on, and everything clean and very safe, the taxes paid, but provides a place to: 1) meet-up for book clubs 2) has a maker/hacker space 3) Has break-outs for hosting meetups along with projectors, etc. 4) provides open source training of various kinds. 5) Throws social functions, with food and modest amounts of alcohol.... 6) A place with trained staff that put on things for kids to do after school lets out or in the summers
Something with wifi, where access to snacks/coffee is also possible, where people can hang out all day and not feel any guilt for buying nothing or only one coffee and just being in the presence of others.
In some cases, I see libraries trying to serve some of these functions. In some cases, I have seen some "community centers" or the building owned by Elks/Masons also trying for a subset of this... if there is some nonprofit or b corp out there making something like this happen at scale, I'd love to hear it. I've been part of meetups that struggle to find/keep spaces they can use, often they have to rely on someone being employed at some company or another.
But yes, I'm no champion of churches. I also don't want every single public space to essentially dwindle to nothing. Malls are not that - and they are mostly dwindling, too. Starbucks is not that. If the only remaining public space is only trails and maybe the post office (if Musk et al don't kill that too) and the DMV, what a sad state of affairs...
Boardroom meme:
Boss: Church attendance is down. What can we do to turn this around?
Person 1: discreetly move pedophile pastors around to hide their proclivities?
Person 2: assure the congregation that we still hate gay people
Person 3: follow the teachings of Christ and show love and charity to our neighbors regardless of who they are
Person 3 is thrown out the stained glass window.
Pit of vipers closes due to insufficient snakebite volunteers.
That's something more churches should do. They always preach about "helping the poor" but most don't give a fuck.
Good
The risks of what? The risk of not returning to the dark ages where we damn near all believed the imaginary writings of goat herders and killed for that?
Thanks, no thanks, I love that risk.
Government grifters and charlatan faith leaders have completely debased the idea of 'Christianity' over the past few decades to the point where most people associate Christianity as some joke religion that no one really takes seriously.
Personally, I see anyone who proclaims themselves as Christian as a liar, bigot, narcissist and someone lacking in empathy for others. Sure you can tell me about Jesus Christ but I associate anyone who claims him are just paying lip service to the religion and that they are just psychotic sociopaths who are only interested in power and money.
I don't mind Churches dying out because they've basically destroyed their own religion themselves.
Unfortunately, humans are a dumb species that rely heavily on wanting to believe in something so once this religion dies out another one will take its place and repeat the process. It's been happening for thousands of years so I don't think we'll stop that tradition any time soon.
But, it started as an essenic cult. It's not accidental that scient\ologists consider someone leaving the cult as a death, the same metaphoric resurrection if they return; you get how that's similar, right? Your brother is executed instead of you, you have survivor guilt, you nope out of the cult, they call you dead, you reconsider over a few days, you're back in - yay, it's a resurrection!
Anyway, considering Christianity a bit of a scam or a sham isn't strictly a new thing.
The small churches that are more likely to actually be charitable and are more likely to be inclusive will shut down. The bigot-run megachurches will be just fine.
Crazy that it takes the church shitting down for them to actually follow gods message of giving to the poor.
And yet, somehow, they still make all the policy in this country.
Interesting that they can't stay afloat financially, because they don't pay taxes.
The internet is killing God but giving birth to a new age of conspiracy theorists.
So, not much has changed.
I pray to God everyday that i can live long enough to witness the day humanity completely abandons religion. Inshallah🙏
Hip Hip
Hooray
There'll be no Weezer in this thread...
From what it seems to me, the megachurches are doing okay. It's the more traditional denominations that are suffering. Overall religion might be on a decline, but certain sects are flourishing. One silver lining about some of the megachurches is that they're led by a strong personality and once they're gone, the whole organization putters out. They're more organized around an individual than a theology.
Oh no! So, anyway...
And some are forced to sell off the massive amount of prime real estate they were totally going to build churches on and not pay any taxes on the profits....
45% is considerably higher than I expected. I thought it would be closer to 10-15%.
Mega churches are still going strong though. There definitely needs to be a way (other than taxes because separation of church and state is impt) to get churches to spend that money back in the community, but instead it just ends up enriching the owners and investors. If there was anything which needed an anti-corruption intervention.
Goes hand in hand with a similar story I heard about a month ago regarding a shortage of pastors. Apparently it's so bad, quite a few have to lead sermons at multiple churches and many simply skip some weeks. Also less trained people taking up the role, whatever that means anyway.
Honestly, get ratio'd, cultists.
IIUC, some are coming from developing countries.
No, don't close your damn doors, open them up to the homeless. Make these useless buildings good for something!
Best news I've heard all day
Good! Fuck 'em!
Heaven isn't real
Hallelujah!
I have a better idea. Seize the land and assets of the churches. They haven't contributed their fair share of taxes, so the land belongs to us.
Next seize the homes and bank accounts of the pastors and clergy and the holy rapists (or whatever they call themselves). Indict them in international courts for crimes against humanity. Offer them plea deals for them to work in their seized homes that are now converted to public housing.
depending on the church that could be a very interesting idea.
literally just walk into a full on church with the pews and altar and stained glass and strippers and communion shots
A kink club
It's not that far, but a couple of years ago, a Spirit Halloween took over an abandoned church at a town near here. I'm still mad I never took a picture.
Amusingly enough, one of the ministers at my childhood church brewed his own beer - and this quality featured heavily in my church's decision to invite him to preach at our congregation.
In the middle ages, it was the monasteries that kept the arts of beer brewing and wine making alive.
Still do! Trappist monks still make stuff like beer and jam as part of their beliefs. It's all really good stuff, and the proceeds go back to the monastery, the community, and the poor.
I loathe most religious institutions, but the monasteries are mostly chill.
maybe not a safe space for girls, daughters, and grandmothers.
Psh. Until trump’s project’25 handlers make church attendance mandatory for citizenship.
Congrats to Buffalo, it sounds like things are looking up there.
In my area (WA state) there was a small-ish Xian church (the one-storey building was probably <2000 sq ft and cheaply built - the steeple-ish thing (w/o a bell of course) blew off in a windstorm once)) that shut down a year or two ago and was boarded-up. It's been repurposed as a homeless shelter that specifically serves people with serious medical problems. The change has greatly improved the 'hood.
People here are arguing for the (gate-kept) community that Xian churches once offered in the US. By "gate-kept" I'm referring to the fact that Xian churches were, and are, open to only the "right kind" of people. I'm sympathetic to the need for community, and have even looked around locally for what's on offer from Xian or Xian-aligned/compatible organizations, but haven't found any that promote an ideology that isn't based on superstition and that don't demand that I defer in all things moral/ontological to a human power hierarchy within the church. One whose authority, such as it is, is based on "it's in the Book".
Hard pass on that. I'll find my community through volunteering and possibly, one day, through fraternal orgs, though I've found the ones around here (Masons, Rotary, &etc) are still hardcore on gatekeeping themselves, despite being on the wane just as much as Xian churches are. If you think you'd be most comfortable in a Xian-churchy sort of context, but are politically and socially "liberal", the UCC seems pretty inoffensive, though they still (at least locally here) carry on about "worshipping" invisible deities all the time. The Unitarian Universalists (uua.org) seem the least offensive of any old-timey church that I've encountered and it has a certain appeal to me for its association with New England and with 19th-century intellectuals like Emerson and Thoreau. The local UUs have had a local schism in the past five years, with the historical church taking a politically rightward lurch and another UU church spinning-off it but seemingly being more preoccupied with how their church is controlled (no more all-powerful pastor-types, only collective decision-making allowed) and less with charity and community. Finally we have Unity here (unity.org) which has potential for community, but where weekly service addendees seem to be almost exclusively elderly, so I wonder how much longer it will be a going concern?
I'm hoping that someday we get a Satanic Temple that meets in-person here. I could definitely see myself joining that. The Church of the Subgenius (https://www.subgenius.com/), praise "Bob", would suit me well too, and I already own a copy of the Sacred Text, but they don't meet in person AFAIK.
Good
quite region dependent, in the rural south they're still pretty strong, in the rest of the country and in large cities, not so much
Now the religious companies that remain are all merging together or being bought out by larger religious companies. They change their names to some douchey name that sounds like a shitty christian rock band and franchise. Somehow they're still allowed to be non-profits despite being so much for-profit.
Good riddance.
thank god
At least there's some good news!!!
Safer for the kids
Next up: Republicans trying to make church attendance mandatory.
The church is nothing but a tool of opposition. Glad to see it have less influence.
Kids can sleep easy tonight. The cult is dying.
Churches that shut down don't get burned down.
If a church can't be supported through its active membership, it should close. Better no church at all than one sold out to the world, making money from investments and forgetting their true purpose.
Hallelujah
Good.
Should have been burned down, but nothing will ever right the wrongs religion inflicted against the human species.
Ave, true to Caesar!
Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
And they say there’s no such thing as good news.
Should be noted that the Roman Catholic Church required individual parishes to give their churches and the property on which they stand to the church. If a parish refused, they faced excommunication. It's all about raping kids and a money grab all the way up.
FINALLY! You guys start to get secular state!
We still have to deal with Putin's "200 churches" bullshit.
praise whatever!
I worked for an agency helping close a midwestern diocese. They branded it a positive thing but I was in the meetings with priests hearing the low down and how closings will go. It’s sad. Half the priests are old and just trying to get through. The other half want to help but are being told the cost of their renovations is more important. Let it crumble.
In my hometown, we still have over 10.
Do they turn to. Slum lords?
And there's a church made of calcium? What if it rains? Do they not know how reactive calcium is?
Sad that public spaces are disappearing but relying on funding from the ultra wealthy has been the death knell for christian churches.
Too bad its not baptist.
[email protected]
Finally some good news!! Closing the doors to a cult is a good thing.
Seems every commenter is a militant atheist. I think this is sad! Christianity gave me a lot in a time in my life I needed it. Christian denominations really need to consider why it isn’t appealing to the next generations and if they really want to continue to mix with anti-science, alt-right, bigoted groups. Many denominations have voted quite progressively in recent years but that’s not enough to make giving up Sunday morning worth it to busy struggling young Americans.
It also seems the way districts are run is nonsensical. My family’s church was run by a phenomenal second career pastor, used to be an engineer, who was quite logical in his approach to Christianity. As someone slowly becoming Buddhist he was very open to my ideas and I enjoyed talking with him. Then they switched in some ignorant selfish pastor who literally destroyed the church causing 50% of the people to leave along with all of their financial support. It took the district almost a year to “send them in vacation”. What the heck!
They need to get a grip or they will die.
I think that they are referring to the somewhat adversarial attitude of the comments in this thread. I think that a religious person, especially a self identifying Christian, would feel a bit uncomfortable reading these comments.
Merriam-Webster on "militant" (2nd definition): aggressively active (as in a cause) : combative; militant conservationists; a militant attitude
That's not what "militant atheist" means. It means, well... The sort of atheist who'd celebrate churches closing.
Communism.
Are you replying in bad faith or do you not know what militant means? I did not mean a military if atheists lol ;)
What would you call people that recognize Santa is, in fact, not real?
older children and adults.
You are correct! You now lead the board with 200 points.
You’re replying to my comment on militant atheists against religion asking what I would call people who say a children’s story isn’t real? I’m sure this sounded like a got me but comparing two thousand year old religious tradition to a fairy tale and their very different roles in society throughout history is just silly.
You're so close. You're just one simple connection away.
I’m not ignorant enough to say just because one doesn’t think god or Santa are real that both things are the same. Semantics matter. Comparing religion to fairy tales is generalizing to the max.
Blocked. You’re arguing in bad faith and just trying to get me without reading what I even wrote. Waste of time.
Ahh oh no! They, they said they blocked me!
The horror!
Personally, I'm anti Christianity because I grew up in Boston and there was a massive conspiracy to protect pedophiles... also because it's strongly related to the pro-life movement... also because a Christian school rejected my stepson with extreme special needs because my partner "wasn't the right kind of Christian"... also because Christians are slow to denounce other Christians (anyone who doesn't consider Westboro Baptist a hate group can get fucked)... also because a lot of Christians feel the need to make everyone else Christian too... also because Churches don't deserve tax breaks... also because a huge number Christians repeatedly voted for Trump because he was "The most Godly candidate"... also because they're trying to take over America... also because a good chunk of them applaud the genocide in Gaza... also because a lot of the large churches deny climate change...
Fuck man, I could keep going.
I know an alcoholic who got clean through Christianity - I'm happy he cleaned up his life. In the grand balance of things though Christianity is so fucking deep into being a net harm. But, you're correct about one thing - it's hardly a monolith. I was raised in a UCC congregation and those folks are pretty alright. Our church had an official statement condemning bigotry and embracing gay and other LGBT+ folks in the early nineties. You'd be hard to find a fault in the above list that applied to that congregation...
But in this case the bathwater is so toxic that it's worth throwing out the baby with it.
Well written. Thanks for the long thought out comment.
As someone who also recognizes how Christianity hurt my world view and becoming Buddhist wildly opened me to the world, I really appreciate this ex Christian’s YouTube channel
https://m.youtube.com/@BeliefItOrNot
Sorry on mobile
Selection bias.
I’m biased about how it affected my own life? You can read that I also criticized Christianity but was critical of militant atheism. Hard to make your point when you just pick half a sentence
It's anecdotal evidence. Christianity has had a profoundly negative influence on my life.
You say my evidence is anecdotal then provide your own anecdote...? Bruh.
Anyways sorry it negatively affected you! Not defending Christianity nor its negativity.
That's correct. If you're going to say it helped you at a time you really needed it, but aren't defending Christianity, then it's worth pointing out that your experience was atypical.
I’m sorry but that’s a bad take. Christianity is the largest religion in the world. You’re saying that it’s atypical to benefit its own believers? lol nothing more to discuss if this is your logic
Absolutely. It's brainwashing the working class against our own best interests - the opiate of the masses. Nice talking with you Comrade Miao, take care!
Christianity or science. It can't be both. There's either magic or there's not magic. If there's magic, science is meaningless.
Begging your pardon, but the likes of CS Lewis, Francis Collins, and Jesus of Nazareth would like to have a word with you about that... e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:21, "be skeptical about everything", and John 13:34 "be ye not giant dickeths to one another".
Or there's 1 Timothy 5:18 "the worker deserves their wages", or Deuteronomy 24:15 "pay your workers the very same day" (literally: "before the sun sets, bc they need it"), or James 1:27 "offer healthcare regardless of ability to pay", and so on.
It turns out that religious numbnuts who refuse to read anything at all but keep making up new rules to add to the pile (heaping heavy burdens onto people without bothering to lift a finger to help)... don't really know much of anything? Not about what "freedom" is, or "love", or "religion" either. Go figure!? 🤪 Maybe it would help if instead of listening to child rapists who just want their money (and children) they would instead pick up a book - any book - and read it!?
So yeah, fuck religious hypocrites. Seriously, Jesus in Matthew 23: 1 - 12 says exactly that too:
and
I find that people of any faith whatsoever - Christianity, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. - share a lot in common if they are not extremists. And right now there's a lot of value in atheism since nearly everyone is "first generation", but eventually atheism will fall prey to the same fate as well - it's human nature, and no system or belief is perfect. But I do think it helps to accurately diagnose the issue and point the blame more squarely where it belongs, i.e. the tribal "in-group=good but out-group=bad" is something that would be fantastic to get past as quickly as possible.
Bc to me your words seem to line up perfectly with 1 Thessalonians 5:21, hence you even agree with Jesus that most people calling themselves "Christians" (or "patriots" or whatever) are fucking idiots, however strange that sounds.
None of that has to do with the fact that the universe can either have magic or science, not both.
As Jesus Himself once said too, then made conditions for women better than they had ever been before.
Anyway "magic" is simply something that has not yet been explained. Fire. Electricity. Herbs. All were magic at one point, to those who did not know how they worked.
No. Magic is magic. There is no rational scientific explanation for what happens in the book of Genesis. The seven day creation, the talking snake, the great flood, the Tower of Babel story: magic. There is no science there, there will never be science there. What is discussed there is not scientifically possible.
You either have a universe that obeys physical laws reliably or you don't. The universe of the Bible does not.
It's an either/or. Science or magic.
If I were a time traveler, or alien, or something, that's almost how I'd explain how the Earth came about to primitives.
Day 1: Light (despite no stars yet?! yes literally the entire universe was on fire at one point, just gleaming light but no matter yet)
Day 2: Atmosphere
Day 3: Dry ground aka continents & plants (tbf here "plants" is a little incongruous, unless things like photosynthetic bacteria and algae are meant rather than later more complex multicellular forms)
Day 4: Sun, moon & stars -> the volcanic air clears so you can finally look up and see them, also the O2 paved the way for mitochondrial-containing eukaryotes
Day 5: Birds & sea creatures (birds is highly incongruous here, unless it just means "flying things" aka insects in which case it matches perfectly)
Day 6: Land animals & eventually humans
Day 7: no more "magic", i.e. humans are so recent that nothing else major has happened in the last ~350k years or so.
Day 8: nothing prevents this from coming - perhaps we'll go to space, perhaps we'll die out, perhaps this simulator will end and our personalities will become used to make us all into sex/worker bots for the "real" people one dimension above us. Wouldn't that suck? 😕 Or be fun I guess, depending on the person. 😳
I cannot say what the nature of reality is bc I have no clue, myself. All I'm saying is that if a preacher says "let me ass-rape your kid", maybe someone should say no, but if they say like "hey, workers deserve their wages so maybe people should not be slaves?" then it's worth paying attention to - not because and rather, I get it, in spite of the fact that it comes from a religious person, but even so it's what is said rather than who says it that seems the most important.
Fuck "religion", but "love one another"? THAT I am down with:-).
"Primitives" have the same brains we do today and were capable of understanding the same things we are.
So that time traveller or alien is a condescending and ignorant asshole for putting it to them in those generally false terms.
Is that really what you want to go with? That "primitives" can't understand concepts like "the entire universe expanded from a single point" or "it took many, many, many years for this to happen?"
Also...
What the fuck are you even talking about here?
Different spheres: one can be science and the other cosplay.
Magic is just the stuff that science hasn't proven yet. Emphasis on the "yet".
EDIT: Before anyone else misunderstands what I meant, I'm not saying every aspect of Christianity or the Bible will inevitably be proven (though I can see how it can be read that way, hence this edit).
I'm saying that magic is what we can "observe" happening but not be able to explain with science. The ratio of magic to science has been rapidly shrinking in the last century or so, and I'm suggesting that we will continue to understand "magic" (or, the previously-unexplained) better as science progresses.
When books like the Bible were written, there was a lot more "magic"/unexplainable stuff. Of course, there were likely also misunderstandings and fabrications. It shouldn't be taken as a reliable account of observations, either, so its magic will not necessarily be explained by science, just as Harry Potter's won't.
That's not magic. Magic is supernatural, meaning it does not obey physical laws.
If things do not always obey physical laws, such as much of what happens in the Bible in terms of magic, then how can you ever trust the scientific method?
How is there a valid scientific method in a universe where 40 days of rain covers an entire planet with water or a staff can be thrown onto the ground and turned into a snake?
Not defending the Bible, but I think a lot of the big claims of the Bible (that take place in the "real world") could be attributed to mistranslations, misunderstandings, or lies.
Like I said, Christianity or science. It can't be both. If it's a mistranslation, a misunderstanding or a lie, it doesn't matter. The Bible as written and believed as the fundamental doctrine of Christianity says it's true.
And if there is no magic, Jesus loses a great deal of his importance. He's certainly not worthy of worship if he had no magic powers. Veneration, maybe, but hell defies any sort of scientific scrutiny. A fiery furnace for an etherial soul, as it is described, makes no sense in a rational world.
My head canon is that Jesus was kind of a flamboyant street magician (if not a con artist) whose tricks were exaggerated by storytellers of the time.
Optimistically, things in the Bible weren't meant to be taken literally, but got corrupted over the centuries. And it also explicitly became a tool to control people.
I think that people who take the Bible literally are probably going against the idea that the authors and Jesus (separately) had about what they'd said/written.
But I'm an Atheist, not a theologist or anything, lol
Optimistic and not reflective of the beliefs at the time. Jesus himself is pretty explicit about following the Old Testament laws, so I'm guessing he thought the rest of it was true or he wouldn't say to follow them considering there are 613 of them. And the Jesus story fulfils a bunch of Old Testament prophecy, which means that seeing into the future is possible and cause-and-effect are reversible.
It's allegory. I am an atheist but the magic doesn't actually need to exist for the morality tale's conclusion to exist. Religion uses mysticism because it's a philosophical shortcut for idiots, but the real intention has always been to push some pretty stabdard normative ethics on the population. In some cases those things are good like "don't be a jealous prick," and sometimes they are bad, like "fear the outsiders." And in many cases they are just anachronistic.
Honestly, as much as I truly want the world to be mature enough for secular versions of this philosophy, I would also be totally fine if we could just scare people into not running red lights, or wearing masks when sick, via some divine cosmic consequences framework. But the older I get the more I realize how much religion plays a role in keeping idiots in line. It just needs continued updating for modern times.
I agree completely. And it seems like it continues to be used that way, but not for good -- it tends to get idiots to fall in line with fascists. Not all the time, but in many parts of the world, this seems to be what's happening.
Science hasn't proven people can't walk on water, turn blood into wine, or resurrect from death?
Wasn't aware those were still up in the air.
I didn't get my point across properly. Read my edit if you're interested. I was referring to magic in general, not the magic in the Bible.
Personally, I think the truths of each of your points would be things like mistranslations, misunderstandings, unreliable testimonies, or fabrications.
...but to get into semantics, the scientific method can't really prove a negative. And by early definitions of "death", we are able to resurrect people now.
Hoverboots, alien yeast Gatorade, Android or regenerative body parts
Well, I mean, obviously.
I missed the part of the New Testament where Jesus scored a sweet pair of hoverboots and a pallet of Gatorade.
Alien cyborg hoverboots that look like regular legs and the Gatorade was in powdered form
As someone who leans towards perennialism I can see the value in religious traditions but militant atheists are a reaction to the hypocrisy of organised religion. it's great you where able to get something of value from the church but many more don't and indeed lose something into the bargain through no fault of their own.
It's okay to just say 'followers of science'.
still just a follower
I'll make my own science with blackjack and hookers!
Good points.
I personally dislike militant atheism. There is a line between anti-Christianity or religious it’s versus praising their downfall. It’s more terminally online atheist communities such as Reddit that are like this though.
That said, I think you’re wrong that more are being hurt though. Christianity is actually on the rise in the US (I think?) and China (fastest growing Christian nation actually).
you're conflating the church with Christianity. I would think most western people become atheists because of the church not because of Christ. and the vast majority of them have every reason to be militant.
I don’t think everyone leaves because they’re hurt, some just begin to question it like myself. That’s an interesting question though, what percentage leaves for what reason.
I hear your point. It’s the socioreligious organization but if you look at religion through the lens of lived religion Christianity is only its socioreligious form. I fully agree that Christianity and Christ are a lot better than how it’s often materialized!
It's called self defense. Feel fortunate we desire peace and not the retribution inflicted upon us throughout history and modern times in religion's name.
I don't think terminally online militant atheists want peace. Hence the name militant atheist. Example reddit atheism.
Didn't realise I wandered into /r/atheism in this comment section.
Jesus christ I thought r/atheism was bad. Anything religion related gets you ppl foaming at the mouth