[CedarMills]

As a believer and someone who attends church regularly, this is sad but not unexpected. From my own personal experience - if the church cannot answer questions clearly, their members will look for answers somewhere else. A lot of churches unfortunately are so elementary in their teaching or turn to "feel good preaching" (see Elevation Church). The longterm effect is that a person ends up being tired of getting the same "baby food" and they look to other places. The churches where theology is solid (and clear) tend to be stronger in number and in regular attendance.

[filoeleven]

The American evangelical movement is particularly rabid, and subscribes overwhelmingly to Christian nationalism. It is entirely too mixed into politics, and is trying to create a theocratic state where “everyone must live like Christians (for my definition of Christian).”

One of the high points for me regarding religion in the past couple years was finding The Holy Post podcast. One host is Phil Vischer, AKA Bob the Tomato, the creator of Veggie Tales. I have some fundamental (heh) disagreements with their perspective at this point, but they remind me of what I thought the church was while growing up within it, and they still largely reflect what I think it should be. They acknowledge that there’s lots of room for disagreement, they don’t think they have all the answers, and they strike me as genuinely loving people.

If I had heard more people talking like them 20 years ago, I might not have left the church. It’s not a question of “baby food” so much as “cultural identity,” and the cultural identity of the American church is largely flag-waving rah-rah nationalism. Not sure what stats you’re referencing, because megachurches are still quite popular here and quite clear on their “theology.”

If you the parent poster are not located in America, please disregard this post entirely.

[UncleOxidant]

Hah, never thought I'd see the Holy Post show up in an HN comment. Fun podcast. I think what they're doing is important - exposing hypocrisy and nationalism in the American Evangelical church while pointing to a more charitable form of Christianity.

[RickJWagner]

Phil Vischer is one talented song-writer.

[dagw]

I grew up attending church, and on the whole have nothing but good things to say about the whole experience. It gave me both spiritual and moral support when I needed it the most and some of the best people I have ever known, I got to know through church. In fact in ways I mourn the loss of both my faith and my 'church'.

However once I realized that, on a very fundamental level, the core of what they where claiming as true wasn't in fact true, I felt I had no choice to walk away.

[xtracto]

I was "in touch" with religion for 12 years (my parents sent me to a very catholic school even though both are atheists)

My experience was seeing huge amounts of falsehood and hypocrisy as religious people followed and repeated all the rituals of the mass but in the day to day life they just did not care about others and pretty much ignored what their religion taught them.

Thank God after those 12 years I saw everything I needed from religion to get as far away from it as I can.

[LadyCailin]

Is this the religious equivalent of a parent making the kid smoke a carton of cigarettes at once, to turn them off smoking?

[kaptain]

This practice is very common among immigrant/non-Western communities. Oftentimes an educational institution with a religious background offers the highest quality and most prestigious education. In addition, while they might not have the same religious views as the institution, these parents often value the conservative social values that these institutions espouse.

[Timpy]

Where I'm from the catholic churches offer the most prestigious high school educations because their cost is similar to college. They in no way offer a better education, it's just a paywall to keep your kids surrounded by like-minded society.

[MisterBastahrd]

All you have to do to determine whether a school is there for the purposes of educating young people or acting as a buffer against desegregation is to compare the racial composition of the school's football and basketball teams versus the racial composition of the school's general population.

[ineedasername]

Once you get outside of religion classes and church services, Catholic schools tend to be pretty strong on the fundamentals. (Especially Jesuit schools)

When I went for HS, literally the only elective was Art, and for any student in honors courses, it wasn't an elective: you didn't take art because all of your time was in academic courses except for gym once a week. Don't get me wrong, I think electives are valuable and wish I'd had the opportunity: I'm just describing the educational priorities of that type of school. However they also need revenue, so the ones that remain these days are generally a little more friendly in allowing for an individual's interests.

[walshemj]

Or they want a good education I recall my mum saying that if we had stayed where I was born, they would have tried to use my Grandfathers (ex headmaster in another school ) to get me into King Edwards.

That is THE King Edwards Tolkien's Alma mater and is normaly first or second ranked in the UK.

[xtracto]

Haha it could very well have been that! In reality what happened is that we lived in a small town (in Mexico, called Campeche. Late 80s and 90s) and the only quality schooling at that place and time was catholic schools.

[tracedddd]

A carton would be challenging. As a dumb smoking teenager I competed to smoke a whole pack and even then it made me quite nauseous. Took about 5 or 6 cigarettes back to back.

[chmod600]

It depends on the religion. Some are just better at applying religious teachings to lifestyle than others.

In my opinion, Catholicism (for all it's good qualities) is too theoretical and abstract. It's easy to walk out of church without any real takaways that you might apply to your ordinary life.

[aftergibson]

Catholicism is so mired in needless hierarchy and ceremony that it severely inhibits any genuine value it might provide.

It hit home as a teenager during Easter Sunday mass. A priest enters the church, wearing his extra religious garb, a crucifix is carried behind him. The procession take several steps, the worshippers then kneel down and immediately stand back up. Several more steps, then kneeling and standing. Then several more steps, then kneeling and standing.

The third time I stood up I felt like it was outside my body looking at myself. Following the crowd with absolutely no idea why or the meaning behind it. To me, I looked like an idiot. My father was religious his entire life, so afterwards I asked him what the ceremony represented, he had no idea. I went to church less and less after that.

[yepguy]

Unfortunately this is an example of exactly what CederMills said above about failing to properly teach the faith. There is an incredible amount of meaning imbued into every moment of a Catholic mass, and the more of it you understand the more engaging it is to attend and participate.

Earlier this year I attended a 90 minute "walkthrough" of the mass where my priest explained the structure and meaning of a normal everyday mass. At the end of it he had still only scratched the surface, but it was probably more explanation than most (ex-)Catholics ever receive on the topic.

[ebrenes]

Yet such information is incredibly lacking and hard to find. You would think the Vatican and similar would have all this information ready to be digested by people interested in learning, yet it's incredibly hard to find if it's available.

[honatommy]

I think religion is primarily cultural and based on traditions. A lot of people do not go for their faith, only cause they are used to it. I wonder how many people stopped going because of the pandemic, then realized they didn't miss it.

[soco]

I feel and felt the same. As many other commenters mentioned, a church must be a few elements in order to be sustainable: a community, a set of beliefs, an organization... and each one of these can be more or less important for the individual, and each on of these can go awry in its own way, often without affecting in the same way the other individuals or the other elements. Thus the discussion becomes even more difficult, when individuals have different experiences on each one of those dimensions. I think calling the debate "comparing apples with oranges" is a massive understatement.

[dagw]

Yea. In some ways I feel slightly uncomfortable speaking up for or defending the church in any general way. For as positive as all my experience have been and all the good I have seen churches do, I have also seen churches (even churches within the same general denomination as the church I attended) completely destroy the lives of people.

[brundolf]

I was in the exact same place as you about 10 years ago.

A key thing for me (I'm still not religious, though I'm religion-adjacent in some ways) was seeing that religion - despite what some would tell you - is at its best when it's not made to be about material truths at all. Its truths, really, are truths about the human condition and how best to live it out.

In this sense, even as someone who doesn't believe in metaphysical spirits, the heart of what they're claiming (if you really dig down deep past many of the surface-level particulars) contains a lot of truth.

[lalaland1125]

The problem is that their teachings also contain a lot of falsehoods. For example, the majority of churches in the US teach that gay sex will cause a person to be tortured for eternity in hell.

That teaching is probably wrong and causes so much damage to so many people.

[geedy]

Religions house many people fearful of what is happening in their lives, the lives of their loved ones. They want explanations for why their expectations and needs are not met. Is it surprising that the powerful would leverage that fear?

Funny how the Hebrew and Greek words for fear have so many other meanings, and yet the church has taught but one for so long when considering the "fear of God".

Seems to contradict "perfect love casts out all fear". Perhaps we would all be better off if we understood "wisdom begins with the awe of God" as the preferred intention.

Because fear based things really suck.

[QuarterReptile]

I admit that I have only participated in a minority of all the churches in the US, but I have never attended any church where your statement would be consistent with doctrine on hell, sin, or homosexuality.

[lalaland1125]

I guess you never attended the Catholic Church? They are quite explicit that gay sex is a grave sin.

[QuarterReptile]

Viewing pornography is equally as likely to be grave sin (I say equally likely because the act is a necessary but not sufficient condition for meeting the definition of mortal sin). I don't mean to downplay that pornography is a negative influence, but you misunderstand mortal sin [1]. Paragraphs 1854 -1864 are particularly relevant.

Mortal/grave sins must be confessed per catholic doctrine, but to say that the mere acts were final is to misunderstand the whole concept of the new covenant.

[1] https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s...

[goldcd]

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 admiring those with faith who use it to lead a good life.

[AgentOrange1234]

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 church’s teachings: God is love, God forgives us, God accepts all of us. I can listen in awe at the sermons of Dr. King Jr. And while I cannot imagine ever believing the supernatural aspects of it all, I will always deeply appreciate and agree with the concern and caring for The Least of These, and our shared responsibility to one another.

[importantbrian]

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.

[mensetmanusman]

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.

[AgentOrange1234]

That’s interesting. Why is free will an act of faith?

(I’m not saying it isn’t. I think all belief in science requires an act of faith, e.g., the universe obeys laws of physics. I just haven’t heard this argued before.)

[mensetmanusman]

If we are only made of the dust around us, then, like a computer, we don’t truly have any control. It’s all just an illusion.

That points to why belief in free will is an act of faith. It is, by definition, not possible to know (because you could always argue your conclusions were not made by your will). It also lies outside the usual ‘god of the gaps’ straw-man debate, because it is more like an endless chasm. :)

[thephyber]

> but what I dislike about my atheism is that I get lumped in with people who'll tell theists that "they're wrong"

But every Christian that doesn’t reject the first Commandment implicitly believes the same thing. Some of them picket and scream terrible things at their outgroupers. Most are reasonably neutral and nice.

Giving too much oxygen or mind share to the few vocal outliers only lowers your quality of life. Also, there are enough atheists/agnostics/nones that it’s basically useless to talk about them as a monolithic group.

I am far more concerned about the asymmetry of media/discussion about the obnoxious few with bad ideas over the quiet plurality of pleasant people who don’t force their toxic ideas on others.

[bopbeepboop]

What would that be?

I’ve encountered this claim more often than I’ve encountered actual fundamentalist churches I think are making any sort of strong claim about the world.

So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong.

[soco]

I mentioned in a parallel comment that I had similar experiences, so I'll jump in until the other commenter does. And to keep spirits cooler, I'll mention my experiences in martial arts. I gained my black belt in Aikido in a wonderful dojo, wonderful teachers, doing many activities together otherwise. I found a few lifetime friends there and love as well, so it was definitely more than "training", it was a real community. Yet I'm not going there anymore for a dozen years already. The entire teaching is based on life energies and ki flows which... just weren't there for me. I was able to progress nicely also without them - faking them to be more honest, I could have been continued growing in the technique, but what was the point continuing something I don't believe in? What was the point in rebelling and showing them how simple sportmanship gets the same peace of mind, does the same precision, builds the same attitude towards "martial" and life in general? People are good if they choose the good, and not everybody needs the supernatural element in order to stay good. And I don't mean a fear of supernatural punishment, but in my Aikido case, a belief in supernatural and benevolent support.

[zests]

I read a book by Eckhart Tolle that gave me two takeaways. The first was that the book was full of nonsense. The second was that it was clear why this nonsense was so effective for people.

What are the downsides to suspending scientific accuracy for the purposes of doing Aikido?

[soco]

I did it for years for myself but at some point when you're supposed to tell your pupil to bend more forward to not obstruct the ki flow, you just can't bring yourself to do it anymore... you can't bear the dissonance anymore.

[klibertp]

The same as with every other sport: injury. You don't want to risk injury by extrapolating a faulty training method from magical thinking. In my experience, the arts and systems geared more towards full-contact spars have way, way less Ki/Qi in them.

[soco]

Hmm I definitely cannot say the training is faulty. You cultivate (in Aikido) exactly the harmony of movements which also without spiritual dimension can be understood and practiced in a very physical, efficient and safe way (as safe as martial arts go, duh). Whereas with krav maga for example there's nothing of this, not because ki is missing (it is) but because it seeks efficiency instead of beauty. Or maybe it's only me not able to find the right balanced system...

[mythrwy]

"All models are wrong, but some are useful"

[bopbeepboop]

> The entire teaching is based on life energies and ki flows which... just weren't there for me. I was able to progress nicely also without them - faking them to be more honest, I could have been continued growing in the technique, but what was the point continuing something I don't believe in?

I had a similar experience — in Kung fu and Buddhism.

Beliefs are a model of the world: just because a model isn’t phrased in terms of my core beliefs doesn’t mean it has nothing to teach me.

In the case of Kung fu and Buddhism, I don’t believe I would understand things as well as I do (physics, physiology, neurology) without having taken the time to understand what those other models were trying to express about the world.

To use an analogy: just because I have an irresolvable dependency conflict with a new piece of software doesn’t mean it has nothing to teach me about software and programming.

[soco]

If my message came across as dismissing the ki let me reiterate: I used the model as a tool, it's based on generations of experimenting and I know it works for the practical goals. My issue is that it comes with an esoteric luggage in which I don't believe, yet I'm expected to pass further on. The tool wanted to be also the goal. I assume you can't teach kung fu without some buddhism (I suppose, I'm not a kung fu practitioner) so what is the way forward? Practice krav maga? Practice by yourself on a mountaintop? Neither of those help you much advancing in what you loved... but I'm diverting already too much from the OP. My point was, community is great, but if the spiritual dimension doesn't resonate I can't remain as true member.

[bopbeepboop]

I can’t tell you what to do with your life.

My solution to encountering outdated beliefs with great utility was to try and update them — to retell Kung fu (and Buddhism) in that new world view. Buddhism has a maxim to keep what’s useful and discard the rest.

What does “ki” mean in physics?

I think it’s more than esoteric luggage, but a class of physics equations which are nasty to write down because they’re complex differential equations — and the numerics don’t matter to the practice, just the behavior of the system.

So you give a name to that behavior and model it experimentally, describe it euphemistically, etc.

I get spending the time to learn multiple models and translate between them isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, though. Those people reasonably make different choices than I did.

[8note]

I think the question still stands: what's the point of staying in the versionthat doesn't match your core beliefs vs finding an equivalent that does?

[bopbeepboop]

Can you name an equivalent of Kung fu?

I can’t — so I found it necessary to dig into the old program and port the concepts.

I would argue that more people should do that, even when they don’t immediately understand the old model well enough to port.

Both in software and martial arts.

[tenacious_tuna]

> What would that be?

not OP, but I would presume "the claim" is that (a) there is a God, (b) the church knows which one, and (c) they know what he wants.

For comparison, I (atheist) normally state my position as "There is insufficient evidence to conclude there is a God," so any statement about there being any god, or about what influence they should/do have on our lives I treat as a "claim," which requires supporting evidence.

[sanedigital]

At the risk of being pedantic, I believe that’s more Agnostic than Atheist. Your statement allows for a God to exist, and even infers that you’re willing to believe in them given sufficient evidence.

While the whole atheist-agnostic thing is more of a continuum than not, I think the line is whether you believe there is no God or whether you don’t believe there is one. It might seem pedantic but I do think it’s an important distinction.

[tenacious_tuna]

> I believe that’s more Agnostic than Atheist.

I used to identify as agnostic for a while--the definition I quoted is one adapted from The Atheist Experience podcast. I'd personally describe someone who actively believes there is no god, i.e. possesses enough evidence to claim "There cannot be any god" an "anti-theist", in my personal lexicon.

Generally this is why I bother to give the specific definition by claim--too often I've encountered religious folk who take "atheist" to mean "one who hates god", or "one who actively has evidence against a god", or similar--which may be true for other folk who use the label atheist, but doesn't match my personal definition.

As you said, "the whole atheist-agnostic thing is more of a continuum than not," so I like to give the definition to clear up any mis-assumptions people may make about me for using said label :)

I also agree that the difference does matter--I also think it's more intellectually honest of me to allow for the possibility that I am wrong, however unlikely--even then, there is an important distinction between acknowledging the existence of a god, and choosing to worship said god if they even existed (which is usually the follow-on question from religious folk I talk to.

[dagw]

So I’m curious to hear what people think is wrong.

We know there is a God AND the Bible is some sort of authoritative (most would claim the most authoritative) description of who/how God is and how he wants us to behave towards him.

Often there is also a third correlating claim that our interpretation of the Bible is the most correct interpretation.

[hootbootscoot]

Tell that to all the practitioners of all the other religions... "um sorry folks, you are wrong, we are right"

I have issues with 1) "God told me to tell you" (any human claiming to represent God to their fellow humans. They surely would be devoid of ulterior motives, right?)

2) This collection of hitherto uncompiled writings (including a wholesale incorporation of Judaism) that were uncontestedly written by humans, some of which we know the names of, has now become a singular "book" and it's the world of God, shut up or else, etc.

I smell humans, not divinity.

Oh, and YES you nailed it on the last point. Witness the smug way some Evangelicals dismissively tell a Catholic "but I am CHRISTIAN"...

[49531]

As someone who was raised in a religious home who no longer attends any church I think it's less to do with not answering questions and more to do with a hostile rejection of religion generally. It wasn't until I had children of my own that I realized I needed to distance myself from religion. I know there is a large variety of what is taught from religion to religion and sect to sect but I'd like to steer clear from any organization that takes a negative view on basic things like homosexuality. I cannot fathom exposing my (or any) kids to that kind of worldview.

[CedarMills]

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.

[tenacious_tuna]

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 knowing what he wants?

Part of my de-conversion was driven by what looked to me like people willfully deceiving themselves that it was possible to "choose" a church who fit their worldview, without treating the cosmology claims the church inherently makes with the same skepticism.

[LargeWu]

I get what you're saying, but there's plenty of disagreement on what those concepts even are.

td;dr: Denominations vary wildly, and it's almost impossible to separate one's personal biases from choosing a congregation.

For example, Catholicism is very heirarchical, stating that one cannot receive salvation except through the Catholic Church. Methodism states that good acts + belief are the gateway to heaven. Lutheranism promises salvation to all that believe in Christ.

Or take the infallibility of the Bible. The Roman Catholic faith places a lot of emphasis on church doctrine, which is based on the Bible to be sure, but also a lot of church constructs. Baptists believe in a very literal interpretation of the Bible. Mainline protestants emphasize historical context and nuance. ELCA does not even claim the Bible is the literal word of God.

Plus, individual congregations within a denomination might have differences in emphasis, sociopolitical leanings, etc. It's important to know that "The Church" is in many cases, and especially for Protestant denominations, made up of congregations from the bottom up, and reflects the aggregate of its membership.

[tenacious_tuna]

I talk about this more in another reply [1], but I'll restate here:

If it's possible for all these varied denominations to come to wildly different conclusions about god, the world, and his desires for us, all based off the same source materials and epistemological tools (e.g., faith)--differences that're important enough to have fought wars and divided nations over--why then do people believe these source materials and tools are still a reliable way to determine how one should live their life?

The fact that these huge disagreements exist is evidence to me that the bible specifically and religious texts generally aren't reliable systems to learn about the world.

What frustrates me is people who "church shop" seem to be aware of this, because they're seeking a church that is similar enough to their existing beliefs yet the indicators of that are difficult to find because even within the same denomination a specific population can hold different beliefs, yet they don't extrapolate to the wider issue of the base beliefs being the issue.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26624502

[agarden]

Have you ever watched a press conference after a sports game and the losing coach is convinced that all the calls went against his team? And then the other coach gets up and starts talking about the calls that went against his team? One could conclude that there is not a reliable way to determine when fouls should be called. And in some sports for some rules that comes into play. But a much larger factor is just self-interest. A man with a great desire to win will be blind to objective reality, all the while fully convinced that he is utterly in the right.

There are very different views on what the United States Constitution means and requires. Arguments about it are had on the internet daily, in congress frequently, in the court system constantly, and there was once even a war over it. One could conclude that the Constitution is such a badly written document that you can make it mean whatever you want it to mean, but I see here the work of self-interest. When the stakes are sufficiently high, men are geniuses at convincing themselves that what they want to be true, is true.

For churches claiming that they believe the bible to be the divinely inspired word of God, the stakes are very, very high. In consequence, the incentives to convince yourself that the bible says what you want it to say are also extremely high. Self-deception thrives under those conditions.

[LargeWu]

Because on the main point, they're all pretty much aligned: Salvation is achieved through Jesus's death on the cross. And fundamentally, it's the only thing that really matters in Christianity.

In that respect, shopping for churches is mostly irrelevant. What you see as fundamental differences are really more social than theological, in which case the shopping around makes a lot of sense.

"the bible specifically and religious texts generally aren't reliable systems to learn about the world."

I think most mainline Christians would reject the notion that the Old Testament is a factual historical record. (Less so for Evangelical and Pentecostal, however). Religion teaches us "why", not "what".

[skissane]

> stating that one cannot receive salvation except through the Catholic Church

The contemporary position of the Catholic Church is that non-Catholic Christians and non-Christians can be saved. What you've said there will be read by many readers as saying that only Catholics will be saved, which is not the Catholic position at all, in fact it is the condemned heresy of Feeneyism.

Now, the Catholic Church also teaches that when non-Catholics and non-Christians are saved, they are saved through the Catholic Church – but in a mystical rather than visible way – so what you've said is literally true, but is prone to misinterpretation.

[jimbokun]

The differences are way over rated, especially between the denominations themselves.

If you look at the core statements of beliefs from various Christian denominations, you will find far more similarities than differences, especially around the core tenets of the faith.

[kongolongo]

How do you choose between a Christian denomination and being Hindu, for example, then?

[tablespoon]

> 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 knowing what he wants?

That doesn't actually seem like a problem specific to religion, but a problem with truth, generally. If anyone believes their beliefs are true, they have to reconcile that with the fact that people disagree, which usually proceeds by believing those people are in error or that the differences aren't significant. I don't think Christians actually believe that the truth is something easy to access, given the emphasis on faith and belief that everyone is flawed, etc.

[tenacious_tuna]

> given the emphasis on faith and belief that everyone is flawed

Forgive my possibly abrasive tone, but "given the emphasis on faith and belief that everyone is flawed" falls apart when the focal point of the church and the religion it purports, the god, is held to be infallible.

The notion that all these disparate groups can cite the same 'source of truth' as their guiding principles, yet come to such significantly different conclusions as to fight wars over them shows those principles aren't as useful or reliable as members of any church make them out to be.

That's where my frustrations come in: churchgoers seem inherently aware of these intense differences, yet don't seem to question the reliability of their text (or view, or belief, or...) despite all these alternative conclusions from the same tools and evidence.

(In Street Epistemology the "Outsider Faith Test" is used to demonstrate this; broadly phrased, "If it is possible for a person of Hinduism to use faith to justify their belief in their god(s), and it's possible for a Christian person to use faith to justify their belief in their god, yet those beliefs are in opposition to one another, is faith a reliable tool to determine what is true?")

[tablespoon]

> Forgive my possibly abrasive tone, but "given the emphasis on faith and belief that everyone is flawed" falls apart when the focal point of the church and the religion it purports, the god, is held to be infallible.

Not really. That only falls apart under particular assumptions (e.g. an assumption that a perfect thing will only create other perfect things, or that perfection will be the particular kind you imagined it must be).

> (In Street Epistemology the "Outsider Faith Test" is used to demonstrate this; broadly phrased, "If it is possible for a person of Hinduism to use faith to justify their belief in their god(s), and it's possible for a Christian person to use faith to justify their belief in their god, yet those beliefs are in opposition to one another, is faith a reliable tool to determine what is true?")

I've got a pretty clear sense that there are regions of truth that our "reliable tools" cannot access. Faith is basically the hope that some of those regions can be accessed in other ways.

[yellowapple]

> 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.

[seoaeu]

> 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.

Couldn't you compare that to deciding between colleges? They all presumably will teach you information that is true, yet the academic culture and their perspectives on the more subjective aspects may differ between them. In academia, this sort of disagreement between schools of thought is generally considered a good thing. Not sure folks are as happy about disagreement when it comes to theology, but there certainly isn't a shortage of it there either.

[eloisius]

> Couldn't you compare that to deciding between colleges? They all presumably will teach you information that is true

Not even close. No one expects their college to impart infallible, ultimate, eternal truth. You expect to be trained in useful theories and practices, and for them to become outdated in due time. Academic disagreements are all part of the dynamic, living, changing reality of academic knowledge. Not so for final truths of what’s right and wrong, true and false.

Maybe that’s why fundamentalists make such lousy arguments in defense of creationism: “science is wrong a lot of the time so how can you trust it?” They’re evaluating academic knowledge through the lens of ultimate truth.

[nnf]

I will not presume to know your reasons for staying in your church beyond what you said here, and I respect your position on leaving the choice to your kids on whether they stick with it.

I will say though that in general there are two points I often see missing from this position:

1) At what point in the kids’ lives will it be their decision? Many kids are required to attend church until a certain age or until they are no longer living under their parents’ roof.

2) Why not start by not taking the kids to church until they are old enough to make the decision themselves? Instilling a fear of hell can be difficult to overcome later in life, even after people lose their faith, which isn’t fair to kids who don’t get a say in the matter.

I hope this doesn’t come off as hostile, as I sincerely don’t mean it to be. I do hope more people consider this though when deciding what is best for their kids, both at the beginning of their lives and once they’re grown.

[thrww20210329]

You might enjoy this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vw_X7IkXB0

[Freak_NL]

There does not seem to be a shortage of church variety to choose from. It's not about churches not being able to answer questions clearly; the reality is just that fewer people believe in gods.

For comparison: in the Netherlands we already dipped below 50% in 2017, and the number of religious people keeps dropping steadily.

In 2019 the remaining religious minority was composed of 20.1% Roman Catholics, 14.8% protestants (various types), 5.0% Muslims, and 5.9% adherents of other religions.

Edit: bear in mind that this is people who consider themselves religious. The percentage of people actually member of a church/mosque/whatever is below 30%.

[CivBase]

> There does not seem to be a shortage of church variety to choose from.

I think this is a deceiving metric. Most churches are less places of worship or religious education and more social clubs dressed up in religious phrases and iconography. There are so many of them because each is designed to appeal to a particular social group, but they all feature a very similar watered down message that just reinforces the congregation's preexisting beliefs. They tend to focus less on education and more on community events, activism, fundraising, and growing their community - just like any other social club.

If you're looking for a church that genuinely teaches its congregation, that's much harder to find. They don't tend to be as successful in terms of growth or wealth. To teach someone, you must either add to what they know or challenge something they think they already know. Most people don't like being challenged - they'd rather go somewhere that reinforces what they already think or just ditch religion altogether.

It's no surprise that the social club churches are disappearing. Even the least devoted members of a church congregation feels bad leaving, just as they might feel bad cancelling a gym membership they never actually use. But their kids often have no such attachments.

[xyzzy21]

I no longer see "believing in God" as being necessary per se to practice or benefit from religion. More important is the self-discipline it can create through repetition and habit.

Religion has the same function as "branding" - it's an efficient short-cut to bypass intensive, and possible unavailable intellectual rigor for some. And because Bell Curves are truly reality, providing a moral and ethical framework that works for everyone and that is internally consistent ENOUGH absolutely matters.

NOTHING we can ever know will be absolute truth or knowledge. You can make a simple proof by physical volumes of an individual and of the universe, combined with Shannon's Law. Humans must always come up short on knowledge and understanding of the universe as a result.

Like all things (even science) you can take a thing too far and exceed its limits of explanation or prediction. But that's unavoidable in a static system sense; which is why you dynamic systems defined by reliable and simple rules and waypoints. Religion absolutely provides that in a minimal effort form.

And we shouldn't project upon "average" and "below average" for what we might be familiar with or assume about intellect. Again: Bell curves for all things are reality. The biggest mistake that intellectuals make is that EVERYONE is just like them and thinks exactly the same way. Nope. Not even on a good day.

[subpixel]

Even if one believes, the notion that these often corrupt, sometimes malignant control organizations we call churches are a necessary expense of both time and money is a harder sell in the modern world.

The social role that churches play is where the opening raises real concern. What comes after organized religion may well look more like conspiracy theory.

[bopbeepboop]

I would argue several modern problems trace to the collapse of churches as a social institution:

- loneliness

- lack of dating/marriage

- lack of community infrastructure

- lack of elder care

If you look at existing charities, much of the rubber meets road work gets done by churches or church affiliated groups.

You don’t have to like the message or the people, but I think it’s pretty obvious ditching churches without a replacement was a mistake.

Edit: reply here since rate limited //

> Yes, this can obviously vary by church--but it's a fallacy to claim that churches as a whole prevented loneliness.

No, you’re the one making a fallacy: your mothers singular bad experience doesn’t refute that churches made a statistically positive impact, which was my claim. You just told an emotional anecdote then declared that I’m wrong due to a straw man. (I never made a universal claim.)

> an entire generation growing up in the shadow of the 2008 financial collapse, as well as unprecedented debt from college

Okay?

The downwards trend in dating and marriage didn’t start in 2008 and doesn’t seem to hold across cultures — there’s a clear cultural component related to social changes in the US.

If you’re saying you think the collapse of churches is on par with excessive college debt as to why two-ish generations aren’t flourishing: I agree.

That’s my point.

> it's a self-selecting population that inherently echochambers, making it difficult to relate to outside groups, thus further damaging community

This sounds like a stereotype more than a fact — and is exactly counter to my experience, where multiple churches collaborate on things like homelessness charities.

That fine grained social structure is a necessary layer of how governments distribute resources effectively, one very poorly replaced by private actors. (In my experience.)

> you don't give any supporting arguments for them

I must have missed yours.

> you quite nicely fit the churchgoer stereotype in that way

Here’s the crux of it: you’re making faulty arguments because you need me to be wrong for your stereotypes to be right.

Eg, calling me a “churchgoer stereotype” when I don’t attend church and you made similarly unsupported arguments.

You’re just a bigot: factually wrong and stereotyping people.

[tenacious_tuna]

I think you're likely ignoring other confounding effects;

> - loneliness

I'm not convinced churches ever solved this meaningfully--my mother left her church specifically because they never treated her as an equal adult, being a single parent. She was lonely _within_ the church. Yes, this can obviously vary by church--but it's a fallalcy to claim that churches as a whole prevented loneliness.

Especially not for those subjugated *by* the church (LGBT, single parent, unmarried, women [depending on doctrine]...)

> - lack of dating/marriage

* an entire generation growing up in the shadow of the 2008 financial collapse, as well as unprecedented debt from college, climate change, etc. driving down the desire to start a family

> lack of community infrastructure

This is much more influenced by increasing polarization and tribalism, which churches have helped cause by providing a platform and existing insular in-group--it's a self-selecting population that inherently echochambers, making it difficult to relate to outside groups, thus further damaging community.

Overall, you make these claims that churches are significant in these ways, but you don't give any supporting arguments for them--you quite nicely fit the churchgoer stereotype in that way.

[shaftoe]

Churches absolutely solve loneliness: it's a ready-made community complete with social events and opportunities that, with small exceptions and discounting odd-ball churches, anyone can join. Yes, they have a morality on right and wrong, but from reading your comment, I'm pretty sure you do too.

People are avoiding dating and marriage because of climate change? This doesn't sound real.

I suspect COVID making everything socially bizarre is having a much bigger impact on dating than a financial bubble bursting 13 years ago.

[greedo]

Haha. My mom was divorced and told by the church that she couldn't remarry. Not because it was against church policy, but because the rector at our parish was against it. So she had to petition the bishop who basically ordered the rector to allow it (and forced him to officiate). So I'm pretty sure that at least this church didn't give a flying hoot about whether my mom was lonely, or seeking marriage etc.

[engineeringwoke]

I think you are looking for a regular socially democratic government, not a church.

[RankingMember]

> I would argue several modern problems trace to the collapse of churches as a social institution: > - loneliness

> - lack of dating/marriage

> - lack of community infrastructure

> - lack of elder care

Do you have any evidence to back this argument up?

[hackflip]

We threw out the baby with the bathwater.

[tenacious_tuna]

Followup to embedded reply;

> You just told an emotional anecdote then declared that I’m wrong due to a straw man

...

> That’s my point.

...

> ...and is exactly counter to my experience...

...

> Here’s the crux of it: you’re making faulty arguments ...

Apologies; You didn't provide any evidence or elaboration on claims in your original post, just that "I think it's pretty obvious ditching churches without a replacement was a mistake," so I did make assumptions about your motivations etc. It would have been better of me to ask "Why do you think churches would have addressed these problems?" instead of blindly countering what I thought your arguments were.

That said:

> I must have missed your [supporting arguments].

I'd thought I gave several possible counter-arguments to your points--which you then responded to? I'm confused as to what you 'missed'.

> Eg, calling me a “churchgoer stereotype”

I did not call you a churchgoer, I said you fit the stereotype, in that you made claims without bothering to effectively support them (at the time); you may consider this 'bigoted' to stereotype in this manner, but to me it's a chronic frustration with defenders of churches. I'll grant that it's implied that I called you a churchgoer, but the specifics there are beside the point.

At this point I would also add on the stereotype that, when your ideas are confronted, you act as if you're under "attack" and are being "oppressed," a la "war on christmas."

> You’re just a bigot: factually wrong and stereotyping people.

I'm not certain I agree with that definition of 'bigot'; I'm also not certain you've demonstrated my factual incorrectness.

I'm also rather frustrated around the disconnect of you treating churches as a roughly homogenous group (as in "ditching churches without a replacement was a mistake", "[most charity] work gets done by churches", "several modern problems trace to the collapse of churches"), yet when I similarly generalize it's "stereotyping" and I'm a bigot.

We clearly have different experiences w.r.t. churches, as most people do. I have plenty of friends who have a litany of issues with the churches they grew up in; I have several other friends and family members who have had wonderful experiences in their churches. Both of these common classes of experience (you may call them anecdotal, I call them endemic) existing in the same space makes it very frustrating to me when people make claims around the positivity of churches with little support and ignoring these widespread flaws. You say it was a mistake to ditch churches without "a replacement"--I'd claim there are many whose lives are better off for having not been subject to the whims of their church, and calling it a mistake to abandon them is to ignore the church's share in their own faults where they exist.

> [saying churches are a self-selecting population that inherently echochambers] sounds like a stereotype more than a fact

People who go to church literally self-select in that they all believe in __roughly__ the same doctrine, god, etc. Even more so if you account for the fact that "church shopping" is a thing where people try to find one that "fits," and then they get their general beliefs reinforced by going. I really don't see what's a stereotype here.

The "outside groups" they struggle to relate to is demonstrable by things like how they interact with LGBT people, or folks of other religions, or atheists. There are certainly examples of where some churches do these things well, but again your claim of "ditching churches without a replacement was a mistake" __does not__ makes these distinctions, and ignoring them is tantamount to ignoring the harm churches--generalized or no!--have done to these groups.

[cjameskeller]

Agreed. This was a major component in my switch from Protestant/Baptist to ("Greek"/Eastern) Orthodox. Having thousands of years of prior religious & philosophical discussions to draw from, as well as the experiences of people living under all manner of political regimes provides a much-needed grounding against whatever may be the current, trendy topics.

And a direct result of that history is that the Church mandates certain practices to shape one's willpower: fasting (roughly half the year, in total, though "fasting" here means small vegan meals), some form of tithing &/or charitable work, explicit self-examination (not only standard prayers, but also Confession with a priest, who helps make a plan against bad habits, as well as an annual event where everyone in the parish asks forgiveness of each other) etc.

[ur-whale]

This approach, "religion as an operator's manual to living one's life" is one of the very rare arguments in defense of religion I can vaguely resonate with.

Unfortunately this argument entirely fails to support all the rest of the luggage, especially the metaphysical hokum: you can perfectly chose to live your life according to a set of rules that will help you (and others) without having to justify it via the existence of some bearded dude sitting on a cloud.

[hudon]

> bearded dude sitting on a cloud

That's a strange straw man. No God-fearing person I know believes in such a thing. God is not a being, but rather is _being itself_. In fact, when Moses asked God what his name was, God replies something like "I am who am". If you prefer an Aristotelian frame, he is the "unmoved mover" [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover

[krapp]

God, as portrayed in the OT, is clearly a being. God has specific thoughts, agency and expresses emotions. God gets tired after making the universe and takes the weekend off. God despairs of humanity and decides to kill everyone in a flood. God calls himself a jealous God. God even argues with Jonah about a houseplant (Jonah 4) and haggles with Ezekiel over what kind of excrement to bake his bread over (Ezekiel 4).

[rcoveson]

The people you know are most like you (the same is true of the people anybody knows), and are a bad proxy for humanity. The number of people who believe their God is "being itself" is vanishingly small compared to the number who believe their God is a real, specific being who has spoken specific words and done specific things.

I agree that "bearded dude sitting on a cloud" is a strawman, but "entity who spoke directly to Adam and Moses" is pretty accurate, in most Christian's eyes.

[deergomoo]

If you search Google Images for “god” there’s an awful lot of bearded men sitting on clouds, so it must be at least a somewhat popular belief

[petre]

Most likely caricatures than popular belief, or caricatures that shape popular belief. Maybe this is why muslims get angry when others make depictions of their prophet?

[today20201014]

God is a being in Genesis. He walks through the Garden.

[joshuacc]

And when someone is in love we say they "walk on clouds." That doesn't mean we're literally ascribing the power of levitation to them.

[today20201014]

> That doesn't mean we're literally ascribing the power of levitation to them.

Exactly, it's figurative language. My point is that when we read in scripture that

> Moses asked God what his name was, God replies something like "I am who am".

the notion of Moses asking God may also be figurative.

[Smoosh]

I always assumed that the "God/Heaven in the clouds" meme came from the same source as Greek gods dwelling atop Mt Olympus being obscured by clouds.

[rbp]

Some Christian commentaries interpret this as God in the person of Jesus Christ: https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide2...

[ur-whale]

> God-fearing

I rest my case.

[hudon]

Ah, you're probably interpreting that as believers walking in fear all day, which again is not the case (side note: studies show that believers are significantly less anxious on a day to day basis. I would link to one study but there are too many that show this so I'll let you Google it).

"God-fearing" is a very ancient phrasing used by the Israelites to refer to anyone that believes in the God as I've described him, "the unmoved mover", "the God of gods", "the Lord of hosts", etc. The term "fear" is our best English translation of the Hebrew text, but the implication here is that we believe that God is just, not arbitrary, and therefore we can respect and submit to his rule and expect fair treatment. Fear only concretely shows up in our hearts when we choose to disobey him. Those who don't believe in his existence or his justice naturally don't have fear when they disobey him, hence the term.

I hope this helps!

[ur-whale]

> Ah, you're probably interpreting that as believers walking in fear all day

No, I was referring to the fact that religious people basically have a slave-like mentality [1][2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPD1YGghtDk

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eefS0gayKFc

[cjameskeller]

A tall mountain, or the ocean, are also "fearsome". The cause of fear here is the power differential, which is not itself a bad thing.

[eszed]

You're right, but there is value in the community of accountability that churches provide. Fasting, tithing, charity work, and self-examination are objectively worthwhile, but not things I'm likely to muster up the will-power to do on my own, at least not regularly. It's like physical exercise: easier to get yourself off your ass when you go to the gym with a friend, or join a regular class.

Also, even though I don't really believe there's any "metaphysical hokum" going on behind it, I'm still moved (aesthetically, and -- dare I say? -- spiritually) by liturgy and church architecture. I'm sitting in the same place, while seeing and smelling and saying the same things that people have for hundreds or thousands of years. That's pretty cool, and I always feel better afterwards. So, even if I'm rationally convinced that it's a psychological (rather than metaphysical) effect, it's still worth doing.

[ur-whale]

> easier to get yourself off your ass when you go to the gym

Yeah, I hear you, but this is where we part ways: to me it's not a matter of willpower, but rather one of - a sin, I know - pride: I can't bear the idea that I'm walking the path of my life using the equivalent of moral crutches.

As to your second argument: no argument there, not everything about religion is bad, even if, in the case of beautiful churches, you could argue that the way they were erected wasn't necessarily "ethical".

[joshuacc]

> some bearded dude sitting on a cloud

You do realize that this idea is explicitly condemned by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam?

[ur-whale]

You do realize that, when talking about a bearded man on a cloud, I was making a point about the fact that most of what the three monotheistic religions you mention (BTW 3 out of many, many equivalently deluded things) are essentially fairy tales designed to control the minds of men?

If at one time the bearded man on a cloud was the useful tool of the day to manipulate crowds and was later "condemned" because better ways were devised to keep the flock believing, in what way does that affect my argument that 90% of religion is utter, unprovable, fairy-tale BS?

[EDIT]: and yeah if you insist on plowing the dirt of literal interpretation, I'll point you to this argument made by another poster : please take a look at the first image that pops when querying google for "god" and come back and tell us that the argument has no basis.

https://images.google.com/search?q=god

[exporectomy]

That's a naive view that assumes people are rational but we're not, not even you. Our minds seem to need some amount of hokum (imaginary beings) to remain sane. Children who grow up with a supportive parent who reliably takes care of them carry the feeling of being cared for and the confidence that comes from it for the rest of their lives even after the parent is dead. A dead person is no more real than God, yet they're very influential in helping people cope with life. I think they serve similar purposes. Just think how much people who are not present with you still influence your feelings every day. Until we meet them again, these people effectively don't exist either. It's all in our heads, just like God.

There's even a psychological technique to build confidence by imagining a supportive person helping you. That's even closer to God or Jesus than a real but absent person.

[rcoveson]

> A dead person is no more real than God...

I'm unconvinced that remembering dead parents amounts to believing in imaginary beings.

Reality is less relative than you're making it out to be. Dead people are "real" because I can reliably predict observable effects their past actions would have had on the world and then confirm them with observation. For example, if I wanted to track down some college essays written by my grandparents, I might actually be able to find some, even though I don't have them in my memories. Or, more practically, I can ask a mutual friend, "remember when {dead person} said X?" And they will say, "yeah, and then they said Y", and I will say, "yeah".

The fact that dead people are dead doesn't make them "hokum" in the way that Zeus or Thor or Moroni are hokum. It's fine to doubt your own mind's relationship with reality, but don't doubt it so much that you become totally disconnected and consider all the people in your memories who you can't immediately re-confirm the existence of to be as immaterial as God.

[ur-whale]

So, in summary: we're not rational beings, therefore improvement through self-delusion?

I'm sorry, but I have two problems with that approach:

    1. Knowing I'm willingly drinking snake oil believing it'll somehow improve me makes it very hard for me to look at myself in the mirror in the morning. On a good day, I'd call myself an idiot, and on a bad one a pathological liar.

    2. Once you open the door to being told fairy tales in hope of improving yourself, you also open the door to letting yourself being manipulated into believing *any* kind BS by other, manipulative people. This is precisely the kind of mental attitude that has given us all the "interesting" byproducts of religion: religious wars, religious persecution, faith-based terrorism, death cults, debasement of arbitrary category of people (eg women, gays) etc ... (the list is long and extremely gruesome).

Nope, none of that for me, thank you.

[cjameskeller]

Sure, but some folks like me also believe the ontological claims are true. For example, here's a sort of summary argument based mainly on the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BfItu3Hm94okBn0dCJfRTjX6...

[drumttocs8]

I grew up in a church that was very serious about "serious" preaching- Primitive Baptist, very focused on Calvinist doctrine and what could be considered scriptural literalism. It was definitely not "baby food"... but they still could not answer some questions clearly, and that is because it is an invention of man rooted in a prescientific understanding of the world. I would argue that church are losing members not because it is being watered down, but because it is losing relevance.

[throwawaygal7]

Original anabaptists were not calvinists... primitive baptists are inherently unserious

[ARandomerDude]

Never thought I'd see the day when HN would turn into the Reformed Pub!

[selimthegrim]

Don't give them any bright ideas...they'll turn into the Reform Club next

[worker767424]

This is what it was smart for the Catholic church to have to issues with evolution. Maintaining a strict creationist stance just gets sillier and sillier over time.

[adkadskhj]

Couldn't agree more. The thing that drove me away from faith was feeling like it was a set of truths that required obscuring the rest of life to keep true.

To me faith is something that you _have_ to understand through the lens of your life. There is no understanding faith before life. Your experiences allow you to understand faith. Which isn't to say that life is more important than faith, not at all, just that life is the lens in which you view faith.

In that mindset, faith seems exceptionally deep and complex. Full of discussion, learning, change. Not a black and white truth, but a series of learnings and understanding. You can't learn (in my mind) without change, and so the idea of a churn that teaches absolute truths felt fundamentally broken to me. I think faith is a journey in knowledge. And so many churches seem almost aggressive towards knowledge. They favor rote memorization, i think, as a method to avoid change. To avoid their doctrine as being mutable.

This mindset also seems pervasive into how these people behave in life, too. Just like how children need to learn to think critically, adults need to practice thinking critically. Such a strong emphasis on rote memorization has wide affects, i think.

No grand statements here, and i mean no offense to religion. Just my thoughts on some denominations.

[gremlinsinc]

Do you not consider God a narcissist? When he says "Worship me", no other gods, I'm a jealous god, worship or face hell-fire, literally threatening if you do not worship?

Why does God need/desire your worship? You know, I have kids. I "hope" they love me and always will, but I'll never force them to say it and I'm definitely not going to punish them if they are mad at me and won't prop up my ego.

[psychometry]

The most "solid" theology is just shaky philosophy, though.

[fennecfoxen]

It's a question of whether or not you buy into the set of assumptions. If you do, you can avail yourself of any one several strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and world-views, which many of history's great minds have reasoned about and scrutinized. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of time on this stuff.

It's the on-the-fly, off-the-cuff, brand new, modern theology/philosophy which tends to end up shaky, simply because it's been done with fewer resources and has seen far less attention.

[klmadfejno]

Appealing to history's greatest minds is a weak appeal to authority. Several of history's greatest minds also spent significant time on pursuits such as alchemy. It does them no disservice to suppose that given modern tools and knowledge they would have formed different opinions. But now we have the ability to explain evolution, brains, astronomy, energy, weather, etc.

Whatever your take on religion is, pointing to the opinions of people living in a much more inscrutable world is not good evidence.

Personally I fall into the camp that omniscience omnipresence and omnibenevolence are just logically incompatible with the christian belief of a good god.

[fennecfoxen]

Excuse me. You will notice that I am not talking about authority. I'm talking about self-consistency in the theology of major world religious.

[yxwvut]

This is the fundamental problem, though. There's an internal consistency so long as all evidentiary evaluation is predicated on the underlying assumption that the attestations are true. Confirmation bias does not make a firm foundation for truth-seeking. Once you realize that your standard of evidence could just as easily support any number of (contradictory) belief systems (were you to start from the premise that that particular religion, not yours, was true) the whole thing begins to crumble.

[fennecfoxen]

You would think that putting Islam and Protestantism in the same comment would indicate to a reader that I'm well aware that the same standard supports mutually exclusive visions of reality but I guess that doesn't do enough to evangelize atheism or agnosticism or rationalism or whatevertheheck so go ahead and have a fun thread (without me)

[klmadfejno]

> which many of history's great minds have reasoned about and scrutinized

This is an appeal to authority. "It's good cuz these people said so"

[vkou]

> It's a question of whether or not you buy into the set of assumptions. If you do, you can avail yourself of any one several strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and world-views, which many of history's great minds have reasoned about and scrutinized. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of time on this stuff.

As an atheist, I do not find[1] those philosophies to be particularly coherent or self-consistent - but obviously, my criticism is only superficial. So, I'll do one better.

A large number of theistic philosophers share my opinion on this - hence the innumerable schisms within Abrahamic religions. Those philosophers looked at their religion, found inconsistencies in it, and forked it.

The problem is that the survivors of those schisms (Catholicism, Eastern orthodoxy, Russian orthodoxy, the Anglican church, Protestantism in its many flavours, Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, etc, etc, etc) did not survive because of their logical or intellectual rigour, or because they were more consistent or coherent then the parent branch that they splintered off from. They survived because they won political, violent power struggles. They survived because might made right. They survived because some influential autocratic warlord was personally swayed by their ideas, and imposed his will on his subjects and neighbours.

Less successful heresies (that, to me have about as good a claim at providing strong, coherent, self-consistent philosophies and world-views as their parent religions) have gone extinct. Not because their arguments or ideas were bad, but because they didn't have enough spear-tips, sword-points, and gun-muzzles behind them.

This sort of selection process does not seem to be like it leads to accurately determining which of these systems survived because they are actually strong, coherent, self-consistent, and which survived because they were better at killing heretics.

[1] My impression of religion is that it tends to identify its inconsistencies and incoherentness, and neatly package it into a black box that it does not engage with, and expects you to have faith. You get a highly self-consistent system, as long as you don't look inside the box.

[dragonwriter]

> The problem is that the survivors of those schisms (Catholicism, Eastern orthodoxy, Russian orthodoxy, the Anglican church, Protestantism in its many flavours, Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, etc, etc, etc) did not survive because of their logical or intellectual rigour, or because they were more consistent or coherent then the parent branch that they splintered off from. They survived because they won political, violent power struggles.

Actually, in many cases, they survived because neither side won the power struggle. E.g., Both sides of the Chalcedon(/Ephesus) schism, the East-West Schism, the Protestant/Catholic schism, the Old Catholic/Catholic schism , the Catholic/Anglican schism (even in England), the reverse schisms between the Uniate Churches and their previous Church of the East/Oriental Orthodox/Eastern Orthodox communities, etc. survive.

[vkou]

Yes, you are correct. 'Won' is a loaded term there - but my point was drawing a distinction between heresies that are still around, and ones that very convincingly lost the struggle for their survival.

From my understanding of European history, that didn't happen because their rhetoricians and intellectuals sat down to peacefully hash things out over tea and crumpets. They didn't survive because of the strength of their arguments - but because of the economics behind them, and because of the caprices of the particular personalities involved.

I'm willing to accept that in the past two centuries, these processes of religious selection have changed substantially [1] - but the fact that this entire argument is painted in the framework of major religions that were established long before the end of European religious wars leads me to believe that 'how religions splintered in 500 AD' is far more relevant for surveying the modern religious atlas than 'how religions splintered in 1900 AD.'

[1] As long as we close our eyes to that Sunni-Shiite thing that's still on-going, and is likely to keep going for the foreseeable future.

[whatshisface]

If you're not allowed to change the orthodoxy, then the contribution of that generation's greatest minds would by definition be heterodoxies. So what you are really saying is that we should expect the most-patched-up theology to be found in the most recent versions. :)

[oblio]

> Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Judaism, Islam: all of them spend a lot of time on this stuff.

They did spend a lot of time and they mostly failed. In many cases those school of thought that ultimately failed were also squashed during a religious power struggle (which is gives organized religion a bad outlook).

[sarabad2021]

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.

[michaelt]

It depends what philosophical questions you want an answer to.

If you're asking "What happens to us after we die?" then the church has as good an answer as anyone, because nobody's bringing any hard evidence to the table.

If you're asking "How should I act and think to be a good person?" then religion has some ideas - some of them really good ideas, like the golden rule - but it's a huge question touching on almost everything. And some of today's questions require a lot of extrapolation over and above the words of the bible.

If you're asking natural philosophy questions, like "what is lightning" or "what do we need to do to prevent future flooding" then you probably won't reference religion at all (except perhaps when you get back to moral questions, like if your flood defence displaces people)

[gspr]

> It explains things which our beyond our natural/physical world. Those things impact how we live in this world.

(1) These two statements seem to me to be incompatible. We live in the natural world. If something "outside the natural world" (whatever that nonsensical statement means) affects the natural world, then surely it's partly part of the natural world?

(2) It is not my business to define what e.g. christians believe, but if I am not mistaken the actual resurrection of an actual man is quite central. How is this not a (bold!) claim about the natural world?

[Digory]

"Naturalism" posits that natural laws are the only rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural world.

So "beyond the natural world" would be shorthand for alternatives to naturalism; the idea there are rules that govern the 'natural world' beyond natural laws or things that can be measured or observed scientifically.

The resurrection is a prime example of rules "beyond the natural" impacting our natural world.

[medstrom]

Well, if the resurrection happened I'd actually class it, and its instigator, as part of the natural world.

[gspr]

So far we have not yet seen a single phenomenon that cannot be explained in the natural system, but can be explained in an alternative system.

(No, "god did it" isn't an explanation.)

If this is all that 1000++ y.o. religions can muster, I say good riddance, laughable attempts at explaining the world.

[engineeringwoke]

I would advise you to head down to your local university and take a religious studies course covering a bit of the Bible. It's usually split into OT/NT.

What you will find there is that we know that the Bible is an amalgam of a script that was pieced together by many, many human authors. It is trivial today to tell because we can cross-reference Koine Greek versus translations and authors chose different words consistently for the same concepts.

So, no. Not really beyond the natural/physical world at all. Just one lie of many competing lies.

[psychometry]

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).

[memling]

> 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).

[postingawayonhn]

For me it raises more questions than it answers.

[whatshisface]

The parent is referring to the (actually, legitimately, really bad) philosophy that you can find in the most puffed-up theology books. It comes from the same process of domain envy that makes some philosophers put the worst math ever in their papers, except it started several hundred years earlier. To cut one slice through it, I can point you to a page of 100% fallacious arguments[0] that only survived as long as they did because they had a popular conclusion.

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/

[User23]

The very page you link lists a logically sound ontological argument[1]. It appears to me that you're judging the argument fallacious because you don't like the conclusion.

[1]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/#Go...

[whatshisface]

The fallacy in that one is thinking that accepting those axioms is any different than directly accepting the conclusion. :) Stating a bunch of axioms and deriving something doesn't prove what you derived, except in a technical sense of the word "prove," not in a useful sense related to determining the truth. Even if we accept that Godel's logic was sound, there is plainly no more reason to believe in his starting point than there is to directly believe in the end.

[medstrom]

What? You contradict yourself several times. Does accepting the axioms obligate you to accept the conclusion or not? First you say it does, then you say it doesn't. And proving something is of course quite literally "determining the truth", you can't just dribble it away like that. This comment looks like word salad intended to let the reader believe whatever they want.

[Mediterraneo10]

Claiming that Anselm's ontological argument "survived" for centuries is rather misleading. Being known as a thing did not mean it was viewed as a viable argument. It was subjected to some harsh criticism literally as soon as it appeared, and whenever it was brought up in later centuries (and not very often, because it was something of a curiosity) it was treated more critically than reverently.

[shadowgovt]

It's always fascinating to me to observe the small distance between the two in some philosophies.

The Discourse on the Method of Descartes, in which his famous phrase je pense, donc je suis occurs also includes a preceding segment where he considers whether he can know anything at all, or whether he's a disembodied consciousness fed false information by evil demonic powers (if you will, the "Matrix hypothesis"). He rebuts that hypothesis with a simple assertion that a just and loving God wouldn't allow such an arrangement of events to be the true nature of reality.

Depending on your bent, that can either allow the discourse to continue or put the brakes completely on it.

[whatshisface]

That's like saying "the most solid philosophy is shaky math." Yes, while plenty of philosophers have physics envy and wish that they were mathematicians, it's not necessarily the best philosophy that is written from that perspective.

[dookahku]

i mostly got tired of being told i going to burn and choke and scream forever and ever, amen, because i like guys and gals. and if i disagreed, the pastor made sure i got punished.

the long term effects wast that this not a healthy thing to tell a young teenager, and it's time for society to move on.

[dillondoyle]

I believe this is a way bigger factor than OP comment says: church failing to keep up with modern society.

1000% that's why I am against many (perhaps most by % in the US?) of the organized religious congregations.

those that identify queer, gender-fluid, whatever are told their literal existence is sin. it's hard to imagine how damaging that is if you're not in this community. It'd be like telling someone who has orange hair they are going to hell for something they have absolutely no control over.

In the worst cases they push parents to try to 'change' their kids, which has been shown to be incredibly dangerous and damaging.

Even if you're in a 'liberal' church that says we love gays like we love all humans, but don't think about getting married and in some cases can't have sex, that still does a huge amount of psychological damage and putting us on the outside of 'normal.'

[Zelphyr]

I too got tired of the yelling and the fire-and-brimstone-you’re-gonna-burn-in-hell if you’re not God-fearing. That word: “fear”. They were using it as a tool to manipulate.

Finally, I realized, “Why does God want me to be scared all the time?” Shouldn’t God be allaying my fears, not being the source of them?

[worker767424]

Some people go to church for answers, but I think a lot are really just there for the community and play along with the religious parts because of inertia.

[rchaud]

What are the questions that church leaders are getting from their flock these days? Some big questions are being debated in society, sure, but the church's position on a lot of things is set in stone, is it not?

Maybe this is my ignorance talking, but I thought those with active church membership continue to go to participate in social events and make friends/partners?

[objectivetruth]

The Christian Church has been getting steadily less monolithic for the past 1700 years or so.

Some of the topics being discussed in our (US) church in the past couple of years:

* the devastating personal and economic toll of the pandemic and how we can help individually and in aggregate

* race relations in the US and the history of injustices caused by racism, including police brutality, and how we can respond in our daily lives

* LGBTQ-related topics, including the ability of people of different sexual identities to participate fully at all levels of the church hierarchy

* the environmental impact of our actions at the personal level all the way up to the institutional level as it pertains to human-caused climate change

You can find many churches in the US with people that believe in every possible belief related to all of these issues.

No, it's not just potlucks and singles nights :-)

[bko]

What are those questions for which you seek answers that you believe some churches are not adequately addressing?

[pmiller2]

Take a look at the popularity of "prosperity gospel" with poor and middle class individuals. This is as a response to the inequality and social immobility brought about since the mid 70s. I'll leave out explicit mention of the "C word," because I'll get downvotes for it, but the sociological analysis is fascinating on its own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology#Socioecono...

[bko]

Whats the alternative for those less fortunate?

I mentored kids for much of my life and you can bet I told them they could be anything they want if they set their mind to it. What should I preach? That they're victims and screwed because of accident of geography/genetics? Is that a useful framework for life?

You can say that you teach them the system is unfair will help them break it. But that amounts to political indoctrination if you're not careful. Instead, teach them to change the world themselves by being kind to those around them.

[tenacious_tuna]

> What should I preach? That they're victims and screwed because of accident of geography/genetics? Is that a useful framework for life?

> Whats the alternative for those less fortunate?

(disclaimer: atheist)

Your stance is a classic of church thinking: remove the agency from the people in the situation, and delegate it to god, saying he will fix the problem __somehow__, but they need'nt involve themselves.

The alternative is honesty and historical accuracy. To try to conceal or ignore what forces in their past have done to minimize them is to make it impossible for them to decide for themselves how they want to deal with these problems--you're removing their agency.

Maybe they'll choose to dedicate their lives to researching genetic problems, or to correcting social injustice, raising awareness of subconscious bias or changing how certain systems in our culture purposefully minimize portions of the population.

This attitude, that being kind to those around them will bring change, while noble, is incredibly naive and shortsighted. Nearly every major social change in United States history was brought about through groups of people uniting and demonstrating their combined force, demanding the rights they'd been denied.

> You can say that you teach them the system is unfair will help them break it. But that amounts to political indoctrination if you're not careful.

Your alternative will lead to stunted critical thinking, and serves only to prevent the questions many deconverting folk have asked of the god they believed in: "How is this fair?", "How could you let this happen?", "How will you fix this?"

[pmiller2]

There is no separating economics from politics, really. If God can't deliver, people have to, and that's inherently a political position.

[bko]

So indoctrinate your children into your current political ideology?

Sure, many people do that. Not exactly a new or novel idea, but personally I'm not a fan.

[pmiller2]

I'm not sure what you mean by "your children" and "your current political ideology," but, no matter what you do, children are going to acquire a political ideology, there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop it, and there's no guarantee at all that you're going to like their ideology. Most of them get at least the initial version of it from their parents. A lot of peoples' ideology gets shaped in early adulthood, when they're either at school or on their own for the first time. My parents didn't raise a communist, but that's what they got, for better or worse.

I have never personally known a clergy member to be particularly political, but we know that a large part of the US is politically driven by religious forces. Like it or not, church and state are not fully separated.

I guess what I'm saying is that none of what I've written here was particularly intended as advice to you in your position as a religious teacher of children. I will say, however, that Jesus himself did have some explicitly political teachings. Matthew 19:24 comes to mind:

> And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Do with this what you will.

[avasylev]

Could you please share which churches you think have solid theology?

[luxuryballs]

Calvary Chapel churches are usually pretty solid.

[pantalaimon]

Like their prediction of Jesus return in 1981?

[luxuryballs]

I think that was just one guy.

[cwwc]

I get this, but wouldn’t the flip side be the brightness and relief that hypocrisy is being culled through this? Just a thought — but if you stop acting in a way (attending church) that doesn’t jive with what you believe, that seems to be revealing truth (something which all ca rejoice over, even if it’s a tough truth).

On the other hand — if it is people that are losing their faith, that is perhaps different, and I can see your concern.

[CedarMills]

I think the word hypocrisy is thrown around easily. I think churches have made mistakes and there are no excuses for them - but painting every single church and every single believer with a broad brush and calling everyone a hypocrite is intellectually dishonest.

My personal worldview - at the end of the day, we're human and should see others as humans who make mistakes and give enough grace for them to try to improve.

[cwwc]

Concurred. Absolutely.

[unpolloloco]

I'd guess you're a Gen X from your comment? I'd claim that, for the younger generations (middle millennials and younger), that the very claim that the church has all the answers is the problem itself. They deal in relatives and uncertainty as a general rule and the very assertion that one person (or one group of people) has all the answers is laughable. They appreciate humility and acknowledged uncertainty more than clear answers.

I'd posit that these generations are primarily looking for acceptance, not answers. And they're not getting that acceptance, so they leave. Which was my experience - I started questioning teachings (directly based on my reading of scripture) and had leaders shut down on me entirely and refuse to talk further instead of engaging because it didn't fit in the prescribed "answer" - and this was in a fairly "open-minded" church. I'd come back tomorrow if I could find a church that (most importantly) actually accepted me for me and (secondly) would actually engage in tough topics instead of just giving me hollow "answers" that didn't answer the question (and often conflicted directly with scripture!). I guess what I'm looking for is a church that actually practiced grace and acceptance, answers be damned. That's what Jesus did (see hanging out with tax collectors and prostitutes and preaching a message of love for everyone). Why can't the church do it too?

[yalogin]

Interesting. Can you give a few examples of what questions these are?

[wslack]

Yep. It's a pity there isn't more attention for churches that answer questions clearly and dig into nuance - but complexity doesn't get attention.

[outside1234]

Agreed - especially in the face of obvious sinful behavior in the case of Trump that they somehow can't speak out against.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

The internet and the ability to discuss these issues anonymously has exacerbated irreligion faster than communism ever could. And unlike stalinist/maoist regimes, people are doing it on their own free will.

[rorykoehler]

As a non believer I love to see it. Believing in something you can’t prove and in turn trying to shove it down everyone’s throat is the antithesis to the world I want to live in. George W Bush and Tony Blair both admitted that the second gulf war was partially a religious crusade. This is who you’re teaming up with.