Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Atheism was never ushered in. You got it backwards.
It's always been there until it was theism that ushered itself in.
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Thousands of churches are closing across the U.S.
- Thread starter We Never Know
- Start date
It's always been there until it was theism that ushered itself in.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I'm clearly not following your train of thought. I don't, for example, see any connection between i.e. having your social life tied to a religious community and power.
Communities are actually good things. Indeed, scientific research has shown that people involved in religious communities are statistically happier, healthier, longer lived, and have a buffer against anxiety and depression.
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
No. Why would you think that?
If skipping church will get you grief from your family or friends, you're more likely to go even when you don't want to.
Likewise, the less your family and friends are invested in you sticking with your religion, the freer you are to follow your conscience on religious matters.
Exactly. This is why someone whose community is focused on a church will often be reluctant to leave even when they stop believing, while someone whose community is more secular will have an easier time leaving their church when they no longer believe in it.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
That’s nonsense. Atheism is a reaction against theism, the label should tell you that. As such, it wouldn’t exist without theism, any more than antifa would exist without fascism.
Viker
Your beloved eccentric Auntie Cristal
What is considered, in the broadest sense, weak atheism is just a description of the lack of having any theism or belief in deities. It's not a reaction. Anti-theism is more like antifa.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Nonetheless, negatives have significance only in relation to positives. The absence of nothing doesn’t have a label, only the absence of something does.
More like how non-smoking wouldn't exist as a label without smoking.
Either way, there would be a ton of people not smoking for various reasons (or no reason at all), but nobody would bother to divide the world into smokers and non-smokers unless smokers existed.
Question begging is actually something different,
ie, a logical fallacy based on a faulty premise.
But the post does raise your question.Begging the question - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
From your linked source:
"Informal use of the phrase "begs the question" also occurs with an entirely dissimilar sense in place of "prompts a question" or "raises a question"."
We should rise above common ignorance
that risks one inferring accusation of a logical
fallacy, when the intent is to raise a question.
Tis generally good practice that if one uses
highfalutin speech, then know what it means.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
Churches have been opening and closing since the foundation of Christianity as we know it.
However in the last century the proportion of closing churches has increased to an all time high.
Even during the enlightenment when many Christians moved over to deism, humanism Unitarianism and many other more rational belief systems.
The total number of "Church" Attenders actually increased if you count those into the calculation.
In the atomic age and continuing in the communication age. The old religious belief systems have come under increasing pressure from rational thought. And agnosticism and atheism has become the growing norm among the educated people. While this is no way related to politics. It did show a massive increase in the early communist states. But has increases still further in western Europe. The USA is rather late to the party, but is following exactly the same path as Europe.
Religion is far from dead but no longer holds the dominant position in society that it once did. It's ability to cause rifts between peoples continues unabated, but fortunately it's ability to do so is waning.
The power for religion to dominate social culture in towns and village life has perhaps it's last bastion in parts of the USA. This is far less so elsewhere. Where the local social dominance of religion has long since eroded away.
It is this erosion that has removed the need for churches as focal points for social contacts.
Their usefulness is all but ended in a majority of people's lives.
However in the last century the proportion of closing churches has increased to an all time high.
Even during the enlightenment when many Christians moved over to deism, humanism Unitarianism and many other more rational belief systems.
The total number of "Church" Attenders actually increased if you count those into the calculation.
In the atomic age and continuing in the communication age. The old religious belief systems have come under increasing pressure from rational thought. And agnosticism and atheism has become the growing norm among the educated people. While this is no way related to politics. It did show a massive increase in the early communist states. But has increases still further in western Europe. The USA is rather late to the party, but is following exactly the same path as Europe.
Religion is far from dead but no longer holds the dominant position in society that it once did. It's ability to cause rifts between peoples continues unabated, but fortunately it's ability to do so is waning.
The power for religion to dominate social culture in towns and village life has perhaps it's last bastion in parts of the USA. This is far less so elsewhere. Where the local social dominance of religion has long since eroded away.
It is this erosion that has removed the need for churches as focal points for social contacts.
Their usefulness is all but ended in a majority of people's lives.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
That's true. However there were no theists at the start. Just those who had no beliefs in God.
That makes them atheists all the same.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Like what?
What collateral damage?
By all means, historical architecture and the like should be preserved, but there are heritage protection laws and the like for that.
You & I both, bub.I see what you're getting at now.
I just need extra help sometimes.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
I grew up in the 50's and 60's, and that just what my family did, including me. However, the denomination I grew up in didn't accept the ToE, plus condemned other religions and denominations, so when I went to college I stopped going. It wasn't until I was 30 that I regularly went to church with my Catholic wife.
Now I go there most of the time and I also periodically attend shul.
flowerpower
Member
Sense of real world community, shared charitable initiatives and a sense of authentic spirituality (even if it's just someone who's lost being given some guidance by a mentor or something) that might otherwise be filled with self destructive nihilism or ideological fervourism which has been very much on the uptick lately.
It seems to me that the churches that are closing generally fall into one of two categories:
- Dwindling, unsustainable congregations. These ones aren't providing "real world community" to many, and can't even keep up with their own building maintenance, to say nothing of "shared charitable initiatives."
- Churches that are being closed either to liquidate them to pay off legal judgments against them, or because theur diocese has declared bankruptcy rather than pay off legal judgments. I think the world is better off without these churches.