I live in what at least used to be the most Baptist county in America per capita. We have a few "space churches" so big you can see them from orbit (so to speak). But most people are like my dad. There's a Bible in their house somewhere, but they don't read it. There's a church down the road in any direction, but they've never been inside. They're generally down-home moral people, good neighbors, hard working, with a good sense of right and wrong. But yeah, they live in a grey area where they shrug off morality because of course it comes from a religion they don't practice.
I'd say get your ass in church and read your own book. After all, taking it seriously is what made me an atheist.
You remind me of something I heard a while ago, and have been coming back to: the purpose of sacrifice. Historically, religions have always involved some cost, some expensive proof of faith. And that binds the group members together. I'm not certain why; it seems like a sunk-cost fallacy or "misery loves company" to me. But then, I walked away from the (largely cultural) Christianity I grew up in, in part because I saw no benefit to the costs it incurred. Which was blasphemy to the True Believers I left behind.
Maybe that's why modern culture war seems so shallow; it's full of casuals. People without any real commitment, just joined a side because their friends did or because they like the vibes.
I often say that being 'spiritual' not 'religious' is like playing tennis against a backboard. From Neitszche and Durheim to Lewis and Haidt, social scientists and philosophers and theologians alike often pint out that humans have a deep inner drive for the religious. But it can often become perverse and destructive, such as with Nazism or religious fundamentalism. But despite its flaws and failings, as an institution and doctrine constructed by flawed and failing humans, religion is its best light can provide fellowship and community in the face of anomie and loneliness, meaning and purpose in the face of brute materialism and arid atheism, and guide in grappling with the Big Issues the nature of Good and Evil, of inescapable suffering and pain, and of the stark reality of death.
Hokum study, pap article. How do we know these "barely religious" wouldn't be even worse off without such a veil? Was there a randomized study assigning some "nonreligious" people to attend church twice a year & assigning some "barely religious" people to stop going entirely, so we could compare the results?
No? There wasn't? Then this is obvious, obvious, obvious pap, of the stupidest and laziest kind. You are displaying genuine scientific illiteracy in presenting this bunko as actionable fact. I sincerely recommend a basic statistics course.
Why did you write this? Do you want the "fake religious" to stop going to church?
If they feel it helps them, why do you care? Are they crowding you out of the pews?
They're clinging on to a shred of meaning, at least, & it's quite odd of you to say, as you seem to do, that they should let go. What would you have them do instead? "Rationally" go to therapy twice a week? "Rationally" take pills for existential malaise?
The problem with you, and a heck of a lot of other people, is that you're not actually, truly scientific, just "culturally scientific." You're happy to quote numbers and passages to serve a present purpose, but you don't make any real habit of adherence to its laws or basic tenets, and you're shallow at best on its fundamental system. Unlike those "culturally religious" people, who are soooo annooooying, and who do they think they're fooling, this is an actual problem, because the "culturally scientific" think they get to speak on reality, and on how other people live their lives.
Benefits, schmenefits. I am not a cultural Jew because I have no faith in the legitimacy of being one.
Some fundamentals of Judaism cannot be disowned without disowning Jewish identity itself. To be a real Jew in North America you actually have to believe in Judaism. Without the Jewish religion and without Israeli citizenship, I am not Jewish.
Religiosity has never been proven to be the cause of well-being. Confounding factors prevalent in religious people such as marriage, family, community, class, and conscientiousness provide a better explanation for well-being. However, none of these factors are excluded by an atheistic worldview, such as my own.
I live in what at least used to be the most Baptist county in America per capita. We have a few "space churches" so big you can see them from orbit (so to speak). But most people are like my dad. There's a Bible in their house somewhere, but they don't read it. There's a church down the road in any direction, but they've never been inside. They're generally down-home moral people, good neighbors, hard working, with a good sense of right and wrong. But yeah, they live in a grey area where they shrug off morality because of course it comes from a religion they don't practice.
I'd say get your ass in church and read your own book. After all, taking it seriously is what made me an atheist.
You remind me of something I heard a while ago, and have been coming back to: the purpose of sacrifice. Historically, religions have always involved some cost, some expensive proof of faith. And that binds the group members together. I'm not certain why; it seems like a sunk-cost fallacy or "misery loves company" to me. But then, I walked away from the (largely cultural) Christianity I grew up in, in part because I saw no benefit to the costs it incurred. Which was blasphemy to the True Believers I left behind.
Maybe that's why modern culture war seems so shallow; it's full of casuals. People without any real commitment, just joined a side because their friends did or because they like the vibes.
I often say that being 'spiritual' not 'religious' is like playing tennis against a backboard. From Neitszche and Durheim to Lewis and Haidt, social scientists and philosophers and theologians alike often pint out that humans have a deep inner drive for the religious. But it can often become perverse and destructive, such as with Nazism or religious fundamentalism. But despite its flaws and failings, as an institution and doctrine constructed by flawed and failing humans, religion is its best light can provide fellowship and community in the face of anomie and loneliness, meaning and purpose in the face of brute materialism and arid atheism, and guide in grappling with the Big Issues the nature of Good and Evil, of inescapable suffering and pain, and of the stark reality of death.
Hokum study, pap article. How do we know these "barely religious" wouldn't be even worse off without such a veil? Was there a randomized study assigning some "nonreligious" people to attend church twice a year & assigning some "barely religious" people to stop going entirely, so we could compare the results?
No? There wasn't? Then this is obvious, obvious, obvious pap, of the stupidest and laziest kind. You are displaying genuine scientific illiteracy in presenting this bunko as actionable fact. I sincerely recommend a basic statistics course.
Why did you write this? Do you want the "fake religious" to stop going to church?
If they feel it helps them, why do you care? Are they crowding you out of the pews?
They're clinging on to a shred of meaning, at least, & it's quite odd of you to say, as you seem to do, that they should let go. What would you have them do instead? "Rationally" go to therapy twice a week? "Rationally" take pills for existential malaise?
The problem with you, and a heck of a lot of other people, is that you're not actually, truly scientific, just "culturally scientific." You're happy to quote numbers and passages to serve a present purpose, but you don't make any real habit of adherence to its laws or basic tenets, and you're shallow at best on its fundamental system. Unlike those "culturally religious" people, who are soooo annooooying, and who do they think they're fooling, this is an actual problem, because the "culturally scientific" think they get to speak on reality, and on how other people live their lives.
Benefits, schmenefits. I am not a cultural Jew because I have no faith in the legitimacy of being one.
Some fundamentals of Judaism cannot be disowned without disowning Jewish identity itself. To be a real Jew in North America you actually have to believe in Judaism. Without the Jewish religion and without Israeli citizenship, I am not Jewish.
Religiosity has never been proven to be the cause of well-being. Confounding factors prevalent in religious people such as marriage, family, community, class, and conscientiousness provide a better explanation for well-being. However, none of these factors are excluded by an atheistic worldview, such as my own.
What timing to have this written and out just in time for Richard Dawkins claiming to be culturally Christian.