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Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

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Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

MissThundercat said:
Christianity's problem right now is that it's perceived as bitter, hateful, resentful, and that it sends a message of "God only loves you if you're white, conservative, heterosexual, cisgender, and you believe exactly like us." In private, such as my conversations with Rev. Jen, is that 98% of Christians aren't like that. I just wish the 98% would start speaking up and saying "*******s don't speak for us."

The reverend has helped me understand that she's in the silent majority. I walk into Grace Episcopal and I don't get a second look for wearing a skirt or carrying a purse.
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TCat...to carry this forward. Broadly speaking, Christians give. Per Philanthropy Roundtable:

Religious faith is a central influence on giving. Religious people are much more likely than the non-religious to donate to charitable causes—including secular causes—and they give much more. And the results show that persons who attend religious services twice a month or more give over four times as much as persons who never attend services.

We know the religious are also far more likely to volunteer. Among Americans who have volunteered within the last year, three quarters belong to a religious organization, one quarter do not.
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

MissThundercat said:
Christianity's problem right now is that it's perceived as bitter, hateful, resentful, and that it sends a message of "God only loves you if you're white, conservative, heterosexual, cisgender, and you believe exactly like us." In private, such as my conversations with Rev. Jen, is that 98% of Christians aren't like that. I just wish the 98% would start speaking up and saying "*******s don't speak for us."

The reverend has helped me understand that she's in the silent majority. I walk into Grace Episcopal and I don't get a second look for wearing a skirt or carrying a purse.
Click to expand...

Perceived by who, though? Basically, people who aren't part of the religious group, right?

All religion is essentially different cults. What's the old gag, if the leader is alive, it's a cult. If the leader is dead, it's a religion. People are afraid of cults. And the more people in the cult seem different from you and me, the more we're afraid of them. When you are afraid, you're going to act out against the other side. Outsiders feel threatened by the cult, insiders feel threatened by the outsiders.

It will always be that way. Basically, its the nature of all living things, "birds of a feather" so to speak.
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

SJHovey said:
Perceived by who, though? Basically, people who aren't part of the religious group, right?

All religion is essentially different cults. What's the old gag, if the leader is alive, it's a cult. If the leader is dead, it's a religion.
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Or, "a religion is a cult with a navy."
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

SJHovey said:
Perceived by who, though? Basically, people who aren't part of the religious group, right?
Click to expand...

We didn't used to perceive Christians as a bunch of loud-mouthed fanatical hypocrites thundering fire and brimstone out of one side of their mouth while bedding down every underaged girl or boy they could get their grubby hands on with the other.

It took the "Christian Right," Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and James Dobson and Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann and Mike Huckabee, to turn the public face of Christianity into a bunch of pedophile con men and mental defectives.

It's a self-inflicted wound. Good Christians need to tell those Tartuffian Father Coughlins to go f-ck themselves. Christians have the Muslim ISIS problem: if you don't condemn them then you're joining forces whether you like it or not. Up until now Christian leaders have been perfectly willing to cut that deal because it gave them power, and Christian voters have been willing to because it gave them anti-choice SCOTUS votes.

They bought the ticket and now they're taking the ride.
 
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Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

Kepler said:
Non-Christian didn't used to perceive Christians as a bunch of loud-mouthed fanatical hypocrites thundering fire and brimstone out of one side of their mouth while bedding down every underaged girl or boy they could get their grubby hands on with the other.

It took the "Christian Right," Robertson and Falwell and Dobson, to turn the public face of Christianity into a bunch of pedophile con men.
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BS. The only thing that's changed is the coarseness of human dialogue. Society used to abide by the old saw, "if you can't say something nice about someone, say nothing at all." Now, we can't wait to publicly excoriate those we don't like, or fear.
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

5mn_Major said:
TCat...to carry this forward. Broadly speaking, Christians give. Per Philanthropy Roundtable:

Religious faith is a central influence on giving. Religious people are much more likely than the non-religious to donate to charitable causes—including secular causes—and they give much more. And the results show that persons who attend religious services twice a month or more give over four times as much as persons who never attend services.

We know the religious are also far more likely to volunteer. Among Americans who have volunteered within the last year, three quarters belong to a religious organization, one quarter do not.
Click to expand...

Tithing to the church officially counts as a charitable donation. Was that taken into account? Once you remove tithing to the church, where do those figures sit?
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

Kepler said:
We didn't used to perceive Christians as a bunch of loud-mouthed fanatical hypocrites thundering fire and brimstone out of one side of their mouth while bedding down every underaged girl or boy they could get their grubby hands on with the other.

It took the "Christian Right," Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and James Dobson and Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann and Mike Huckabee, to turn the public face of Christianity into a bunch of pedophile con men and mental defectives.

It's a self-inflicted wound. Good Christians need to tell those Tartuffian Father Coughlins to go f-ck themselves. Christians have the Muslim ISIS problem: if you don't condemn them then you're joining forces whether you like it or not. Up until now Christian leaders have been perfectly willing to cut that deal because it gave them power, and Christian voters have been willing to because it gave them anti-choice SCOTUS votes.

They bought the ticket and now they're taking the ride.
Click to expand...

The other thing that's changed is participation.

50 or 100 years ago, everyone belonged to one of the cults. Those very few that didn't (essentially a cult themselves) were so few in number that they dared not speak their minds about what they considered the sinister aspects of religion. It didn't stop the cults from going after other cults, though.

As more people opted out of joining the cults, the outsiders became braver. Safety in numbers, as they say.

100 years ago you would have never spoken the words about organized religion that you post on here, even if you knew everything then that you know now. The possible backlash against you would prevent you from doing so.
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

SJHovey said:
The other thing that's changed is participation.

50 or 100 years ago, everyone belonged to one of the cults. Those very few that didn't (essentially a cult themselves) were so few in number that they dared not speak their minds about what they considered the sinister aspects of religion. It didn't stop the cults from going after other cults, though.

As more people opted out of joining the cults, the outsiders became braver. Safety in numbers, as they say.

100 years ago you would have never spoken the words about organized religion that you post on here, even if you knew everything then that you know now. The possible backlash against you would prevent you from doing so.
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This is very true. The main reason religious people are going bonkers now is we can say with impunity "the emperor has no clothes." That used to be an invitation to a beating or a hanging. The herpa-derps are still just as irrational and just as violent but they just don't have that sort of muscle anymore.

I was raised to understand that it prudent and safe, as well as polite, to not tell stupid people they're stupid. Adult life is not dissimilar from the school yard: you don't enrage the dumb kids because they're bigger and there are more of them. The stupid people could have continued in perfect bliss, never realizing they were stupid, but they started trying to make their Magic Book the law of the land. F-ck that -- the Founders were quite clear on the subject.

So now the stupid people are finding out just how behind they are, in every respect: knowledge, ethics, introspection, personal relationships, politics, health, hell -- personal hygiene -- and they're having a conniption fit. And there will always be people who see that kind of a ready market of rage and think to themselves, "I can use that anger and ignorance to make a buck," or get elected. I give you: the Christian Right, talk radio, the NRA, and the GOP.
 
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Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

Kepler said:
This is very true. The main reason religious people are going bonkers now is we can say with impunity "the emperor has no clothes." That used to be an invitation to a beating or a hanging. The herpa-derps are still just as irrational and just as violent but they just don't have that sort of muscle anymore.

I was raised to understand that it prudent and safe, as well as polite, to not tell stupid people they're stupid. Adult life is not dissimilar from the school yard: you don't enrage the dumb kids because they're bigger and there are more of them. The stupid people could have continued in perfect bliss, never realizing they were stupid, but they started trying to make their Magic Book the law of the land. F-ck that -- the Founders were quite clear on the subject.
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I don't think religion has really changed. 50 years ago I wasn't frightened of them, no matter how different they were, and I'm not now. I always thought the Mormons were a bit off when they walked around town in pairs, and I couldn't wait until the Moonies showed up each year, but it never really bothered me.

Religions have always tried to make their belief systems part of the public law, dating back to the beginning of time. Nothing has changed in that regard.

What you view as the imposition of sharia law, they view as preaching to the unwashed.

My view has always been, keep an eye on them and what they are doing. But somehow we have to figure a way to all co-exist, and vilifying them is not the way to do it.
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

SJHovey said:
My view has always been, keep an eye on them and what they are doing. But somehow we have to figure a way to all co-exist, and vilifying them is not the way to do it.
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Nobody's vilifying the religious: in itself it seems to be a very useful social control mechanism that works much better than reason to order the lives of the majority of monkey people. And for f-cks sake it makes stuff like this:

<img src="http://www.exploringtourism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/charters7.jpg" />

Just look at that. Atheism is factually correct, sure, but we never did anything like that! The religious are OK in my book just for flying buttresses and rose windows.

The vilification is reserved for the violent and the coercive, and those people need more than watching, they need to be actively opposed because they are dangerous micropenile jackwagons who will slit your throat if their cult leader says to. You may be familiar with their work in the Middle East.

<img src="https://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ISISMassacreCrop.jpg" />

And what is the Middle East but Kansas with higher literacy?
 
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Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

St. Clown said:
Tithing to the church officially counts as a charitable donation. Was that taken into account? Once you remove tithing to the church, where do those figures sit?
Click to expand...

Churches are havens for societal support. Typically their largest initiatives include aid for the local community, aid to internationally challenged areas and aid to the immediate congregation. Numerous Mpls churches directly help the homeless, including First Covenant, St. Stephens and St. Olafs. Many work with the Churches United for the Homeless. This list of direct and indirect church based charitable programs is really endless.

But per Giving USA Foundation, giving to churches is at only 31% of total charity. Due to the $2900/year Christian giving (vs. $700/year for non Christians)...much if not most of Christian donations are going to non church charities. Christian philanthropy works on many levels.
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

SJHovey said:
What you view as the imposition of sharia law, they view as preaching to the unwashed.
Click to expand...

As I've said, faith is an open free marketplace for help. Many need it, many need to give it.

Not really sure what's driving the paranoia to which you refer.
 
Re: Religion Thread: We Could Say a Prayer

SJHovey said:
BS. The only thing that's changed is the coarseness of human dialogue. Society used to abide by the old saw, "if you can't say something nice about someone, say nothing at all." Now, we can't wait to publicly excoriate those we don't like, or fear.
Click to expand...
I think it is much easier for the religious crazies to get traction than it used to be. The 'Machine' controlled the message and the dialogue. It was calculated and they controlled the playing field. Now we have your average sociopath who can manipulate people via social media to recruit and buy into all sorts of crazy. Scroll thru twitter feeds of some of these people. Yikes!
 
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