Religion

[lordstanley]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

Probably true in a lot of denoms. Apropos that Tater posted that lecture by Watts above where he makes the excellent point that a person can only talk about things in the forms/images/language they have particular access and experience in, IOW that your communication is all culturally conditioned. Paul is pretty revolutionary when you filter him through the lens of what he was - an upper class(probably),  Pharasaic Jew of the Roman Empire. Of course by today's culture he still appears in places as reactionary. I don't think that's the best take, but YMMV.

I always look back to the story told in Acts about Peter and Paul disagreeing on doctrine. I am always astounded the curators of the NT let that story slip through because to me it is the most salient episode in all of post resurrection writing and blows-up every church's claim to interpretive authority. You are not an evil person because you disagree on doctrine. If Peter and Paul do not, nobody ever will, no-one really has any better claim to it than anyone else.

(yeah - they'd probably have burned me at the stake as Gnostic heretic too )

Heretics sometimes get a bum rap. One of the most famous events in Church history was the Arian controversy of the 4th century, resolution of which led to among other things the Nicene Creed. On the one hand, the priest Arius and like-minded bishops such as Eusebius of Nicomedia perceived Jesus as a highly moral person created and then adopted by God as his Son, with Jesus being raised from the dead and granted a divine yet subordinate status. To future saint Athanasius and his mentor Alexander of Alexandria, the Arian position was destructive since their view was that Jesus was fully and equally God, which not only upheld the principle of monotheism but was necessary if one were to believe that Christ was capable of offering mankind moral and physical salvation. It was a genuinely undecided issue, with support for the respective positions ebbing and flowing practically year by year, city by city, council by council, emperor by emperor. It deeply involved the urban, Greek-speaking Christian laity, who were no country bumpkins. Cities at the heart of the Roman world in late antiquity – Alexandria, Antioch and then Constantinople – were sophisticated metropolises where trade, commerce, art, and learning flourished. Gregory of Nyssa later in the century quipped about Constantinople that “in this city if you ask a shopkeeper for change, he will argue with you about whether the Son is begotten or unbegotten”. Not one, not two, but at least four councils deemed Arian’s views to be orthodox prior to his death although that position eventually lost out. Meanwhile Athanasius repeatedly was hit with charges of financial extortion and  incitement of violence, all of which resulted in Athanasius being exiled on five different occasions totalling almost 20 years by multiple emperors. But the Athanasius position eventually won out. 

[CMRivdogs]

This popped up in my feed today

https://andrewwhitehead.substack.com/p/how-do-religious-americans-view-the?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

 

A few interesting takeaways 

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White Christian groups have the highest levels of approval of Trump’s second term as president. White evangelicals (76%) are clearly thrilled, with slim majorities of white mainline and white Catholics approving of Trump.

Quote

Turning to Christian nationalism, we can see that Americans who are at least sympathetic to it are clearly most approving of Trump (67% and 77%), while Skeptics of Christian nationalism (42%) and Rejecters (9%) are less so. The Skeptics number is surprising to me—it clearly departs from both the Sympathizer/Adherent groups as well as the Rejecter group. 

Quote

While the data visualization is just a bit confusing, PRRI asked folks to agree or strongly agree with one of two statements—Is Trump a dangerous dictator or a strong leader? Most Americans see him as a potentially dangerous dictator. 

But Hispanic Protestants, and especially white Christians, are more likely to see him as a strong leader who needs power in order to restore America’s greatness.

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One of the most alarming findings of the past few PRRI surveys has been a growing, but still minority, level of support for political violence. In the current survey they actually find the level of support for political violence has declined from its high in 2023, where just over 23% said true patriots may have to resort to violence to put our country back on track.

Now, only 17% of Americans agree with this statement. But 33% of Adherents of Christian nationalism agree, and 25% of Sympathizers agree. As I write in American Idolatry, violence is a central idol of Christian nationalism and is a natural result of a quest for self-interested power and embracing fear that “they” are trying to steal that power away.

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There is one final set of findings I’d like to highlight before you go check out the full report. I think it is good news that nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) would prefer “the U.S. to be a nation made up of people belonging to a wide variety of religions,” compared with 32% who prefer “the U.S. to be a nation primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith.”

White evangelicals and Hispanic Protestants are the only religious groups where a majority say they’d rather have a country where most people follow the Christian faith. The fact that Hispanic Protestants score so high here is evidence that embracing this religious identity is linked to demonstrating their “American-ness.” My guess is that quite a few Hispanic Protestants are Adherents of Christian nationalism, and as we can see at the bottom of the figure, a vast majority of those folks want a nation full of Christians. So while their race/ethnicity might be seen as a mark against their “American-ness,” Hispanic Protestants embrace Christian nationalism in order to show they are truly American.

 

[Tigermojo]

There was a documentary on Prime that said the Romans created Christianity because they were having problems with the Jews. They needed the people to be sheep. Of course the rules did not apply to Roman leadership. History repeats. Now Trump is the new Messiah, so do as he says and not how he does.

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

This popped up in my feed today

https://andrewwhitehead.substack.com/p/how-do-religious-americans-view-the?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

 

A few interesting takeaways 

 

Good find. A couple comments on this:

• Hispanic Protestants may be desperately trying to demonstrate their "Americaness" by supporting Trump, the raid, the deportations and the rest of it, but If things go as far as MAGA and the Red Hats want it to, they'll find themselves being rolled over along with the rest of them, especially if they look the part.
• The 32% of people prefer “the U.S. to be a nation primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith" are willfully failing to recognize that Christians are already a super-majority in this country.

 

[gehringer_2]

4 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

This popped up in my feed today

https://andrewwhitehead.substack.com/p/how-do-religious-americans-view-the?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

 

A few interesting takeaways 

 

the last bit about Protestant Hispanics was interesting. I'm old enough to remember when non-Catholic Hispanics would not have been a large enough group to care about (politically that is!) but Google just told that Catholicism among Hispanics fell from 67% to 43% in just the  12yrs from 2010 to 2022, Apparently 2nd generation Hispanics leaving the RCC in droves. That's an amazingly rapid shift.

[gehringer_2]

5 hours ago, lordstanley said:

Heretics sometimes get a bum rap.

+1

I've read some about Origen, one of the most renowned teachers of the early church, may have been the single person most responsible for the selection of the canon. Today the church doesn't talk about him because a lot of what he believed is not current orthodoxy. But Origen himself was cool about it, freely said he wasn't sure about a lot things but he'd tell you what made sense to him, take it or leave it.

Edited October 22 by gehringer_2

[CMRivdogs]

Sitting at the airport in Boston, several hours to kill. This song came up in my newsfeed. 

Trigger Warning

Not Safe For Work (Lyrics)

 

[LaceyLou]

I hope you were able to avoid the parts of Boston currently on fire. It's a war zone, as I'm sure you know. 😉

(I'm pretty sure Logan Airport would be a good place for Purgatory to be)

[CMRivdogs]

4 hours ago, LaceyLou said:

I hope you were able to avoid the parts of Boston currently on fire. It's a war zone, as I'm sure you know. 😉

(I'm pretty sure Logan Airport would be a good place for Purgatory to be)

We basically went from the airport to the boat and back. Didn’t see much of Boston this trip

[chasfh]

 

 

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

 

 

If only this were actual parody.

[oblong]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

 

 

that might be the most spot on thing that site's ever done.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Not to be confused with the Episcopal Church in the US or Anglican Church in England

 

[chasfh]

This is from Axios this past Friday.

You wouldn't know this is happening because of the hyper-christian posturing of the MAGA elite and their red hat followers and the way they are using state resources to respect one particular establishment of religion. However, I don't think this is surprising given how bad a name those people are given Christianity with their wrong-headed, muscle-bound, indiscriminate prosecution of the least of our brothers.

1 big thing: America's great unchurching

The U.S. is undergoing its fastest religious shift in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and numerous church closures nationwide, Axios' Russell Contreras writes. Why it matters: The great unchurching of America comes as identity and reality are increasingly shaped by non-institutional spiritual sources — YouTube mystics, TikTok tarot, digital skeptics, folk saints and AI-generated prayer bots. It's a tectonic transformation that has profound implications for race, civic identity, political persuasion and the ability to govern a fracturing moral landscape. 🧮 By the numbers: Nearly three in 10 American adults identify as religiously unaffiliated — a 33% jump since 2013, according to the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). That's quicker than almost any major religious shift in modern U.S. history, and it's happening across racial groups. About four in ten Americans ages 18 to 29 identify as religiously unaffiliated (38%), an increase from 32% in 2013, PRRI said. Gallup polling finds 57% of Americans seldom or never attend religious services, a jump from 40% in 2000. Zoom in: The shift in religious activity is leaving behind a trail of "church graveyards," or empty buildings that are now difficult to sell or have been abandoned. An unprecedented 15,000 churches are expected to shut their doors this year, far more than the few thousand expected to open, according to denominational reports and church consultants. These churches once served as community gathering places for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, voting precincts, or town halls, leaving a void. Megachurches show signs of stability, but not enough to reverse overall declines. 🙏 The intrigue: As Americans unchurch, YouTube channels like Spiritual Manifestation attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers who share mysticism, spiritual insight, and "inner wisdom" content online. YouTube videos of speeches by the late agnostic and astronomer Carl Sagan and atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins attacking religion have drawn millions of views. Devotees to unofficial Catholic Latino folk saints such as Santa Muerte and Jesús Malverde have also become increasingly prominent outside official religion. Share this story.

 

[GalagaGuy]

Wake me up when the majority identify as Atheist.  

[oblong]

I think this is something actually well known as one big gripe among the right wing religious kooks is the closure of churches.  The Loomers of the world lament that many old church buildings and being bought up by Muslims to be turned into Mosques or other kinds of Islamic cultural centers.  The Vance’s of the world twist that slightly and view it as another reason we need to maintain our racial purity. “They’re taking over”.  The lack of religion is the very reason we need them to save our white asses.  

[chasfh]

7 minutes ago, GalagaGuy said:

Wake me up when the majority identify as Atheist.  

I have a sneaking suspicion that a high percentage of people who self-identify as "Christian" (or, as many might say it, "Chryis-tchyian") aren't really on speaking or praying terms with any deity. People like that seem to just use "Jesus Christ" as either a trump card or a punchline.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

This is from Axios this past Friday.

You wouldn't know this is happening because of the hyper-christian posturing of the MAGA elite 

 

No doubt right wing 'Christianity' has done a good job of accelerating things by poisoning the well for everyone else as well, but the longer term trend has been decades in the making.

[1984Echoes]

4 hours ago, GalagaGuy said:

Wake me up when the majority identify as Atheist.  

28% and counting....

Soon to be a majority.

[GalagaGuy]

14 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

28% and counting....

Soon to be a majority.

That 28% in the Pew Research poll represents the "religiously unaffiliated" which includes Agnostic and people who just don't have an answer to the question.  Looking around, all the polls put Atheists at under 10% unfortunately.  

[oblong]

I think there are a lot who would have identified as “Christian” in 1980 but today do not because of what’s happened since Falwell and company bastardized it.  Their beliefs are generally the same.  

[chasfh]

12 hours ago, GalagaGuy said:

That 28% in the Pew Research poll represents the "religiously unaffiliated" which includes Agnostic and people who just don't have an answer to the question.  Looking around, all the polls put Atheists at under 10% unfortunately.  

Atheism and agnosticism may not be in the same certainty-of-belief bucket, but are they all that different as they relate to established religions, which involve choice of deity?

[Edman85]

11 hours ago, oblong said:

I think there are a lot who would have identified as “Christian” in 1980 but today do not because of what’s happened since Falwell and company bastardized it.  Their beliefs are generally the same.  

This year's South Parks did a great job of satirizing this, turning Jesus into a MAGA bro who dates a plastic born again because that is what Christianity is to so many.

I was confirmed Catholic, but there is a separate reason I got disillusioned there.

Edited 5 hours ago by Edman85

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Atheism and agnosticism may not be in the same certainty-of-belief bucket, but are they all that different as they relate to established religions, which involve choice of deity?

I think there is probably a difference in the intellectual stance taken towards the deist world. For instance I would expect that your average agnostic probably doesn't care much about public displays of Christian culture in the surroundings, where someone who has come down definitively on the atheist side is more likely to be irritated, insulted and possibly litigious.

[CMRivdogs]

I just perused the latest in the thread. I wonder if the survey makes a distinction between those who profess to be Christians and those who may lean to Christianity but are solidly "non churched"

Those who believe in the principles of Christianity, yet find most demonizations and even individual churches corrupt in some way.