4 ms·

I don’t think many would deny churches provide their members community. Reinforcement of social ties with weekly meetings is strong. This isn’t a good reason t

I don’t think many would deny churches provide their members community. Reinforcement of social ties with weekly meetings is strong. This isn’t a good reason to permit superstition to remain at the center of community life. We can find something better.

TallGuyShort 7y ago
I actually recently had a discussion on here about how, as a religious person, I'm baffled at how arbitrary some religious people are in their religion (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19915081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19915081). Yet at the same time, I'm equally disturbed by the way we seem to have a problem "permitting" a belief in something? edit: And I realize your point, which is one I do agree with, is that the benefits of community are not a reason to be religious and is distinct from that. But your choice of words is indeed reminiscent of many things I've heard from people in somewhat mainstream political discussions about how freedom of religion essentially needs to just go away. And as someone who has campaigned and voted for the very things many people are against on religious grounds precisely because I think anything that doesn't hurt somebody should be legal, I can't stand to see it backfiring equally on my self as it does upon religious bigots.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  By discounting religion, there’s also a tendency to minimize the human need to embrace the transcendental, while maximizing one’s own secular beliefs as well-founded and not superstitious. How many non-theists will just as readily believe in irrational things that they take as dogma?
veddox 7y ago
I suspect you won't find it quite as easy as that to divvy apart a church community from its creed. Most of the New Testament writings are devoted to teachings about how the church and its community ought to function, and it's all very firmly grounded in the "supernatural" aspects of Christianity (especially the resurrection of Christ). Take away the latter, and I think you're likely to lose much of the former.

TallGuyShort 7y ago

I actually recently had a discussion on here about how, as a religious person, I'm baffled at how arbitrary some religious people are in their religion (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19915081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19915081). Yet at the same time, I'm equally disturbed by the way we seem to have a problem "permitting" a belief in something? edit: And I realize your point, which is one I do agree with, is that the benefits of community are not a reason to be religious and is distinct from that. But your choice of words is indeed reminiscent of many things I've heard from people in somewhat mainstream political discussions about how freedom of religion essentially needs to just go away. And as someone who has campaigned and voted for the very things many people are against on religious grounds precisely because I think anything that doesn't hurt somebody should be legal, I can't stand to see it backfiring equally on my self as it does upon religious bigots.

Apocryphon 7y ago
By discounting religion, there’s also a tendency to minimize the human need to embrace the transcendental, while maximizing one’s own secular beliefs as well-founded and not superstitious. How many non-theists will just as readily believe in irrational things that they take as dogma?

veddox 7y ago

I suspect you won't find it quite as easy as that to divvy apart a church community from its creed. Most of the New Testament writings are devoted to teachings about how the church and its community ought to function, and it's all very firmly grounded in the "supernatural" aspects of Christianity (especially the resurrection of Christ). Take away the latter, and I think you're likely to lose much of the former.