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I have an alternate take. 1/4 women are on mental health meds as well. - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/women-and-prescription-drug-use_n_1098023 https://www.hu

• tsol 4y ago
  >various religions has been destructive to vast majority of people. The difference between the modern world and the world of yesterday is that we're the ones they aren't religious. I would argue it's the opposite-- religion limits you and forces you to be with your community. You have to meet them every week and sit with them, you are obligated to attend their weddings and funerals. The church was historically the center of life in the western world. It's the fact that that doesn't exist anymore, and there is no replacement. The church was a place the lonely could go to find friends, the odd and awkward could go to find purpose, the sick could go to find helpers. I'm not even Christian, but the role it played in yesterday's world was huge. It's because we don't bother to replace these institutions with modern equivalents that people have these problems
  • swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
    For the motivated, these communities still exist - but without the sermon. Volunteer groups, sports, hobby groups, hiking meetups, dance classes, or the nearest bar. YMMV
    • tsol 4y ago
      This is somewhat true but it only works for some. The issue is that it requires motivation, whereas the church did not. I think a lot of the bitterness in modern society is from the people in that gap, the people aren't able to motivate themselves perhaps due to depression or circumstances. The other issue with that is it does require some level of social skills. Someone highly autistic, for example, would likely have a hard time meeting people by dancing. There needs to be somewhere for these people to connect with the rest of society
      • stevenicr 4y ago
        While I agree that 'requires motivation' is a thing, and likely more of an issue than others, I must add that location may many times be a bigger thing for many people / places. Being close to a hip city and having no trouble traveling, I did find motivation (for actually going, doing the scheduling, etc) to be a thing - and there are sometimes many layers to that thing. As I encouraged others to do meetup dot com and find groups to hang with - I found that people do indeed have to muster up the motivation - but also location can be an challenge / obstacle. I also think meetup has changed with less options, partially for pandemic but also they went pay to play for listing groups I think? Looking forward to more decentralized group listings and virtual water coolers in the future, maybe web rings coming back to help with that. Also been planning to open more real world 'third place' options hopefully - scouting locations and sketching ideas anyhow.
  • moistly 4y ago
    There are replacements, you just have to seek them out. For instance, Men’s Shed, “a dedicated, friendly and welcoming meeting place where men come together and undertake a variety of mutually agreed activities.” They often perform charitable work and if you need social or emotional support, they’ll listen and help. They fulfill the roles you feel are only available from churches. https://menshed.com/ https://menshed.com/
  • akomtu 4y ago
    The church is failing to evolve: it still stubbornly expects a blind faith in questionable dogmas, revolving mostly around feelings and emotions, while the masses on average are living by rational thinking today. The church needs to update their dogmas, make them rational, more appealing to the thinking crowd, or become irrelevant by the end of the century.
• limpbizkitfan 4y ago
  There hasn’t been destruction of the family. People don’t have the ability to start families because they can’t afford the burden. People can’t start families because the adoption agencies are run by religious organizations who are fraught with child trafficking. Religion might offer belonging on a small scale, but for the most part it’s used to make “us vs. them” arguments and divide us. Christians, (70/30 protestant/catholic) for example, invaded Poland in the 1940s, and wiped out what would have been ancestors of cousins I can never meet because they were atheist, Jewish, or otherwise. The issue has to do with social media and tailored content. The more people use these tools, the features train on people’s clicks and send them down rabbit holes, and nobody is on the same page anymore. People don’t know how to distinguish the truth from fiction- in fact, media outlets HAVE become a dogmatic religion in itself. There shouldn’t be some onus on people getting forced to be married or have kids, either. Plenty of people have family in a great group of friends. It is the people who isolate, especially men and women, who are told to behave in ways that are probably not who they are at their core, that end up being susceptible to the stuff you posted. I hope you are not lonely, but I assume from your comment that may be the case. Please stop frustrating yourself and enter relationships with whoever’s nearby, you don’t even have to share the same views.
  • stuckinhell 4y ago
    I appreciate the comment but I don't much like the personal comments. I'm married with a husband and two kids. I make an extra effort to stay connected, but many people don't and maybe can't. My brother committed suicide because of loneliness and depression. So when I read articles about women and men being lonely and on tons of mental health meds, I think something went wrong in our society and I have a personal connection to this. Most people WANT to be in families, and have relationships. Humans are social creatures. A world with out religion doesn't seem to be keeping the promises of a better life. Religion filled a void for many people, and I don't think medication can replace it. I'm not sure what the path forward is, but I think the first step is admitting we have a major problem in our culture.
• welshwelsh 4y ago
  The transition from family and religion to more modern social organization might be painful. But I say, good riddance. People should group together based on common interests, hobbies and activism, not circumstance and superstition. To have a truly democratic society, we need people to engage with the broader human community beyond their families and churches. We need to think bigger than that.