4 ms·

Say what you will about God, theology, and such - but a good church is far more a giant nest of social bonds than it is a cross or creed. And as the churches q

Say what you will about God, theology, and such - but a good church is far more a giant nest of social bonds than it is a cross or creed. And as the churches quietly die off, human society looses more and more of those.

eej71 3y ago
On the flip side, I think religion has had a monopoly on the idea that only it can provide that kind of space for such relationships. I don't think that's true.
- at_a_remove 3y ago
  It's not necessarily true, but functionally ... we lack a lot of counterexamples that have really scaled to the level churches have.
  - johnea 3y ago
    Just wait a couple thousand years, and add the threat of murder/dismemberment/incineration for not participating, and I'm sure some alternatives would arise...
- prpl 3y ago
  I don’t know, I haven’t seen a great replacement. The only things that come/came close are things like Elks Lodge, VFW, Country Clubs/sports clubs, and things like that. I don’t think most of these have thrived into in the 21st century. After that, maybe kids’ schools if you have the energy.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    At least in SE Michigan, some of the lodges of the Loyal Order of the Moose (fraternal organization) are really good. OTOH...the Moose are a pretty religious organization, in many ways.
    - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
      Thanks for that second paragraph, because my (otherwise neutral and uniformed) alarm bells on the subject were blaring with the notion that we should replace religious-institution-backed schools with secular schools run by… The Loyal Order of the Moose.
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    I haven't either, but I'm hesitant to suggest that there's something particular about the religiosity of faith communities that make them work the way they do. My take is that it's a familiar social institution and we haven't yet formulated the social protocols to reproduce a secular version. You mention a variety of semi-institutionalized social groups. To me they are associated with older folks, which naturally leads to the question: why aren't young people[1] making their own formal groups? why do young folks communities tend to be anarchic? And what would empower young folks to form their own formal social institutions? 1. We're talking about a rather wide swath of 18-50 yearolds, but that doesn't necessarily mean specific groups must correspondingly be as age-inclusive
    - biomcgary 3y ago
      Think of this in terms of game theory. Some religious communities, e.g., Christianity, explicitly ask for personal sacrifice for community good with compensation to be provided post-death, e.g., eternally blessed life. In game theory terms, cooperative behavior is rewarded from outside the observable system! That's the faith part of faith communities. Even if only a relatively small fraction truly hold these belief, those communities naturally get pay-it-forward dynamics. I'm not sure how game theory can lead to the same result in non-faith communities (i.e., closed systems). Someone has to pay the cost of "redeeming" the effects of cheaters / defectors.
      - kelseyfrog 3y ago
        Maybe a tangent idk, but how do unitary universalist groups work or religious communities without afterlife reward doctrines? They exist, but I don't necessarily think their minority status means there isn't something they're doing that we can learn from or expand our model with.
        skissane 3y ago
        > Maybe a tangent idk, but how do unitary universalist groups work or religious communities without afterlife reward doctrines? Unitarian-Universalists aren't growing, they are shrinking. Most denominations are shrinking, but on the whole, conservative denominations are shrinking rather more slowly than liberal ones, including the super-liberal UUs. I remember, when I was younger, I tried out a few different churches. I saw more than one conservative Protestant church overflowing with young families. I also went to a Unitarian church (only one, but there aren't many around here), and I was the only person there under 50. In general, religious communities without afterlife reward doctrines, struggle to survive and thrive in the long-run. Their members tend to defect either to secularism or to religious communities which make bigger promises
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The main thing churches have going for them is that they are "all ages" and specifically family. The VFW, Elks Lodge, Masons, Knights of Columbus, they're all old and mostly men.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      KofC is also very specifically tied to the Catholic Church, so it has no reason to try to substitute for the role filled by a Church.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  We're pretty deep into an experiment to see if it's otherwise. A lot of people have been confident that other structures will emerge, and a lot of institutions have presented themselves as the alternative. I haven't seen anything convincingly comparable, though I'm sure others see it differently.
- jayknight 3y ago
  Certainly not. But a good church (and not all of them are) actively promotes parishioners to connect in deep ways, sharing vulnerabilities and weaknesses in ways that usually don't happen without some intentional guidance. Unfortunately, this "feature" also opens up churches to be places where different kinds of abuse can (and does) happen.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Talk to some really old people, who recall the 1950's. At least in America, there were a huge number of non-church social groups. And families tended to be both far larger, and considerably better connected. If some churchgoer was saying, today, that the churches have some sort of monopoly on providing such spaces...my interpretation would tend toward "we have a monopoly, while we last, because every other provider is already gone". (Yes, if you go further back, especially in Europe, the church had somewhat more of a monopoly. Partly that was because governments were rather authoritarian, and didn't want organizations to exist, beyond their tightly-controlled churches.)
- causi 3y ago
  As an atheist, I disagree. The power of the church has been dying at the same time as the availability of other, non-religious "third places". Thirty years ago you not only had a stronger church, but you also had more shopping malls, community centers, diners, and parks. Superficial electronic socializing and personal isolation is killing the concept of community across the board.
  - krapp 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - causi 3y ago
      Why do you think religious people embracing someone like Trump says anything at all about the relative power of religion? Would a stronger church not demand greater conformity in its supported candidates, not less? In twenty years, the percentage of Americans who are members of churches has dropped from 70% to 47%. In 1991, 87% of Americans ages 18-35 identified as Christian. In 2019 it was less than fifty percent.
      - krapp 3y ago
        I don't know. I live in the American South and it seems like Christianity is so universal that it's simply taken for granted. And I don't think you get a repeal of Roe v. Wade, then half the country banning abortion outright, in a truly secular society.
        eadmund 3y ago
        Why not? The secular French Revolutionary government abolished slavery in 1794; the abolition of abortion represents essentially the same scientific, non-theistic recognition of human beings, no matter their ethnicity or stage of development. Really, they are independent axes: a religion can preach that some kinds of human being should be enslaved and/or killed; a religion can preach that no human beings should be enslaved and/or killed; an atheist can support enslavement and/or homicide of some human beings; and an atheist can oppose enslavement and/or homicide of some or all human beings. As a general rule, the vast majority of atheists think that it should be illegal to kill a 5-year-old; I believe that the vast majority think that it should be illegal to kill a 5-minute-old; it wouldn’t surprise me if a fair number think that it should be illegal to kill a negative-five-minute-old.
- andrewclunn 3y ago
  People keep waiting for this new concept / institution that can replace religion for community building, moral cohesion, and cross generational culture to emerge... but at this point I'm fairly certain it aint coming. I consider this hope the optimism of mid-wits who believe in emergence and evolution, but can't grasp why ideologies that co-evolved with humanity for a few thousand years might be better at filling those roles and needs than their fad secular prophet's intelligently designed philosophies. The modern Nietzscheian free thinker of the day is rebelling against conventional wisdom and propaganda by saying maybe we DO need religion. Oh the irony.
  - knightoffaith 3y ago
    But what else is the secular world to do? Suppose you're right and we do need religion. Surely the solution isn't for atheists to pretend that religion is true, right? Even if they did, the psychological benefits of religion are probably at least greatly weakened (if not absent) when the follower doesn't even believe it's true.
    - andrewclunn 3y ago
      Step one would be to acknowledge that many of the criticisms of religion are merely criticisms of human nature itself, as secular ideologies and individuals fail in the same sorts of ways by the professed moral standards of most secular individuals. The next would be for for secular thinkers to admit that (from an anthropological perspective) their atheistic philosophies are more or less proto-religions and admit to taking certain value judgements and stances about reality on faith. The issue is, almost no secular thinker comes away from admitting those two honestly and then stays within the purely secular realm for very long. It was very possible to be an intelligent introspective atheist when the consequences of that stance were not on display so readily. The "forward thinkers" who might have been capable of forming secular religions are instead embracing established faiths. Perhaps it's an issue like attempting to create life from scratch again. Hard to do when existing life just crowds it out. It would take dedicated committed atheists, admitting that they are intentionally attempting to establish a secular religion as a sort of memetic symbiote to fill the same space as religion, but when you're biggest rallying cry for converts is, "People don't need religion!" it's neigh impossible to do.
- buzzerbetrayed 3y ago
  Agreed. I recently made it out of a high demand religion. When talking to my brother-in-law (still in the religion) about it, he said something along the lines of "I don't think the church is necessarily true. But I think I personally need it in order to be a good person." Well.. of course that is what the religion you were born into, brainwashed by, and are currently paying crazy amounts of money to wants you to think. It is necessary for the churches survival. People need to be careful about believing anything taught by an organization when that organization's very survival depends on you believing that thing.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    > People need to be careful about believing anything taught by an organization when that organization's very survival depends on you believing that thing. I think you're off the mark here. Your brother-in-law doesn't believe what the church teaches. He believes in the effect he sees it having on his own life (and maybe also the effect that not having it has on his own life).
    - buzzerbetrayed 3y ago
      Yes. And he has been told every day of his entire life, by said church, that he can only get that effect through them. High demand religions are an entirely different beast. They control every aspect of your life.
- adamc 3y ago
  I'm not religious, but I don't see a lot of evidence of other forces filling that space. In part, it takes a lot of commitment (and resources) to do it well. Religious communities have been motivated, but I don't see other groups filling the void as they depart.
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    Yeah but I think the issue is the loss of tight knit communities, not that the churches are the only way. I think they are simply the ones that survived the most in our current era of narcissism and consumerism because they were bigger to begin with. I mean I live in an old fashioned, traditionnally poor gipsy neighborhood. Most people around here don't go to the church, but this is a tight knit community. As a stranger, and for good reasons[1], it took me a long time to be accepted as part of it, and in a sense I will never be completely part of it. However I have already been shown that my neighbors are ready to give me a hand when I need it and even that they are ready to fight for me had I been in a situation that required it, no question asked. Which is funny because these are the same people that initially tried to rob me! [1] first and foremost because the presence of expats working remotely for big corps like me is one of the reason the rents are ever increasing and becoming out of reach to
skissane 3y ago
I look at my local Catholic parish, and one thing that really helps keep it alive, is the parish school. A lot of parents who don't really believe in it all will still take their kids to be baptised so they can get into the school (and then for the other sacraments to get into the local Catholic high schools). And, once you have a large number of people with that connection, a few of them may decide to take it deeper. One dad I know from the school is officially converting (from some kind of Protestant) this Easter Sunday, he told me "my wife and kids are Catholic, I might as well be too". It surely helps that here in Australia, private schools receive extensive government funding, roughly on par with what public schools get, which assists the Catholic Church in running lots of (relatively low fee) private schools. In effect similar to the idea of "school vouchers" in the US, although not actually implemented that way. I note Methodists don't have as strong a tradition of running their own schools as Catholics do. In Australia, if you go back to some point in the 19th century, there were no public schools, only private religious ones, Methodist included (although Church of England was most common). Then, the Protestant churches made deals with the colonial governments, the colonial governments would take over most of their private religious schools and turn them into public ones, the churches would keep only their most prestigious schools (aimed at the upper classes)–the Catholic Church refused to take part, and then spent decades agitating for its schools to be publicly funded ("why do Catholics pay taxes to educate Protestant children but not their own?"), until finally in the 1960s the federal government agreed to fund them (in part because it really needed the Catholic vote, in part because the bishops threatened to close all their private schools, which would have completely overwhelmed the public system)
- bombcar 3y ago
  The USA has something similar, though the schools aren't subsidized (much, there's some in some places, but it's relatively minor) by the state or feds. They are subsidized by the diocese, the "Annual Catholic Appeal" is mostly taken from parishes and sent to the parishes with schools. The schools close usually from lack of kids not lack of funds.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > The schools close usually from lack of kids not lack of funds. Australia has much more of a private schooling culture than the US. About 36% of Australian children go to private schools, compared to only about 9% in the US. And slightly over 50% of Australia's private schools are Catholic. So Catholic schools closing from "lack of kids", I wouldn't say it never happens in Australia, but certainly a lot less common than in the US. Decline in Catholic religious affiliation doesn’t necessarily lead to school closure, because many Australian Catholic schools enrol large numbers of non-Catholics I suspect funding is a big part of this-if the US introduced widespread school vouchers, the private percentage would likely creep up. But Australia has had publicly funded private schools for over 50 years now, so even with school vouchers, it could take decades for private schooling in the US to reach Australian percentages
macintux 3y ago
Combine this with the great cousin decline discussed[0] a few months back and it doesn’t bode well for society. Jobs are no longer life-long. Families are smaller and increasingly dispersed. Churches aren’t what they used to be. And online communities are often toxic and radicalized in the name of profit and division. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38719249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38719249
tomrod 3y ago
Fraternal societies were very good for providing community self organization and services until the Great Depression resulted in loss of dues, shuttering most of them.
- Taikonerd 3y ago
  I do think fraternal societies are due for a comeback! Maybe not the actual Masons, Elks, etc, but new societies along the same lines.
  - tomrod 3y ago
    Yeah. The gender-exclusionary approach of the Masons keep me out of it despite knowing some great folks in it. And I left religion behind, having been raised in one that infantalizes its adherents and enforces strict patriarchal hierarchy. I don't know anything about the Elks except my aunt lived down the road from a lodge.
bluescrn 3y ago
Which is doing the most harm, though - the decline of religion, or the rise of 'virtual communities', replacing in-person interaction and community-building with something less real and more gameified?
uticus 3y ago
> a good church is far more a giant nest of social bonds than it is a cross or creed History has shown different. Martyrs relied more on cross and creed (and indeed a specific person the cross & creed spoke of) than social bonds. 'Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also' is a sample from a specific slice, but representative of a larger concept. Of course a martyr may die wrongly, but the point is that a definition of a 'good' church should include considering concepts of before birth and after death, in addition to life. In my experience, that leads to the social bonds. The lack of this care for cross and creed in many churches I've visited seems to be the precurser to a dying church. There is little to attract new generations if little things are at stake.
Taikonerd 3y ago
Yeah. The standard advice for a person looking to make friends now is, "have you tried Meetup?" And, speaking from experience, it's not the same. The thing is, a Meetup doesn't ask very much of its members, which leads to loose ties: "I'll go until it stops being fun, or I get busy, or I get a better offer." People take their religion much more seriously than that. And that, in turn, leads to a different social dynamic: when you expect everyone around you to still be there in 5 years, you treat them differently.
- shiroiushi 3y ago
  My more recent experiences with Meetup are that most events there seem to be just ways for their organizers to make money, and generally not a great way to meet people. YMMV though; I had better experiences with it in the past in a different city.
paulryanrogers 3y ago
IME religion is a net loss. It too often marginalizes or outright harms people who don't or can't fit the mold. It usually also requires or at least encourages counterproductive ways: confirmation bias, appeal to authority, trust without evidence, bandwagon effect, paying significant portions of income for no benefit, etc.

eej71 3y ago

On the flip side, I think religion has had a monopoly on the idea that only it can provide that kind of space for such relationships. I don't think that's true.

at_a_remove 3y ago
It's not necessarily true, but functionally ... we lack a lot of counterexamples that have really scaled to the level churches have.
- johnea 3y ago
  Just wait a couple thousand years, and add the threat of murder/dismemberment/incineration for not participating, and I'm sure some alternatives would arise...
prpl 3y ago
I don’t know, I haven’t seen a great replacement. The only things that come/came close are things like Elks Lodge, VFW, Country Clubs/sports clubs, and things like that. I don’t think most of these have thrived into in the 21st century. After that, maybe kids’ schools if you have the energy.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  At least in SE Michigan, some of the lodges of the Loyal Order of the Moose (fraternal organization) are really good. OTOH...the Moose are a pretty religious organization, in many ways.
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    Thanks for that second paragraph, because my (otherwise neutral and uniformed) alarm bells on the subject were blaring with the notion that we should replace religious-institution-backed schools with secular schools run by… The Loyal Order of the Moose.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  I haven't either, but I'm hesitant to suggest that there's something particular about the religiosity of faith communities that make them work the way they do. My take is that it's a familiar social institution and we haven't yet formulated the social protocols to reproduce a secular version. You mention a variety of semi-institutionalized social groups. To me they are associated with older folks, which naturally leads to the question: why aren't young people[1] making their own formal groups? why do young folks communities tend to be anarchic? And what would empower young folks to form their own formal social institutions? 1. We're talking about a rather wide swath of 18-50 yearolds, but that doesn't necessarily mean specific groups must correspondingly be as age-inclusive
  - biomcgary 3y ago
    Think of this in terms of game theory. Some religious communities, e.g., Christianity, explicitly ask for personal sacrifice for community good with compensation to be provided post-death, e.g., eternally blessed life. In game theory terms, cooperative behavior is rewarded from outside the observable system! That's the faith part of faith communities. Even if only a relatively small fraction truly hold these belief, those communities naturally get pay-it-forward dynamics. I'm not sure how game theory can lead to the same result in non-faith communities (i.e., closed systems). Someone has to pay the cost of "redeeming" the effects of cheaters / defectors.
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      Maybe a tangent idk, but how do unitary universalist groups work or religious communities without afterlife reward doctrines? They exist, but I don't necessarily think their minority status means there isn't something they're doing that we can learn from or expand our model with.
      - skissane 3y ago
        > Maybe a tangent idk, but how do unitary universalist groups work or religious communities without afterlife reward doctrines? Unitarian-Universalists aren't growing, they are shrinking. Most denominations are shrinking, but on the whole, conservative denominations are shrinking rather more slowly than liberal ones, including the super-liberal UUs. I remember, when I was younger, I tried out a few different churches. I saw more than one conservative Protestant church overflowing with young families. I also went to a Unitarian church (only one, but there aren't many around here), and I was the only person there under 50. In general, religious communities without afterlife reward doctrines, struggle to survive and thrive in the long-run. Their members tend to defect either to secularism or to religious communities which make bigger promises
- bombcar 3y ago
  The main thing churches have going for them is that they are "all ages" and specifically family. The VFW, Elks Lodge, Masons, Knights of Columbus, they're all old and mostly men.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    KofC is also very specifically tied to the Catholic Church, so it has no reason to try to substitute for the role filled by a Church.
giraffe_lady 3y ago
We're pretty deep into an experiment to see if it's otherwise. A lot of people have been confident that other structures will emerge, and a lot of institutions have presented themselves as the alternative. I haven't seen anything convincingly comparable, though I'm sure others see it differently.
jayknight 3y ago
Certainly not. But a good church (and not all of them are) actively promotes parishioners to connect in deep ways, sharing vulnerabilities and weaknesses in ways that usually don't happen without some intentional guidance. Unfortunately, this "feature" also opens up churches to be places where different kinds of abuse can (and does) happen.
bell-cot 3y ago
Talk to some really old people, who recall the 1950's. At least in America, there were a huge number of non-church social groups. And families tended to be both far larger, and considerably better connected. If some churchgoer was saying, today, that the churches have some sort of monopoly on providing such spaces...my interpretation would tend toward "we have a monopoly, while we last, because every other provider is already gone". (Yes, if you go further back, especially in Europe, the church had somewhat more of a monopoly. Partly that was because governments were rather authoritarian, and didn't want organizations to exist, beyond their tightly-controlled churches.)
causi 3y ago
As an atheist, I disagree. The power of the church has been dying at the same time as the availability of other, non-religious "third places". Thirty years ago you not only had a stronger church, but you also had more shopping malls, community centers, diners, and parks. Superficial electronic socializing and personal isolation is killing the concept of community across the board.
- krapp 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - causi 3y ago
    Why do you think religious people embracing someone like Trump says anything at all about the relative power of religion? Would a stronger church not demand greater conformity in its supported candidates, not less? In twenty years, the percentage of Americans who are members of churches has dropped from 70% to 47%. In 1991, 87% of Americans ages 18-35 identified as Christian. In 2019 it was less than fifty percent.
    - krapp 3y ago
      I don't know. I live in the American South and it seems like Christianity is so universal that it's simply taken for granted. And I don't think you get a repeal of Roe v. Wade, then half the country banning abortion outright, in a truly secular society.
      - eadmund 3y ago
        Why not? The secular French Revolutionary government abolished slavery in 1794; the abolition of abortion represents essentially the same scientific, non-theistic recognition of human beings, no matter their ethnicity or stage of development. Really, they are independent axes: a religion can preach that some kinds of human being should be enslaved and/or killed; a religion can preach that no human beings should be enslaved and/or killed; an atheist can support enslavement and/or homicide of some human beings; and an atheist can oppose enslavement and/or homicide of some or all human beings. As a general rule, the vast majority of atheists think that it should be illegal to kill a 5-year-old; I believe that the vast majority think that it should be illegal to kill a 5-minute-old; it wouldn’t surprise me if a fair number think that it should be illegal to kill a negative-five-minute-old.
andrewclunn 3y ago
People keep waiting for this new concept / institution that can replace religion for community building, moral cohesion, and cross generational culture to emerge... but at this point I'm fairly certain it aint coming. I consider this hope the optimism of mid-wits who believe in emergence and evolution, but can't grasp why ideologies that co-evolved with humanity for a few thousand years might be better at filling those roles and needs than their fad secular prophet's intelligently designed philosophies. The modern Nietzscheian free thinker of the day is rebelling against conventional wisdom and propaganda by saying maybe we DO need religion. Oh the irony.
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  But what else is the secular world to do? Suppose you're right and we do need religion. Surely the solution isn't for atheists to pretend that religion is true, right? Even if they did, the psychological benefits of religion are probably at least greatly weakened (if not absent) when the follower doesn't even believe it's true.
  - andrewclunn 3y ago
    Step one would be to acknowledge that many of the criticisms of religion are merely criticisms of human nature itself, as secular ideologies and individuals fail in the same sorts of ways by the professed moral standards of most secular individuals. The next would be for for secular thinkers to admit that (from an anthropological perspective) their atheistic philosophies are more or less proto-religions and admit to taking certain value judgements and stances about reality on faith. The issue is, almost no secular thinker comes away from admitting those two honestly and then stays within the purely secular realm for very long. It was very possible to be an intelligent introspective atheist when the consequences of that stance were not on display so readily. The "forward thinkers" who might have been capable of forming secular religions are instead embracing established faiths. Perhaps it's an issue like attempting to create life from scratch again. Hard to do when existing life just crowds it out. It would take dedicated committed atheists, admitting that they are intentionally attempting to establish a secular religion as a sort of memetic symbiote to fill the same space as religion, but when you're biggest rallying cry for converts is, "People don't need religion!" it's neigh impossible to do.
buzzerbetrayed 3y ago
Agreed. I recently made it out of a high demand religion. When talking to my brother-in-law (still in the religion) about it, he said something along the lines of "I don't think the church is necessarily true. But I think I personally need it in order to be a good person." Well.. of course that is what the religion you were born into, brainwashed by, and are currently paying crazy amounts of money to wants you to think. It is necessary for the churches survival. People need to be careful about believing anything taught by an organization when that organization's very survival depends on you believing that thing.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > People need to be careful about believing anything taught by an organization when that organization's very survival depends on you believing that thing. I think you're off the mark here. Your brother-in-law doesn't believe what the church teaches. He believes in the effect he sees it having on his own life (and maybe also the effect that not having it has on his own life).
  - buzzerbetrayed 3y ago
    Yes. And he has been told every day of his entire life, by said church, that he can only get that effect through them. High demand religions are an entirely different beast. They control every aspect of your life.
adamc 3y ago
I'm not religious, but I don't see a lot of evidence of other forces filling that space. In part, it takes a lot of commitment (and resources) to do it well. Religious communities have been motivated, but I don't see other groups filling the void as they depart.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  Yeah but I think the issue is the loss of tight knit communities, not that the churches are the only way. I think they are simply the ones that survived the most in our current era of narcissism and consumerism because they were bigger to begin with. I mean I live in an old fashioned, traditionnally poor gipsy neighborhood. Most people around here don't go to the church, but this is a tight knit community. As a stranger, and for good reasons[1], it took me a long time to be accepted as part of it, and in a sense I will never be completely part of it. However I have already been shown that my neighbors are ready to give me a hand when I need it and even that they are ready to fight for me had I been in a situation that required it, no question asked. Which is funny because these are the same people that initially tried to rob me! [1] first and foremost because the presence of expats working remotely for big corps like me is one of the reason the rents are ever increasing and becoming out of reach to

skissane 3y ago

I look at my local Catholic parish, and one thing that really helps keep it alive, is the parish school. A lot of parents who don't really believe in it all will still take their kids to be baptised so they can get into the school (and then for the other sacraments to get into the local Catholic high schools). And, once you have a large number of people with that connection, a few of them may decide to take it deeper. One dad I know from the school is officially converting (from some kind of Protestant) this Easter Sunday, he told me "my wife and kids are Catholic, I might as well be too". It surely helps that here in Australia, private schools receive extensive government funding, roughly on par with what public schools get, which assists the Catholic Church in running lots of (relatively low fee) private schools. In effect similar to the idea of "school vouchers" in the US, although not actually implemented that way. I note Methodists don't have as strong a tradition of running their own schools as Catholics do. In Australia, if you go back to some point in the 19th century, there were no public schools, only private religious ones, Methodist included (although Church of England was most common). Then, the Protestant churches made deals with the colonial governments, the colonial governments would take over most of their private religious schools and turn them into public ones, the churches would keep only their most prestigious schools (aimed at the upper classes)–the Catholic Church refused to take part, and then spent decades agitating for its schools to be publicly funded ("why do Catholics pay taxes to educate Protestant children but not their own?"), until finally in the 1960s the federal government agreed to fund them (in part because it really needed the Catholic vote, in part because the bishops threatened to close all their private schools, which would have completely overwhelmed the public system)

bombcar 3y ago
The USA has something similar, though the schools aren't subsidized (much, there's some in some places, but it's relatively minor) by the state or feds. They are subsidized by the diocese, the "Annual Catholic Appeal" is mostly taken from parishes and sent to the parishes with schools. The schools close usually from lack of kids not lack of funds.
- skissane 3y ago
  > The schools close usually from lack of kids not lack of funds. Australia has much more of a private schooling culture than the US. About 36% of Australian children go to private schools, compared to only about 9% in the US. And slightly over 50% of Australia's private schools are Catholic. So Catholic schools closing from "lack of kids", I wouldn't say it never happens in Australia, but certainly a lot less common than in the US. Decline in Catholic religious affiliation doesn’t necessarily lead to school closure, because many Australian Catholic schools enrol large numbers of non-Catholics I suspect funding is a big part of this-if the US introduced widespread school vouchers, the private percentage would likely creep up. But Australia has had publicly funded private schools for over 50 years now, so even with school vouchers, it could take decades for private schooling in the US to reach Australian percentages

macintux 3y ago

Combine this with the great cousin decline discussed[0] a few months back and it doesn’t bode well for society. Jobs are no longer life-long. Families are smaller and increasingly dispersed. Churches aren’t what they used to be. And online communities are often toxic and radicalized in the name of profit and division. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38719249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38719249

tomrod 3y ago

Fraternal societies were very good for providing community self organization and services until the Great Depression resulted in loss of dues, shuttering most of them.

Taikonerd 3y ago
I do think fraternal societies are due for a comeback! Maybe not the actual Masons, Elks, etc, but new societies along the same lines.
- tomrod 3y ago
  Yeah. The gender-exclusionary approach of the Masons keep me out of it despite knowing some great folks in it. And I left religion behind, having been raised in one that infantalizes its adherents and enforces strict patriarchal hierarchy. I don't know anything about the Elks except my aunt lived down the road from a lodge.

bluescrn 3y ago

Which is doing the most harm, though - the decline of religion, or the rise of 'virtual communities', replacing in-person interaction and community-building with something less real and more gameified?

uticus 3y ago

> a good church is far more a giant nest of social bonds than it is a cross or creed History has shown different. Martyrs relied more on cross and creed (and indeed a specific person the cross & creed spoke of) than social bonds. 'Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also' is a sample from a specific slice, but representative of a larger concept. Of course a martyr may die wrongly, but the point is that a definition of a 'good' church should include considering concepts of before birth and after death, in addition to life. In my experience, that leads to the social bonds. The lack of this care for cross and creed in many churches I've visited seems to be the precurser to a dying church. There is little to attract new generations if little things are at stake.

Taikonerd 3y ago

Yeah. The standard advice for a person looking to make friends now is, "have you tried Meetup?" And, speaking from experience, it's not the same. The thing is, a Meetup doesn't ask very much of its members, which leads to loose ties: "I'll go until it stops being fun, or I get busy, or I get a better offer." People take their religion much more seriously than that. And that, in turn, leads to a different social dynamic: when you expect everyone around you to still be there in 5 years, you treat them differently.

shiroiushi 3y ago
My more recent experiences with Meetup are that most events there seem to be just ways for their organizers to make money, and generally not a great way to meet people. YMMV though; I had better experiences with it in the past in a different city.

paulryanrogers 3y ago

IME religion is a net loss. It too often marginalizes or outright harms people who don't or can't fit the mold. It usually also requires or at least encourages counterproductive ways: confirmation bias, appeal to authority, trust without evidence, bandwagon effect, paying significant portions of income for no benefit, etc.