Also from pew, seems to show rather more nonbelievers have a negative view of the church than positive:
I think generally polls like this can be misleading. In all polls the question framing makes a big difference but I think in this context especially so.
Whether someone identifies as belonging to a church doesn’t always mean the same as in the US. Here in the UK many people identify as being this or that church but, when you ask them their views, it’s more like deism, “spiritual” or even agnostic atheism.
(The link above is from a US poll, I’m just warning about comparing the data for other countries)
And in terms of net harm…which religion? What counts as harm? And is it in my experience, or trying to guess about society as a whole? Different people are going to read that question differently and subtle differences in wording will totally change the result.
“The church/religious organizations” =/= “religion” for a lot of respondents, I’m sure. But anyway, I don’t doubt most non-religious would have a negative view. Just not all of them, so you can’t count everyone who identifies that way to be down on religion.
Puppies don’t run charities that shelter the homeless or feed the hungry. Various religious orgs do both those and more. That’s more concrete that mere emotional support, and that matters to some people, even if they don’t buy what that particular religion is selling otherwise. Enough for them not to write off religion entirely.
Non religious organizations can do that just as well or better. There’s nothing religions can actually do that can’t be done without religion at least as well, which is why somebody can both say they are religious but that religion is unnecessary.
Yeah. The only accurate answer I could give for myself would be “do both good and harm and I’m not able to calculate the percentage.”
The way some people do religion does a lot of good. The way other people do religion does a lot of harm. The way many people do religion does some of both. But I think it’s utter nonsense to say that liberals/progressives, in general, think that “religion is axiomatically good”.
I am a progressive (but not bleeding-heart) liberal and I believe that there is no “true core” of religions. Religions are as varied as the people who practice and interpret them.
That said, I believe that, as far as the oldest religions go – certaintly the three Abrahamic faiths – the original versions of these religions are NOT liberal at their true core. They are patriarchal, extremely reactionary – and it is those versions that are the most authentic ones. The nicey-nice modern mainstream denominations are adaptations that align the religions with the attitudes and moral progress that has been made in secular human society.
The whole idea of theistic religions is to subvert your will to doctrines that supposedly reflect the will of a deity. Doctrines that were formulated in times when society lacked knowledge of how the world really worked and when society was patriarchal, hierarchical, and in many cases violent. So my answer to the OP is definitely “NO”.
Right and part of the phenomenon that is referred to in the thread title really is really people trying to convince (a) those who are already (at least nominally) believers that they would be more true to their faith if they adopted the kinder, more inclusive, POV and (b) themselves that the otherwise nice persons they like and know to be believers are not hateful Bad People™.
Yeah; with a side of ‘there’s no plausible way to convince these people not to be Y, but it may be possible to convince them that you don’t need to do X in order to be Y. Especially because there are people who are also Y but who don’t do X.’
I think I just had a, you should pardon the expression, epiphany. For me, the logic is “liberal/progressive values are good, therefore religion practiced in accordance with liberal/progressive values is good. Liberal/progressive values are a fairly recent
development in human history, but that is true in all spheres of society, not just religion”.
The question the OP asks is basically meaningless.
There is no “true core” of any religion, any more than there is a “true core” of a nation, language, political party, or message board. They are sociological phenomena defined by the people who inhabit them, and those people change over time.
Reactionaries, by definition, will always be able to claim their beliefs are more “traditional” than progressive beliefs, but they’re also, by definition, morons.
Conversely, any human institution more than a century or so old will certainly have a history of horribly evil beliefs and/or actions, but proclaiming any particular institution to be intrinsically evil based on that history would also be moronic.
Not sure if you were aware of this, but yes, many of the more credulous Chasidim do in fact believe that Abraham and his family dressed the exact same way they do. (In fact, they stole the look from 18th century Polish nobility)
I had this exact discussion with a Lubuvitcher friend, who was surprisingly… vague about whether Abraham wore that outfit. Like, i think he knew it was ridiculous, but didn’t want to say so out loud.
From the Chasidim I know, I would guess that this is more of a story that gullible secular Jews believe about Orthodox ones than a story that gullible Orthodox Jews believe about ancient ones. Sort of like the hole in the sheets myth.
I’m aware of the children’s books or Haggadahs that depict Moses and other characters dressed like that, but I don’t think most Orthodox Jews (ETA: who are older than about ten) take that literally. The idea is that if you make Moses or Abraham or whatever dressed in clothes children associate with holiness, it will be easy for them to identify the holy figures in the picture. It’s not literal.
To be clear, i don’t think my friend believed that Abraham wore Polish clothing. But i think he felt social pressure not to say that out loud. And he uttered some platitudes about respecting our ancestors.
Of course, he was a convert to the Lubuvitcher movement. He was raised a conservative Jew, and i think his ancestors had been German Jews, not Polish Jews. But whatever.
Ok? Do you think people born into the Lubuvitcher movement think that ancient Hebrews dressed like they do?
Every adult Chabbadnik I’ve ever talked to understands that they dress this way because Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson did, not because Abraham did.
This really reminds me of the hole in the sheets myth. (Incidentally, I know of at least one Orthodox Jew who believed the hole in the sheets myth until he was about to get married and he asked his dad about it…)
How is it a polite fiction if no one believes it?
What context have you seen Orthodox Jews make the claim that ancient Hebrews did dress like that outside of children’s media where the depiction is shorthand for holiness?
There are certainly beliefs that Chabbadniks can be cagey about, like whether or not the Rebbe is corporeally alive in the real world or not; but how ancient Jews dressed isn’t really one of those.
Fwiw, i was still working with my friend when the rebbe died. I offered condolences, and he wasn’t even a little cagey about believing the rebbe was dead. He accepted my condolences, and said something about the souls of all great men being present in the world to comfort the rest of us. Or something along those lines. But he was very open about believing the rebbe was no longer with us in the flesh. (And he didn’t expect a resurrection, either.)
I lived in NYC at the time, and he lived in the Lubuvitcher enclave in crown heights. We were close enough that when the riots happened, i lent him my apartment keys when we went on vacation, in case his family needed a safe place to sleep. I did ask him not to kasher my kitchen ware.
