My parish provides a place for outcasts to come in out of the rain literally and emotionally. People that I see and talk to every Sunday include a bizarre gigantic effeminate black guy wrapped in bright colored sheets so that only his eyes can be seen, a mentally-impaired aged abuse survivor who gets marginal work as a carpenter, sometimes, a guy dying of cancer with no other friends in town . . . they are all welcomed and supported and known and cared about by the parish. They have no other place. Nothing is asked of them, only given. They are a small sample of the people whom my parish serves. Perhaps in a different kind of town there would be a non-church place for them, but not the town I live in.
Ongoing ministries in my parish include feeding and clothing the homeless, visiting the sick, helping and visiting women in jail, helping indigent pregnant women with their births and subsequently (we turned an unused building into a small maternity home), and lots of other stuff.
Poor immigrant Mexicans (half my parish are native Spanish speakers) are rightly afraid of government services but they trust the Catholic church, so we can help them, with everything from legal problems to vaccinations.
I’ve noticed over and over that some of the most willfully ignorant antipathy for religion comes from those who spent their childhoods being made to go to Sunday services.
Actually, I don’t think they should; in fact, I’d tend to think this thread is specifically going to be most helpful to those sorts of people. I think a huge part of the problem that we see in hostility between religious and the non-religious or people with different religious views is that they only see the other side as evil and don’t actually make a real effort to understand what they see in it. We see the same thing in politics with liberals vs. conservatives or Republicans vs. Democrats and any number of other contentious issues as well. It’s easy to look at someone with an opposing viewpoint and think “lol ur brainwashed” and dismiss everything they say. But I’d like to think that focusing for a moment on the good parts and really trying to understand relgion, not just trying denigrate and defeat it, maybe there’s a chance that there’s some hope for some level of understanding, even if we don’t actually agree.
So, hopefully, people who aren’t fans of religion can see that there are some positive things and there are some people for whom religion has been a huge positive benefit. And maybe that some of those people who have come in just to threadshit might realize that precisely because they couldn’t follow the OP and felt compelled to do that, that maybe they aren’t as open-minded as they thought they were.
Nitpick: You mean “flak.” “Flak” is anti-aircraft weaponry; metaphorically, it means “criticism.” A “flack” is a publicist or a spokesman.
Your question seems to imply that the people who are giving flak to religion on these boards aren’t aware of the (purported) good in religion. But we live in a society in which we are constantly bombarded by that message.
I’m curious about the motivation for the OP. Do you really think that the critics of religion on this board are unaware or ill-informed of the good in religion? Is this witnessing in disguise?
If this thread was meant as some kind of “let’s convince the atheists that religion is really wonderful after all!” thing, then I regret my participation.
Thats a nice thought, but there are lliterally entire organisations dedicated to telling people how good religion is.
I dont think anything said here is going to be anything different to what most people who dislike religion havent heard tens of thousands of times before. Which is why I find its rationale a bit odd myself, one thing the world is not short of is advocates for the benefits of religion.
I agree on that point. I was disagreeing that it tends to be Eastern religions. I think Western culture has been much more likely to use religion as an opiate for the masses and so, over time, its practice has gotten away from that somewhat. There certainly are some people who are like that, and I personally know some of them, but I also personally know plenty of followers of Western religions aren’t like that at all.
Look at Christianity for instance. Jesus didn’t just give us a bunch of rules, in fact, I think did very much the opposite in challenging the establishment and their hardset rules, focusing much more on the intentions and concepts and giving us new ways of thinking. Yeah, there are some people who just extract a set of rules and run with it, or just accept a set of rules they’re given supposed based on it, but that’s just because that’s what they’re looking for out of it.
And that’s any more believable than the claims of all the various Christian sects who claim that they are about “waking you up” to God? Or Scientology? What religions don’t claim to be about enlightening people?
Yes, and there are even some parts of the New Testament that talk about waking up. I couldn’t quote you a single one, but when they were pointed out to me, I was really surprised. If you really dig down into the roots of western religions, they closely resemble the eastern ones. It gets me to wonder more about the truth of the human condition.
My cousin’s husband has colon cancer so he’s undergoing chemo and radiation, and is facing more surgeries. They have 3 little kids (oldest is 6). He’s constantly sick and tired and has been ready to just give up at times.
People from their church take it in turns to drive him to his doctor appointments, watch the kids so my cousin can get stuff done or just have some time to herself, bring over meals so she doesn’t have to worry about cooking, and clean the house.
That wasn’t my point. I wouldn’t expect anyone to come out of this thinking that religion is good or to convert people. I think having a bunch of religious people going “look how awesome we are” and non-religious people going “look how stupid you are” isn’t going to be productive. My point was that I think the fact that so many people felt the need to post snark shows that it’s not just a simple disagreement over religion but a fundamental disconnect in how religious and non-religious people view it.
Take it to another arena for a second. Suppose someone posts a thread about a major political figure and some legislation they support. If all that happens is that the people who align with that person’s party say “this is great news!” and everyone who aligns with the opposite party says “this is horrible news!” then nothing good comes out of it and there will continue to be an impass. If instead, those who support it can enumerate why they support it and those who oppose it make a real effort to understand why those people think those reasons are good, they may not agree with eachother, but at least they can disagree with eachother from informed positions.
Even though I am a theist myself, I fully recongize that religion isn’t all peaches and cream, I see there are plenty of people who have abused it over time or use it to numb their minds rather than open them. I also see many of the draws of atheism or simply not really caring one way or the other. But I personally think it’s counterproductive to approach those I disagree with and just reitterate over and over that I disagree with them and insulting them rather than trying to understand where and why we disagree. I have no desire to convert anyone at all, I just want people to try to understand eachother and have productive conversation.
But if poster A says, “Such and such is something position that comes from religion” and you disallow poster B from saying, “Well, I don’t believe that such and such is really that positive at all” then you aren’t having a meaningful conversation at all-you’re having a “Yea for Religion!” thread.
Well, isn’t that also exactly what atheists are claiming when it’s said that religion is an opiate and numbs people’s minds? Some religious people seek elightenment, some don’t, just as some atheists are truly seeking knowledge and some aren’t. I personally know both theists and atheists on both sides of that. It’s not fair and it’s not productive to either perspective to paint the other as closed-minded and unenlightened.
Certainly, there are some people who claim they are pursuing knowledge and enlightenment and, under closer inspection, really aren’t. But that’s not so much a condemnation of religion or non-religion, as it is of humanity in general.
Oh, good point. We’ve gotten tons of help - from simply visiting my wife in the hospital, to meals and lawn mowing since she’s been home. On the other hand, any sort of community, religious or not, can provide this.
I don’t think it would be against the spirit of the thread to agrue whether or not a specific point is true or is actually a positive thing; that’s healthy reasonable debate. As in someone says religions promotes X and someone disagrees that it promotes X or thinks that X is a bad thing, sure.
What I think the OP was against was people just comining in and just straight up listing a bunch of bad stuff. For instance, if someone were to go “Look, religious people are the main ones against SSM.” or some of the early snark comments like “good comedy fodder” I’d think that’s what the OP was against.
well there was this really good pancake breakfast i went to once.
some religions do good charity work not part of a missions effort. these aren’t without flaws but can be overall good. many hospitals were started by religious institutions to provide quality health care at a more affordable price.
some religions have good disaster aid efforts.
some religions have food and clothing banks and reuse shops.
Yes, but many, not all, churches are fairly open communities. Belonging isnt tough. And church membership carries the expectation of lending a helping hand, not all organizations do. And churches tend to be large enough to share that sort of co-caring burden.
My brother in law, not a church member, is dying of cancer. And his close friends and family have been really helpful. But his larger communities, fandom, renfair, and folk musicians, are not organized for “who is bringing the hot dish over and who is mowing the lawn” the way churches often are. My congregation has a care committee for organizing just this sort of thing.
On a related front, my husband is an atheist. He is also a church member (yeah, UUs are a strange religion). Despite not being a person of faith, being able to talk to a minister has been comforting and helpful. It’s an awkward time for us, venting to family and friends is only adding stress to those already stressed…we can commiserate, but we are all in states if misery and there is an amount of brave face being put on by everyone. His work environment has been supportive, but he wants to remain professional. Here is a ready made third person, trained and experienced in this particular issue, who requires no caregiving and not involved, ready to listen and, if wanted, advise. There really isn’t another source for this for him, maybe a therapist, but a therapist is similar, not the same. And he is the first to admit that even fifteen years ago he never thought he’d have a minster, and as recently as three years ago, never really thought he would ever need one (he’s been humoring me).
I’m not sure how to respond to this. Are you saying that because all religions claim to offer enlightenment, that none of them do? That would be a pretty ignorant statement, if so.