Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

T R E 4 5 O N

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

In after Baud. Damn.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

This blog will pay for itself.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: ‘Community’ Cannot Be Ordered on DoorDash

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: ‘Community’ Cannot Be Ordered on DoorDash

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The rightwing politicization of church has ruined the experience for millions of Americans. MAGA mega-grifts are directly contributing to the crisis of loneliness many are feeling these days with the traditional types of community connection they could rely on taken away by bigots and conmen.

[image or embed]

— JLRay (@jlray.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 9:42 AM

As a Person of Religion, I would be the first to agree that institutional churches inevitably devolve into cesspits of corruption & abuse. On the other hand, human primates need something to organize a community around, and yes ‘church’ is a time-tested delivery system for mutual aid.

I have an impression that future historians, assuming such exist, will consider the Rise of the Media-Driven Megachurch as a political development quite as important as the nineteenth century Burnt-Over District (read the link: Spiritualism, Prohibition, Votes for Women, the invention of the Latter-Day Saints… )

Church is fun. Christmas plays and choir and summer camp are some of my fondest childhood memories. I loved our pastor who told good stories and had a lot of football jokes I didn't get. To make it this horrible place of darkness and merch tables is just such a loss to American culture.

— JLRay (@jlray.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 9:58 AM

if you are 45 years old and have no meaningful connections perhaps you are not making an effort to connect with people or are unpleasant. man go to church. go work a fucking soup kitchen.

— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) December 4, 2024 at 6:08 PM

Reader Interactions

187Comments

  3. 3.

    geg6

    Make other kinds of community.  Fuck religion and churches.  No one needs a damn church to create community.  I don’t buy one word of this except that Christian churches are shrinking and that the greedheads that run mega churches are one of the many symptoms of the disease.  And that disease is total hypocrisy.  No Christian religions that I am aware of are immune.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    Organized religion ain’t for me.

    I don’t begrudge anyone who finds confort and community it it, unless it turns them into a bad person or a person who asks for empathy for bad people.

    Religion is a political force however, so I appreciate people who try to engage with it. Political forces can’t be ignored.

  5. 5.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good evenin’, y’all.

    I knew folks were leaving the church (i.e., organized religion) and one of the reasons being (especially in the case of evangelical Christianity) the hard right turn, but I hadn’t considered the social connect void so many were experiencing as a result of leaving.

  11. 11.

    Leto

    I have an impression that future historians, assuming such exist, will consider the Rise of the Media-Driven Megachurch as a political development quite as important as the nineteenth century Burnt-Over District (read the link: Spiritualism, Prohibition, Votes for Women, the invention of the Latter-Day Saints… )

    We discussed part of this today in my history 112 class, part of the “Reagan and the Rise of Modern Conservatism” section when he spoke about the rise of religion and it’s direct ties to right-wing politics. So, not future but current discussions being had with the yoots in one of the required classes.

  13. 13.

    karen marie

    I have to disagree that “All the drop in Christianity is a decline in white Christianity.”

    If the total “Christian” population decline is from 90% to 64%, the 16%/17% attributed to non-white Christians is a smaller population in 2022 than it was in 1972.  The only thing that’s remained stable – according to the numbers presented – is that non-white Christians have maintained the same percentage relative to the total population.

    Or am I wrong?  I mean, I’m the first to admit that math isn’t my strong suit but I have a pretty good understanding of how percentages work.

  16. 16.

    Parfigliano

    Maybe it’s the systemic rape/coverup of children killing organized religion and I’m not referring just to the Catholics.

  18. 18.

    Poe Larity

    I have a good idea for a tiktok channel. Walking thru Megachurch parking lots and asking “What would Jesus drive?”

    John Cole may not be Jesus, but his Subie is a modern Ark.

  23. 23.

    different-church-lady

    I have long thought the anti-science tendencies of church-goers is rather unclever.

    When you think about things like the cosmos, it’s simply… unfathomable. A concept like the big bang can’t be encompassed by an ordinary mind. How the hell would you explain any of this as just… a thing that happened?

    Now, if religious leaders were clever about things, they’d say: “Oh my goodness, look at how utterly amazing the world that God created is! God is so much more amazing and mysterious than we ever imagined!”

    Instead of science being a refutation of God, it would be a confirmation that something larger than ourselves existed. Because God is the only thing that could explain it.

  27. 27.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @different-church-lady: Now, if religious leaders were clever about things, they’d say: “Oh my goodness, look at how utterly amazing the world that God created is! God is so much more amazing and mysterious than we ever imagined!”

    Mainline Protestant churches more or less do this.

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    Religion just feels like a form of social control to me.  And a tribe of sorts.  Priests were always sermonizing about how we Catholics were so different and special.

    Whatevs.

    The male dominated hierarchy is centuries out of date.

  30. 30.

    BritinChicago

    I’m a complete atheist, and have been for decades. But I’ve been wondering about going to a Unitarian Church, for social reasons and to be among other liberal do-gooder types. Bertrand Russell described Unitarianism as the view that there was at most one god (i.e. no more than one, so not implying there are any), but I suspect there’s more to it than that.

    Anyone have any experience of Unitarianism? (And whether atheists would be welcome.)

  31. 31.

    Nina

    Every Quaker meeting I’ve been to (Society of Friends) has been quite cool and welcoming.  Something to do with not having pastors, possibly.

  33. 33.

    Dan B

    @different-church-lady: I said something similar to a prominent progressive religious leader that I don’t need to believe in God to be awestruck by the scale of the universe and by how immense the difference in size at the atomic scale.

  34. 34.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Starfish (she/her):

    @Nukular Biskits: Your version of communion is better.

    Funny you should mention that. Several years ago, I was bestowed as “The God of ______” (fill in blank with the defense program I support) by the sailors I worked with and, with some … <cough, cough> modest encouragement from me, that’s my moniker.

    One crew even made me my own album cover.

    Although, to be fair, I’m more a practicing Pastafarian.

  35. 35.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @Jackie: The mom is the one who said he was a garbage person. She is walking it back now. But she was right the first time. No need to walk it back.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    @Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):   I went to a memorial service in a Quaker meeting hall recently, and it was incredible.

    Instead of the music and liturgy:  people just sat quietly until one decided to stand up and share a story or insight about the deceased.  Learned so much, and it felt much more that James was with us, and being celebrated.

    It was also so quiet, sitting there together, waiting for someone else to stand and speak.  Eventually.

    Rather than the usual “God is the greatest and we are not fit to …”  Am over that sh*t .

    Again.  Social control.

  40. 40.

    Citizen Alan

    @Nukular Biskits: I guess my religion is fairly disorganized. I believe very strongly in god. I believe very strongly in the teachings of jesus christ, as I was raised to understand them. So much so that I truly believe that if everyone followed the principles of do unto others as you would have them do unto you, love thy neighbor as thyself, and judge not lest ye be judged, we would all be living in an honest to god.Utopia.

    Unfortunately, I have simply come to the conclusion that organized christianity is so utterly corrupted at this point at every level that I think continuing to associate with them represents a danger to my immortal soul.

  41. 41.

    Scamp Dog

    @karen marie: There’s not quite enough information on that graph. I know that the white fraction of the US population has dropped, but I don’t know if the white Christian line is percentage of whites that are Christian or percentage of the US population that’s white Christian.
    So that graph doesn’t tell its story very well.

  42. 42.

    Lyrebird

    @different-church-lady: Now, if religious leaders were clever about things, they’d say: “Oh my goodness, look at how utterly amazing the world that God created is! God is so much more amazing and mysterious than we ever imagined!”

    Uh, they’ve been saying this for a LONG time.  Like religious leaders (mainline Christian) who were saying this contributing to what became the NYC Natural History museum level.   Like it was religious leaders in the UK that led pushback against the eugenics movement which entranced many scientists of the day.

    The horrible stuff is true, too, but there’s an enormous track record of this specific thing you are recommending.

  44. 44.

    Citizen Alan

    @Leto: Did you cover the bit where the moral majority and the evangelical embrace of anti-abortion politics was driven primarily by segregationists who wanted to split the catholics off from the democratic party?

  47. 47.

    Rusty

    Church should be more than a social club, and it is for most congregants.  Faith can be fulfilling, uplifting, inspiring, comforting and more.  They are in the end human institutions, so they are imperfect in many ways.  But they care for people in ways that nothing else can, and almost every progressive cause has arisen from those of faith and inspired by their belief in God. There are liberal denominations that are open and affirming of everyone in their han diversity.  We lose them at our peril.

  48. 48.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Elizabelle:

    One of the things I absolutely hate about funerals and memorials featuring a preacher (at least those I’ve attended here in the South), ESPECIALLY an SBC or pentecostal one, is their apparent innate “need” to prostitute the event into a sermon.  Especially when the deceased wasn’t particularly religious.

    I’ve stepped out of a couple.

  49. 49.

    RaflW

    @Baud: Agree with the “for no good reason.”

    People ’round here who know my posting habits will be unsurprised that I’ll point out that more than half of Unitarian Universalist congregational ministers are women (plus we have a fair number of trans, gender fluid, and other ways queer clergy). Our current denominational president is a woman of color, and the previous (each is elected to one 6 year term) was also a woman.

    Last April I attended an event in which the POC woman president of the UUA was in dialog with the POC woman head of the United Church of Christ. I don’t have the data, but I’d bet the UUCs are, like the UUs, well representing women clergy.

    I’ve also know women rabbis and queer rabbis (Reform, typically).

    Evangelicals and other conservative denominations, sects, and faiths? Probably not so much.

  50. 50.

    Raoul Paste

    BJ is not only informative, but I actually think it improves the people  who participate and lurk.  At least, most of them.
    If you see enough discussion here, you latch onto the voices of reason and wisdom, and learn to discern the pitfalls of interactions with other people.  And then there’s the empathy and the affirmations that you see routinely dispensed.

    If I were Omnes,  I could express it better.  It’s sort of like watching Ted Lasso. 

  52. 52.

    Scamp Dog

    @BritinChicago: Yes. I’m a Unitarian. We have a substantial atheist contingent, and I’m one of them. It’s technically the Unitarian Universalist church, so officially we’re the UU’s, but the theological distinctions are fading as the decades go by.

    So find the nearest congregation and check it out!

  55. 55.

    Martin

    I’m talking to some people now about building a local liberal civic institution that one person has described as ‘liberal church’. The idea is to create a community that serves many of the roles of a church, but is centered on organizing, engaging with lawmakers, and would be ready to go for GOTV and other efforts. Indivisible is one of the guides for this. One of the other observations feeding into this was we had a local fire this year, and immediately World Central Kitchen showed up and a few of us noted that for a party that is trying to message on ‘we’re here for you’, that kind of community service would be a pretty good way to demonstrate that. (Not suggesting we could replace that even for just the local event, but that kind of support organizing, mutual aid, etc. on a suitable scale).

    There are questions of ‘should this be a liberal thing, or a Democratic Party thing’ and so on. This is still  in brainstorming. Most of us are still trying to get our heads around things and we aren’t nearly there yet, but it feels like a good exercise in that process.

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    The WaPost had a series of articles about a church in Swannanoa, NC; the pastor and his wife organized so much relief for all the community affected by Hurricane Helene.  They can do some good work.

    Albeit.  Some of the congregants were probably privately passing along the disinformation and scaremongering about guvmint aid.

  58. 58.

    SpaceUnit

    All I know is that the Christmas lights I just purchased are complete garbage.  I’ve been working for an hour to get the damn things untangled and I’m only halfway through one string.

     

    Baby Jesus would not approve.

  59. 59.

    oldster

    Hate religion, but want some of the community that churches provide?
    Join a church choir. Some churches have really good music!

    I have sung both in high-church Episcopalian/Anglican churches where we sang beautiful classical literature, from Gregorian chant through Thomas Tallis through John Rutter, and in a gospel choir which sang traditional spirituals up through electrified gospel.

    It’s great! I got to go to the potlucks and Christmas parties. I make friends, and I feel accepted. And, honestly, nobody cares that I don’t believe any of the doctrine.

  61. 61.

    Suzanne

    I was raised in mainline churches. I had a great Methodist church in Tempe, but I haven’t found one I like here. (I wish I enjoyed UU congregations more.)

    One of the things that’s really hard is that I would love for my kids to have a great youth group. But every time I go to a mainline church….. the vast majority of the attendees are, like, my mom’s age.

    The evangelical megachurches have really leaned into activities for youth. It’s a huge reason people go.

  62. 62.

    Citizen Alan

    @different-church-lady: That’s because they are raised from early childhood to hate the world. For most denominations, the christian mindset is that the world around us is a prison, a miserable holding cell in which we must do our time before we’re finally let out to enter the paradise of heaven, one in which people who do not agree 100% with that mindset are not allowed. Fred clark used to talk about how evangelicals interpreted the beatitudes, to refer exclusively to what things will be like in heaven. “Blessed are the peacemakers” has no relevance to the real world in which we live. And people who actually work towards peace are at best unwitting tools of satan, if not willing agent’s of the antichrist. Eighty five million copies of Left Behind were purchased by people who are really into christian revenge snuff porn.

  63. 63.

    Marcopolo

    I dunno does Meet Up still exist as a thing? Back in the day I knew quite a few folks who joined local interest groups via Meet Up.

    But I tend to believe that this current “crisis of loneliness” is more closely linked to the vast increase in time that so many folks spend on screens (all kinds) instead of, you know, spending time in the physical world.

    As for the decline of organized religion contributing to it, maybe that is more in places w/ fewer people where the range of options is smaller.

    Last thought, libraries are a great place to find community.

  67. 67.

    Martin

    @BritinChicago: Ms Martin is a leader in her U/U congregation and an atheist. Atheists generally welcome, but like most things it can vary from instance to instance. They get a lot of inquiries from people about just this – it’s a normal question.

    So, a friend of ours attends the congregation in Beverly and it’s quite open to atheists. If you are nearby, you can swing by there for a visit.

  68. 68.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Jay: Dried pastafarians are the common clay of the new west. Fresh pastafarianism is the way. Gnocchists are grudgingly included, but the Spaetzelians may be a bridge too far for the mainstream.

  71. 71.

    divF

    @BritinChicago: Since you brought them up, here is Jon Carroll’s take on the Unitarian Jihad.

    We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: “Sincerity is not enough.” We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it’s true doesn’t make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn’t mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone.

  72. 72.

    JaneE

    I went to church as a child.  My mother taught Sunday School.  Years later I found out there was another name (used deprecatingly) for our variety of Christianity.  Red Letter Christians.  We were taught that Jesus came to wash away our sins and teach us how to live righteously in God’s sight.  Everything and everyone else in the Bible was a secondary source for God’s wishes, Jesus was a level 1 source, being part of the Trinity and all.

    The best sermon our minister ever preached (IMO) was a Christmas sermon, about integration, the acceptance of Black men and women, and our duty as Christians to fight racism as much as we fought hunger and thirst.  Part of that was a re-working of the Good Samaritan using a Black man for the Samaritan – along with an explanation of how that was more appropriate to Jesus’ time than most of us realized – and using a minister, a deacon, and a Black man.

    Our denomination supported integration of the schools, and opposed discrimination.  Of course our churches were predominately either all white or all black, and the church made an effort to change that. Our church camps were already integrated, and most cabin/tents had more than one race.    We did a congregation swap with the nearest black church, over an hour away by bus, and a minister swap to simplify the logistics.

    And then about a third of the congregation decided it was time to find a different church.  Even one of our deacons.  That taught me that even people who seemed like good Christians weren’t always.  Racism was more important to them than treating the “least” of them fairly and with compassion.   That was the beginning of the end of my relationship with organized religion.

    Since then I have noticed how many churches have particular dogmas that I think are contradicted by the teachings of Jesus.  And the farther from what Jesus taught and how he lived the more vehemently they insist that those are true teachings without which you will never get to Heaven.

    That was long before the grifters and authoritarians started taking over.  Now I am officially an atheist.

  74. 74.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Baud: This hasn’t been true of liberal Christian denominations, UU, or Reformed Judaism for quite a while now.

  75. 75.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @different-church-lady: How the hell would you explain any of this as just… a thing that happened?

    Easy, since the 1890’s its been a mathematical certainty we nothing more that a bunch disembodied brains floating in a dead universe hallucinating our existence that spontaneously appeared because of quantum fluctuation.

  76. 76.

    dnfree

    @Elizabelle: When I was a Methodist teen, in the early 1960s, we fraternized at church camp with other religious leaders as guests—rabbis, for example, or Buddhists.  But never Catholics!  We were warned not to date or marry Catholics, or the pope would be telling us what to do.

    (As a lapsed Methodist, I married a lapsed Catholic, and we’re fine.)

  77. 77.

    stinger

    @Nukular Biskits: ​
     Not just a sermon, but an altar call. Takes the focus off the dead person being memorialized and puts it on the feelings of whoever got to feeling guilty thanks to the altar call. Also puts it on the CometoJesus ability of the preacher.

  78. 78.

    West of the Rockies

    My hot take is that the “Christians” most in the spotlight are prosperity gospel evangelicals, fundamentalists, and SCOTUS-type Catholics.

    Ugh.

    Not groups any quality humans would wish to hang with.  Now when I think of Christians, that’s who I picture.

  79. 79.

    RaflW

    @BritinChicago: My partner is a UU minister. And an atheist (he is far from the only one). Unitarian Universalist congregations vary a fair bit in terms of their theological approaches and Sunday gatherings.

    Some feel more like a mildly New England protestant ritual, some are avowedly Humanist, and many take a bit from here, something from there, sprinkle it with some good music and end up with a fulfilling hour that may never have the word g-d in it.

    In other words, if one is in a place like Chicago, try visiting a few different UU congregations, and try each at least twice, as each Sunday is often a little different.

  81. 81.

    Steve LaBonne

    @JaneE: I am also officially an atheist (since age 11)- and officially a UU (since my early 30s), because I find both personal and social value in religious community.

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin:

    I’m talking to some people now about building a local liberal civic institution that one person has described as ‘liberal church’. The idea is to create a community that serves many of the roles of a church, but is centered on organizing, engaging with lawmakers, and would be ready to go for GOTV and other efforts. Indivisible is one of the guides for this. One of the other observations feeding into this was we had a local fire this year, and immediately World Central Kitchen showed up and a few of us noted that for a party that is trying to message on ‘we’re here for you’, that kind of community service would be a pretty good way to demonstrate that. (Not suggesting we could replace that even for just the local event, but that kind of support organizing, mutual aid, etc. on a suitable scale).

    There are questions of ‘should this be a liberal thing, or a Democratic Party thing’ and so on. This is still  in brainstorming. Most of us are still trying to get our heads around things and we aren’t nearly there yet, but it feels like a good exercise in that process.

    I love that idea.

  90. 90.

    ColoradoGuy

    @BritinChicago: Been to lots of UU churches. There’s no formal theology except in a very loose sense, and yes, there are plenty of atheists there. And Buddhists. And other religions. LGBTQ+ are very welcome and are often in leadership positions.

    The big thing is fellowship, supporting each other, and taking a progressive leadership position in the local community for those who want to do so.

    I’ve dug into the history of the progressive church back in the 1880’s … surprisingly, the fundamentalists emerged at the same time, to oppose the progressive churches. The progressive churches have been at the forefront of every social movement since the 1880’s.

  91. 91.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Elizabelle: ​
    I had the good fortune of attending efgoldman’s memorial service. As you can imagine, not at all “religious” but moving in its own way, Not many memorial services that I’ve been to show the “Who’s on First” routine.

  94. 94.

    Martin

    @Suzanne: One of the things that’s really hard is that I would love for my kids to have a great youth group. But every time I go to a mainline church….. the vast majority of the attendees are, like, my mom’s age.

    That’s a problem everywhere. The average age of regular church attendees is around 60.

  96. 96.

    Steve LaBonne

    @West of the Rockies: The most important thing to know about UU is that individual congregations and the way they do church can differ quite a bit, so those who live in areas where there is more than one within a reasonable distance should visit as many as possible. And then services can vary a lot from week to week so if you find one that appeals you want to make a few visits. Also coffee hour is our sacrament ;) so please stay after church and chat with people.

  98. 98.

    Nukular Biskits

    @stinger:

    Not just a sermon, but an altar call. Takes the focus off the dead person being memorialized and puts it on the feelings of whoever got to feeling guilty thanks to the altar call. Also puts it on the CometoJesus ability of the preacher.

    BINGO!  You said it much better.

  100. 100.

    Leto

    @Citizen Alan: yes, yes we did. This is our last week of class, I didn’t need to be there, but I wanted to see how this would be presented. My professor’s background is a labor rights historian, and this aligns with his research. Plus he’s really good at connecting all these threads in a non-threatening way which is what these kids need.

  106. 106.

    West of the Rockies

    @Steve LaBonne:

    Thanks for the info.  Is a dollar donation part of attendance?  How much do people give nowadays?  I recall my parents putting a couple singles in the basket at Catholic services, but that was back in about 1970.

  107. 107.

    FDRLincoln

    I was a pretty devout Christian for the first 30 years of my life or so. Always a liberal, and that because it seemed to me that most liberal politics flowed naturally from Jesus’s teachings.

    Over time I fell away from Christianity as I realized that I could not longer accept most of the theology. Although I retain belief in an afterlife due to certain personal experiences I have had that do not fit within a purely materialist framework.

    Sometimes I miss being a Christian. These days I am vaguely pagan. The Beatitudes still influence the way I think and act, but IMO Christianity lost its way when it became the official religion of the Empire.

  108. 108.

    cmorenc

    I got a profound theological insight from a fun-silly movie “Bruce Almighty” where Carrey somehow suddenly acquires god-like powers and tries to use them to do good for other people, but it never works out, often doing more harm than good.  Morgan Freeman appears in the role of God, to whom Carrey expresses his frustrations in trying to do good – and Freeman replies that the God thing is far harder than it looks. (I’m paraphrasing, but the essence is correct).

    The profound insight I took from this is that it’s possible that God can be good but hands-off on intervening with people.  This Universe is a grand experiment intended to attempt to eventually create and evolve intelligent life forms who possess free-will autonomy rather than being just puppets totally directed and controlled by god – who on their own eventually evolve into good, moral beings.  But also formidably difficult for god to intervene without unintended adverse consequences, such as blowing up the current version of the universe by breaking causality and the fundamental physical laws this version of the universe is based on. This framework also solves the problem of how if God is fundamentally good, how can God let evil as malevolent as Hitler exist?  Because intervention would break the paradigm and possibly the current universe N, requiring God to start over at the drawing board for universe N+ 1.

    There’s even a place for Jesus in this theology as an example that enough iterations of intelligent beings would eventually produce and serve as exemplar of how God wants intelligent beings to learn to live.

  110. 110.

    geg6

    @Marcopolo:

    Agree with you completely.  Religion is the last place a lonely person should look to for acceptance.  And screen time or more specifically social media is the major cause.
    As for myself, I love being by myself and have little to no need to interact with strangers, especially religious ones.  I have my family and a small circle of friends and do not care to expand that.  In fact, it makes me miserable to think about it, let alone do it.  No thanks.  I’d rather be lonely, which I am most decidedly not.  Too many people are not comfortable being with themselves.  It’s a good trait to have.

  111. 111.

    Tony G

    @geg6: I agree: Fuck religion.  When I was a kid (more than a half-century ago) I went to Catholic Mass every Sunday because that’s what I was expected to do.  It was sort of a “community” in the sense that I’d see kids and adults from the neighborhood there.  Then I gave it some thought (probably a sin to do that) and I quit all religion.  What’s more meaningful, I think, is the fact that “communities” of the type that existed 50 or 60 years ago don’t really exist anymore.  I’ve lived on my block in suburban New Jersey for 35 years now, and I “know” (to the extent of knowing their names) a grand total of one family on the block.  People just live in their own worlds and don’t talk to each other.  Coincidentally or not (probably not) this alienated isolation is exactly what the billionaires who own this country want.  Just work and “consume” and keep your mouths shut!

  112. 112.

    Sallycat

    @BritinChicago: I started going a few weeks ago–right after the election.  No religion is fine.  No one has asked me anything about my religion.  I explained that the election outcome motivated my to seek a community.  Everyone got it.  The minister states they are about love and social justice.

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    I suspect a lot of people including Unitarian/Universalists are Deists.

    When he was a young printer hustling commissions, Benjamin was hired by a pious Philadelphian to write a tract refuting the novel and pernicious doctrine of Deism. In his Autobigraphy Franklin describes how he read up on the philosophy in order to fulfill the commission, and became convinced of the its merits.

    Deism was in vogue during the Enlightenment period, and many late 18th century Americans were influenced by the philosophy including Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

    When Franklin could afford to collect a library he bought a copy of Spinoza’s Ethics. Baruch Spinoza was a Renaissance techie, a lens grinder in 17th century Holland when he wrote his Ethics. The book is a comprehensive cosmology in outline form that had a big impact among Enlightenment philosophers in the next century.

    Spinoza may have derived the system from the mystical Jewish Qabballa. His unorthodox views led his local Jewish congregation to expel him.

    Twentieth century physicist Albert Einstein was sometimes asked if he believed in God and would reply, “Yes. The God of Spinoza.”

  115. 115.

    Steve LaBonne

    @West of the Rockies: As a visitor you should not be expected to put anything in the basket (at my church we say “your presence here is your gift”). You can also be a ” friend” as long as you wish without any financial contribution though many friends do make one. Most congregations do expect or require some kind of financial contribution to be a voting member, usually in the form of an annual pledge (so that revenue can be predicted for budgeting purposes). At least at any congregation I would give the time of day to, it is entirely up to you how much you can afford and wish to give. A token amount will be gratefully received from those who can only manage that.

  119. 119.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: I’m not sure it’s a good or workable idea, but it’s keeping us a little busy at least. We’re looking around for similar efforts if anyone has pointers.

    We have abysmal engagement with our city policies (I attend pretty regularly and it’s not uncommon in our city of 300K for 10 people to show up) so if that’s all we did, that’d be a huge improvement.

    There would be more structural support if it were properly Democratic, but the average age of my city is 33. It’s very young, and the liberal-but-I-don’t-like-political-parties contingent appears to be pretty goddamn huge, and so being noncommittal on that might draw a lot more interest. None of us feel compelled to exclude DemSocs, etc. 40% of the city is immigrants and my sense talking to them is that they map particularly unevenly to our political parties compared to those of us who only know this system, so this might be very rag-tag in terms of viewpoints.  That’s contributing to the concern that it might not even be a viable idea.

  120. 120.

    Gin & Tonic

    I may either regret writing this, or use it as a jumping-off point for a more in-depth piece, but when we talk of “community organizing” or “collective action” (as has come up in this thread) I keep thinking of what I know, which is the Ukrainian collective action in 2013-2014 that was called “Maidan” or of 2004-2005 that was called the “Orange Revolution,” or what is happening in Georgia at the moment. And what I’ve observed (at times up close and personal) is a level of shared responsibility that I don’t see any possibility of in the US. During the very dark, very cold days of late 2013-early 2014, we’d see literally hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Kyiv protesting, but we saw communal kitchens making hot soup or hot tea for everyone, we saw (nearly) everyone with homes/offices/facilities in the downtown area opening them up for anyone to use to warm up or go pee, we saw a very strict prohibition on alcohol consumption, we saw a level of self-policing that I cannot imagine being successful in America. Maybe the idea of collective responsibility is a residue of another (unnamed here) era of collectivism, I won’t go there now, but the sense that the shared responsibility/outcome is the most important thing really prevailed. And – in 2004-2005 it reversed the results of a fraudulent election, in 2013-2024 it overthrew a government, in 2024-2025 we wait to see.

    I’ve been clear in my opinion that Americans aren’t up for this.

  121. 121.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Sallycat: Many UU congregations got an influx after the 2016 election and it seems to be happening again. We lost people at the height of the pandemic when everything was Zoom only so this is a welcome development unfortunately stemming from a most unwelcome event.

  122. 122.

    scav

    People used to come together in their community as simple members of it, for social and practical things.  Picnics, social, parades (closer to build your own), school and library stuff.  People would join the Elks, the Moose, the Woodman, the Shriners, the Rotary club, blah blah blah, all sorts of things for slightly varying reasons.  There are any number of non religious options, and most have been declining for a long while.  Religion just happens to be the last big one standing in America but it’s not like it’s magic or the only one.  The lack of active personal investment in the community is a bigger issue.

  124. 124.

    Hildebrand

    If I may do a tiny bit of focused  apologetics – the African American church (ELCA Lutheran – the more liberal version of Lutherans in the US) that I have the privilege of serving as pastor is a place of unconditional welcome and inclusion.

    We work for justice, we worked tirelessly to get folks to the polls for the election, we feed the hungry (no questions asked), we are building 31 affordable housing units on our property, and we are determined to stay in the city of Detroit no matter what.  We do the work that nice young chap from Nazareth actually talked about.

    This community works tirelessly for the good of all because that is what they understand to be a clear expression of their faith. They do the right thing.  They voted 100% for Harris (yep – 100%).

    It’s not a defense of American Christianity, writ large, but it is a defense of progressive Christianity, especially in the Black church, as definitively different from white evangelical Christianity.

  125. 125.

    PJ

    @Gin & Tonic: In my lifetime, and probably yours too, Americans have never been asked to work towards a common purpose.  When 9/11 happened, and people were genuinely looking for something to do to help, George Bush told them to go shopping.  I wasn’t around for it, obviously, but I’d guess maybe the last time all (or most) Americans did work together for a common purpose, including making sacrifices but also simply working together, was WWII.

  127. 127.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Hildebrand: I am sad and angry that the authoritarian churches have poisoned the well to such an extent that people who have been damaged by contact with them are left too angry and wounded even to believe in the existence of progressive religion. It’s just another part of the damage those churches cause.

  129. 129.

    bluefoot

    @Gin & Tonic: ​
      I think we saw collective action and responsibility at the start of the COVID pandemic, but that changed as soon as it became evident that some groups were more heavily hit by COVID than others. I also feel like there was a sense that we could do things differently, that capital didn’t need to be the be-all-end-all, but then it felt like capital doubled down and things were actually worse than before the pandemic. And the isolation and the systems that grew up around it just accelerated atomization and has slowed or prevented psychological & social recovery.

    Maybe as a whole Americans aren’t up for it, but I also think a lot of us as individuals and communities are.

  130. 130.

    Hildebrand

    @Steve LaBonne: Yep.  And I get it, I fully understand the disgust and frustration from so many.  It is well and appropriately earned.

    That said, my congregation, my goodness, they are justice oriented and deeply caring folks.

  133. 133.

    narya

    I was raised atheist, so I don’t have a deity-shaped space in my life. Lately I’ve been contemplating checking out the Quakers, partly for community (introvert and isolationist that I am), partly because my understanding is they’re also not insistent on deities. Dunno if I will—and not this week because the last beer run is Sunday (a 0.5 k between two breweries, with a beer at each).

  134. 134.

    Steve LaBonne

    @narya: My understanding is that there are some explicitly nontheist meetings, but Friends meetings in general are not really thick on the ground in most parts of the country so I don’t know your chances of finding one. P.S. There is no deity-shaped space in my universe either- I’m a scientist and a very “hard” atheist. But I am enriched by a non-creedal religious community that is about values, not beliefs.

  136. 136.

    Miss Bianca

    @Hildebrand:

    If I ever move back to Detroit (which is my fallback plan if things go to smash in my current situation), I would like to find your church!

  137. 137.

    narya

    @Steve LaBonne: there’s one walking distance from me, actually! Well, a longish walk, but that’s okay. I dunno: I’m so allergic to deities and religion and other people. We’ll see.

  138. 138.

    Steve LaBonne

    @narya: An unprogrammed Friends meeting could be right up your alley. I’m told they can occasionally end without anybody saying anything! I have known a few Quaker UUs, really fine people, because not much in the way of meetings exist in my area.

  140. 140.

    Splitting Image

    I was raised Catholic in an Irish family, so I learned early on that organized religion is not only irredeemably evil through and through, but probably even worse than we think it is given what we know so far.

    As I’ve gotten older and mellowed somewhat, I have reached the stage where I can happily admit that Dolly Parton is an exception to anything I have to say about religion in general. Jimmy Carter obviously is also a decent fellow. I’m even willing to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are similar-minded to, but not as famous as, Carter or Parton. Jose Andres seems to be doing a good job of collecting a lot of them and putting them to work.

    I’ve also come to respect that the history of black churches in America is different from the Catholic church in Ireland (and elsewhere). It’s easier to understand people’s desire to remain in a church when there is a history of positive action to point to.

    I will say that Trump has managed one positive thing since he came on the scene. He neatly divided every self-described Christian in the country into the worthy and the unworthy. Anybody who voted for him is as phony as a three-dollar bill and most of them are proud of it.

  141. 141.

    Another Scott

    Dunno about Ryan Burge’s explanation for his graph.

    When I wonder about social trends, I always try to look at the GSS from the NORC.

    Religious Preference. They have categories for Christian Fundamentalist, Christian Moderate, Catholic, Jewish, No Religion, and Other. I don’t see that the White Christian trends are that different from the Black or Other ethnic group trends. What I do see is that No Religion started to increase approximately linearly over time starting around 1990-1991.

    The White graph in his plot dominates simply because there are more White Christians, it seems to me. But all races/ethnicities seem to be choosing No Religion more frequently (roughly 20-30% of the total now).

    At least that’s the way it looks to me. Corrections welcome.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  142. 142.

    RevRick

    @Baud: Almost all religions are male dominated for no good reason.

    Could it be because they are perfect reflections of the imperialism that infects every human brain… and imperialism carves up the world according to race, class and gender.

  143. 143.

    Hildebrand

    @Miss Bianca: You, and all the jackals, would be warmly welcomed.  I love the people at Genesis Lutheran in Detroit.

    Another plus, the music is Black gospel with a really good band and choir.

  144. 144.

    Rose Weiss

    @BritinChicago: I used to attend a UU church pretty regularly. It was a very welcoming group. No one ever inquired whether I was a deist, theist, atheist, or anything else, although there were active discussion groups for such conversations for those interested. I stopped attending when I moved to a tiny town where there wasn’t a UU church.

  145. 145.

    Tony G

    @PJ: The week or so following 09/11/2001 was a strange situation.  People were lining up to give blood and looking for other ways to help with the anticipated huge numbers of wounded from the attack.  But there were very few wounded.  The nature of the attack was such that people either escaped in time or they were killed and pulverized.  Then Bush started that idiotic video stunt with the bullhorn.  And ultimately the attack was used as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq (a country that had nothing to do with the attack).

  146. 146.

    Martin

    @Gin & Tonic: Yeah, that observation is part of our conversation (why I said we aren’t sure it’s feasible).

    One thing working against this idea is that we live in a relatively high turnover area. Nobody is from here, we’re all from somewhere else and there’s really no unifying community element apart from that. On other hand, there’s are regular events that occur that suggest there is a desire for more social cohesion. We’ve had situations where we did surprisingly large scale, spontaneous community building around some event and we were always surprised when they happen. Maybe it’s that 40% immigration effect overcoming the American lack of collectivism.

    We’re not gearing up for a fight, that’s not what we’re responding to. We’re responding to the lack of collective cohesion that we feel is needed to solve even some of our local policy issues, and how so many of us feel completely disconnected from others to talk to. We live in a place where discussing politics feels too divisive so none of us really do it (again, it’s a very complicated cultural space) and this would open up a space to do that, while doing something more. That’s sort of the idea. And we would just see what grows out of that.

  147. 147.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Hildebrand: it’s like a drink of water, to read about your church. It gives me hope

     

    @Gin & Tonic: I long for the kind of community you describe.

    Theres this myth of rugged individualism here, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s coming to a sort of late stage degradation of its natural outcome.

    It took me a long time, as an isolated introverted loner with bad family experiences ( that’s your earliest community, isn’t it) to come to understand our utter interdependence. Everything I have and participated in comes from teams, and community, people working together. The road I drive on, the house I live in, the gas piped into my house, the water, the food, grown and harvested and transported, this tablet must have required more than 100 people to make it, after the design teams and programmers finished. A pencil, a notebook, are made by people. No one is an island. We really need to get better at interconnecting.
    Jobs have been a place for some community, but it depends what you do, sometimes you work with and help a lot of people, but it’s not appropriate or safe to become friends and deepen any personal connections.
    It’s gotten harder to create community, but I think it’s needed.

    here’s a tiny thought. When I came back from South America at 19, I observed and thought about the complacency here, how we’re lulled by having so much. In places where’s there’s nothing much left to lose, it’s a more clear path to fight, protest, gather.

    isolation and fierce separations, estrangement by belief or habit, people alone in tiny bubbles of one or two, watching tv and streaming movies, writing on an onscreen chat or blog.. when we’re isolated, separated, it’s easier to divide us.
    long ago a friend told me hitler distributed pornography in a country he wanted to invade. It makes sense, if I connect the dots, because it’s addictive, and keeps people alone doing alone happy things instead of with others.

    i spent my summer reaching out, trying assiduously to get coffee dates and movie watching dinners  with old friends and acquaintances I wanted to know better. It didn’t come easy.

  149. 149.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Martin: this

    the lack of collective cohesion that we feel is needed to solve even some of our local policy issues, and how so many of us feel completely disconnected from others to talk to.

  150. 150.

    Rusty

    @Hildebrand: I spent 22 years as a member of an ELCA church, I loved the church and congregation.  With a job move I now belong to a UCC church and I’m in the process of becoming a member in discernment as I have started part time at seminary since I need to continue to hold down my full time profession.  Your church sounds wonderful, there are parts of the more liturgical practice I miss even as I feel back home (I was raised in a UCC church)

  151. 151.

    Martin

    @scav: In our community, there is a lot of community stuff around holidays. Entire neighborhoods will do big halloween stuff, rent bounce houses for whoever comes along, hay rides, all that jazz. We have a community parade on July 4, along with community fireworks shows. Block parties, all that. That’s fallen off a decent bit since Covid though, which really pulled the wind out of some of these sails that never got rebuilt.

    My observation, going back some ways, is that the US has always been bad at civic responsibility and over focused on personal responsibility, and that leads to collective action problems being effectively impossible to solve. And we have a bunch of those at the local level. There’s a lot of ruminating about why we can’t solve this, and seemingly a lot of agreement in how to solve it (my area gets more blue every election, so there seems to be more consensus on things), but no structure to organize and promote that lift.

    When the area was more conservative, we did see these efforts often organized out of the local churches. The city has gotten a lot bigger, there’s no more local organizing layer, church attendance here keeps dropping so they are doing less. There’s nothing to sort of naturally fill in that gap.

  152. 152.

    Ebony

    I feel like the pro community people are really smug. Sometimes people have good reasons for not wanting to engage with the community that are not simple people being unpleasant. Many people in communities are deeply unpleasant and judgemental. I resent being expected to want to be part of a community with people who look down on me. Communities can be very toxic.

  153. 153.

    lowtechcyclist

    Just a little math here:

    In 1972, 73% of Americans were white Christians.
    Per the 1970 Census, 87.5% of Americans in 1970 identified as non-Hispanic white.

    In 2022, 47% of of Americans were white Christians.
    Per the 2020 Census, 57.8% of Americans in 2020 identified as non-Hispanic white.

    Ryan Burge’s claim that “all the drop in Christianity is a decline in white Christianity” isn’t supported by the numbers. According to these numbers, the share of white Christians has declined with the share of white people altogether, and the share of whites identifying as Christian has dropped by maybe a couple of percentage points over the past half-century.

  154. 154.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @Nukular Biskits: this might explain the appeal of Buddhism.

    I actually had an argument with a friend about religion in which I told her I liked the fact that China had never had a state religion.

    She told me that Chinese tells its religious people that they don’t exist, and asked me what historical religions they had in China; I mentioned Buddhism.

    She then said, “what if the state told you then, after you said you were a Buddhist, that you didn’t exist?” and then I thought to myself, I’m not sure you know that much about Buddhism…

  155. 155.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @RevRick: there’s a chapter in the art of loving by eric Fromm, that I read in college, about love of god as a male, and the by contrast god as female. I was quite taken by it, decided that after 20 years of he, I would seek out others who think of god as she. that i would give goddess 20 years of my attention.
    It does exist; we’re mostly in hiding, small groups, you meet someone, get invited.

    i am also interested in speaking in a way that doesn’t presuppose any particular religion, or any at all. It’s a bit if a language twister.

    The authoritarian churches, and the folks who think Christianity, or their specific version of it is the only way, those people are not ok with me. They try to impose their way and their will and judgment on others, and I dislike it. They think their way is wrong, and it feels like they still might like to criminalize anyone who believes differently. I’ve had it come straight at me. I keep my closet door pretty firmly closed, but it’s scary.
    Christianity and Islam both have long histories of converting people at sword point. I’m guessing there’s a deep trace of fear from race memory, or generational knowing.

  156. 156.

    Aziz, light!

    The current estimate for the number of stars in our galaxy is 100 to 400 billion stars. Stars are typically accompanied by planets as a product of the star’s creation. We can see only about 3 percent of the universe, because the universe is expanding well beyond the time it takes for light to reach us. This observable universe contains about 200 billion galaxies. The upper estimate for the total number of galaxies in the universe is two trillion. That’s a lot of stars and planets.

    And yet the hairless apes on one small planet imagine that their deity created this universe for them, and watches over them, and judges everything they do.

    A rabbi named Yeshua once offered people some very good advice about how to live with grace, humility, and compassion.

    Mahatma Ghandi: “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

  158. 158.

    Martin

    @bluefoot: Where I live, masking in public was pretty routine before Covid. 40% of the city is immigrants, mainly from Asia. A LOT of people here come from cultures where masking when you might have a cold is simple politeness. And masking here is still fairly common – you will never be the only one in the store with a mask.

    So it feels like we still have the ability to build civic responsibility, but lack the vehicles through which to demonstrate it. If that makes sense.

  162. 162.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Aziz, light!: this

    A rabbi named Yeshua once offered people some very good advice about how to live with grace, humility, and compassion.

    Mahatma Ghandi: “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

  164. 164.

    RevRick

    @Tony G: All religions are…

    Reading the comments here one would come to believe that they are the source of all evil in the world, but I believe the human heart doesn’t need a religion to spin out an evil. The Jacobins of the French Revolution were fiercely anti religion, and Communist regimes proved to be quite effective killing machines without the benefit of clergy.

    It becomes kind of chicken or egg question with all sorts of claims and counter claims which cannot be definitively answered.
    I suppose the first question we need to ask is what is a religion since the varieties of religious expression are incredibly diverse. The word itself comes the Latin word ligare, from which we get the word ligament. It’s something that connects and ties together. And by that measure the community built around John Cole and the front pagers constitute a religion, albeit a quite tenuous one. It will only last as long as this blog does.

    I must confess I find some of the vitriol directed at Christianity distressing, but not surprising since the level of anger reflects the amount of disappointment. We seldom get furious about matters of indifference.
    As a retired UCC pastor, I feel no need to defend my faith, because I believe that God is quite capable of taking care of this. I’m in sales, not management, after all.
    Mostly, I feel a great sadness that those who profess to be so opposed to the predations of our social system turn around and embrace some of its worst elements, to wit the atomization of human experience. We are social creatures. It’s the only way we managed to climb the mammalian pecking order from primarily being food for predators to those who have the capacity to imagine and create.
    The one great strength of the Church is that it has, over the centuries, survived numerous suicide attempts. Empires and corporations have risen and fallen, but churches and synagogues and temples and mosques go on? Perhaps it’s because we’re the only ones who confront death as a reality of life.
    In the end, I can only speak for myself, and that is my faith is not grounded in a set of propositions but in an experience. It wasn’t a grand experience, but one that met me at my worst in my late teens and kept me from unraveling. The plea, “God, help me!” made me whole. That moment set my life trajectory.

  166. 166.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Starfish (she/her): amen to that. And library community events. And rec centers, free university classes on art and dance. Etc

    My library branch hosts a no strings attached  book club every 3-4 weeks. Any book or movie we’ve enjoyed. They send out the notes after. I keep meaning to go.

    There are several knit crochet groups through the library also.

  167. 167.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Martin: i love this idea. I see that water girl also highlighted it; up at #55 and #88.
    I’d like to make it happen, to be a brainstorming person for it. A lot of what you’re suggesting is encompassed within the UU churches, as best I  understand  It. I’ve been to a few services there, and it feels inclusive for atheists, and people who have values from previous religious upbringing. They even have a pagan section, although I’m hearing that has gotten less welcomed, depending on your church. But there’s a major drive toward inclusion and social Justice.

    if you create this separately, or within existing organized groups, it makes so much sense. You might need a wall of uniting values, where people put up words or statements of the values underpinning the movement. Maybe have a brief spiritual component, like 10- 20 minutes to contemplate, silence, journaling.

    I know quakers sit together in silence, just rising to speak if they feel moved to. Some kind of inner listening or connection to a river of goodness, highest good, might provide sustenance for the heart, in this community you’re aiming to create.

    I hope you’ll keep us in the loop, let us know how we can contribute toward making it happen.

    BTW after Helene in WNC, there has been a lot of community going on, helping each other. And the world kitchen was there within days, feeding people. So, like 9/11, people do come together, but it seems it’s more for disasters.

  168. 168.

    scav

    @Martin: I’m a little more hesitant about saying Americans were never really good at civc responsibility, but I’d certainly agree they’ve never been good at it during my observed lifespan.  Plus, it’s pretty much denigrated in the whole mythos of levitation by our own bootstraps on the frontier we’ve come up with.  Much like guns in the Old West, things on the ground worked a little differently.  Having and working within the local community, knowing it and being known in it was a sort of insurance.  Barns got raised, infrastructure got built, you could get credit at the bank. In many ways, we’ve replaced those bonds with for-cash interactions with corporations.

  170. 170.

    moops

    Church was taken over by right-wing christianists because nobody going to church is actually all that into christianity.   It is all about community.   The entire edifice is built on lies.   Nobody in the church actually believes in any of their articles of faith.   Not even the clergy or faith leaders.  They are all just agreeing to go along.    It is an anachronism in these modern times.

  172. 172.

    Martin

    @Gloria DryGarden: Yeah, there is overlap in purpose with my wife’s U/U congregation. Her congregation is in a neighboring city, and we’re looking at something below city in reach. Her congregation also has the same problem noted elsewhere – they’re desperate for younger congregants, and their backbone of volunteers are all retirement age which limits their ambition. It’s also a space where everyone is openly progressive and embrace progressive ideas, but there’s virtually no political talk because they don’t want people to feel excluded by that. Our idea is the inverse – politics is more of a thing that binds us together. And our hope is we can reach all of those younger members of the community that the churches are struggling to reach.

    I’m not sure how much of churchlike activities we’re thinking of. Those of us discussing now are very shoulder to the wheel people – get in and get to work. And of course that isn’t going to work for everyone, but that’s just the predisposition of us – it’ll adapt as needed. We’re pretty goal rather than process oriented.

  173. 173.

    Rusty

    @RevRick: Thank you for your thoughtful words, they are a relief and a kindness among other comments.  I too have been made whole by the Divine.

  174. 174.

    Geminid

    @Gloria DryGarden: Have you heard of the Druze? They are a community of about 650,000 people who live among the mountains Lebanon, western Syria and northern Israel. I heard of them back in the 1980s because of their role in Lebanon’s terrible civil war. Then I became more interested in them last winter because of their role in the Israel’s current war. It’s kind of sad I learn about these things because of wars but it’s just a fact.

    The Druze share a singular religion that arose in Cairo around 1050 C.E., under the Fatimid dynasty. It is described as containing elements similar to Zorastrian, Buddhist and Pythagorean beliefs.  Scholars don’t know for sure though, because only the initiates know the whole story and they are very secretive about it..

    And they don’t proselytize. In fact, the Druze stopped taking converts 900 years ago and maintain their community entirely through intermarriage. Fortunately, some missionaries in the first generation did good work in the Lebanese mountains so when authorities in Cairo realized they had a heretical sect on their hands and set about uprooting it, it’s adherents had a place to flee to. They set up in the mountains and then made a reputation as fierce fighters no one in their right mind would mess with.

    In 1967, when Israel conquered the Golan Heights, the Druze there were separated from their relatives on the other side of the ceasefire line. Majdal Shams, a town on the southern slopes of Mount Carmel just inside the line, has some high ground next to it called “Shout Hill” because residents used to communicate with their kin on the other side by yelling back and forth.

    Then they used megaphones and eventually Israel and Syria opened the border to limited traffic. And now it seems like everybody over there has a cell phone.

    There is a movie set in Majdal Shams that came out 10 years ago, The Syrian Bride. It’s about an arranged marriage between two Druze living on each side of the border.

    The town is surrounded by orchards and the area is known for its apples and apricots. The Syrian civil war has depressed exports across the border but the farmers of Majdal Shams have adapted by developing the area as an agro-tourism destination. But right now few people visit on account of all the rockets flying around.

    But this war won’t go on forever and now it looks the Syrian civil war might not either. I’d like to visit some day, maybe when I visit Istanbul. But if I do I’ll know better than to query people there about their religion, because the Druze aren’t saying

  175. 175.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Geminid: Are you saying the Druze hide, stay in the closet, or try to pass? Is it not cool to ask, because they’re an oppressed group? I’d dirt if hear of a few different religions in the Middle East, maybe I’m thinking of Yazzidi. Highly oppressed.

    Its hard to find out much about Zoroastrianism, too, but I’m fascinated. Perhaps because it’s a smaller group, but they stick with their religion, amidst so much ass conversion to the bigger religions, Islam, Christianity. Perhaps because of sky burials, and that the idea of monotheism and a concept of good and evil may have started with Zoroastrianism.

  176. 176.

    Geminid

    @Gloria DryGarden: No, the Druze are very open and proud about their religious affiliation. It’s just that theirs is an esoteric religion that is closely held among the initiates who perform the rituals in private.

    There are still practicing Zorastrians; the Parsees are an example. I read that there is still a community of Zoroastrians in Iran. And the Nowruz festival celevrated in the Spring is rooted in Zoroastrianism. Kurdish people as well as Iranians celebrate it. Unlike the Turks and Arabs around them, Kurds speak an Indo-European language and may be descendents of the ancient Medes.

    Some Iranians advocate for a return to Zorastrianism. They argue that the strict Islamic religion of the mullahs who run the Islamic Republic is an ideology native the Arabian Peninsula and alien to Persia. This notion clearly is bound up in contemporary politics, and some Iranians are quite vehement about it.

    There is a similar movement among Turkic people regarding Tengrism. That was the amcient religion of the Turks and is still practiced by a few hundred people in Mongolia. They worship a sky god but he’s a very tolerant one. This revival of Tengrism may also be in part a reaction to Islam, but it’s definitely connected to Turkish natonalism.

    The “Gray Wolf Sign” popular among Turkish nationalists was taught to one by a woman shaman who knew the ancient Turkic traditions. You can make it by sticking your index and pinkie fingers in the air a wolf’s ears and bringing your other fingers and thumb together like a wolf’s muzzle.

    But you had better watch out where you make it!  The Gray Wolf Sign is banned in Austria and frowned upon in other European countries. When a Turkish player made the sign after scoring a goal in the recent Euro football tournament he got a two-game suspension.

    There are still several thousand adherents of of anothe singular religion living close to the Druze of Israel. These would be the Samaritans, who share many of the practices of Judaism. They are thought to be remnants of the Northern Hebrew tribes who hid up in the hills when the Asssyrians carried off the rest of their community around 700 B.C.E; the so-called Lost Tribes.

    I found out about the Samaritans through an article in the Times of Israel about a Samaritan cookbook a woman had just put out. I remember there being plenty of chickpeas among the various dishes.

  177. 177.

    David_C

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t have time to go through all the comments, but this lifelong Presbyterian agrees about mainline Protestant churches. For us choir members, ‘tis the season, and there are more community opportunities than I can shake a stick at.

  178. 178.

    David_C

    @RevRick: Thank you! My faith is present in every good thing I do. Science seemed to come naturally to me, so I ended up doing medical research as a way to serve. I’m that workplace sap that people come to when they encounter something not working right and they know I will take the time to help.

    We also can’t forget the reform movements started by the spiritual offspring (and in their migrations sometimes the actual offspring) of the old-line Congregationalists. Distrust of kings and Boston revolutionary fervor didn’t spring out of nowhere.

  179. 179.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Geminid: such a cool collection of interesting religions and groups. I have never heard of tengrism, nor if the wold symbol. I love when old old songs and ceremonies have passed down through centuries or Millenia, even. I did not know the samaritans were a different religion. I imagine it’s like when people migrate and separate, and their languages diverge. The Assyrians swept the Jews away, and the samaritans hid in the hills. When was this?
    i thought for sure the Mongolian people are practicing Buddhists, Tibetan Buddhism, I’d heard. Somehow relates to why china is unhappy with Tibetans, their religion being related to or coming from Mongolian Buddhism. I need YY to help w this; I may have it all wrong. So this tengrism might be from way back.

    BTW, have you seen Pollyanna on here this week? I’ve not been on in the daytime much; still staying up all hours., very upside down.

    eta we’d all like to see this Samaritan cookbook. Even if it’s chickpeas and fava beans , there’s always room for more ways to flavor things. Can’t eat only hummus.

  180. 180.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    I did not know the samaritans were a different religion. I imagine it’s like when people migrate and separate, and their languages diverge. The Assyrians swept the Jews away, and the samaritans hid in the hills. When was this?

    IIRC, the Assyrians overran the Northern Kingdom, whose survivors became the Samaritans, in about 712 BCE.  The Southern Kingdom, whose inhabitants contemporary Judaism is descended from, wouldn’t fall to the Babylonians until about 586 BCE, when most of them got hauled away to Babylon for several decades.  So plenty of time and room for divergent evolution, so to speak.

  182. 182.

    Dave

    @Tony G: Ah c’mon good Catholics do want you to think. With certain notable exceptions to the conclusions you are supposed to reach.

    Personally I grew up shaped by Star Trek and some of the better iterations of Catholicism; ultimately Star Trek won.

    Your last point though is spot on. Isolation with the reflexive selfish immaturity and choice overload that is encouraged by the environment we swim in does serve the interests of the sort of people who really don’t deserve to have their interests served.

  183. 183.

    Dave

    @PJ: Of my many many issues with the Bush II administration it was the utter smallness with which they met the opportunities created by a tragedy.

    Another reason to resent the current zeitgeist (which they helped set the stage for) is that the current set of asshats make GWB with all his flaws and shortcomings look better in comparison.

  184. 184.

    Dave

    @Geminid: Did you ever read at all about the Yazidi?

    That was an interesting group that I had some contact with in Northern Iraq and they seemed to include elements of Zoroastrianism.

    Though they are wary of outsiders and the locals of all ethnic groups as well as the Muslims and Chaldean Christians tended to view them as something akin to how many view the Roma.

  185. 185.

    TerryC

    @scav: The best community I know of is the disc golf community. Amazingly like the Elks, Eagles, Moose and all those other dying groups but dynamic. I can go to one of the 150 courses within 50 miles of my home and have a new friend or several almost instantly with everyone I meet. And that’s true around the world.

  186. 186.

    Geminid

    @Dave: Last October the news site Kurdistan24 had a neat article about a two-day event celebrating the Roma culture of northern Iraq. The local Roma people are called “Dom” and their population is estimated at 60,000.

    I thought it significant that such a festival could be held at all. The semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government that controls four northern Iraqi provinces has managed to create an atmosphere of tolerance for the Roma, Turkmen and other minorities within the larger Kurdish population.

    Just as importantly, the KRG has created a secure environment within an often violent and unstable region, at least for now.

    The news sites Kurdistan24 and Rudaw English are good sources for those curious about the Iraqa’s Kurdish Region. It’s the closest Kurdish people have come to self-rule in the modern age and maybe in all of history.

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