Toward 2035

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I believe I am wired for faith. And, if I share my faith, when I share my faith, it is because I want to share something that has been positive in my life. But I don't want to be heavy handed about it. I also feel that God is too great to be narrow minded when it comes to loving all of us...no matter our beliefs. I don't understand the afterlife, yet (!) but I'd like to believe those who are loving, caring people will be in that spiritual realm, along with a lot of pets. If my lack-of-scriptural references as a basis for this belief sends me to hell...well, I can't believe it will. Sometimes, I am aware of true evil in the world, and I want to make a judgment about the person who is responsible for it. But then I think....God loves them too, not the evil, but the person. One more challenge for a practicing Christian to accept.
 
KayTheCurler said:
Some years ago I had several conversations with a UCCan minister. I found the experience annoying. What was said to me over coffee cups didn't match what was in her sermons on Sundays. When I pointed that fact out her reply was "My people aren't ready to hear those views of mine ".. I stopped attending. Strangely,, I knew several people who would also attend IF the minister preached as well as she conversed.
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That doesn't shock me at all. Would this minister have been part of the 20%? Of the 5%? Or would she have responded as she preaches? It's not a certainty, is it?

Wasn't Gretta's point essentially that they were given freedom to relax their beliefs and some took that freedom to logical conclusions? Words to that effect.

The challenge to the United Church may be that you have the widest breadth of beliefs of any church in Canada. That may not be completely true, and difficult to quantify, but you're probably up there. You could use that as a positive, but the more rigidly faithful ones can't have that. Any lack of faith is seen as a flaw that needs fixing or a leak that needs mending. It's seen as a embarrassment in front of other churches, who will literally point and laugh, because they are dicks. I wish you could see them as such instead of people you need to impress.
 
Nancy said:
I believe I am wired for faith. And, if I share my faith, when I share my faith, it is because I want to share something that has been positive in my life. But I don't want to be heavy handed about it. I also feel that God is too great to be narrow minded when it comes to loving all of us...no matter our beliefs. I don't understand the afterlife, yet (!) but I'd like to believe those who are loving, caring people will be in that spiritual realm, along with a lot of pets. If my lack-of-scriptural references as a basis for this belief sends me to hell...well, I can't believe it will. Sometimes, I am aware of true evil in the world, and I want to make a judgment about the person who is responsible for it. But then I think....God loves them too, not the evil, but the person. One more challenge for a practicing Christian to accept.
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The whole "set an impossible goal so believers feel bad for not living up to it" is just one more nail in the coffin for me. It's textbook manipulation through guilt. From forgiving everyone, to not attending church, to premarital sex, to coveting something you don't have....it induces guilt. And that brings you back, grovelling, because you haven't lived up to Jesus' example. From my perspective, it's designed to pull you back in. It's insidious. It appears like religion evolved to include guilt as a retention strategy, and Christianity got top marks in its religion construction class.
 
chansen said:
It appears like religion evolved to include guilt as a retention strategy, and Christianity got top marks in its religion construction class.
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I suppose you might feel guilty if you missed making a sacrifice in a traditional pagan religion but that's not really the goal. You're actually supposed to be scared crapless that the deity in question will muck around with your life or curse you or something. So if you don't sacrifice to Poseidon before setting sail, expect some swimming type of thing. Which, really, is probably worse than the guilt. Of course, Christianity got into that game with heaven and hell. Turn or burn, as they say. So I wonder if fear or guilt is actually the retention strategy here. Or maybe it depends on the religion and denomination. In any case, both rely on the person in question to actually have values that would create that sense of fear or doubt so are not particularly useful recruiting/retention tools if people actually insist on thinking about things.
 
Fear works on some. Guilt works on others. I can not believe any of this stuff. It's absolutely wild to me.
 
I have fears and guilt but I don't see religion as the solution for either. They are very much mine to deal with and live with. Making a sacrifice or praying for forgiveness isn't meaningful if you don't believe (which is the operative word) there is someone on the other end of the line.
 
I have fears and guilt but they aren't crippling, and I don't blame my religion for setting a bar. For many, faith also provides comfort.
 
Church congregations can induce guilt about one's level of financial giving, participation in events and volunteerism.
 
chansen said:
Expanding on this post, think of it like neurodiversity, probably because it is related. Maybe it is neurotypical to want to have faith in a higher power, and neurodivergent to not need or want such beliefs. So what if it is? Say the neurotypicals have a point and some sort of "God" exists. Would this God create neurodivergents who can't believe in him, just to torture them later? How stupid does that sound?

The whole idea of hell fails on so many levels. If you want to believe it, fine. But as a concept, it's insane. As a threat? It's batshit crazy and exposes your own morality as deeply flawed if you think it's a grand idea.
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The concept of Hell does make little sense. It portrays "God" as a supreme being who needs adulation and obedience from its followers. I cannot imagine a being or presence credited with creation of the universe needing anything from humans. I can imagine a creative being or presence having a reciprocal relationship with humans who are wired for that kind of relationship.
 
I believe many attend church with hunger for something more, hoping the church will help with that hunger, walk with them in that quest. The something more may be connection or opportunity to make a greater difference in the world or knowledge of self or deeper spirituality or many other possibilities.
 
jimkenney12 said:
I believe many attend church with hunger for something more, hoping the church will help with that hunger, walk with them in that quest. The something more may be connection or opportunity to make a greater difference in the world or knowledge of self or deeper spirituality or many other possibilities.
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Agreed. The guilting and turn or burn are definitely strategic choices some churches make to try to sell their message, but this is actually the better reason for going to church. It's certainly what drives a lot of UUs.
 
It's times like this I miss revjohn and his opposition to my posts and his defense of Christianity. I like to think I at least held my own, but it gave more reasonable balance to this place that we don't get from unsafe's AI ramblings and hilarious images.
 
jimkenney12 said:
I believe many attend church with hunger for something more, hoping the church will help with that hunger, walk with them in that quest. The something more may be connection or opportunity to make a greater difference in the world or knowledge of self or deeper spirituality or many other possibilities.
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That's a small slice of the pie, though.

People want certainty. Not me, but many seem to. I don't offer certainty, and was criticized by some here because I didn't come armed with answers about deep questions.

For some, many even, a bad answer is preferable to no answer at all. I can't stop them from thinking this way, but we can all think of people like this.

And that's the problem churches who don't have definitive (even if baseless) answers, will continue to have. You have ideas, or concepts, or metaphors. But you have no simple answers. People love simple answers. They love a sound bite. They love a simple verse from scripture. They'll put it on a billboard or a bumper sticker. It's almost always one verse. No context. But that's what they want.

If you can't provide that for them...they're not interested.
 
I believe there are many people interested in exploring questions with others so they can find their own answers. They usually require some solid ground for their quests. Some of that solid ground is their relationship with the congregation.
 
"Even to question truly is an answer" is a line in a UU hymn. It's probably why UU'ism isn't right for so many people. @chansen is right. Not everyone who sets foot in a church is looking for answers, but a lot are.

jimkenney12 said:
I believe there are many people interested in exploring questions with others so they can find their own answers. They usually require some solid ground for their quests. Some of that solid ground is their relationship with the congregation.
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The existence of UU'ism bears this out. The problem is that UU'ism is built that way, it is who and what we are. There is no definitive right answer and living in the questions is encouraged. We have a list of sources, not a set scripture. We have principles, not doctrines.

Is that a path that will work for a church describing itself as "Christian" with repeated reference to God, Jesus, and other Christian concepts in its founding documents and statements of faith? I am not sure how far you can go with that "exploring questions" before you're following the same road as the once-Christian Unitarians did that eventually led to them becoming a church for humanists and others who were, in some or many cases, leaving Christianity.
 
chansen said:
Expanding on this post, think of it like neurodiversity, probably because it is related. Maybe it is neurotypical to want to have faith in a higher power, and neurodivergent to not need or want such beliefs. So what if it is? Say the neurotypicals have a point and some sort of "God" exists. Would this God create neurodivergents who can't believe in him, just to torture them later? How stupid does that sound?

The whole idea of hell fails on so many levels. If you want to believe it, fine. But as a concept, it's insane. As a threat? It's batshit crazy and exposes your own morality as deeply flawed if you think it's a grand idea.
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I’m neurodivergent. I can’t believe that we have life and consciousness for no purpose, or that there isn’t some (formless energy) power higher than us involved in that. That makes no sense. There are forces bigger than us that gave us the ability to even have these discussions. Everything has a root cause.

However, it feels more to me like hell is on earth and we are making it hotter, instead of using our lives and consciousness to preserve and carry on for next generations - which would mean globally doing better at caring and helping. The world is in a vengeful mode right now because of a misguided worldview. Should be the opposite if we’re going to get through it and give new generations a chance.

You may not believe in God but you can see the batshit behaviour in the bible. The point of faith I think, is to work on correcting that (healing not raining hellfire - or ICEfire) in the world and using what we were given (even if we can’t determine scientifically where from) to learn from mistakes and do good in the pursuit of a better world, believing it can be better. If you know that’s the right thing to do, you have a type of faith (conscience? Instinct?) whether you have religion or not. If you know it’s the right thing to do, and can bring people together and do good in the world without any of the religious trappings - and are grateful that you can - your faith may even be stronger than church peoples’. Not to put them down with, though, if they find the religious trappings comforting and can think in new and creative ways about them - but for everybody to join everybody in doing better.
 
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jimkenney12 said:
I believe there are many people interested in exploring questions with others so they can find their own answers. They usually require some solid ground for their quests. Some of that solid ground is their relationship with the congregation.
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Many? How many do you think in a typical congregation? Can you give us a rough estimate as a percentage of members?
 
I am, by nature, an anxious person. I am a happy member of a left-leaning UCC congregation for several reasons:

- they accept me as I am; no-one expects beliefs or faith from me
- I don't think I have ever been made to feel guilty; my own conscience gives me guilt on about three occasions: i) when I haven't done something I said I would; ii) when I am unkind without meaning to be because I'm not always in tune with other's emotions (I and my kids tend to neurodiversity by modern definitions); iii) when a young or vulnerable person is frightened by me - I can be very direct and it un-nerves some. None of these are religious guilt . I cannot imagine worrying about heaven and hell, although I have had clear communication with two dead people who let me know in no uncertain terms that everything was okay.
- My participation is pretty constant, but I withdraw from projects/teams as my life journey takes me, to no kickback. (e.g. I am currently the roll clerk, but let my "boss" know last week that my arthritis is making handwriting difficult.
- Most importantly, it is somewhere I can go to acknowledge relationships with something bigger and better than individual me. It anchors a week in a pleasant way for a retired person. And most of the people I meet there are kinder and more patient than I, which aids in lack of character deterioration, at least.
 
How many people are on a quest depends on the congregation. I would guess about 20% of visitors and 5% of regulars
 
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