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njlauren -> RE: Young Christians are leaving churches and some atheists are unhappy (4/15/2013 7:59:58 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: CynthiaWVirginia
quote:
If you are an atheist, does it bother you that young people are leaving the Church - but still remain spiritual, still remain religious - but still haven't "converted" to atheism? Aren't your arguments good enough?
When I stopped going to churches it wasn't because some atheist convinced me that there was no God. I was upset with Him for allowing everyone have free will...which meant that some of us had to suffer the consequences of someone else's free will. Child abuse, etc. It took me a while to figure that part out and spent many years saying, "How could you let this happen?"
I couldn't find answers in churches I went to (only several dozen across half a dozen states). Mostly they met my needs until I turned about 15 years old. Instead of being a fun, joyful place to get away from home...I noticed they were too busy selling God, trying to corner the market on Him, and that bible lessons were a jumble of single sentences taken from many different chapters and...taken out of context. One church I went to (as an adult) didn't use the bible at all and told me that if I wanted to learn more about the bible I needed to start reading it at home.
[sm=modxiiswatching.gif] I did.
I rarely go to churches because of the reasons the author mentioned. Unlike many other Christians in my area, I don't have a problem with God's days being millions of days long and His having created dinosaurs before letting them become extinct. (Maybe He liked dinosaurs for a while.) But the churches did. Around here, many also had a problem with Harry Potter (my son and my mom were crazy about HP for half a dozen years), and Pokemon. It's kind of hard to take your kid to a church that's screaming that liking HP or Pokemon means that you're allowing your kid to be invaded by demons. Sometimes I think folks selling God feel the need to wake up their congregation by giving them something to feel threatened by and something to fight over. (Maybe I'm wrong.)
Teenagers are smart enough to see when adults are selling something, and IMHO, denying science and dinosaur fossils...deserves an eye roll.
An old high school buddy of mine is a pastor. Mom wanted to enjoy a debate with her over several issues in the bible...my friend turned her down, saying that she didn't actually read the bible. Mom asked her how in the world did she teach other people about God's word if she didn't even read her own bible...and the friend answered that she read "tracts" written by others and that her preaching was "God inspired".
A pet peeve of mine. I get tired of groups that teach their congregation that it's okay to use the bible in ways God never intended, as a pedestal, and as a weapon to bash other people over the head with.
Sometimes I feel like our churches have abandoned us and not the other way around. Tithes were not meant for...ensuring that the pastor's wife could wear only $700+ dresses, nor for "our" building looking better/fancier than that other denomination's... Also, a nine year old child should not NEED to fill out some form that asks how much money their parent makes (I was the only one in my family going to that church at that time. Some of my friends from the neighborhood went and I wanted to go with them).
IMHO, churches need to open themselves to their communities more, let their behavior show that they are followers of Christ by loving their neighbor and teaching by example. Lack of kids in the church? Kids are easy to get if one thinks of giving back to the community. Free child care while mothers are at work, free tutoring, teach those teenagers to cook in the church's kitchen and then take meals to people in their community who have just come home after a surgery or have had a new baby. Teach the older kids about babysitting (the Red Cross used to teach a class and I'm sure there are some old books available on the internet) and then have these kids listed as available within the congregation and neighborhood as (paid) babysitters, asking them to volunteer some times during emergencies. Praise them...give small trophies for their "community service". Some kids and other volunteers can be organized for yard work, to assist elderly or physically disabled people who can no longer take care of mowing their own lawns. Most of the people who helped me keep my sanity when I was a teenager were "old people" on my paper routes, and my favorite person back then was a woman whose grandchildren had grown up and moved away...she was a retired school teacher. (I would gladly have helped to mow her lawn in exchange for whining privileges, advice, and some tea or lemonaide.)
Churches around here are buildings that only get used one day per week for a few hours...what a shame that they don't encourage their members to come by for board game nights, religious debate teams, movie and popcorn and soda pop (with movies that have Christian beliefs or stuff to grow on without being "preachy"), and...how about free dance lessons so the kids and adults have an alternative to the current bump and grind dirty dancing? In Ohio, my aunt belonged to a place that taught ballroom dancing, and non-members only had to pay $5 so she would bring her adult grandson with her as her partner. One of the schools I went to when I lived in California...made us 5th graders do "folk dancing"...it was GREAT knowing how to dance once I caught up with the rest of the class. There can be challenges and rewards, like memorizing all the names of the books in the bible, with rewards like...being taken bowling or to the community swimming pool...believe me, masses of kids with working moms would come.
Personally, I don't think churches should be a "sacred place"...they need to reach out to their communities, offering service and welcoming any person into their social activities.
Btw, bo's mom broke her hip a few weeks ago. He has been with her almost 24/7 since she came home. It would be very...Christian...of people in his community to bring over a batch of frozen casseroles or donations of store brand Ensure, offers to help with some of the house work and watching her once or twice per week to give him some respite. Her condition is temporary, not permanent, and they cannot ask for help because from past experience...they know that anyone sent over will not be truly helpful and roll up their sleeves and get to work, but will instead hop up on that soapbox and spend their entire time there "witnessing".
The same happened to my friend Carin while she was dying from cancer. I signed her up for hospice after being told of all the wonderful things they would do for her (including getting her into a wheel chair and taking her outdoors for some fresh air every day). Nothing they promised was actually done. I know, I was present and confirmed for myself what Carin told me. All the woman did was preach, trying to get Carin to "be saved". In the end, Carin said yes just to shut her up and let the woman have her bragging rights. There was no use in telling the hospice worker that Carin was already a Christian since she was a little girl, the woman was blinded by the belief that only her type of Christian was the right type of Christian.
It's a shame, but yeah, as a teenager I had to leave churches in order to find God. I really don't care why an atheist would THINK leaving/rejecting a religion would mean that I rejected my God...and it's kinda funny that some atheits might be like some Christian denominations that try to convert people to their way of thinking (like carving notches on a bedpost, lol).
Cynthia-
Your point is right on, it is one of the things I looked for in a church and didn't find it, community, and that is so important. I belonged to a very liberal church, that literally accepted all, was not dogmatic, very inclusive, you name it (used to get hate mail, and some jackwagons from an evangelical church decided they were going to teach our church a lesson in being Christian and were going to throw rocks through our stained glass window, and from what I know, but cannot prove, the douchbag who was their pastor knew about it....real Christian, don't ya think?)..but it failed, because it was all theoretical, they would rather see me as a trans person as some sort of abstract idea of radical acceptance, rather than a person looking for a place to have friends and fellows and provide something for my family. The church had a lot of people who had been hurt, recovering alcoholics and drug addiction, people who had a horrible time accepting themselves, gays struggling to beat AIDS..you name it, really hurt people, a lot of them skittish like feral cats..and the church didn't provide that, it was all theory with no substance. That same church a couple of generations ago was a community center, literally, they had youth basketball, laborers could use the shower facilities because their apartments didn't have hot water, they had all kinds of groups for the town.....
What church has turned into in a lot of mainstream churches is go to church on sunday, hear a sermon, pay your tithe, have a cup of coffee, then go home and totally ignore what was told you in church.....some of the evangelical churches understand the concept of fellowship, but it is warped, they offer a lot for their members, but they also create this insular culture where they are supposed to interact only with themselves and 'their kind'.
When I was forced to abandon transition, on the cusp of going full time, going through a major issue with unemployment and trying to figure out how to keep my family going, the church I belonged to was absolutely useless, there was no support, no pastoral care, and in fact when I made the decision to revert, basically because I realized if I didn't, it would cause my family to split up and destroy my son's dreams, plus I loved my spouse, and probably would mean economic privation for them if we split up (me, I could care less, if I was single it would have been a no brainer), and what I got was a lot of derision, not love and compassion and understanding..and this was a liberal church......
These days people are looking for some way to connect, but the churches sure as heck aren't doing it, and they are leaving it to facebook and the like, which is pathetic.
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