Saturday, August 22, 2009

The Shrinking Church

Atheism is a growing force. It is defined by dictionary.com as "disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings." I know the argument has been made countless times by the faithful that Atheism is still a belief system, and thus not much different from any other religion, but until it is debunked, I prefer to believe in a Higher Power. God has been a great presence in my life and I feel bad for people who are missing out on that.

Truthfully though, I can understand the pull away from God. Mankind is evolving. We don't need a god anymore. We can explain away most all things formerly mysterious. The move to a self-actualized humanism is the next logical step in our moral evolution. We don't need all powerful beings forcing us to be good and explaining a sun rise. In fact, the religions of the world are seen as destructive forces instead of instructions on how to live a life of love. On the other side, in trying to stay relevant, the Message has been filtered and watered down to fit current trends and is now shallow and weak. Yesterday in church I was admiring the beauty of the building and the lack of people in the pews. It was like a bus stop for the afterlife, full of the elderly sitting quietly waiting for eternity. My cousin (who works there) was telling me about an ever-smaller budget and a decline in active members. The writing on the wall was sandblasted clean last month.

I don't know what this declining majority is to do. Faith has lost its appeal and church has little to offer modern man. I wish I had solutions, but I don't. All I have is the notion that the God I believe in has less need for us than we do for Him.

4 comments:

  1. The only problem with your logic is the "until it's debunked, I prefer to believe." I mean, that's all good and fine, but that's not actually how logic works. Assertions need proof before they can be asserted; "This is a statement, it's right until proven wrong" is incorrect.

    Granted, you can belive something that's illogical, just felt the need to point that out.

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  2. I love the words: "It was like a bus stop for the afterlife". This is why you need to keep blogging, dude. Seriously.

    That said, I'm obviously with Steve on the logic deal. You need proof to assert a claim. No one can disprove Zeus or Ra either, but you don't believe in them.

    I think that religion evolved to be very relevant to early man & even today remains very relevant to billions. I think that the decline in church-going is due to its diminishing relevancy to humanity. Dogma that once set us free, now tries to chain us down to rules that seem irrelevant to our modern lives.

    There are things we'll lose, but I'm sure new memes will evolve that will try to fill the gaps - they always do.

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  3. Steve,

    I know. I'm not trying to make a claim that belief is logical. Often, it's not. And I'm cool with that.

    Also, Assertations can be made without proof. Hence:
    Fred is black.
    The assertation is value-less until backed up. Isn't the point of logic to find proof for something lacking it?

    Nick,

    What's more free than an eternal being? You've got to die eventually. I don't ;)
    Unfortunately, I totally agree with you about the diminishing relevancy, that was the point of the post.

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  4. I thought so. Just making sure. I've heard enough "Well, you can't _disprove_ God" comments before...

    In an English sense, of course, you can say whatever you want. But in a formal (math) proof sense, you can't make assertions without the previous statements to back it up. Now, in a scientific sense, you could have the "Fred is black" hypothesis, and, until you've found supporting evidence...

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