People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
It finds that around one-quarter (26%) of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated, a number that has risen over the last decade and is now the largest single religious group in the U.S. That’s similar to what other surveys and polls have also found, including Pew Research.
Sadly someone I know left their church of >20 years because they thought it had become TOO accepting of LGBT stuff. But they found another congregation with a more comfortable level of bigotry.
Well it’s pretty important to find the right God’s will to match your opinions.
For me, it moreso came down to the fact that the church was essentially becoming just a wing of the Republican political party.
Good.
Organized religion can’t die fast enough.
EDIT: Everyone take a minute to point & laugh at the sad christofascist @BaldProphet that likes to follow me around & give me his singular, pathetic downvote anytime I tell the truth about his pedophillic loser death-cult.
These groups always need a enemy.
So when a follower actually meets the person the group calls a enemy, and realized that it’s a lie… What do they expect?
Priest spews transphobia on the pulpit fifteen minutes after being balls deep in his tween altar boy.
Pastor rants about the loss of family values weeks before its found out that he’s impregnated a fourteen year old girl that he got hooked on meth or something.
Both scenarios are made up but the fact that they are VERY plausible should make it clear why people aren’t feeling keen on organized religion.
Yeah, religion is the deadliest ideology, basically “that’s a made-up reason we’re better than you and that’s why you need to die” basically an extension of conservatism
Jesus: Share everything you have, especially with those in need. Be kind and loving toward everyone. Worry about your own shortcomings and not those of others. Pay your taxes.
Members of the religion named after him: Nah. We just want to hoard wealth and watch people suffer. Also, let’s add a bunch of pagan stuff to our dogma that isn’t remotely scriptural.
When did Jesus say pay your taxes?
Mark 12:14-17
14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”
But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
And they were amazed at him.
Matthew 17:24-27
24 After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”
25 “Yes, he does,” he replied.
When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”
26 “From others,” Peter answered.
“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him.
27 “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”
That is the closest I found.
Mark 12: 14-17
Give unto Ceaser that which is Ceaser’s, give unto God that which is God’s
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There is also another way of looking at it: If pastors focus on ministering to teens, those teens become more faithful but then leave to the coasts for work when they reach adulthood and churches on the coasts receive more money due to the work of the home church. Meanwhile, if the pastors focus on the old people, those old people die and leave money to the home churches. So there is a financial incentive to ignore things that matter to the youth and focus on what matters to the elderly, at least in the short run.
Church is a business and baby jesus is crying
The major relevant drive is the fact that people finally realized they are a useless time waste and most importantly, made up - rather than having something to do with minorities.
Wow maybe if they’d stop hiring sexual abusers after realizing they can’t force people to stay at the same church their own life they’d get more business. But I believe the entire structure is sexual abusers by this point because all the “good” people realized how fucked it was and left.
The audacity, if god all mighty says child rape and bigotry are righteous and correct who are they to overrule his will. Seems obvious to me the first step is to realize there is no god, and then they shouldve bailed anyway before even getting to the hate
Was talking about this to a religious Christian friend of mine last week. Do you really want your religion to be associated with anger and being mean to minorities or do you want people to associate it with charity programs?
It is too much for me to ask that religion be good, I just wonder why they don’t care about even being seen as good. Why don’t they even have the basic level of shame we should expect from any common criminal?
Or any shame at all. Even common crooks are appalled by pedophiles. Christians will not only shield their priests from justice, they help transition them to other churches to find new victims.
They don’t have shame because “God” is a crutch for all sins when you can just beg for forgiveness from the supposedly all merciful.
Furthermore, they can’t comprehend their worldview without the existence of the Christian God.
Pair that with indoctrinations and now you got a cult!
Source: am former Catholic student studying psychology
Why don’t they even have the basic level of shame we should expect from any common criminal?
Well put
You don’t say…
“News”
