dog walking thought

[ironymaiden]

Church forces you to get along with people you may not like or agree with.

We don't have a comparable secular activity for most. So there's a set of skills that are dying out along with the Sunday routine

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

I'd have thought this was even more true of a workplace, since one has even less choice of who to interact with. I suppose that church is a more socializing sort of experience though?

[nanila]

Children's extracurricular sporting activities also accomplish this fairly effectively, especially for the parents.

[ironymaiden]

I was thinking of outside of work and school, because they aren't voluntary. Anything else you do with your time as an adult you generally won't stick with if there's interpersonal friction.

[yourlibrarian]

Ah yes, that's a good point.

[ironymaiden]

Ooh, good one. There's another layer here where kids put you into situations you wouldn't enter on your own

[motodraconis]

I don't see why this is a problem. I have spent enough time at work with nobheads, decades of honing my skills to deal with them, why would I want more of the same in my free time? I also have lots of hobbies and external activities where I am having enough fun an occasional sprinkling of idiots is not going to stop me and there's flexibility to side-step them.

I'll admit, going to church does not seem like fun regardless of the people, I don't have the time for something that is more work and chores. I do have chums who appear to go because they get something out of it, I appreciate their happiness, even if I do not understand it.

[ironymaiden]

Yup.
I'm wondering if it's a contributor to extremism in the US. I'm not saying we should all be going to church, but as we sort ourselves apart in our public life it becomes easier and easier to dehumanize people we disagree with because we don't interact with them at all

[motodraconis]

I got the impression that churches in the US are the very last place you are going to meet a variety of people. The more powerful the church, the more likely they will be Trump loving, right wing, and very keen on home schooling and segregating the flock from education that might train them to think and question, and differing opinions. It is all about conforming, and following their rules. If you disagree with them, they will cast you out, possibly even ostracise you from the community at large, so people will play along as they don't want their lives ruined.

So yeah, it is a big contributor to extremism, if you go to church in the US, you are likely to be ignorant and close minded, a nice little sheep in the flock. The churches that my UK chums go to are pretty mild, non-controlling and generally more about helping and welcoming everyone, such as doing charity work that would help people of other faiths but not expecting them to convert. A very different mindset! There are churches in the US vein in the UK, thankfully quite small, but I don't have any friends that go to such places... they most certainly would not want to associate with me and I am certainly not going to convert to their way of thinking. Church power is very weak in the UK compared to the US, but quite honestly I am thankful. The UK has enough problems already.

[ironymaiden]

From the inside it's more complicated.

As the US becomes less religious as a whole the more extreme folks have become more visible.

What you see in The Simpsons is pretty much what it was like when I was growing up, a mix of true believers and people there out of obligation. There's quite a bit of diversity in Christianity in the US, there are still a lot of the traditional "mainline" Protestant churches, Catholics, Unitarians, Quakers, Mennonites. Even among the Evangelicals there are socially progressive congregations. But there are a lot fewer people who go.

[varina8]

That's a good point. I've often thought that our mobility has also plays a role in our declining ability to resolve our differences or just find a way to live with them.

People who stay in tightly knit communities have to figure out ways to live with those they disagree with. Now we can just move or at least delete them from our social media. The skills that keeps a diverse community functioning well seem to be breaking down.