IS THE INTERNET REPLACING GOING TO CHURCH?

[Nasty Jack]

Although churches aren't empty, the congregations are dwindling and a new Pew Research study says "...the Christian percentage of the population [is] dropping precipitously." It's down to 70.6% from 78.4% in 2007. Millennials, or Generation Y, those with birth years from the 1980s to 2000s, are bailing out of Christianity with some one-third now claiming to be unaffiliated. And here's the kicker, some researchers blame it on the Internet, where the public can now get the facts on their faith and bond with those who think as they do. And in my view, if the person is knowledgeable enough, they can use the Internet to confirm or refute the dogmas of a religious group. My gut tells me the latter has a lot to do with the escape from Protestantism and religion in general. The only time I've been in a church in the last fifty years is for a wedding and when our granddaughter took my wife and me to a special service. Oh yes, a couple of Catholic Christmas Eve midnight masses. I am not proud but either am I apologetic. It's a matter of choice and apparently the current generation has chosen to veer away from all the pomp and circumstance.

http://nastyjackbuzz.blogspot.com/

[rurallib]

1. According to some tea baggers it is gay sex replacing church.

since tea baggers are seldom wrong, i've got to go with them.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. It does have better porn.

The bibles contents are much too dry and cranky. It's porn, but I don't think anyone can fap to it.

[kwassa]

3. I DON'T THINK SO.

The decline in church attendance has been happening since the 1950s, long before the Internet. Many factors are involved. And, not all religious organizations are declining.

[msongs]

4. jesus-wants-you-to-be-filthy-rich churches are booming despite the camel/eye of needle thingy in...

their own holy book

[Zippyjuan]

5. Marx said it best

Marx talked about religion being the opiate of the masses and he was right. Churches should not get exemptions, nor should they have any say in politics. People like Falwell should have been banned from any participation. They are tax exempt, so you can't HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO!

People need to rely on themselves. Why build a church when that is a drop in the bucket to help the poor? Look at the wealth inequality in this country. I'm sure Mother Teresa had good intentions and was a good person, but she could not influence poverty. Why? Because she had no authority. Only a state authority backed by law has the wherewithal to fix things like poverty. Churches don't have that authority. Even Jesus said to feed the poor. But what good are those words if people refuse to implement the solution?

[cbayer]

8. You may need to read up on the tax exemption that applies to religious groups and the rules

concerning political participation.

Suggesting that churches be treated differently than other non-profits is a very slippery slope and could threaten your 1st amendment guarantees of freedom from religion.

Welcome to DU.

[Nasty Jack]

12. THANKS

[Zippyjuan]

13. I've read up on it

They should not be allowed to participate and in fact, are prohibited. These evangelicals are also extremists.

[cbayer]

14. That is not correct.

Non-profits are prohibited from promoting individual candidates but are not prohibited from participating in politics, including endorsement of specific issues.

Would you like for all non-profits to be prohibited from participating in politics?

[Zippyjuan]

16. It's obvious who they promote

The evangelicals are not exactly promoting President Obama. It's obvious WHO they promote. They make a deal with the government for their status, but then want to have it both ways. You either enter into a contractual privilege or you're free. That includes free speech. Which do you choose?

[hrmjustin]

17. Houses of worship are not allowed to endorse candidates.

If they do they should lose their status.

My church never endorses candidates.

[Zippyjuan]

19. but they do that

But they already do that. They want the privilege, but they want to be free to do whey they do. It's a dichotomy, so you can't have both.

[hrmjustin]

20. Who does it? If you have an example then inform the IRS.

The rules are clear.

[Zippyjuan]

22. all of them

All of them do it. How can I inform on everyone? They even know it's being done, but do nothing about. They get the privilege and then get away with being free to do what they like.

Rule are also never clear cut when you're dealing with humans. You can bend the rules. You can interpret them different ways. You can selectively enforce them. It was clear who the Moral Majority was for. You can present the exact issue a candidate endorses. Even Pat Robertson ran for office.

[hrmjustin]

23. Everyone does not do it. My church doesn't do it.

Try again.

[Zippyjuan]

25. your church is the exception

Your church might be the exception. Other churches have tax exempt status and get involved with politics. You can't have privilege and also freedom to do want you want. You trade one for the other. Either you have it or you don't. If churches want to be free to do as they see fit, then they need to scrap their privilege. They think they're a special case.

[hrmjustin]

26. Wait are you talking about endorsing candidates or getting involved in a community?

[Zippyjuan]

29. difference?

What's the difference? You have a candidate endorsing a certain action or policy. The opponent endorses the opposite policy or action. Multiply that times multiple policies because you have two opposing sides for many issues. It's de facto.

[hrmjustin]

31. So are you telling me that when my parish took a strong stand for Marriage Equality we should

have just kept our mouths shut?

[Zippyjuan]

35. strong stand?

What is a strong stand? Any public advocacy is political. Resources put towards a cause is political. One group is for it. The other is against it. You want tax exempt status, but you want rights. First, it's politics. Now, it's a specific issue. Why not just scrap your exempt status and just say what you want to say?

[hrmjustin]

36. Answer my question please.

Should we have just shut up?

[Zippyjuan]

39. Answer my question

Can you claim privilege and do what you want?

[hrmjustin]

40. I will but please answer mine after or this conversation is over.

My church obeys all irs rules with its exemptions.

So no you can't but you can be involved in the community.

[Zippyjuan]

42. Define it

You have to define your terms like "shut up" and "involvement." You have a legal contract that gives you status, but also comes with stipulations. That limits what you can do. All of this is legally defined.

[hrmjustin]

44. Are you telling me that my church can not advocate for marriage equality.

Advocate I mean lobby politicians, which we have done. Proclaim marriage equality is right from the pulpit, which we have done.

Should we stop these things?

[Zippyjuan]

49. So you endorse candidates?

"I mean lobby politicians."


So you are lobbying politicians? If they do what you advocate, then you vote for them? I would say that is endorsing candidates in a de facto way. There is also nothing stopping you from getting married in your church.

[hrmjustin]

51. I told you no we don't.

Now answer my question.

[Zippyjuan]

53. Looks to me like you are.

You just told me that you lobby politicians. How does your group specifically lobby politicians? I am assuming that you don't put a sign in yard and hope that the politician drives by to see it.

[hrmjustin]

54. Individual members went to Albany to ask members to vote for marriage equality in 2010.

Normally we don't deal with politicians. But when certain issues arise we will send delegations to Albany, city hall, or to our local political offices to make our voices heard.

We do not endorse candidates, make promises, and we do not alliw them to speak from our pulpit.


Now should we stop this?

[Zippyjuan]

55. Exceptions?

"Normally we don't deal with politicians."


Bold emphasis mine.


So you make exceptions. You blur the line.

[hrmjustin]

57. i have answered your questions but you don't answer mine.

Answer my question please.

[Zippyjuan]

59. I don't even know your question

I thought I did. If you're making exceptions and blurring the line, then you're are not in the spirit of the law. You are not even technically within the law.

What's to prevent you from getting married anyway? I don't get it. You talk about the right from your pulpit. It sounds like your church has done ceremonies. Has it? I'm not against gay marriage at all. So......

[hrmjustin]

60. I don't think you know what the law is.

Enjoy your night.

[cbayer]

38. Do you want the tax exempt status of Planned Parenthood to be revoked?

Common Dreams? Working Assets? ACLU? Americans United for the Separation of Church and State? NARAL? OXFAM?

I could go on and on.

The rules are clear. You clearly don't understand them.

[Zippyjuan]

43. What does it matter what I want?

It is sort of ironic that Americans United for Separation of Church and State actually enter into privilege with their exempt status. If they were truly for separation, then they would exempt themselves from such a contract.

[cbayer]

47. Ok, I've really lost you now.

It's been nice talking to you. Perhaps we shall meet again.

[Zippyjuan]

50. So?

Yes, you have lost me. So is that ironic or not?

[cbayer]

27. Most churches do play by the rules, and they

are not prohibited from being involved in politics.

Many non-profits are organized for the specific purpose of political action. That's not a bad thing. Religious organizations are entitle to non-profit status and permitted to engage in political action.

The ones that flaunt the rules do so because the IRS doesn't enforce the rules.

Be very careful about suggesting that this tax exempt status be taken away from religious groups just because they are religious.

[Zippyjuan]

30. why is religion exempt

I am not speaking of flaunting the rules. It's the whole system. Why is religion exempt? Anybody who enters into contractual privilege with government gives up something. It's a tradeoff. You have privilege and lose some freedom to engage how you like in politics. Do you not?

[cbayer]

33. Religious groups have the same tax status that all non-profits have.

If they qualify, they are entitled to the same exemption as any other non-profit. It's not because they are religious.

If you were to deny them that status simply because they were religious, that would be a 1st amendment violation and would threaten our freedom from religion.

Be careful about making rules that would violate freedom of religion because the natural consequence will be freedom from religion.

[cbayer]

18. The problem is with IRS enforcement, not with the rules themselves.

I would love to see better enforcement and I think we should push for that.

But revocation of the status for all religious groups just because they are religious would be a mistake.

I choose the 1st amendment and both the freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

[Zippyjuan]

21. agree

I agree. I would not mind seeing the IRS doubled in resources to crack down on these people. They say they want a certain status, but also want to be free to do what they do.

[cbayer]

24. They openly thumb their noses at the IRS.

It's time to clamp down on them.

[Rolando]

56. Has anybody ever challenged

the constitutionality of the IRS treatment of religion?

[cbayer]

61. What exactly to you see as the constitutionality of the IRS treatment of religion?

What is it you think should be challenged?

Religious organizations are treated just like any other 501.c.3's.

Do you think they should be denied the tax status that is shared by every other not for profit organization in the country? Simply because they are religious?

[longship]

34. And Mother Teresa was a whore for dollars for convents celebrating Mother Teresa.

And not helping the poor. Not at all.

Read all about it.The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.

She was an evil person.

[Zippyjuan]

37. I don't know if I'd go that far

about Mother Teresa, but many churches are evil. They pretend to help the poor, but suck up all the money. They should be investigated when this happens. They have tax exempt status, so their books should completely open up. Every penny should be accounted for. They are the ones who should automatically be audited every year.

How can they help the poor when they have no authority and they are greedy? It's because churches have no authority. You can't resolve poverty with nickels and dimes. If you are going to eliminate poverty, then you need laws with teeth and their enforcement. There is no need for someone to have lifestyles of the rich and famous. The church does not and can't address this. Only federal law can.

[longship]

46. Mother Teresa was evil. Pure and simple.

The millions of dollars went to convents, not for starving or sick kids. There were few nickels and dimes with Mother Teresa. There were quite a few big multi million dollar checks. None of it went to feed or heal the poor. It all went to build more convents to, dare I say, celebrate Mother Teresa. Meanwhile the sick kids continued to die.

Again, click through here: The Missionary Position. Better yet, get the book and read it. Mother Teresa was a horrible human being. Absolutely horrible.

[cbayer]

41. There is a lot of debate as to the accuracy of the Hitchens article.

I'm not going to swallow what he said whole.

I suspect there were issues and she was not as pure as some would make her out to be, but I don't buy that she was evil.

[Zippyjuan]

45. exactly

I am not going to rail on Mother Teresa. She was human too. Did the best with what she had.

[cbayer]

48. The story that he is linking to is full of controversy and there are many

who dispute the Hitchens version of it.

Hitchens had a very strong anti-religious bias and anything he says about this should be taken with a grain of salt.

[longship]

52. Ummm! I don't think so.

It is pretty much a given that she gave little comfort to the dying in her so-called hospitals where people died without any comfort. Meanwhile she used the huge amounts of cash she took in for building convents in her name.

Hitchens pamphlet is pretty much dead on about Mother Teresa. She was evil incarnate.

BTW, the Catholic Church made her a Saint. Good for them, I guess.
Pray to an evil little woman. If people wish.

[cbayer]

58. I don't agree that it's a given at all, longship.

The only one who has really claimed this is Hitchens and he is not by any means a disinterested party.

Why would he be any more of an authority than those that give a completely different picture of what happened?

You don't have to pray to anyone and you can believe any side of the story you wish, but I will generally be highly skeptical of those historians with an agenda, and Hitchens is clearly one of those.

[longship]

63. Well, read it yourself, my friend.

It is not just Hitchens.

Mother Teresa -- Criticism

His book, as he admitted, was only a pamphlet. However, he also said that he heard from many after he published who he would have wanted to include. Apparently that is common in journalism.

But yes, Mother Teresa apparently was a fraud. The kids in her hospitals died horribly while she built convents in her name. And she took in many many millions.

[cbayer]

70. So, did you read the articles in her defense that are cited in your link?

I'm not going to defend her or say she was a saint, but I am going to note that there are many different views about her, and Hitchens is very biased and a reflection of his very anti-religious bias.

Perhaps we will never know the truth, but I suspect she lies somewhere between saint and evil incarnate, pretty much like the rest of us.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1996/sep/19/in-defense-of-mother-teresa/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/celeste-owenjones/mother-theresa-critics_b_2824776.html

http://www.cruxnow.com/faith/2015/03/05/debating-mother-teresa/

[Yorktown]

62. That nun Theresa probably wasn't evil

Just a bit dumb and conceited. She did cause some good by opening shelters.

But there are testimonies by witnesses she caused deaths by not referring some to hospitals,

denying them the antibiotic treatment that would have saved them.

This because she felt suffering was bringing one closer to god.

Conceited and dumb.

[longship]

64. Yup. Plus using the money to build more nunneries in her name. nt

[Mariana]

69. Yes, she considered suffering to be a beautiful thing

as long as it was someone else doing the suffering.

[Zippyjuan]

65. I never heard any reports about this.

But that does not mean it's not true, or I'm doubting all the story. I'm sure the woman had flaws, but everybody has them. Did the media not look into it? Were the flaws negligible? How much cash?

I dunno. I could believe the part about not dedicating all the money. That just goes to my point about how you know where your money is going when you donate. You need audits. If you're going to comfort people in their last moments and think that is important, then you need a mechanism to ensure it. If no one is overseeing the church, then where is accountability? Nothing short of federal involvement with the authority could really ensure the money goes where it's supposed to go. Even then it's not enough. That's why you need federal intervention to alleviate all poverty. It can be done if there is a will and we grant the authority. Church is nickels and dimes.

[longship]

66. Mother Teresa was not nickels and dimes.

She was big bucks. And she used none of it to relieve the pain of kids who ended up in her rural clinics in India. She saw them as suffering like Jesus and they died that way. Meanwhile she used the millions in donations -- including from the evil Haiti regime -- to build more convents for her order.

Mother Teresa was a horrible evil person.

[cbayer]

6. Your link takes me to Sam Smith's Myspace page.

Is that correct?

[Nasty Jack]

10. Works for me but here it is again

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/study-us-becoming-less-christian

[cbayer]

7. Also, your "blame it on the internet" link goes to an MSNBC article about the PEW report

but nothing about the internet. If you have a link to how this might be related to the internet, that would be great as I've yet to see anything that substantiates it.

[Nasty Jack]

11. Works for me but here it is again

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/study-us-becoming-less-christian

[cbayer]

15. I'm befuddled. Both links work now.

Must of been me. My apologies.

[orpupilofnature57]

32. It's becoming more of everything else, and like Jesus said

" Seek the truth and the truth shall set you free " he also said " We were there at creation " people take it as him the father and the holy spirit because the church excluded everybody else, I believe he included us .

[orpupilofnature57]

28. I stopped going to church years ago, I'll never stop talking about God, and

how could I talk about God with an atheist in church ? And how could I talk about the atrocities of the church in church ? I have learned more about the Bible from people that refute it than the people that blindly follow other peoples interpretation of it .

[Jamastiene]

67. Well, people who actually are religious, I would imagine can go to church

online.

I am not religious, but if I ever did decide to try the more liberal Christianity, which doesn't seem so bad to me in comparison, or any other religion besides right wing conservative Christianity, the only way I would be able to go to church would be to go online with a pastor and a church from some other place besides where I live. Where I live, it's all hellfire and damnation and every church billboard is some anti-gay slogan. They have made themselves perfectly clear where I stand in my hometown.

I would imagine the internet doesn't have anything to do with whether or not people who believe still believe. They may be disabled or any have any other number of reasons why going to church online might be easier. So, church attendance may be more flexible with some churches nowadays. That doesn't necessarily mean there are less people who are religious.

Then again, maybe my perspective is warped because there is no shortage of Christians where I live. I think they have gotten more religious here than it used to be, even. It's in your face even when you go to the grocery store to get your groceries or in the waiting room at a doctor appointment. It's that kind that makes me cringe, the uber right wing anti-gay bunch. The number of churches here has exploded since the late 90s as well, more than double the amount that were here when I was younger.

[YOHABLO]

68. Perhaps society has relized that you can be a good person without belonging to organized religion.