from Hacker News

The Misunderstood Reason Americans Stopped Going to Church (2023)

by makerdiety on 12/1/24, 9:46 PM with 6 comments

  • by techfeathers on 12/1/24, 10:34 PM

    I’ve been trying to think a lot more about “building community” lately, and I think this person hits on something which is just that the current American system sort of since the eighties has been so focused on career progression and self-enrichment, not that it’s bad, but it’s interesting that the there are such dualities in our values.

    But also, every year or two I try going to a church, but I wonder if the beliefs or practices largely don’t make sense.

    On the one hand, I fantasize about going to some super conservative thousand year old European cathedral, and I do feel like there would be a sense of wonder in that.

    But going to a suburban mega church and listening to Christian Rock doesn’t cut it.

    I’ve been looking for some kind of thing to study. I picked up the Harvard classics series, maybe something like that would be interesting to build a faith group around? But yeah…

  • by k310 on 12/1/24, 11:43 PM

    The Lotus Sutra connects people with the universe rather than estrangement from it and its laws. Rather than condemnation, it shows that people have infinite possibility for improvement. There are communities of equals in Buddhism, namely the ones who broke with hierarchy.

    Of all the communities I have seen, they are the most accepting of all people.

  • by toomuchtodo on 12/1/24, 10:12 PM

  • by zeristor on 12/1/24, 11:26 PM

    (2023)