bostonbubble.com

[john p]

I guess is see it as what institution actually teaches being kind and fair to your neighbor? Kids go to school and learn how to read and write and do math but the teachers aren't formally imparting morality. Younger people enjoy a society that is built on social norms and values that have been cultivated by Religion in the past.

As far as the "selfish" part goes, Religions teach you that you aren't the center of the universe and you have a role and responsiblity in the community, in your family and you have to make decisions accordingly. Now, it can get a bit over the top when they expect a husband and wife who hate eachother to stay together because their responsiblity as parents trumps their own personal desire for happiness. It does, however make people a bit more thick skinned and more tolerant because it focuses the attention on the family as opposed to the individual and sometimes that can help weather a passing storm. If the structure is bad, there isn't much you can do, but the values within a Religion often try to help preserve the family unit, which is an important building block in society. The cultures with the most problems typically do not have fathers that stay and raise their children and go off and father more children with different women. I think that the eggheads who trash Religion are hurting the poor within the urban areas.

This is just my personal view, but I think Christ understood that the path that he asked us to walk was a bit harder at times because people will laugh at you and seeing others who cut corners and get ahead will be frustrating and playing by the rules often is harder and causes more anxiety, but by going to Church, you see others in your community seeking the same connectivity and you hear these messages that address the types of anxiety and frustration and fear that happens when you try to be a nice person in a world that is sometimes a bit selfish. I guess academics look to literature like Don Quixote to see how a man of honor gets ridiculed when he lives in a cess pool. I think that people still go to Church because Christ's teachings are often so simple that they can endure and penetrate time and the cloud of corruption that can surround even a Church. Because the Church congregates a lot of people, it becomes a target for recruitment for some pretty bad stuff by some pretty bad people, and sometimes the Church makes bad decisions when individuals do evil things and they decide not to expose them because they are trying to make sure that they can maintain their capacity to do the real charity that makes the most difference. What they failed to realize was that by not addressing this evil stuff, they reduced their capacity to do good because people said, I don't want to be a member of a Church that tolerates that kind of evil stuff. And these people are right. I'm just saying that our current built environment in this particular time has this going on and unless people have faith that Jesus Christ would not have condoned this and that his message can still come through, they might not get the nourishment of his teachings and fall deeper into anxiety and frustration because it is kind of hard to try to be a decent person in a capitalistic society. Jesus Christ stood up and defended a prostitute who was going to be stoned and said "He is who without sin cast the first stone". I mean at the time, this was a real act of courage because he was interfering with the law and he stood up to corruption and what an act of tolerance and when he was killed that was quite an act of sacrifice and civil disobedience. In our society, the academics have made Jesus Christ as a historical figure almost off limits because it was very, very sensitive subject matter. I'm asking the same question as you Kadrian, Christ would not have wanted people to kill others in his name, but if people don't listen to his message, those that do claim to know his message will be sometimes these corrupt people who do it for self interest. I think the academics abandonment of Christ as subject matter doesn't make any sense because he has influenced a great deal of the population throughout history. When the Church became corrupt and murdered people, obviosly, the Holy Spirt became an orphan to it and in these times challenging the Church was the right thing to do. I'm just saying that people should be open to the possiblity that the Church can heal itself from within and purge out the evil, but some can't get past what it did several hundreds of years ago. I think that Massachusetts Catholics have a certain blend of justice and faith that was necessary to be the first to expose and drive resolution in a widespread criminal matter. At this point, I can't argue with people that find this so atrocious to not respect the Church, I'm just saying that Christ's teachings help foster a kind society and that is not an awful thing. I mean right now many people are getting absolutely skull fucked at work and are taking on some serious anxiety and it is hard for me to see them getting preyed upon as slaves when the message of Christ can help them endure and find peace. Sorry for the blather....

In our current built environment, from my perspective, you see urban areas which value tolerance and openness and more rural areas that promote more traditional community values. I'm not saying that people who believe in God aren't moral people; I do think they have a lot of morals that have been passed down to them through their ancestors that were formed by Religion and that they enjoy a society where they enjoy the benefits of people who are taught through Religion to be kind and respectful. I'm just saying that long term, the attacks on Religion may have negative consequences and right now a lot of young buyers are sorting through these decisions because the urban areas and rural areas have become a bit polar due to politics. I mean you just have to look at the Red and Blue County Map to clearly see that the Urban Areas are voting Democrat and the Rural Areas are voting Republican. Now when you consider that we are in a political chapter where politicians are rallying their base versus trying to win over those that have a predisposition to vote against them, over time these two environments become polarized. You see rural people trashing the corruption in the City and City people talking about rural people like toothless hayseeds. It is all interwoven with the highly sensitized nerve endings of politics, which just makes this subject so enjoyable..... but nonetheless a reality.

This back and forth creates resonance, here is what that looks like in nature:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw

This nutcase in Florida who wants to burn the Muslim Holy book is creating the worst kind of shock waves back and forth and we need moderates to be able to dissipate these awful negative shocks.

[mpr]

[Kaidran]

[john p]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/141044/Americans-Church-Attendance-Inches-2010.aspx

In this gallop article, if you scroll about 2/5ths down you can see the frequent Church Attendance, January - May 2010 by demographic group.

The top of the List has "Conservative" at 55%

The bottom of the List has "Liberal" at 27%

Although this article shows only a very small tick upward in Church attendance during the Recession, it takes the position that there is no correlation between a poor economy and church attendance.

I disagree very slightly because it appeared that there was a downward trend prior to the Recession so to overcome this downward trend and hit an inflection point requires an arresting force or refusal in hitting a new strata.

Regardless, the comment Obama made about "Some people cling to guns and religion" was kind of closed minded and cynical. Many today are clinging to Religion and are finding safe harbor in the Holy Spirit.

Kadrian, I agree with you about mandating unhappy couples to stay together isn't the right medicine in many cases. Again, for something of the scale of the Church, their policy tends to address practicality with the focus on the aggregate and they ignore legitmate cases and even criminal behavior with the child abuse scandal. I'm not going to argue over this because I agree with you. What I am saying though, is that when people become self centered they become selfish. Sometimes by just paying attention to the needs of others we become less obsessed on ourselves and our own problems and it helps us gain perspective and balance. During these tough times, people are trying to find coping mechanisms and many are realizing that the rat race isn't worth it and they are almost forced to shed the obsession on themselves and they are finding peace in family, friends, community, etc.

In this article:

The Real Root Causes of Violent Crime: The Breakdown of Marriage, Family, and CommunityPublished on March 17, 1995 by Patrick Fagan, Ph.D.


http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/1995/03/BG1026nbsp-The-Real-Root-Causes-of-Violent-Crime

from above: