Summary
Churches across the U.S. are grappling with dwindling attendance and financial instability, forcing many to close or sell properties.
The Diocese of Buffalo has shut down 100 parishes since the 2000s and plans to close 70 more. Nationwide, church membership has dropped from 80% in the 1940s to 45% today.
Some churches repurpose their land to survive, like Atlanta’s First United Methodist Church, which is building affordable housing.
Others, like Calcium Church in New York, make cutbacks to stay open. Leaders warn of the long-term risks of declining community and support for churches.
Christianity or science. It can’t be both. There’s either magic or there’s not magic. If there’s magic, science is meaningless.
Begging your pardon, but the likes of CS Lewis, Francis Collins, and Jesus of Nazareth would like to have a word with you about that… e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:21, “be skeptical about everything”, and John 13:34 “be ye not giant dickeths to one another”.
Or there’s 1 Timothy 5:18 “the worker deserves their wages”, or Deuteronomy 24:15 “pay your workers the very same day” (literally: “before the sun sets, bc they need it”), or James 1:27 “offer healthcare regardless of ability to pay”, and so on.
It turns out that religious numbnuts who refuse to read anything at all but keep making up new rules to add to the pile (heaping heavy burdens onto people without bothering to lift a finger to help)… don’t really know much of anything? Not about what “freedom” is, or “love”, or “religion” either. Go figure!? 🤪 Maybe it would help if instead of listening to child rapists who just want their money (and children) they would instead pick up a book - any book - and read it!?
So yeah, fuck religious hypocrites. Seriously, Jesus in Matthew 23: 1 - 12 says exactly that too:
do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
and
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil?
You… on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.
I find that people of any faith whatsoever - Christianity, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. - share a lot in common if they are not extremists. And right now there’s a lot of value in atheism since nearly everyone is “first generation”, but eventually atheism will fall prey to the same fate as well - it’s human nature, and no system or belief is perfect. But I do think it helps to accurately diagnose the issue and point the blame more squarely where it belongs, i.e. the tribal “in-group=good but out-group=bad” is something that would be fantastic to get past as quickly as possible.
Bc to me your words seem to line up perfectly with 1 Thessalonians 5:21, hence you even agree with Jesus that most people calling themselves “Christians” (or “patriots” or whatever) are fucking idiots, however strange that sounds.
None of that has to do with the fact that the universe can either have magic or science, not both.
As Jesus Himself once said too, then made conditions for women better than they had ever been before.
Anyway “magic” is simply something that has not yet been explained. Fire. Electricity. Herbs. All were magic at one point, to those who did not know how they worked.
Magic is just the stuff that science hasn’t proven yet. Emphasis on the “yet”.
EDIT: Before anyone else misunderstands what I meant, I’m not saying every aspect of Christianity or the Bible will inevitably be proven (though I can see how it can be read that way, hence this edit).
I’m saying that magic is what we can “observe” happening but not be able to explain with science. The ratio of magic to science has been rapidly shrinking in the last century or so, and I’m suggesting that we will continue to understand “magic” (or, the previously-unexplained) better as science progresses.
When books like the Bible were written, there was a lot more “magic”/unexplainable stuff. Of course, there were likely also misunderstandings and fabrications. It shouldn’t be taken as a reliable account of observations, either, so its magic will not necessarily be explained by science, just as Harry Potter’s won’t.
That’s not magic. Magic is supernatural, meaning it does not obey physical laws.
If things do not always obey physical laws, such as much of what happens in the Bible in terms of magic, then how can you ever trust the scientific method?
How is there a valid scientific method in a universe where 40 days of rain covers an entire planet with water or a staff can be thrown onto the ground and turned into a snake?
Not defending the Bible, but I think a lot of the big claims of the Bible (that take place in the “real world”) could be attributed to mistranslations, misunderstandings, or lies.
Science hasn’t proven people can’t walk on water, turn blood into wine, or resurrect from death?
Wasn’t aware those were still up in the air.
I didn’t get my point across properly. Read my edit if you’re interested. I was referring to magic in general, not the magic in the Bible.
Personally, I think the truths of each of your points would be things like mistranslations, misunderstandings, unreliable testimonies, or fabrications.
…but to get into semantics, the scientific method can’t really prove a negative. And by early definitions of “death”, we are able to resurrect people now.
