This is a good trend for the country

[MtnMan]

Don't forget the OTHER Christian churches... I once drove through a small town in Nebraska that had a billboard probably 6' x 10' that said "If you're going to church on Sunday, you're worshipping SATAN!". I think it was from a Seventh Day Adventist church.

I was a volunteer firefighter for over 30 years. A neighboring department had a line of duty death with one of their members. Every fire department attended the funeral, body transported on a fire truck, with probably 50+ fire trucks in the procession. It's tough, firefighter are family.

The asshole preacher from the deceased firefighters church used the service to further his hate and ignorance, and never mentioned the man in the flag draped coffin directly in front of him. This was a full-blown spittle spraying fist pounding rant about how the baptists there (I live in the bible belt) were going to hell because they followed the baptists beliefs, and not his nucking futz pentecostal bullshit.

Had I not been in uniform I would have stood, flipped this asshole off and walked out, but I was there to honor a fallen hero, not this douche bag. Talking to many afterwards, I was not alone.

Thank god I was raised an atheist

 

[nakedfrog]

This has always been the only question for me. I don't think it possible for us to ever answer this question. No one knows how we all got here or what happens after we die. Pretending to have the answers to these things I assume pacifies a fear of the unknown?

Pretty much, yeah.
Then, combine that with the fact that conservatism is largely fear-driven...

 

[Vic]

It's a shame that radical conservative Christians are so vocal that they have become the face of all Christianity to most Americans. That's certainly one of the reasons why church membership is declining.

 

[pcgeek11]

This is FAR from a one-off. This has permeated your tribe.

That is impossible as I have no "tribe".

 

[Franz316]

When it comes to loss of community, that probably deserves it's own thread. But I will say our modern way of building neighborhoods isn't doing any favors. America sucks at building public spaces. Our housing developments are sprawling spaghetti webs of roads. People get in their cars, drive to the massive shopping center on a six lane road, and then go home in their car. There is little to no chance of spontaneous social interaction in that process. People don't go outside much because we don't give them a reason to. We need more parks, more squares, more gathering points where people just go and hangout. Instead, we get industrial scale development that has about as much character as a gray cube, made to maximize profit. Europe will always blow America away in public spaces because it was mainly built before cars.

Things need to be built on a human scale to encourage community, not a car scale. This doesn't go for every area in the US (i.e. older areas, Seaside & Celebration, FL), but by and large it is the dominant pattern of development the last 30 years. The amount of land and resources we are using to create these developments is mind-blowing.

I could go on an epic rant about how suburban life is not conducive to a person's(and therefore society's) well-being but I'll save that for another time.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Don't worry there's gonna be a clapback. Lil Nas-X is gonna provide a lot of use for the fearmongering religious about the downfall of society.

I was a volunteer firefighter for over 30 years. A neighboring department had a line of duty death with one of their members. Every fire department attended the funeral, body transported on a fire truck, with probably 50+ fire trucks in the procession. It's tough, firefighter are family.

The asshole preacher from the deceased firefighters church used the service to further his hate and ignorance, and never mentioned the man in the flag draped coffin directly in front of him. This was a full-blown spittle spraying fist pounding rant about how the baptists there (I live in the bible belt) were going to hell because they followed the baptists beliefs, and not his nucking futz pentecostal bullshit.

Had I not been in uniform I would have stood, flipped this asshole off and walked out, but I was there to honor a fallen hero, not this douche bag. Talking to many afterwards, I was not alone.

Thank god I was raised an atheist

Sounds like the perfect time for a 21 siren salute, followed by a ceremonial water cannoning.

 

[darkswordsman17]

When it comes to loss of community, that probably deserves it's own thread. But I will say our modern way of building neighborhoods isn't doing any favors. America sucks at building public spaces. Our housing developments are sprawling spaghetti webs of roads. People get in their cars, drive to the massive shopping center on a six lane road, and then go home in their car. There is little to no chance of spontaneous social interaction in that process. People don't go outside much because we don't give them a reason to. We need more parks, more squares, more gathering points where people just go and hangout. Instead, we get industrial scale development that has about as much character as a gray cube, made to maximize profit. Europe will always blow America away in public spaces because it was mainly built before cars.

Things need to be built on a human scale to encourage community, not a car scale. This doesn't go for every area in the US (i.e. older areas, Seaside & Celebration, FL), but by and large it is the dominant pattern of development the last 30 years. The amount of land and resources we are using to create these developments is mind-blowing.

I could go on an epic rant about how suburban life is not conducive to a person's(and therefore society's) well-being but I'll save that for another time.

I fucking hate suburbia. Its a soul sucking existence. Which is saying something as I'm not even terribly social, but the suburbs are a special kind of living hell that I do not understand the appeal of.

 

[dank69]

That is impossible as I have no "tribe".

Sure you do. It's the "I have always hated and always will hate Democrats" tribe.

 

[pmv]

When it comes to loss of community, that probably deserves it's own thread. But I will say our modern way of building neighborhoods isn't doing any favors. America sucks at building public spaces. Our housing developments are sprawling spaghetti webs of roads. People get in their cars, drive to the massive shopping center on a six lane road, and then go home in their car. There is little to no chance of spontaneous social interaction in that process. People don't go outside much because we don't give them a reason to. We need more parks, more squares, more gathering points where people just go and hangout. Instead, we get industrial scale development that has about as much character as a gray cube, made to maximize profit. Europe will always blow America away in public spaces because it was mainly built before cars.

Things need to be built on a human scale to encourage community, not a car scale. This doesn't go for every area in the US (i.e. older areas, Seaside & Celebration, FL), but by and large it is the dominant pattern of development the last 30 years. The amount of land and resources we are using to create these developments is mind-blowing.

I could go on an epic rant about how suburban life is not conducive to a person's(and therefore society's) well-being but I'll save that for another time.

The thing about the over-reliance on cars, is that roads act like barriers as much as they do as thoroughfares. A major urban road serves like a "Berlin Wall" dividing communities, especially if it's one of those elevated 'urban motorways'. It also blights everything around it, with noise, pollution, and loss of sunlight.

I grew up partly among the remnants of Luffwaffe bombing in WW2 (all those still-undeveloped bomb sites, plus people still living in the prefab 'temporary' housing that was put up quickly after the war to cope with the loss of homes to the Blitz) and partly among the damage done by the aborted post-war "London ringways project" that was supposed to build mulitple concentric rings of urban motorways through they city. The latter would have been much more devestating than the former had they not cancalled the project early on. Even cancelled as it was you could still see evidence of the damage done by the initial stages of it - only quite recently did I hear about that project and realise why those bits of the city were so blighted in my childhood)

I guess in the US, with it's extreme love-affair with the car, "suburbs" are very clearly defined things, but here I'm not entirely sure what a suburb even is. I've seem the same areas called a 'suburb' or 'inner city' by different sources. Across the Channel in Paris, of course, the suburbs are where the poorer and non-white people live, which seems like the reverse of the US.

The one positive that can be said for "suburbia" is that, apparently, studies find you get the highest level of biodiversity in those areas - higher than in the inner city and also higher than our artificial, remoulded and pesticide-treated "countryside". It seems like the last refuge of the bees and the foxes.

 

[pmv]

I agree that hate and division is pushed in some denominations but they're not all the same. That's one reason I left the Baptist church and would never return. Still a Christian, though.

There are so many varieties of Christian that it would take a real 'train spotter' mentality to be able to keep track of them. Especially Protestants. Lord, do they love a good schism or doctrinal dispute. I really can't figure out the differences between all those factions. They are nearly as bad as the far-left in that respect.

It's all a closed-book to me - I never really knew any Christians till I lived in Wales for a while. The only true-believers I encountered growing up were communists and Muslims.

Welsh Methodism is an odd one. The US would surely be very different if the early settlers had been Welsh Methodists. The ones I encountered were (a) socialists (b) relatively pro-feminist, a long way from 'patriarchal' but (c) very homophobic.

 

[hal2kilo]

You’re just phoning it in at this point. Are you suffering from low T? Girlfriend mom sister laugh at your penis one too many times? Get kicked out of the trailer park for not being classy enough?

Keep it up, and I'll take you off ignore (not you, but you know who I mean).

 

[hal2kilo]

There are so many varieties of Christian that it would take a real 'train spotter' mentality to be able to keep track of them. Especially Protestants. Lord, do they love a good schism or doctrinal dispute. I really can't figure out the differences between all those factions. They are nearly as bad as the far-left in that respect.

It's all a closed-book to me - I never really knew any Christians till I lived in Wales for a while. The only true-believers I encountered growing up were communists and Muslims.

Welsh Methodism is an odd one. The US would surely be very different if the early settlers had been Welsh Methodists. The ones I encountered were (a) socialists (b) relatively pro-feminist, a long way from 'patriarchal' but (c) very homophobic.

From my experience, you can put Methodists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians in the same room and not have a fight. Keep the Baptists away. They don't believe in fun (except when no one is looking).

 

[pmv]

From my experience, you can put Methodists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians in the same room and not have a fight. Keep the Baptists away. They don't believe in fun (except when no one is looking).

Interesing - in my, pretty-much 100% uninformed, impression of those three, they seem very different.

I associate Presbytarians with Ian Paisley and NI Unionism (shouting 'no surrender to the iRA') and some extremely puritanical and sectarian Scottish people (the 'wee frees' I think they are referred to), while Episcopalians I associate with very posh types who I find very hard to distinguish from English Catholics, and Methodists with working-class Welsh and Northerners, often socialists.

....looking it up, it seems Paisley's Presbytarianism was the result of some sort of schism with other Presbytarians...but my eyes immediately glazed over trying to read the wiki entry.

 

[Franz316]

The thing about the over-reliance on cars, is that roads act like barriers as much as they do as thoroughfares. A major urban road serves like a "Berlin Wall" dividing communities, especially if it's one of those elevated 'urban motorways'. It also blights everything around it, with noise, pollution, and loss of sunlight.

What.. you don't like taking long leisurely walks to the store along roads like this? You'll find these across America dividing housing developments from commercial. Not only is it hideous to look at, but it effectively kills any walkability.

 

[pcgeek11]

Sure you do. It's the "I have always hated and always will hate Democrats" tribe.

I disagree with them. Disagree doesn't equal Hate. Like I disagree with you on most things. I do not Hate you, regardless of the venom you continuously spew.

Duh.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

I’m not aware of anyone or any entity spewing vitriol towards Christians. Just because people are anti religion (or in my case, anti organized religion) doesn’t mean they hate all religious people.

I openly oppose ALL 'religions'.

"And the people bowed and prayed to the neon [orange] god they made"

Humans didn't create the Sun.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I disagree with them. Disagree doesn't equal Hate. Like I disagree with you on most things. I do not Hate you, regardless of the venom you continuously spew.

Duh.

Doesn't like venom, votes for snake oil salesmen. Classic geek

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

God, they say loves us infinitely. What becomes of the religious man who loves God back similarly?

Wouldn't he be reviled as Gay?