New Gallup poll says less than half of Americans now belong to a church

[Goodheart]

First time ever.

Hooray! We are beginning to see the light.

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/30/982671783/fewer-than-half-of-u-s-adults-belong-to-a-religious-congregation-new-poll-shows

[misanthrope]

1. Both good and bad

I applaud the distancing from superstition but only when it is joined with a commitment to reason and ethical humanism.

[Bettie]

2. These days churches don't generally espouse

reason or ethics. At least not the white evangelical ones.

[Hortensis]

4. On point. A lot of people are turning from organized religion to

various forms of faith-based woo wafted in on various fads and fashions and pitched by charismatic salesmen and social media sites.

NOT to beliefs with a strong foundation in truth, reason, and principles, that value rather than ignore what can be proven. It's a big trend.

Some churches do still, or used to, teach right and wrong, how to live moral lives, and those who leave lose that.

They won't find moral teachings, learning WHY right is right and wrong is wrong and to understand and handle moral conundrums, in the secular world, where by far most people have always stumbled along without.

[Chautauquas]

3. Ain't nobody got time for that

I'm retired and have oodles of time on my hands but there's no way I'm giving up a Sunday morning for church, even though there's one in my town that seems pretty cool.

[Music Man]

5. Good. I see this trend as only a positive.

No disrespect to believers in a god or those who have faith in things beyond our comprehension, but moving toward a society that values reason, observation, and intrinsic motivations for helping people is my wish.

I have never murdered anyone, I am my faithful to my wife, I respect my parents, I don't steal, etc., and NONE of it is because I was commanded to by an ancient text. It is because empathy guides me. Religion is an outgrowth of culture, not the other way around.

Admittedly, so many glorious works of art have come from religion, but I hope we can move to a place one day where we can recognize the beauty of religious music, church architecture, etc., without having to adhere to ideology that led to them, just as we can put lots of mythologies in context of the culture in which they were created.