Decline of religion

[Fake Messiah]

Catholic churches closing in Connecticut due to no attendance, no priests

Several Catholic Churches To Merge, Close In Waterbury

Some Waterbury Catholic churches will merge in the fall due to decreasing attendance and a priest shortage.

The St. Michael Parish will merge with the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. St. Joseph Parish will merge with Our Lady of Mount Carmel. SS. Peter and Paul Church will no longer host regular Masses.

St. Joseph and SS. Peter and Paul may be sold.

Blair said in a letter to parishioners that "fewer and fewer priests" and "a sharp decrease in attendance at some of the parishes in Waterbury" have resulted in the decision to close churches.

https://patch.com/connecticut/naugatuck/...-waterbury

[LinuxGal]

California is probably one of the least Christian states in the US. I attend a Lutheran (LCMS) church here and our congregation is maybe 20% of what is was when I first came. We're located in the inner city and do a lot of community service with the locals. The few new members we do get are ex-prisioners, drug addicts and homeless. When they do become part of the church, they are often the most devout and serving Christians I've seen. The old Country Club members have kind of slipped away. They couldn't accept being like Jesus and getting their hands dirty.

Atheist: "Jesus says you have to forsake all your property before you can be his disciple."

Christian: "Jesus meant you have to forsake all your property SPIRITUALLY."

Atheist: "Okay, can these flood victims spend the night in your church?"

Christian: "No, they're all muddy."

[Nanny]

From today's NYT (shared from my account)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/opini...=url-share

[The Grand Nudger]

Pretty much all of these types of surveys wildly miss the mark. America is not becoming less religious. It's becoming less christian. The heads only make sense when you realize that the terms are being used interchangeably.

If they were more thorough in both their methods and their inferences, thay might even realize the us is become more religious as it becomes less christian. Christianity was an impediment to wider religious ideation. Both cognitively and practically. As christianity declines, a wider field of acceptable religious ideation becomes societally available and expressed even in these very surveys.......back when it was the only game allowed in town, most people said (to a stranger) they believed in it or nothing. Now that it isn't, most christians and atheists alike say they believe in "other than".

[Nanny]

Article in today's NYT about Dan Dennett and his new memoir. Shared from my NYT account.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023...=url-share

[Fake Messiah]

With Sunday attendance down by 50%, Pennsylvania Catholic diocese plans to close parishes.

Erie County Catholic parishes would merge, partner under preliminary plan from diocese

Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico knows there are people who have been part of a particular parish their whole lives and maybe their parents and grandparents worshipped in the church building there, too.

Persico acknowledges that it will be hard for people to hear their parish might merge into another or their church might no longer have Masses.

Persico said there's no one reason for what's included in the parish proposal. The changes were spurred by several factors, he said.

Attendance at Roman Catholic Masses in Erie County declined by 45% between October 2010 and October 2022, according to information from the diocese.

The number of priests continues to drop, with fewer joining the ranks than those hitting retirement age.

Many of the older church buildings need repairs as maintenance was deferred over the years while money was put toward ministries or schools, Persico said.

"We don't know how long these parishes can sustain themselves," he said.

He said churches were built around Erie County in the past to meet the needs of the people and those needs aren't necessarily there anymore.

"We're trying to prepare for the future by right-sizing the diocese," he said this week. "Because we're not the diocese we were 50 years ago."

https://www.goerie.com/story/news/local/...706538007/

[LinuxGal]

Catholic churches closing in Connecticut due to no attendance, no priests

It couldn't happen to a nicer international child sex trafficking ring.

[FrustratedFool]

Only a few more churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and what-nots to go.
All currently existing religions will, hopefully, fade away. Sooner rather than later.

[Fake Messiah]

A surprising explanation for the global decline of religion

Religion has been retreating across the world since the beginning of the 21st century. According to results from the World Value Survey, conducted between 2007 and 2019, the importance of God declined on average in 39 of the 44 countries analyzed. Moreover, the percentage of people identifying as nonreligious has risen by more than 10% in nations like Singapore, Iceland, Chile, and South Korea over the past decade.

The decline of religion is most striking in the United States. Between 1940 and 2000, church membership hovered around 70%, according to Gallup. But as the new millennium got underway, it fell off a cliff. By 2020, church membership had cratered to 47%. Between 2007 and 2020, the proportion of Americans not affiliated with any religion grew from 16% to 30%.

Belief in and worship of supernatural beings, gods, and deities has been a fundamental facet of human existence for thousands of years, yet the decline of religion is playing out in a historical blink of an eye! What could explain this upheaval in global society?

“When people can use technology to predict the weather, diagnose and treat illness, and manufacture resources, they may rely less on religious beliefs and practices,” an international team of researchers recently wrote in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But if technology is negating the need for religion, then why didn’t we see a massive drop in belief during the Industrial Revolution, the Space Race, or rise the of personal computers? Why has the decline of religion become so widespread and rapid only recently?

The researchers offered a hypothesis: It’s not technology by itself that reduces religiosity, but specifically automation in the form of robotics and artificial intelligence, which only became prominent in the 21st century.

“This claim is based on recent research on lay perceptions of automation,” they wrote. “Such studies show that people ascribe automation technology with abilities that border on supernatural.”

“Historically, people have deferred to supernatural agents and religious professionals to solve instrumental problems beyond the scope of human ability. These problems may seem more solvable for people working and living in highly automated spaces.”

https://bigthink.com/the-present/a-surpr...-religion/

[Lek]

Who's going to win out - atheists or pagans? Which ever wins, it will be a wonderful world.