tuscl

Churchgoing among TUSCL members

Monday, August 28, 2006 4:58 AM
Are any of you active churchgoers, or otherwise affiliated with an organized religious group? If so, do you find any conflict between that part of your life and our mutual hobby? I have had theological conversations with some dancers, to a degree that I konw they had had some theological instruction. However, obviously when a hot 20 year old is grinding on my lap, I don't want to remind her of any divergence between what she is doing to me and what the folks at the local Assemblies church might think of it.

40 comments

  • FONDL
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    18 years ago
    BG, you made exactly the same point that I did earlier, that sooner or later most large organizations lose sight of their original purpose and their goals become growth and self-perpetuation. That's true whether the organization is a religion, a government, a business or a non-profit organization. I call that the basic flaw of large organizations and I think it's pretty universal. I don't think there is one true set of spiritual beliefs any more than there is one true religion. I'm a pragmatist and my critera are simple: if your beliefs work for you, if they help you get to where you want to be, then you have found (or more accurately, created) your truth. If not then you need to change your beliefs. What's right for you is different than what's right for me. I believe that the Biblical phrase "God created man in his own image" means that we are all Godlike, that we all have the ability to create, and that one of life's purposes is to create your truth, as well as every other aspect of your life.
  • casualguy
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    18 years ago
    I read something about monogamy. I remember reading or hearing something about long ago when the population was a bit scarce, if a guy happened to wander into a tribe of people (who didn't see visitors very often) they would make him stay and get all their grown women pregnant before he could leave their tribe. That ensured the tribe had enough genetic diversity and continued to thrive. I can only imagine it took a long time to travel from tribe to tribe back in those times. :) I can just imagine the conversation to the wife. "Hey honey, I have to run an errand over to the tribe a few hills away. I only expect to be gone a few days."
  • AbbieNormal
    •
    18 years ago
    BG, Many good points, I was not attempting to be comprehensive, just demonstrative. While heterosexual AIDS is common in Africa, one could argue that chastity and monogamous marriage would pretty much cover that too. As far as sexual liscense I never claimed it didn't happen, only that every society has sought to discourage it, at least officially. As I've said before, humans are not gods and their failure to achieve ideals is hardly surprising. As for the gnostics I know who they were/are. A lot of them in the Christian tradition in the early church got stretched on the rack for the herasy that men could achieve salvation outside the church, through their own efforts and create heaven on earth. While you can see the obvious political implications of this for the church as a governing taxing body you miss that this really IS a Christian herasy. One very central part of Christianity is that we are fallen, sinful, and can only be redeemed (saved) by the grace of God, not through our own goodness or wisdom. By preaching that we were redeemable through our own efforts the Christian gnostics were most definitely preaching herasy according to the orthodox church's teachings.
  • chandler
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    18 years ago
    FONDL: What do you call it when you don't believe in the existence of people who don't believe in the existence of God? Aatheism?
  • AbbieNormal
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    18 years ago
    FONDL, I'd call that a gross oversimplification, but that would be an understatement. That's like saying all strip clubs are the same 'cause they all have women who show their tits and dance.
  • Book Guy
    •
    18 years ago
    AN -- I get your point (many social taboos, and religious restrictions, have roots in sensible practices). Traidtional Jewish customs and observances have many roots in middle-eastern hygeine requirements. And I'm sure the Hindu concept of the sacred cow must have something to do with historical practices concerning meat or irrigation or something. But I'd have to disagree with many of your specifics. For example, few societies, whether modern or tribal, follow strict monogamy, but instead practice one thing and preach another (just like we do in North America today). Most monogamy arises out of resource restriction. Just about any human (male or female) in history who has had unbridled access to extra material resources has used them in some way to foster sexual experimentation with a variety of partners. The "rules" were broken, because they could be. Another example, AIDS can and does exist outside the homosexual community, and much research points to it first developing among monkey breeders and zookeepers in Africa, for example. But, that having been said, the rapid spread of it across North America in the early 1980s was certainly due to a type of "culture" that forsook the benefits of traditional religious teaching, in which fluid exchange with multiple sexual partners was a too-regular practice. It now spreads most rapidly to female recipients of vaginal-penile coitus intercourse, a decidedly non-homosexual act. Oh, and intravenous drug users, who could be of any sexual predilection, so it's not even a "sexually transmitted disease" for them! The point here that I'd make, is that there isn't simply a "strict" life that can be free from threat, and the opposite, a "self-indulged" life that engenders greater threat. Religions, and a simplistic view of human history, would point to the act of taking excessive liberties, as somehow damaging to humans. But a similar investigation can make it clear, that taking too few liberties might be equally damaging. Inbreeding because your tribe won't have sex with the female from the neighborin clan, would doom your entire tribe to eventual death. Insisting on staying with a given partner could lead to death from a localized disease; again, your genes die out. Many instances where self-restriction is a biological or cultural ill can easily be thought up, and they're just as common and likely as those in which self-indulgence is the dangerous path. My hope would be, that humans eventually "get" the idea that we're primates just muddling through. As a few others have pointed out, the idea of an "ideal" man or an "ideal" way to run a society tend to have the disadvantages of thinking that people are perfectible. In addition, the notion that someone who is not (currently) "socially strong" needing help, often fails to occur to the perfectionists. We have strength, partly, in requiring many of us to compete in a harsh way that weeds out weakness, as the objectivists would imply. But we also have strength in sympathizing with the losers in that fight, and helping them limp along behind, because you never know when their particular gifts might come in handy. Mongrel vigor ... So I can't subscribe to any one "theory." An interesting aside to this whole discussion, is the concept of self-perpetuation, as expressed by John Ralston Saul in his fabulous works of modern social philosophy. The best of them, I think, is "Voltaire's Bastards," an expostulation on how the philosophic Enlightenment era got "bastardized" to the point that many offshoots turned out to actually foster the opposite of human enlightenment. Good examples are, the excessive use of numbers and statistics to "prove" something even though most studies cited don't have sufficient sample to actually demonstrate ANYTHING; or the "grey men in grey suits" who run things by committee from afar; or the Enron debacle, in which everyone was trying to prove his own "talent" by demonstrating he could think outside the box, to the point that noone was actually bothering with the box any more. Ralston Saul's essential point (one I wish an editor would help him make more clearly) is, simply, that the systems which exist in large, organic form, right now, are those systems which are not necessarily best at performing their avowed purpose, but merely are best at PERPETUATING THEMSELVES. When you put it that simply, this comes as no surprise. Does the Catholic church save souls? Or allay poverty, fear, doubt, distress? Who cares! It KEEPS ITSELF AROUND, and many of its supposed "good" policies, often touted as designed to allay poverty, fear, doubt, or distress, are actually quite effective at FORCING poverty, fear, doubt, and distress on its adherents, in effect bastardizing the very POINT of having a church but also -- as a handy side effect -- giving the church even greater financial and human resources. Finally, I'll declare my own beliefs. I'm a gnostic. No, not an agnostic, a gnostic. Geee Ennn Oh ... without the letter A. I think we have more senses than five, and one is (for lack of a better term) the "theological sense." We "just know" some stuff -- be kind to your fellow man (capital-O Objectivists would actually teach otherwise!); sometimes it works to work hard, sometimes it works better to stop trying so hard; you can't predict the future, but the sun will rise tomorrow, and even if it doesn't I'm a man who can probably cope with it in some creative way; Social Darwinists are at heart angry, unhappy people, and strippers (among others) probably don't like their company, although they (among others) may be mildly impressed with the "social power" they seem to wield with their barking loud voices and harshly determined theories and opinions; life on this world is all we've got, but it's horribly corrupt and muddied and discontinuous and painful; the lot of man is to put forth effort and work and not even always get just rewards for his efforts, so you'd better learn to like the work itself; often a loophole gets you more than the effort anyway; children are horrible little no-necked short-legged beasts with carte blanche to act like assholes and that's why we like them; so are strippers, except they have long necks and longer legs; if you have a certain talent, it's a sin not to use it; if you don't have a certain talent, you'll never develop it no matter how hard you try; killing is bad, nearly always, even when it's a classic "him or me" situation, but I'd probably try to do it in that situation; war is worse, really really worse, and the only way that we end up in one is when we don't have the power to avoid ending up in one, but it's probably going to happen again. Those types of "just know" thoughts are what gnostics try to find out about. God is in them, somewhere. You can imagine that the early Christian church really resisted the anti-hierarchical approach of allowing one man his own mystic vision. Where would the priests get their money? How would the tribal elders control the adolescent male threats to their power? Well, I think we're finally in an era of enough economic wealth, and enough worldwide awareness and communication, that many of us are "free" to finally be real gnostics. Not follow a creed, not abandon God altogether, not have a grand over-arching theory, but still be good citizens. The United States is moving slowly away from that opportunity, as fundamentalist zeal grips the power structures again and again. Resist it! Go to a strip club! Vote with your feet, your dollars, her boobies!
  • chandler
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    18 years ago
    FONDL, I don't blame leaders for that. First of all, they actually believe theirs is the only way, so it's not a matter of lacking the courage. But even if they said what you suggest, I think their followers would just find other leaders. Most people demand certainty.
  • FONDL
    •
    18 years ago
    I agree with whoever said that nearly all religions teach basically the same thing, eg. some version of the golden rule combined with the ideas that there's a higher power and that life is eternal in some form or other. So I find it really sad that the world's religious leaders don't have the courage to say that theirs isn't the only way to savlation, it's just one way and that others are just as good. Think how many wars that would stop and how many lives it would save. (That's not my original idea by the way, I got it from reading the "Conversations With God" books by Neale Donald Walsch. Book 1 probably comes closer to expressing my own beliefs than anything else I've ever read or heard.) And I don't believe that there's any such thing as an Atheist. Everyone believes in something, everyone has a god, they just don't believe in the God of the bible nor do they call their belief by that name. I have a much different view of God myself than the one presented in the bible. I think how you define your god largely determines who you are.
  • AbbieNormal
    •
    18 years ago
    One common thread I see in a lot of agnostics/athiests is to replace their religious impulses with political or "rationalist" or progressivist ones. The big strength of Christianity and one of the reasons it helped lead to a reformation in western Europe that was the roots of the enlightenment and democracy was that it took people for what they were and are. Flawed, sinful, venal, and morally weak. Any doctrine that requires "enlightened" people or the elites to make over a society where there is a new kind of citizen will fail. If man is perfectable, if we can make heaven on earth, there is absolutely no evidence of it throughout all of history. What the "progressive" philosophies have done (I'll use that as a shorthand for the movements that started with Neitche's declaration "God is dead, and we have killed him." to try to govern without an externally imposed moral code) is to replace God with man, or more accurately progressive man, or enlightened man, or the new Soviet man, and thus make men into gods, which they are not. That is why when men try to re-create heaven in their image we get Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao, not Jesus. As for the criticisms of Catholicism and moral codes in general, the complaints I see most often is how unrealistic such codes are or how they inhibit someone's freedom. For the vast majority of history personal freedom hasn't been much of a concern, survival has. Societies are as concerned with survival as people are, and will impose on the individual the social virtues they deem necessary. Think of it this way. Assume that the Catholic doctrine of no sex before marriage, no sex outside marriage, no homosexuality and no divorce were followed. There would be no orphans, no AIDS, no venereal disease. Things we see as silly may actually have a real social purpose. Even if you don't want to ascribe some of these musty old fashioned ideas to divine inspiration we should at least take note that humans evolve socially, and that just about every society on the face of the earth throughout history has adopted monogamous marriage where sex outside marriage is greatly discouraged and homosexuality is perhaps tolerated but stigmatized, and where parents are primarily responsible for the welfare of children. I personally don't agree with the stand on birth control, but yo have to understand that with infant mortality and death during childbirth being at rates that are unimaginable today there may have been a lot better reason to encourage large families. Can we evolve now that some of these things aren't as important? Sure, but we shouldn't make the progressive mistake of assuming that we are somehow smarter or more enlightened than everyone and every society to come before us and decide to just toss out long held beliefs or traditions because they conflict with our vision of what society should be. One main principle of modern conservatism is that there is no history when it comes to human nature. We will never create heaven on earth, because we are human, not gods. This is, like it or not, one of history's hard lessons. We may think we are beyond such primitive things as religion, but a little humility might be in order, religion may actually be a good thing even though we chafe at being scolded and inhibited.
  • chitownlawyer
    •
    18 years ago
    QSM: Objectivism is a great theory as long as the practitioner/believer happens to be in the group of socially "strong" people who are admonished to gather all they can to themselves, and to hell with anyone else. If you are one of the weak people who needs some social help for some period of time, it really sucks. Minnow: I believe the quote was, "Lord, make me chaste, but not now." I recite it, like a mantra, every time I am walking down the long vestible into Brad's Brass Flamingo. I am reminded, on this point, of the custom in the Church during the Dark Ages/medieval period, of trying to be baptized as late in life as possible, so as not to be in any great rush to reform one's wicked ways....
  • casualguy
    •
    18 years ago
    Oh, I forgot to add, the look on the guy in the lobby when the door opened by itself, I walked in, then the door closed behind me without me touching it. Priceless. Well before he stumbled across some chairs trying to get the hell out of dodge.
  • casualguy
    •
    18 years ago
    If whatever priest you may listen to didn't believe his religion was the best one or true one or whatever you want to call it, then in effect he would be saying he believes his life has been a waste of time because he got into the wrong religion. I don't think you'll find too many people saying their life has been devoted to the wrong things. No one wants to be wrong about what they have been believing in. Therefore, everyone else in all the other churches always have in wrong in most people's opinion. Sounds like a source of conflict to me. Most people don't care too much though if other people have it wrong in their opinion.
  • minnow
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    18 years ago
    Chitown: I think it was St. Augustine (sp???) that said "Give me chastity, but not so soon".
  • Book Guy
    •
    18 years ago
    I thought I'd like Ayn Rand because all the objectivists I'd ever met were rather committed to a rational life, an idea that seemed sensible. Then, however, I read Ayn Rand's supposed "novels" and was just so bored by the bad writing and the cardboard-cut-out characters and the obvious lessons that I looked further into it. I found out that she had been a daughter of a middle-class pharmacist, but had seen her family business and her family itself ruined by the Russian revolution. Gee, what a surprise, she came down entirely on the opposite side. Kind of like asking a seventy-year-old Cuban emigre in Miami whether he thinks a socialist quasi-military dictatorship will work for Cuba or not. Honestly, "objectivism" can work, as long as people who practice it are, well, as smart as most objectivists seem to be. I feel the same about "libertarianism" too. Problem is, most of the world is simply not that bright ... :)
  • GooberMan
    •
    18 years ago
    I became an atheist in 1988 after reading various books by Ayn Rand about her "philosophy for living on earth," Objectivism. I now consider myself a practitioner of that philosophy, which argues persuasively that the only moral purpose of human life is simply to enjoy productive living. Visit [view link] and click the blue "Objectivism" button in the top right corner to learn more.
  • Book Guy
    •
    18 years ago
    Hahah, "not one true religion." I agree with you, FONDL, but you seem to misunderstand the point of making an absolute claim. To any adherent, if he can't make a TOTAL claim that applies to ALL OTHER PEOPLE, then he might as well not bother making any claim at all.
  • AbbieNormal
    •
    18 years ago
    FONDL, you're gonna burn in hell for that one. Infidel.
  • FONDL
    •
    18 years ago
    I actually think that churches serve a useful purpose. A lot of people who are looking for meaning in their lives find peace and comfort at church. It's not for everyone but then what is. I think that churches made a huge strategic mistake when they encouraged governments to take over welfare. Taking care of the poor gave churches something very meaningful to do and formed a connetion between rich and poor that no longer exists. As a result churches aren't as important a part of their communities as they once were. The thing I find most annoying about organized religion, though, is the attitude they all seem to have that theirs is the one true religion and it's their job to try to convert the rest of the world to their views. How can anyone be that arrogant? If there's one thing that I've learned in my 60+ years on this planet it's that there's no such thing as the one true religion.
  • DandyDan
    •
    18 years ago
    Chandler- I have to agree about Catholics and sex. It's the whole fixation with the Virgin Mary. And actually, it's not that they think it doesn't exist, it's that it's bad for you unless you wait til marriage, in most Protestant religions. It's obvious to me when I see my aunt from my father's side of the family. They grew up Methodist. As a kid, we had my grandparent's wedding anniversary at their church, and I couldn't even play cards there with my cousins. If you can't play cards there, then surely you can't talk about sex there. And my aunt just goes off the deep end on everything.
  • casualguy
    •
    18 years ago
    Talking about girls in skirts, I did spot one girl in a short skirt about 2 rows in front of me in church recently. Made things seem a little bit more interesting. You know you might be slightly bored if you're watching the shadows of the sun as they progress through the building. There can be some good looking girls in church. Who knows, even strippers go to church on occasion even though I haven't spotted any. Church service doesn't seem the same when you're watching two girls and they seem to be watching you back. Unfortunately, usually it seems I'm watching shadows and daydreaming and sweating away while hearing some solo screaming singing. I don't know why the priest allows solo singing, that should be banned except for a special occasion in my opinion. Lol, maybe church was too crowded. I noticed less people there with the increased solo singing.
  • chandler
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    18 years ago
    In response to some of comments about Catholics, I believe that those who survive being raised Catholic often have a more sophisticated attitude about sex. Not to necessarily put down Protestantism, but many denominations seem to pretend that sex doesn't exist. Catholics have at least been confronted by the issue, either directly or through symbol, and been forced to form an attitude about it. Unfortunately there are many casualties, too. (No, I'm not referring to sex-abuse by priests.)
  • AbbieNormal
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    18 years ago
    Oh, and Shadow, if you come to DC I can tell you exactly where to go for mileage. Royal Palace.
  • AbbieNormal
    •
    18 years ago
    Shadowcat, nobody can tell you where to get the best mileage, you know. Why are you looking for that information here? Do you really think a discussion about how to reconcile regular churchgoing (or more accurately christian belief) with clubbing as a hobby is going to give you mileage tips? Your complaint is about the most idiotic thing I've ever read from you considering the topic. Sorry to be blunt, but I think in this case you are being a dick. I've posted the occasional "let's get back to talking about tits" for comic relief or to decompress a particularly obtuse discussion, but that is a difference of degree, not kind. Since I rarely post in topics about maxing out mileage you should have no problem ignoring me. Casualguy, my point, if you missed it (or others) is if your biggest concerns about church are feeling uncomfortable, physically, you needn't worry. Just don't go. It's only when what the dude at the podium says means something that you have to worry.
  • casualguy
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    18 years ago
    Lol, I heard something funny in church one day spoken by the priest. He said the most dangerous place in the world seems to be a Catholic church parking lot after the mass or service ends.
  • AbbieNormal
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    18 years ago
    Casualguy, the modern problem with church is summed up in a classic quote from the movie "Mass Appeal", staring Jack Lemmon as a popular priest obsessed with his popularity who is tasked with mentoring a young acolyte bent on saving souls. After the young firebrand gives a moving and challenging sermon that leaves the congregation, used to feelgood pablum, rather dumfounded, one parrishoner on the way out says to Lemmon "I don't come to church to be preached to." In a stripclub you aren't likely to hear anything you don't want to. Some churches still preach.
  • casualguy
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    18 years ago
    I do regularly suffer at church. The church I go to even has solo singing now which is almost as bad as scratching nails on a chalkboard but just a little less disturbing. Too much darn singing all the darn time. Then the temp is often too hot. I might understand in the summer, it's to save money. However too hot in the winter time kills me. Then if too many people wear shorts or if I wear shorts, my relatives and or the priest may preach about wearing shorts is disrespectful. I still suffer once a week though. I think I've been drilled at an early age to feel mental pain if I don't go so I get tortured either way.
  • AbbieNormal
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    18 years ago
    Oh, and Book Guy, you are just begging for an argument... But it's just too needy for me, I need my space.
  • casualguy
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    18 years ago
    I feel like I'm suffering at church, then I have to go to a strip club to have fun. It seems like a balance in a way. In fact on some occasions, I think going to church made me want to go to a strip club even more. I have wondered why it is that strip clubs make me feel better but going to church leaves me feeling agitated or suffering. Lol, I remember one guy during an interview was asked if he went to church. He said they didn't want him there. To make church more appealing to me, they would need to replace all the singing with rock and heavy metal tunes. Require the good looking females to wear shorts or short skirts. And speed up the whole process while keeping the temperature not too hot. Maybe even throw in a couple of altar girls in short skirts to keep everyone's attention on the alter. haha, my fun version.
  • AbbieNormal
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    18 years ago
    Chitown, I can't resist. While only peripherally related I find this somehow appropriate. Religion has always struggled and compromised with the baser sociatal traditions or urges, often to it's detriment, but I recalled and looked up (it took quite a while) a passage from Gibbons "Decline and Fall..." that I think relates. In chapter 28 dealing with the destruction of pagan rites and rituals there is this delicious footnote; "Footnote 30: See the Life of Martin by Sulpicius Severus, c. 9 - 14. The saint once mistook (as Don Quixote might have done) a harmless funeral for an idolatrous procession, and imprudently committed a miracle."
  • lopaw
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    18 years ago
    I grew up a Jew-atholic (mother: catholic, father: jewish). I have since abandoned all organized religion and prefer to pray & bestow homage at the stripclub rails instead.
  • token
    •
    18 years ago
    Am a Methodist. Basically I quit going to Church (and Sunday School) around 13 or 14 when I got too big to be threatened. That's not to say that I'm not a Christian because I am and have deep inner convictions. I'm just not about going to Church and expressing my beliefs on others. Have inner peace.
  • DandyDan
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    18 years ago
    I was born Catholic, but have since lapsed. Frankly, I don't see any value in any organized religion, although you should try explaining that to my parents. I personally doubt Jesus even existed, since the only book he ever appears in is the Bible and books which use the Bible as source material. There were lots of writers in ancient Rome and Palestine and none wrote of Jesus. I have also read it is nothing except allegory, anyway.
  • chandler
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    18 years ago
    A am a lapsed Catholic. Actually, I was raised by a lapsed Catholic, so whatever is one more step removed. I don't attend, of course. I feel a conflict about strip clubs, not because of any specific stricture, but to the degree that indulging in the pleasure of commercial sex can consume so much of my passion, keeping me from doing more with my life.
  • FONDL
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    18 years ago
    Book Guy, IMO most organized religions suffer from the same illness that effects all large organizations, namely that at some point their leaders become more interested in perpetuating and increasing their power than in accomplishing the goals that the organization was originally formed to accomplish. I don't think religions are any worse in this respect than big business or big government, all large organizations eventually suffer from this same disease. I also think that all Catholics are "cafeteria Catholics." The rules are so complex that no one could possibly follow them all, not even the priests. And we've certainly seen lots of evidence of that. But this complexity is essential to the power of the leaders - if not for all the rules they wouldn't be needed. It also guarantees that all their parishioners will be sinners and therefore need the church for absolution. I find Chitwown's question to be especially interesting because IMO Christianity has a great deal of difficulty dealing with human sexuality. This is especially true of the Catholic church.
  • Book Guy
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    18 years ago
    I think church -- in particular, the new style of marginally Christian Protestant semi-evangelical "suburban" church and many of the new primitivist or fundamentalist movements within more established denominations -- in concept and in specific, is destroying our democracy. Church makes us less safe, less moral, less free, less good, less happy, and certainly less Christian. It's at the root of economic problems, social ills, the sexual hypocrisy that allows us to put half-naked women in rock videos on the same television channels that aren't allowed to advertise for condom use. I wouldn't attend one of those houses of Satan unless you paid me. There, now that I've said that ... :) ... I kind of like Catholics. Not, as a religion, I'm not impressed with Catholicism. I'm not Catholic, and I didn't have an opportunity to interact with anyone who was, while I was growing up. Then I dated a girl who was "cafeteria Catholic" (her term, by which she means, she gets to pick what parts of current Catholic dogma she likes or dislikes; by which I told her, she sounds rather Protestant to me!). I realized that her, her relatives, her community, and the "system" under which the nieces ande nephews were being raised, were actually rather nice. There was always a cousin available for babysitting; there were big holiday meals; people were better at social graces, like being friendly and supportive in an informal way when you felt bad or when you got a promotion, etc.; and mainly, the priest seemed more like a "life enabler" than a "life interferer." He wasn't there to make you feel like you'd fucked up all the time. It's kind of like those old sayings about health food -- if you want to eat healthy you can't have anything that tastes good. Just eat things that taste bad all the time. :) That was an old joke, and it kind of applies to how the "new right" of religion in America -- but NOT the Catholic Italians I met -- seems to approach life. If you're having fun, it must be evil. So say the Calvinists. Or is it the Puritans? Either way, I don't want it. I guess a lot of Catholics are wracked with guilt, dysfunctionally so. And I'm pretty sure the last pope, and likely the new one, will be front and center of reactionary measures like prohibiting birth control, especially bad for the world's poor. But meanwhile I sure wish I had a supportive family.
  • AbbieNormal
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    18 years ago
    I used to be an usher some years ago. Now I am pretty much a CEBW (Christmas, Easter, Baptism, Wedding) christian as far as church attendance goes, but I am still a member of and donate to my hometown church. As far as conflicts go I'm not married or otherwise comitted so I don't wory about that. Certainly I think that like a lot of things I do and have done clubbing isn't exactly a good thing ecumenically speaking, but as I've also said I think many things that are on the fringes of acceptable social behaviors serve a purpose both for the individual and for society.
  • casualguy
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    18 years ago
    Lol, I've had so many unusual or maybe paranormal things happen around me on occasion, I remember an atheist I knew in college had a crisis of beliefs. At least he didn't start thinking I was the anti-christ or something. I'm thinking though that there's different levels of atheist thinking. Some don't believe anything paranormal and others are willing to accept that some paranormal things do go on. I've experienced paranormal things a few times. I even had some doors mysteriously open and close for me eerily one night back in my college days. The first time I thought it was cool (maybe coincidence as in wind pressure blew it open). Then next time within 30 minutes, weird. The next building I walked to and had it happen again, a bit spooky but still nice like I had an invisible ghost door man or girl.
  • chandler
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    18 years ago
    I know I'm not the first to say this: When you compare religions of the world, it's pretty hard to escape the conclusion that all are but different expressions on a single, universal impulse to find meaning and transcendance. Insisting that only yours is the one true religion is like saying that the language you speak is the only correct one and every other tongue around the globe is getting it wrong.
  • AbbieNormal
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    18 years ago
    Shadowcat, sorry to be short tempered with you last night. The quote is from a book Chitown and I have discussed. I really love the quote, and I thought it an interesting take on the clash between religious piety and societies traditions or practices. It is sometimes rather imprudent for religious institutions or authorities, in this case a saint, to get too far out ahead of the people they are saving. They often end up as martyrs.
  • FONDL
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    18 years ago
    I go to church fairly regularly and don't have a problem reconciling the two. I do so partly by limiting what I'm willing to do in a club. Life is full of conflict and compromise. Life is messy. But, Chitown, I think you've asked the wrong question. Church attendance is largely irrelevant, the real issue is how one reconciles his own religious beliefs with his clubbing. My personal beliefs are quite different than those of the church that I attend, and I think that's fairly common (eg. probably half the Catholics in America favor some form of abortion rights.) Clubbing doesn't conflict with my personal beliefs. If it did I wouldn't do it.
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