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Comment by Kluny | Hacker News Reader

Yes - CS Lewis pointed out the value of going to church in your local parish rather than shopping around for a church that suits you. Instead of having your beliefs reinforced by people who are like you, they are influenced by the people who happen to live near you. Those people may be more diverse in age, wealth and nationality than your other friends, but they are linked to you by a shared interest in your neighbourhood. This builds community and helps open minds.

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He’s basically suggesting the exact opposite of the social media news feed, which we’ve proved to be hazardous.

> This builds community and helps open minds.

As someone who grew up in a small, rural Christian community, this is a nice sentiment, but far from true in my experience. People instead become highly punitive and disparaging towards anyone who does not think and behave exactly like them. Whatever community exists is built around a hateful exclusion of “the other.”

It certainly can go that way, yes.

I by no means want to invalidate your experience, but from someone else who also grew up in a rural Christian (European Lutheran) community, I can’t recall churchgoers talking or caring much about each other’s beliefs - there was the whole range from secularists who were in it for the local community through devout fundamentalists and AFAIK (left as a teenager so it’s possible I missed things) it was never an issue.

That being said, there was definitely a “fear of the other “ with people being extremely suspicious of the few handful of outsiders who moved in and didn’t have any connection like relatives, existing connections, or children going to school there.

It gets much stronger when politics become mixed up with religion like it is in the United States. They feel their values should be imposed on others via law and regulations (see the recent nomination of the Supreme Court judge here who is very likely to be the deciding vote in removing healthcare protections from millions as well as denying women the right to do what they want with their body, possibly rescinding rights of people of color and LGBQT+ people back to the 1950s where they were openly attacked by police and put into mental wards). It's going to be a mess unless the Democrats stack the Supreme Court and neuter it.

I suggest that's exactly what we see with the social media problems, the tribes are still insular and ignorant they're just bigger.

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