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Comment by nickd2001 | Hacker News Reader

nickd2001

Its sad that you had such a negative experience of church, due to people's failings. Its not like that everywhere. There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc. Sounds like you've been among people who lack of proper understanding of "love others as yourself" and "judge not lest thy be judged" which are fundamental to true Christianity (and other religions too). I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people

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Another way to look at it is that this isn't "people's failings." This is structural. Churches perpetuate problematic power structures and base their teachings on incoherent writings that can easily be interpreted to mean all kinds of nasty things. You can point to Jesus sayings in "true Christianity" and still have to explain yourself as to why Apostle Paul is allowed to say some crazy stuff in the same compilation text (the bible) that everyone loves to harp on. Also, didn't Jesus compare a gentile woman to a dog? Wowza that's some offensive and racist stuff.

> There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc

There are plenty of church communities that _claim_ to be welcoming to such folks. You don't have to stick around long to see that it's not true. And it's also not hard to see why - the underlying foundations of the Christian church especially are rotten. Churches don't have full control of their congregants so churches will never be safe spaces as long as they teach from texts that are racist, sexist, and encourage illogical thinking. I _did_ church shop for a year in hip San Francisco of all places, before coming to this (obvious in hindsight) realization. TBT that time I walked into a church and the first thing they said was "Women were created to be mens' helper" - a panel with Francis Chan. Walked out pretty fast after that.

> I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people

What does that mean -- challenge people? You're encouraging folks like me to put up with endless bullshit and look for something that doesn't exist. No thanks.

Thanks for reply :) By "challenge people" - I mean, rather than put up with BS, relentlessly challenge it, call it out . One might attack homophobia like this: "You believe in a loving God? OK. Does a loving God smite down someone who finds themselves to be gay, or does God celebrate all committed loving relationships including ones that happen to be of the same gender". OK, I'm very liberal on this, and some Christian friends wouldn't take the same line, but they don't seem to dismiss this argument completely. I have a friend who's happily been going to a Catholic church for decades. He lives with a long-term male partner. He doesn't shout from the rooftops that he's gay but doesn't hide it either. Many people like him a lot. Some of them may think its not OK to be gay, but they like him anyway. They also do seem to believe in "sort yourself out rather than judging other". So it seems to just work out really. I agree with you about churches perpetuating problematic power structures, clericalism and so forth.. But that in itself is people's failings isn't it? Doesn't mean that all or even many Christians are supportive of that. Treatment of women - often women are not treated well , whether in the church or not. Shouldn't be happening.. but again human failings rather than something fundamental about religion or church per se, IMHO. Personally I think that churches such as Catholic, Orthodox etc that don't allow women to be priests, should be re-evaluating that, I don't see that's what Jesus wanted, and its very disrespectful, and wasting 50% of human talent to ban women, IMHO. Little secret, here in the UK amongst Catholic laity you'll find most support women priests. As regards nasty things in the bible, well, taken literally the bible can seem offensive, appalling etc, that's why to me we also need 2000 years worth of theologians thought to interpret it, and need to be careful about going straight to it picking out bits because can get wild misinterpretations that way. To use your example of apparent racism, isn't The Good Samaritan a good counter-example i:e anti-racist? I guess my entire argument is this - when we encounter people claiming to be of a religion that promotes love to each other, and they blatantly do the opposite, we should in the nicest possible way call that out and invite them to do what they claim to believe. Also there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what teachings are, what Jesus really said, a misunderstanding that God is somehow punitive or vengeful which Jesus tried to clear up but we still seem to fall victim to. Well, if you don't believe in all of this anyway, fine, no problem :) There are a lot of atheists out there who behave in a much better way than most Christians. ;) I have a couple of friends like that too. Doesn't stop me arguing (politely) with them though ;)

Dude if your religion needs 2000 years of theologians to interpret correctly, all the while being a pretext for war, genocide, racism, sexism, and an accidental source of child abuse, your religion sucks and the world would be better off without it.

You don't need "better Christians" -- you need people to stop being Christians.

> Also there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what teachings are, what Jesus really said, a misunderstanding that God is somehow punitive or vengeful which Jesus tried to clear up but we still seem to fall victim to.

That your religion is this incoherent is itself a huge problem and the source of many ills.

> I agree with you about churches perpetuating problematic power structures, clericalism and so forth.. But that in itself is people's failings isn't it? Doesn't mean that all or even many Christians are supportive of that.

You're saying blame the priest who diddled kids, not the church that teaches priests to repress their natural urges until they manifest in taking advantage of defenseless children. You're saying blame the idiots who "misinterpreted" the Bible and created churches where women cannot lead, and not the texts that provide the argument for their behavior. That's not agreeing with me on problematic power structures, that's failing to see problematic power structures.

> Treatment of women - often women are not treated well , whether in the church or not. Shouldn't be happening.. but again human failings rather than something fundamental about religion or church per se, IMHO.

Except that the basis for western oppression for women is largely rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs. And in the middle east, Islam is the source.

It's all garbage.

Someone downvoted you but it wasn't me. We possibly shouldn't carry this on too long in case people feel its gone way off topic, but.. these are important subjects. To address some of your points :). "if your religion needs 200 yr of theologians" ... its not the religion, its the Bible. Big difference. Its hardly surprising if a book written 2000 yrs ago, totally different time, culture etc, needs expertise to be understood , and going to it directly and trying to make sense of it cause confusion, right? Pretext for genocide etc... well, terrible things have been done in the name of religion, but terrible things happen with or without religion. Look at Russia/Ukraine. I'd argue its not religion causing it. People that want to hate will find something to fight about be it religion, resources, power, football teams etc. I do agree actually that where people's beliefs are incoherent this is the source of many ills. But I'd argue against that being the fundamental religion being incoherent. Regarding abuse by clerics, I do agree, and I think a lot of Christians would, that the rule of celibacy for priests is extremely unhelpful, and has led as you say, to deviant behaviour and abuse that has wrecked people's lives. The response by church(es) has been severely lacking, often appalling, and the main reason for that would seem to be that the hierarchy themselves are celibate, not having normal healthy relationships and haven't a clue how what to do. So I, like many others would advocate ditch the celibacy requirement ASAP. The hierarchy don't necessarily think they can do that though, they think they'll alienate churches in the developing world, cause a schism etc, its a mess. But, and you may think I'm an idiot to say this, I argue again, that's human failings, and doesn't mean that the religion should be thrown away as unworkable. I would believe, that's not what Jesus would have wanted. Now, maybe you don't believe, and that's absolutely fine. No-one should ever be pressured into having any beliefs or religion (yet another thing unhelpful people have done within the church, and again, nevertheless not a reason to disband it IMHO). But I would say, maybe stay away from the church if you don't believe, but if you have any hint of belief, try to fix these problems. By, like I say, challenging people. Regarding Judaism, Christianity and Islam being the source of oppression of women, that's certainly an interesting one, I'd have to go away and think about that. Gut feeling , its unlikely to be the only source of that, but I know what you're saying there's certainly been structural oppression of women within organised religion. To summarise I think a lot of things that anger you about the church its absolutely fair to be furious about, and these issues massively frustrate people inside it who still regularly go to church. Where we differ is indeed that you say people should stop being Christians whereas I do indeed say people should be better Christians. Hope you can find happiness and purpose anyway whatever route you take. :)

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