Comment by pradn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pradn | Hacker News Reader

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There is this odd split in American society that makes this possible. You can go through your entire life, end up a professional journalist at the Times and not actually have asked someone about their sincerely held faith and practice. Kids rarely talked about religion in HS, outside of like the Interfaith club. (I ran my high school's and we had an annual panel of a rep from each major religion. I was was quite popular.)

Colleges, especially large ones, do have tons of students of different faiths, but I felt contacts were still minimal. My randomly-assigned freshman year room-mate was a devout Christian and would sing in worship - super wonderful guy. But after that, not much. It's so easy to just hang out with people similar to you - at all stages of life.

Even when you meet someone of a certain faith, you're likely to experience that interaction through holiday, festival, food, dress and so on - think asking a Muslim about Ramadan or being invited to a Hanukah party - but you're not likely to ask doctrinal or theological questions.

Well, the other thing is that many, perhaps most, religious people don't know very much about their religion. Very few Catholics would know the difference between a cathedral and a minor basilica, say (which is what started this thread off in the first place). Actually, I'd argue that this isn't a religious question, anyway; it's administrivia.

This is correct. Catholics pretty much gave up on talking about the faith to anyone, whether to the general public or even their own children during the 1960s.

And it’s not only administrivia, for example only half of US Catholics have heard about transubstantiation and only a third believe in it. [1]

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/05/transubst...

> only half of US Catholics have heard about transubstantiation and only a third believe in it

That's a startling figure, but I've been out of the church for a while. I recall that being taught during first communion and confirmation.

> only half of US Catholics have heard about transubstantiation and only a third believe in it.

The USCCB is trying to work on this, we're almost 2 years into a 3-year Eucharistic "revival" (that word has weird connotations for me, but it's the word they used), https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/

Is that true? I wouldn't know what a minor basilica is per se but I definitely know what a cathedral is. I'm orthodox but I think nearly all lay orthodox christians can name their own bishop and the cathedral of his seat, the definition of cathedral being kind of implicit in that administrative awareness. Maybe it's different for catholics? I'll ask some, I am curious now.

I don't think most Catholics would know what a minor basilica was, and I'd expect most to misidentify the Sagrada Familia as a cathedral.

And that's before you even get into pro-cathedrals and things...

70% of Ireland is nominally Catholic, and look at the confusion over this, say: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2023/06/22/dublin-...

Like, the church had to come out and clarify that Dublin didn't have a cathedral.

Yeah I'm ready to concede this, mostly based on a poll I just saw showing half of canadian catholics not knowing what transubstantiation is.

But still I think these are bad examples. If asked before this thread I would have said sagrada familia is a cathedral. But that's out of ignorance about that building, not about what a cathedral is. The dublin confusion looks similar to me: those people may know well what a cathedral is and just thought the pro-cathedral was one.

What on earth is going on in that picture of St Andrew’s Church?

Luxury mass.

Nah, some event, I assume. It's a big church in the city centre, and I'd assume it has virtually no parishioners these days, so wouldn't surprise me if they use it for other stuff.

The Orthodox Church wasn’t nearly as affected by modernism as Catholicism was.

You can see it directly in church architecture. Compare Catholic Church interiors from the early 20th century and ones now. Now do the same comparison for Orthodox ones. It’s clear that the former desperately don’t want to be Catholic anymore.

I was with you until the last sentence.

The seminarians have shifted very far ideologically away from the cohort who moved the altars, ripped out communion rails, and stripped the ornamentation. That's pretty much consistent with the cohort of Catholics who attend mass weekly (a bare minimum requirement).

Those rails, altars, and decorations are being renovated back into place in some places.

That's true for nearly all folks who would tell you they're part of a certain faith. As in any time, only a few minority ever seem to want to contemplate creation, the nature of god, the particular logics behind faith, etc etc. That's not all bad - people come in a million types.

For most, faith and culture are intertwined as they go about their day. You fast because of course you do, not because you know the thousand-year history of that practice and the relevant scriptural phrases.

I have the opposite impression. Among Westerners Americans seem like the group where Christianity still plays the largest role in the average person's life. They talk about it a lot, to the point that I find it annoying. It's not just people who believe in it, the atheists and secular ones among them constantly complain about how bad religion is and how much they hate it. That's something you simply don't see in Western Europe, it's a topic that doesn't really come up much because most younger people don't care. They never go to church, they aren't involved with religious folks, they simply don't think about it at much.

The only other country I can think of that comes close would be Poland, if that counts as Western.

You misunderstand how Americans talk about religion. A lot of us are religious and we talk about it - but we are careful to stay in generic terms because historically - back in the old country (Europe) we would be encouraged to shoot/kill someone of a different religion. America tended to put a lot of different religions together and so very religious people had to figure out how to get along with someone strong in a different religion to get things like a mayor elected.

Of course today few in Europe would go to war over religious differences. The world has changed (for the better unless by odd chance you happen to be the same religion as me - note I do not state which religion that is - this omission makes this a statement you can agree with whereas if I stated the religion you would disagree)

Yes, America is one of the most Christian of the major Western countries. However, the geography of faith is quite varied. We run around in cars, jetting to exactly the institutions we want to patronize. So it's possible to easily stay only in your own community.

I spent most of the first 30 years of my life surrounded by and friends with one flavor of deeply religious Christian or another (if my high school had had an 'interfaith' club, the faiths would have been 'Baptist' or 'Dutch Reform'), including Catholics. I say that to point out that the only reason I know there's something special about 'cathedrals' as opposed to other churches is because I read a bit of trivia once about what counts as an English city.

> I say that to point out that the only reason I know there's something special about 'cathedrals' as opposed to other churches is because I read a bit of trivia once about what counts as an English city.

If that trivia was that a cathedral is required to make a city, or that the presence of a cathedral makes a place a city, then that is _wrong_, though commonly believed. It was the case during the 16th century, kind of (Henry VIII did it) but it became far messier after that; by the 19th century non-cities with cathedrals and cities without cathedrals both existed.

Yeah, I should have specified that I was making no claims as to the modern accuracy of the trivia.

There is this constitutional right in American society that makes this possible.

Change two words in your opening sentence and the rest reads like the system is working as intended!

The legal regime just prevents the state from going too far in promoting one faith. But whether you encounter someone with a different belief system depends on geography, modes of transport, openness to other beliefs, etc. There's a lot more to it! I'm thinking of it as a stochastic process.

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