• mcv@lemmy.zip
      0·
      5 months ago

      Everything is business, everything is entertainment, everything is about money.

      There is still real Christianity in the US, but this isn’t it. I recently read about someone asking for help from various churches, mosques and temples, and everybody offered help, except the churches. The churches that did help were predominantly black.

        • mcv@lemmy.zip
          0·
          5 months ago

          There’s definitely a difference between faith, and organised religion. I think the worst thing that can happen to any religion is to become an official state religion. At that point it becomes a tool for politics and social control. It unavoidably gets corrupted in some way. People aren’t part of it because they believe, but because they have to.

            • mcv@lemmy.zip
              0·
              5 months ago

              How does that work? How can you be made to pay? That does not sound legal to me. Can’t you just leave and ignore it?

                • mcv@lemmy.zip
                  0·
                  5 months ago

                  I’m afraid I still don’t quite get it. Do you pay less taxes now? Do members of this church pay more taxes?

                  It all sounds completely at odds with the concept of freedom of religion.

  • InvalidName2@lemmy.zip
    0·
    5 months ago

    It’s not just mega churches.

    My dad was going to a small little church for years. At some point in a conversation about their church, I asked him what the church does in terms of community service or giving to the less fortunate. His response was “nothing”.

    To me, that should be a pretty high priority for organized religion, otherwise it’s just Sunday social hour and free entertainment … at best.

    • BanMe@lemmy.world
      0·
      5 months ago

      Social hour is actually very necessary, not happening, our third spaces are dying and churches are one of them. Not that I’m not glad to a degree, but we need replacements because people come to the church for human connection, and then pick up the bullshit over time.

      Hell I’m in the South and I have queer friends that still go to southern baptist churches “because there’s food once a week” and “I get to be around people.”