Proof that religion is an addiction

[lindysalsagal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/05/21/minnesota-catholic-lutheran-defy-walz-reopen-coronavirus/

Catholics and some Lutherans in Minnesota plan to buck their state’s governor and reopen churches May 26

By Michelle Boorstein May 22, 2020 at 11:13 a.m. EDT

Leaders of two of Minnesota’s largest faith groups are planning to resume indoor worship services next week in defiance of the governor’s order, saying it’s “extreme and prejudicial” to put religious gatherings in a reopening category similar to that of tattoo parlors or hair salons and subject them to limits stricter than those placed on retail stores.

In a conference-call news conference Thursday, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Catholic leader for the state, and the Rev. Lucas Woodford, president of the Minnesota South District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, said they were fine with restrictions earlier in the pandemic. Now that there is a reopening plan, however, they said they can’t accept gathering limits for worship that surpass those affecting places such as the Mall of America.

“Our community members are suffering from financial and social and emotional strain,” Hebda said on the call, which was organized by Becket, a religious liberties law firm representing the two groups. “It’s our sacred duty to meet the spiritual needs of the suffering.”

My take:

You've got the phone, zoom, newpapers, magazines, online message boards, online journals, the bible, and just plain faith and prayer.

Why isn't that sufficient?

[Pantagruel]

1. Why isn't that sufficient?

Nothing compares to the passing of the collection plate...

[Major Nikon]

4. I'm not so sure

I suspect the bigger fear is losing business to mass flock fleecers like Copeland, et al.

[illegal smile]

2. Can't pass the collection plate

through the computer screen.

[CaptYossarian]

3. The fines should be different for commercial entities.

"You can open for business/worship (what's the difference?), but we get 50% of the $ you take in."

Make it $500 for an individual's first offense and keep doubling it every time thereafter. They'll $ocial distance for sure.

[Bretton Garcia]

5. They need close physical contact to spread an apocalyptic plague

Which they want, of course.

[guillaumeb]

6. Addiction is an overused term.

Especially here.

[Bretton Garcia]

7. But religious cults seem to addict us to one idea.

And to blank out everything except the central focus. The drug: God.

And they say, all Christianity is a cult; having come from the older priestly "cultus" (Latin), or cultural concentration on a temple, etc.

[guillaumeb]

10. Political cults often seem to addict one to an idea.

For some, politics is a substitute for religion.

[Bretton Garcia]

11. Maybe

But cut 39%?

[hurl]

8. What counter-argument are you implying?

What do you claim as the appropriate usage level, so that the rest of us can understand how lindysalsagal's usage especially exceeds it?

[guillaumeb]

9. What evidence was presented to merit the use of the term addiction?

If you vote in every election, are you addicted to voting?

[Bretton Garcia]

12. The common psychological standard

Is whether you are destructive; "a danger to yourself or others."

[guillaumeb]

16. So if the vast majority of people in general are not destructive to others?

The problem with this thread, as I see it, is that most people are not destructive or dangerous. So the term addictive does not apply.

To go further, and I have done so many times here, the real problem is with authoritarians who operate in every hierarchy. No matter the organization, there will invariably be some members who wish to control others. And these members will generally claim to be acting in the best interests of the organization, and its members. Some of these authoritarians might truly believe that they are acting for the best.

We see this tendency everywhere, in theistic societies, the majority, and the few atheistic societies. The authoritarians will always try to divide and control.

[Bretton Garcia]

17. Evangelicals, the evil angels, are pretty numerous

And the white evangelicals voted about 90% for Trump

[guillaumeb]

20. Which avoids my points.

If black Evangelicals did not vote for Trump, could the problem be racism? Trump is an open racist.

If Evangelicals of every color supported Trump, I might agree that Evangelism is the root cause, but if mainly white Evangelicals are supportive of Trump, my view is that racism is the key.

[Bretton Garcia]

21. White evangelicalism is a different religion by now.

From black evangelicalism.

They started together. But began to diverge decades ago. If you listen to their services, clearly one is rather liberal, the other is conservative. Like the split in say, Presbyterians, the split is deep enough to change formal doctrinal emphasis. Within these religions, themselves.

Religions split all the time. The way Protestantism split from Catholicism.

To the extent that they are both stll religions, they both emphasize magical thinking, to be sure. But then the differences soon appear.

[guillaumeb]

22. Good points.

In my view, racism is foundational to the white experience in this country. Which is not to say that white people as a group are racist, just that racism is so embedded in the white experience that it distorts everything.

[NeoGreen]

13. Seems like a perfect use of the word, by definition:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction

Addiction
1 : a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence : the state of being addicted

Emphasis added.

[lindysalsagal]

14. Thanks, ng. They cling to it because the organizers

Have accessed their vulnerabilities by promising relief from common causes of suffering. Its calculated and malicious. And it personally serves those who can harness the inherent powers. Humans were bred to adapt, and by adapting to the entrance expectations, they become enslaved to it, unable to see the damage religion causes.

[NeoGreen]

15. It's not much more than a security blanket...

...they steadfastly refuse to take responsibility for their life, and death. They want to live forever, so they willfully embrace whatever narrative gives them that comfort, regardless of the fact the narrative does not comport with reality.

It's willful, purposed, ignorance, nothing more.

All so they may 'believe' and have 'faith' in the magic story they have been sold: that they will live forever.

[lindysalsagal]

18. The whole "reunited" w dead loved ones is too irresistible

No, guys. You've gotta get it right while you're on earth. No 2nd chances.

[NeoGreen]

19. Yep. This is a 1-ride show...

...and who do you meet in the great beyond?

Alzheimers grandma? 20-yo grandma?

Are people who died as infants always infants?

Do people with cognitive disabilities keep their disability with them? If not, are they still who they were?

Is there a difference between someone born blind verses someone who could see and lost their eyesight in life? Do they both get equal vision in heaven?

And the one that kills it for me.
How could you ever be in a state of bliss, knowing that there are good people in hell?
Burning in 'conscious torment for eternity'.
People you knew, people you loved.
What kind of rat-bastard would you have to be to exist in a state of 'bliss' while you look down and see your grandmother, your best friend, or your child burning forever.

And if it is some magical hand wave that excuses this paradox, how is that 'you', then?

Magic and wishful dreams, that all it is, with no more substance than the tooth fairy or the green tiger-striped wickernacker, with purple boots covered in pink-polka dots and an ermine hat topped with one big silver tassel, I just conjured up in my imagination.

It's all pretend.