Religion is "opium for the people" could be considered a compliment when one realizes that Marx said this at a time when opium was the only painkiller, only the rich could afford it, and the common people had to suffer without it.

If religion could again be a panacea to those who suffer psychological pain—as it presumably was in the days of Jesus—then it could, perhaps, regain some public esteem. To me, spiritual enlightenment is the ultimate painkiller. Alas, conventional Christian religion does not deliver. Rather, it adds to the psychological pain. A religion that uses fear, shame, and guilt to make its members follow its dictates is psychologically crippling, not psychologically healing!

I've pointed out on WC that the common short quote is often taken out of context, but remember, that short quote is often used against atheists as a way to tie atheism to Marxist communism. Now, I'm not sure what you think you're doing with it this time, but it certainly isn't an example of atheists cherry picking. I can't really think of any point about this thing that's in your favour.

Sure, religion is like a hallucinogenic. People think they see and hear things on religion. But like any painkiller, it doesn't heal - it just masks the symptoms.

If you want to escape reality, I can see the benefit. But I can also see the dangers of being a religious junkie.

Hi chansen:

I think of spiritual enlightenment not as a painkiller that masks the symptoms of psychological suffering, but as attaining freedom from suffering. This has nothing to do with religion; it is finding out who and what we ultimately are. The path to finding out is not a prescribed path, and neither is what we discover when we find out. The path to enlightenment is as unique as the individual who walks it; everyone has to find or create their own path. But the end of the path is marked by the cessation of suffering.

One can couch the path to enlightenment in the words or concepts of any religion, or in the words and concepts of secular psychology and philosophy. Although I have no problems with Christian terminology, I prefer the terms of secular philosophy. Christian terminology carries baggage that can be more hindrance than help.

I think that the path to getting know who and what we ultimately are is not just an individual creation, but a collective creation as well. What we find out evolves as we, individually and collectively, gain more knowledge and wisdom. This is part of a psychological self-evolution: an evolution of the psyche, by the psyche.

which reminds me, have you hoid aboot UBC's discovery of a neet unintended effect of Tylenol?

it can be used to mitigate existential angst

i like their web page; good sense of humour with the picture they chose :3

EDIT: and as with all drugs, which aren't, inherently evil, know your dosage, know your dealer, know your environment :3

I think Marx on wage labour, by which human liberty is diminished and capital gain increased, is quite insightful and even helpful. Probably why the folk are seeking out opium dens of diverse brand.

No, not the churches. The "telly", that obiquitous opiate by which the mind of the mass is massaged and managed, has throughly displaced the pulpit as the  primary informant of social consciousness.

I notice that we have moved to the naming of names. Each of these names being considered for its merit or lack thereof, depending on participant point of view.

I have nothing against the introduction of many names. It is the problem of competiton between names that concerns me. This follows where we forget that there is one name common to us all. Sad to say, I am not able to pronounce that name. At this stage along my way, were I to become able to pronounce that name, I would not.

I bend far to the irrational side. This presents a dilema to the far rational side. That dilema is well mediated by the diversity of perspective occuping middle, or intermediary ground. I hear chensen saying, quite consistently, that it does not matter what stories we tell ourselves, it is our effective action that communicates our priorities and commitments. I agree with this.

Maybe Marx could shed some light. Does he not make it clear that thought without corresponding action is, as chensen might phrase it, "drivel"? I can hear Socrates shouting amen. And I can see a whole circle of Hasidim leaping and prancing in agreement; to the jubilant voice of the clarinet.

What we do is what everybody else does. We are perfectly adapted to our context. Even though we have called that context into question. I imagine much of that questioning has stayed will within the safe bounds of abstraction. Had we taken our incremental conversations about emergent crisis to heart, we would be seeing indications of reversal.

There was a group gathered to a name. There was a quarrel. The group divided.

There were two groups each gathered to a name. There were quarrells. The groups divided.

There were four groups,each gathered to a name.

This game was dangerous when we used stones and pointed sticks to prove the superiority of our own particular name. It was deadly enough when gunpower came as a  great blessing for the progress of humanity. Now we are in the suicidal stage.

All about names.

One would argue 'liberation theology' in South America was an example of religion that actually attempted to lift oppression.

Alas, it took them a while to get there. Even Pope Francis, as a bishop in Argentina, was not overtly against the oppressive regime when the generals were still in power down there.

I think the Roman Catholic Church of Poland was a fine example of religion siding with the oppressed against the oppressor.

Take two Tylenols and call me in the morning, eh?

A German word for a minister of the Church is "Seelsorger" which, literally translated, means "caretaker of souls."

"Psyche" is the Greek word for "soul." In modern society, psychologist and psychiatrists are caretakers of the human soul, but there aren't nearly enough of them. Besides, they are expensive, and psychiatric and psychological care are not as readily and freely available as physical health care.

Caretakers and "evolvers" of souls: there is a role for the church!

The coming human revolution is an evolution of the psyche. It is the human psyche intentionally and purposely evolving itself; it is human consciousness consciously evolving itself to a higher level of awareness: a quantum leap in creative human thought and action. The church could and perhaps should be at the leading edge of such a movement.

Do we dare?

Arminius, thank you for more food for relfective thought.

I appreciate the caretaker image. Much like the cultivation of character by the judicious employment of "spade" and "manure". And, resonant with Socrates and the midwifery of souls.

We are being changed, as the historical contractions increase in frequency and intensity. Blessed are those who hear the wind whisper "push, push." When the new is born joy will eclipse and erase the pangs of birth.

Putting off the old to put on the new. A thousand ways to discuss.... One way to practice.

This is like watching a train wreck in extreme slow motion.

Well, chansen, bureaucratic institutions usually change in slow motion. More often than not, some kind of catastrophe has to befall them for them to change rapidly or become obsolete. The same goes for human culture as a whole.

It's hitting you now. Literally, the United Church in my town is closing next month. They can't be the only one.

They are not.

The perishing of the United Church is in step with the perishing of liberal democracy; as the corporate state displaces freedom under the sign of hubris.

We have seen this before. The pattern is clearly spelt out in diverse theological, philosophical, sociological, and historical narratives; each grounded in a some particular critical perspective on the whole; subjectivly as well as objectively.

What then are we to do? Jettison all that hinders and make use of all that helps. In the case of the United Church, we might distance ourselves from the Basis of Union, and make a more determined approach to the Scriptures.

This approach is best made by persons in association with persons. It cannot be done by polities and programs. Faith expressed as action is the only way forward. That way is now being chosen by persons of every kind.

It means reclaiming our citizenship in that kingdom which is not of this world. This is way forward and it indicates our realization that the power structures of the persent age have no future. They are destined for destruction. The indications of that impending destruction are now mounting in frequency and intensity.

Five hundred years of progress along the way of logical positivism. The planet is radically off balance and its populations are either mad with power or mad for lack of  power. What we need is a redistribution. Those without power will go for the offer. Those with power are addicted and the thought of diminishing returns on investement frightens them. So they press harder for the increase of power.

What I am not able to discover is your motive, chansen. What promts you to engage as you do? What core value motivates your disdain for the difference persons such as I represent? Would we not do better in pressing for common ground?

My motive? To shake what can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken remains.

I love that pic of you with the clown nose, but I don't see that translate into an ability to relate. I think you like to hear yourself type.

I'd love to see some honest discussion and unique suggestions, but all I see so much church-speak, which, I suppose, is not to be unexpected. It just doesn't address the problem. You type in sweeping generalizations about things that, really, you have no control over. Maybe it's my background, but I'd love to see some real brainstorming take place. I see people talking about abstract concepts, but no actionable suggestions. If this is how you manage change, I can see how you gut here.

You guys really need to get yourselves a plan, but that's not your strength. You can muse about a deity for hours, but ask you for a solution to a problem, and you'll muse about a deity for hours.

I'd like to see the UCCan survive. You guys at least need to outlive the Baptists! But at least at WC, I don't see any honest attempts to drive change and renewal. I see nothing that is going to appeal to that teenager who just assumes he won't go to church any more once he's out of the house.

For me, the years of the fifties had people going to church because that was what proper people did.

Not exactly a wonderful reason to go to church.

yes, churches grew and became huge. Great , wonderful buildings were built and everyone attended.

Now we are seeing that shrink. People no longer go to church to be seen as proper. The ones who continue to go , attend for different reasons.

Yes churches close. The church I attended as a child closed, in many ways because the predominantly working class Protestant neighbourhood has been changed into a predominantly Sihk one. Not a lot of use for a united church though there are many other religious places of worship in the area now. That is evolution

The church I attend now is growing. New families, many teens, a casual , guitar led service for some, a traditional service for others.

The church isn't as big as it was in the 50's but it is vibrant, active, dynamic. The grey heads are out numbered under 50 crowd.

If we spend our days worrying about numbers we will never figure it out. I think we have shrunk to a stronger core of more active membership, and that is not a bad thing.

Not just the 50's. The last 1500 years.

In essence, that gave us the luxury of being able to divide into literally thousands of various Christian sects. When everyone goes to church whether they really want to or not there's always room for another.

Churches are closing. More will close. Frankly, we had way too many. By "we" I don't mean just the United Church, I mean churches in general. We need to begin working co-operatively with people of other denominations. Ecumenical partnerships. Ecumenical missions. Maybe ecumenical worship and ecumenical congregations. In my own context I have an immediate vision which could be put into action in the next few years if people are willing to let go of the rather unimportant things that divide us. Our church is reasonably healthy right now; the Presbyterian Church in our town is less so. Still, we struggle at times to pay two full time salaries; they struggle to pay one. Between the two of us (currently paying three) we could easily afford two. My vision would be that the next time there's a vacancy in one of our churches (ie, when either I or the Presbyterian minister move on) we should begin sharing ministry staff. If we're still attached to buildings, then for a while we'll worship separately, but with the same staff. So we'll make effectively an ecumenical two point charge - one Presbyterian, one United. The denominations will have to co-operate. So either the Presbyterians will have to accept me or the United Church will have to accept a Presbyterian minister as being "worthy" to lead one of their congregations without all the expectations of having to go through all the bureaucratic "hoops" for "admission." But it would free up resources and by doing so hopefully encourage mission - and perhaps, once people discover that they can share a minister it will be joint mission, and once they discover they can do there could be a joint congregation. There are some such ministries already in operation; there will have to be more. We're wasting resources. I once pastored a town of about 1000 people. In that town there were, right off the top of my head, at least five churches. There were 2 or 3 more just otside the town limits. If you include the neighbouring two towns (so a total population of about 3000) there were probably between 15-20 churches. That's obviously ridiculous; a leftover from an era that isn't just dying - it's dead.

Church attendance has flucuated up and down throughout the 2000 years that christianity has been around.  When we talk about numbers today in comparison to numbers in 1950 it's dishonest and misleading.  It's comparing apples and oranges.  Prior to World War 2 the United Church struggled to survive through the depression.  Prior to 1925 Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists struggled to survive in competition with one another and in much smaller communities accross Canada.  In the United States church attendance flucuated significantly between and during major milestones in their history - "Indian Wars", "American Revolution", "Spanish-America War", the war with Mexico that brought most of southwestern states into the "republic"  I suspect that upon retirement sometime in the next decade I will stop attending church regularly as I begin praying on the golf course on Sunday mornings.  As I graduated from high school in 1980 there were a grand total of 2 of us who attending a church regularly; Reg Bibby's numbers from his 1990's study of the United Church of Canada are showing themselves to be fairly accurate in the picture that they drew of the demographics of the United Church into the "new millenium".  I currently serve a congregation that has representatives from at least 5 other congregations that have opened and closed their doors over the 40 years since this congregation formed - in at least one case members of the closed congregation (15 years closed) continue to gather from breakfast or brunch together every month or so (in the statistics, they don't exist.)  We can bleat about the end of Christendom, the dying of the church, the inability of congregations to support professional ministry, even the relevance of Christianity all we want.  IMHO, the only people interested in that bleating are the people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of the church as it's existed over the past 20-50 years; and maybe a few observers watching shifting currents for posperities sake.

A friend of mine, a retired executive involved in a presbyterian church, during a discussion about legacy gifts (which he could make in a substantial and meaningful way, if he so chose) said he was not interested in leaving money to the church in a will or other form; that it was up to the generation following him, to maintain whatever church they desired as the running of the church moved into their hands.  I would tend to agree - the "church" will be what the generations who follow us decide to make it.  I have no doubt that it will survive, perhaps even thrive, through the years ahead.  It may not look like it does now - in all likelihood, it will not look like it does now.  Whether it's happening as a foursome praying on a golf course before or after their round of golf; whether it's happening as a couple of people delivering a box of clothes to a shelter; whether it's happening as a 10, or 100, or 1000 people gathering in a building they call a church; really doesn't matter to me either.  Because, "in 100 years we'll all be dead, and it won't matter anyway." 

Wow, that's pretty fatalistic thinking, not to mention a bold statement of a disbelief in an afterlife!

Reminds me of why we don't give a crap about the environment because when the drastic changes the earth will undergo happen, it will be the next generations problems.

I think there is a societal trend toward a "spiritualization" of human culture. In secular terms, it is an attempt by the human psyche to intentionally evolve itself to higher levels of consciousness and awareness.

In my thinking, the self-creative universe has, in us humans, evolved a biological organism with a self-creative organ, our brain. We, the organism self-named Homo sapiens sapiens, are finally living up to our self-named double sapiency by realizing that we are an inseparable part of a self-creative universe—and as creative as the self-creative universe—and are using our creative potential to evolve it and ourselves further. This process is also known as "co-evolution." A UCC minister, Bruce Sanguin of Vancouver, wrote several books on the subject. Sanguin, of course, writes about co-evolution from a Christian perspective, but one can think and write about it from the perspective of any religion, or from the secular perspective of science-based philosophy.

I prefer the latter, not because I am not fluent in Christian language, but mainly because conventional Christian language carries baggage that is more hindrance than help. Moreover, what is truly valuable in Christianity can be expressed just as easily, or more easily, in secular terms. "Spirituality without the bullshit," as one woman phrased it, who said she liked listening to me for that reason.

If we indeed were created as creators, in the image of our ultimate creator, then creativeness should be our foremost endeavour. So far, conventional absolutist church has favoured imitativeness and unquestioning belief over creativeness. It is high time for this to come to an end! The time has come for the unfolding of human creativeness!

VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS!

My ability to relate is not really at issue, other than the manner in which I am now relating with you.

Would a hundred anecdotes from my experience persuade you? A thousand? I could produce them, each manifesting the creative freedom I find at the very core of my being in the world.

In a downtown cafe last week. Girl at till shares with customers as I stand by. Remembered me sitting next to family of three. Father, mother and young son. About 12. The four of us were in conversation. I learned they lived just outside of town.

The girl at the till remembered how I put on a clown nose, took out a harmonica and started playing a tune. It was the "Ode to Joy".  When I stopped there was a round of applause from the room.

That's who I am. Never the same pattern twice. Always stepping into the scene and playing my part as well as I am able. There have been thousands of such brief encounters. I meet persons easily and I generally engage them well.

This place is not at all the kind of place I prefer. I am here to practice my use of written language. Always with the aim of being respectful of persons and critical of institutions.

I wonder again.... what motivates you in life chansen, and what do you hope to achieve in this place?

I'm with you on the never doing anything twice part. I loathe saying things because that's just what people are supposed to say. I'm a favourite of waiters and waitresses, barbers, sales people, and anyone in the service industry, because I don't use stock answers. I suppose I like to make people laugh. Part of that is out of being shy as a kid. I read a lot of books about old comedians as a kid and picked up enough to be considered funny in most company. Making jokes helped me make friends.

But not always. My old dentist hates me because I joke around too much in the chair, and he doesn't get the jokes. His assistant, meanwhile, was generally doubled over, which only caused the old man to get even more annoyed. If he snapped at her, then the jokes start flying at his expense. Not smart on my part as he had sharp tools in my mouth, but I didn't care.

That's the other thing that drives me. If you ruin the fun of others, I have the ability to ruin your fun. Same with scammers. I hate seeing people scammed, and have spent hours a day exposing and mocking financial scammers. It bothers me immensely to see people taken advantage of.

And, I think, that leads me to religion, because that's the oldest scam going. I have fun skewering religious claims and ideas, and I think they deserve no less.

What amazes me is that, of all the churches in Canada, the UCCan is falling the fastest. C'mon, you guys are the least insane denomination in Canada! I'm happy other churches are in decline, and I suppose I'm not your greatest supporter, either, but you serve as a useful middle ground between atheists and nutcase Christians. Without the UCCan and Christianity-Lite, the country just gets more polarized.

And when I'm trying to discuss something serious like the survival of the UCCan, I use simple language and I try to be understood by a wide audience. This is the part I find most frustrating, because I see a lot of people, youself included, writing in the least direct way possible. 

Actually, a lot of the anti-environmentalism sentiment you find is rooted in Christian beliefs that God will solve it, or that we'll all be Raptured before it matters, or just their simmering hatred of science and scientists who keep failing to reinforce their beliefs.

As for jmlochhead, he didn't say he didn't believe in an afterlife, though for his sake I hope that's true. I think most of us want to leave something for the next generations, including traditions. 

But I think it was Steven's post that got me thinking most. If the church is unable or unwilling to change, and it certainly appears that way, then there is a need to manage this reduction, rather than simply waiting for congregations to fail.

Let me see if I have it about right: In general you do not want people to take advantage, and in particular, you will do all you are able to ensure religious claims and ideas are not employed to take advantage of (scam) people. And, I take it you enjoy your work!

Whole hearted agreement from my perspective in the circle.

Do you feel the same way about ideological claims used to take advantage of persons and communities?

Just something to think about.

I suspect he United Church side of this conversation has left the room. Would value and appreciate any indication to the contrary. If none, perhaps we can drop the thread, and move on.

I will carry with me your admonition specific to clarity in my resort to language. I hope you will continue to be open to the potential of metaphor in the cause of conscientization .

I'm done here. Partly because I've lost interest, partly because I think Steven is right and the challenge will simply be to manage the downsizing of the UCCan, and partly because you used the word "conscientization".