Are most church goers devout?

Quote: missedhervee

A lunch mass, eh?

I wonder how many went for the host / water?

Hello, free lunch.

"Lunch" was probably at some odd hour as it was the mill lunch. Those mills were 34/7/366.2525. My guess is the Mass was around 5:00 AM.

They also had the back pews roped off for the workers who came to Church in mill uniforms.

I would guess close to zero in any religion (there may be some niche exceptions of extremely devoted communities who spend their whole lives reading Holy Books). But, I would bet most Christians have not read the bible cover to cover (and I would guess a not insignificant portion of those that claimed they did are not being truthful and would fail a basic exam on the bible).
And, most people who have spent a great deal of time reading the bible are often not Christians (scholars, historians, etc...)

And, even among those that do, most do not take the bible literally. (The Catholic Church is a mainstream example of this, all priests have read the bible, the official position is to not take it 100% literally).

So my guess, is most people are not fully familiar with the bible, and most that are do not accept all of it ( the "its an allegory" or "that story is symbolic or poetic" etc... crowd).
https://www.catholic.com/qa/should-we-read-the-bible-literally-or-symbolically
"It depends on the intent of the particular biblical author. If he intended what he wrote to be taken literally, then we should take it literally. If he meant for it to be taken symbolically, then that’s how we should take it. " (IE completely subjective on how society feels about a specific passage)....


I know my parents are Christians even if nominally, (and have been their whole life as far as I know) and are pretty well educated, and have never read the bible (not even in retirement), and (at least Pre-Covid) attend Church every week.
I stopped being a Christian in my mid teens, and I have read the bible. I think some (maybe most) people would rather hear people talk about the bible than read it themselves.

I think for many you are correct in saying its more of a social thing. And, for some its out of fear of stigma. Even still my parents will say "Don't call yourself an atheist in public, people will think negatively of you", maybe, but I don't care, I would think more negatively of myself pretending to believe something that is blatantly false to fit into a group.... Its a weird society where any kind of religion is regarded as morally higher than no religion (Even my parents would prefer if I were a Muslim to an atheist because at least that is " appearing spiritual and accepting of a higher power", which is odd because by bible logic if I am an Atheist, a Muslim, a Hindu, the wrong kind of Christian, or a Jew, I am ending up in the same hell, so there should be no difference....)

I think a lot of it is historical, going back (not even that far) calling somebody "an atheist" was the ultimate social slur, its like calling somebody "a pedophile" today, its the reason some people gravitate towards other labels (like humanism or whatever).

Churches do provide good social opportunities, just stay away from the crazy ones that believe everything that they hear.

On more than one occasion when I was single I would go to a church to try to meet girls.

Quote: DRich

On more than one occasion when I was single I would go to a church to try to meet girls.

My son started going to church when he was in the Air Force to meet girls and met his wife there. I did not meet my wife in church but she goes every Sunday and plays the piano for decades. Church is a good place to meet good women

Quote: DRich

Churches do provide good social opportunities, just stay away from the crazy ones that believe everything that they hear.

On more than one occasion when I was single I would go to a church to try to meet girls.

One of the biggest revelations i ever had was when we had this bible study with an overnight stay at the churches youth center which was a fancy older house they had purchased next to the church property. I was around 15 and there was about a 7-1 girl to boy ratio. After the official activities were over the chaperones ignored us for about 3 hours. I didn't have to initiate anything, I was immediately roped into spin the bottle, and postman. Then later it was off to one of the upstairs rooms, which had large window seats suitable for reclining.

Only reason I ever wanted to go to church again.

Quote: rxwine

Only reason I ever wanted to go to church again.

In the sixties the big thing was to try and date a girl who went to a Catholic School because the rumor was Catholic girls always put out. But it wasn't a rumor, it was basically the truth. Catholic girls put out far more often then Christian girls from other religions. It's because in those days they were told sex was filthy and dirty and so that made them want to do it. Talk to guys who war in high school in the forties and fifties and they said it was even better then. Catholic girls were always hot to trot. You cannot tell a kid something is bad and they can't do it because all it does is makes them want to do it even more.

Eastern philosopher Alan Watts was the chaplain at University of Chicago in the 1940s. He said the Catholic Church had rule books for everything and the rulebook for sexual sins was thicker than all the other books put together. It was mostly thought crimes violations. Remember the Catholic Church were the ones who wouldn't let Lucille Ball use the word pregnant on TV because it might make the audience think about how Desi Arnaz got her that way. And in thinking about it they might want to do something like self-abuse. In those days having randy thoughts about your sister-in-law was the same as doing it with her in the eyes of God.
Girls in Catholic schools really could not wear patent leather shoes because boys might be able to see a reflection of their underwear from the shoes up their skirts. And God only knows what deviant behavior this would have caused them to do. Basically in the Catholic Church anything that felt good was evil. If you enjoyed food, you are a glutton. If you enjoyed sex you were lustful. If you were proud of something you did you were an egomaniac. If you enjoyed making money in your business you were greedy.

Quote: missedhervee

I wonder what percentage of church goers genuinely believe all the stuff their chosen religion espouses?

For example, there's an evangelical Chinese christian church near me: I wonder how many attend due to personal beliefs vs. how many attend mainly for the social benefits of mixing / connecting?

I bet at least half the church goers have some degree of ambivalence as to the doctrine / dogma, and attend mainly for social reasons.

"Genuinely believe?" I don't think very many of them, "Genuinely believe," anything...and only pretend to believe those things which are convenient for them at any given moment.

Quote: AZDuffman

Unitarian something or other order. They even used Christian hymns just replaced "God" with "Man" or mankind. Guy was polite when asked about it. He has to expect to get asked why an atheist goes to church weekly.

I have to say I always hated singing at church. We would see some kind of film about Heaven and see the people up there singing and to me that would be Hell. I got thrown out of the school pagent for not singing.

My dad told me about in the day they had a "mill worker mass." While anybody could go it was designed for guys who could go across the street at the lunch break and was made to last less than 30 minutes. No singing or embellishments just in and out as those guys were on long shifts and that is when they could hit Mass. I always wished they had the same when I was going to church as I hated the singing that much.

Unitarian Universalist Church. It's not specifically a church for Atheists and exists primarily as a place for open religious debate and discussion. They are basically open to all religions, as well as Atheists and Agnostics. The UU's also tend to be socially Liberal and inclusive when it comes to their politics, which is often what compels like-minded people to visit.

Quote: Mission146

Unitarian Universalist Church. It's not specifically a church for Atheists and exists primarily as a place for open religious debate and discussion. They are basically open to all religions, as well as Atheists and Agnostics. The UU's also tend to be socially Liberal and inclusive when it comes to their politics, which is often what compels like-minded people to visit.

I just remember "Unitarian" so I will defer to you there. Liberal would not begin to describe this guy, he was openly communist.

But I do remember he said they replaced "God" with "Man" in hymns. Honestly that was the last I heard of Unitarians.

Quote: AZDuffman

I just remember "Unitarian" so I will defer to you there. Liberal would not begin to describe this guy, he was openly communist.

But I do remember he said they replaced "God" with "Man" in hymns. Honestly that was the last I heard of Unitarians.

I wouldn't know if they did or not, but since all religions can go there and not all religions believe in God (and some visitors there don't believe in any higher power whatsoever), that would make sense.