Is that last part true? I know Biden is a practicing Catholic, but with being president and all, has he had time for church?
nope, not what I meant, just that certain structures in organised religion makes them prone to corruption.
Again, that’s a blanket statement that ignores reality.
Anything involving humans, especially if there is a hierarchy involved, is prone to corruption. We are incredibly good at corrupting things. Look at scandals involving leadership at BLM. Absolutely any organization that makes the mistake of involving humans is corruptible. And I suspect AI will prove no better. Best if we judge individual cases, rather than condemn entire classes.
I don’t know.
Quick web search shows news stories which describe his attendance as “regular.”
But I’d also argue that we can build institutions that do good work in the world, despite that. I think we often focus far too much on the corruption part at the expense of the positives, in part because that’s a key talking point of the far right (and far too often, we feel the need to answer the right point for point), that since systems are corruptible, better to put them in charge, since they say they have god on their side. But if we look at what these imperfect institutions have done in the world, it’s not all bad and it isn’t all corrupt or evil. We often forget that institutions are just made up of people, most doing the best that they can in a system that is corrupted, ultimately by the capitalist system that seeks to move wealth and power to the top.
When woman at Trump rally says number one: he’s a godly man, I wouldn’t agree with that. Number two, though, sure. Just the number two part, not the rest of it; I really think he’s a piece of shit. (－‸ლ)
I could say exactly the same about secular organisations, and I do. The problem isn’t religion, it’s power structures and hierarchy. Concentration of power causes corruption.
I can always count on you to put my rambling thoughts much more succinctly! 
That nails it perfectly!
[ETA]
You know, it also strikes me that the idea that human beings inherently corrupt things comes out of a very Western, Christian-centric world view, too… this idea that we’re born in sin, and that without help from a benevolent god, we will wallow in it… but it’s a more secular version of it? That we’re all petty and corrupt, and looking to screw the other guy over, hence capitalism is the natural mode of humanity… much like shit like “the singularity” in transhumanism, it’s just a sort of sneaking religious thinking into the back door… It’s weird how often that comes up in some secular circles… I’m much more of the thinking of people like Ursula K. Le Guin, that if it’s human made, we can change and improve things. We are not just victims of history, we make and are history (to sort of paraphrase James Baldwin).
what exactly were the positives that gave christianity in particular to the world? shouldnt the positives be a given in a organised system and at least outweight the corruption? then why are we focused on the negative?
exactly why I wrote “organised”. e/ should read “hierarchical organised”. thnx @the_borderer
Well that’s the problem, it’s the church’s believe to be missionary, not this person or that person. It’s the religion’s belief. If you get down to brass tacks with these nice people almost all of them believe that being missionaries is a good thing.
My belief is missionaries are a bad, despicable thing. For a multitude of reasons. I’m nice about it mind you, but almost every Christian I’ve talked to has vehemently disagreed with me and is surprised about the discussion. Mostly because they haven’t thought about it deeply before, just accepted.
And for the record the nicest, most agreeable, easiest parts of my day are the pleasant Christians. When you know how someone reacts and their values in general, they are easy to get along with in most cases.
The problem is that Christianity means many things to different people.
Anti-war Quakers are Christians, so are the hawks calling for holy wars. Richard Coles is a Christian, so are the homophobic fundamentalists calling for the death of Richard and other LGBTQIA people. Martin Luther King was a Christian, so were the enslavers who fought in the US civil war.
I am not going to abandon allies because New Atheism dictates that all religion is bad.
Anarchism can be organised.
“I’ve got 99 problems and 91 of them are indictments”
-Trump.
That’s why I reject the metric system.
The devil you know.
But churches are made up of people, though. Even the most hierarchical church is still made up of actual people, making choices with a set of circumstances…
It’s the people who have beliefs. A construct can’t have beliefs, people can and do.
Proof is always in the pudding. Missonaries have done incredibly destructive things, but they have also fed people, saved lives, and improved people’s lives. And not all Christian denominations define missionary work in the same way.
So, the local church feeding the homeless is bad? Because that is missionary work. It’s not intended to directly convert people, most times, but it intended to illustrate the role that they believe their church should play in the community - which is helping those who need it. While in some cases, there are strings attached, many times there are not.
Which is still not every Christian, of course.
I don’t know… That seems pretty presumptous to me? How do you know what they’ve thought about or not and why they’ve come to the conclusions they have about the world? You might not agree with where they are, but how are you to know that they did not get to that point in their belief system without thinking hard? I’d suggest that some would think the same of those of us who aren’t religious, that we’re not thinking hard enough about these issues because we came to different conclusions. But all of us have come to different conclusions, because we all have very different real world experiences that shape how we think about reality. 
Indeed!
Dude, I’m not gonna do your homework for you… look into groups that pushed for liberation that are Christian, for one. Just because the far right Christians get the media attention doesn’t mean that they are the only ones who exist and get to be deemed “Christians”… That’s just a bullshit ahistorical narrative that doesn’t help us at all.
Because we live in a society that doesn’t want us to take positive action to improve our lives, and wishes to atomize us from our fellow man. They want us tearing each other apart over stupid shit so that they can keep fleecing us.
Said the trump rally lady probably.
It’s impossible to live with others without societal systems. Science and its systems has certainly done damage to many, many people.
Are people really still doing the religion is the real problem bit after the atheism movement devolved into the exact same run of misogynist, racist, and right-wing nonsense? The problems are the problems, and you will always find both religious and non-religious people on both sides of them.
