The Church is Losing Members. Read On to Find Out Why.

[ChuckGG]

27. Enjoyed reading your posting...

I very much enjoyed reading your posting and I believe you have hit the nail on the head.

I have been an atheist since I was a small child. I am too pragmatic and, in my opinion, realistic to believe in the (pardon) "hocus pocus" part of religion.

That said, the teachings in the church are reasonable just as we learned from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and from fables and other "life teaching" stories.

But, we have today. And, what I see as a turn-off to young people is the hypocrisy and money-grubbing we see in the churches. Some churches want to see your financial statement before you can become a member so as to ensure you are tithing enough! That is just rude. All the social hangups with abortion and even secular gay marriage makes little sense to young people.

Like many fraternal organizations such as the Masons and the Eastern Star, the need for this type of "social inter-connection" has been replaced by other means of socialization. The church just does not seem to fit with the times and does not seem to provide any benefit for young people. It all seems very clear to me and the explanations quite reasonable, good or bad.

Is there any solution for the churches? Should they just continue because they always have been around? I do not know. As people become more and more educated, this supernatural bent the churches always push seems pretty unrealistic. If the churches spoke of the events and the bible in a more metaphorical way, perhaps people could relate better. Also, the preachers just don't seem to carry the "respect and fear" that they used to. Given some of the hypocritical actions of some, is it any wonder? When, in this day and age, you hear some preacher rant on about how the world will collapse into the Abyss of Hell (already a marginal belief) because two men want to get legally married (having nothing to do with a church), you not only wonder about the preacher's teachings but merely about the man's sanity and connection to the "real world."

More than one of us has listened to politicians such as Santorum, Bachmann, and Perry, and wondered with their statements, laced with religious dogma, if they were actually connected to the real world. Bachmann famously looked like a deer in the headlights when a little girl asked her why she hated her two mommies. In a nutshell, these people and many of the preachers seem like an anachronism - people out of touch with the times and reality, or living in their own reality to the exclusion of others. On the outside looking in, it simply is bizarre. But, all of these people are older and eventually will die off. The young people will take over and they are a product of a global community and the Hubble Space Telescope and the CERN Collider. The "hocus pocus" still taught by the churches seems as out of date as Hercules holding up the heavens. Great mythology and a great story about the burdens of life, but not realistic.

If the churches could find some mission that fits in today's society, they stand a chance. If they continue to promote ignorance and isolationism from facts, they are doomed to the dustbin of history.