The church’s role in society is to instill ignorance and fear so that the punters will keep paying and the church can perpetuate itself by continuing to spread the virus of religion. The church’s role in society is parasitical. Unfortunatley, once the virus of religion is installed in a brain it is very difficult to remove and the infection usually last for life.

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 03 February 2012 05:03 AM

The church’s role in society is to instill ignorance and fear so that the punters will keep paying and the church can perpetuate itself by continuing to spread the virus of religion. The church’s role in society is parasitical. Unfortunatley, once the virus of religion is installed in a brain it is very difficult to remove and the infection usually last for life.

Hmmm…must agree here.

saralynn - 01 February 2012 04:27 PM

My sister’s Fundie church teaches awful things, but boy-oh-boy, when someone gets sick, the whole congregation rallies to his or her support. They clean the house, shop, take them to doctor’s appointment, cook, watch the kids and pray pray pray.  It’s not the same thing as having a social worker show up every other day for a half hour. The only group that can compare to a church community is a motorcycle gang.  Those folks really are a tight-knit group.

Do they offer conjugal visits for the spouse’s loss of consortium too? If not, they suck ... or don’t, as the case may be.

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 03 February 2012 05:03 AM

The church’s role in society is to instill ignorance and fear so that the punters will keep paying and the church can perpetuate itself by continuing to spread the virus of religion. The church’s role in society is parasitical. Unfortunatley, once the virus of religion is installed in a brain it is very difficult to remove and the infection usually last for life.

Hmm. I have to quibble here. I don’t think ignorance can be instilled. Misinformation and bad habits, sure. But ignorance only exists in relation to some bit of information that one can possess. To instill ignorance it would be necessary to somehow deliberately purge anothers mind of existing facts. Which can probably be done with blunt trauma or electrocution but this isn’t precisely what we are talking about here.

Now, an argument could be made that religions PERPETUATE ignorance by erecting barricades between their followers and competing sources of information. This would apply to some religions. But I don’t think that all of them engage in this behavior. And in a modern culture such practice is virtually impossible anymore.

On a less semantic note, The Church, being the institutional incarnation of religion certainly does feed itself in much the same way as any other institution. But the active preservation of doctrine and dogma has diminished over time. Religious practice in developed nations tends to be a voluntary social activity. And the bigger the church the lower the emphasis on adherence to specifics. At least in my experience. Instead, churches basically recreate facets of secular communities under the umbrella of their own worldview. Its often racial or nationalistic but this is diminishing more and more as well. Sermons have become distilled by post modern and humanistic sensibilities. Biblical law is stretched and contorted to conform to societal norms. Much more so than the reverse.

In one sense atheism is still marginalized and feared. But in another, it is winning a profound ideological battle. Secular values dominate the actual decisions that shape culture even while religion claims the credit. A situation that I would not reverse if I had the power to do so.

‘To instill ignorance it would be necessary to somehow deliberately purge anothers mind of existing facts. Which can probably be done with blunt trauma or electrocution but this isn’t precisely what we are talking about here.’

Perhaps a better way to say this is to SPREAD ignorance by using propaganda and dogma while ignoring facts. This passes on ignorance while maybe not supplanting or instilling it directly. It’s still up to the individual to accept the ignorant explanation, or non explanation. Facts do not need be purged just ignored or avoided.

The church’s roll is to avoid facts or question them, and teach to not question ones faith. The church then is a tool of propaganda and intellectually dishonest, to it’s core. It’s a house of delusion, distraction and divisiveness.

For me the role of church in society is basic and hard to replace—specifically weddings.  Sure one can get married by a judge at your local municipal court but it does take some of the romance out of things when you have to sit and listen to a lawyer explain why his client didn’t show up for a court mandated hearing on his drunk driving offense, while you’re waiting for your special moment to arrive.  So when I was getting married ten years ago, I went church shopping.  I tried out my sister’s church but after attending just one service (which I really only went to with plans to approach the minister afterwards) I was so sickened by what I heard I decided that couldn’t in good conscious get married in that place. [At one point we were actually implored to pray for George W’s judicial nominees not to be blocked by the heathens (aka democrats) in Congress.]  My best man attended services at a Unitarian church and this proved much more to my taste.  Services there were more akin to discussion groups than sermons.  Perhaps we can keep the churches but set the religion aside.  This seems to be more or less what the Unitarians have done.