Churches

[Mr. Blonde]

Church-going is quite a controversial activity, and people have radically different opinions on it. Great discussion material!

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1) What are your personal opinions/convictions about attending church?

2) Do you attend church? If you do, what is your motivation for doing so? If not, is there anything you especially dislike about churches in general?

3) What suggestions would you make to churches in your country? What would make church appealing to you personally?

1) Mostly a waste of time because I am an agnostic and I usually hate being lectured about private issues. The preachings tend to be aimed at either children or pensioneers (the bitter kind that wants their the world is bad, ect pov be affirmed)

2) X-mas, weddings, eastern. Motivation: it would break my grandparent´s hearts if I didn´t join them. The moment I have my church marriage (not planned yet) and my grandparents are dead, I quit. I pay € 200/year for membership which would equal 4-5 evenings out.

3) Preachings are far too repetetive, the reverends I got to know are friendly and all, but they lack enthusiasm and charisma. I am not sure if these things can be taught. And: place the holy mass at times that are more in line with modern life. I mean, who gets up before 9 on a sunday?

Edit: I am a member of the protestant (Luther) church

 

[Truronian]

I find churches too cult-like, and as an agnostic don't go. I have been educated at Christian schools all my life (only five days left now and counting ) and as such I have to attend weekly assemblies, but I generally just daydream through them.

The cathdral in my city (of 20,000 ) is very beautiful.

 

[MobBoss]

Nothing wrong with going to church and it is simply not controversial. And there are as many varieties of churchs out there as there are grains of sand on a beach. Find one you like and are comfortable with.

I go to church weekly, unless I cant because of my job. My wife is actually the worship pastor/leader of our church so she leads our worship team. Typical Sunday is about 45 min to an hour of worship music, following by a pastor's sermon of about the same length. We often have pot lucks for everyone immediately after church to eat and fellowship together.

In my opinion, going to church is never a waste of time.

 

[Grisu]

1) What are your personal opinions/convictions about attending church?

Since I'm an agnostic, I see it as a waste of time for myself. That's just me, though, so if people want to attend church, that's perfectly fine by me

2) Do you attend church? If you do, what is your motivation for doing so? If not, is there anything you especially dislike about churches in general?

only on social gatherings, such as marriage. Otherwise I stay away from churches. When I was a kid I had to go on a regular basis. It always struck me as boring (Furthermore, scheduling it on sunday mornings is just plain evil )

3) What suggestions would you make to churches in your country? What would make church appealing to you personally?

there's nothing they can do about that for me, really. Why would I go to worship a god I don't believe in?

 

[GenMarshall]

Thats one thing I have noticed with myself (when I used to be an agnostic) and other agnostics is that they find attending church is a waste of time. Though I came to discover that I felt that it was not the right time for me at that moment of my life.

 

[Margim]

1) What are your personal opinions/convictions about attending church?

Church is not a place/event you attend. It is a community to which you belong. Sometimes your identification with this community is made through attending formal gatherings (called 'worship services') through which one might find common expression with others. Other times, its just being around likeminded folk.

2) Do you attend church? If you do, what is your motivation for doing so? If not, is there anything you especially dislike about churches in general?

Guessing that this question refers to attending the services identified above, the answer is yes. I go so that I might be a positive influence on the other believers there. Large institutionalised church bodies tend to be fairly conservative. I've grown up in Australian Baptist churches, and I stay there (only just staying there) in the naive hope that I can continue to influence others to opening their spiritual and relgious worldviews to others.

3) What suggestions would you make to churches in your country? What would make church appealing to you personally?

To the first part of the question - Stay out of involvement with political parties, but stay involved in politics. Be agitators, raise a voice, call government and social injustices to account. Oh, and loosen up a bit.

To be more appealing to me personally - don't make religious assumptions just because previous generations did. Question everything, and own your collective faith for a new generation.

 

[King Alexander]

Church-going is quite a controversial activity, and people have radically different opinions on it. Great discussion material!

--------------------------

1) What are your personal opinions/convictions about attending church?

2) Do you attend church? If you do, what is your motivation for doing so? If not, is there anything you especially dislike about churches in general?

3) What suggestions would you make to churches in your country? What would make church appealing to you personally?

1) Bored to answer.

2) Yes, I attend the church on weddings, funerals, baptise the children(give them names, traditionally), Christmass, on Easter, and 15th August(Virgin Mary's birthday), as it's a tradition to go with the family on the last three occasions.
I'd like all churches to be air-conditoned, because on summer the heat in there is too much(especially on weddings, and with all those lights on, the heat is much).

3) My only suggestions is to ALLOW women to become priests, and to ACCEPT them as men's equals and to erase that stereotype that a woman is the reicarnation of temptation, source of all evil, dirty with the sexual act(that God himself was aware of when he made humans..., but still, it's a foundation of the churche's values that Virgin Mary or Christ never had sex or knew what love is, since it's something SO DIRTY --- I understand that the church didn't want Virgin Mary to have a prostitute's past, but it's a looonnggg way to think as DISGUSTING the way humans can breed themselves, especially when, as I've said, GOD is the one that made us the way we are, according to the church).

Anyway...enough said.

Edited

 

[Leifmk]

1) What are your personal opinions/convictions about attending church?

2) Do you attend church? If you do, what is your motivation for doing so? If not, is there anything you especially dislike about churches in general?

3) What suggestions would you make to churches in your country? What would make church appealing to you personally?

Controversial? How so? People who want to attend church should do that and the rest should not.

1) I am an unbeliever, and therefore find "attending church" as such to be completely irrelevant.

2) I will attend some types of important social functions that are held in churches, as a guest to family or friends -- i.e. weddings, funerals, etc. I have also been known to attend church concerts, for the sake of the music. Furthermore I have a certain appreciation for some of the architecture and art history on display in many churches (especially the older ones) and may visit the buildings on that account.

3) Personally I couldn't care less if every religious group in the country dwindled and faded away, except for a certain regret at the loss of diversity. Other than "don't bother ringing my doorbell or trying to preach at me in the streets" I have no suggestions; as long as nobody's being oppressed, religious people can suit themselves.

 

[silver 2039]

1) What are your personal opinions/convictions about attending church?

2) Do you attend church? If you do, what is your motivation for doing so? If not, is there anything you especially dislike about churches in general?

3) What suggestions would you make to churches in your country? What would make church appealing to you personally?

1. A waste of time and the people who do go are blind fools. They must all be suffering from severe mental disorders.

2. I'm not Chrstian, I'm atheist. And I dislike religon in general. Espically large organized evelangical religons I believe are the scourge of human society.
Religon is bad for mental health.

3. Destroy them all. We're bette roff without any of these large organized evelangical religons.

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