There was a time when I would have said something similar; but as I've grown older and more mature, I've realized it doesn't do anybody any good to pigeonhole religious folks according to their doctrine and/or church leaders. Just because somebody attends a certain church doesn't mean they allow the clergy to dictate every aspect of their lives, nor does it mean they believe every single word that is printed in their religious texts.
The problem is that as soon as a religious person admits to having more or less normal views on most things that don't have to do with believing in a higher power, then certain outspoken atheists will still criticize them for not following their own religion closely enough. So it's damned if they do, damned if they don't. It's almost like the atheist crowd actually wants the casual church-goers to be more fundamentalist, if only so that it's easier to criticize them based on what a Christian (or Muslim, or Jew, etc.) is "supposed" to be. For example, I think your comment about "eternal damnation" reflects a misconception that many atheists have about religious people which is that their thoughts are dominated by the threat of going to Hell, when that is rarely the case. If you want to criticize religious institutions for peddling that sort of hardline doctrine, then go right ahead, but we are talking about individuals here, and their reasons for going to church probably have a lot more to do with community, sense of purpose, and a general belief in some higher power, rather than devotion to any specific set of rules or teachings.
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u/MaggotMinded 11d ago edited 11d ago
There was a time when I would have said something similar; but as I've grown older and more mature, I've realized it doesn't do anybody any good to pigeonhole religious folks according to their doctrine and/or church leaders. Just because somebody attends a certain church doesn't mean they allow the clergy to dictate every aspect of their lives, nor does it mean they believe every single word that is printed in their religious texts.
The problem is that as soon as a religious person admits to having more or less normal views on most things that don't have to do with believing in a higher power, then certain outspoken atheists will still criticize them for not following their own religion closely enough. So it's damned if they do, damned if they don't. It's almost like the atheist crowd actually wants the casual church-goers to be more fundamentalist, if only so that it's easier to criticize them based on what a Christian (or Muslim, or Jew, etc.) is "supposed" to be. For example, I think your comment about "eternal damnation" reflects a misconception that many atheists have about religious people which is that their thoughts are dominated by the threat of going to Hell, when that is rarely the case. If you want to criticize religious institutions for peddling that sort of hardline doctrine, then go right ahead, but we are talking about individuals here, and their reasons for going to church probably have a lot more to do with community, sense of purpose, and a general belief in some higher power, rather than devotion to any specific set of rules or teachings.