Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 90

[ecosophia]

As we proceed through the second year of these open posts, it's pretty clear that the official narrative is cracking as the toll of deaths and injuries from the Covid vaccines rises steadily and the vaccines themselves demonstrate their total uselessness at preventing Covid infection or transmission. It's still important to keep watch over the mis-, mal- and nonfeasance of our self-proclaimed health gruppenfuehrers, and the disastrous results of the Covid mania, but I think it's also time to begin thinking about what might be possible as the existing medical industry reels under the impact of its own self-inflicted injuries. 

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before: 

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Comments

Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

I posted more extensively about this on my blog, but I'm curious enough to put the question to the wider community:

If you belong to any kind of religions organization (or disorganized group!), have you noticed any change in the membership trends in the last three years? I ask because we've had an astonishing influx of new members at our parish in the last... year and a half? and it's definitely related to recent virus events. I'm extremely curious to know how this is playing out in other churches, denominations, religions, and geographic areas.

A lot of the new people are coming to us from other, less liturgically conservative Christian denominations, but some are coming from no church background at all... and for much the same reasons. It's hard to pinpoint exactly, but seems to be a sort of general yearning for a solid tradition to attach themselves to. But also a sense of urgency about it, that's new. I converted a long time ago, and among my fellow converts things were pretty chill-- the new crop seems to be in a big dang hurry, and there are a lot of them. It may or may not be related to the broader influx of new residents to my state, so I'd love to get a sense of how broad a trend it is.

So... for those of you who belong to any type of religious community, do you have a sense of recent trends? Have you seen an influx of new people? Are you losing people? If you're getting new people, do you have any sense of the mood among them? The reasons they're showing up?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[bofur_the_dwarf]

for those of you who belong to any type of religious community, do you have a sense of recent trends? Have you seen an influx of new people?

Yes, I've lost track of the number of people I've met who tell me "I've come back to my faith recently" or whatever. I met a lawyer at the NCI who excitedly told me how he was getting baptized soon.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

That's interesting-- would you mind divulging a little about what flavor of church? Protestant? Catholic? Mainline? Traditional? High-church? Low-church? All of the above?

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[bofur_the_dwarf]

I've seen all of the above.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[sinners4diseasecontrol]

In Japan, COVID seemed to deliver a very serious blow to any organized religion. There was a prominent case early on of a superspreader event in a South Korean church that got a lot of press attention here. In response, all of the religious organizations I know of stopped holding public events and at best held quiet private festivals with the most highly involved priests. Even with the pandemic declared over and people no longer required to wear masks, attendance is not picking up. Instead, it is dying out.
Most of Japan's religious people tended to be older to begin with, and they had a very high vaccination rate. One member of a group I am active with was hospitalized with something or other and shared a room with a COVID patient, from whom he caught the bug and was subsequently neglected enough that he phoned a family member saying, "I'm dying. Can you call the nurse to me?" He passed away some ten minutes later, we were told. Others simply perceive themselves as having aged a lot, and are too preoccupied with struggling through each day to attend to spiritual matters. One group I belong to appears to be on its last legs, and another group I have been active with for nearly 25 years is not holding its training course this year for the 4th year in a row. They'll provide a mini-course online.
Most of the younger people I know have been prevented from doing very much outside the home and every time I ask, the situation is the same. We have a holiday coming up, but no one is going anywhere, not even hiking. COVID caused Japan simply to go very local, close its doors, and stop engaging in all forms of "unnecessary" cultural or spiritual activities. Along with face masks, it appears to have created permanent or near-permanent changes in this society. I don't know how it will all play out, but the situation is very sad at the moment.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

That's disheartening, and I'm sad to hear it. But thank you for helping me try to piece together a broader picture.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

>>They'll provide a mini-course online.

Online, you say? Care to name the organization?

日本語でもいいです。

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[sinners4diseasecontrol]

The organization is Kotohira Honkyo at Kompira Shrine. Participation is predicated on an introduction by someone involved already with the organization.
Here is Wikipedia on them: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/金刀比羅本教

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[weilong]

Something that has been bothering me from the beginning of this thing is the longevity of institutions and customs in Japan. Once something gets started here, it can often skate along on social momentum for centuries. I am only half facetious when I predict that face masks will still be popular here in three hundred years, long after the original reason (such as it is) for them has been forgotten.

I think the opposite might also be true. Once some tradition is stopped, it may be very hard to start it up again. Religious festivals, for example, are a lot of work, and it takes practice to get them right. I think a lot of people are quite happy with an excuse to be lazy and let those traditions slip away.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[sinners4diseasecontrol]

I think you are right, and when the need for social cohesion returns (the phones go dead and the fields need tending), they'll have to start from scratch with what institutions they have on hand and modify them for the purpose.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

I grew up in a conservative church and loved every minute of my youth group. I received a degree in Philosophy of Religion and thought I would go to seminary. And then life took over and I did other things. After years away from an official church (AA took the place of the church for some time) I am thinking of going back.

This does not answer your question, but supports your hypothesis.

I am in Southern, United States. I have at least 50 churches a stones throw from my house.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

Thanks! A datapoint is a datapoint, no matter how small ;)

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi MethylEthyl. My husband and I have belonged to a parish of the Anglican Church in North America for five or six years now. We live in the SE USA. Our bishop stopped services for a while, but not for long. We all went to Zoom. Then we began to meet outside. Our parish has a big churchyard, so it was easy for us. So we were having services of the Eucharist outside but with chalk marks on the grass so each family could separate themselves. This was easy and not controversial because, as you know there in FL, in the SE US both people and state governments tended to be much less hysterical than the rest of the country. (Go Dixie!)

The interesting and sad thing happened when we slowly and carefully returned to the sanctuary. To begin, we were seated in alternating pews. Only the bread was distributed at communion. Everyone was masked and those who were serving communion had to wear gloves. As the weeks went on, more and more of these practices were dropped.

I am, BTW, the one who told the tale of her children's chapel students rebelling and chanting "take it off" to get me to remove the stupid mask. I did. We were all happy. No adult ever complained about it.

At least not to me. Two years ago or so -- whenever it was that we were gathering inside again, we lost a several families -- our liberal PMC members. At the same time, though, other people were showing up -- a lot of them apparently drawn from the weekly advertisement that worshiping outdoors in effect is -- So, we lost some members but we gained so many others that we had to add a service to accommodate them all.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

Thanks for the datapoint! One of the things I've been wondering about is if it's a selection-bias thing, where so many people moved to FL recently (and those trending toward religious and conservative) that I might be mistaking a very local trend for a national one. But it is looking like it's bigger than that.

Then again-- *have* you had an influx of new residents in your area, more generally, in the last two years?

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

We've had so many people moving in that I am now officially xenophobic. Sorry, but I am.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

I know a few people who attended church regularly prior to lockdowns that now don't at all. Church went away, and by the time it came back, people realized they didn't need it and/or didn't care anymore.
It is the same story with a lot of other things we considered indispensible in 2019.
A lot of things hang on as a beautiful/treasured/nostalgic legacy even to the point of attracting economic resources to keep them viable, until a breaking point comes and priorities shift. I saw this in the aftermath of the Great Recession, certain types of churches, certain types of restaurants, other businesses, that were already a bit of throwback in 2007, gone by 2012 or so, or greatly diminished in influence and availability.
I'm not sure any form of church is gaining significant ground anymore. "Nones" are virtually tied with Catholics for second place, with Protestantism less than 10% ahead.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

This is what I'd been expecting to see, since the lockdowns. All the casual churchgoers will have discovered they *like* sleeping in on Sundays, and is it worth trying to break the habit now?

A lot of the people who are showing up at my current parish are coming *from* other churches, so one of the things I'm curious about is whether those churches are in turn shrinking... and if there's a trend to which *types* of churches are growing vs. shrinking. If I had to guess (throwing out some irresponsible hypotheses!), I'd say overall numbers of religious-affiliated have probably dropped, and it's likely that more people have stopped going to church than have started... but that the people who've remained, and who've taken up religion or spiritual practice recently, are probably more serious than average about it. So it's interesting to see where those people are, and are not, settling down.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

It's entirely possible there are church switchers. Our family's last few years in church were in a generic evangelical church. You had the worship band, the pastor in jeans, the catchy materials in print and on the website, the push for growth, sermons that were basic, repetitive, or just preaching through somebody's book. Our breaking point was when the new pastor fired all the children's ministry workers so he could hire younger, hipper people. That was our one personal connection to the church. In one fell swoop everybody we got to know left. Then COVID hit. So...
But we went for my wife's benefit, as I already had declared my agnosticism 11 years ago. My wife is okay with not going to church now so I am not complaining. Once in a blue moon she'll make the passing remark, "we should go to church" but, what's the saying these days? The tea is not worth the pour? The steak is not worth the chew?

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

"Church went away, and by the time it came back, people realized they didn't need it and/or didn't care anymore."

That's the way I feel about the arts, frankly.

I used to like attending live music, dance, and theater events and going to art museums (to see the older stuff, not the contemporary crap, lol). But when all the theaters and museums voluntarily imposed medical passports, I unsubscribed from every single one of their email lists. And I fully intend to boycott every single one of those institutions and the ones like them until I die. We're done.

Meanwhile, I stepped up my spiritual practice during covid and am trying to keep that going. I don't go to church, but I do try to meditate and pray regularly on my own. My church affiliation is still "none" but I doubt I'm the only person out there with no official institutional affiliation who really saw the need for prayer in recent years.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

I wish you all the best in your spiritual practice!

My mom's involved in the local community theater scene, and they've had a rough time of it for sure. They resisted the masks-and-passports thing, but interest still isn't what it used to be.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi MethylEthyl,

As I mentioned here awhile ago, my family joined a more conservative Jewish congregation during the worst days of the pandemic because they were at least having in person services.

We haven’t had a massive influx of people join, but definitely more young families are flirting with the idea. That was after years of essentially no new members.

That said, I know there has been a massive influx of Orthodox Jewish families to Florida over the past two years, because of the sanity of the governance (at least in contrast to NY and NJ.)

—Ms. Krieger

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

Thanks. I wish I had some connections in the Jewish community (I know there's a local synagogue, but that's as far as it goes), to ask about the trends, if any, locally.

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[(Anonymous)]

And no sooner have you noticed than it's become a thing:

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/surprising-surge-young-americans-turn-religion

I consider myself some sort of Christian/anarchist, of no particular denomination, not that I was raised that way and I've never been to church more than a handful of times, so it's probably more of a general disposition than anything else, but I've been tempted to visit a church and see what all the fuss is about.

I actually went to a couple to take a look around, and they were locked. Not like the movies at all hey, wherein the character just walks on in and pulls up a pew in the cathedral - at least not around here.

Everything seems locked here to direct participation here though - it's the city of the spectator.

The Ninth Mouse

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[methylethyl]

Thanks for the link!

The new people at my parish are certainly skewing younger. Among people who've joined the church in the last year, the majority are families with young kids, and younger single men.

I do wonder if part of the more recent uptick, particularly among younger adults, has to do with being forced to socialize almost exclusively online for months on end. Is coming to church part of a need to just get out and talk to other human beings without an electronic interface?

Locked churches... yeah, it'd be nice if it were like the movies and you could always just walk in and pray a while. In the US at least, that's mostly historic churches that are being run as museums in the off-hours. Nobody else has the fulltime on-site staff to keep the building from being vandalized. That said, when we were house-hunting in our current area, we stopped by our future parish on a whim to see if we could check it out. It was locked, but there was one car in the parking lot, so we rang the doorbell just in case... and the priest happened to be there and let us in and showed us around. Might be worth a try?

Is your inclination to check out churches a recent development? If so, any inkling why?

Re: Religious affiliation since the coof?

[scotlyn]

Methyl, mine is a solitary story. But I have certainly drawn closer to my personal patron, (St) Brigid, over the past three years. I no longer feel the day is complete if I have not done my devotions, and I feel grateful for that connection to the light in dark times.

However I am also connecting to a variety of people who are also feeling drawn to spiritual concerns, and only sometimes, not always, in the context of a community.

Still, I feel you are onto *something*. There are many people carefully tending their wee candles, oil lamps, and whatever else shines in their lives, as a way of walking through what some might call, or experience as, "the valley of the shadow of death".

Be well, be blessed, stay free!