I’m curious about who still practices their faith.

Specifically who still attends a church, mosque or temple.

 

I am an Anglican. That is a traditional Episcopalian who uses the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. I attended church regularly until the churches were closed. Now I like to watch Roman Catholic masses on the internet.

 

I was a Baptist and then a Mormon and was deeply disappointed by them both. Particularly the latter.

Buddhism is the most appealing to me now but they don’t seem to really believe in anything firm but they might even agree with this

 

Southern Baptist, Bible believing. So nice to attend again, but it's not quite back to normal. Still no Sunday School or Wed fellowship. Facebook services were ok for a while...bu th not the same.

 

Anglican Use Roman Catholic services based on the Book of Common Prayer are available for viewing here: https://olwcatholic.org/

This is the cathedral for the Chair of Saint Peter and the services are about as traditional in nature as they get. One caveat, though. Since the services are practicing social distancing as possible. a great deal of it is stripped down with far fewer deacons and acolytes than woud be seen in live services. Still, the fundamentals are in place.

 

I once meditated with Buddhist monks as a guest in their home on several occasions, they wore orange robes, always offered you fruit, lit incense before a session and rang the bell to end the session. They lived in a mobile home in Tampa, there was a Sanskrit sign out front, never knew what it said. This was around 2002.

 

I attended a Buddhist temple for about 6 months right around that time. It was very peaceful and nice but eventually I felt like I was just going through the motions.

 

I am a protestant Christian. I pray and read scripture and try to practice what I read and interpret. I do not attend church because I can't seem to find one that doesn't feels like its more concerned with its 501c3 status and making money than it is with honoring Jesus and uplifting humanity. They're all just mouthpieces for establishment 'pay your taxes, obey the govt and sing with me until the rapture' propaganda. They don't actually want to preserve and advance God's greatest miracle- Free Will, or build a better future for His children. They seem content to collect tithes and keep us from causing trouble until God decides to enact His one last intervention- to end it all.

Frankly, I think most of the churches are more under Satan's influence than Christ's.

 

My experience with Mormonism is that it is a multinational corporation much more interested in it’s bottom line than anything else.

 

There may be some people who practice their faith but do not attend a church, mosque or temple; or only very infrequently do so. It's probably a very small number of people, but I thought that should be pointed out.
Practicing faith is not quite the same thing as attending religious services.

 

I agree. I was just wondering how many people practice their faith and still go to a building to do it.

 

I set a goal for myself to go to a building, I just sort of haven't really gotten around to it yet, or found a good one where I am.

 

This is pretty much spot on and it makes me sad! I gave up on going to church myself for a lot of these reasons, also; that and the hypocrisy with the judgment and self righteous attitudes of people.

I mean my former church actually had a service where people "bought a miracle," and I witnessed how easy it was for people to get sucked into it. It got to where I felt like I was attending a sales pitch rather than learning and being fed spiritually. Plus there were many other things that bothered me as well, but I won't get into all that..

I just pray and have my own time with God, I do YouTube occasionally some sermons from preachers I like but mainly stay out of the churches.

 

Likely.

I moonlighted at a Mormon company that pressed, packed and shipped high-grade feed hay a few years ago when my regular job got slow. They bought all used equipment from other Mormons and employed mechanics to fix it up, instead of buying new equipment. Whenever they bought anything, they would bend over backwards to buy from other Mormons. When we were chip-sealing the roads around the plant, they sent a guy with the hot-oiler on a four hour drive to buy tar from Mormons instead of buying it in town 20 mins away. And I was told by other employees that I would never make management without joining their Church, of which the owner of the company I'm told is Deacon.

To be fair though, I've never worked for polite, more accomodating people. And their business model is solid- they've never taken out a single loan. All the employees are happy, hardworking and seemingly well payed, and I have to respect their material autonomy- they build and repair all of their own stuff, from forklifts and semis to hay presses and new structures, including a certified atmospherically sealed and temperature controlled fumigation barn complete with a rail system that accomodates 7 rows of 3-high stacked oversize shipping containers, which they designed and built themselves, and is just as impressive to behold as it is terrifying to operate.

 

Yes, I should give the Mormons more credit as a social services agency. They are extremely effective in that area. They are often on the scene faster than FEMA even.
But they demand complete and total faith in the prophet. Joseph Smith was a grifter and a user of women. Brigham Young was a hateful racist who was borderline homicidal. The church still will not admit it’s role in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Even bringing these things up makes Mormons very angry and I decided I needed to leave.

 

The trend for the last couple decades has been that Church attendance is slowly but steadily decreasing. However, its because the folks that are leaving are having church at home instead, basically just small Bible studies. I did this when I was in college, and found that Bible discussions are far more lively and enlightenning when there are beers to be had

 

I can understand why church attendance is down! I used to go to a few small women's Bible studies but I honestly found a majority very phony and that type where they try to look like they are not judging but are totally judging you..lol I am very blunt, in a nice way, but I am blunt nonetheless and the fakeness really got to me, felt like you couldn't have a real discussion.

So I just have my own spiritual time, mainly.

 

Christianity is definitely on the decline, Islam is on the increase and I believe Buddhism is the fastest growing of the five major faiths.

 

I don't think necessarily Christianity is on the decline, I just think churches are.

 

My experience with people of faith is that about 10 percent were very sincere and kind. About 10 percent were manipulative. And the rest were there as a social exercise.

 

I meant people who look at the Bible as literal. Christian churches tend to be kind of wishy washy and I think that turns people off.

 

Ya, it seems a lot of Christians interpret 'let God be the judge' as 'judge harshly, just don't say anything...'. They also don't help with engendering an enjoyable church experience...

It also helps to have a friendly atheist or two in attendance. Not the hostile anti-theists who simultaneously don't believe in, yet still manage to hate, God... but friendly folks with a critical view are great for unorthodox perspectives and interpretations into scripture.

 

Literalism is falling by the wayside. And fortunately so, IMO. I don't think theres any reason to expect that the entire Bible was meant to be taken literally when Jesus' favorite teaching aid was parables...

 

I would agree, and the insincerity really bothered me and the manipulation, also the gossip that goes on..I just got fed up with it.

I saw how single moms got treated, abused women, the poor people versus the rich people, the preying on hurting people who were in desperate situations really needing a miracle and being told they needed to donate to be blessed etc.. very sad to notice that in a church

 

They are wishy washy because they are quick to point fingers at others and tell people "oh just have faith, your faith isn't strong enough" but when trouble knocks on their own doorstep it's different or they quote a scripture but don't actually see what they can do to help hurting people in need!