The Religious Discrimination Bill

Non-fashion, non-skirt, non-gender discussions. If your post is related to fashion, skirts or gender, please choose one of the forums above for it.
User avatar
moonshadow
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 6994
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 1:58 am
Location: Warm Beach, Washington
Contact:

Re: The Religious Discrimination Bill

Post by moonshadow »

Even here in Appalachia, a lot of churches are struggling. In many ways its rather sad. Many of these churches weren't weren't really toxic, and compared to decades ago, a lot of churches are actually a lot more "liberal" then they used to be.

I think a lot of it has to with the rise of the internet. People are able to get their spiritual fix by other means these days, facebook groups, web forums, YouTube preachers. There's nothing wrong with any of that, but I must admit, I do believe we're losing something as a species as we go all virtual. It's not just churches or religion, its community in general. People don't just "get together" like they used to, at least not in meat space. Covid made matters A LOT worse for obvious reasons.

I remember many years ago I used to visit a Pagan group just outside of Roanoke during a few of their Sabbat ceremonies. The rituals were okay, but I admit it was just so nice to sit, chat, breathe the same air, and of course, every meeting had a pot luck dinner. You don't get pot luck dinners virtually... But most importantly, we just felt connected. We felt like we were part of something, we felt human.

We lose our humanity with the internet. Sorry Mark Zukerberg, your new "meta" is an abomination as far as I'm concerned. It's easy for a virtual church to turn a guy in a skirt away. But let that man show up on their actual door step. While it may still happen, it usually doesn't. People usually aren't that mean when we have to actually look each other in the eye. A prime example of this is the simple observation of how I'm treated locally. You know damned well that whenever there is a story about gender bending guys, men wearing skirts, or just generally eccentric people that crosses their internet facebook feed, you know they've got something ugly to say about it online. They may even snap a photo of me in real life to laugh about later, but they don't say it to my face.
-Andrea
The old hillbilly from the coal fields of the Appalachian mountains currently living like there's no tomorrow on the west coast.
Post Reply