leave the US politics to we Americans — T Clark

Nattering nabob of nitpicking grammarians here... The sons of bitches should leave the US politics to us Americans. "Us" is the object of the preposition "to". "We Americans never interfere in other counties' affairs" (cough, cough). We Americans is the subject of the sentence.

The applicable sentence in Latin is "De gustabus non est disputandem".

The applicable sentence in Latin is "De gustibus non est disputandum".

"The cat is on the mat" is that you have spinach in your teeth. — frank

The sentence "The cat is on the mat" takes me back to 1968 and a very basic literacy workbook the Job Corps was using. There was a line drawing depicting "the cat is on the mat". Very basic literacy instruction.

I have never worried about spinach in my teeth, but I have come across several literary uses of worrisome spinach lodged in the narrator's teeth. Who eats so much spinach, I'd like to know.

I'll only take a minute of your remaining fame. — Moliere

But you are not "taking a minute of fame" you are contributing a minute (or seconds, really) of fame. For which I am grateful. Every second counts.

I hereby condemn Moliere to skim reading the entire wretched book as punishment for starting the topic. — unenlightened

Why wretched? I thought it a good read. — Pantagruel

I haven't read the book; perhaps the authors share valuable ideas. The authors practice a wretched style of composition I associate with 19th century academic writing: complex sentences containing way too many clauses and phrases.

Convinced as they are of the urgency of a stricter examination of language from a point of view which is at present receiving no attention, the authors have preferred to publish this essay in its present form rather than to wait, perhaps indefinitely, until, in lives otherwise sufficiently occupied, enough moments of leisure had accumulated for it to be rewritten in a more complete and more systematized form. — Ogden & Richards

Ogden was the creator of "basic English", a means of communication requiring less than 1,000 unique words. Basic English has some merits, but it would definitely rule out the kind of snarled sentence quoted above.

Insightful post.

Yes. I corrected the erroneous year. Thanks for pointing it out,

I don't want to focus on him — Moliere

Oh, go ahead and focus on me. I'm 76 and haven't had my 15 minutes of fame yet -- just -7 minutes and 23 seconds worth.

Is there a Public Shelf Meaning to:

"I walked home"? — Moliere

Yes; "home" has numerous Public Shelf meanings and usages.

a) baseball (home base)
b) the 'home' keys on the QWERTY keyboard--'f' and 'j'
c) magic (rub your ruby crocs together 3 times and say "get me the hell out of here and back home."
d) a place to die ("Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in." The Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost
e) retail (Home Depot; the Home Store; HOM;
f) medical (a facility you may be sent to possibly against your will) old folks home; nursing home; a home for the very bewildered
g) a trait of animals -- homing instinct

Words have recognized usage. Where can you find a record of current and past word usage? In the 20 fat volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Words have denotations (their plain most direct meaning) and connotations (their nuanced, shaded meaning). "The armored car weighs a ton" is denotative. "She weighs a ton" is connotative.

Take away: The Public Shelf meaning of words has plenty of room to maneuver. It isn't necessary or desirable for each individual to supply his or her own meaning nor for each use of a word to have a unique meaning.

You could be like Humpty Dumpty: 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

Fine for the cracked egg.

Thank you.

(The poet) Carl Sandburg was working as a Chicago Sun Times reporter in 1919, the year of the Chicago Race Riot, set off by a black boy swimming into a white swimming area of Lake Michigan. He was stoned to death by white youths.

At the time 20% to 25% of the huge slaughterous industry in Chicago was black. The slaughter houses were unionized, and most blacks joined one of several unions. Unions provided a base and a rationale for working class solidarity. As one of the slaughterhouse managers pointed out, "Our workers have axes, cleavers, and knives in their hands all day." If there was conflict on the lines, it would have been instantly obvious. The only area of conflict was the reluctance of some workers to join the union.

The reported language that the NAACP, business owners, labor leaders, black workers, white workers, social workers, bureaucrats, etc. all reflected a very clear understanding of how racism worked, what its costs were, how detrimental it was to blacks, and what kind of solutions were needed. Decent housing (as opposed to deteriorating, low-quality slum dwellings); equal pay; good schools for black and white children together; adequate medical care, etc.

So, reading Sandburg's articles is deja vu.

It's why I'm comfortable saying there's no such thing. Identity isn't a psychological state one 'discovers' by interoception, it's part of our naming and storytelling practices, like 'hippy', or 'geek'. We collect performances into useful groupings and name them. The utility is about them playing a role in our stories so they're less surprising, and that works both ways - it's not imposed, it's agreed upon. — Isaac

I do not LIKE the idea that there is no such thing as essential "identity" that one discovers, but experience and observation tells us that identity depends on culture.

A heterosexual child doesn't have to wait long for his or her culture to supply the "guide book" for what "heterosexual" means. On the other hand, a rural homosexual child may recognize that he likes other boys, and understands that this is an outlier desire, best not discussed. He may not have a "homosexual identity" until he comes into regular contact with urban homosexuals who can supply the gay "guide book".

So, a gay boy in Los Angeles may decide he likes the black leather motorcycle look and proceed accordingly. There's nothing innately gay about black-dyed cow leather or motorcycles, but culture has made it so. A gay boy in rural Uganda is extremely unlikely to follow the same route. (At least until recently) rural Uganda had few paved roads, no motorcycle clubs of any kind, and covering up in black leather just doesn't make sense on the equator.

Moliere and Judaka seem to belong to the same Free Church when it comes to word meaning:

Every use of the word is itself a new meaning which isn't fixed by a Public Shelf of Meaning — Moliere

@Judaka I generally have the same issue with those who view word meanings as having stringent, objective definitions

Bullshit!

Saying I have failed to think clearly — T Clark

Claiming the first option (not thinking clearly) wasn't necessary on your part. There was the second option of failing to communicate.

Did you fail to communicate? Not to me, you didn't. Apparently you failed to communicate with Judaka. The failure in your case was that Judaka did not receive what you sent. Not your fault.

All I'm saying is that I reject the notion that a person's race entitles them to a specific history. The history of a nation should belong to the citizens of that nation. — Judaka

This statement I can agree with. WE ARE Puritans in Massachusetts; slaves in Texas; Ojibwes and Germans in Minnesota; Chinese and Americans in the Gold Ruch; New Yorkers on the Upper West Side; anarchists in Portland, OR; Appalachian holy rollers--e pluribus unum. Our common history extends back before Columbus; it extends to both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific; we come from pirates, indentured servants, slaves, blue bloods, bigots, peasants, rabbis, pietists, common laborers, riff raff. All of it.

Virtue and sin are rolled up together. As Rabbi Heschel put it, "Some are guilty; everyone is responsible."

What we have here is a failure to communicate, or worse, a failure to think clearly.

As I wrote previously - white people don't like, trust, or respect black people.
— T Clark

This is kind of the same level as a business saying "The problem is we're not making enough money". — Judaka

A business saying "we're not making enough money" is a perfectly reasonable statement (assuming they are going broke) and so is "white people don't like, trust, or respect black people". If they did those three things, we wouldn't have a race problem,

Also, I reject racial and ethnic histories, cultures and groups. I don't think white people are responsible for anything, and as I told you before, I would prefer to see black Americans taking responsibility for slavery as Americans. That would represent the kind of progress I think would be helpful. — Judaka

Whoa! What?

shit can happen to anyone — L'éléphant

No comment to add, just felt that this truism needed to be repeated for the benefit of those to whom shit hasn't happened yet.

... real wages have flatlined since the late 70s. That’s a robust explanatory data point. — Mikie

Absolutely true.

And for families that have stable but insufficient income and expenses they can not defer or live without, like feeding, housing, and clothing themselves and their children; day care and pre-school (which enables both partners to work); medical expenses; car payments and house payments, savings isn't an option. Add on to that student loan payments and credit card payments. At this point for many families, frugality is not optional, it is mandatory. Savings accounts are just wishful thinking.

However, not everyone who is working class is equally distressed. Single workers and working couples without children have a better chance of getting ahead financially. The trap many fall into is that as their income increases, so does their spending. They are spending more, presumably living better, but still not saving anything, maybe running out of cash before the next payday. This trap captures professional class members also. Frequent flights, trips to Europe, better food and alcohol, fashionable clothing and larger dwellings -- it's easy to outspend the family's combined salaries.

I am well aware that the people in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution are pretty much screwed economically, no matter what they do. They either can not get work, can not get work with an adequate wage, or have too little income and overwhelming expenses (like from chronic disease or natural disaster),

The solution for everyone in the bottom 9 deciles is a greater share of the GDP pie. Who gets the biggest pieces of pie is a matter of POLICY, not talent, luck, prudent investing, or any such thing. Since the 1970s, policy makers have been steering the pie slices to the top decile of income and the very top layer of wealth, the richest .0001%. 90% of us are dividing up a couple of small pieces and arguing over the crumbs.

I remember when a $64,000 question was a seriously hard question that you had to go in a sound-proof booth to answer. — unenlightened

Right. $64,000 questions are now handled at walk-up kiosks on busy streets.

I also agree with that. I just disagree that it will make anyone rich. — unenlightened

Yes, the self-made multi-millionaire (multimillionaires to billionaires) is a fiction. Becoming rich requires the contributions of banks, investors, governments, etc. to convert a bright idea (or just as easily a bad idea) into substantial wealth.

According to informed sources...

In 1995 musk founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers (he borrowed $28,000). In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online.

Musk apparently started his rise to uber-riches by selling services--no need for big plant investments, machinery, megatons of ore, etc. Just office space, young workers, and internet connections; selling new services to a new and rapidly expanding businesses. Beats me why PayPal was a success, but then, I don't have an entrepreneurial bone in my body,

That is not how most people become millionaires. — Mikie

A million dollars isn't what it used to be. Real estate is the vehicle that has made many people millionaires. Buying and paying for a house does require discipline (else the bank will take your house back). Policy makers understood that mortgages would keep people's noses to the grindstone in a way that renting didn't.

The problem with the valuable house is that you can't sell it and still live in it. But on a balance sheet, property and cash can make one "a millionaire".

I agree with Sushi on the importance of thrift and saving. Granted: it isn't possible for many families to save. The cost of basic care for parents and children may exceed the families income. But many individuals and families need not operate in the red. First, thrift. A lot of spending goes into products and services of little (or no) lasting value. Cut out the crap and many people will have money to save.

I practiced regular saving from my first job onward. My problem was that, while I had learned thrift as a child, as an adult I didn't know what to do with extra cash besides saving it. Even without investing it, savings made life much easier. (Eventually I did figure out investing.)

Simpler in theory, but I think much more drastic and therefore less likely for success. — Mikie

Of course, and it requires the Revolution to be over, such that the people could actually expropriate the expropriators. We are nowhere close to a constructive revolution, so I don't think the rich have to worry about pitchfork-armed peasants descending on them this year or next.

On the other hand, rewriting tax law such that 90% of income, inheritance, capital gains, and so on are collected by the IRS requires that the financial and social elite join with the government elite and labor elite to forge an alliance on behalf of the working class -- that group that composes 80% to 90% of the population. This doesn't require a revolution, but it probably requires something that feels like a national existential crisis. The Great Depression was the last time the elites came together with a program to redistribute wealth downward to the working class. FDR, the New Deal, and the post WWII boom were part of that. During those 40 years, wealth among the [white] working class was greatly increased, and wealth among the rich was greatly reduced,

The first time the American elites came together to redesign the system was the Civil War. One would rather not take that route again to achieve social justice -- the body count was quite high.

Yes, I understand that avoiding capital gains taxes, income taxes, inheritance taxes, etc. is the issue. The rich have many ways of avoiding taxation on shore and off shore. It is not inevitable. As I remarked earlier in this thread, taxation on wealth was far higher during the depression, WWII, and the post WWII boom, and there were about half as many millionaires and multi-millionaires as there had been in the 1920s, The number of multimillionaires and billionaires has doubled from what it was in 1975.

So, please excuse my joke at your expense.

Great, IF the spouse has lots of cash,

I don't recommend it. — L'éléphant

Especially if one IS the rich spouse.

Expropriating the expropriators would be a simpler solution to the problem of too many way too rich people than screwing around with the complicated tax code.

Short of that raise the income tax (inheritance tax, etc.) to at least 90%. Too high? It used to be that high. In those days there were about half as many millionaires and billionaires back in the ancient Depression and Post WWII boom days as there are now. Many of the current crop of -illionaire parasites got their start in the 1970s.

no one would have the balls to talk about all the benefits of slavery — T Clark

Zero benefits to the slaves, certainly. While slaves did learn skills, it was for the exclusive benefit of the slave owner. The property owners, merchants (all goods), and bankers received huge benefits from slavery. The value of slaves (prior to the civil war) was about $4 billion--a major chunk of American assets at the time (based on the number of slaves and the average value of slaves).

Cotton exports were a major source of income for New England and New York exporters, shippers, bankers, and mill owners. Buying and selling slaves was also quite profitable, and involved businesses beside southern planters. Poor whites in the south didn't benefit; neither did pioneers moving westward. The white workers in various industries benefitted far less than the owners of the shops.

Racism has to come from somewhere. It didn't just pop up out of nowhere. American racism is rooted in class antagonism that has been maintained since Plymouth Rock, and our history of chattel slavery.

Class status (which is generally a visible trait to attentive eyes) matters. White people who look 'lower class' are likely to get shabbier treatment than other white people who are several steps up the class ladder. White people who are 4th or 5th generation low class tend to be stuck there.

Race is linked to class. Blacks have long been at the bottom of the class hierarchy. People whose identity began (in this country) as chattel property are, by definition, the rock-bottom lowest class. In their most vigorous discrimination, whites assign to blacks the bottom status of lowest value, least deserving respect, lowest paid, worst jobs, expected to be welfare, probably petty criminals, and so on.

Long ago the ruling classes learned that insecurity is one more handy tool to keep the peasants under control.

It is very difficult for white people whose class status is insecure to grant the kind of treatment to blacks they would accord to other whites who are their equals or betters. White people do not reinvent race hatred in every generation; we inherit it. Black people likewise inherit their low status.

If the government takes two municipalities and over a century, gives one immensely preferential treatment. Then in year 101, says, okay, this unfair treatment is over, each municipality is free to do with their tax revenue what they wish, and we'll treat each the same. Well, one city is going to have quality infrastructure, well-educated and high-income citizens, access to employment etc. The other will have none of that, plus a ton of social problems and issues due to a century of neglect and oppression.

In that case, the statistics and the disparity in outcomes wouldn't prove that the government wasn't now giving equal treatment. Since the historical context might suffice. — Judaka

That's where we are at. 160 years of unfair allocation of resources.

Raising blacks' collective low status requires both the opportunity and the means to better their status through their own demonstrable efforts. Reparation plans that involve giving every descendent of slavery $5000 cash (or whatever figure they might settle on) won't achieve anything more than aggravating race hatred.

A California reparation plan makes more sense: Use the funds set aside to give to black people the same opportunity to own property and accumulate wealth that whites received from the 1935 FHA legislation: readily available mortgages for good properties. More, use the set aside funds to do compensatory education, job training in fields with a future, like hospitality management. (Blacks were specifically denied the benefits of FHA and VA mortgage programs.)

IF the material means can be significantly improved, and if working class financial security cam be achieved (a revolutionary goal, not something that is going to happen under the current regime) race hatred can be reduced--maybe eventually expunged (but don't hold your breath waiting),

White people don't like black people... — T Clark

Making assertions without evidence or justification isn't very helpful. — Judaka

It seems to me it is evident that many white people are very prejudiced against most black people. There are stats that validate this observation, but anyone with eyes and ears can see prejudice in operation without having to look very far.

If T Clark had said "Black people have more money that white people..." one could reasonably demand evidence, since the statement is so contrary to the common view.

This Pew Research report is the sort of thing that backs up T Clark's statement.

[neoliberalism's] upending would do much to cure the disparity in outcomes between racial groups. How does this factor into the topic of the comprehensive understanding of racism? — Judaka

The disparity in input and outcomes (like, how much is spent on educating a child and how well that child does after graduating; or how much is invested in a given neighborhood and how well that neighborhood functions over time) helps maintain prejudice.

A lot is said about the wide performance gap between black and white children; less is said about the wide funding gap between wealthy white suburban school districts and poor black school districts. Much richer neighborhoods are much nicer than much poorer neighborhoods. Families tend to do better in neighborhoods which are green and leafy; have convenient high-quality markets; have little crime; where rats and roaches are a rarity; where the streets are clean; where there are safe and pleasant playgrounds.

Accessible good schools and nice neighborhoods or services that every family needs generally are not plentiful where they are provided on a for-profit basis (the neoliberal method). Social investment is a long-term project, not a fast turn around profit-producer.

Any group of people who regularly receive the least share of social goods are going to be looked down on, and be the recipients of prejudicial treatment.

Should "ending racism" be understood as addressing such factors, such as neoliberal capitalism and others? — Judaka

Yes. I would suggest that achieving social (or racial) justice will mean black's access to better education ----> better jobs ----> better housing ----> in better neighborhoods. Skip the "anti-racist training programs", skip black English, forget about micro aggressions, etc. etc. etc. DELIVER first rate education and training programs. Make sure there are no artificial barriers to equal access to good jobs; enforce equal access to housing in any neighborhood. In other words, make it possible for blacks to work and live as well as whites.

Will that automatically result in the disappearance of prejudice? No, not immediately, but prejudice will matter less.

"Speaking of dystopian societies, maybe you should ask ChatGPT what it thinks about a childless future for humans," he said, sarcastically.

I am familiar with the plot, but have neither read the book nor seen the movie. Have you seen it? Is it any good?

In many apocalyptic-themed novels, people descend into barbarity pretty quickly--the Mad Max reference. There is a nice contrast in On The Beach by Nevil Shute. The world is dying as a cloud of radioactivity descends from the northern hemisphere towards the southern pole. Southern Australia is next in line, among the last to go. People behave with remarkable civility as they "carry on" either waiting for the radiation cloud to arrive, or swallowing the poison pill which is freely available.

We now have a real-world apocalypse awaiting us in the possibly uncontrollable heating of the planet. One exceedingly hot summer doesn't demonstrate how bad it will get, but it is suggestive. So far, people either deny the possibility or they live with low-level anxiety about the future. We know how to solve the problem, but we do not have access to the levers of power in corporations and governments. People seem to be living calmly in the face of this calamity--their children's certainly, or their own, if they are young.

You know that birth rates in affluent countries and/or among affluent layers of society are below the replacement level. Many breeding-age people in Japan, for instance, don't seem to be overly concerned. Some European countries are in the same situation as Japan -- demographically doomed. Older people are anxious about it, but not the younger ones, Seems strange to me.

I don't think most of the world has to worry about a childless future. The title of Jeff Goodell's book says it all: The Heat Will Kill You First.

I've been reading about the 1919 Chicago race riot by a contemporary reporter -- Carl Sandburg, the poet, writing for the Chicago Sun Times. WWI was over and the Great Migration of blacks from the south to northern industrial cities continued. There was a lot of labor unrest, corporate resistance, and racial tension in the country as a whole.

Sandburg's articles are snapshots of various aspects of the black/white encounter in Chicago centering on jobs, income, housing, and rent. It's about the behavior of employers and real estate agents; white workers, black workers, unions and families.

His reports are refreshing because Sandburg recounts MATERIAL events--causes and consequences. Neither "racism" nor "sexism" are used as explanatory devices.

The book is about a deadly race riot that began at a Lake Michigan beach, but it is surprising how often integration occurred without incident. The meat packing industry was unionized, and black slaughterhouse workers were strongly encouraged to join the unions, which they did. Many factories were integrated with management suppressing hostility from white workers (profits over conflict).

Housing was definitely not integrated. Rents for blacks were significantly higher than for whites, for often inferior housing. White flight from neighborhoods where blacks were approaching was a well-established phenomenon in 1919. Owners of apartment buildings might sell at a loss rather than rent to blacks, but after the dollar-loss sale, the next owner would rent to blacks at much higher rents.

Of course, if everything had been just great, except for a few housing problems, there wouldn't have been a race riot. The cause of the riot was pretty clear: Some white people were flatly unwilling to accept the presence of blacks in their communities and acted accordingly. It was race hatred--a more concrete term than racism.

But I still don't think it's easy for us to appreciate, from a modern perspective, how different sexual mores were in traditional cultures, to what we take for granted. — Quixodian

It can be hard to get into the minds of people who lived just a few centuries ago, never mind 2 or 3 millennia. Native Americans, for instance, thought much differently than the Europeans did on all sorts of matters.

I don't know whether the American province of Christendom is / was any worse than the English or Australian branches as far as the body, sex, sexuality, and physicality were concerned. From what I've read in American manuals and family advice books from around 1900 - 1910, American attitudes were pretty strait-laced at the beginning of the 20th C. By the 1960s, a lot of young people were ready to ditch the old-fashioned sexual morality. (Birth control pills greatly facilitated sexual liberation.)

Protestant Christian thinking had a large influence on American culture, and so did Catholic thinking (especially on Catholics). I was loaded with all sorts of guilt feelings and shame about sex. So were millions of others.

It was a great relief to hear about Stonewall and begin participating in consciousness raising in the gay male community. It was an even greater relief when I finally figured out the various protocols of cruising, bathhouses, parks, and so forth. I knew that the church (broadly speaking) disapproved of homosexuality in 1971, but the erotic drive was very strong, and I sought out and gave in to temptation.

By the mid-1970s it was possible to be gay and sexually active and be a member in good standing of Metropolitan Community Church (nondenominational), Dignity (Catholic), Integrity (Episcopal) or Lutherans Concerned. These mostly male groups stood in frank opposition to the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches with respect to sexuality.

By the early 1980s, I was ready to exit from Christian belief. Attitudes toward sex wasn't the only thing about which I objected, but it was one of the most focused dissatisfactions. I much preferred feeling free to pursue sex and love without the irritating intrusion by stuffy morality.

Gay liberation was and remains for many a liberation from Christian sexual and family morality.

True, there are denominations and congregations which are now anxious to embrace gay people. I suspect this is similar to the interest of many white congregations to get some colored folk into the pews. There is also the problem of diminishing membership in many churches. A dozen or two younger, reasonably well-employed gay couples can make a nice addition to a struggling congregation. Necessity made a virtue of inclusiveness.

That's not my problem — universeness

If you do not communicate successfully, that IS your problem. Granted: there are people who manage to misunderstand a simple phrase like "Good morning". But quite often when posters are misunderstood, it is the poster's fault, and the problems are typical of writers in general. That's why publishers and newspapers employ editors.

Moderator Mikie's thread on religion has been troubled by unclear communication which I think is his problem. I don't quite know why he's not stating his case more clearly. Perhaps a vague concept at the beginning--God & Christianity Aren’t Special--has hobbled his thinking,

is an expression stemming from combined ignorance, unjustified certainty, blatant inconsideration for others(immoral behaviour if there is such a thing),and spiteful arrogance — creativesoul

Is that attitude best described in 1 word as "gall" or "chutzpah"?

I would never try to undermine anyone's personal convictions — Janus

Why the hell not? What could be more constructive than undermining BAD personal convictions?

What is a waste of time is engaging in philosophical questioning and discussion about various aspects of God when you already accept that Christian dogma is one of many and accept the anthropological point of view. — Mikie

Sorry to quote your two "waste of time" statements out of context. But it really isn't clear to me why you hold the view presented in the quoted sentence. It seems like what you are describing here is what people who are interested in "religion as a topic" engage in periodically. People have written books comparing and contrasting Jesus and Buddha, for example. They treat both of them seriously as subject matter rather than as gods. They might well not believe a word of either man, but believing isn't what they are after.

So many aspects of human endeavor amount to colossal wastes of time, effort, and cash. We are not very good at evaluating the actual worth of a lot of what we are busy doing.

Anyway— I don’t care about whether people are Christian or not; I care about what they do. — Mikie

Jesus and you agree on the importance of "do".

"Everyone who hears my words and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Matthew 7:26-27

But in terms of philosophical questioning on a philosophy forum, especially if you’re otherwise secular — yeah, people should move on from that. Either study theology or treat god like any other god. No reason to give “god” special attention just because you happen to be raised in that faith. — Mikie

You are rejecting the specificity of people's experience and their development as persons. You have all sorts of features as a person that are a reflection of how, where, and when you were raised. Perhaps it would be a good idea to lose that fear of spiders you acquired as a child, but there's no reason to lose your language, preferred music, preference in vegetables, and so on. If you were raised in a secular family and have no religious experiences or interests, there's no reason for you to ditch that.

Most style books recommend capitalizing God, thus giving him special attention. If one is talking about various gods, then no special treatment is required. It's a feature of English and its history within Christendom.

I don’t think religion is a waste of time — Mikie

It’s a waste of time. — Mikie

Lots of people have acted on the sentiment you express. They have left. Moved on. Many of the departed are NOT religious--they've become "spiritual". Then there are those who might be "religious" but NOT spiritual. The Church is a useful institution; it's a place to maintain social contacts. A lot of clubs and bowling leagues have gone out of business. The church is still there on the corner. Potluck, anyone?

Is "religion" a waste of time? For some, yes; for others no. Like it or not, many people find it helpful. Whether they are Buddhists, Hindus talking about Vishnu, Moslems yelling Allah Akbar, Baptists ranting about Jesus, or WHATEVER the hell they are, people find religious activities personally useful. That rulers also find religion useful is a much less praiseworthy aspect of belief. That's another possible thread.

I'm no longer a believer and I'm not "spiritual" either--but protestant Christianity is the milieu in which I grew up. As an old adult, I might think I should have been raised in a secular humanist family in Boston or New York City, but I was instead raised in the very conventional rural midwest. There are a lot of things I don't like about the Midwest (or New York City, for that matter) but it is what it is.

In time, more and more people will have grown up in secular, non-religious communities. Maybe someday everyone will be secular. We'll have to come back from the grave to see whether that makes all that much difference.

Gay people often have a hard time in Catholicism in particular, as well as the topics of abortion and even contraception. — Jack Cummins

Yes, yes, yes. The church forgets St. Augustine's sexuality --

"Oh, Master, make me chaste and celibate - but not yet!"

The Catholic Church is unequivocally committed to reproduction, for sure. Officially, no contraception, no abortion. Masturbation? Is the pope against that too? Can't remember. But it isn't just the Catholics. At one time or another, every branch of Christendom has led the charge against various forms of unauthorized fornication. In these more liberal times, many churches welcome gay folk. I suspect that one source of this welcome is their chronically shrinking demographics. They weren't welcoming when the church was full with breeding pairs.

The construction crew began work decades after Jesus. At the moment I can't cite a number.
— BC

To be precise, it began three centuries after Jesus, in the exact year of 325 CE. This is the year of The First Council of Nicaea, where the doctrine of the Trinity was compromised between and constructed by different factions into its initial manifestation - this with the oversight of the Roman Emperor Constantine. — javra

Thanks - good information. I haven't done any reading in the early history of the church for quite a few years and it seems like there is only so much room upstairs for facts. Each new fact costs me one old fact.

The Creeds are a stumbling block for me. On a good day, if I'm feeling sort of religious, I can passively assent to the first statement in the creed

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth

but then as it gets further into the weeds, the whole thing becomes pretty dicey.