Denominational temperaments (Owl convo)

My first thought is that any religious belief that doesn’t prepare you for death – both of others and your own – isn’t doing a very good job

Worth noting.
I assume you’re inspired by examples.

There’s an impending death in the extended family tree
Among one of the branches is less good at dealing with this sort of thing

I conceive of America’s religion being the prosperity gospel (e.g. Trump, Norman Vincent Peale), and it follows from that worldview that dying indicates immorality.
So it makes sense in that framing that Americans in general would have a very poor preparation for death.
What’s the religion of said family branch?
Both explicit and implicit religion, if you don’t mind.

there’s a mix of atheist, agnostic, and devout
explicitly
implicitly i wouldn’t say there’s a particular religiousness, though a couple of them definitely lean on religion as a means of emotional support

How well does it work?
Especially with respect to preparation for death.

i think it helps for the day-to-day, but there are very strong emotional ties among them so they take death veyr hard

You’re hedging a bit.

i wouldn’t call that hedging
i think it helps them deal with daily stressors (work, social drama…etc)
but not BIG stuff like a death in the family

Hmm.

it assuages some categories of problems but
not others

I assume we’re talking some flavor of devout Protestantism.

episcopalianism

Oh dear.
The other freemasons.
Well, that explains a lot.

lol

I’m not familiar with their actual creeds and all that, so I’m just going by reputation, but it makes sense that they wouldn’t be prepared for death.

Certain personality traits exacerbate this issue
Or it might be more precise to say that said traits aren’t adequately compensated for

By reputation they’re a goodfeelz social club for WASPs that’s about love and community and Jesus occasionally comes up.

Broad strokes there’s some truth to that
Episcopalians do celebration better than sadness

That’s not nothing.
I could use some decent celebrating myself.

I guess that worked for stoic, melancholic puritan types who needed that balance

Well, that does describe me pretty well.

which then implies that freewheeling and vivacious meds need a strict, formal, somber style of worship
same for other sanguine types
yeah, this makes sense

Agreed. I was just thinking that working a 12-hour day is easier for me than 12 minutes of dancing.
No hyperbole there at all.

hahaha I don’t doubt that for a second
I wonder how russian orthodox balances the slavic soul

Joy. That’d be my guess, anyway.
There’s also a lot about ignoring the voices.
That one I know for sure.

Was at an orthodox church once. it’s definitely more of a mystical vibe
the anti-pentacostalism then

I’m less familiar with that one than you might guess.
Are they all fire and brimstone?

not to my understanding
i have an association that a couple of their weirder congregtions do the speaking in toingues thing

I feel curiously out of my depth here in a way that I usually don’t in our conversations.
Oh, see my impression is that Pentacostalism is characterized by speaking in tongues.
I.e. “Charismatic” stuff.

My understanding is that’s an occasional flavor, not a primary thing, but otherwise, same

We need a Paul Fussell for comparative religions.

Man, you could write one hell of a book if you tried out different denominations for a year or so and did that for several years
lol
we’re on the same page

🙂

yeah, i think there’s a fun hypothesis here that the traits of religions balance out the innate traits of people drawn to those religions
this smells like good-quality pseudoscience right here

I’ll start making the 2×2 diagrams in Paint.

so in identifying the key characteristics of certain denominations (or other religions) we can make statements about the congregations

“INTJs will find themselves drawn to exuberant yet traditional forms.”

maybe orthodox then

Lizard King took me to his once.
It was a little too schizophrenic.

episcopalianism maybe be light-hearted, but it’s still pretty buttoned-up

Yeah, if they have a high liturgy I would probably enjoy it.

Easter and Christmas services are usually pretty good
I always feel they hit the right tone

Plus, I’m basically a WASP by temperament.
And we’re all culturally anglo, for the most part.
Knights of the Round, that stuff.
Curiously, my extended family is split into Catholic and Protestant.

Yeah

I was just thinking, I wonder where in Ireland we’re actually from.
The German part comes from Bavaria. My red hair comes through the paternal line, they were redheads going all the way back.
I imagine having a lot in common with Luther himself.
“The three schools focused on the so-called “trivium”: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Luther later compared his education there to purgatory and hell.”

lol
I’m increasingly convinced those three things are utterly foundational to good thinking
No wonder we stripped them from school curriculums

Agreed.
“In 1501, at age 17, he entered the University of Erfurt, which he later described as a beerhouse and whorehouse.”
See, I may actually be the reincarnation of this guy.

I can see you inveighing against the decadence and hypocrisy of the renassaince catholic churhc lol

Just this morning I was inveighing. My normie friends are trying to talk me down enough to get me through the doors of a church.
I’m trying one out tomorrow morning.
Hopefully you don’t see it in the news on Monday.

Here’s hoping it will be the right kind of news 😂

When I’m king Christianity will be illegal so they take it more seriously.
Anyway, I’m out of steam on the topic of Christian culture re: denial of death.

yeah
we’ll leave mapping of different denominations fare
to another time