Do you attend religious services?

[crazy canuck]

My main beef with Catholic mass (based on one data point) is the constant kneeling and getting up.

Yeah, but when you are just watching it that doesn't affect the viewer.  I found the singing during the service quite beautiful.  And when you watch in Assisi you get a number of Masses to choose from during the day as various religious tour groups come in.  I sat there for hours listening to Mass being said, and sung, in a variety of languages.

[Grey Fox]

You alternate church people are so weird.

In what way?

I do not understand how, while shedding the more theological or fundamentalist parts of organized religion, one can still want to bother with all the theatre that religious entities have imposed on humanity for 3000 years.

That or I understand and you are all edging your bets.

[merithyn]

You alternate church people are so weird.

In what way?

I do not understand how, while shedding the more theological or fundamentalist parts of organized religion, one can still want to bother with all the theatre that religious entities have imposed on humanity for 3000 years.

That or I understand and you are all edging your bets.

Rituals have meaning. They have always had meaning. Being involved with a group of like-minded people who choose to share a ritual - whether god-oriented or not - often brings a feeling of peace and camaraderie.

For some, it's going to a church on Sundays (or Saturdays in a synagogue, or during a full moon in a forest); for others is Sunday football, or RPG Saturdays, or whatever.

[Valmy]

I do not understand how, while shedding the more theological or fundamentalist parts of organized religion, one can still want to bother with all the theatre that religious entities have imposed on humanity for 3000 years.

That or I understand and you are all edging your bets.

Edge my bets?

Because how else does one practice a religion? Have a message board? It just isn't the same. And brick and mortar churches require too much effort to troll and hack.

[Admiral Yi]

He means hedge.  Frenchies can't hear the letter H.

[DGuller]

My main beef with Catholic mass (based on one data point) is the constant kneeling and getting up.

If you pretend to be Jewish, you're excused.

[Admiral Yi]

If you pretend to be Jewish, you're excused.

I was pretending to be Protestant but I didn't want to be the only knucklehead sitting when everyone else was kneeling.

[DGuller]

If you pretend to be Jewish, you're excused.

I was pretending to be Protestant but I didn't want to be the only knucklehead sitting when everyone else was kneeling.

Good point.  I'd go to a funeral mass in that case, there will be far more non-Catholics there to keep you company.

[Admiral Yi]

It was a heavily Irish Catholic church and you really don't want to piss those people off, especially on their home turf.

Fun fact: it was Yo Yo Ma's church, but he didn't play that day.

[Capetan Mihali]

Hmm, I really think I've only attended one genuine -- not counting weddings, funerals, or bar/bat mitzvahs -- religious service, a Christmas Eve mass my step-grandfather took me to when I was a kid.  I was brought up to the communion line, but I had to cross my arms over my chest as a non-baptized.

But oddly enough, I might go to a Compline at the big Episcopalian cathedral in town this Sunday night, although that's also a choir concert.

[Razgovory]

It was a heavily Irish Catholic church and you really don't want to piss those people off, especially on their home turf.

Fun fact: it was Yo Yo Ma's church, but he didn't play that day.

You should be okay so long as you aren't English.  Or wearing Orange.

[Duque de Bragança]

He means hedge.  Frenchies can't hear the letter H.

They can hear it if it's silent though aspirated cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_h 

In French spelling, aspirated "h" (French: "h" aspiré) is an initial silent letter "h" that represents a hiatus at a word boundary, in this case between the word in question's first vowel and the preceding word's last vowel. At the same time, the aspirated "h" blocks the normally expected processes of contraction and liaison from occurring.[1] The name of this now silent "h" refers not to aspiration but to its former pronunciation as the voiceless glottal fricative [h] in Old French and in Middle French.

Not that Le Renard Gris is a Frenchie or even knows and uses the rule. 

[Razgovory]

Huh.  I learned a new meaning for the word "aspirate".  The only meaning I knew involved big needles.

[Martinus]

He means hedge.  Frenchies can't hear the letter H.

Yeah, it is really annoying when they speak English but do not pronounce "H" - you can sometimes hardly understand what they are saying.

[Martinus]

You alternate church people are so weird.

In what way?

I do not understand how, while shedding the more theological or fundamentalist parts of organized religion, one can still want to bother with all the theatre that religious entities have imposed on humanity for 3000 years.

That or I understand and you are all edging your bets.

Rituals have meaning. They have always had meaning. Being involved with a group of like-minded people who choose to share a ritual - whether god-oriented or not - often brings a feeling of peace and camaraderie.

For some, it's going to a church on Sundays (or Saturdays in a synagogue, or during a full moon in a forest); for others is Sunday football, or RPG Saturdays, or whatever.

This.