Is Church Shopping Ethical or Unethical?

[boatsnguitars]

Debate Topic: "Is Church Shopping Ethical or Unethical?"

Arguments For Church Shopping:
1. It is a personal decision: People have the right to choose the church that they feel most comfortable in and that aligns with their beliefs and values.
2. Helps people find the right fit: Church shopping allows people to find a community where they can belong and grow in their faith.
3. Encourages competition and improvement: Churches that are aware of people shopping around for a church home may work harder to improve their programs and services to attract new members.
4. Promotes diversity: Church shopping may encourage people to explore different denominations and styles of worship, leading to a more diverse and tolerant religious community.

Arguments Against Church Shopping:
1. Goes against commitment: Church shopping promotes a consumerist mentality that goes against the idea of committing to a church community.
2. Creates division: The practice of church shopping can create division and competition among churches, rather than promoting unity within the larger religious community.
3. Fosters a consumer mentality: Church shopping can lead to a "what can the church do for me" attitude, rather than focusing on how one can contribute to the community.
4. May lead to spiritual superficiality: Church shopping may encourage people to prioritize surface-level factors such as the music or the pastor's charisma, over deeper spiritual values and growth.

Debaters can argue from these points of view, and consider further implications of church shopping in the context of religion and spirituality.

I've always found this an interesting dilemma: Do you choose a church that makes you comfortable, or one that is right... and how do you know it's correct - or - do you stick with the church you were born into, since who are you to question the teachings if they are telling you "It's not a contradiction, it's only an apparent contradiction and you just don't understand it. God has a plan for you. Stick it out - you need to have more Faith. etc."

Personally, I think people should abstain from Religion.

[JehovahsWitness]

SHOULD A PERSON CHANGE THEIR RELIGION?

Worship should not be based on personal preferences, our nationality or culture or family background but on finding how God wishes to be worshipped acceptably. If there is one God it's reasonable there should be one true religion and a person should search until they find it; even if this involves leaving the religion they were born into.

.... And how do we know if God approves?

That would be part if "the search". If there is indeed an omnipotent God it seems reasonable to conclude He would have both the power and the intelligence to devise find way of communicating his desires to sincere searchers of Truth. If he doesn't care how he is worshipped this too logically will have been communicated unequivocably to mankind.
JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

OK, so what has he communicated to mankind? Because it appears he has communicated that he wants us to be a wide variety of animistic religions, then polytheistic, then Muslim, Christian (Protestant and Catholic), and Buddhist...

How, pray tell has he communicated the above? Could it be that you are confusing a communicated message with an obsevable reality? For example, pedophiles that rape babies are a sad reality of our time; do you conclude then that pedophilia is something God wishes you to do to your children?

[TRANSPONDER]

SHOULD A PERSON CHANGE THEIR RELIGION?

Worship should not be based on personal preferences, our nationality or culture or family background but on finding how God wishes to be worshipped acceptably. If there is one God it's reasonable there should be one true religion and a person should search until they find it; even if this involves leaving the religion they were born into.

.... And how do we know if God approves?

That would be part if "the search". If there is indeed an omnipotent God it seems reasonable to conclude He would have both the power and the intelligence to devise find way of communicating his desires to sincere searchers of Truth. If he doesn't care how he is worshipped this too logically will have been communicated unequivocably to mankind.



JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

Either this has happened and the rest of mankind is in denial or mistaken about the divine communication which is the correct religion OR it doesn'tmatter.

Just how do we decide which sect of Christianity is right? By adhering to the text? Then I assert that atheists are the only ones who have it right as all the others are in denial about what it says. Like the Believers who trades in her old church for one that matches her shoes better, people rewrite the Bible to suit what they want to believe. And no, atheists do not do that as we do not insist we are guided by God but are trying to follow the evidence.

I haven't even touched on the various religions as,there, they don't have quite the historical clout that Christianity has. Islam has perhaps better historical veracity than the gospels but it's just Muhammad's opinion, not what others describe him having done.

Buddhism has less historical conviction, but the reasoning about the solution to suffering makes more appeal than a lot of orders and exhortations. Just sayin' the message is that the message from God isn't getting through OR is that religions don't matter.

In fact the one who swaps churches like a library book may be more in line with the divine message (or as an atheist would say the way the human mind works) than one who for some reason is in a particular religious group and insists they are the only ones doing it right.

It is of course why those who can no longer believe in Hell (the UR crowd) and even more, those theists who do not believe in a man - made religion are growing closer to atheism, even if they cling to faith in a sorta god.