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I'd hesitate to conflate the two.

As someone from a mainly secular country, I have often pondered the loss of a central gathering place the places like a church give to society.

A weekly service really helps foster a community. The only other thing that does is schools, but that excludes a huge swathe of people.



You might be interested in the concept of the third place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place


Bwahahahasob. That's right, in the before-times home and work were separate places.


Only in last couple centuries; before, when most people lived in villages, your home was your workplace.


It is very interesting, especially the sociological demographic data showing what is happening in response to the decline of church attendance.

In a nut-shell, communities that stop going to ‘church’ don’t produce enough offspring to be long term (centuries) stable, but those that do are long term stable.


That's fascinating! I've wondered about that anecdotally for some time. Do you have links to more in-depth reading?





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