To be considered:

Two days ago I was conversing with on online patron about the role of religion in society and how social skills have seemingly become a finite resource. Her name is that going to church was a crucial way for kids to learn social skills and how to behave in community settings. It was also a promeint way to spend an extended period of time reading a dense piece of literature “the Bible” both silently and aloud which to her credit is an improtant skillset to establish literacy in kids. However another online patron had a different take on how the church wasn't the safe haven if was advertised to be as the rampant mysogeiny, sexual abuse, and psychological trauma is a very real and prominent aspect of the church community experience hence why millienials and younger generations have become less and less religious as the metrics of the last few decades have shown combined with an increased levels of loneliness and a profound lack of community expressed by many members of my generation z specifically. It's a bit mind blowing to think about because both patrons were both right and wrong at the same time for a very crucial reason.

For the bulk of history religious or spiritual spaces served as both third/communal spaces and administrative buildings. This is not exclusive to church it was the purpose of temples and monasteries/ Abbies of many different faiths as well. The problem is that over the last few decades or so there has been a shift in society away from the harmful and abusive practices that came along with these spiritual spaces and a move towards a more secular society overall. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as Europe during the Enlightenment and Renaissance periods had a similar shift and in response designed taverns, coffee and tea houses and at times brothels to replace the third spaces and administrative services that religious institutions once served. The problem is in America as is in Europe they replaced "church culture" with drinking culture and that has taken its toll. Where we are right now is at a crossroads as to how do we fill the need for third/communal spaces in our communities without relying on religious context or intoxicating substances to bringing people together and that is a tough question to answer because as far as human history is concerned it's never been done before. What do you do when the bar sucks and when the abusive and exploitative practices of the church become impossible to ignore?

What replaces those third spaces when alcohol is not as safe as it once was thought to be and religious institutions have been marketed to the bone exposing the rampant pedophilla problem that entrenches almost every institution and administrative space that we know in the United States?

It's a solid question that cannot be answed by just reverting back to what we had in the past.

I've said it before and I'll say it again here though. It's not enough to dismantle the systems that no longer serve us in the modern age we have to replace them with something else and that isn't achieved through revolution, protest or negotiations it's achieved through going back to the drawing board and coming up with something that has never been done before. Something better than what we have now.

To be considered:

Tiger M 🐯