zlacker

> A government service that says, "hey, you're 16 and homeless so we will feed you dinner" seems much better and less coercive than a church that says, "you're 16 and homeless so we'll feed you dinner if you pray beforehand and we get to choose your pronouns".

If the results of the latter were proven to result in generally a much happier and more cohesive society, would you be so confident and assured in your opposition and disdain for the approach?

>>jquery+(OP)
I'm a religious person for utilitarian reasons and read my Bible weekly and go to church accordingly.

But a whole lot of teen suicide and abortion is due to haters hating (I mean Christians being dogmatic) -- it's pretty well proven that coercive religious dogma is bad for mental health, as well as in the US divorce and abortion rates. The pressure to keep up appearances and lie about who you are and your actual life is not the bit that leads to a happy and cohesive society.

>>kaitai+vU
You’re leaping from “coercive religion dogma is bad for mental health” (I’ll accept that for the sake of argument) to “faith based charity is bad”. I don’t see how that follows. Seeing as you go to Church for utilitarian reasons, I don’t understand why you would condemn a faith based charity for trying to offer some sort of spiritual sustenance to the people they serve.