Church Attendance

Because they personally do not explore the Bible's doctrines or their logical underpinnings or ramifications left to themselves, and in a broader sense probably do not think about any philosophical issue without some sort of conversational/experiential prompting even when it is unnecessary, many people might believe the falsity that attending church is a literal prerequisite to discovering anything about the Bible or Christianity.  And Rabbinic Jews might erroneously think the same things regarding the Old Testament and Judaism.  In actuality, they have just irrationalistically chosen to be extremely passive in their philosophical endeavors, to the point of intentionally or neglectfully waiting for someone else to present an idea to them before they contemplate its veracity and verifiability—and even then, without rightly consulting logic in recognition of its inherent truth by virtue of making assumptions.

Unfortunately, compounding the errors, they would likely to an extent just assume that whatever their pastor, personal church body, or historical predecessor(s) of their church's denomination say the Bible teaches is really the case.  A pastoral appeal to "scholarship" or to traditions of the people in the church rather than logic and the Bible would almost inevitably be a prominent factor one way or another in what they think about the Bible's contents.  To a non-rationalist, such things might seem deep, relevant, and "obviously" true or indicative of what is true.  Of course, this is nothing but falsity and delusion.  Tradition and consensus are the refuge of fools.  There are others, but these are quite popular among the irrational, particularly those who one way or another wait for other people to prompt them to think about a given matter.

Logical facts are knowable without looking to anything but reason since the most foundational logical truths depend on nothing else, but to discover Biblical theology, not what other people say about Biblical theology, looking to the book itself is necessary.  What does the Bible really say about God, creation, sin, hell, or various other issues of intrinsic philosophical significance, whether they are at the forefront of cultural controversy or remain overlooked subjects?  Well, hearsay in the form of a sermon or blog post is a fallacious basis for belief about what Biblical philosophy actually entails.  Someone certainly cannot know from a quoted Biblical passage embedded into another person's words if the verse is in the Bible, or if it is present as they propose.  And logic alone illuminates what does and does not follow from an idea in Judeo-Christian theology.

I absolutely do not promote mere hearsay or other assumptions on my blog, but no one unfamiliar with logic or the Bible could know if I am accurately representing Judeo-Christianity as it really is if they just assume I what I put forth is true.  It is no different when something is presented by an established pastor or respected academic (what a red herring a person's identity is to whether something is true and knowable and to whether they have embraced the right things for the right reasons!).  Reading the Bible is essential to knowing Biblical theology.  Yet, "astonishingly," and I use the word sarcastically because it is so utterly ordinary for people to be unwitting or staunch non-rationalists, people inside and outside the church often think there is some shortcut that sidesteps the need to look to logic and the Bible to know Christian theology if only they see what some clergy member or author says.  As if different such people do not contradict each other, meaning at least some of them have to be wrong either way!

No, you do not need to attend any church to discover what the Bible says and does not say, and what does or does not logically follow from the concepts it treats as true.  Furthermore, you do not have to go to church services or similar events to be a righteous person according to the tenets of the Bible, contrary to the unbiblical moral philosophy of evangelicals who think not going to church (and for whatever reason specifically on Sunday mornings) is sinful or results in some other sin.  There is no need to attend any formal church service or be tethered to a particular local church on any level.  As for the people who confuse not attending church with not knowing the details of or caring about Christianity, though there could be other erroneous reasons why they believe this, they might simply be projecting their own habits onto others: they only think about the specifics of the Bible and its philosophy when surrounded by others in a church setting, so they assume church attendance is a prerequisite to this.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful and true whether you like it or not.