a lot of people here don't understand what churches are for and what they offer. i'm not religious per se but i'm a church musician. some churches want to see what you can do for them and pick your pocket while they're doing it. some churches want to see that your emotional, spiritual, and physical needs are met while you're there, and hopefully you can get a little solace from whatever is bothering you at the moment.

i use two things to judge: are they affirming, and do they offer coffee in the fellowship room. it better be a big fat yes to both.

I am not religious. I think sermons can be useful.

a sermon is to discuss current events and remind people to behave well, among other things. a good sermon is somewhat personal, related to the community, and meaningful. knowing that the person in front of you, whom you presumably respect, is saying things that they wrote and believe and spent effort forming the wording of, that has weight. some dude regurgitating AI slop removes all of that meaning.

Because it's a lot easier to discredit a religious argument when the sermon cites "4th Thessalossians 67:B" and gives the most generic sounding paragraph with the one weirdly specific phrase they instructed the bot to include and em—dash thrown in for good measure.

At least if they all use the same manual, it's easier to pull over the ones who are on the fence.