I am puzzled by the decision to put this up outside a Baptist church, eternal life being typically regarded as something of a selling point. Any suggestions as to a significance that I'm missing?
@DaveHiggins Makes sense. I suppose that it's a good starting point for the argument that what God is offering isn't just eternal life but and eternal purpose. If it was a poster for something like the Alpha course, I'd have been less surprised by it. I suppose that it's served its purpose, insofar as it has made me think about that perspective.
But I don't know if boredom is really what besets us in this era. Almost the opposite. I wonder what data there are on whether "boredom" has declined.
@howfar I read an article (can't find it now) suggesting the post-smartphone generations have lost the benefits of boredom.
The mind - allegedly - needs an amount of seeking for stimulus and failing before it turns mostly inward and makes gestalts of its contents.
So, by having a Pavlov box in every pocket, we're losing the opportunity for the sudden leaps of technical and philosophical insight that used to come from people sitting on platforms or in the backs of churches on a rainy Sunday.
@DaveHiggins There may be something in it. I notice that significant aspects of my philosophical development only really happened during a period when I was working in a job which included a lot of repetitive and dull manual work, rather than during the five years I studied philosophy at university. But I think getting even good qualitative data on that sort of experience is fraught with problems. You'd have to do a long study with detailed interviews. Quantifying it seems almost impossible.
@howfar I suspect they are referring to boredom stemming from incorrect values, i.e. people are so focused on the now of notifications and status updates that they don't know how to live properly.
Or they are trying to suggest that going to church is fun.