I am not religious and have no desire to start being now but sometimes I just want the community people get with church. I am craving connection with the community and feel it’s very healthy for families and neighbors as well. The United States is seriously lacking in third spaces and communities. It’s leading to a serious loneliness epidemic… Just wondering if there is anything that can fill that need for non-religious folks?
This is something of the intention of a unitarian church. They use largely judeo Christian imagery but they don’t actually GAF what your beliefs are and are generally open to not necessarily debate but definitely exploration of non-judeo Christian theologies and / or philosophies.
UU Church is how I was raised. It’s a boomer conception of religious tolerance. Actually not insane, but also very boring.
Came here to say this. I attend 1-2 times a month and mine has so far taught me about breathing exercises for meditation and the shadow self from Jung. Just a group of great people also searching for community.
Sounds like it’s still oriented to a “spiritualist” at least though, not for someone who isn’t religious. I’m sure they’d be fine if an atheist showed up, but I don’t think I personally would want to be there. I do like learning about religions, but more from a “how has this effected humanity and changed the way they think/behave” standpoint, not from thinking that there’s anything true there.
You’re unlikely (but not impossibly unable) to reap the full benefits of that level of connection to a community completely without spirituality. There are many Hindus and shinto that are functionally atheist and I come from healthcare where atheist chaplains are actually a thing as well.
You are not separate from humanity’s history and attempting to separate yourself from it in this manner won’t by definition harm you, but will require a level of constant attention that I have not found to be worth it. It’s like trying to run the windows version of Firefox or Discord with Wine or a virtual machine just to prove you can. Just run the Linux version, or another program with the same function that is even better designed for the architecture.
I tracked my moods, bodily upkeep, and social tasks with DBT based spreadsheets for years but it eventually became exhausting. What it did do was give me a solid framework to redesign spiritual practices that work for me. Just use the software the human brain was developed alongside and use your processing power on things more useful than trying to feel smarter and more right about the universe, which is mostly just lying to yourself anyway.
I think it’s pretty narrow minded to say you have to believe in something to still have a connection to it. I know religions played a role in our history (often negative too). I like learning about this. I’m still connected to it. I just know it’s almost all bullshit. I can gain a lot from reading a sci-fi novel too without believing it’s real, for example.
I hold the opposite opinion. I think wasting out effort to please some supernatural thing is a waste of time and energy. This must be double true if you can’t even decide on which one it is, because they’re all mutually exclusive. I’ll just live my life trying to be a good person. It doesn’t cause me any extra effort to do.
Wow, this sounds rude. When was I trying to feel smarter? More right? Sure, and probably true (almost every religion is mutually exclusive, and there’s a huge number of them, and most have been forgotten. The odds of you having the right one is effectively 0). I don’t think I’m smarter though. I just think I’m more honest. I don’t feel a need to lie to myself, or others, that I think there’s anything beyond nature. I’m perfectly comfortable and content with that reality. Death, and everything else in life, doesn’t bother me.
You use it to help you process it sounds like, which is fine. You do you. I don’t need that. For me it’d make things harder, not easier. Don’t assume we all work the same, because we don’t. I feel absolutely zero draw towards spirituality. To use your analogy, we’re running different OSs. I don’t think I’m superior for it like you seem to.