As an agnostic atheist, I can't deny the fact that religion is useful for humans. It brings us together to create communities. All of your differences are gone when you're next to someone who shares your faith and you're both worshipping the same god(s). I honestly thought about converting to a religion just so I can have a set of morals to live by and a community to be a part of.
As people become less and less religious, we'll become more and more lonely. There needs to be a secular alternative to church.
I hate this little faggot like you wouldnt believe
Jose Howard
I've reached similar conclusions OP. The older I've gotten the more I realized that despite the extreme parts that they got it right. Even the whole weekly social aspect where people grow invested in each other and developing social skills from as early as youth group.
Ryder Jenkins
Exactly, you get it. The last time I went to a church, I noticed that the preacher didn't even talk about god or Christianity all that much. It was just like self-help thing. He was talking about life's issues. People going through divorces, financial issues, death in the family, bad jobs, young relationships, etc. That was pretty cool to me. When I think about church, I think about some crazed Southerner screaming about you burning in hell because you looked at a woman's ass a second too long. I think a lot of people had these experiences with religion so now they refuse to believe that religion can be used for good.
Colton Torres
Have also thought similarly. It also provides a good structure to your life, which is immensely beneficial to many people. Unfortunately, I am not sure I could ever convince myself to truly believe, and in the end it would be performative. Could probably snag a cute church girl though.
Carson Howard
Indeed. I distinctly remember being a cringey POS anti-theist in my younger years. I tried going to many different churches of my own volition and I was too young or immature to understand why. To this day I am an atheist, but I value community and connection. I see know what the real purpose of organized religion is. And I want that, without having to believe in the other stuff. I have my own belief system and means of navigating through life and making sense of it.
Owen Hughes
Exactly, not to mention the negative connotations associated with being religious. People thinking you might be off a bit or even stupid, no. It's just that they have been right about it the whole time and we were arrogant and valued individualism too much. It's sad really, many people are losing out on something great and I say this as someone who is agnostic as well. The issue, like every other group is the loudest are assumed to be the majority. One other issue though I believe is you do need smaller churches, not the mega ones as it would be too difficult to form a real relationship with a person.
Alexander Lopez
You could just believe in God and go to church.
>inb4 nnnnooo I want to keep my nihilist faith where everything is pointless and nothing exploded to make everything, while I also simultaneously place objective value on morality and meaning
I think it's disrespectful to actual believers to pretend to believe in god just to make friends. Like I said, there needs to be a secular alternative. The closest thing I can think of is Buddhism but I'm not really sure if they have their own communities and churches.
Cooper Morales
I understand where you are coming from but I believe they are very right about the moral code and other things as well. People really should value finding a partner as opposed to sleeping with a bunch of people. This is something that we are seeing with women who just slept around realizing it's not all it's cracked up to be. Having a partner and having kids at a relatively young age (early to mid 20s) is a good life. I don't think I will ever be able to convince someone of this, but I've just seen it a few times in my life and they seem genuinely happy.
Chase Ward
Yeah the megachurches are awful and provide no value to people. They exist for no other reason that to make their leaders rich. According to Google, you need 2000 consistent members to be a megachurch. Imagine passing a collection plate around to 2000 people every Sunday and them offering $1-$5. You're making thousands of dollars a week JUST off of that. No wonder the preachers fly in private jets.
The best churches are the tiny church houses you find in rural areas. I live in a big Southern city but on the edges of the city, things start to be more rural. You find a lot of small churches the size of a living room tucked off in empty fields. I bet those churches are way more intimate and healthy.
Levi Morris
Humanists will always be a joke. >uhhhh let's create our own church except it won't have literally anything that the church is founded on, we can just replace all that with milquetoast liberalism and I'm sure it'll work fine
Benjamin Rodriguez
Yeah, those churches are definitely better than the megachurches though I think something bigger than that is better. Like we said, you need to be able to actually connect and get to know one another. If we have even 1000 people it would be very hard to form relationships.
Gabriel James
Some people are so fucking stupid in their black and white thinking lol. Who said anything about "milquetoast liberalism"? Why do you retards have to make everything part of your retarded American-centric center-left vs center-right bullshit, like anyone outside of your trailer park in Arkansas gives a shit? We're talking about building communities to replace the church as humanity rapidly becomes less and less religious. We need something new to bring us together. The way things are going now, the only thing that unites different groups of people are political beliefs, which isn't always the best thing to base your social life around because people end up like you, whining about liberals in a discussion about the usefulness of religion.
Robert Morris
That's the only solution anyone has ever come up with to replace religion, milquetoast liberalism aka humanism. You can't just invent a new religion, religion is based off of culture and traditions and develops over time. Any "community" created on a whim can't provide the deep sense of purpose that a thousand year old religion can. We find value in things we perceive are eternal, which is why "God, Nation, Family" is pretty much the second trinity of any traditional society. All those things are seen to go on forever, so people will gladly fight for them. I'm not going to fight for something like a company which could just go under in a year. So your idea of replacing religion is pretty much impossible, you can't plan that far ahead to create something that will last hundreds or thousands of years, these things happen naturally over generations. Also lol at the Arkansas comment I live in what is arguably the most progressive place in the world.
Nicholas Miller
>That's the only solution anyone has ever come up with to replace religion, milquetoast liberalism aka humanism African and Asian "religions" show how organized abrahamic religions can easily be replaced. Shinto, for example, isn't organized. It has no rules. You barely even have to believe in it to follow it. But it's something the Japanese people all have in common. They all go to shrines together, practice the same rituals and have similar philosophies on life. The only problem is that we'll have to figure out how to recreate Shinto or other folk religions without the mystical aspects. >Any "community" created on a whim can't provide the deep sense of purpose that a thousand year old religion can. I don't think the sense of purpose is necessary. Most religious people don't have a sense of purpose.
Alexander Russell
Thing is, people now are having less sex than previous generations. Everything is just more apparent through social media and the internet at large. There are real changes one can make to make that path in life more attractive. There is a reason why people wait so long to have children. You can't live off of one income when you have a family, unless you make an absolute shit ton. I personally think people should do what makes them happy without violating bodily autonomy. But if you want those changes in society it takes more than religion. The state of the economy is a huge factor on everything. It is brutally difficult for most twenty year olds to up and get married and start having kids. It is very simple.
John Reed
Rules and organization help the community define it's boundaries, aka exist, and help it develop. Christianity fell after literally centuries of subversion and infiltration from the richest and most powerful people to ever exist. I don't think some decentralized faith could survive such an attack for even a decade. What you're speaking of is basically just a cultural practice, which is still pretty vulnerable, some people will always be fine with breaking cultural norms or allowing them to be denigrated. People were literally willing to die horribly for Christianity, I don't think anything is gonna be created that meets that same bar unless there's some Christian revitalization (which let's be real probably isn't happening) >I don't think the sense of purpose is necessary. Most religious people don't have a sense of purpose.
Christian Cooper
cont. Studies have been done that show religious people have lower rates of depression which is helped by having feelings of meaningfulness in life
Luis King
>Rules and organization help the community define it's boundaries, aka exist, and help it develop. The rules in most Asian and African religions boil down to "treat people how you want to be treated". All religions have that belief in common. People's problem with Christianity/Abrahamic religions is that they added in a bunch of other inconsequential shit and said it's a crime against God.
I feel like you're talking more about a religion that you can build nations, wealth and power out of. That's not necessary and I think that's actually counterproductive to humanity and the main reason people are leaving religion. >I don't think some decentralized faith could survive such an attack for even a decade. Again, Shinto is still the most culturally significant religion in Japan. Besides, I doubt a new secular "religion" would even be attacked, as long as they don't attack others. Mormonism is a goofy backwards religion that people dislike but they're surviving just fine because no one dislikes them enough to persecute them. >What you're speaking of is basically just a cultural practice Yeah, basically. I think a cultural practice that brings people together in a community would be a good replacement for organized religion. >People were literally willing to die horribly for Christianity, I don't think anything is gonna be created that meets that same bar unless there's some Christian revitalization I feel like a lot of westerners who were raised with Christianity have this persecution complex and fetishize oppression. They basically subconsciously seem to believe that your religion isn't valid unless someone wants to kill you for it. You keep bringing it back to people being attacked for their beliefs and I'm not sure why.
