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Comment by brightball | Hacker News Reader

A big part of this that's unpopular to discuss in current culture is people actively avoiding going to a church. Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor in whether or not you can show up every week, meet other people in your community, participate in events, be there for each other at during the hard times in life, have fun activities for your kids where you can meet other parents and get involved in the community with those same people. At least in the southeast US where I'm from, churches have filled this multifaceted role of connecting people for years. All ages from newborns to elderly. I don't know of another community structure that even comes close to pulling that off.

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I think in a lot of places churches have served as a defactor "third place" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place) for communities. It seems like the decline in church attendance mirrors the decline in a lot of third place spaces. None of my grandparents ever attended church with any regularity, but I know that they were all involved in various social and community activities with the types of clubs that don't seem to exist anymore. Friends of mine with kids have parenting meetups, and I try to make technical meetups when I can, but the rotating group of people and the fact that they can be difficult to get to make them quasi-substitutes at best.

In a lot of countries - Germany, Britain, France to be sure - the pub is such a third place, especially for men. Their special culture seems to be in decline as well, but not as dramatically as churches.

Well the pub has several problems - social stigma for one, and not being free (and in fact being quite expensive 20/30 euros per evening is not much)

And as you say pub attendance is down by a lot too.

There's no significant social stigma to going to the pub socially in the UK.

I'm a member of CAMRA, the campaign for real ale. Every month they send out a magazine to members. On the front page is an article on the social benefits of having a regular local. On the back page are the member obituaries. Sadly, regularly drinking alcohol shortens your life pretty dramatically, unless you are incredibly disciplined with it.

Traditionally there was zero stigma attached to having a beer in the "Kneipe" in Germany, especially for the working class typically living in small flats.

How about sports clubs? I find myself connected fairly well there, and there also is an interregional network with international workshops.

As an Ex-Christian, I miss the "third place" but I do not miss the church. I don't know where to get that same idea for my kids but I also don't want them growing up with a belief in the doctrine I grew up with. I also have strong feelings about what religions my child is exposed to. I don't mind him being exposed to multiple religions, but there are certain religions I would consider secondary and don't want to be his primary exposure.

I'm fairly alone in this, and I say Ex-Christian to indicate I'm not Atheist but I don't know if that's true. Anyway, this is something I've been struggling with a lot. I just spent 3 hours last night talking to a Power salesman, because we had a good time chatting and I don't get that outside my friends and work. There is no forced place for me to talk to acquaintences.

Honestly, if I didn't disagree so strongly with the theology of the LDS (Mormon) church I'd go back to that. They are FANTASTIC for kids, parents, events, etc. They instill great morals (other than homophobia and some other things I disagree with). But they are in general very nice people.

So where do I go for a "third place" without God being involved, but I still get the, "hey man we missed you last week, where were you." and "Have you given your money to God lately?"

Sorry this struck a nerve, and I'm almost ready to go back to the LDS church just so Sam has people he knows but to try to counter the Theology by exposing him to other beliefs as well. IDK.

Do a search for social clubs in your area. They exist and have with a variety of activities to center around that may interest you. Finding a family-based social club may be more difficult, but not impossible. And of course there are the various computer/programming based meet-ups... which are really social clubs as well ;)

I've thought about picking up sports again. A lot of my friends and fond memories as a kid came from my dad's Softball team. That isn't a bad idea at all thanks!

When I was young, my parents brought me to church for a little while just for something to do. They believed, but they didn't really care, so it wasn't anything that was discussed in my household. Looking back on it, I only cared what they said, not anyone else, so I ignored all the church BS and just played or whatever.

I think that if you bring your kids to church, they'll still look to you for what to believe (or not to believe!). Be straight with them, though. Tell them that you're just going there to have something to do. My parents pretty much said that and I didn't have any problem with it. Maybe ask them not to repeat that in front of others though.

This is also really good advice. Thanks, I might end up doing that. I have to work something out with my wife obviously. I grew up going to both the Mormon (dad) and Catholic (mom) churches. So my faith has always been an oddity. Especially after I became an adult and began questioning things.

I have some co-workers who attend a kind of spiritual-social group. It's designed as a kind of third place for those who choose to avoid the Christian tradition.

I haven't been, so maybe I'm wrong about there being any kind of spiritual focus to the group, but I might describe my coworkers as an ex-Christian (who's fairly bitter about it) and...well, the other guy, I'm not sure. Maybe "theist"? My impression was that they're an open-minded and diverse group of people. Maybe you can find something similar in your area.

Do they have a name or some sort of label to easily identify the group so I could do a search for something similar in my area?

It's been a couple of years since I last talked to them about that. If I remember, I'll ask tomorrow.

And...they've both left the company. We've been having a lot of layoffs recently, along with significant turnover.

Hey thanks for the follow up though man! I appreciate it.

You could see if there is a local Unitarian Church. The Unitarians are bound by a shared commitment to loving inclusiveness, not religious dogma, and many Unitarians are agnostic or even atheist.

I've heard this multiple times this weekend. I'm going to check it out. Thank you.

I feel the biggest hole in technical/small social groups vs. church groups is the lack of permanency. With most church organizations there is a built in way to bring fresh people in to associate with the church, and a dedicated place to meet that you can expect to be there with modest assumptions 10 years from now. A technical group is generally completely nomadic, they have to do a lot of work to bring people together. The glue that keeps them together is flimsy as well- a tech group is less likely to keep someone who makes a drastic change in occupation (IT to a brewer) compared to a church.

The major lack of easy association to the group is something that is hard to replicate in the nonsecular space. There is nothing strongly compelling about a group that's focus is too general, and the difficulty to bridge the gap from outsider to inclusion can be too high for a group that is interesting.

> I feel the biggest hole in technical/small social groups vs. church groups is the lack of permanency.

You mean other than the focus on God and morality?

I'd love to see a public discussion on this. Intuitively, I think you could be right that church participation brings about happiness and reduces alienation, but it's hard to discuss in a complete void of data. I admit I didn't look very hard, but a quick search only yielded a Pew Research study which showed that weekly church attendance was correlated with happiness, but being in good health had a much stronger correlation.

There are a bunch of related issues I'd like to discuss:

1. Church attendance isn't available to everyone. Specifically, LGBTQ folks are often excluded. In a broader sense, does church attendance still make you happy and reduce alienation if you don't agree with the church's dogma? You claim that "Whether you actually donate and believe everything that is said isn't really a factor" but in my personal experience that was a very large factor.

2. Why do people believe that this is unpopular to discuss? You're not the first person I've heard claim this.

3. Instead of comparing church-attendance to non-church-attendance, is there data which compares church attendance to attendance of other social groups (clubs, activity groups, etc.) which meet weekly?

4. Have there been any attempts to replicate the benefits of church with secular community organizations; i.e. a group that meets weekly and someone gives a talk about some topic (science!)?

Church attendance is available to everyone. For thousands of years, the answer to your dilemma has been obvious. If you are excluded from an existing church, just make a new one. When black people could not attend white churches, do you think they just gave up and decided to be secular?

Parent is talking about a small sub-minority of people. Not large enough to form their own church or provide a diverse society to network in.

If there are enough gays to be gay, there are enough to form a church.

> Church attendance isn't available to everyone. Specifically, LGBTQ folks are often excluded.

I have been to a lot of churches and I've never seen this happen.

> Why do people believe that this is unpopular to discuss?

The Bible offends people. And it's very strange to discuss church participation without discussing God and the Bible.

For example, I believe creating a godless (or even God agnostic) church will be ultimately a dead end (at least in the long term). I'd be interested to read any research about these things, but I'm skeptical that it's even possible to study these things scientifically. Church dynamics play out over generations. You really need to watch organizations over many changes of leadership to see if they're really successful.

I realize that some people reading this reach for an empirical, practical approach to discovering whether it's possible to recreate the benefits of church without the theism. I'd be interested to hear what happens, but I suspect we'll all be dead before all the implications of the experiment are known. I'm not sure waiting around for a series of definitive studies is a good plan.

What's your opinion on Unitarians? They seem to fit your description and have been around for a wile.

In general, Unitarians are nice people trying to be nice. But nice isn't enough.

The Bible teaches that you can't have love without truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). Love without truth isn't really love at all. To take one particular, teaching people to be agnostic about who God is or even whether He exists isn't really loving in the long run, no matter how nice the intentions are.

And there's some real danger of self delusion in editing the Bible. If we are the ultimate judges of what parts of the Bible count, we become the ultimate judges of Truth. In contrast, it's consistent to trust the scriptures and the God of the scriptures. But if you take that objective source of Truth away, what keeps us honest about who God is? When there is no objective source of Truth, people create a false god in our own image. One that's cold and harsh. Or one that thinks love involves money and power. Or one that only hugs and never rights wrongs.

Anyway, I've never heard a good answer from a Unitarian about how they know what parts of the Bible are good. It generally boils down to their own feelings and experience. Typically phrased like, "I can't see how God could...." As if anything we don't understand is automatically false.

Anyway, Unitarians are generally nice people, but the ones who are Christian are heavily editing the commandments of Jesus from the Bible. They're very close to practicing another faith. It makes about as much sense to me as a Christian attending a mosque or synagogue.

I think GP was maybe more curious about how you would evaluate their agnostic church than about how you would evaluate their beliefs.

I find the forms of church to be fairly meaningless on their own. It might as well be a weekly TED Talk and Sing-A-Long series by another name. Maybe it's enjoyable, but I can't really see it being transformative. To me, the worship services have become the least meaningful part of church life. Higher quality music (even worship music) and sermons can easily be found elsewhere.

The accountability and shared search for applied Truth is where the meaning is. I don't see how UU churches provide either well. In other words, a church needs to be able to fire a pastor for heresy without being hypocritical. Otherwise, the word 'church' has started to become a synonym for the word 'nonprofit' or 'club' or 'fraternity'.

>I have been to a lot of churches and I've never seen this happen.

because youve never seen a gay person be escorted out of a church doesnt mean the church is welcoming to homosexuals.

Related to your first bullet-point, but there are also those who can't/won't attend because they refuse to be associated with the goings-on of the larger Church institution.

For one example, as recently as 1996, the Catholic Church ran slave-labour camps in Ireland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland

When these camps were eventually shut down, some within the Church defended them, claiming they had done nothing wrong but had instead provided a service by enslaving these women. Not something many sane people want to be associated with.

Japan and the US are also known for workaholism. Idolizing work and career for one's entire adult life can leave someone feeling very lonely upon retirement. Or while still in the workforce for that matter.

A good book called "Counterfeit Gods" by Timothy Keller explores this and other topics from a Christian perspective.

His argument is that work and many other things in life are inherently good and part of our purpose as humans, but not when they consume us. Idolotry is what happens when a "good" thing becomes the "ultimate" and it corrupts who we are at the core.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/...

Church attendance is much higher in the US compared to other western countries (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_attendance). Looking at the article, the death rate is decreasing in these countries, while it's not for the US whites.

Yeah, but other countries might offer other social opportunities too, where the average american city, and especially the suburbs don't.

Churches are definitely a great community resource, but I imagine that many people (myself included) don't want to be preached something we don't believe in every week even if it means losing out on those community benefits. I wonder if something else could be established, or even if such a thing as "athiest/agnostic churches" could be organized.

http://www.firstexistentialist.org/

Atheists go to the Unitarian churches.

You'll find that in some communities, the Universalist Unitarians or liberal/universalist/nontheist Quaker meetings might fit the need.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers

I've known several atheists/agnostics that go to both locally and the few times I've gone to either the meetings tend to be quite low in dogma. Not my thing, but if you crave that sort of community might be worth taking a look.

I looked into the local Unitarian Universalists, and they are very New Age types. I like their social justice angle but wouldn't be able to sit through their sermons/discussions without making faces.

It's worth seeing if you have any other Unitarian church near you. There's a lot of variance in their practices, from intense New Age spiritualism to simple discussion and silent reflection.

If you're not interested in the woo, you could always try the Secular Humanist Society or other similar rationalist local groups that don't preach religiosity.

https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/locations/

Thumbs-up for mentioning the Quakers. I'm not a believer at all, but they're generally great people and super non-preachy.

There's at least a couple of kinds of Quakers: ones with ministers and ones without. My wife belongs to a Meeting that doesn't have a minister. Instead of having someone preach, the attenders sit silently in a circle. If someone is moved to say something, they stand up and say it. Sometimes one or more people will respond.

Meeting decisions have to be unanimous. It's a real source of frustration at times trying to convince the last holdout.

Instead of a minister, they have a clerk. The clerk is elected and coordinates the church for a year.

Before we were married, we had to meet several times with a clearance committee that had to say that we were ready to marry. I understand many ministers do something similar but this was a great thing. One of the members said it used to be a way that parents could stall a marriage - things were different 200 years ago with teenagers wanting to get married. (My wife and I were 33 and 39.)

I remember reading an article about calling "root" "clerk" as a way to deter your boss from asking for root privileges.

Or just a community space with rooms that people can set things up in. Libraries kind of fill that role today, but you have to reserve the rooms sometimes a year in advance. I mean more a place where you go, say 'this empty room is going to be used to play games for the next two hours' or 'we're going to set up some punch and cookies here for people to socialize for an hour' or whatever, and you're good. Maybe be able to set things up on a weekly basis or something, so you can have a regular, predictable event people can attend.

I know there's plenty of meetup groups, for example, that have a hard time finding spaces that can host 40 or more people at a time, that doesn't cost like $50 to reserve ahead of time or have to be reserved almost a year in advance. I've been wanting to do a meet and greet for my group for months and haven't been able to find a good space for it.

I can agree with your last statement. Unfortunately, due to liability and insurance reasons, "generic venues for doing stuff" are pretty expensive and unavailable. I help organize a local group of game players and by far finding an inexpensive (by this I mean under $120/day) venue willing to unlock their doors for 50-60 people on a weekend is one of our biggest ongoing challenges. There are lots of businesses that don't operate on the weekend and have to maintain their empty office for 2 days a week--you'd think they'd be open to renting a conference room out for some extra $$ but nope--if someone trips and falls, it's suddenly a money loser for them.

Also, as far as I can tell, there's not really a marketplace for these kind of "single-day activity space" rentals, so I mostly trawl through Cragslist and pound pavement looking for HOA clubhouses and cheap hotel conference centers. There's your next start-up idea: AirBNB for temporary office space on the weekend.

My advice is you're seeing competition for business meetings. Yes the executive conference center in the woods costs $800/dy because board meetings are willing to pay $800 but not $801. Thats why in the city there's nothing to do but drink, and if you don't drink there's nothing to do at all.

In the burbs there is an entire division of the govt called "parks and rec" or whatever and I live far from the coasts in an area with a hyperactive parks and rec dept. All you need do is convince one parks and rec functionary that you should run game night and you've got your choice of parks and rec owned rooms for free. If you can't convince them, then you get to pay rent which is of the $100 class you mention and the city self insures.

There are issues, like no dogs or alcohol in the parks and park facilities. And there are first come first serve issues, you are not getting the pavilion on monday nights because thats projection screen movie night, tuesday nights because thats free cover band night, thursdays are free community orchestra concerts, and every friday night the streets are blocked off for a block party. Aside from festivals and holiday events. Of course that's just one busy park, but wednesday nights are open right now.

With respect to "things to do" the problem is defining things to do. If thats defined as drink until 2am and throw up in the street and take some beer googled person home, thats fun but its city only and nothing to do in the burbs. If you want to play a different intermural parks and rec sport every night with the general public in organized games, or have what boils down to club meetings or block/street parties or park concerts or festivals for the heck of it, there's nothing like that to do in the city because corporate has priced the recreation out, yet the burbs are incredibly active, because the burbs are where sober people go for fun. Recreational tree climbing, Adult tae Kwon Do, Learn to Kayak, every sport imaginable...

There's a huge parks scene out here in the suburbs (tons of Forest Preserves), but I don't think there's too many pavilions around (unless you count picnic shelters, and I called about those, and it's $50+ to reserve those, months in advance).

Only pavilion I'm aware of is at the local arboretum, and it's $12 a person just to get inside there.

I will look into it, though. I also tried to get rooms at one of the local libraries, but they kept saying their rooms could only handle about 25 people. Last meet and greet we had, 45 people showed up (it was at a local coffee shop that has since gone out of business).

This is essentially me. My wife and her family are religious and go to church every Sunday, but when I tried going with her earlier in our relationship, I felt like a fraud (as I'm an agnostic). I liked that they did good things for the world. I liked that they helped their community. But I couldn't stand up and sing about Jesus when I really didn't feel the same faith that the other members ostensibly felt.

I've heard good things about Unitarian Universalist churches.

> Churches are definitely a great community resource, but I imagine that many people (myself included) don't want to be preached something we don't believe in every week even if it means losing out on those community benefits.

Participating in a healthy church is way too much work if all you get out of it is the community benefits. Healthy churches:

* feed and clothe people

* take care of the abandoned people in society (foster kids, shut-ins, people with personality disorders, the homeless, people with immigration problems, addicts)

* talk people into apologizing to each other (yeah, like your mom and her sister after all these years)

* educate themselves about local issues (homelessness, drug use, poverty, etc.) with a mind towards helping somehow

* mentor and provide structure for prisoners and ex-prisoners

* are involved in global relief... they've been doing charity-water-style projects for millenia

* do all the normal boring stuff involved in maintaining and funding an organization with facilities

* do intense critical analysis (including studying dead languages) of the Bible and related resources

* provide educational opportunities to underpivileged children

* put on an 90-120 minute A/V production once a week

* provide huge amounts of child care services, including background checks, training, instilling best practices to ensure safety of children, etc.

* provide therapy for people that need it (techniques here vary a lot but every church does it somehow)

* provide mentoring and care for people entering new life stages (newlyweds, new couples, divorcees, recently widowed, etc.)

That is to say it only makes sense to explore if you are interested in God. If you aren't, consider looking for something else and good luck on your journey.

Yes, there are people (many of them) who just show up sometimes for the A/V portion of the weekend, but that's pretty much missing the point. Unsurprisingly, they tend to have a rougher time 'getting' the whole church thing.

The problem with church is that it demands submission in exchange for community. Not only believe this way, but dress this way, eat this way, vote this way, and if you're in any way different you're as cut off as you would be if you stayed home, and if you're having hard times you must have done something to deserve it.

I'm from Ohio so it may be different up here, but that's my experience.

Churches tend to be all shapes and sizes. The traditional ones are usually closer to what you're describing but there are many that are more low key to avoid exactly what you are describing.

And still by definition require you to believe in their idol(s).

"demands submission in exchange for community" - that's a fantastic way of phrasing it. I'll be using that in the future :-)

Islam is very explicit about this; the name actually means “submission”. In fairness to religion, all social groupings require their members to be bound by some form of commonality. Ideally, the shared beliefs/interests/ideology be as inclusive as possible but there is always some out-group.

I don't think that that is a trait derived or unique to Christianity. I think that happens in all groups be they religious or secular, where people find that they can make a majority of the group happy by instituting common standards of behaviour. It can start with something like a Code of Conduct with good rules like "clothes mandatory", but people don't know when to stop, and 2000 years later you end up with modern church rules.

"The problem with church..."

There are a wide spectrum of beliefs and interpretations across denominations, far beyond Orthodox , liberal, etc. And the quality of the delivery is still up to the people at the pulpit. A bad experience at one church or denomination should not be a generalization of all churches/religions.

If you feel that something is being imposed on you, that particular church may not be the best fit for you. Or you may be hearing something that is at conflict with the ego, or with an area of personal struggle.

Also YMMV depending on if you view church is a consumer good/service, versus a lifelong shared experience of learning and of putting others before self.

The degree to which that is true varies not just regionally but by individual church (not just denomination/tradition/sect, but individual parish/congregation.)

As someone who's lived in the southeast US my entire life, this is spot on. The Bible Belt gets a lot of flack, most of it deserved, but it is hard to overstate the importance of the church community here. I suspect this, not the religious part, is why churches have continued to thrive here.

The problem for me (as well as many others I know), is that the tradeoff isn't worth it. There is an entire generation of people who are receptive to religion and the church community, but who are completely at odds with the traditional interpretations of religion that preach intolerance and other backward moral positions. The so-called 'contemporary' churches that have been sprouting like weeds have addressed this somewhat, but scant few are actually progressive thinkers, rather than just traditional churches that play religious rock music. I would love to be a part of a church community, but not if it means I'm constantly inundated with a message that runs counter to everything I believe in.

And this is in my opinion why "nones" / "unchurched" is the fastest growing church in America: http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/

The question is whether the decline of the church in America is a symptom of other things besides the issues mentioned in the article and elsewhere (eg: churches being too connected to money and power, too focused on rules, too intolerant, too judgemental). Most unchurched still believe, so if it's just those things, then America is merely ripe for a disruptive church that would correct the current modern America church sins.

However, from what I've seen with more liberal churches that exist, the crowd is elderly and small. So I think that there's been a bit of a greater societal shift. "Make an atheist church" is not a solution, because that style just does not work for a more connected, global, diverse world where individualism is more valued. Look at this thread; many people in this thread are rejecting church because the pressure to "conform to the norm" is not worth the community gain.

Is it possible to gain the benefits of community, without sacrificing the benefits individualism? (I personally think the sins of the collective tend to be worse than the sins of the individualism, so I personally would not want to see that balance shifted to the sort of conformity many churches seem to demand.)

I've thought about this a lot, and I agree with you. I'm a pretty devout Atheist (is that the right term?), but I do recognize the social role that churches play and I wish there was some similar secular organization that could fill that role. Or course there are hobby and special interest groups, but I can't think of just a general gathering where everyone is a regular and friendly like my church was growing up.

Religion consists of a set of superstitious beliefs and a set of philosophical beliefs. When setting aside the superstitious part be careful not to lose sight of the philosophical part that makes sense. I think the reason a church provides social cohesion and belonging is because it is literally a group of people trying to become the best human beings they can be, a process that involves feeling their own and being aware of other's emotions every day, and that is a beautiful thing. I suggest finding a philosophy that involves looking into yourself and follow it with a group of people. Personally I am fond of fundamental Taoism. It involves worshipping no deity, but rather to be aware of the inter-connectedness of the universe.

'I point at the stars and the sky ripples.'

I would disrespect people who feel lonely by calling myself lonely - I have a handful of very close friends and am in a relationship. I don't find it easy to connect to other people in meaningful way. What needs to happen is both persons being in a spontaneous state, and that's a rare thing to find because at least one person always has somewhere to go or something to do, or is scared of something or is too attached to something, preventing the two people from enjoying the present moment.

One more word about 'science and atheism': I'm put on notice every time someone mentions those two as axioms to follow. Atheism means to me disregarding spirituality at all costs, and considering only scientific facts means invalidating personal experiences of themselves and people around them.

'A; Today I went X and saw Y and felt Z'

'B; it is scientifically proven when you X you feel Z but it doesn't mean you Z1'

The reliance on facts puts the emotional part of the conversation aside in favour of logic and rationality and reduces the potential of building a connection.

But hey, I'm not an expert at building relationships in the first place, these are just my thoughts and personal experiences, compare them with your own and build your own framework.

Like how atheists complain about fundamentalists, religious folks tend to be more annoyed by the loud atheists. There are plenty of us out there who may even believe in strict materialism, but are graceful enough to not disparage others beliefs when they share them. It's a shame you've met more of the former than the latter.

That's not what I meant - what I meant was sometimes people, me included, and me in particular, in conversations get into a factual mood and lose the opportunity to connect with how the other person feels. More to do with a preference for scientific proof to personal experience than to do with Atheism itself.

But yes people can sometimes be annoying.

> I'm a pretty devout Atheist (is that the right term?), but I do recognize the social role that churches play and I wish there was some similar secular organization that could fill that role.

A number of atheists have felt that, and some have even established groups modeled on the social aspects of churches without the particular theistic views (e.g., Sunday Assembly.)

It's so difficult to find a church that (a) values community, and (b) hasn't made some kind of big, public decision against LGBTQ people. And that doesn't preach guilt and condemnation in a thousand overt or subtle ways…

Episcopal

We lasted about five minutes in the Episcopal church near us. Our two-and-a-half year old was happily talking about the stained glass windows (months later, he still talks about them), when someone came up to "helpfully" tell us where the nursery was. "People are trying to be prayerful." She was slightly confused when we headed towards the exit rather than the nursery.

I think we're going to give it another try - we've since met some other members who were horrified at our experience. :-/ We'll see. If they want to drive away families with young kids, I figure they'll last another 20 years or so…

There seems to be someone "helpful" like that in every church. Unless your kid is truly disruptive (running around, damaging things), the best thing to do is ignore the "helper" and try to keep your kid focused on something that'll quiet them down, or keep them seated/near you. But kids talk, you can't stop that, and oftentimes don't want to.

Heh. Our kid stops talking when he's asleep. Mostly.

I live in the south and even here a ton of the churches are ok with LGBTQ and don't harp on guilt or how we all need to be saved. Unitarians, Episcopalean, Presbyterian (USA), Quakers, etc. It's still hard to sit through a service where you don't believe anything.

Unitarian, you just have to be searching.

I'm honestly not searching, though, so even the Unitarians feel awkward. At least as I understand it, Unitarianism is still at least deistic. The most I could offer would be moral introspection and some meditation work, none of it in real connection to the supernatural. I'm not opposed to religion on principle, but I'm certainly not trying to find something to place my faith in.

If anything, the best I can see aiming for is some equivalent to cultural Judaism, where even non-believing Jews are invited to attend major ceremonies.

Same boat here. I've repeatedly thought about going to UU events, but they're still too New Age for me. I've long been somewhat envious of my Jewish friends for the strong community aspect of the culture, which requires too much religion in other, well, religions. Nothing else seems to really drive as much community though, as far as I've seen at least.

I feel like this is a surprisingly common response (especially since so many people in the tech world meet a lot of practicing-but-nonreligious Jews). I have a lot of respect for UU organizations, but I just don't feel like I fit in with it, and I haven't found a good substitute. Solstice parties and their ilk are A) too rare for community-building and B) sort of a pallid imitation of real organizations.

Hobby groups and community organizations offer a bit of this, but it seems like there's a fairly specific identity/culture gap that's not easily filled with anything else for non-Jewish atheists/agnostics.

Funny thing about UU is, every congregation is different. I live in a college town; even the carpenters have a PhD. You meet all kinds at UU meetings.

But yeah the demographic of UU members is "High functioning non-contributors"

> It's so difficult to find a church that (a) values community, and (b) hasn't made some kind of big, public decision against LGBTQ people.

What's a 'big, public decision'? The Bible is very clear that there is such a thing as sexual immorality and that same-sex relationships qualify. I've heard arguments that a long series of translation errors means that certain kinds of same-sex relationships are fine, but even so, the Bible does say there is such a thing as sexual immorality. I haven't seen a church that is fine with homosexual acts that also has a coherent position on those passages of scripture.

The only coherent position that's possible is that the Bible is just a good book with a lot of good ideas, but I'm not sure how to organize a community around that principle.

Let's say I put my foot in my mouth and hurt someone's feelings and need to apologize. There is a Bible verse in which Jesus said that we need to prioritize reconciliation over religious habits. If I thought the Bible was just a pretty good list of suggestions, I could easily ignore that teaching because <insert reasonable excuse here>.

That is to say, I don't really how to remove scriptural authority and still have a clear understanding of who God is and what that means to us.

Yeah. I haven't squared it all myself, and I'm not sure I expect to. I do know that many of the oft-quoted passages are in the Old Testament, and thus explicitly superseded by the New. There are however a few troublesome passages in Paul's writings for sure…

Then again, as Scot McNight makes undeniably clear in the opening chapters of The Blue Parakeet, everybody picks and chooses: it's just a matter of degree.

Maybe churches wouldn't be in decline if churches were actually just social clubs that didn't require their members to all think the same way and believe that the people who don't think that way are doomed to eternal fire?

I grew up with a very tight church community. I simultaneously miss it and have claustrophobic nausea every time I think about it.

Not sharing orthodox beliefs may not be an impediment to joining and participating, as you say, but it will be a dividing factor over time, unless you 1) fake it, or 2) go to a liberal church. The problem with liberal churches is they're small and don't grow.

People are attracted to confidence, so when the preacher, members and staff continuously and confidently proclaim their certainty in that which is difficult to believe, attendance and membership swell. People with marginal faith would fit in better at a liberal church, but mostly they're turned off by it.

"The problem with liberal churches is they're small and don't grow."

Hmm I've actually been to Catholic Mass where the congregation is exclusively white haired and the local prosperity gospel rock music church where the average congregation age must have only been 25. You can guess the long term demographic result.

I'll throw out a dissenting opinion to the majority view that only non-mainline churches are possible. I met a very cool Catholic priest who had a long entertaining presentation along the lines of if you can't stand one guy on TV or can't stand one guy at your local Catholic church, that's OK because there's a billion of them and if you can't find one part per billion that offends you, you're not paying enough attention, and if you can't avoid that one part per billion, you're just complaining for fun and are not trying hard enough.

I mean theologically liberal:

* Not agreeing with the doctrine of Eternal Conscious Suffering

* Not agreeing with Substitutionary Atonement

* Not agreeing with the Exclusivity of Salvation through Christ

People who "actively" avoid churches often do so for reasons other than their personal life challenges.

Also, you're painting a picture as though you can come for the other benefits and not have to deal with their primary purpose of existence; kinda like a time-share salesman who offers $500 and a free lunch provided you listen to the 3 hour brainwashing session. It's a disingenuous statement. I know this from being sold the same free lunch - many times :)

Sadly many have become disillusioned with the church and conflate the "Community" grass roots social aspect with the "Institutional" aspect. It is this latter aspect that has let so many down over the years. I'm not going to get into the whys and wherefores but in a great many social settings people feel betrayed by organisations - erstwhile held in the greatest of esteem and thus - trusted with some of the most sensitive activities of society. It's difficult as an enlightened individual to be lectured to about spirituality by somebody who is standing on a shaky moral platform themselves. Then there's the wilful ignorance of evident truths because they conflict with some (likely well meaning) prescription written by somebody in a far away place and a long time ago ...

The problem, as others have said, is the accompanying theology i.e. Magical bullshut.

I believe, however, we would do well as a civilization to study what The Church (capital letters on purpose) has done well in the last 2000 years, strip it of magic and veiled class dynamics, and rebuild it for the social good.

I work as a data analyst for a large social service government agency, and I always joke that we should hire the LDS (Mormon) church to run our social welfare programs. Well, sans God and some nasty sexism and LGBT hatefulness.

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