I should mention that I have already covered the basics, which is why I strongly believe this is a social problem. I have:
- Seen a doctor, gotten blood tests done, and verified all is "normal"
- Eaten very healthy, home cooked meals since I started WFH.
- Exercise 4-5 times a week. I am in "good" shape, and I am looking at registering to run my first marathon soon.
- Drink lots of water. Mostly avoid alcohol.
Religion is a non starter for me but I would like to find some community groups doing good things with good people.
I know about meetup.com etc but I'd like to have ties with something a little deeper. Preferably something without political and especially without supernatural overtones.
I see there being a big need for this in the modern world.
When I've moved from city to city I've joined a good local badminton club and played in local leagues. With that has come vigorous exercise AND social interaction. Latterly its also brought the opportunity to contribute to local community through coaching my club's juniors. I find this challenging in a very rewarding way.
You may vary it depending on your tastes about leisure activities, but there's a lot of social groups you can try.
Sometimes I feel like American culture is being sterilized. Just like white bread and a multivitamin, we only take what we understand and leave everything else behind. And then when we encounter social problems after eliminating church (or health problems when we eliminate natural foods), we are puzzled.
But most importantly from my perspective I see the fundamental basis being at odds with what I understand to be reality.
I'm not saying churches don't fulfill an important function, they do. But the order of things changes and even though change can bring a period of chaos we generally don't go back, we go forward.
What we know as "churches" are not growing, they are dying. For whatever reason(s) and this trend probably isn't going to reverse. So for me the solution is to move on to something with equivalent functionality but with less dysfunctionality.
I wonder if the "next thing" is going to come from atheists constructing such an organization from scratch, or from religious people adapting churches to fit our new understandings?
What I see being different in evolution this time is that it isn't an issue of whether God and Jesus are the same being or different beings or whether the Pope is the mouthpiece of God or the King is or Jesus or Muhammad was the last messenger. It's a whole different understanding, one that doesn't generally accept the existence of supernatural forces. So it's a foundational issue this time. I just see the non acceptance of the supernatural continuing to grow in the world and don't think it will roll back (may be wrong but don't think so, at least in my lifetime). So some important things get lost. Meh, anyway, enough about that. I don't fault anyone for being religious, I just simply can't be.
And I won't even comment on your connection to health problems and natural foods (whatever those are). You mean like what prehistoric man ate? And lived to 25 years old?
Similar to how a multivitamin and junk food doesn't replace a balanced diet. That's just an analogy to help illustrate my point, not a point on its own.
I think it's more likely that churches will adapt to our modern understandings than someone will build the perfect atheist social institution from first principles.