Obviously with the decline of religion, this situation will only become more common. People need a built in community structure, and nothing has stepped up to replace church yet. I don't think r/atheism is going to fill that void anytime soon.
Obviously with the decline of religion, this situation will only become more common. People need a built in community structure, and nothing has stepped up to replace church yet. I don't think r/atheism is going to fill that void anytime soon.
In particular, I think one of most toxic aspects is exclusion. If a person doesn't conform to a certain set of ideas or lifestyles, then you're not welcome to participate in the community. In extreme cases, exclusion could even mean execution. Our history (and present) are full of examples of this, which is why secularism and separation of church and state are such important ideas.
But at the same time, this known conformity to a shared set of ideas is what creates such a strong community. Even if a person is a stranger, you generally know how to interact with them if you have a shared religion. This eases social interaction and helps create a foundation of trust in larger groups where you can't intimately know every person. In fact, the tighter you constrict what people are allowed to believe or how they're allowed to live, the less unknowns and the greater the benefit.
Of course, this creates some horrifying situations for people can't or won't conform to the rules of the community around them. An obvious example is homosexuals born into religions that don't see that as an acceptable lifestyle. At best, they spend their lives in a state of constant shame and self-disgust, maybe suffering under clumsy attempts to "pray the gay away".
This is the first time I've tried to put words to this idea, so I may not be expressing it well or hitting the truth quite right.
If community is a product, exclusion is it means of production. The problem with religion isn't exclusion, it's a partially outdated set of rules by which the filter is applied. (And a missing update functionality for the source code, respectively an inherit problem with the rate of change, as too much change in too short of a time defeats the purpose of rules, exclusivity and therefore community).
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people. - GKC
The people I knew who were into it described it as the "social club aspects of church without all that other stuff." I don't know, it might work for you?
The Quakers do something like this too, but with a much heavier lean on the meditative aspects of a religious practice. The few times I've gone to their services it was much more my (someone who is fascinated by spirituality and religious practice but without that bit of their brain that tells them God(s) is/are talking to them) speed.
I view religion as a tool. And as with any tool it can be used for good or bad. Also, whether or not we decide to keep the tool in our toolbox depends on one general question - "does it serve a purpose?" If the answer to that is yes, then it is a valuable tool. That is how I choose to view religion.
I also think many of the "supernatural" elements you mention are not to be taken literally. However, I do think it is important for human beings to believe in something other/greater than themselves. I think it keeps us grounded and more connected to reality rather than just viewing our existence as some sort of meaningless accident.
Most of the other supernatural elements have to do with a fundamental structure of the world and the way we view it. Meaning that they are stories that have been condensed down over time to explain some base value - i.e. the tower of Babel, the flood / Noah's ark, the story of Job. These are effectively parables meant to illustrate a key facet of life. They are equivalent to short story fiction designed to explain a component of a larger value system.
That being said, I think religion in general is usually taught very poorly to young children. I know it's hard to explain some of the deeper meanings to children but at the same time, if you talk to a lot of the openly religious adults they also don't seem to understand a lot of this. I saw some psychology professor talking about this problem, and he said that his guess to explain this would be that these stories have been so boiled down to their core components after thousands of years that they have become extremely condensed such that it becomes almost like a form of subliminal messaging. Not in the literal sense, but rather that these stories are so foundational that they are simply accepted as core truths. And because of that they haven't been challenged for hundreds or thousands of years. And because of that, people haven't had to put forth a proper explanation for them. I'm not saying they are wrong to challenge them. Or that the teachings are wrong. I'm saying instead that because they've had this sort of untouchable truth to them, people are just told "this is how it is" more or less, and no one has really been properly explaining why those stories are the way they are.
For example, there are many atheists that claim we can finally just dispense with the absurdity of religion now that society has basically become enlightened with all these fundamental human rights, lower crime rates, mass education, etc. They claim that society finally "gets it" for most of the critical stuff and human beings are hard-wired as more or less "good" and religion has only stood in the way over the millennia. But that's only half true. Religion has been misused, sure. But the problem is that even though human beings are somewhat a blank slate but also somewhat hard-wired for basic good (babies have been tested and shown indications of not liking violence, injustice, etc.), this doesn't mean there aren't other forces that aren't religious that may slip in and do the evil work of "bad" religion when it is missing. It's also not counting the fact many of the things those atheists take as givens are not, in fact, givens in much of the world. Take freedom of speech. They say this is obvious and would be granted for all if not for oppressive things like religion. But freedom of speech isn't the state of being for many, many parts of the world. They discount just how much the very fabric of western society is linked to the judeo/christian religions. The entirely of society is founded upon those beliefs. So if you think you can easily just separate the two by getting rid of religion, I think it is a way oversimplifying things.
Hopefully this rant made some sort of sense.
I think the center issue is having something in common, which binds people together.
Once they get over that initial little hump it becomes friendly instead of just mandatory, but it takes that push.
How often do you make friends with complete strangers with whom you have nothing in common (that you know)?
Yeah, the Mormon in the other thread (hi) seems to be suggest that their supernatural belief system is integral to their social system, and that's a hard claim to disprove--the LDS church is possibly the densest store of social capital on the planet.
That being said, I believe there are other belief systems capable of inspiring these connections, overcoming them. There have to be, since they're all based in the nervous system. And, of course, if you're a Mormon, none of the "crazy stuff" is, ontologically speaking, supernatural. It's part of nature.
What does "a structure community" look like? I mean, how would you recognize one when you saw it.
Is there any other kind of person?
There's a mens group and a womens group, and the leaders of each of these groups make the assignments and then hear reports on how everyone's doing. All of this happens within a single congregation, or "ward" as we call them. And wards are dictated by location. So there's no concept of "church shopping" within this religion, which helps with organizational efforts like this.
> Claims that Joseph was a "juggler," or "conjurer" were a common 19th century method of dismissing his prophetic claims via ad hominem. Modern-day claims about him being found to be a "con man" are simply the same attack with updated language, usually bolstered by a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of Joseph's 1826 court hearing.
https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Was_Joseph_Smit...
But I'd ask you this - if a religion's values are good, its practitioners are happy and its role in the community is positive, does it really matter whether the religion is true in an absolute sense? Is the concept of absolute truth even relevant or applicable?
We've all met pious assholes. I've also met truly faithful people that renew my hope for humanity. The practice of faith is one of accepting duality, of not knowing the truth and being comfortable with that. Or of accepting that one person's unprovable truth is different than another's, and being OK with it. Why bother debating the unknowable?
While I agree that there are some people that view faith in this way, I have heard some interpretations of faith as the idea that there is an unprovable truth that faith allowed to be taken as true, regardless.
I think this is the type of faith that can reinforce the importance of some bible passages over others, fighting against same sex marriage, etc.
I agree that there is definitely some good faith, and as an agnostic person I'm open to a faith experience (but I haven't had one and am pretty sure I won't), but I also think there's some bad faith that says the person's truth may be unproveable - but that the unprovability doesn't stop that "truth" from being objective.
The faith you're describing seems similar in functional terms to what Simone De Beauvoir describes in her book "The Ethics of Ambiguity".