Hacker News Reader

Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

Join a church (or synagogue or mosque). Secularism has a societal cost, one of which is the loss of community institutions like churches, where you have a wide variety of people, from different classes, mixing in a common space.

Also ... start a family.

View on HN

Knowing Ben, following this advice would probably lead him to join a Quaker meeting house in his area. While that would probably lead to some interesting discussions about Agile[1][2], I think it would have the same problem.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_x1hUeIZ

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M

Your suggestion to join a church doesn't really make sense unless you're proselytizing. If they don't believe in any religions, then they wouldn't join a church no matter how good the social benefits might be. If they do believe in some religion, they have probably already joined a church.

Plenty of atheists go to church. Participating in a religion does not require actually believing in it.

Where do you find these atheists? I don’t know of any atheists in my church, or any atheist friends that go to church

> I don’t know of any atheists in my church, or any atheist friends that go to church

Maybe they don't tell you. For instance, my grandmother didn't believe in god but was culturally attached to the catholic church and traditions. It's quite common (at least in western Europe where I live)

You don't generally say you're an atheist when talking to your church group, with a few notable exceptions.

It’s true, the professional backgrounds at my church are much more diverse than any other social group I belong to.

There are secular "Sunday services," at least in my area. They're actually kind of cool.

Community does not require religion. But community does require two things that are intrinsic to religion: ritual, and shared experiences.

Yes, I agree that church is an excellent group of friends.

Also putting the teaching into practice, by feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, welcoming strangers into your home (CouchSurfing/BeWelcome).

I analysed my Facebook Likes, and drew some symbols of the things I enjoy. Some of them have plenty of geeks (hardware, software, education, games), others do not (travel/environment, NGOs, music concerts, church). There are common-interest groups beyond sports.

https://github.com/peterburk/sortlikes

> Join a church

It's a good advice, but non-believers would have a hard time joining a church. As an atheist European living in NYC, I attended a couple of religious meetings (I was dragged there by a friend and thought it would be interesting).

It was interesting indeed. I can definitely see the value of these meetings. I got to meet new people from different fields and areas, but I couldn't just pretend I shared their religious values.

or play co-ed sports, and you can meet from recent immigrants to trust fund babies and everything in between.... and from all kinds of profession (at least in NYC).

A good team will organize the ocasional drinking/get together, parties, etc...

you don't have to go to church to meet different set of folks

It's not at all guaranteed that joining a religious community will diversify your social circle. It may very well have the opposite effect depending on the particular community you join.

That sounds like an expensive hobby.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com