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Comment by citilife | Hacker News Reader

I recommend people try to go to Church -- even if you're not exceptionally religious (you can even tell them that, I've never seen anyone mind; though they may try to convince you).

It's an easy place to meet 30-40 people in a day, everyone there has different interests and comes from different walks of life. If you attend for a few weeks you'll often start attending lunch together, meeting out at some activities, etc. Plus, all you have to do is show up. People at a church tend to be outgoing, at least some of them are. Someone is bound to reach out to you if you sit there and drink a coffee.

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I would offer some hesitations to offer Church without knowing too much about someone or without caveats. Lots of people have religious trauma from being sexually assaulted/abused by church members or religious leaders, being ostracized for being LGBTQ or even just not performing gender strongly enough, or from being autistic/ADHD/a weirdo. When religion is good, it's a great pin to community building and mutual aid. When religion is bad it's a nightmare.

Eh, just steer clear of hardcore churches and you'll be good. Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Catholic, Orthodox, Baptist are going to be too intense for a first-time churchgoer, but plenty of other Protestant churches are very liberal. Hell my Lutheran church in Massachusetts even had a gay minister. There are so many liberal protestant sects it will make your head spin, to the point that recommending someone try going to church these days (especially with all the polarizing, isolating events of the last decade) is probably solid advice if they're seeking community.

From what I can see Unitarians welcome all the weirdos (saying this as a weirdo myself). My local church has Zen meditation groups, Wiccan circles, and specifically LGBT hangouts.

Ironically I spent a few years looking in all those places before ending up Catholic.

Everybody else "tolerated" the heck out of my gender-bewildered, 'spergie self from the messed up family, but it was the Catholics who finally showed me a love that would actually sacrifice something for my sake. Up until then, I sincerely believed "love" was like "Santa Claus" - a nice story you tell children, but nobody actually believes when they grow up.

Are there some Catholics who wouldn't know love if it came back from the dead? Absolutely. But there are others who stake their lives and well-being on the belief that love is at the center of everything, and wow are they worth meeting.

Love is great but it's even better if you can put it in action. Love without acting to try to help others, is that love really?

There are lots of suffering in the world caused by systemic factors. If you think all that matters is that God loves YOU and EVERYBODY then you will probably not spend much time thinking about the systemic causes of suffering, and how to alleviate them.

The thing about religion is it mostly advocates keeping the status quo as is. Religion doesn't demand that you use your brain does it? Whereas if you are serious about making the world a better place then you MUST use your brain.

I know, there is something called Liberation Theology:

https://www.religion-online.org/article/an-evangelical-theol...

"...central biblical doctrines is that God is on the side of the poor and the oppressed. Tragically, evangelical theology has largely ignored this doctrine"

I agree there are plenty of liberal churches. I'm merely saying that "go to church" isn't without caveats. You have to have some consideration about ensuring they go to a church that won't make their mental health worse, or that the advice you're giving doesn't come off as totally bone-headed (suggesting church to someone who was raped by a minister is obviously cruel, for example).

> ...being ostracized for being LGBT...sexual trauma...autism

Right...

I have considered this, however I'm agnostic asymptotically approaching atheist. It's not really important to me and I don't care to talk about it, but I really wouldn't want to lie about it.

I recommend volunteering with an organization you want to support or a group that does various things in your community. You'll find like minded people in no time that want to serve others. No faith needed.

This is not a bad suggestion. HN folks tend to be "anti" - I think that also is in part isolating. So many / most gatherings of folks don't meet the HN purity / behavior / etc standards (church groups / political groups etc).

As a note I went to church every sunday growing up - my parents (not religious) did it for exactly the reasons you described. Because we weren't religious there are some things that aren't a good fit even if its with other kids (confirmation meetings - I was very reasonably asked not to attend after asking questions because I was confused about the whole thing). There is a wide range of religious orthodoxy as well - plenty of mellower denominations.

I recommend volunteering in your city/town with an organization unaffiliated with religion if you're not religious. It saves that awkward conversation and gets straight to the point of both meeting new people and finding a place where you can feel like you're helping others. Like the Lion's Club International.

As long as you don't mind supporting evil organizations and being subject to continuous prostilitizing. I find it difficult to believe that someone who is depressed needs to hear that they're a sinner heading to hell unless they accept whatever precepts the particular church is pushing.

Not even a christian but painting all churches as "evil organizations" is super inflammatory and unfair

Evil is subjective. Some people think churches are evil while others think the opposite.

Some churches have done evil things, others have immensely benefitted their community. Arguments that uniformly paint independent groups of people with a broad stroke of immorality are usually irrational because people aren't monoliths and don't behave a single way, especially churches which are operated in a decentralized and independent fashion (eg my small city has 50+ churches, all operated by separate groups). OP's comment is just as irrational as the people who say "all women are x, all minorities/white people are y, etc. The fact that some people may subscribe to these irrational beliefs is neither here nor there.

Irrational is one who believes in things without evidence, aka faith.

Well, if you want to go down that road, someone's belief that they identify as a woman despite being xy is also irrational...

> As long as you don't mind supporting evil organizations and being subject to continuous prostilitizing.

lol really? Define evil. I view evil as anything that leads to disorder in the world (death, destruction, etc); churches do not do that - they often build people up, build in the community, etc.

> I find it difficult to believe that someone who is depressed needs to hear that they're a sinner heading to hell unless they accept whatever precepts the particular church is pushing.

I'm fairly certain 99% of them preach the opposite?

They'll say "here are all the bad things we do", "we are saved because we attempt to do good and believe in God [or if christian - Jesus sacrificed himself for all people, living and dead]"

Christians really preach self-reflection and atonement - aka be humble. Frankly, the world can use more of that.

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