Hacker News Reader

Comment by praxulus | Hacker News Reader

I believe organized religion used to sustain social lives for adults, and still does in many parts of the country. Tight-knit communities have been disrupted by economic development and urbanization, but even in a big city you can get to know the people in your congregation very well.

View on HN

Which is a problem for sane people who can't fit into such organized superstition.

I'm not sure from this comment where you stand on religion - what do you really think?

(Don't hold back.)

Tell me, do you prefer vim or emacs?

Own any Apple products?

I use both vim and emacs. It keeps things fun. One day I'm a vim hacker, the next - an emacs guru. It keeps things fresh and interesting.

Not enough money for apple products and don't need any.

There are always the Unitarians.

Still organized superstition.

Not very organized.

And your typical UU congregation doesn't even let God in the door, let alone promote any especial belief except 'dude, whatever, let's talk about it'.

Then, rationalists meetups. They can still host a fair amount of organized superstition, but at least they try to be wary of that.

I was commenting on how religion traditionally sustained social lives for adults, and how that's a problem today as we become more secular. I was not looking for suggestions for people to hang out with. The point being, no one thing can step up and take the place traditionally filled by the church.

I'm not sure. There are atheists communities gathering on Sundays and chanting songs. In principle, one could imagine a religion grounded in reality.

Now if we're talking about actually competing with the Roman Catholic Church, well… yeah, tough luck.

There is still hope for you ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

No hope for me there; I like to base my beliefs on reason, not on copying another persons beliefs because I admire him, whether he's real or not. If I have to ask myself what would Jesus do, I've already lost.

There are "humanitarian" groups.

That well and truly depends, for a start on the demography of your congregation.

One of the reasons I had a miserable time living in Cambridge, MA was because the synagogue I tried to join was primarily filled with very secularized, particularly wealthy, overwhelmingly middle-aged academics and businessmen. The kind of "Jews" who'll go out to a paid restaurant for Sabbath dinner every Friday night, but won't order meat because they're vegetarians.

This was an exact non-match to a 22-year-old, religiously inclined, left-wing kid who writes code for a living.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com