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Comment by peterspath | Hacker News Reader

Go to church.

Data from various studies, including those from academic institutions and public health organisations, supports the idea that regular church attendance helps reduce loneliness by fostering social connections, support networks, and a sense of community.

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3551208/

2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/human-flourishing/20...

3. https://hrbopenresearch.org/articles/7-76

4. https://www.cardus.ca/research/health/reports/social-isolati...

5. there are plenty more...

also if you allow anecdotal data:

I have been going to a church half a year now, and the sense of community is amazing, made new friends and know more people I could dream of. So there is a way, there is a light. Never felt lonely again since.

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For what it's worth, I tried that a few years ago. It worked for a while. Then I realized that my church relationships were paper thin and that I'd be forgotten the day I stopped coming and/or I started showing that I didn't really believe in what was preached.

Got better connections through improv acting and role-playing game.

YMMV

I'm no fan of religion, but the situation you described is true for pretty much all social hobbies. It's just one of the early steps in making friends. First you do stuff, then you meet people through that stuff forming acquaintances. Then you spend some time forming setting-specific friendships. It's fine to have lots of these, but the next step is to break out of that specific setting. Starting with immediate invitations to adjacent events ("Hey, want to grab dinner after our workout?", "Want to grab lunch after church?", "Hey, want to hit the bar after work?"). Once you have a habit of doing that, you can escalate to invitations to non-adjacent events. ("Want to go to a concert this weekend?"). Do that ever 1-2 months, and you've got a general friend.

The problem is you can't really just go to church to make friends without at all believing or supporting the rest of it. Similarly you couldn't go to a hobby group while entirely disliking the hobby, hoping to just get friends out of it and leave.

Yeah, I go to church but would definitely not do that if I didn't believe in it and weren't considering it. Likewise I don't go to a synagogue.

This has been my experience with meeting people at churches, too.

They always seem like they're only talking to you either to get you to become a member or to satisfy their own conscience, but never because of you.

And it's been proven to me too many times. No thanks, not trying that again.

I've entertained the idea of going to church. My understanding is that a non-trivial number of people going to Unitarian Universalist churches are openly atheist and completely comfortable with that. So the preaching ends up being more about general good community ideas and less about dogma.

I have not decided yet that it is a good fit, but I am definitely thinking that I should foster some community connections outside of my own family.

I was involved in a UU church for a few years. It's a weird organization, and very unstable, with another revolution sweeping in new leadership (and completely new culture) every 5 to 10 years.

When I first started going, it was VERY open to atheists and secular humanists. New leadership sweeps in, and there's a mandate to focus more on "worship" and other religious jargon... and let the atheists know that while they can be fellow travelers on some of the social justice stuff, they're not really in the fold.

Last I heard, that leadership wave had themselves been swept out under controversial circumstances. But by then I was long gone.

I could never really get a straight answer on WHAT we were supposed to be "worshipping", given that UU's don't profess faith in any any particular deity or pantheistic concept, etc. I finally reached the conclusion that we were supposed to just worship the leadership's political beliefs, and not think too much or ask questions. In fairness, maybe that DOES make it a real church?

Reminds me of a non-alcoholic beer.

As someone whose childhood included attendance to various churches, this mostly reflects my experience. That's not to say that it can't or won't produce deep connections, but it is in my estimation more unlikely than not, particularly if there's anything about oneself that the church doesn't agree with or if commitment to that particular denomination hasn't been established.

Personally speaking I find the need to conform to the church's norms/expectations to not be ostracized at minimum chafing and in the worst case stifling. The third place and social aspects can be nice but being told how to live and exist isn't.

I can only commend this, but people should be aware that not every church is equally welcoming. But usually every town has at least one that is!

That’s possibly useful on an individual level, but not a solution. If existing institutions didn’t solve loneliness yet they aren’t going to without changing something.

Promoting church attendance might help, but so would any number of group activities the issue is why that stuff is in decline not that stuff not working.

As a kid I went to church with my family and it was full of nice people who wanted to help others and were very kind, lots of my parents friends were and are from church.

Unfortunately, it is gut-wrenching for me to be in church. I feel terrible, because I simply don't believe any of it. To stand there and be phony and pretend to love and believe in Jesus just kills me.

"Just join a group"

The whole point is that they're not doing that, not that they can't or that its really hard to do.

The problem is that being present in a group isn't the same thing as being part of it socially.

Would be great if you didn't need to believe in a supernatural being.

Unless you grew up surrounded by nonbelievers I'm guessing half a year ago wasn't the first time you've ever been to a church and there's a little more to this anecdote.

No thanks. If you've ever worked somewhere that had Sunday church crowd customers, you'd know to stay away from these people.

Sounds good, but I would have a hard time pretending to take it seriously. I wouldn’t want to lie to them.

You don't have to be a believer to go to church. Have an open mind, don't belittle it to the people there just like you wouldn't belittle someone's interior decorating who invited you into their home, and don't hog all of the potato salad at the post-service lunch, and you'll be okay.

I’ve been to churches before (accompanying a friend), but it’s very difficult to take any of it seriously. Sure I can be pleasant and respectful, but it’s hard to get much out of it knowing what you now know about them.

The problem with this answer, as with so much about various activities is that it selects for those who can.

> supports the idea that regular church attendance helps reduce loneliness by fostering social connections, support networks, and a sense of community.

Correlation does not establish causation. Regular church attendance dominantly occurs among people who have shared values (clustered around what the church teaches); that doesn't imply that an outsider can just choose to fit in.

This is "lie to join a group" for people who don't believe, and the dishonesty has negative effects on people as well.

The conceit behind it is they think there's a chance you'll believe after joining.

If it's not your thing, it's not your thing, but if 'lying' is really the only barrier, note that a lot of churches actually consider it part of their mission to work with nonbelievers and would take something like "I'm not a believer but I'd like to learn what it's like for you all" (or some other true formulation of your intentions) as a valid form of interest.

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