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The US used to have that. You can still see the remnants if you look. Rotary International, Kiwanis International, the Independent Order of Foresters, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry - all those secular fraternal organizations still exist.

The core of these organizations was small business owners, a group which once ran their small towns, and no longer does. Some of those organizations existed to push back against big business, especially railroads, back when railroads had a monopoly on shipments to small towns. That function evaporated as trucks took over.

Rotary has a moral code, the Rotary Four-Way Test:

    Is it the TRUTH?
    Is it FAIR to all concerned?
    Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
    Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

That's a morality for business people, created by business people. It seems archaic today. It was once taken quite seriously.

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My father-in-law is very involved with the local Rotary where we live. I've attended a few meetings and play in the annual golf tournament. I've recently thought that they need to adapt in order to attract younger people (I'm 40 and I feel young around them) or a new organization needs to start (see my other comment in this thread).

What I like about the group is they build real, face-to-face relationships with one another. Plus, they do a lot to raise money for the community (helping local HS groups, families in need, etc.).

Maybe some joint effort with rotaries and young professionals networks? There are quite a few YPNs, and while their interests are aligned, the YPNs I don't think really talk much in terms of codes of honor or social engineering (political, not hacking).

Masons have the same problem with youth.

Rotary has the lesser known Rotaract program for 18-30s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotaract Here in the Cayman Islands the Rotaract club is pretty active. (My father is a Rotarian, but I haven't felt like joining Rotaract, yet.)

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is not a secular organization:

http://www.ioof.org/ - "Do you believe in a supreme being, the creator and preserver of the universe?"

http://www.ioof.org/IOOF/FAQ.aspx - "Founded on the inspired word of God as revealed to man in the Holy Bible."

I just ran into a Independent Order of Odd Fellow lodge a couple weeks ago, while visiting a new city (Decorah, IA). I thought: what the hell is that? A little googling revealed the underlying ethos of the organization to be highly attractive, but from what I can glean from the website the whole thing seems to have fallen into decay. Pity.

The 'pushback against big business' angle was news to me, though. Interesting perspective. Any references you could recommend to dig into that aspect?

From what I recall a lot of these where set up for those who felt the Masons where it bit to secretive or a bit to Deist for some peoples tastes

Masons are the quintessential white boy money club. They have absolutely nothing to do with actual stone cutting, they have have an infatuation with having a long lived legacy, like the Pyramids.

Most of the US founding fathers were Masons. They claimed to have founded the USA on Masonic principles.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/09/14/masons-and...

The problem is organizations founded to oppose the Masons are religious just as well for the most part. The ones that are secular aren't that big and don't have the money and volunteers to help out.

Corporations have gotten secular like Microsoft and Google and Apple. They try to do things to give back to the community. But still some claim they are like the old railroad companies and in it for the money.

> Most of the US founding fathers were Masons.

Like I said. Any sort of good principles, like religious tolerance, was a by product of wanting to put personal wealth as the center of power over religious affiliation. If you want to supplant the church, you don't oppose it directly, you route around it by making it a non-issue.

It is sort of what atheists do these days, route around the church with technology and science. Then get on technology and science issues the church may not approve of and then bring up social issues in the community.

Only thing is that sometimes churches get up on technology, science, and social issues like when Pope Francis supports evolution over creationism and then talks about working with atheists to fight climate change.

The Catholic Church has done well to distance itself from arguing against science as a refutation of God. It took them awhile, but they eventually learned from that Galileo kerfuffle. If something in the physical universe is proof God, it will someday be understood, thereby shaking the foundations of the belief system. They are slowly removing all links from the physical to spiritual to make for sounder system. Maybe they should use a proof assistant, ;)

Science does not deal in proof. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamen...

Science only deals with the observable universe, it cannot deal with spiritual things that cannot be observed. The only thing close to evidence of God is neurotheology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotheology

There is no such thing as a God-o-meter that can measure God. If God lives in Heaven and the only way to get there is to die and be judged good, how can one observe that? Once you go to Heaven you can't go back to Earth.

It might even end up being that God is an alien, the last of his race that was created early in the universe and has evolved for billions of years ahead of us and visited us during early stages of our development to help us along. Last seen over 2000 years ago and went home never to be heard of again.

Then again people argue that complex patterns in the universe and life itself is evidence of a creator, and skeptics claim that it came from random chance and not a creator. For every claim to evidence for a creator a skeptic will come up with an alternative to it.

I have to say that science does not have evidence against God nor does it have evidence for God. Atheists have taken over science to claim evolution proves God does not exist, etc. When Darwin was doing his theory he just left out God like Newton did with Gravity theory. So that it wouldn't be creationism and it would answer questions he had about creationism.

But yes the Catholic Church learns from its mistakes.

"The 'pushback against big business' angle was news to me, though. Interesting perspective. Any references you could recommend to dig into that aspect?"

This history of the Texas Railroad Commission may be helpful.[1]

[1] https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/railroad/fight/page2.html

The Texas Railroad Commission has a fascinating history. While it was started as a railroad regulator, for much of the 20th century the TRC set world oil prices and served as the model for OPEC.

Lodges, while at one time pillars of the local community, isn't the same thing. All the groups mentioned, are/were pretty exclusionary. I believe all of these organizations either currently are, or were historically strictly male. (Perhaps, the VFW was always open to women, but with the military requirement, it still has a strong a filter.) Furthermore, all of these organizations are for adults. While religious services and fellowship opportunities are for the whole family, you can't exactly bring a 3 year old to a Kiwanis club.

You need an thing for all ages.

But you can bring a 6 year old to a Kiwanis club meeting so I wouldn't write it off so quickly. I was in the Kiwanis club in middle school and ran our high school chapter, it was definitely a good organization. I'm not sure it fights the article's definition of a secular group though, it honestly just felt like a charity that organized volunteering efforts pretty frequently. My purpose was 100% to pad my resume for college so I dropped it to the wayside pretty quickly, but in retrospect it was a pretty good organization.

The four-way test doesn't seem archaic at all. Why do you say that?

> Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

I'd like to promote activities that are detrimental to some institutions and beneficial to others because I believe there are institutions that should be dismantled.

definitely nitpicking, but if those institutions should actually be dismantled, it might be beneficial to those wrapped up in the institution in the long run (while detrimental to the institution itself)

Because your average business today doesn't seem to give a shit about truth (see: almost everyone's marketing), fairness (especially to employees), goodwill (externality? what's an externality?) and benefiting all concerned (a third of the companies out there would probably not exist if their founders gave a rat's ass about their effect on society).

Call me cynical, but I get the feeling that morality and honor got sacrificed for competitiveness. Internet businesses are a special case here, they can afford to be fair to the employees and to care in a way, and yet there are still lots of them that are harmful to the society.

> … your average business today doesn't seem to give a shit about truth…, fairness…, goodwill … and benefiting all concerned (a third of the companies out there would probably not exist if their founders gave a rat's ass about their effect on society). Call me cynical, but I get the feeling that morality and honor got sacrificed for competitiveness. Internet businesses are a special case…

I thought you were talking about internet businesses!

Trust me, it's much worse out there, in the off-line world.

That's always been true. Look at Standard Oil for an example.

A plaque bearing the Test can be found at the Palace Hotel at the corner of Market and Montgomery Streets in San Francisco:

    http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM5WBJ_The_Four_Way_Corner_San_Francisco_CA

While somewhat on the side of the organizations listed, AFS Intercultural Programs[1] (formerly American Field Service -- volunteer ambulance personnel for WWI and WWII) does share some of the ideas as one might want from such an organization -- while focusing on (student) intercultural exchange as a the main method with which to increase what could be called positive globalization.

[1] http://www.afs.org/

Does anyone know of any younger, modern versions of these institutions?

Hacker spaces?

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