I am not religious and have no desire to start being now but sometimes I just want the community people get with church. I am craving connection with the community and feel it’s very healthy for families and neighbors as well. The United States is seriously lacking in third spaces and communities. It’s leading to a serious loneliness epidemic… Just wondering if there is anything that can fill that need for non-religious folks?
Church without church is just a book club.
Dungeons and dragons
This is something of the intention of a unitarian church. They use largely judeo Christian imagery but they don’t actually GAF what your beliefs are and are generally open to not necessarily debate but definitely exploration of non-judeo Christian theologies and / or philosophies.
My guy said ‘no religion please’ and y’all still gotta shove it down their throat lol pathological.
Came here to say this. I attend 1-2 times a month and mine has so far taught me about breathing exercises for meditation and the shadow self from Jung. Just a group of great people also searching for community.
UU Church is how I was raised. It’s a boomer conception of religious tolerance. Actually not insane, but also very boring.
Sounds like it’s still oriented to a “spiritualist” at least though, not for someone who isn’t religious. I’m sure they’d be fine if an atheist showed up, but I don’t think I personally would want to be there. I do like learning about religions, but more from a “how has this effected humanity and changed the way they think/behave” standpoint, not from thinking that there’s anything true there.
You’re unlikely (but not impossibly unable) to reap the full benefits of that level of connection to a community completely without spirituality. There are many Hindus and shinto that are functionally atheist and I come from healthcare where atheist chaplains are actually a thing as well.
You are not separate from humanity’s history and attempting to separate yourself from it in this manner won’t by definition harm you, but will require a level of constant attention that I have not found to be worth it. It’s like trying to run the windows version of Firefox or Discord with Wine or a virtual machine just to prove you can. Just run the Linux version, or another program with the same function that is even better designed for the architecture.
I tracked my moods, bodily upkeep, and social tasks with DBT based spreadsheets for years but it eventually became exhausting. What it did do was give me a solid framework to redesign spiritual practices that work for me. Just use the software the human brain was developed alongside and use your processing power on things more useful than trying to feel smarter and more right about the universe, which is mostly just lying to yourself anyway.
You are not separate from humanity’s history…
I think it’s pretty narrow minded to say you have to believe in something to still have a connection to it. I know religions played a role in our history (often negative too). I like learning about this. I’m still connected to it. I just know it’s almost all bullshit. I can gain a lot from reading a sci-fi novel too without believing it’s real, for example.
Just use the software the human brain was developed alongside and use your processing power on things more useful…
I hold the opposite opinion. I think wasting out effort to please some supernatural thing is a waste of time and energy. This must be double true if you can’t even decide on which one it is, because they’re all mutually exclusive. I’ll just live my life trying to be a good person. It doesn’t cause me any extra effort to do.
…than trying to feel smarter and more right about the universe, which is mostly just lying to yourself anyway.
Wow, this sounds rude. When was I trying to feel smarter? More right? Sure, and probably true (almost every religion is mutually exclusive, and there’s a huge number of them, and most have been forgotten. The odds of you having the right one is effectively 0). I don’t think I’m smarter though. I just think I’m more honest. I don’t feel a need to lie to myself, or others, that I think there’s anything beyond nature. I’m perfectly comfortable and content with that reality. Death, and everything else in life, doesn’t bother me.
You use it to help you process it sounds like, which is fine. You do you. I don’t need that. For me it’d make things harder, not easier. Don’t assume we all work the same, because we don’t. I feel absolutely zero draw towards spirituality. To use your analogy, we’re running different OSs. I don’t think I’m superior for it like you seem to.
I would see if you have a Unitarian Universalist (UU) Congregation near you.
It IS technically a religion, but it doesn’t feel like anyone is trying to make you believe anything, is aggressively LGBTQIA+ friendly, and is also welcoming to all races and cultures (it is literally in their commandments to respect people regardless of creed or views, and respect their individual search for truth and meaning).
While people there are incredibly nice, welcoming etc…the big downside is that most people at UU churches are usually older. It’s got a lot of “old hippie” energy, which is great but they might have less younger people if you’re looking for people in your age group. You won’t really know until you visit your (hopefully) nearby congregation.
They do have traditional church services, with sitting at pews and singing hymns (a select hymnal with a lot of pagany hymns) and a sermon, but the sermon is always about philosophical things and thought provoking stuff, or more recently about current events. For example, when I went for my first time to a nearby church, the reverend spoke about her life growing up queer and everything the world did to make her feel like she didn’t belong.
If you can give the church format a chance, I can’t recommend it enough. A lot of the greatest most loving people I have met have been UU, and I still love and cherish them to this day.
Sorry if this is too churchy for what you are looking for. I would say if you’re pretty liberal/leftist and you want to find groups that do/talk about stuff like that you can often find those connected to UU churches in some way and they’ll never pressure you beyond “oh we hope you will stay, we love to have you” and things like that.
I am going to attend my local UU church. After reading all the comments and learning about it I am also a social worker and I think it sounds absolutely beautiful, and I love old hippies! I am not old (millennial) but I will be someday and so that’s okay with me. I am not religious but I deeply respect everyone else’s right to their own life journey and I see the beauty in everyone. I was reading the pocket book and it resonates a lot for me. Imho, the slogan / motto could be “don’t be a dick” in simplified form so it seems which is pretty rad!
I hope you have a good one near you! I met many social workers at UU churches.
Good luck!
The young adult and youth experience in the UU church was pretty great. Less church-y, more interactive. I made a lot of good friends when I was younger there.
Thank you.
Unitarian church
They do sermons by different people on different topics.
Unitarian Universalism. It is about common social values - you know, stuff like helping your neighbors and whatnot. You don’t have to be a particular religion, just be decent.
Hello and thank you for asking the question I have been waiting to answer.
I have been an atheist since I was eleven. At times, I have been viciously critical of organized religion. I have absolutely no tolerance for intolerance of people on the basis of skin colour, ability, or sexual orientation, identity, or preference.
My wife and I wanted to have a child, but we had no family and few friends in a new city. In any case, both my mother and mother-in-law have passed away. If our child was ever going to have much of a community, we knew we would have to build it.
Two years ago I started to go to church. I tried to pick carefully: I was not interested in hearing about how people are lowly sinners, that we need to be saved, that without big-G God we are all screwed, etc., etc. In my case, I settled on the United Church of Canada. I found a local ministry that had undertaken the process of becoming an Affirming Ministry - that is, a ministry that explicitly seeks to atone for past mistreatment of LGBTQ2S+ community members and explicitly welcomes their full participation. I sought this not because I am a member of that community, but because I consider it a sign of a genuine desire to be and do good on the part of the congregation. I am aware that the United Church was involved in residential schools and that the abuse of Indigenous People in such schools was horrible. The UC does not try to hide their involvement. They have apologized and are trying to make amends for the unforgivable things the church was party to - I think the effort to do better is sincere.
When I went to my first service, I was shaking. I brought a notepad and pen to write down all the awful stuff that I expected the Minister to say. People were friendly enough, but they didn’t know I was … an atheist. I thought that when they found out, they would chase me out with torches and pitchforks. I sat through the whole service waiting to hear the minister say something unforgivable so we could get up and leave.
So it’s been two years and this is how it is going: I am an openly atheist member of my church community. I don’t go every week, but I miss it when I don’t go. Everyone was friendly, from the beginning. Nothing changed when I told them I was an atheist. No one has EVER tried to convert me: not the minister, not anybody. Other members of the congregation believe different things than I believe, but we don’t get in each other’s faces about it.
Mostly, we sing and talk about what it means to be a good person. Then we eat biscuits and drink coffee and chat. Religion has never come up outside of service.
Our minister says that god is love - and I think she might mean it literally. Sometimes I genuinely believe that what we are celebrating is nothing more than the idea of people loving each other, caring for each other, and striving to build a better world. We don’t discuss sin or the afterlife. We welcome people of other faiths (and no faith) into our church.
A common theme at our church is the idea that Jesus has no hands but these (please imagine i am gesturing with my hands, and pointing at yours, etc). If the very mention of “Jesus” makes you cringe a little - I am right there with you. However, what I think they mean is that if people want to create a better world, we have to do the work. No one is coming to help us. Our church tries to do some of that good work: we sponsor refugees (currently a muslim family from Afghanistan who come to all the social events but rarely the service), we collect for the foodbank, do outreach to the elderly and disabled. We even organized a counter-protest when a hate group held a rally in our city. Church is a great way to find volunteer opportunities, if you are into that.
On the social side, our latest initiative is a games night. We also do movie screenings and play groups. We are trying to become, in some small way, a third place. You absolutely do NOT have to come to service to attend this events.
As for my family? They love it. It has become an important part of our social life. We know people in our community, and my son gets to meet all sorts - including our new friends who are elderly and disabled. I believe that a way to raise tolerant and empathic kids is to expose them to real diversity.
Not every church is like this, I know. The UC even has an atheist Minister (in Toronto, I believe) - that can’t be common. Maybe your town doesn’t have something like this. If you can’t find this, you could try the Secular Humanist Association. I used to go to their weekly meetings - they never said anything cringe, but they also never did much in the way of helping the community. Also, they don’t sing :(
Edit: i accidentally used a real name haha
Damn. Why cant every church be like this ? Why cant it be: be good to each other. I dont care if you believe in sky fairy or Buddha. But dont be an asshole.
End of sermon. There’s cookies out front and we are serving soup for anyone unhoused on Wednesday night. We would appreciate any volunteers. Be excellent to each other!
What do you call this denomination???
That is something I never understood about Christianity: Why would God place equal importance to “being a good person” and “believe in me or else”?
To me it seems like being a good person should be way more important. But in practice it seems like believing in God is the key and everything else is secondary, like you can be an asshole but just make sure you’re a believer.
yeah exactly. “Jealous God” and all that… I never understood it .
Awesome reply, and inspiring for what I might find in the last place I would have looked.
thank you thank you. I’m not a fan of Christianity, mainly because of the kind of Christians most people imagine when they think about conservatives. But after I got into Zen Buddhism, I heard some of Jesus’ teachings and understood them in a different light. I don’t even know if Jesus was a real person or not, I know there’s a lot of motivation to push that idea though. But that’s all besides the point. His teachings are generally beneficial for human well-being. If people live by them, and embody them, there’s good chance of a fairly healthy community. Not sure if this is actually a quote from Buddha (which is, again, besides the point) but people think so:
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
Linux User Groups?
I assume OP means something not online-only…or are us Linux users supposed to go outside? I wasn’t aware.
They also specifically asked for sth. non-religious
The only LUGs I know of meet IRL.
SOME of them. There are others that are more “ugh, another peasant” in their responses.
Do you live in a city, and do you have hobbies? If you like stuff like anime, go to an anime con, it’s great and how I know a huge amount of my friend group
Highly recommend volunteer work, perhaps habitat for humanity? Volunteer organizations are typically very welcoming, and your surrounded by folks who are willing to give something back, instead of interested in your wallet.
Several of the local game shops have table space areas, and “game nights” open to newcomers. Euro-style table-top games and D&D / Pathfinder RPGs are usually casual.
Check out the Unitarians
So you’re not religious. You just want the community? How about joining a club. Something that interests you. It’s an opportunity to meet like-minded people with whom you should get along.
I knew a Unitarian. He described going to church as more like a weekly potluck.
There are also local political clubs you could look into as they will be focused on local community issues.
I just started going to a Unitarian Universalist church. I grew up Catholic and couldn’t stand it. Instead of reading from the Bible or talking about God they are reading words from civil rights activists and talking about how to build community and resist ICE. I really have been enjoying this as a way to actually get out of the house and connect with people with similar values. This Sunday I signed up to help in their garden planning for this season too.
Fraternal orders. Elks, Moose, etc. The internal vibe is exactly like church but with beer instead of sermons. You do not have to be religious to join but some of them do require a belief in God.
I’m still a member of the Elks, although I haven’t been active in a number of years since I moved too far away from any local lodges. I made a lot of good friends when I was active. One thing that was always nice, back when I had to travel for work I could stop by a lodge, if there was one near by, and they would usually treat me like I belonged there. I always appreciated that.
