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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bulmabriefs144
Well. It depends on the town. Our town has two or three churches, and maybe three shops. And a library. When I moved in here, I was really super-depressed. Then I went to the Methodist church and the priest gave me a garden job. I met some people my age.
In a bigger city, there are clubs, but in a small town the only way to meet people is through festivals and religious stuff.
The thing is, charities could be done secularly. But often this tends to have some... less than charitable consequences. Not always, mind you. But consider for instance the Susan Komen foundation, an organization that is (supposedly) doing good.
It is possible to have a very ethical organization that is completely secular (Trevor Project, Doctors with Borders, and Oxfam are some). But without a set of rules, it is scattershot. Sorta like when you publish a book, you have more of a chance of it being good if you have an editor. Having a moral code means you can veto some of the fringier stuff.
I would put PETA's hypocrisy right up there with some of the worst of religion. Sort of a Westboro Baptist group.
But I moved to a very small village, looked around which NGOs they had, visited a few to see if the people and the reason for the charity aligned with my interests, and joined the Historical Board. Thoroughly enjoy it, and I was asked to be on their board a year after I joined. Now remember, this is a village that has a miniature version of Ken Ham's 'creation science' museum, so you can guess that I am in the buckle of a local bible belt.
Friend, provider, protector, Father and Mother, sustainer...in and all around me....
sigh. ( I do wish people felt the Divine as I do...The Infinite One is there
as water is around a fish...the perception just has to be expanded and the veil becomes
very thin.)
Certainly, there are things within religion that would be beneficial to atheists. However, religion is not the only source of these things. You can find a sense of community outside of religion. A book club can do this.
Someone early on mentioned Immanuel Kant (yay!) who essentially saw the good that religion did but wanted to remove the dogmatic or theological aspect. He saw that religion was a source of morals, but knew that there was no way it was the only or definitive source. He personally held no conventional religious beliefs and wanted to create a moral system based on reason. To summarize his main point (his 'golden rule'), he said that 'you should always treat people as an end, and never as a mere means.' Other key points is acting on duty and behaving in a way that, if everyone acted in such a way, things would work out.
When religious people ask where atheists get their morals, I point to Kant.
Many atheists do need a sense of belonging. Many achieve this my getting involved in their community in some way or identifying with a certain view point, like humanism. I've met the atheist who's more of a nihilist, and I do think that people who quite possibly depended on religion at some point, but lost it along the way and now are this sort of empty shell of a person. But the cure is not necessarily religion. A sense of beliefs in something is good though. I believe in humanity. That's enough for me.
Many atheists do need a sense of belonging. Many achieve this my getting involved in their community in some way or identifying with a certain view point, like humanism. I've met the atheist who's more of a nihilist, and I do think that people who quite possibly depended on religion at some point, but lost it along the way and now are this sort of empty shell of a person. But the cure is not necessarily religion. A sense of beliefs in something is good though. I believe in humanity. That's enough for me.
In my adult life, until recent years, I have been so absorbed in survival and/or care-giving that I have lacked for a "sense of belonging" to some larger societal group. Recently I have made efforts in that direction, assuming that I had been missing out (and also for pragmatic reasons, as I am getting old and may benefit from some sort of "mutual aid society" as time goes on). However what I have found is that in fact I am sufficiently introverted that my personal interests are mostly more than enough to keep me engaged and interested. People mostly just exhaust introverts. And I have little patience or tolerance for the complexities and undertows that are just beneath the surface of most group endeavors. Most people are not pure souls; what you see is not really what you end up getting, and running around in a pack only makes them worse that way.
I don't really think one even has to "believe in something" to be satisfied. One simply has to have a satisfiable curiosity about life. "Belief in something" is really just hoping, dreaming, aspiring for some goal -- something presumably better just around the next corner. But at my age I'm running out of corners and can just as well expect, via deteriorating health and increasing frailty, worse as much as better things around what corners are left. If you're focusing on that sort of thing you are bound to be disappointed. But what DOES reliably work for me at least is learning more and more about the universe and how people interact with it. Which, happily, has never been easier than it is today.
So under the assumption that religion is a placebo, maybe an atheist like myself could still benefit from religion, even though I know it's fake.
Thoughts?
Their Religion of Atheism works for them the same way any Religion works for those who believe in it. Why would you/they need some other ideology? It is obvious, even by this board...many Atheists embrace their Religion with greater fervence than most embrace their Religion. They are as Fundie as it gets...it's really pretty impressive.
Go forth Brother...go forth.
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