PZ: you need to listen and read a LOT of things before you comment. You might learn something.

But why the ritual and ceremony? You can have community without those. Why not just hang out and drink coffee and chat? Or have a book club, or a lecture series? Why mimic religion, with “ministers” and naming-rituals, etc? It’s like all the superstitious practices, without the superstitious beliefs.

I think for a lot of people, it’s comforting to have that ritual only with the “religion” removed. There are groups within ours, like a humanist group, and others that do philosophical book clubs, etc. There are groups that do coffee and attend lectures and honestly, it is almost like a lecture series some days – the “sermons” are so diverse and thought-provoking.

I did an atheist group for awhile. There were about 5 of us. I like the larger UU community, even though we all may *gasp* sit and face the same direction for one hour on Sundays. Here’s a wild thought…I sit in a large room and face the same direction when I attend our departmental colloquia at Duke University all the time. Do I get “indoctrinated”? Hardly.

So yes, I sit with a bunch of people and we all face a speaker. But then at coffee hour afterward I can join conversations with the Ph.D. people about recent fMRI studies of interest or politics, or anything. I can walk up to the minister and tell him he’s full of crap, should I so please. And he LIKES that sort of stuff. He likes questions and thoughts and comments and challenges.

It’s like the groups you described, only larger in number. And as for ritual…we may light a chalice, but no one’s sitting there thinking “WOW MAGIC IS HAPPENING LOLZ”. It’s just a more organized way of doing things. And between the African drum group one week, the local Rabbi chanting Jewish prayer the next week, the choir another week, the guest ministers almost twice a month…I truly never know what I’m going to get when I show up on Sunday mornings.

No one’s forcing you to like UU. Really – I could care less if you ever show any interest in us, or ever visit. But really – to be honest, we’re not someone you need to attack. We’re a positive force in the world. Your energy is better spent attacking a Southern Baptist church.

Community – the opportunity to gather with others who share a desire for rational thought. I wish I’d been brought there as a kid…I didn’t get as much of an education ABOUT religions from just my agnostic parents. UU kicks asss.

But why the ritual and ceremony? You can have community without those. Why not just hang out and drink coffee and chat? Or have a book club, or a lecture series? Why mimic religion, with “ministers” and naming-rituals, etc? It’s like all the superstitious practices, without the superstitious beliefs.

The rituals and ceremonies are part-and-parcel of religion. They’re not just for show, but they supposedly achieve something. Like Communion is eating Jesus, or baptism is cleansing from sin. It seems to me that, for example, everyone sitting facing the same direction listening to someone pontificate decreases the likelihood of individual thought, since the point of things like that is to make you part of the herd. You listen and almost get hypnotized, and by following the actions, you become more enmeshed. Yuck!

I think of Unitarian Universalists here. They have all the form and appearance of a church, but without the substance of beliefs. I just don’t get it. Why bother with services and rituals that are basically religious, just without supernaturalism?

Community – the opportunity to gather with others who share a desire for rational thought. I wish I’d been brought there as a kid…I didn’t get as much of an education ABOUT religions from just my agnostic parents. UU kicks asss.

I also don’t think we lose anything by our becoming atheists. I abhor ceremony and ritual, and am glad it is not part of my life. I have no desire for funerals or weddings or whatever. If you want to be with friends or have a party, do so! You don’t need some excuse stolen from religion, just without the religious beliefs attached, to do so.

I think of Unitarian Universalists here. They have all the form and appearance of a church, but without the substance of beliefs. I just don’t get it. Why bother with services and rituals that are basically religious, just without supernaturalism?

That is what I, and I think many other atheists, are trying to get away from. Pining after the trappings of religion seems to give validity to the common religious criticism that atheists need religion.

I dislike the term “spirituality” because of its supernatural connotations, and furthermore, I think, like Dawkins and Sagan, science can fill our lives with more wonder than religion ever could. No need for anything more than that.

I agree, there is no need to invoke religion or even overt spirituality in a funeral service; a memorial should be about the person for whom others have gathered to mourn (not about spurious “afterlife insurance”), and there is no reason that a secular service can’t deliver exactly that.

~David D.G.

a nonreligious funeral almost always seems flat, artificial and impoverished — like a poor copy of the original…

Contrast a non-religious funeral with a religious ceremony where virtually no one in attendance is religious.

This happened with my wife’s grandfather; there were about 20 family members and friends, none of them ever went to church but it was a small town and they needed a speaker and the funeral home owner asked the local preacher to do the service. He said some nice things about grandpa (though they didn’t know each other) and then he preached at us for a half an hour, even “guaranteeing” that heaven was ours for the asking. I’ll take flat and artificial over annoying, but I’d rather have a slideshow and buffet or something.