Your conclusion that atheists are “hurting ourselves if we shun all the positive things churches provide just because we find their beliefs so irrational” is right on, in my opinion. As someone about to finish college, I’ve often thought about the opportunities for working for religious institutions and how those opportunities are not exactly available in the secular world. Sure, there are spiritual counselors and charity or social workers, but the job of a pastor, for example, is so clear cut and well-defined: teach from scripture, relate your spiritual counseling to the outside world, help the needy, and so on. In thinking about this, I’ve wished for a “church” that offers a position like that, only without the scripture behind it. Does Unitarianism provide the answer?

The concluding sentence of your post is key: I’m not sure if they Pew results back this up, but surely there is a large group of people who become regular attendees of a religious institution because they feel they need to raise their kids in “that kind of environment,” one that provides the teaching of morals from some power that is not the childrens’ parents as well as a sense of community. So I agree: there exist options other than buying into attending church, which should be the most serious of commitments, to raising your kids. Don’t say you’re religious when you’re only at church for familial, perhaps non-spiritual reasons.

I’ve given up on every straight-out “humanist” or “atheist” group I’ve encountered other than online gathering spots for atheists who have something else in common. Why? SOOOOOO much time is devoted to what we’re not rather than to what we are. I hear a lot of bitterness. I understand that people have been wounded by religion, but frankly I have kids and wouldn’t want them around some of the stuff I’ve heard in such groups.

I suspect that if there were an Ethical Culture group around here, I would be involved in it. There isn’t one around here, though. The American Atheists vein is strong where I live, and I’m not comfortable with it.

I’m not going to abandon my atheist ways because of the shortcomings of the group, but I do understand to a certain extent.

It may be instructive to look at Europe (especially Scandinavia), where secularism has a much longer history, to see how non-religious societies fair without the spiritual or community opportunities that religion currently provides in the US. Though currently in the US there may be specific issues related to a transitional phase in the movement towards a secular society that are not at play in such countries. I’m in Australia, a much more secular country than the US, and I don’t see these issues as being particularly significant for non-religious Australians – I could be wrong about that though.
Cheers

It’s frustrating sometimes. It reminds of a conversation I had with Dan Barker. He told me that sometimes, if he tries hard enough, he still can recall a “spiritual” sensation, and he believes that there is something like a bell curve of individuals who feel these sensations strongly or not at all, and various points in between.

What I suspect is that many of the people here are at one end of the bell curve, and do not understand why other people would have a need that they don’t have. If Barker is right, then we need to seriously acknowledge this and stop telling ourselves, “well, I find no value in this, so this must be rubbish”.

Bingo!

Barker is definitely right.

Even though I have been an atheist for over a decade, I don’t have to try very hard at all to bring up spiritual sensations. I can still pretty much do it at will. I just realize now that they are not caused by the supernatural but they are real sensations and experiences that are not worthless or trivial. It’s part of my life and part of who I am. I would not want to give up these sensations and feelings because I realize they are psychological or emotional.

These things can be experienced through various types of meditation and community rituals and many other ways by those who feel a need to have these experiences without religion or belief in gods or anything supernatural.

I guess those who say they have no idea what we are talking about when we use the word “spiritual” outside of a supernatural scenario have just never had these types of experiences.

There is a certain subset of atheists that feels a prime directive to push for atheist identity, just like certain hispanic groups feel a need to press recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month. These groups have their own agenda, but we don’t have to play along just because they want us to.

The rest of us are happy to live our lives as normal human beings without pretending to be special because of accidents of birth or belief. Just because you don’t buy into the whole God thing doesn’t mean that you have to create an atheist little league.

Instead, you could just do what a normal human being does: send your kids to a regular little league without ghettoizing yourself in the way that orthodox Jews do. I’ll take assimilation with everyone around me over unnecessarily creating enemies anyday. When it comes to religion, you just do the same that you’d do with politics, sports teams, or any other controversial topic: don’t talk about it. Talking about something else really is no big deal.