A Pew Forum study has found that “most children raised unaffiliated with a religion later chose to join one. Indoctrination be damned. By contrast, only 14 percent of those raised Catholic and 13 percent of those raised Protestant later became unaffiliated.”
Being “unaffiliated” does not mean “atheist,” however. I would guess children raised by outspoken atheists would be less likely to embrace a religion.
Charles Blow argues that the nonreligious have a few things to learn from the religious:
While science, logic and reason are on the side of the nonreligious, the cold, hard facts are just so cold and hard. Yes, the evidence for evolution is irrefutable. Yes, there is a plethora of Biblical contradictions. Yes, there is mounting evidence from neuroscientists that suggests that God may be a product of the mind. Yes, yes, yes. But when is the choir going to sing? And when is the picnic? And is my child going to get a part in the holiday play?
As the nonreligious movement picks up steam, it needs do a better job of appealing to the ethereal part of our human exceptionalism — that wondrous, precious part where logic and reason hold little purchase, where love and compassion reign. It’s the part that fears loneliness, craves companionship and needs affirmation and fellowship….
Churches, mosques and synagogues nurture and celebrate this. Being regularly surrounded by a community that shares your convictions and reinforces them through literature, art and ritual is incredibly powerful, and yes, spiritual.
I agree that atheism’s main negative is a lack of community — it’s the reason many atheists join Unitarian churches.
What can atheists do as alternatives to faith communities? What do you do?
Personally I get around it by having friends and neighbours. Could just be me…
yeah, i can make friends with people not forced to be nice to me.
Aren’t you doing a community on internet, with your blog -and other blogs?
Is not the FSM church a funny way to do a community?
I see those as a first step, virtual by the moment
I’m not sure I want to have some sort of “organized atheism”.. that kind of things breed self-righteousness and closes your mind to different people, you lose the opportunity to see any flaws in your reasoning.
Even just reading atheist stuff on internet ends up with me wanting to confront believers and in general to affirm my beliefs or-lack-thereof to others, and I don’t like it.
I personally draw my social circles from my hobbies and my many interests.
I wish I could remember who likened organising atheists to herding cats. Dawkins maybe? Perhaps atheists tend to be more independently-minded by nature and need less community. If this is all religion has to offer, (and one of my biggest objections to organised religion is the in-group – out-group mentality it fosters) eventually other groups will spring up (dare I say evolve) to take its place.
God willing.
I think the ideals of secular humanity, including rational thought, could well be formed into a community center that could replace a church…such a center could run daycares, have weekly meetings, hold philosophy study groups…
I think the fears of a ‘athiest church’ that would oppress the same as a theist one are unfounded, because atheists typically question dogma instead of following it…or at least they should if they are true rational thinkers.
Dogma is always what corrupts community groups, religions, and political parties. So long as we can debate our ideas we won’t become close-minded. If this is layed as a foundation then it should not be lost.
There are many atheist groups around the country, and like Mike said they are very dynamic because there is no ‘right’ way to be an atheist, but still sometimes we feel the need to be around those we can relate too.
In general the new athiest movement only cares about directly confronting believers when the believers are trying to pass laws to legislate their morality, or are swindling people i.e homeopathy. It’s not important to deconvert everyone, but simply to protect the American secular values and be able to give believers an answer should they choose to ask.
Yes, but this is more akin to true activism, and probably not something that you do for its own sake.
If you went to an atheist circle to “meet like minded people” rather than affect your environment, you end up with a “in-group – out-group mentality” (as Mike Hitchcock puts it) meeting only to feel a vague sense of superiority.
If I wanted to do something to meet people, I’d go volunteering for some civil service; I did for some time ambulance service and it was good and useful.
My wife and I were fortunate to have awesome source of socialization fall in to our laps. A group of folks, almost exactly our age, who get together every Wednesday night to have dinner. It is an entirely impromptu group, unaffiliated with any institution, religious or secular. It apparently started years ago as a way for a few single, college age guys to get girls over to their houses, but as the original crew aged, and in some cases married and/or moved away, the group morphed into the loosely structured, weekly, BYOB potluck it is now.
Unless you know where I live, you cannot possibly understand how amazing this is. I live in the middle of rural nowhere, Smack in the Buckle of the Bible Belt. Leaving my Church felt like social suicide, and for months, if not years, it was. Then one of my wife’s former employees told us about this gathering, and we took him up on the invitation.
The group is mostly liberal hippies, and almost all of them believe in some kind of Nature-based woo. Many, if not most, of them are Christian, but they are all incredibly tolerant, and although we talk, raucously, about every subject under the sun, we generally laugh about our differences, and quietly bear one another’s quirks. We don’t have a choir, but we don’t have any dogma either. It’s nice.
I have to say you have a good deal with this type of gathering. I have started looking for something like this where I live. I think this is how atheist and others can best gather to socialize. I know of a few gatherings that happen every week but they are to far away so am still looking for a more local one. I think people should consider gatherings like this open to all willing to be tolerant and respectful of others can join.
The difference is that atheism isn’t a religion, and that many atheists, such as myself, have no desire to “indoctrinate” our children.
We don’t want to indoctrinate out children, but we do need to educate them. See my post below.
Before we pat ourselves on the backs too much for the increasing numbers of “unaffiliated” I think we have to consider just how ignorant of religion people have become. I think a lot of the unaffiliated are people who are generally doubtful and seriously ignorant. They are ripe for conversion to a religion due to their ignorance.
I teach European history at a high school in a prosperous suburban school district. When I teach the Protestant Reformation I get questions such as, “Mr. Hepius, I’m a Catholic, does that make me a Christian?” or “I’m a Methodist, what does that mean?” Given a solid dose of good old evangelism these people are full tilt back in the religious fold.
Their doubtful/semi-unaffiliated nature is nothing like conscious atheism/agnosticism/deism, it is just born out of clueless ignorance.
I play computer games (world of warcraft) where we have a big meeting at least once every 2 months (sometimes more often).
I do Larp (live action role play) where i go running in the woods in medieval costumes with friends, playing knight… so to say..
and friends just.. drop by.. and we got out.. adn we have fun and get drunk and dance all night.
” and we got out.. adn we have fun and get drunk and dance all night. ”
Eat drink and be merry for tommorow we may die.
I used to be involved in some online games/communities, although between work and family, I have had very little time for anything like that these days. I figure I’ll get involved again once life settles down a little more.
As far as raising nonreligious children is concerned, it seems to me the only “indoctrination” that should be needed is a critical mind. Other than that, encouraging community involvement would probably go a long way. I remember when I was growing up, the local neighborhood association was always organizing picnics, games, arts and crafts, and other activities to keep the kids entertained and give the adults an excuse to socialize.
lack of community? what is this place then? even though it’s on the internet and we don’t get to meet face to face, i consider this as strong, if not stronger, a communtiy than any church i’ve been to.
I do too. But it’s not quite the same as eating a meal together and talking, which I also enjoy!
I’m with you here, Daniel. I do enjoy getting together with a few friends for quiet conversation about the big things in live.
Are you really my dad?
No, I’m your daddy, Ty. :)
I’m Sparticus!
Wow. This just went from Athiest blog to day-time television drama. Crap, does that mean I am going to get amnesia, because I seriously don’t have time for that.
“What can atheists do as alternatives to faith communities? What do you do?”
Personally I’m not that interested in a organized atheist community. It seems contrived to me. In my experience atheists vary widely on many opinions/issues, except that we all lack a belief in god(s). getting together to celebrate a lack of belief doesn’t seem like a ton of fun.
Of course – I’m not much for socializing anyway so maybe it’s just me.
No Bill it isn’t just you. I am the same way. I prefer talking to people online and making comments on bogs then dealing with people in person. Most of the people I know are pretty boring to talk to since they seem to only want to talk about the same stuff every time we get together. I do try to go out once a month to mingle but tend to watch more then join in.
I feel similarly, but that’s only because — like you — I find most people boring. We need to get a UF conference so we can all meet interesting people in real life. ;)
Yes, yes, a conference.
You are right, Dan. The problem is that online we get to know the real geeks who are, perhaps, the most intelligent atheists around. The real life ones aren’t nearly as interesting. But I would love to attend a convention of online atheists. That would be so cool!
I second that!
I third that!
forth!
I think he’s talking about an actual community, not a virtual one. I love thiis blog and others, but we’re one of the ones who joined a Unitarian church so we could do some good in communion with others. Let’s face it, it’s often a lot more fun to help others if you’re also having a good time. Also, we didn’t want our kids to be so unaware of what religion is that they fall for the first revival meeting that comes to town. I’ve seen that happen to too many kids. They’re raised w/o any “religion” and then they fall in the w/the proselytizers and come home and say “Why didn’t you ever take me to church! It’s so great. They have music and cookies and they all do good things together! I’m becoming a Baptist!”
I recently discovered Rational Sunday School and love the idea.
I use http://www.meetup.com
Clearly, ritual and imagination are an essential part of our heritage and I daresay throughout time many of us didn’t believe in them literally, wherever we participated and however our culture interpreted them. Traditions, magical connections, feasting- all of this did contribute to community and culture. I recommend Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul and The Soul’s Religion and The Reenchantment of Every Day Life to Christians seeking to expand their perspective, and to atheists seeking a bit of magic in the dry dust of daily living. Moore sees spirits of myth in everything from vegetables to old bookstores, and he brings classical mythology stories alive, stories of the gods and sex and depression and turmoil, so that we can see vivid theatre in our daily affairs. Of course, no one would ever say there really are sprites and goblins and angels and half-man-half-beasts but using myth the way we used to explain or experience life before we ‘knew better’ is even more enriching now that we do know better. I’m still fumbling helplessly about in my newfound reasonable unfaith, and rereading Moore’s books have made me feel secure that life will not completely lose its magic. In fact, the more connected I feel to everyday life, here and now, the more important life feels.
Funny. On another topic stream I asked the question What, if anything, is good about religion. The only responder said he didn’t know where I was coming from. I guess I understand the reservation in the contentious climate that prevails in the blogosphere. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a question is just a question. So, anyway, I guess I will take this as one answer to my impertinent query: it provides “companionship…affirmation…fellowship”
“Churches, mosques and synagogues nurture and celebrate this. Being regularly surrounded by a community that shares your convictions and reinforces them through literature, art and ritual is incredibly powerful, and yes, spiritual.”
Sounds to me like circular reasoning. To me, the “cold, hard” facts are astonishing and even cuddly at times. There is so much beauty within facts, that I personally find the description of “cold” and “hard” almost insulting.
Yes, I must admit, that when dealing with human nature, the results are often bleak, especially when compared to what is possible. But still, nothing gives me more comfort than a solid fact, knowing that it is the best mankind can to at this very moment. It cannot possibly get any better, unless some scientists deiscover one more fraction of truth. But that’s just me…
Yes yes and again yes!
The cold hard fact can be hugely enticing if faced with just a drop of passion and curiosity.
What to do? Where to gather and communicate?
The , ladies and gentlemen. For those not in the know, it’s a music festival in the Texas Hill Country, and is a great place for hippies (of all kinds, with and without woo) to unwind, recharge, socialize, and generally repair oneself after yet another year of drudgery at the (office, school, whatever). Beats the hell out of therapy or dogma, and there’s great music, too.
stay sane
-Shrubber
oops. Apologies for my lack of skill. That’s the Kerrville Folk Festival I’m referring to.
I had explained in another thread, this is how I was raised. Although we heard about atheistic thought from my grandfather, we never spoke of it at home. It wasn’t the only thing he ever talked about, it wasn’t like he sat us down and taught us. He would read something and talk about it, like anything else he might have read and talked about – asserting his belief. I never really thought about it most of the time or think we were freaks for not going to church. In my late teens, I tried to figure out what god could be and if he was there and if he affected my life, and had arguments at the time with my grandfather. I don’t consider myself “raised” atheist, such as it is, indoctrinated or whatever. I think floating around with “no beliefs,” there is a risk, if you want to call it that, that the person will examine their thoughts on the subject and conclude one way or the other.
I think it’s easier for some people to just believe in god after all that. We are socialized with religion as the norm, and god as at least vague but existent. Hearing things, like “Everything happens for a reason,” without explanation for that reason…. I lost my home due to fire once, the reason being a propane tank exploded on the first floor and burned the building down. I actually don’t know if that was ever determined to be the factual cause of the fire, but use it to explore the word “reason” with an actual reason as opposed to some mysterious god-decided reason that most people do not question.
Without much effort, I am prone to recognize coincidences as coincidences. Fires happen, and sometimes you might live right where they do. It has become impossible for me to think that my life and the lives of others are manipulated by an invisible mystery who has a plan for everything. If he wants us to see how petty and pointless our earthly activities are, then why would he manipulate things like what job you get, what boy you marry, having to clean the bathtub, buy a pepsi, have a lot of shoes, bring your books back to the library, like a dog or a cat better, decide whether chicken mcnuggets count as food, and worry who is the president. And then occasionally set you up for a wake-up call, so that people can tell you “everything happens for a reason,” so you can get your life in order for him?
I reason these things out without a lot of effort or examination of my own thoughts on the subject. As an adult, I rarely get into conversations like this. I think from time to time everyone should, if they’re not thinking about it every day, not take their atheism for granted, or their religious beliefs. It’s good to talk about it, think about what you already think and articulate it, even attempt to believe in god. I sometimes do this, just to check. Nope, still not there.
I think I would raise my children without a god, i.e. tell them it’s a cultural construct and the various examples and reasons why people like to believe in god. I don’t think that’s “indoctrination,” but I would help them make sure, and not just agree with what I said. They should read more than I do. I didn’t get much information from anywhere to feed my atheistic “philosophy,” it’s just that there’s no god, and whatever the question is, I think about it in those terms and articulate it from my own ideas. I don’t believe in joining groups about it. I like that there’s a blog here as a format to discuss these ideas with other atheists and some theists, some with questions and some with all the answers, but I don’t consider this a club of atheists to join. It’s a discussion and I may leave soon or I may stay a while. Having dialogues helps me with my own exploration for the time being, but I don’t believe in an atheist community model as an analogue to a religious service, or in sermonizing in general. I don’t care to attract members and expand the popularity of atheism, and for the most part, religious people don’t bother me by being religious.
I would guess children raised by outspoken atheists would be less likely to embrace a religion.
Good point, Dan. In the past, parents disliked church, but sent their children to Sunday school, to learn morals, or to be scared by hell, maybe.
What do I do instead of church?
Nothing, unfortunately. But if I had kids, I’d probably get them to join a tennis club, or a soccer team, or better yet, a hockey team. I would be a hockey mom. Those ladies are busy organizing fund raisers, driving kids around to practice and tournaments, etc.
Also, community centres have programs for people of all ages and interests.
I would guess children raised by outspoken atheists would be less likely to embrace a religion.
I think that children raised by absolutists of any kind, tend to become absolutists themselves – whether absolute atheists, or absolute believers. Although, this opinion is based mostly on family anecdote so feel free to shoot holes in it.
I suspect that marriage to a religious person with a religious family is one of the biggest risks for atheist backsliding. I think most of us know nonreligious people, or even positive atheists, who got married to a religious person – and then there’s the concession for the religious wedding, and the shutting up around the religious in-laws, and then the baptism, and then the kids are in Sunday school. By that point it’s a little late to start objecting. And you see your atheist friend and s/he says “Well, it’s not so bad…” and changes the subject. Consequently, I never made a secret of my atheism, and I never got into trouble when relationships got serious – my partners knew from the start that if we ever got married, there could be no religion in our house. Today I’m a married atheist, married to an (ap)atheist by the great city of San Francisco baby!
Yeah you’ve really got to watch out, ’cause when atheists backslide they may find life has a metaphysical purpose, love is more than a chemical reaction, eternity is real, and God is awesome. You sure don’t want that to happen.
Community doesn’t require religion. Atheists can be in community with whoever they want to. Many of my friends are Christian.
Having friends over to my house to have a few beers and watch football is a much better community than sitting in a hall full of people listening to a boring sermon anyway.
Community does indeed not require religion – on the other hand religion does provide community. If nothing else.
I did attend a Unitarian Universalist church for awhile. I don’t go anymore, but I met some of my best friends there (who still ask if and when I’m coming back). I really did like it, but even there I felt slightly outcast as a skeptic. There’s a lot of woo that creeps in, and debunking it makes you stand out as someone who disrespects others’ beliefs. I’ve had people tell me that I’m not being any different that the conservative fundamentalists (politely, during lively discourse, over a cup of coffee, these are UU’s after all)
I guess I’m lucky to live in Charlotte NC. Everyone here is a transplant, so building a community of friends wasn’t hard at all.
Volunteer for social services.
Get involved into the politics of your town.
Make parties and invite the friends of friends.
Pursue your hobbies and interests with people that love the same things as you do.
Meet a fuckload of people and after a while you’ll have stable social circle of friends that organize and do things together, pretty spontaneusly.
Being surrounded by the woolly minded, those who chose to believe because it made them feel better, or simply never thought about it, just made me depressed.
Think. Believe what is true.
I spend most of my time with my kids and wife going on fishing trips or family activities like making music and playing sports. I have old friends and family whom I keep in contact with regularly. Also, I make anti-religious death metal and graphic imagery depicting the desecration of holy idols and share it with many people who like ant-religious death metal and images depicting the desecration of holy idols.
You know, just regular stuff.
What a load of BS!!!
I joined the local Judo club, TaiChi, and Y.
I belong to the SCA (SCA.org) nothing as healing as whacking the crap out of someone or get whacked back, along with archery, arts&crafts, dancing, historical studies, camping, & music all rolled into a weekend. SquareDancing, Ballroom, etc. Rock climbing and Hashing (google it). Who needs to hang out with theistards throwing gOd crap around.
Other than coming to this site, I have people at work that I can talk to. When I first started to research God or lack there of, I was fearfull of bringing the subject up. I now know lots of Atheists that wokr side by side with me every day. And day by day, my fear is going away. I feel that, not only has this site helped me tremendously, but my friends helped point me in the right direction.
The most common reason given for joining a religion was that their spiritual needs weren’t being met (straight-forward paraphrase). So these are people who would probably consider themselves spiritual in the first place.
I’m a bit of a math/science nerd, and I think that stuff satisfies the closest feelings I have to what might be called “spiritual needs.” Knowing a little bit about astronomy can be pretty humbling. Learning about cosmology gives you a good chunk of the creation story, with stars coalescing from chaos only to explode, scattering atoms that would seed themselves in younger, smaller stars to become the material for planetary systems — it demonstrates our deep and ancient connection to the earth, the sun, and to the universe itself. Biology picks up a billion and a half years later and shows us how all of us are descended from one or a few early organisms. Cellular biology gives some interesting hints about some of the earliest days, with mitochondria and chloroplasts almost, but not quite constituting cells themselves. Evolutionary biology and paleontology, of course, try to reconstruct the gradual changes in genomes and phenomes that eventually produced us, and they show us how we are distant cousins of every living thing on earth. And in particular, studying kin selection can be quite morally instructive.
If science doesn’t do it for someone though, that’s not the end. Atheism obviously doesn’t offer much in the way of spirituality, but it also doesn’t stand in the way of understanding yourself and humanity through the study of history, literature, art, or music. An honest study of history can’t help but put you in touch with your humanity, getting a sense of how the lives of our ancestors have shaped the world we live in today. Certainly history is a better moral primer than any of the major holy books. Through literature and poetry we try to express our beliefs, thoughts, desires, and doubts. Through art and music we try to express ourselves even more purely — to communicate soul to soul, if you will.
The respondents said it was their spiritual needs that weren’t being met. I submit that it was their educational needs that were not met.
*likes this*
I go to a humanistic synagogue in Cincinnati called Beth Adam. No dogma. Some ritual. Excellent Sunday morning education where no one pretends to believe in anything super natural or woo woo. I like it and it works for me.
I try to go see live music performances. Great live acts usually serve as a communal celebration of humanity and art than lets a whole lot of people share an experience and find beauty and maybe a little truth.
I re-read the article and come up with these questions:
What about the people who believe in god but don’t attend services or join a community on that basis? Unaffiliated doesn’t mean atheist, either.
People are drawn to communities, as obvious and diverse as the answer to this question, but not everyone prioritizes their spiritual beliefs as a reason for doing so. It’s easy to feel put off or find comfort in a community. If someone wants to do charitable works, for example, they may choose an organization that they believe in, doing activities they like whether it be making phone calls or building houses, etc. What makes or breaks someone’s connections to this organization is not only that they can see what good their work does, but are they working alongside people they have grown to care about? That is what makes difficult work easier to do. I joined an athletic club to take lessons in a sport that I was interested in, and stay because 1.I want to improve, and 2.the people are nice. 3.It is also conveniently located. One of these things would give, then I would find a new place to practice my sport or quit altogether.
If someone is taught nothing of god in a society that is predominantly religious, they’re probably going to seek answers and end up hearing about god somewhere. They’ll stick with one that feels right if the people are welcoming and the answers comfort them, and move on if it’s utter nonsense to them OR the people are rigid and unfriendly and behave with dissimilar values.
If someone is taught a whole lot about god, they will decide if this is what’s right for them, what they would choose, and they might already believe in god, but that doesn’t mean they might not look for a better fitting community with better suited to their values and beliefs, rather than defy these values and stick with the first religion/religious community. If they later decide to unaffiliate as an adult, that doesn’t mean they stopped believing in god, either. That just means they have some criticism of the teaching of their church or the community, or something else, like that they can continue to believe in god but they don’t require commitment to a church to do it. And then they will carry on meeting with people about their interests, which is what people normally do. Atheists and theists do this. I don’t understand the want for atheistic gatherings for people who don’t believe in god but miss going to church, or the equation of unaffiliated and unindoctrinated (in a theistic society) with atheism.
The best church groups I’ve ever been a part of are those that have formed accidentally, i.e., organic groups of people who found each other through common interests or values and simply enjoyed being around each other. They weren’t forced or contrived.
I’d say that’s a sociological point, not a theological/religious/a-religious point.
So, I would think the best way to have “community” is to simply let it happen organically.
To quote Carrie Prejean, No offense to anyone but there is a certain irony to atheists discussing how to be more like religions.
I think the discussion is actually about whether atheism is lacking in something that led to the results of the poll discussed in the linked article. Obviously, most people who agree with that premise are going to offer an argument as to what that thing might be and how atheists can provide for than need better. Most of the comments, however, seem to suggest that the atheists here don’t want atheism to be anything at all like a religion.
Most of the commenters seem to think that “community” is the thing that atheists are lacking compared to religions, but as I mention above, the biggest response as to why these people joined churches was that their spiritual needs aren’t being met. There was a video of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens talking about atheism where Hitchens said that the one point that they hadn’t been making that perhaps they should is that “numinous” and “spiritual” are not the same thing, although there is considerable overlap. I tend to agree.
So this is not so much a conversation about how we should be more like theists, but how atheists can meet the needs that have been traditionally satisfied by religion.
That video is called The Four Horsemen, and it is well worth watching.
Isn’t the atheist/secular community group called ‘school’?
I think there is certainly a biological, socially evolved (however you want to characterize it) need for community and friendship, but I think most writers here are dismissing the Blaise Pascal observation that ““There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”
This is often the primary benefit derived from church community, which no number of bridge games, socials, or dinner clubs can duplicate.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Yes, many of us *are* dismissing it.