I wonder if going to Quaker meetings might be the ‘solution’ for atheists.

I’ve gone to meetings reasonably consistently and there’s no mention of necessary belief to attend and the silent hour can be used for (empirically beneficial) meditation and acts as a good group for meditation to get you to commit without any discussion of, as you said, ‘the evils of attachment’.

Despite the traditional Christian links, there are people from all religious backgrounds and a special non-theist group accepted within them. Then there’s 30 minutes or so of chatting for the benefits of socialising and the unique benefits of a spiritual community.

Maybe not having all the same beliefs like other communities might reduce some of the benefits by comparison, but some kind of shared decency, spiritual practice and community should be enough to help quite a bit and when all it need involve is meditation and socialising, there’s not really any opportunity cost.

Just anecdotally, I nearly always feel better for going.

All the best.

Perhaps you are right. Just because secular institutions have continued to fail in this regard doesn’t mean that they always will. What I refer to is more than just bond and connect – from what I’ve seen through personal experience and here-say is that the level of bonding and connectedness is much higher in religious groups.

Where I live, there is no lack of numbers – enough people have stood up and admitted their lack of belief. The problem is that the secular institutions we belong to lack the draw, rituals, routines, and power that made the church such a powerfully bonding (but also dividing) institution. The other problem is that there are too many – unlike the church, which is a singular entity, most people belong to many secular institutions. Their focus is divided, which reduces the sense of community. But enough complaining. I hope you are right.

Personally, I have believe in God and whenever I have problems I put my faith in Him. I do not go to Church, but just study on my own and with others.

Thank you Linda, I appreciate your kind words 🙂

It’s great isn’t it? Gratitude, optimism, and self-respect are all positively inter-dependent; increase one and generally you increase all three. I’m not naturally happy, optimistic, or grateful – but I’ve found that incorporating small acts of gratitude throughout my day have had a huge impact on all 3 – I find myself more happy and optimistic.

Just today, I cried for the first time in more than a year. They were tears of gratitude, and wow did they feel good.

Yes ma’am, there is still hope for us both!

My initial line of curiosity developed for the same reason – I was in china for four months and somehow ended up friends with a bunch of highly religious folks (Americans). The dynamics of their relationships was just beautiful, and there were just so nice! I’m still friends with a few of them.

I hope some day that I have a strong community behind me like that. I think the major differences will be that rather than one large community, it will a set of disparate groups, with only a few common links. Also, they won’t be as awesome. Ah well.