No heaven above us and no hell below us

[Jaguar]

Although if your suggestion is that religion is purely a scam, racket or utilitarian control mechanism [...]

You mean it's not?

 

[Lark]

That's not saying much. Pretty much all human interactions can be considered "social" in one way or another.

Not to belabor the point, but maybe I'm not getting through and I need to spell it out:

A couple earlier posts seemed to be implying that atheists had some kind of innate human need to engage in some kind of "worship" at some kind of "church services," to the point of creating an atheist organization that imitates religious churches.

My point, by contrast, is that the UUs provided a sort of "atheist church" outlet for decades, and to my knowledge the larger atheist community never had much interest. Meantime if SA is currently getting some traction, I think that's happening more on a regional basis reflecting social isolation of atheists and not some innate human need to "worship" at an "atheist church."

SA is very clear that there's no religious orientation to what they do. The first three items of the SA Charter are:

The Sunday Assembly:
1. Is 100% celebration of life. We are born from nothing and go to nothing. Let’s enjoy it together.
2. Has no doctrine. We have no set texts so we can make use of wisdom from all sources.
3. Has no deity. We don’t do supernatural but we also won’t tell you you’re wrong if you do.

So I'm making a distinction. I think the "atheist church" label is a misnomer, and I've never seen where atheists have any kind of innate need for "worship" or "church services." They just want to socialize, like all humans. As I understand it, SA's real function is about socializing.

Now if religious people want to compare *their* church services to SA meetings and say that *their* religious services are really just for socializing and aren't any more spiritual than what the SAs do, then that's fine with me. Frankly, I don't give a shit what happens in religious church services. Religious people can do whatever they like in church. As long as they don't try to impose their religious beliefs, doctrines, and laws on me.

But I bet you're fine with all the positive externalities and legacies of religion, in so far as you'd be willing to admit of any, which I'm guessing would be not much.

To be honest if your religion or spirituality is only about socialising, then I dont see much difference between it and atheist socialising, in fact I'd say that's a sort of unconscious or closet atheism. Without wishing to appear sectarian its why I dont really consider prayer meetings, bible reading circles, assemblies or anything of any of those species to be comparable to the roman catholic mass, the tradition is sacramental and much different to a get together to discuss something, I know anyone whose born, bred and steeped in secularism, individualism and modernism is going to find that hideous but there you go. I can enjoy any of those species of other sorts of worship as occasions for social contact and socialising but my spiritual side is not satisfied with them.

I'm sorry for you if dont experience any spiritual drive what so ever, its not a drive to worship, its not a drive to attend church services either, I experience a strong spiritual drive and I am pretty religiously devout and devoted and I would not characterise that as involving, necessarily, either worship or church attendence. I think of either of those things as perhaps at best the spring board or high diving board of spirituality/religiousity, necessary but standing on either is not the same as swimming in the pool. There are plenty of non-theist ways of channeling spiritual drives, there are huge religious traditions and systems worked out which are non-theist, I dont simply mean the polytheist traditions or theist ones which dont involve worship of a deity, such as, unsurprisingly, deism or those traditions featuring creator deity or deities whose relationship to creation and certainly humankind began and ended with creation itself. There are those in which enlightenment or nirvana take the place of worship and which either posit no personal survival of death or posit escaping personal survival of death as the goal of ascendent/transcendent spirituality.

There are even the strictly utilitarian and atheistic revisions and revivals of religion too, such as those who perceive of religion as a frame of orientation and object of devotion, substituting universal "(hu)man" or the collective unconscious or cosmic consciousness for that of time honoured (often anthropocentric) conceptions of God.

If its about wear you hang your hat on a sunday then religion is superficial and its easy to say no one needs it anyhow, although its not and that seems reductive adsurdum or polemical to suggest so.

- - - Updated - - -

You mean it's not?

OK, you think its so, I'd credited you with a little more depth, unless you're playing for laughs as I've begun to imagine you're trying to with most of your posting. Carry on.

 

[Lark]

I have read about these atheist "churches" as well. I'm not a fan of that format, whether the content is humanist, Christian, or anything else.

I have long thought that about 10% of people will faithfully follow a religion, regardless of what society does, even in the face of persecution (e.g. former USSR). Similarly 10% will eschew all religion, regardless of pressure to participate. The remaining 80% will go with the flow.

How much of atheism can you say is honestly not motivated by negative experiences of religion, repression of religosity or a sort of "I can not be bothered for a moment with anything, including these questions"?

Those are the three sorts of atheism I've known, the vast majority of atheists I've known all fit into the final category, the reject religion but they'd reject most expectations or anything else they felt involved anything obligatory or arduous or involving effort too from whatever source and for whatever purpose.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

But I bet you're fine with all the positive externalities and legacies of religion, in so far as you'd be willing to admit of any, which I'm guessing would be not much.

To be honest if your religion or spirituality is only about socialising, then I dont see much difference between it and atheist socialising, in fact I'd say that's a sort of unconscious or closet atheism. [...]

I have no clue what you're talking about. I'm an atheist; I have no religion or spirituality; I'm not a "closet atheist." I'm an atheist.

As I tried to explain earlier, I'm just trying to clear up a common misconception about what SA is about. I'm not SA myself, but I have inquired about it and talked with some SA folks.

But as for me, I'm an atheist, and I don't have a clue what your post was about.

 

[Lark]

I have no clue what you're talking about. I'm an atheist; I have no religion or spirituality; I'm not a "closet atheist." I'm an atheist.

As I tried to explain earlier, I'm just trying to clear up a common misconception about what SA is about. I'm not SA myself, but I have inquired about it and talked with some SA folks.

But as for me, I'm an atheist, and I don't have a clue what your post was about.

Alright, nothing to see here, carry on.

 

[ceecee]

That's not saying much. Pretty much all human interactions can be considered "social" in one way or another.

Not to belabor the point, but maybe I'm not getting through and I need to spell it out:

A couple earlier posts seemed to be talking about how atheists were creating some kind of mock religious services, perhaps implying that atheists had some kind of innate human need to engage in some kind of "worship" at some kind of "church services." Or something along that line. (Frankly, I don't even know what point those earlier posts were trying to make.)

So just to clarify, I pointed out that the UUs provided a sort of "atheist church" outlet for decades, and to my knowledge the larger atheist community never had any interest. Meantime if SA is currently gaining some traction, I think that's happening more on a regional basis reflecting social isolation of atheists rather than some innate human need to "worship" at an "atheist church."

SA is very clear that there's no religious orientation to anything they do. The first three items of the SA Charter are:

The Sunday Assembly:
1. Is 100% celebration of life. We are born from nothing and go to nothing. Let’s enjoy it together.
2. Has no doctrine. We have no set texts so we can make use of wisdom from all sources.
3. Has no deity. We don’t do supernatural but we also won’t tell you you’re wrong if you do.

So I'm making a distinction. I think the "atheist church" label is a misnomer, and I've never seen where atheists have any kind of innate need for "worship" or "church services." Atheists just want to socialize, like all humans. As I understand it, SA's real function is about socializing.

Now if religious people want to compare *their* church services to SA meetings and say that *their* religious services are really just for socializing and aren't any more spiritual than what the SAs do, then that's fine with me. I don't really care how religious people spin their services. I don't give a shit what happens in religious church services. Religious people can do whatever they like in church. As long as they don't try to impose any deity-oriented beliefs, doctrines, and laws on me.

You don't need to spell it out for me. I don't go to church. Any church. I wouldn't go to an atheist church anymore than I would go to a Catholic church. It's great that the SA church is more about not wanting to worship a deity and doesn't have any doctrine but that makes it more like a social function to celebrate it being a nice day or a beautiful sunset. Which is wonderful for those who want some kind of togetherness of a congregation without any of the religious bullshit.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

You don't need to spell it out for me. I don't go to church. Any church. I wouldn't go to an atheist church anymore than I would go to a Catholic church. It's great that the SA church is more about not wanting to worship a deity and doesn't have any doctrine but that makes it more like a social function to celebrate it being a nice day or a beautiful sunset. Which is wonderful for those who want some kind of togetherness of a congregation without any of the religious bullshit.

SA itself encourages people to compare it to a church. They say, "Yeah, we're sort of a church for atheists." I think SA deliberately muddies the water for publicity purposes. I think that's regrettable, because it encourages religious people to say, "See, atheists have the same needs as religious people: Atheists want to go to church and worship like us. Atheists are just damaged versions of religious people--they are disillusioned, pissed at God, or just in some kind of denial. And if they would just open their eyes, they would see the truth and become like us."

I think it's BS on both sides, and I'm actually kind of an SA-hater. But as I tried to point out earlier, I chatted with some SA members and found that SA does perform a needed function for some atheists, at least those living down in the Bible Belt.

Oh well. Enough said on this subject, at least by me. This stuff just riles people up for no good reason. People don't want to hear about minor distinctions between churches and non-churches; they just want to hear that they're right.

 

[Coriolis]

I'm sure there's many, if you live in a country without the burgeoning atheism of places such as ROI or UK, I've heard that some religious communities have been pretty good at reformating belief and tradition, I mentioned before the atheists within Jewish communities, like Erich Fromm.

Although if your suggestion is that religion is purely a scam, racket or utilitarian control mechanism then I'd have to dismiss it as infantile and cliche.

And if your suggestion is that the organizational and hierarchical aspects of religion can be separated from doctrine and practice, I'd have to dismiss that as hopelessly naive.

How much of atheism can you say is honestly not motivated by negative experiences of religion, repression of religosity or a sort of "I can not be bothered for a moment with anything, including these questions"?

Those are the three sorts of atheism I've known, the vast majority of atheists I've known all fit into the final category, the reject religion but they'd reject most expectations or anything else they felt involved anything obligatory or arduous or involving effort too from whatever source and for whatever purpose.

I have no idea what motivates atheists to hold the beliefs they do. I do know that many people who claim membership in a religion can not be bothered to consider questions of belief. I actually don't know many true atheists (vs. agnostics), and those I do know have arrived at their beliefs through considerable reflection and research. This is part of why I see some validity in the 80% rule. Most people don't question much at all. They do what those around them are doing.

 

[Lark]

And if your suggestion is that the organizational and hierarchical aspects of religion can be separated from doctrine and practice, I'd have to dismiss that as hopelessly naive.


I have no idea what motivates atheists to hold the beliefs they do. I do know that many people who claim membership in a religion can not be bothered to consider questions of belief. I actually don't know many true atheists (vs. agnostics), and those I do know have arrived at their beliefs through considerable reflection and research. This is part of why I see some validity in the 80% rule. Most people don't question much at all. They do what those around them are doing.

I dont take kindly to being dismissed as naive.

 

[Coriolis]

I dont take kindly to being dismissed as naive.

And I don't take kindly to being dismissed as infantile and cliche. I took your post at face value, "if" and all. You would be wise to do the same.

 

[Jaguar]

OK, you think its so, I'd credited you with a little more depth, unless you're playing for laughs as I've begun to imagine you're trying to with most of your posting. Carry on.

Btw, I'm not an athiest. That you repeatedly post as if there are only two possibilities is laughable. Carry on.

 

[Lark]

Btw, I'm not an athiest. That you repeatedly post as if there are only two possibilities is laughable. Carry on.

I sure will, dont need no permission to.

 

[miss fortune]

How much of atheism can you say is honestly not motivated by negative experiences of religion, repression of religosity or a sort of "I can not be bothered for a moment with anything, including these questions"?

Those are the three sorts of atheism I've known, the vast majority of atheists I've known all fit into the final category, the reject religion but they'd reject most expectations or anything else they felt involved anything obligatory or arduous or involving effort too from whatever source and for whatever purpose.

most atheists and agnostics that I know simply aren't religious because it makes no sense to them, not because of any negative experiences or lack of motivations I went to a school that was known for it's engineering and science and spent a lot of time hanging out with engineering and science students, if that gives you any indication... we spent a lot of long nights getting drunk and debating philosophical matters on the front porch while smoking a hookah, discussing beliefs, lack thereof, motives and rationalities

as for myself, it's never made any sense and it just doesn't resonate with me... where you have a drive to believe I have nothing and I never have had anything in that place. It's not to say that I don't have my own outlook on things or a sense of morality and accountability, because I do... it just doesn't involve God or any gods.

though as I've mentioned before, just because it makes no sense to me and I don't believe it doesn't mean that being raised surrounded by religion and going to church every Sunday and bible school and Sunday school hasn't had an impact... you know the line from The Usual Suspects where it says "Keaton always said 'I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him'"? yeah... I can understand that, as illogical as it seems... there's a difference between what makes sense and what I understand and fears, which are irrational. In a way, I get no positives from religion in the animal portions of my brain... only the bad parts

 

[Lark]

most atheists and agnostics that I know simply aren't religious because it makes no sense to them, not because of any negative experiences or lack of motivations I went to a school that was known for it's engineering and science and spent a lot of time hanging out with engineering and science students, if that gives you any indication... we spent a lot of long nights getting drunk and debating philosophical matters on the front porch while smoking a hookah, discussing beliefs, lack thereof, motives and rationalities

as for myself, it's never made any sense and it just doesn't resonate with me... where you have a drive to believe I have nothing and I never have had anything in that place. It's not to say that I don't have my own outlook on things or a sense of morality and accountability, because I do... it just doesn't involve God or any gods.

though as I've mentioned before, just because it makes no sense to me and I don't believe it doesn't mean that being raised surrounded by religion and going to church every Sunday and bible school and Sunday school hasn't had an impact... you know the line from The Usual Suspects where it says "Keaton always said 'I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him'"? yeah... I can understand that, as illogical as it seems... there's a difference between what makes sense and what I understand and fears, which are irrational. In a way, I get no positives from religion in the animal portions of my brain... only the bad parts

I dont fear God, that was disappearing from religion already when I was growing up but my own familial religious observance had nothing to do with fear.

Although what you're talking about some psychologists and philosophers of the mind would recognise, they suggest there was a time that God was patterend on the brain and that Nietzsche's observation about the death of God was more a sociological and psychological recognition of something already trending than something he proposed or suggested.

To be honest I think that Jung's observations about spirituality or religion not mattering to anyone under thirty quite like it does after thirty (and its probably later than thirty today) are valid, the mid life crisis still happens, religion isnt the only answer but I think its a valid one and a good one provided its religion at its best and not at its worst, which people on this forum and most secularists choose to look to in any discussion of religion.

I'd freely admit that my experiences of religion and atheism could be a reflection of my part of the world, I think that what I would think of as bad religion and equally bad atheism are much more advanced in the US, its just something about the place, feminism developed very differently there too to it did in the UK and Europe.

Using a lot of drugs and other substances and then deciding you dont need God I'm betting wont be the final word on that for those people you mentioned, in mid life a lot of rethinking is done, you realise how many straw men you've been dealing with for one, how just about every generation has tried to renovate the house and left it a little more ruined than the last one etc. Maybe not but I've seen it often enough. Just so long as they arent swinging from one extreme to another and back again. The whole pattern of religious upbringing, adolescent atheism and then eventual fundamentalist christian is an unhappy one.

 

[miss fortune]

I dont fear God, that was disappearing from religion already when I was growing up but my own familial religious observance had nothing to do with fear.

Although what you're talking about some psychologists and philosophers of the mind would recognise, they suggest there was a time that God was patterend on the brain and that Nietzsche's observation about the death of God was more a sociological and psychological recognition of something already trending than something he proposed or suggested.

To be honest I think that Jung's observations about spirituality or religion not mattering to anyone under thirty quite like it does after thirty (and its probably later than thirty today) are valid, the mid life crisis still happens, religion isnt the only answer but I think its a valid one and a good one provided its religion at its best and not at its worst, which people on this forum and most secularists choose to look to in any discussion of religion.

I'd freely admit that my experiences of religion and atheism could be a reflection of my part of the world, I think that what I would think of as bad religion and equally bad atheism are much more advanced in the US, its just something about the place, feminism developed very differently there too to it did in the UK and Europe.

Using a lot of drugs and other substances and then deciding you dont need God I'm betting wont be the final word on that for those people you mentioned, in mid life a lot of rethinking is done, you realise how many straw men you've been dealing with for one, how just about every generation has tried to renovate the house and left it a little more ruined than the last one etc. Maybe not but I've seen it often enough. Just so long as they arent swinging from one extreme to another and back again. The whole pattern of religious upbringing, adolescent atheism and then eventual fundamentalist christian is an unhappy one.

I find atheism to be a more positive and liberating philosophy than religion, which I don't know if you understand. The ability to make your own way and be responsible for your own choices and future... that's more of a joyous thing to me than an idea of being beholden to some other entity... a sense of being one's own and having options to change and the ability make your own way.

The hookah contained tobacco, not anything more interesting (when it did the discussions were even odder)... from occasional discussions after that point the people in question have not changed their stance on the issue.

From your part of the world I would think that you should understand the concept of religion or God posing as a manifestation of guilt I believe that my choices have consequences and that I'm accountable for the things that I've done. As I've not exactly been a saint and it isn't exactly something that I can ever separate myself from (I'll always be the person who did those things... like the old joke tends to point out about people's memories) and am not sure I'll ever be able to make it up and therefore that whole thing lurks in the back of my mind and generally serves as a drive to do better. When things turn bad or I stop and ponder things though, there's a sense of guilt there for things done and that's where the whole "being raised around religion" thing lives... I don't believe in anything good happening when I die except that I will dissolve back into the rest of the universe, but there's some nagging thought that I don't deserve something that good and that's where it comes into play... not as a belief system, but as a punishment.

I'm over thirty and feel many times that I'm a good deal older than that (though I act younger )... I was raised by a mother who is a very positive example of many of the best aspects of Christianity, so it's not like you can blame that... I just never believed in all of that. My brain isn't wired the same as yours and it's not like there's something wrong with that... people are all different.

I'm very aware of religion and religions throughout the ages and the evolution of such thought... I understand where it comes from and the development of the ideas as well... it just doesn't click.

 

[Lark]

I find atheism to be a more positive and liberating philosophy than religion, which I don't know if you understand. The ability to make your own way and be responsible for your own choices and future... that's more of a joyous thing to me than an idea of being beholden to some other entity... a sense of being one's own and having options to change and the ability make your own way.

The hookah contained tobacco, not anything more interesting (when it did the discussions were even odder)... from occasional discussions after that point the people in question have not changed their stance on the issue.

From your part of the world I would think that you should understand the concept of religion or God posing as a manifestation of guilt I believe that my choices have consequences and that I'm accountable for the things that I've done. As I've not exactly been a saint and it isn't exactly something that I can ever separate myself from (I'll always be the person who did those things... like the old joke tends to point out about people's memories) and am not sure I'll ever be able to make it up and therefore that whole thing lurks in the back of my mind and generally serves as a drive to do better. When things turn bad or I stop and ponder things though, there's a sense of guilt there for things done and that's where the whole "being raised around religion" thing lives... I don't believe in anything good happening when I die except that I will dissolve back into the rest of the universe, but there's some nagging thought that I don't deserve something that good and that's where it comes into play... not as a belief system, but as a punishment.

I'm over thirty and feel many times that I'm a good deal older than that (though I act younger )... I was raised by a mother who is a very positive example of many of the best aspects of Christianity, so it's not like you can blame that... I just never believed in all of that. My brain isn't wired the same as yours and it's not like there's something wrong with that... people are all different.

I'm very aware of religion and religions throughout the ages and the evolution of such thought... I understand where it comes from and the development of the ideas as well... it just doesn't click.

Well, I'm not out to make converts, I am not impressed with evangelism as it exists now and I think its a very sharp departure from what early or even later pre-reformation christianity was all about, in Moores Utopia for instance he talks about how the members of his Utopian society tolerate diversity in opinion, including religion, and only intervene with or sanction the proselytizing, which is what I consider evangelism to be.

I can religion, like humanity to be honest, defensible in the intellectual, abstract or general rather than the specific. There are varieties of atheism which I find interesting but they would be perhaps more "metaphysical", like Marxism, Feurbach (spelling) or Fromm, if I'm not mistaken and recall properly my religion teacher suggested that there Jewish people at the time of Jesus who would have been considered atheistic if the idea existed back then, in so far that they did not believe in the world to come as a worldly or other worldly existence, angels, miracles, heaven, hell, the devil or pretty much anything that supernatural.

The thing about what you describe positively, I dont see religion or God as a crutch or support, there's nothing in what yous said which negates religion as I understand it and I'm not sure what's meant about being beholden to some entity, again that's going to depend upon a particular understanding and you're probably responding to one which is different to mine and I wouldnt deny is religious simply because its not the same as or congruent with my own. Diverse and disparite opinions are found all over.

BTW when you mentioned morality or ethics, I dont think anyone needs religion to be a good person, religion provides a lot of good answers and has its own internal logic when answering those questions which morality and ethics pertain to but I know plenty of good godless moral philosophies or ethical systems. I see religion and God as something quite apart from that, James Hogg's confessions of a justified sinner is a good book on how religious fanaticism can screw with a moral compass very well, having read that I can appreciate why people like to keep those things seperate.

 

[miss fortune]

 

[Evee]

I think that heaven is when you see with the light in your heart (understanding), and hell is when your heart is buried beneath layers of darkness.

 

[Galena]

Humans may be better off without the concept of hell hanging over them, but if I were offered a button to push that would erase it from society, admittedly I'd procrastinate on it for selfish reasons.

Frankly, it would also erase most of my personality and all of my imagination. Hell damaged me mentally and morally, but I also cannot think of a single inspired thing I've ever created that has been untouched by the idea. I'm not even religious anymore, yet aesthetically and philosophically it's still all about the marked men, downward exploration, monsters, outer limits, terminal stages, final forms, points of no return. Outside of art, I live in and study the hells of the earth now - deserts, black seas, ice walls. This is my root-level muse we're messing with. If I pushed the button, I don't know what would be left. Definitely not an artist anymore, probably not someone you'd recognize.

Think the hole at the bottom of the enneagram.

 

[Coriolis]

I think that heaven is when you see with the light in your heart (understanding), and hell is when your heart is buried beneath layers of darkness.

What about when your heart, your mind, and your spirit are resting in the soothing, peaceful darkness of night, reflecting and nurturing seeds of creativity and insight, much as an unborn child gestates in the darkness of the womb?

This light/good - dark/bad correspondence is unhelpful and just plain inaccurate. One is as blind in a room flooded with light as in complete darkness.