Might I suggest that you keep scrolling?

you see just the opposite, ergo they are obviously damaged individuals, yes?

His article, this one, pissed me off. Deserve to fail!

Thank u ! I was about to say .

Not lost at all Anne, The article isn't about "small churches", it is about the Atheist churches that have been developing. skado seems to be one of very few that understood what the article was about, likely one of the few that read it in its entirety. This is his statement/summary of the article; " It’s about the fact that religions survive for hundreds or thousands of years, not because they offer people an opportunity to celebrate their own goodness, but because they offer people a way to reconcile their badness. And if atheistic churches want to survive, then very likely, they will need to find a way to offer a similar product.

The problem is that if people who self-identify as atheists can see no higher value in life than themselves, then no such product will be recognizable to them, but if, on the other hand, they are able to envision some sort of abstraction that they can acknowledge as superior to themselves, then they have defacto created another god, as well as an identity crisis for themselves.

So, while not impossible perhaps, the challenge of building a lasting godless church is proving to be more daunting than one may have at first guessed.

The fact that the writer does not appear to have deciphered his own experience yet in scientific terms does not detract from the fact that he has correctly diagnosed the root cause of the failure of the atheistic churches to thrive. He has identified the catch-22 of godless godliness." - skado

@zblaze "reconcile their badness"????? Do you mean the extremely nasty concept of "original sin"? Because, you can put That idea where the sun don't shine.....

@AnneWimsey It really seems that you are taking things out of context Anne. Did you read the entire article?

@zblaze ummmm, YOU posted the "badness" remark.......and are not responding as to Why.....

@AnneWimsey "I have actually had thoughts about starting something like this.....until I read this article." are the only words of mine on the post

This is from my comment you might have missed, "Not lost at all Anne, The article isn't about "small churches", it is about the Atheist churches that have been developing. skado seems to be one of very few that understood what the article was about, likely one of the few that read it in its entirety. This is his statement/summary of the article;" What followed was skado's comment, not mine.

Try reading the whole article Anne, you are not understanding what the author, skado, or myself is saying.

@zblaze well, but what about Unitarian/Universalist gatherings, well-established for years? Or, heck, bowling leagues? Why "churches" and " building CHURCHES"?

@zblaze I am a member of The Church of Bacon. Below is a link to an interview with Penn Jillette helping them to get the funding to purchase his house The Slammer in Las Vegas for The Nevatican! The worlds largest secular community center. Unfortunately they weren’t able to get enough money together so Penn (was making a movie and had a tank) at the end of his movie demolished it with a tank. Very sad because I absolutely loved the quirky, funky, and extremely eclectic home.

well, i wasn't going to put it that way, but since you mention it, yeah.

g

There's the best comment of this thread.

Now this statement is really stupid.

@Mofo1953 ,
well i suppose it's an exaggeration but when i lost my faith in Santa at 4, the tooth fairy at 5 it took an emotional toll on me. but then when i lost faith in Skydaddy at 8 i went into a depressionary spiral..

@callmedubious you suppose?

Cool … I like provocative statements!

Sorry Genessa, that isn't what the article was saying. See skado's answer below for the best explanation, or I'll just copy and paste it here: " It’s about the fact that religions survive for hundreds or thousands of years, not because they offer people an opportunity to celebrate their own goodness, but because they offer people a way to reconcile their badness. And if atheistic churches want to survive, then very likely, they will need to find a way to offer a similar product.

The problem is that if people who self-identify as atheists can see no higher value in life than themselves, then no such product will be recognizable to them, but if, on the other hand, they are able to envision some sort of abstraction that they can acknowledge as superior to themselves, then they have defacto created another god, as well as an identity crisis for themselves.

So, while not impossible perhaps, the challenge of building a lasting godless church is proving to be more daunting than one may have at first guessed.

The fact that the writer does not appear to have deciphered his own experience yet in scientific terms does not detract from the fact that he has correctly diagnosed the root cause of the failure of the atheistic churches to thrive. He has identified the catch-22 of godless godliness.".

@zblaze i wasn't commenting on what the author said. i was commenting on what YOU said, and i still take exception to that initial premise, so the rest still DOES fall apart, i actually don't CARE what the author was saying, and for the record, i already read what you kindly reproduced for me, and, well, i didn't care.

g

I'm good with all pedophiles being cremated... before they die. C.O.D.? Justice. As for racists, a list of the racist shit they have said and done over the years should be read before any other invocations or eulogies. But then, I'm not one to respect the dead just because they died... Sometimes, tacky, uncouth, bad taste is what's called for to keep from candy coating the truth. But that's just my opinion.

@Shouldbefishing @Kafirah
The article isn’t about pedophilia or racism. It’s about the fact that religions survive for hundreds or thousands of years, not because they offer people an opportunity to celebrate their own goodness, but because they offer people a way to reconcile their badness. And if atheistic churches want to survive, then very likely, they will need to find a way to offer a similar product.

The problem is that if people who self-identify as atheists can see no higher value in life than themselves, then no such product will be recognizable to them, but if, on the other hand, they are able to envision some sort of abstraction that they can acknowledge as superior to themselves, then they have defacto created another god, as well as an identity crisis for themselves.

So, while not impossible perhaps, the challenge of building a lasting godless church is proving to be more daunting than one may have at first guessed.

The fact that the writer does not appear to have deciphered his own experience yet in scientific terms does not detract from the fact that he has correctly diagnosed the root cause of the failure of the atheistic churches to thrive. He has identified the catch-22 of godless godliness.

@skado Exactly why I was responding to your comment and not the original post about the article itself.

@Kafirah
The part of my comment you responded to was quoted from the article. Neither my comment nor the article were about how to regard pedophiles and racists.

@skado We've already established that. If you can't see how what you quoted and what I commented in response to it are related...

@Kafirah
Sorry, but I don’t - though I’m open to having it explained. I don’t have a problem with people expressing unrelated opinions either - I just didn’t see the connection. At first glance, your prescription looks more like retribution than forgiveness, which, granted some religious traditions may favor, but not what the author, or I, was suggesting.

It’s generally not too hard for most of us to condemn the shortcomings of others, but by what atheistic mechanism do we find peace with our own?

@Shouldbefishing
Which question? The one in my response to Kafirah above? Because I, and apparently the author, see that as the missing ingredient that would help those churches succeed, and we would rather see them succeed than fail. And, speaking for myself, I think it can be achieved, without any belief in a literal god.

@Shouldbefishing @zblaze
The criminally-short answer might be... through “deep learning” or better stated, deep understanding. I suspect it would be different for each person, but the long answer might require guided study.

That’s why I think institutions of some description are a good idea, or at least, private teachers. Homo sapiens is now and forever an “artificial” species. We have developed the capacity for self-reflective thought, and with that tool we have created an artificial environment for ourselves.

Well, as you know, evolution is all about the species’ relationship to its environment, and ours is now irrevocably mismatched to our evolved animal nature. So, for the last ten thousand years or so, and for the foreseeable future, we have, and will, need to compensate for that evolutionary mismatch through some cultural mechanism.

In the past it sufficed to teach the archetypal mythologies, but since the 18th century or so, we have learned to differentiate between poetry and prose, and are increasingly hungry for literal, rational correctives, instead of metaphorical ones.

Those explanations exist, but have not been meticulously catalogued and curated as the mythological ones were. So, whatever we choose to call the future institutions, they will need to sort this material out and present it in an accessible manner, in order for our species to continue as a very artificial, and very social, not to mention successful, species.

We need institutions that understand the problem from a biological perspective, and offer effective cultural counterbalances, rather than well-intentioned, but shallow, feel-good, imitations of old-time religion.

@skado To be blunt, you chose two excerpts from the article that spoke to you for one reason or another, and thus quoted them for whatever reason they resonated with you. I chose to respond to those quotes, and not necessarily to you personally, since I couldn't respond to the author of the article himself. As for it not sounding like forgiveness, that's because it isn't. Forgiveness is for the victims to let go of the hate and pain. But calling a spade a spade is also its own form of closure and can be very cathartic. Of course, no one who attends the funeral of someone that is hated is going to feel that way about the deceased. But that doesn't preclude the fact that death doesn't grant instantaneous respect.

@Shouldbefishing
How I would approach the situation is by deciphering what the church would do metaphorically into modern, prosaic language. Religion is (historically) a symbolic language, not, as many believe, a literal one.

I think the author was saying that the church would have asked God’s forgiveness of the the deceased’s crimes, rather than judging him by our earthly standards.

So a possible translation of that into scientifically acceptable concepts would simply require the attendees to perform the same psychological act, without a supernatural mediator, namely to resist the natural temptation to “otherize” the bad guy (making ourselves morally superior) and instead, see our own imperfections in his. The point of this exercise is social cohesion, but it does require “exercise” because it isn’t a natural human disposition in groups larger than 150.

This is in no way an avoidance of the truth about the bad behavior - that truth is already evident for all to see. The truth that is not always so easily seen is that we all come from the same stock as that man in the casket, and if we can’t see ourselves in him, then we are ill-equipped to resolve our own infractions and those of our family and dearest friends.

@Shouldbefishing
Beautifully stated! I feel very much the same.