I am not religious and have no desire to start being now but sometimes I just want the community people get with church. I am craving connection with the community and feel it’s very healthy for families and neighbors as well. The United States is seriously lacking in third spaces and communities. It’s leading to a serious loneliness epidemic… Just wondering if there is anything that can fill that need for non-religious folks?
Church without church is just a book club.
Dungeons and dragons
I would see if you have a Unitarian Universalist (UU) Congregation near you.
It IS technically a religion, but it doesn’t feel like anyone is trying to make you believe anything, is aggressively LGBTQIA+ friendly, and is also welcoming to all races and cultures (it is literally in their commandments to respect people regardless of creed or views, and respect their individual search for truth and meaning).
While people there are incredibly nice, welcoming etc…the big downside is that most people at UU churches are usually older. It’s got a lot of “old hippie” energy, which is great but they might have less younger people if you’re looking for people in your age group. You won’t really know until you visit your (hopefully) nearby congregation.
They do have traditional church services, with sitting at pews and singing hymns (a select hymnal with a lot of pagany hymns) and a sermon, but the sermon is always about philosophical things and thought provoking stuff, or more recently about current events. For example, when I went for my first time to a nearby church, the reverend spoke about her life growing up queer and everything the world did to make her feel like she didn’t belong.
If you can give the church format a chance, I can’t recommend it enough. A lot of the greatest most loving people I have met have been UU, and I still love and cherish them to this day.
Sorry if this is too churchy for what you are looking for. I would say if you’re pretty liberal/leftist and you want to find groups that do/talk about stuff like that you can often find those connected to UU churches in some way and they’ll never pressure you beyond “oh we hope you will stay, we love to have you” and things like that.
I am going to attend my local UU church. After reading all the comments and learning about it I am also a social worker and I think it sounds absolutely beautiful, and I love old hippies! I am not old (millennial) but I will be someday and so that’s okay with me. I am not religious but I deeply respect everyone else’s right to their own life journey and I see the beauty in everyone. I was reading the pocket book and it resonates a lot for me. Imho, the slogan / motto could be “don’t be a dick” in simplified form so it seems which is pretty rad!
I hope you have a good one near you! I met many social workers at UU churches.
Good luck!
The young adult and youth experience in the UU church was pretty great. Less church-y, more interactive. I made a lot of good friends when I was younger there.
Thank you.
Do you live in a city, and do you have hobbies? If you like stuff like anime, go to an anime con, it’s great and how I know a huge amount of my friend group
Highly recommend volunteer work, perhaps habitat for humanity? Volunteer organizations are typically very welcoming, and your surrounded by folks who are willing to give something back, instead of interested in your wallet.
Team sports, volunteer work, social clubs, table top rpgs, choir or a band, basically any hobby you do offline in a group,…
Honestly the fact that you have to ask this question kinda shows how broken the society you live in is.
This is what’s called a “third place”. And they’ve been deliberately killed off or commercialized.Unitarian Universalism. It is about common social values - you know, stuff like helping your neighbors and whatnot. You don’t have to be a particular religion, just be decent.
There are all kinds of clubs out there depending on where you live and your interests. Even the rotary club is a way to connect and do good work while not being religious.
Rotary club is just a free masonry recruiting program.
Genuinely what’s wrong with Freemasonry? Everything I’ve read about it made me more interested in joining than anything…
I don’t really see the problem. Is it a political stance that is tied to the far right for instance? Or does it have ties to the elite? Maybe deep state sort of thing?
If you get into an influential position like the government, a political party, corporation or mass media they will arrive to recruit you at some point. You can’t just go and join like a religion you need to be invited by someone already in. Or if your parent is already into it you directly get in. I think the easiest way to “join” is to study something related to laws or political science and make connections there. Usually they recruit people from high-grade educational institutions as a way to make them get into important positions. Once you are in there are several grades you will be escalating, each grade you achieve will give you a better position into the organization. They are not into the right-left game. It goes beyond that.
I thought their core philosophy was accepting people no matter their social status, religion, occupation or wealth…
I guess it depends on the lodge. From what I’ve read, most of them say that of course it’s easier if you already know someone, but you can just contact them directly if you don’t.
Obviously I don’t know whether or not the selection process is fair to everyone. They say it’s about your values but it could secretly be about your connections and power.
Those bricks aren’t going to lay themselves my guy
Hobbies. I do rock climbing and hiking so I show up consistently at the rock gym and make friends. I’ve found a hiking discord in my region and have friends that way now.
Unitarian church
They do sermons by different people on different topics.
Hello and thank you for asking the question I have been waiting to answer.
I have been an atheist since I was eleven. At times, I have been viciously critical of organized religion. I have absolutely no tolerance for intolerance of people on the basis of skin colour, ability, or sexual orientation, identity, or preference.
My wife and I wanted to have a child, but we had no family and few friends in a new city. In any case, both my mother and mother-in-law have passed away. If our child was ever going to have much of a community, we knew we would have to build it.
Two years ago I started to go to church. I tried to pick carefully: I was not interested in hearing about how people are lowly sinners, that we need to be saved, that without big-G God we are all screwed, etc., etc. In my case, I settled on the United Church of Canada. I found a local ministry that had undertaken the process of becoming an Affirming Ministry - that is, a ministry that explicitly seeks to atone for past mistreatment of LGBTQ2S+ community members and explicitly welcomes their full participation. I sought this not because I am a member of that community, but because I consider it a sign of a genuine desire to be and do good on the part of the congregation. I am aware that the United Church was involved in residential schools and that the abuse of Indigenous People in such schools was horrible. The UC does not try to hide their involvement. They have apologized and are trying to make amends for the unforgivable things the church was party to - I think the effort to do better is sincere.
When I went to my first service, I was shaking. I brought a notepad and pen to write down all the awful stuff that I expected the Minister to say. People were friendly enough, but they didn’t know I was … an atheist. I thought that when they found out, they would chase me out with torches and pitchforks. I sat through the whole service waiting to hear the minister say something unforgivable so we could get up and leave.
So it’s been two years and this is how it is going: I am an openly atheist member of my church community. I don’t go every week, but I miss it when I don’t go. Everyone was friendly, from the beginning. Nothing changed when I told them I was an atheist. No one has EVER tried to convert me: not the minister, not anybody. Other members of the congregation believe different things than I believe, but we don’t get in each other’s faces about it.
Mostly, we sing and talk about what it means to be a good person. Then we eat biscuits and drink coffee and chat. Religion has never come up outside of service.
Our minister says that god is love - and I think she might mean it literally. Sometimes I genuinely believe that what we are celebrating is nothing more than the idea of people loving each other, caring for each other, and striving to build a better world. We don’t discuss sin or the afterlife. We welcome people of other faiths (and no faith) into our church.
A common theme at our church is the idea that Jesus has no hands but these (please imagine i am gesturing with my hands, and pointing at yours, etc). If the very mention of “Jesus” makes you cringe a little - I am right there with you. However, what I think they mean is that if people want to create a better world, we have to do the work. No one is coming to help us. Our church tries to do some of that good work: we sponsor refugees (currently a muslim family from Afghanistan who come to all the social events but rarely the service), we collect for the foodbank, do outreach to the elderly and disabled. We even organized a counter-protest when a hate group held a rally in our city. Church is a great way to find volunteer opportunities, if you are into that.
On the social side, our latest initiative is a games night. We also do movie screenings and play groups. We are trying to become, in some small way, a third place. You absolutely do NOT have to come to service to attend this events.
As for my family? They love it. It has become an important part of our social life. We know people in our community, and my son gets to meet all sorts - including our new friends who are elderly and disabled. I believe that a way to raise tolerant and empathic kids is to expose them to real diversity.
Not every church is like this, I know. The UC even has an atheist Minister (in Toronto, I believe) - that can’t be common. Maybe your town doesn’t have something like this. If you can’t find this, you could try the Secular Humanist Association. I used to go to their weekly meetings - they never said anything cringe, but they also never did much in the way of helping the community. Also, they don’t sing :(
Edit: i accidentally used a real name haha
thank you thank you. I’m not a fan of Christianity, mainly because of the kind of Christians most people imagine when they think about conservatives. But after I got into Zen Buddhism, I heard some of Jesus’ teachings and understood them in a different light. I don’t even know if Jesus was a real person or not, I know there’s a lot of motivation to push that idea though. But that’s all besides the point. His teachings are generally beneficial for human well-being. If people live by them, and embody them, there’s good chance of a fairly healthy community. Not sure if this is actually a quote from Buddha (which is, again, besides the point) but people think so:
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
Damn. Why cant every church be like this ? Why cant it be: be good to each other. I dont care if you believe in sky fairy or Buddha. But dont be an asshole.
End of sermon. There’s cookies out front and we are serving soup for anyone unhoused on Wednesday night. We would appreciate any volunteers. Be excellent to each other!
What do you call this denomination???
That is something I never understood about Christianity: Why would God place equal importance to “being a good person” and “believe in me or else”?
To me it seems like being a good person should be way more important. But in practice it seems like believing in God is the key and everything else is secondary, like you can be an asshole but just make sure you’re a believer.
Several of the local game shops have table space areas, and “game nights” open to newcomers. Euro-style table-top games and D&D / Pathfinder RPGs are usually casual.
I feel I should make a video about this. Online social media has made it very easy to find the 500 people across the whole world who think our frog picture is funny. It’s a lot harder to find 3 people in your town to have a drink with.
One simple idea; something I joined instead of initiating, is to make a WhatsApp group, put its QR code on a page (print at the library if you don’t have one) then put up the link anywhere you think people tend to walk. Explain it’s a social group for your given age demographic, but suggest it’s open to anyone. From there, suggest outings, get to know people, ask or offer small favors, etc.
Vancouver had some groups, they may have them where you are at.
One was an atheist group meeting weekly to do what churches do as a community gathering, helping out in the local area etc.
Another was the Processions, which was (from what I gather) a church that didn’t talk about god, as trying to describe or talk about god takes away from what god is. So they’d just meet as a community with an understanding they believed in a higher creator.
Volunteer work is probably your solution.
Other than mere social activities, people work together towards common goals, and all of them considers them good goals (different than between you and your boss at work). This gives strong feelings of becoming a community etc.
