The atheist churches of America

Cypress said:
A transparent lie, Perry

If you find Richard Dawkins, Sean Carrol, Frederich Nietchze, Karl Marx, Sigmund Frued, and atheist churches shocking and reprehensible, then you need to reflect on your own actual feelings about atheism. I provide examples of well known and widely popular atheists as grist for discussion. The only way they could bother you is if you harbor serious doubts about atheist ideology.
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yes you keep ignoring the genocides and mind control and slaveries, and child molesting of churches.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
Upon further thought, I totally reject the concepts of atheist churches and atheism being a religion.

I am an atheist. I have no religion. I attend no church. I seek no congregational community.
Who would know better than I?
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Atheists don't have churches. But atheists are humans and require COMMUNITY. Church is really nothing but community so an "atheist church" is not a far fetched idea.
 
Truck Fump / h1b said:
yes you keep ignoring the genocides and mind control and slaveries, and child molesting of churches.
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It is a matter of special pleading for religion. When religion violates its own morality it is considered "meh". When an atheist does something bad it is considered very important to point out.
 
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Cypress said:

Inside the "secular churches" that fill a need for some nonreligious Americans​


Shared testimonies, collective singing, silent meditation and baptism rituals – these are all activities you might find at a Christian church service on a Sunday morning in the United States. But what would it look like if atheists were gathering to do these rituals instead?

Today, almost 30% of adults in the United States say they have no religious affiliation, and only half attend worship services regularly. But not all forms of church are on the decline – including "secular congregations," or what many call "atheist churches."

As a sociologist of religion who has spent the past 10 years studying nonreligious communities, I have found that atheist churches serve many of the same purposes as religious churches. Their growth is evidence that religious decline does not necessarily mean a decline in community, ritual or people's well-being.

Secular congregations often mimic religious organizations by using the language and structure of a "church," such as meeting on Sundays or hearing a member's "testimony," or by adapting religious language or practices in other ways.

What is an atheist church?
Secular congregations often mimic religious organizations by using the language and structure of a "church," such as meeting on Sundays or hearing a member's "testimony," or by adapting religious language or practices in other ways.

For example, there are a growing number of psychedelic churches, which cater to people looking to experience spirituality and ritual through drug use.

These secular congregations often appeal to atheists and other secular people, but their main purpose is not promoting atheism.

However, "atheist church" organizations like the Sunday Assembly and the Oasis explicitly celebrate atheists' identities and beliefs, even though not everyone who attends identifies as an atheist. Testimonies and activities extol values like rational thinking and materialist philosophies, which promote the idea that only physical matter exists.

There are also long-standing humanist and ethical communities that promote secular worldviews and provide secular ceremonies for major life transitions, like births, funerals and weddings. The American Humanist Association, for example, describes its values as "Good without a God." And for decades, Unitarian Universalist congregations, which grew out of Christian movements, have drawn on teachings from both religious and nonreligious traditions, without imposing specific creeds of their own.

But there has been a recent rise in secular congregations that explicitly mimic religious organizations and rituals to celebrate atheistic worldviews. Many have just one or two chapters, such as the Seattle Atheist Church and the North Texas Church of Freethought.

However, Sunday Assembly and the Oasis have networks with dozens of chapters, and Sunday Assembly has been dubbed the "first atheist mega-church". Many chapters of Sunday Assembly see hundreds of attendees at their services.

Whether the atheist church trend will continue remains to be seen. But such churches' recent growth is evidence that they can work much like religious organizations to build community, cultivate rituals and bolster well-being in a time of religious change.


continued
www.cbsnews.com

Inside the "secular churches" that fill a need for some nonreligious Americans

Atheist churches or secular congregations like Sunday Assembly typically borrow some of the language and structure of religious organizations.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
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Thank you for finally admitting that secular libs pushing their agenda to be instituted into law, is no different than Christians who vote their conscience.
 
countryboy said:
Thank you for finally admitting that secular libs pushing their agenda to be instituted into law, is no different than Christians who vote their conscience.
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I've always said intelligent people vote based on their values, and even liberal secularists have always incorporated a Christian ethos into their values: the whole raising up of the poor and weak, while laying low the powerful and rich is a direct echo of a New Testament gospel ethos.

Values just aren't created out of thin air.
 
Cypress said:
I've always said intelligent people vote based on their values, and even liberal secularists have always incorporated a Christian ethos into their values: the whole raising up of the poor and weak, while laying low the powerful and rich is a direct echo of a New Testament gospel ethos.

Values just aren't created out of thin air.
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Can you tell us when Christians invented morality so that we atheists could be good people too?
 
Truck Fump / h1b said:
christianity is noteworthy in its rational morality principle known as the golden rule,

though nominally christian institutions have displayed clear defiance of this simple revoutionary precept.
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I've never said Christianity "invented" morality.

I have about 200 posts on this board discussing Roman and Greek ethics, Confucian, Buddhist, and Hindu morality, all of which existed centuries before Christianity.
 
Truck Fump / h1b said:
yes you keep ignoring the genocides and mind control and slaveries, and child molesting of churches.
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War, crime, and oppression have been a perpetual part of the human condition for five thousand years, and church authorities are responsible for some of it.

I'm not signed up to be on a team or to an agenda. So I insist this be looked at as objectively as possible. To be objective means we should guesstimate the body count attributable to all human institutions and ideologies.

I propose we guesstimate death counts for:

Religion
Communism
Atheism
Capitalism
Imperialism
Nationalism
Colonialism
Science and technology
 
Cypress said:
War, crime, and oppression have been a perpetual part of the human condition for five thousand years, and church authorities are responsible for some of it.

I'm not signed up to be on a team or to an agenda. So I insist this be looked at as objectively as possible. To be objective means we should guesstimate the body count attributable to all human institutions and ideologies.

I propose we guesstimate death counts for:

Religion
Communism
Atheism
Capitalism
Imperialism
Nationalism
Colonialism
Science and technology
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sounds boring.

let's just clarify what morality is and stop playing the blame game, Mr. never again.

swords into plow-shares.
 
Cypress said:
Link me to a post me where I ever stated Christians "invented morality"
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Perhaps you could explain why every time you criticize atheists you always roll out the "they even take in some Christian morality"? This is not the first time you've leveled this claim.

I am genuinely curious why you seem to hate atheism more than most things. I've seen you be perfectly kind to people espousing some of the most repulsive stuff on JPP and then get angry with someone who speaks mildly as an atheist. Why is that? What scares you so about atheism?

And what, exactly, is your position? You seem to be walking a knife edge. Like you don't want people to think of you as overly religious but yet you are a pretty fierce defender of Christian morality even if it eludes you from time to time. Well, pretty consistently, actually.
 
Cypress said:
War, crime, and oppression have been a perpetual part of the human condition for five thousand years, and church authorities are responsible for some of it.
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Thank you for FINALLY agreeing that Christians should not have EVER murdered in the name of God. There was NEVER a time that it was moral for them. And the fact that they did it on such a large scale is indeed an indictment of this supposed "morality" Christianity engenders.

Cypress said:
I'm not signed up to be on a team or to an agenda.
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That's a lie. You clearly dislike atheists pretty strongly. You can dance around this point but you should at least be able to be honest with yourself. We all see it.

Cypress said:
So I insist this be looked at as objectively as possible.
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Another lie. You are anything but objective about atheism. You constantly compare atheists to Stalin.

Cypress said:
To be objective means we should guesstimate the body count attributable to all human institutions and ideologies.
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You have a great way to justify the murder in the name of God. I must admit to being quite fascinated at it. It is nearly evangelical in its scope.

Cypress said:
I propose we guesstimate death counts for:

Religion
Communism
Atheism
Capitalism
Imperialism
Nationalism
Colonialism
Science and technology
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What good would it do? Do you think morality is a matter of accounting now?
 
Daylight63 said:
Perhaps you could explain why every time you criticize atheists you always roll out the "they even take in some Christian morality"? This is not the first time you've leveled this claim.
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It's not a claim. It's true that western civilization to this day is permeated by a Judeo-Christian ethos, even when we reject institutional Christianity.
 
Daylight63 said:
Perhaps you could explain why every time you criticize atheists you always roll out the "they even take in some Christian morality"? This is not the first time you've leveled this claim.

I am genuinely curious why you seem to hate atheism more than most things. I've seen you be perfectly kind to people espousing some of the most repulsive stuff on JPP and then get angry with someone who speaks mildly as an atheist. Why is that? What scares you so about atheism?

And what, exactly, is your position? You seem to be walking a knife edge. Like you don't want people to think of you as overly religious but yet you are a pretty fierce defender of Christian morality even if it eludes you from time to time. Well, pretty consistently, actually.
Click to expand...
what is morality?
 
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