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Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

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Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#161

Post by uoaei »

mcook08 wrote: post #153

F3 https://f3nation.com I was feeling very lonely working remote. We moved to a Memphis TN to be closer to family and I was struggling with feeling like an outsider. I grew up playing sports and tried CrossFit but hated paying so much for a gym. F3 workouts are free and I thought I was going for the fitness aspect, but the fellowship is what really stuck. Guys hung out after workouts and it was great to meet so many…

I've heard these quickly become alt-right incubation machines. The "fellowship" becomes "brotherhood" and then you got a cult-militia going pretty easy after that.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#162

Post by ss108 »

roflyear wrote: post #145
xboxnolifes wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citing a disciplinary rulebook is not citing reality.

And the bible is... what exactly? :)

This is a stupidly glib comment. The poster meant that the reality of life as a Jehova's Witness cannot be gleaned from looking at some document of the religion, and I think you knew that, but decided to take a shot at the Bible anyways because you've been acculturated to think that dunking on religion is both correct and acceptable.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#163

Post by slothtrop »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #49
Zetice wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it's genuine as long as you subscribe to their set of beliefs. This may not be a problem for you, but for folks who care about reality, it could be more difficult. The difference between this and say, a rec soccer team, is that it's an all-or-nothing endeavor. You can't "casually" become a Jehovah's Witness (or any other religion), you have to decide that your entire life is aligned to those principles. I'm not k…

There are quite a lot of varying degrees of casual believers in religion. I grew up in a family of Christians/Catholics who never go to church, rarely say grace, have never personally read the Bible, but still believe in God/afterlife/etc and have personal beliefs that are molded from religious teachings. I know at least for the Christian based religious groups I'm aware of, you don't even need to share faith to be p…

Even non-believers have had their beliefs shaped in part by experiences with religion. In the case of joining a religious community, adhering to the dogma is usually important, let alone preferred.

I also have known "Catholic-lite" adherents, but they ultimately identify as Catholic. Anyway some of the minor sects don't take the distinctions between theirs and others lightly.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#164

Post by LouisSayers »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #157
LouisSayers wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mum some years back got involved in a church (as a non religious person). She somehow ended up giving talks at church events and got invited to speak out of town (she would talk about subjects such as helping refugees etc). Eventually though she felt like she was being excluded in subtle ways and being asked to give too much of her time. I also went to a couplebbible reading events some years back (free food lol)…

> Religion is weird. I think it's fair to say that there are people who: {believe | disbelieve} x {true things | false things} x {for good reasons | for bad reasons}. Deciding what's true can be a challenge.

> Deciding what's true can be a challenge.

It's not too hard when you hear ridiculous stories and treat them as if they were to happen today.

The one I remember from the church event was about a big guy that couldn't be subdued and then ended up breaking through chains.

So many questions from a single statement. Everyone else literally sat there and didn't blink an eye.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#165

Post by CoastalCoder »

bscphil wrote: post #65
geocrasher wrote: post #25

You asked, so I'll tell you: My local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. https://jw.org . I've never been happier in my life, and the sense of purpose, community, and security has never been higher. I won't espouse any religious teachings here, that's what the link above is for should you choose to visit it. The most amazing part is that it's genuine and trustworthy. It's all made of imperfect humans to be sure, bu…

Sincere question: when did you join JW, and what was your immediate reason for doing so? The reason I ask is that there are a lot of people recommending churches (of various kinds) in this thread, and I take it most of the non-religious among us would very much not be comfortable regularly attending a religious organization's meetings purely for community, while not believing any the things that organization believes…

At least for Protestant Christian churches, there can be ambiguity about the purpose / audience of a church meeting.

Some meetings are intended as outreach to non-Christians. E.g., to present reasons for being Christian, or to let outsiders see what a typical worship service is actually like.

Some meetings (or parts of meetings) only make sense for actual Christians: singing worship songs, testifying what they believe God is doing in the world, or taking communion.

I think a lot of awkward discomfort stems from lack of clarity on these points, and confusion about which attendees are professing Christians.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#166

Post by Fervicus »

silisili wrote: post #88

My neighborhood. When we moved in we sat out front every evening, and made small talk with every single person who walked by. Some were caught off guard, some kinda just waved and moved on, but most stopped to talk. What's interesting is that people who had lived in that neighborhood nearly 20 years together had never talked, and met for the first time as both stopped to chat at nearly the same time. Then we started…

I am curious. Which country do you live in?

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#168

Post by bazzert »

donnfelker wrote: post #160

A fitness community. This could be either a BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) place or even a CrossFit gym. I've done both and while I'm not here to promote CrossFit, I am here to say that a group fitness class is awesome for meeting other people and finding a community of people that do something similar as you, but have absolutely nothing to do with your work. I workout with Police officers, Lawyers, Doctors, Dentists, Sta…

Fully agree, the crossfit gym I joined several years ago has become an important part of my life.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#169

Post by slothtrop »

geocrasher wrote: post #147
TylerE wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, JW are, to put it mildly, nuts. They also outlaw blood transfusions . They literally expect you to just die if you experience any sort of trauma.

That's right, we choose not to accept blood transfusions. But, "literally expect you to just die if you experience any sort of trauma." is outright wrong. We strongly value life! We spend a lot of time and resources to understand transfusion alternatives, of which there are many, and we each individually make the decisions as to what types of treatment we will accept. If you want to find out what we actually believe:…

> But, "literally expect you to just die if you experience any sort of trauma." is outright wrong.

How's this: "literally expect you to die if you're in need of a blood transfusion to survive". Seems pretty much in line what what you espouse.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#170

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

Zetice wrote: post #34
geocrasher wrote: post #25

You asked, so I'll tell you: My local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. https://jw.org . I've never been happier in my life, and the sense of purpose, community, and security has never been higher. I won't espouse any religious teachings here, that's what the link above is for should you choose to visit it. The most amazing part is that it's genuine and trustworthy. It's all made of imperfect humans to be sure, bu…

Eh, it's genuine as long as you subscribe to their set of beliefs. This may not be a problem for you, but for folks who care about reality, it could be more difficult. The difference between this and say, a rec soccer team, is that it's an all-or-nothing endeavor. You can't "casually" become a Jehovah's Witness (or any other religion), you have to decide that your entire life is aligned to those principles. I'm not k…

You don't have to subscribe to their set of beliefs. They are not telepaths, they don't know whether you actually believe or not.

For that matter, it's debatable whether or not the believers actually believe things. They probably wonder themselves sometimes. They don't often make a big deal out of it, if they do find themselves no longer believing... and there is a conceptual framework built into the religion (that of "loss of faith").

Like the ancient religions, being willing to perform the rituals non-cynically is really the only requirement. You and everyone else already perform dozens of non-religious rituals and think nothing of it. What's a few more?

I mean, don't do it if you don't want to. But don't pretend the option's not open to you. Even if there's a clever believer there that somehow reads your mind, you're not unwelcome at most of these places even then.

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