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The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

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Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#91

Post by rrss1122 »

rayalez wrote: post #65

We already have plenty of secular communities. Hacker News, sports fans, standup comedians, book clubs, students in college, nerdfighters, groups organizing around hobbies and interests, groups of friends. Community forms not because religion has something sepcial about it, but because people tend to form communities around any subject they are interested in. Just because religion used to be there, doesn't mean we ha…

I've always felt that calling online forums "communities" was wishful thinking on the part of forum participants looking for a sense of belonging. Hacker News and nerdfighters, to use examples you posted, never felt like communities to me, just people coming together to talk about things they all liked, organizing around hobbies and interests. A group of friends does not make a community.

I think physical proximity is an absolute requirement for a community. Students in college inevitably form communities. They come together to help each other. Online forums like reddit more often drive people apart than join people together.

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#92

Post by scribu »

rayalez wrote: post #65

We already have plenty of secular communities. Hacker News, sports fans, standup comedians, book clubs, students in college, nerdfighters, groups organizing around hobbies and interests, groups of friends. Community forms not because religion has something sepcial about it, but because people tend to form communities around any subject they are interested in. Just because religion used to be there, doesn't mean we ha…

That's an interesting perspective, but I'm not sure how well such ad-hoc communities can deal with important life events.

For example, if a loved one dies, will your book club friends help you organize the funeral (or even attend)? If you can't rely on them in cases like that, it's not really the kind of community the OP is talking about.

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#93

Post by AlexeyMK »

The article resonates strongly with me. In college, I felt part of (and strongly resonated with) the Penn CS / hacker community. Moving to SF after graduation, I had lots of varying friendships and relationships, but there was no unifying community (IE, the graph of relationships and acquaintances was too sparse). The closest I came to community was based on workplace. When I left the US and began traveling the world, it's the lack of community that constituted one of my biggest concerns.

These days, I help organize pop-up communities for people in and around tech (hackerparadise.org) and have gotten to see the "a bunch of strangers show up somewhere for a month and slowly become an honest-to-goodness community" experience five or so times so far. The secular community checklist is spot-on.

Our equivalent of Ritualizing, point 6, is a weekly group meal in which members go around and talk about what they are working on and ways that they would appreciate help from others in the community. It's a simple-enough practice but it does a great job of providing structure and reinforcing our values - curiosity about others, a belief in continuous improvement, and a willingness to be vulnerable and open to receiving help and learning from others.

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#94

Post by felipeerias »

rayalez wrote: post #65

We already have plenty of secular communities. Hacker News, sports fans, standup comedians, book clubs, students in college, nerdfighters, groups organizing around hobbies and interests, groups of friends. Community forms not because religion has something sepcial about it, but because people tend to form communities around any subject they are interested in. Just because religion used to be there, doesn't mean we ha…

You should probably read the article. The author is talking about organisations that entail "inter-generational communities who interact regularly and who share values and worldviews; networks of mutually supportive long-term relationships; opportunities for fellowship and social bonding; and ritual commemorations of life’s most meaningful events".

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#95

Post by lovemenot »

virmundi wrote: post #78
mwcampbell wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one, abandoned my religion simply because I came to the conclusion that the teachings of the religion itself (evangelical Christianity in my case) weren't true. I have no problem with shared values per se; I could probably get behind a secular humanist community's shared values. And even rituals might be good, as long as the participants don't regard them as time-wasting bullshit.

Out of curiosity, why secular humanism vs existential nihilism? I don't think I'll switch sides and time soon, but if I did it would be to nihilism.

I may not be reading you correctly, but I understand you to be coming from a position of faith and happy therein (for now). If so, your standpoint makes sense to me. I imagine you may feel it would take a good deal of momentum to cross the boundary at the edge of your faith. A nihilist alternative may also act as a warning of the scary outside to those still on the inside.

Nevertheless, it is not actually necessary to go to extremes (see fallacy of excluded middle). The outside is closer to where you are now, than you might imagine.

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#96

Post by jqm »

_nedR wrote: post #26
avz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This need to be worshipped is what I found to be the most bizarre characteristic of deities. Seriously, why would someone who can create space, time, universe and everything care the slightest bit about whether or not a bunch of Homo sapiens perform all these weird acts that worshipping entails? Too needy.

Maybe the need is not for God but for us?

Maybe it's neither for God nor for us but rather for the benefit of those claiming to speak on behalf of God.

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#97

Post by angrybits »

Nursie wrote: post #45
angrybits wrote: post #29

I liked the article, but this is like the cultural equivalent of Not Invented Here. Does it really matter that organized Christianity believes that a guy woke up from the dead? If you want a sense of community and the rituals that go along with it, then you could absolutely join a church of your choosing and just not believe in zombie messiahs. The wife and I have been talking about this at great length as of late. W…

>> you could absolutely join a church of your choosing and just not believe in zombie messiahs. The other people in your church who do believe in zombie messiahs might all get a bit hacked off when they find out though.

If you join a fundamentalist cult, then yes. Lots of modern churches are non-denominational and quite relaxed. In fact, they are surprisingly similar to the entity being described in the article.

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#98

Post by maxerickson »

virmundi wrote: post #78
mwcampbell wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, for one, abandoned my religion simply because I came to the conclusion that the teachings of the religion itself (evangelical Christianity in my case) weren't true. I have no problem with shared values per se; I could probably get behind a secular humanist community's shared values. And even rituals might be good, as long as the participants don't regard them as time-wasting bullshit.

Out of curiosity, why secular humanism vs existential nihilism? I don't think I'll switch sides and time soon, but if I did it would be to nihilism.

Being good to people makes me feel good.

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#99

Post by Nursie »

angrybits wrote: post #97
Nursie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> you could absolutely join a church of your choosing and just not believe in zombie messiahs. The other people in your church who do believe in zombie messiahs might all get a bit hacked off when they find out though.

If you join a fundamentalist cult, then yes. Lots of modern churches are non-denominational and quite relaxed. In fact, they are surprisingly similar to the entity being described in the article.

I'm pretty sure a belief in the major parts of the bible are necessary, are they not? I mean, I thought the resurrection of christ was the whole point of anything describable as Christianity?

Without that, well is that 'church' ?

Re: The World Needs a Secular Community Revolution

#100

Post by theseatoms »

Animats wrote: post #25

The US used to have that. You can still see the remnants if you look. Rotary International, Kiwanis International, the Independent Order of Foresters, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry - all those secular fraternal organizations still exist. The core of these organizations was small business owners, a group which once ran their…

Does anyone know of any younger, modern versions of these institutions?
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