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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?

#141

Post by geocrasher »

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…

I was raised around it but decided to become baptized at 19. I'm in my 40's now. Reason? Life, the world around me, and pretty much everything just made better sense. I feel secure and happy this way, and I like it. I'm plenty open minded, and I've studied other belief systems, but I made a conscious choice that I stick to because it makes the most sense to me.

Some people think that because many of us have left other ways behind that we're fanatical or something- nope, we just found something that makes more sense to us than anything else, and genuinely believe we've found the things most others are still looking for- meaning to life, answers to why things are the way they are, and a secure future.

We're welcoming of anybody who wants to visit and check us out. We expect that if somebody doesn't want to share in our beliefs that they'll probably move on, and that's fine. We aren't about membership, we're about showing people what the Bible says about things.

To that end, we've re-evaluated the Bible without any pre-conceptions, which is why a lot of other religious that believe in things like the Trinity or the immortal soul look at us as heretical or crazy. But, when we objectively looked at the Bible (KJV originally) we didn't find those things, so we don't believe them. Pretty simple really.

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

#142

Post by yaseer »

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…

I'm an atheist that's generally anti religion, but I think it's unfair to dismiss OP's personal experience as an invalid answer to the question.

You could say this community is implicitly a secular one, but OP's answer frames things within HN's guidelines.

I guess in the spirit of HN's intellectual curiosity, we should at least acknowledge alternative life experiences here.

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

#144

Post by sebastianconcpt »

After having many Out of Body Experiences (without hacks or chemical hacks), I've met people that also did and wanted to know more about consciousness. I met lots of interesting people and long lasting friendships following that lead and finding these common experiences.

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

#145

Post by roflyear »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #90
Zetice wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Jehovah's Witnesses specifically, this could not be further from the truth [0], and for Christian groups generally, you beg the question here by ceding one must believe in that religion's concept of a deity/afterlife/etc. Such a belief is extremely hard to come by if not raised in that religion, and even harder if you're attached to reality's cause-effect relationships. Not impossible! But hard. And you're right;…

Citing a disciplinary rulebook is not citing reality.

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

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

#146

Post by slothtrop »

osdoorp wrote: post #114

Volunteering. And before you brush it out skeptically, like "oh yeah right, those people", it really doesn't have to be anything you don't care about. I volunteer at a boat house on the city lake nearby, just putting kids on pedal boats and kayaks. I don't even call it volunteering, I just love kayaks and water. It's amazing how your perspective of time and people and service shifts, when you spend some time being "i…

I intend to try some form of this once I have more leisure time. I'm a parent and I don't see it happening in the foreseeable future unless it involves my kids.

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

#147

Post by geocrasher »

TylerE wrote: post #126
digitalsushi wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I googled the word and the first google hit tells me that if I am following those rules, it's not cool for me to say hello to someone in that state of being.

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: https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jehovahs-witnes...

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

#149

Post by geocrasher »

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…

   but I would hesitate to join a religion to make friends.
Agreed. That isn't what I suggested. I answered the question asked. Nowhere did I say somebody should attain to becoming a JW to have more friends. That's the exact wrong reason in fact.

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

#150

Post by leesalminen »

ljsocal wrote: post #132
driscoll42 wrote: post #112

I'm a member of my local Rotary, the one I'm part of does a lot of good work around the city. I'm also part of a non-profit, the Chicago Engineers' Foundation ( https://www.chicagoengineersfoundation.org/ ) that I get a lot of value and connections out of. Also a city club to meet other professionals and chat. But my main was going back to school to get a MBA, met a ton of people that way. What you want is called a "…

I joined a local Rotary club twenty years ago (in my mid-40s) and it’s become a pillar of my social health and personal productivity. Service clubs like Rotary (Lions, Kiwanis,etc) are facing an existential demographic crash right at a time when people have a renewed interest in IRL social/community engagement. Fingers crossed that resolves!

I tried applying to my local rotary club online in 2019. Basically just a web form expressing interest. I got an automated email saying someone would reach out in the next 30 days. I was met with complete radio silence. Never heard anything back at all.

I was a Rotary exchange student 20 years ago which completely changed the trajectory of my life (for the better), and was excited to help the next generation with becoming an exchange student. I was also involved with RYLA as a teen.

For a group facing an existential crisis, they didn’t seem too worried about it

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