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Goodbye Jesus

How The 'nones' Can Find A Sense Of Community Outside Of Religion


Fweethawt

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     Is it orgies?  I bet it's orgies.  Hot Roman style orgies.

 

     <skims article>

 

     Shit.  May as well stay in church.

 

          mwc

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I don't get the big deal so many make of "finding a community" after leaving religion. How did you find friends and activities after you left college or moved to a new state? Sheesh, it was just a church.

 

Maybe regular church attendance skews people to think a "community" consists of robots who all have identical programming. The best communities are diverse in their beliefs, backgrounds and experiences. Church was wrong (again).

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Is it orgies? I bet it's orgies. Hot Roman style orgies.

 

<skims article>

 

Shit. May as well stay in church.

 

mwc

????

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"[some douche] questioned the "unprecedented moral burdens" people put on themselves by forsaking religion."

 

Why are people so ignorant that it never dawns on them that their parent figures give them morals? Not the Jesus.

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I don't get the big deal so many make of "finding a community" after leaving religion. How did you find friends and activities after you left college or moved to a new state? Sheesh, it was just a church.

 

Maybe regular church attendance skews people to think a "community" consists of robots who all have identical programming. The best communities are diverse in their beliefs, backgrounds and experiences. Church was wrong (again).

 

Some people's 'community' is their job...and they are sort of sick of their community by the time the weekend rolls around.

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    No, it was not just a church.  It was an entire community of it's own.  This has been a real struggle for me.  Growing up our family attended church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening, in addition to small group Bible studies.  In the summers there was church camp and VBS.  Every part of our social life came from and orbited around the church.  We moved every few years but I never had to worry about making friends because we could always just join a new church.  A church is unlike any place else in that you can rely on a group of people getting together at the same place at the same time every single week.  They will be there.  Since deconverting I have tried to join mom's clubs and meetup groups.  People will say they will try to come to an event.  Sometimes they will show up, sometimes not.  They will cancel for lame reasons, like their kid hasn't woken up from their nap yet.  I wake my kid up, it's not that hard.  People would show up to church though, even if they were sick and had to drag themselves there.  The membership of the clubs and groups ebbs and flows constantly. Membership at church was consistent for generations at a time.   It's really nice having a place to go every week where you know for sure people will show up, the same people, and they are required by their religion to at least pretend that they care about you and pouring your heart out to them is actually encouraged.  Try to pour your heart and inner struggles out at a meetup group or mommy playdate and everyone will look intensely uncomfortable and not want to be around you anymore. The church people will notice if you aren't there for a couple weeks and check on you.  Meetup group people will let your corpse rot in your house.  

      How do you make friends without church?  I don't know, I'd feel pretty stupid going up to someone at Starbuck's and saying, "hey you look nice, want to be friends?"  They'd probably think there was something wrong with me.  Not everyone works a job where you can make friends with co-workers, either.  I'm a stay-at-home mom and my husband's coworkers are generally assholes and extremely eager to get home and away from each other.  All my neighbors pull into their garages and never seem to leave their homes.  We only have tiny strips of front yards that the HOA takes care off and no back yards,  so I only see them at Halloween, for real.  Trying to start conversations with random moms at playgrounds has them all looking suspiciously at me like I'm a potential stalker or something.  Maybe it's the area where we live.  But the church always guaranteed me an instant "family" wherever we moved.  Maybe that caused me to develop stunted social skills because I never had to work for relationships.  Now it seems like other moms will happily come over for playdates if I call and schedule one, but they will never call me and invite me over.  It seems like all the work is one-sided.  Relationships at church were so very easy to strike up.  We were all "sisters" in Christ, even if we had nothing else in common, and we often didn't.  I attended a Christian college and coming out as atheist to people who are now pastors and such, I've discovered by coming out to my family that you will be treated like Anakin Skywalker after he killed the younglings.  You were supposed to evangelize the Sith, not join them!  

     The other thing that makes forming new friendships really difficult is that 80% of the country still professes to be Christian.  They don't want their kids playing with an atheist's kids, and have said as much.  They really seem to think atheism is some kind of contagious disease.  Not to mention they don't have time to socialize with you because they have so many church activities that they are going to themselves.  If you don't live in a very religious area maybe this isn't such a problem for you, but here it's basically consigning yourself to a good shunning.  

    I intend to keep trying and joining new groups until I find my "tribe" so to speak.  I really just want a friend or two I can hang out with and speak honestly with without having to constantly edit what I say, because being an atheist is apparently really offensive. It's really hard when you don't know anyone who is not religious.  I'm working on focusing on reaching out to the people who seemed to have shown an interest in me, but it really requires you to adjust your thinking to have to work to build friendships from scratch when you are used to just showing up at a place where people would simply take you in because you were a member.  I think what I miss most is prayer request time when everyone would talk about whatever was troubling them, from cancer to colds or sick pets, and everyone would take turns listening to and supporting each other, and everyone would get a turn. They don't do that too much in meetup groups.  They talk about the weather, tv shows, and where they got shoes on sale or whatever mutual interest the meetup group is centered around, but rarely anything deep or personal, and one person often dominates the conversation.  How do you build relationships on such shallow interactions?  

   When I first left the church I made the mistake of joining too many groups and spread myself too thin.  Now I'm trying to focus on just a couple that I really care about and trying to build deeper relationships with some of the people in those groups.  It requires more patience because there's no more insta-friend anymore and no one is required by religious command to care about you.  It didn't help that when I first deconverted I was freaking out, so the people in the groups I joined probably thought I was a histrionic nut, since they had no idea what was going on with me.  Sorry for writing a book, but when someone above said it's just a church, no, no it's not.  If you were deep in the church life, then it was your life, and it was a whole way of life, not just a belief system.  I am learning a new way of life now, and feel rather cast adrift at sea.

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    No, it was not just a church.  It was an entire community of it's own.  This has been a real struggle for me.  Growing up our family attended church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening, in addition to small group Bible studies.  In the summers there was church camp and VBS.  Every part of our social life came from and orbited around the church.

 

 

So which causes more distress, being a Christian or being a non-Christian? You could pretend to be a Christian and go to church for the community aspect of it. You wouldn't be the only non-believer there.

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The "instant friends" at a church are not friends at all but rather people who need others who share their delusion.

 

Try a service organization or fraternal order. Join a travel group. Remember, real friends don't always share identical beliefs. Hell, I even have friends who are Scientologists!

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Developing acquaintances and friendships is often easier and enhanced when there is a common interest.  For example, when my first wife and I had young children, we spent time with other couples who (guess what) had young children.  When we were into backpacking we searched and found other folks who enjoyed backpacking (or similar things).  Having been involved with music most of my life, I have many friends who are involved with music.  Same with astronomy.  Same with cooking, or history, sports, or politics, etc.

 

Certainly, none of these hobbies/interests have central organization (other than some lightly managed clubs/organizations) anywhere near what religious organizations have.  But then again I am not asked to give 10% of my income to the local Rose City Astronomy Club or the Portland Guitar Society.

 

It takes some effort to become involved with others with common interests.  But the effort is small and the task is easy.

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No, it was not just a church.  It was an entire community of it's own.  This has been a real struggle for me.  Growing up our family attended church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday evening, in addition to small group Bible studies.  In the summers there was church camp and VBS.  Every part of our social life came from and orbited around the church.  We moved every few years but I never had to worry about making friends because we could always just join a new church.  A church is unlike any place else in that you can rely on a group of people getting together at the same place at the same time every single week.  They will be there.  Since deconverting I have tried to join mom's clubs and meetup groups.  People will say they will try to come to an event.  Sometimes they will show up, sometimes not.  They will cancel for lame reasons, like their kid hasn't woken up from their nap yet.  I wake my kid up, it's not that hard.  People would show up to church though, even if they were sick and had to drag themselves there.  The membership of the clubs and groups ebbs and flows constantly. Membership at church was consistent for generations at a time.   It's really nice having a place to go every week where you know for sure people will show up, the same people, and they are required by their religion to at least pretend that they care about you and pouring your heart out to them is actually encouraged.  Try to pour your heart and inner struggles out at a meetup group or mommy playdate and everyone will look intensely uncomfortable and not want to be around you anymore. The church people will notice if you aren't there for a couple weeks and check on you.  Meetup group people will let your corpse rot in your house.  

      How do you make friends without church?  I don't know, I'd feel pretty stupid going up to someone at Starbuck's and saying, "hey you look nice, want to be friends?"  They'd probably think there was something wrong with me.  Not everyone works a job where you can make friends with co-workers, either.  I'm a stay-at-home mom and my husband's coworkers are generally assholes and extremely eager to get home and away from each other.  All my neighbors pull into their garages and never seem to leave their homes.  We only have tiny strips of front yards that the HOA takes care off and no back yards,  so I only see them at Halloween, for real.  Trying to start conversations with random moms at playgrounds has them all looking suspiciously at me like I'm a potential stalker or something.  Maybe it's the area where we live.  But the church always guaranteed me an instant "family" wherever we moved.  Maybe that caused me to develop stunted social skills because I never had to work for relationships.  Now it seems like other moms will happily come over for playdates if I call and schedule one, but they will never call me and invite me over.  It seems like all the work is one-sided.  Relationships at church were so very easy to strike up.  We were all "sisters" in Christ, even if we had nothing else in common, and we often didn't.  I attended a Christian college and coming out as atheist to people who are now pastors and such, I've discovered by coming out to my family that you will be treated like Anakin Skywalker after he killed the younglings.  You were supposed to evangelize the Sith, not join them!  

     The other thing that makes forming new friendships really difficult is that 80% of the country still professes to be Christian.  They don't want their kids playing with an atheist's kids, and have said as much.  They really seem to think atheism is some kind of contagious disease.  Not to mention they don't have time to socialize with you because they have so many church activities that they are going to themselves.  If you don't live in a very religious area maybe this isn't such a problem for you, but here it's basically consigning yourself to a good shunning.  

    I intend to keep trying and joining new groups until I find my "tribe" so to speak.  I really just want a friend or two I can hang out with and speak honestly with without having to constantly edit what I say, because being an atheist is apparently really offensive. It's really hard when you don't know anyone who is not religious.  I'm working on focusing on reaching out to the people who seemed to have shown an interest in me, but it really requires you to adjust your thinking to have to work to build friendships from scratch when you are used to just showing up at a place where people would simply take you in because you were a member.  I think what I miss most is prayer request time when everyone would talk about whatever was troubling them, from cancer to colds or sick pets, and everyone would take turns listening to and supporting each other, and everyone would get a turn. They don't do that too much in meetup groups.  They talk about the weather, tv shows, and where they got shoes on sale or whatever mutual interest the meetup group is centered around, but rarely anything deep or personal, and one person often dominates the conversation.  How do you build relationships on such shallow interactions?  

   When I first left the church I made the mistake of joining too many groups and spread myself too thin.  Now I'm trying to focus on just a couple that I really care about and trying to build deeper relationships with some of the people in those groups.  It requires more patience because there's no more insta-friend anymore and no one is required by religious command to care about you.  It didn't help that when I first deconverted I was freaking out, so the people in the groups I joined probably thought I was a histrionic nut, since they had no idea what was going on with me.  Sorry for writing a book, but when someone above said it's just a church, no, no it's not.  If you were deep in the church life, then it was your life, and it was a whole way of life, not just a belief system.  I am learning a new way of life now, and feel rather cast adrift at sea.

Wow! You described everything my husband and I have been discussing lately and why my hubby is reluctant to let church go completely. I am a "Level 5" introvert, as he likes to describe me, who really doesn't need much interaction outside of him and the kids, but he is less so. As a result, I'm happy to never set foot in a church again, but he needs something more.

 

I'm a little ambivalent about your post. On one side, I agree with you that church supplies everything socially and makes it easy to be social. However, I wouldn't say it's necessarily sincere. Despite sharing deep(ish) things and baring your soul (to an extent), every time we would leave a church and the "friends" we had there, we noticed that they never called to ask us why we had stopped going or if we were attending a different service, or anything. It's like we had never attended there at all, even the one we attended for 15 years! It wasn't that we hadn't made the effort, either. We were there every Sunday morning, attended Sunday school, taught Sunday school to the kids, attended life groups and women's groups, and they still barely noticed when we stopped going!

 

On the other hand, as you mentioned and my hubby pointed out as well, no one else in the world will ask you how you're feeling as a mom stuck at home with toddlers or whether you feel connected to your teenage son. I wouldn't feel comfortable telling the moms I sometimes chat with after school if I had cancer or was getting divorced. As to those who said to just find people who like to do what you like to do, are you going to feel comfortable sharing about your drug-addicted teenager with your chess club? It's not that easy.

 

I agree with you, too, that the area you live in makes a difference. Literally everyone I know goes to some church in town. I don't know how they would react if they knew I was an atheist. Many of them likely would not be ugly to me, but they wouldn't necessarily invite me to their homes either.

 

My hubby is experimenting with joining some charitable, service-oriented groups - Rotary, Boys and Girls Club, etc. We'll see how that goes. While we have stopped attending Sunday morning services and more of our church friends are finding out about our "faith struggles" (how we have decided to let them think it is right now), we have decided to go to a life group this fall again, to maintain some social connections.

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At first I didn't seek out any groups. It was after I started a hobby (singing) that I found a retro club and started making acquaintances, took group classes and got to be more friendly. That's pretty much my circle now. I do have great family members who are still believers, others that are not.

 

But I don't really have buddies that I hang with much. I have singing friends and we get together on occasion, typically when one of us is doing a show.

 

I think the key to making new friends is a shared interest or passion, so going out of the house and getting involved with real people doing real things is a large part of it.

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