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A Design Lab Is Making Rituals for Secular People
- rukittenme 9y ago> from How do I celebrate the birth of my baby boy? to How can I transfer my own sins onto a live chicken? The Atlantic seems to have a strong grasp on organized religion.
- tomc1985 9y agoWhy??????? Mercifully, being free of religious encumbrances means being free of ritual and other pointless prescriptions. If someone really needs the 'comfort' of a ritual so badly, they can make their own, though, to me, allowing oneself to be bossed around by something as mechanistic as prescribed rituals screams of contradiction. It is sad that so few can stand emptiness, or boredom, or silence, and that they feel the need to fill up otherwise perfectly good space and time with fruitless endeavors just to be comfortable.
- sewercake 9y agoI don't know how I feel about the approach presented in the article, but there's a big difference between a personal ritual and one shared and practiced by a community writ-large. This firm seems to be focusing on the latter.
- tomc1985 9y agoBoth are pointless, and religion overwhelming sells the latter
- toasterlovin 9y agoThey are pointless to you. Their universality points to their importance to humans, in general. I mean, one of the key markers of our species is that we ritually dispose of our dead. That feature of humanity goes back hundreds of thousands of years and it evolved.
- tomc1985 9y agoIt is ritual attached to function. We also non-ritualistically bury our dead. Ritual, alone, is fine. But human beings inevitably have to impose their BS on other people, who don't always agree or want what is being imposed. If the ritual-followers could keep to themselves that would be one thing. But no, its 'ooooh you must share in this!'
- trav4225 9y ago"human beings inevitably have to impose their BS on other people" Welcome to planet Earth! ;-) Humans do this with everything, regardless of whether they are sincere believers, religious zealots, strident atheists, or Silicon Valley humanists. :-)
- lainga 9y ago"Millennials Are Killing Secularism"
- doctorRetro 9y agoPlease, please tell me no one gets paid to do this. Please.
- unethical_ban 9y agoContrary to quite flippant and rudely opinionated comments elsewhere in the thread, I was talking to a friend the other day about the benefit of ritual, habit, and community. I think that there is something lost in society when we are all shut away from our neighbors, with no bearing on expectations and support from the community. I don't think God is needed for it, but I think rituals are useful to society.
- zer00eyz 9y agoRight, but there are other places to get this. Casual sports for adults. You local maker space. Having friends over - for a while we used to host a Sunday dinner and have guests over weekly (pasta and sauce is cheep and easy). For myself kids, and their demands in modern America pretty much killed all of these things off for me... Now my rituals are their activities.
- coffeemug 9y agoRemember that they're watching you. You're the model. My parents dedicated their entire lives to me. It was all about me, and nothing for them. While I'll be forever grateful for what they've done for me, I find myself struggling building a meaningful life as an adult. I seriously think my life now would be dramatically better if my dad did something as simple as go play soccer himself once a week when I was growing up (and occasionally have me watch him play).
- GavinMcG 9y agoMost of the things you mention are relatively small scale and not necessarily consistent or regular. Church is every week, at the same time, with enough people involved to have a consistent community – even if individual members don't show up consistently.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Church is every week Every day, in many cases, though perhaps considered obligatory only slightly more than once a week.
- neves 9y agoThey should take a look at the Positivists: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/world/americas/nearly-in-ruins-the-church-where-sages-dreamed-of-a-modern-brazil.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/world/americas/nearly-in-... The "Science Church" was once very important in Brazil, to the point that the words in Brazilian flags were from their movement motto.
- tenaciousDaniel 9y agoThis should be a big hit among people who choose their tattoos from a clip-art catalog.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- stephenhess 9y agoLove this. I'm as harsh of a critic of organized religion as you'll find but I think secular culture has a lot to learn in terms of how religious rituals and habits can foster human excellence, joy. And finding a way of reformulating these to be consistent with scientific thinking (i.e. throw out the mythology) Specifically, I've been really curious to understand the relationship between faith and anxiety/depression. You see a surge of mindfulness and meditative practices in the Bay Area that appear like secular replacements for how "faith" in the Judeo-Christian tradition helps people face the unknown and the fundamental uncertainty of the universe.
- iamcasen 9y agoI agree. Mindfulness really is just another word for spirituality. Being mindful of where your food comes from, and being thankful for the nourishment it provides your mind and body, is just a different way of praying and "thanking the lord" for your food. Religions are a way of trying to package this mindfulness and disseminate it. As you know, most organized religions have been coopted by power-hungry men and twisted into the ridiculous displays we now know today. We should reject those religions and what they've become, but we shouldn't reject the root they sprung from.
- GavinMcG 9y agoI think there's a pretty significant difference between mindfulness and spirituality. Spiritual traditions may well ritualize mindfulness, but there are many other components of spirituality apart from it, and there are secular mindfulness practices that don't intersect with the feelings and experiences many associate with spirituality.
- iamcasen 9y agoThat's true, you're right. There is a fine line between the two in my mind. For me, spirituality is recognizing the complexity of the universe and my part in it. Mindfulness helps me tap into that complexity and derive meaning for myself.
- 8y ago
- iamcasen 9y agoHmmm, this seems a bit problematic to me. I agree, a majority of the big religions and churches no longer fit with the times. People will always crave spirituality, but these days they are rejecting religions. I think that's ok. That being said, I don't think rituals can be trivialized in this way. Some of the most powerful rituals are definitely packed with the wisdom of thousands of years of practice, some of which is only now starting to be understood by modern science (fasting, and how it boosts immune health comes to mind). We are losing touch with that ancient lineage, and I think that's a mistake.
- dwringer 9y agoI think any definition of "modern science" that excludes existing human knowledge is not sufficiently broad. Though, as an inexact and informal term, I question where you've drawn the boundary and whether your own prejudices are involved.
- iamcasen 9y agoSure, I suppose I mean modern science as "accepted and peer reviewed." There are lots of ancient rituals that on the surface, probably appear totally pointless, and maybe even ridiculous. Just like fasting though, it might turn out to play a significant role in our health and well-being.
- Numberwang 9y agoIt's all bullshit and without wisdom. Just because you want to believe something is true or holds truths doesn't make it so. If you put all religion and ideologies ever invented in one hand and the concept of washing your hands in the other, washing your hands wins without contest.
- gnicholas 9y agoI know the head of a newly-launched community who consulted with Stanford D-School folks as part of his pre-launch process. They urged him to look to religion and cults in order to come up with practices/rituals that can build community and create enduring connections. Based on what I know of this community's onboarding process, I'd say he took them up on their advice.
- gumby 9y agoMany rituals are really useful as I recently learned. E.g. when someone dies, what do you do? If you do the prescribed process X nobody can tell you you skimped and you don't have to worry about going overboard. Want to have a wedding? Hey, there's a handy kit (vows, receiving line, cake, whatever) so you don't have to invent it as you go along. The big downside of course is, like so many things, they can be hacked as a way of controlling people, including adding pointless ones. But if you see them as opt-in toolkits you can take advantage of the pieces you want. And they are hardly stuck in stone: a white wedding dress (or a specific wedding dress at all) is a pretty recent invention (thanks, Victoria) that spread into all sorts of odd corners of the world because people like it. Why not?
- WalterSear 9y agoIt is by Philz alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Arabica that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by Philz alone I set my mind in motion.
- captainbland 9y ago> "Now, if you’re really going to speak Millennial, ritual has to be fundamentally subjective in the sense that it has to be intensely personally meaningful and relevant. As soon as it speaks to my truth, that’s authenticity—that’s how we define authenticity now" ... This is how venture capitalists spend their money.
- cncrnd 9y agoSecular people have been making rituals since the beginning of time...for many it's as simple as grabbing a cup of coffee before starting a pile of work. The d school and the work that comes out of it is mostly BS. Out of curiosity, has anyone attributed their success for the d school and have any of it's projects been impactful?
- Pamar 9y ago“Rituals are comforting: Rituals combat loneliness.” (A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving) https://books.google.de/books?id=cW8Z_UfqnH4C&pg=PA296&lpg=PA296&dq=a+prayer+for+owen+meany+rituals+loneliness&source=bl&ots=R_rzhXrkL1&sig=a3kOfVFpuLC_nhbGwXiyGhFfKvU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG8cbhtPTaAhWFhSwKHWnACI8Q6AEISTAD#v=onepage&q=a%20prayer%20for%20owen%20meany%20rituals%20loneliness&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=cW8Z_UfqnH4C&pg=PA296&lpg=P...
- anotherevan 9y agoI remember this[1] talk by Alain de Botton on "Atheism 2.0" talked a lot about the benefits of ritual. [1]: https://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0 https://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0