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While perhaps a loaded suggestion, if you have the tolerance for it, I’d suggest attending a church. You can utilize the social aspect without fully committing

While perhaps a loaded suggestion, if you have the tolerance for it, I’d suggest attending a church. You can utilize the social aspect without fully committing to the spiritual aspects. The reason I suggest it is because of it’s role as the post-college college where you can build deep relationships and people of all ages are genuinely wanting to network specifically to build a community. They’re not doing happy hours etc. to boost their social capital, they’re in it for the long haul. Also, building relationships with people of all ages is extremely important and rewarding/fulfilling. I agree with moving to a city or trying to tap into more social stuff. But i also find those relationships to be quite shallow. You bounce around a lot from one shallow connection to another. Dinner once/twice a month with group A. A group to play a sport with on Saturday Afternoon. Another group to do X scheduled event with on cadence Y. For me, and my wife, we found ourselves in that pattern in our 30s. She had her friend circles/silos and I had mine and then we had the a third type of circle for us as a couple. It was nearly impossible for these to overlap. Why would her floral design hobby girls be interested in attending a heavy metal concert with some of my metal head friends. We missed having deeper friendships. We always used the example of of how when we were younger and not even necessarily coupled at the time we both had friends that just popped in our houses. Never had to be planned or for any purpose. They were always welcomed and were just a constant in our lives. Going to church helped us build those types of friendships. I’m not even spiritual and I avoid a lot of the overly churchy parts. I do agree with the high level value/moral systems being promoted and enjoy the sermon parts. I look for the speaker who delivers nearly secular messages. It can feel like a life lesson or motivational speech that’s based on teachings of whatever book they believe in.

throw__away7391 5y ago
This truly is terrible advice. The worst thing that could happen would be your life gets wrapped into a religious community. This is why people of seeming average intelligence stay in churches. Everyone is pretending to believe the nonsense because if anyone admits (often even just to themselves) just how stupid it is, poof goes their friends, community, perhaps even their marriage. > I’m not even spiritual and I avoid a lot of the overly churchy parts. Literally EVERY SINGLE PERSON in a church says this. I knew of a literal cult, whose leaders ended up in jail, and THEY said this. Everyone says this because what's written in these books is indefensibly stupid that it's embarrassing.
- gafferongames 5y ago
  I'm an atheist or at best agnostic, but I've met and known many highly intelligent people who are also religious. It's not mutually exclusive.
  - throw__away7391 5y ago
    So we have an idea that is false. Demonstrably false we can agree. Also, anecdotes aside for a moment overwhelmingly higher religious beliefs correlate with lower intelligence. So, back to the anecdote, why in the case of someone being intelligent by your judgement would they believe this story, with ample evidence easily accessible to refute it? - They've never considered it critically--ok that's possible - They've considered it critically and decided it's true--I'd argue they either haven't or they're not - They have developed a cognitive disconnect to protect themselves from loss of community, connection to their family, or fear of death I am nearly certain that the last item accounts for the great majority, which is why this is such a dangerous suggestion. There is a real risk of losing your agency as an individual for of the rest of your life. I have seen this happen to many many people. I have seen many many people (literally 100s) who joined a church around when they were in their 30s just drawn in by the "community" only to become deeply disillusioned now in their 60 and 70 and feel that they had lost or wasted their youth and full of regrets. These institutions have spent thousands of years refining techniques for manipulating people, and their preferred primary prey is children and 30-somethings who feel "lost" exactly as the OP describes. They literally produce videos and training materials stating such.
    - khamba 5y ago
      Thank you for posting this. I was reconsidering writing a response to that, but you phrased it very well. An excellent eye opening article I have read about this: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N2pENnTPB75sfc9kb/outside-the-laboratory https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N2pENnTPB75sfc9kb/outside-th... which discusses scientists believing in religion. The arguments also apply to any rational person who forms beliefs based on evidence which I would say is a necessary property to be intelligent. Hence it irks me when someone says "intelligent people believe in god too"
shetill 5y ago
Can you really decouple all the religious things and just focus on friends building? As an atheist I would feel like an impostor there and to myself for using that place just to make friends. Also sounds like you skip most of the talks and just go for the church afterparty?

throw__away7391 5y ago

This truly is terrible advice. The worst thing that could happen would be your life gets wrapped into a religious community. This is why people of seeming average intelligence stay in churches. Everyone is pretending to believe the nonsense because if anyone admits (often even just to themselves) just how stupid it is, poof goes their friends, community, perhaps even their marriage. > I’m not even spiritual and I avoid a lot of the overly churchy parts. Literally EVERY SINGLE PERSON in a church says this. I knew of a literal cult, whose leaders ended up in jail, and THEY said this. Everyone says this because what's written in these books is indefensibly stupid that it's embarrassing.

gafferongames 5y ago
I'm an atheist or at best agnostic, but I've met and known many highly intelligent people who are also religious. It's not mutually exclusive.
- throw__away7391 5y ago
  So we have an idea that is false. Demonstrably false we can agree. Also, anecdotes aside for a moment overwhelmingly higher religious beliefs correlate with lower intelligence. So, back to the anecdote, why in the case of someone being intelligent by your judgement would they believe this story, with ample evidence easily accessible to refute it? - They've never considered it critically--ok that's possible - They've considered it critically and decided it's true--I'd argue they either haven't or they're not - They have developed a cognitive disconnect to protect themselves from loss of community, connection to their family, or fear of death I am nearly certain that the last item accounts for the great majority, which is why this is such a dangerous suggestion. There is a real risk of losing your agency as an individual for of the rest of your life. I have seen this happen to many many people. I have seen many many people (literally 100s) who joined a church around when they were in their 30s just drawn in by the "community" only to become deeply disillusioned now in their 60 and 70 and feel that they had lost or wasted their youth and full of regrets. These institutions have spent thousands of years refining techniques for manipulating people, and their preferred primary prey is children and 30-somethings who feel "lost" exactly as the OP describes. They literally produce videos and training materials stating such.
  - khamba 5y ago
    Thank you for posting this. I was reconsidering writing a response to that, but you phrased it very well. An excellent eye opening article I have read about this: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N2pENnTPB75sfc9kb/outside-the-laboratory https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N2pENnTPB75sfc9kb/outside-th... which discusses scientists believing in religion. The arguments also apply to any rational person who forms beliefs based on evidence which I would say is a necessary property to be intelligent. Hence it irks me when someone says "intelligent people believe in god too"

shetill 5y ago

Can you really decouple all the religious things and just focus on friends building? As an atheist I would feel like an impostor there and to myself for using that place just to make friends. Also sounds like you skip most of the talks and just go for the church afterparty?