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> I‘m pretty agnostic but I see the benefits of religious societies. And I should add that it's a mistake to think there's no intersection between atheism and

> I‘m pretty agnostic but I see the benefits of religious societies. And I should add that it's a mistake to think there's no intersection between atheism and religious societies. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Buddhism https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/beliefs/atheist-agnostic https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/beliefs/atheist-... Or one might consider something like Insight Meditation. I went for a number of meetings here in San Francisco. I never heard anything theistic mentioned; it was just meditation practice in the Buddhist tradition, followed by a talk on meditation. Lovely people, nice community, perfectly rational in the small-R sense of the term. One could call it religion or not, but it served some of the same social functions. Another good example is Death Cafe, local groups that meet regularly to have tea and talk about death. The ones I went to were profound and meaningful without being theistic: https://deathcafe.com/what/ https://deathcafe.com/what/

astrange 4y ago
> Another good example is Death Cafe, local groups that meet regularly to have tea and talk about death. The ones I went to were profound and meaningful without being theistic: https://deathcafe.com/what/ https://deathcafe.com/what/ Ironically (or not), Buddhism definitely involves meditating about death, but it might be harder to encounter it in the modern world where you don't have nine children six of whom died of consumption. It sounds a bit boring though. They should start a fight club, or throw themselves off cliffs, or something.
mst 4y ago
Being agnostic and having grown up in England, I regard myself as Secular Anglican and I think so do many of my countrymen (many people I've discussed it with wouldn't use those exact words in self-description but immediately recognise and understand the thing and agree that we share it.) i.e. we have it as a sort of cultural and moral framework but faith (or lack thereof) is effectively orthogonal to that.

astrange 4y ago

> Another good example is Death Cafe, local groups that meet regularly to have tea and talk about death. The ones I went to were profound and meaningful without being theistic: https://deathcafe.com/what/ https://deathcafe.com/what/ Ironically (or not), Buddhism definitely involves meditating about death, but it might be harder to encounter it in the modern world where you don't have nine children six of whom died of consumption. It sounds a bit boring though. They should start a fight club, or throw themselves off cliffs, or something.

mst 4y ago

Being agnostic and having grown up in England, I regard myself as Secular Anglican and I think so do many of my countrymen (many people I've discussed it with wouldn't use those exact words in self-description but immediately recognise and understand the thing and agree that we share it.) i.e. we have it as a sort of cultural and moral framework but faith (or lack thereof) is effectively orthogonal to that.