> Perhaps somebody could start an "atheist church", but the concept is unpalatable to me In France, a lot of atheist Jews joined Freemasonry at the beginning o

> Perhaps somebody could start an "atheist church", but the concept is unpalatable to me In France, a lot of atheist Jews joined Freemasonry at the beginning of the 20th century for this very reason: they were highly educated, atheists, and felt that they were missing something because they did not gather anymore for religious reasons. But rather than flocking to pray uselessly (yes, this is a bit provocative), they used their time to think about and improve society - it would be called a "think tank" today I presume. This led to major improvements in the french society at that time, and especially a law that separated church and state, leading to a fully secular society (so the "1905" law in France) (And this is one of the reason why Freemasons were persecuted by the nazi-friendly governments in France during the WW2 - they were hated by far rights religious people for being atheists AND for accepting Jews, and because of previous secular laws)