DrZoidberg
Contributor
Humanists may consider themselves secular or religious. Many of us who grew up in a church may miss the spiritual support it provides. In college, I often went to the Unitarian Coffee House, an area for talks, games, and snacks on Friday nights.
When it was time to marry, we called on Reverend Gold from the UU church in Richmond who counseled us and performed the service in the park.
A church, any church, provides spiritual support for moral people seeking to be good and to do good. The camaraderie, the music, the message, all contribute to maintaining a “holy spirit”, that is to say, “feeling good about doing good and being good”.
And it helps to have that support in a world where the wicked often profit at the expense of the rest of us.
But a formal church is not a necessity. We also have the camaraderie of the authors we read, the discussions with like-minded people, and even discussions with people who disagree but help us clarify our faith.
And, yes, it is a matter of faith. All churches that claim to follow God, also declare God to be Good. And it is our faith in Good that sustains us.
I've stopped seeing religion as necessarily being about God or the supernatural. Today I see it in functional terms. A religion is any kind of nucleus to meet around. Could be ideological, a shared interest or a shared goal. The point is that it allows us to let go of our individuality for a bit and become part of a greater whole. We like it because we're a social species and it feels nice.
The point isn't to reach the goal. The point is to meet people and do stuff together. To create a space where we feel safe and we can express a part of ourselves.
The stuff we do creates a shared identity. We like putting symbols and names onto the identity.
For various reasons some of these we institutionalized.
The awesome feeling we get from being part of these associations have led some of us to insert magical reasons. So these are often, but not always, places for spiritual exploration. Which often leads to belief in gods. We also like being part of these groups that in part are mysterious. Which adds to the need to make it magical.
That's my view of religion. Super vague. Super open. Nebulous.
And most importantly, everybody with a functioning social life is religious in some way or another. It's unavoidable IMHO.
I've stopped slamming Christians for being religious. One day I realized my glass house was windy. I too have had (and probably still have) a bunch of beliefs I hold only because it grants me access to people I want to hang out with. I think it's normal for socially competent people