I think I wasn’t clear enough. My point wasn’t to bash other atheists.
Basically where I was going with this was to add my own experience, and to say that what people get out of religious observance can be more complicated than just social capital. I don’t think secular social organizations have to be at all “church-like” to provide community benefits. And correspondingly I think that the non-theological things people like about religion are not exactly summed up by “community.”
Also, I personally am in a weird position because lots of people (understandably) don’t share my tastes. I get why some people are enthusiastically anti-tribal; it isn’t me, at the moment, but I can see it and respect it. I also understand (though can’t actually imagine being this way myself) that most people dislike memorization and rituals performed just so. And it is weird but true in my experience that most folks (religious or not) can’t actually “get” any kind of sense that the Bible is literature of some value. It’s an aesthetic response and when it doesn’t go through, it doesn’t go through.
I think I wasn’t clear enough. My point wasn’t to bash other atheists.
Basically where I was going with this was to add my own experience, and to say that what people get out of religious observance can be more complicated than just social capital. I don’t think secular social organizations have to be at all “church-like” to provide community benefits. And correspondingly I think that the non-theological things people like about religion are not exactly summed up by “community.”
Also, I personally am in a weird position because lots of people (understandably) don’t share my tastes. I get why some people are enthusiastically anti-tribal; it isn’t me, at the moment, but I can see it and respect it. I also understand (though can’t actually imagine being this way myself) that most people dislike memorization and rituals performed just so. And it is weird but true in my experience that most folks (religious or not) can’t actually “get” any kind of sense that the Bible is literature of some value. It’s an aesthetic response and when it doesn’t go through, it doesn’t go through.