Lately I got sick bad enough that I thought of all the bad things that can go wrong with your body, and how we live and our body breaks down with sickness or age, and then we die, and it’s nothingness. This has distressed me greatly because I have the fear of sickness and death but nothing to counter it with, yet I can’t easily believe in magical claims.
I used to be a church goer as a kid but when I was older I stopped believing in supernatural claims and thus have had no religion at all except philosophy. Which sadly I don’t do well.
But now I miss having a spiritual family of some kind. Is there any group I can join like a church but not? I have already dismissed [name of cult i won’t mention] and SCA, for obvious reasons, on my deathbed I prefer not have the last rites read by someone in a jester’s costume. I think i need some kind of connection to others were we share enough of a common bond it is like a family.
There’s also a smaller group called Religious Scientists (NOT Christian Scientists) that you might find appealing. I don’t really know a whole hell of a lot about them, but I attended a service in undergrad for a class, and they seemed very spiritual but non-dogmatic.
There’s the Ethical Culture people – I think they’re mostly in the Northeast, but they are explicitly humanist, if that’s your cup of tea. Otherwise, I would definitely look into UUs; they vary wildly by individual congregation, but in general, are probably right up your alley.
We have a friend who’s active in her local society. She came up our way to give a talk at our local Ethical Society a few weeks ago. Never been to one of their meetings before.
It was interesting, church-y without being church-y in that no Deity is ever mentioned . Or, as my husband termed it, “They’re Secular Unitarians.”
Huh, the local Unitarians here are about as secular as you can get. They occasionally giving passing reference to something along the lines of a “great spirit,” but mostly they just utterly mimic a standard church (down to co-opting the hymns with different words; when I was in the choir, I made it a point of singing the original words when I knew them even though I am not at all Christian, because it just seemed so silly to sing the Doxology with secular words) and its functions within society, without ever having the poor taste to mention anything that might suggest any dictation of belief or doctrine. The minister would get up and preach about ethics.
I’ve heard it depends on the local branch. Apparently the various locations in the suburbs of Chicago run the gamut from Christian-lite to neo-pagan to staunch humanism.
I agree that the UUs are good for many secular seekers, as it were. You’ve got the social support of a community, and spiritual connection if you want, but it’s never (in my experiences, anyway) shoved in your face if you don’t. No one’s going to ask you if you’ve “accepted Jesus into your heart” or anything, although they might invite you to the Bible study on Friday or the Earth Healing Circle on Saturday…stuff like that.
And, of course, I’ll speak up for my own. Some neo-pagan groups are not at all concerned with your personal beliefs, expect maybe as good conversation around the bonfire. Many of us have pretty rituals with bells and smells but language designed to be very inclusive. We enjoy the company and community of others, and many of us enjoy talking philosophy and theology, but for the most part, we’re not interested in converting anyone at all.
Other neo-pagan groups are very dogmatic and specific to a single tradition, though. I don’t recommend them in your case, obviously, unless you find one of their paths resonates strongly with you.
Each UU congregation pretty much decides for themselves how much or how little religion they can accept, so if one congregation doesn’t seem to be a good fit, try another one. The one I attend is particularly good, but the Pastor is leaving soon, so who knows what will happen. Mine is a pretty active social justice church.
UU’s don’t require any member to commit to any particular dogma or creed, but do ask each member to develop their own personal theology and encourages members to share their beliefs without criticism. They value works over faith but recognize that weekly services allow members to form a supportive community and receive common public rituals and ceremonies that many people grew up with and enjoy.
I like to listen to the sermons of Rev. Dr. Matt Tittle (available on iTunes or his personal website)- I particularly like “Why Would an Atheist Go To Church” and “Love, Passion, Courage”.
It does - and sometimes within the same congregation there will be sermons that are notably more humanistic and those that are notably more spiritual. Some congregations are fairly Christian, some much less so. Ours has a wonderful musical tradition - and that contains a lot of hymns - but our minister herself is agnostic.
But its worth a try as there are UUs all over the place - where its probably a harder time to find a group of secular humanists that forms a community. And a lot of UUs came to Unitarianism for the same reason as the OP - they wanted a “spiritual” community - but didn’t want all that God in it.
There is the American Humanist Association. They provide a social structure similar to a church. They have “celebrants” to preside over weddings and funerals.
This may be completely, totally off base, but I’ve been trying out this Zen Buddhist thing lately. It’s non-theist (not theist or specifically atheist, more like “theism is irrelevant”) and there’s a community, and it deals very intimately with things like fear of sickness and death.
