Then you have people that may have grown up surrounded by some of the trappings of Christianity, but because of their atheism, do not attend church and take part in only the most universal rituals (Christmas, basically, and even then, the Christian bits are mainly removed). Christian thought is not the moral or philosophical touchstone.

There are atheist Jews in Israel. Is Israel part of the "cultural Christian west"?

So you need to explicitly define atheist Jews as the exception.

I don't see how the identity of atheist Jews in Israel depends on non-Jewish people celebrating Christian holidays in the US (whether those people identify as atheists or not)

How or why they started or what the religious think of them now is irrelevant.

Rename lupercalia to Valentine's Day, Saturnalia to Christmas, etc. To make Christianity a seamless switch for the Roman populace

Until a few years ago religion was listed on government identification cards. When you’re born your parenrs must state a religion for your birth certificate or it is automatically listed as Muslim.

You had to go through a burdensome official process as an adult to change this, and once you did this you legally admitted to Apostasy, which opens you up to discrimination (and future consequences if the government were to fall to islamists or neo-ottomans).

Furthermore, it was very common to be discriminated against by HR departments / hiring managers if Islam was not present on your Kimlik (government ID).

This only went away with recent passport and national id standards changing in their futile attempts to join the EU.

(Consider that Turkey is by far the most liberal and secular Muslim nation.)

I think there are more of you floating in the pews with you than you may expect. As I've grown older it's been hard to belong to a dogmatic religion. But I miss those same things you describe. I too attend on occasion for those exact reasons.

It was startling to me, however, to realize that I'm not alone. A large % of people there in the church find value even if they don't actually believe. And that's a strange comfort that let's me continue to appreciate the tradition without claiming the title.

Now I'm in my 40's I do wonder if the lack of religion in society is leading us to a bad place. We know from numerous studies that 2 parent families (mother and father) give the best outcomes for children (education, jobs, etc). In modern no-religion societies, where is the pull for good old family values? What we are seeing is better rights and fairness for individuals (same-sex marriage, etc) but is that good for society as a whole?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01494929.2015.10...

https://journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/Abstract/2016/04000/Same_Se...

When a child has a parent that's died, or a parent that leaves, or a parent that insert 90% of reasons for parental absence, it's natural that they'll have a harder time than anyone else. It's not that the widow would be a bad parent, it's that the kid would have to deal with the terrible situation of having a parent die.

If you were really wanting to get to the source of truth there, though, you'd also show how children that get adopted by a non-couple perform. If I had to guess, they're probably doing the best by far, because adoption as a single person is only really possible if you're incredibly stable.

Beware any religion, ideology, or group that punishes the honest questioner.

I'm an atheist and have considered the same quite a bit. I wonder if some people need something to believe and direction and religion helps fence these people into society friendly pockets.

I wonder today if what I would consider is that overly woke pocket (which I respect is very relative to personal views) and generally more extreme politics on all sides need something to believe in a fight for and religion when done well is a brilliant force for good in society this way to coral that energy to good places.

...but at the same time religion can be horribly controlling and toxic. And when religion finds absolute power it tends to go badly so I think the trade off between too much and too little, we are better going towards too little.

Maybe somehow we need to look at the good parts of religion and work that into a non-religious society. Even little things like I'd love to see shops closed on Sunday again and return this as more simple downtime for family, friends and self. Also realise we dont need to spend money every day.

I totally understand your point (and agree with the stated goal of a non-religious society with the "good bits" of religion baked in), but, the "some" in your sentence above ... there be really scary dragons.

Here's what I mean: would you say that "some" people deserve the right to vote while others don't?

The argument that "some" people need religion has the implication that they're too dumb to figure out a path for themselves without the help of a guiding book.

And that because of their limitations, the only way for them to "stick to the book" is to shrink-wrap the message into a fairy tale.

In other words, that'd be a world where one part of the population (those who don't "need" religion) brainwashes and manipulates the other part into "doing the right thing" (whatever "right" actually is).

You can see why this line of reasoning is a very slippery slope.

Some simply means, some people need to believe in something, and others dont. You cant thing this is an all or nothing position?

And the leap to conclusion with: "implication that they're too dumb to figure out a path for themselves". I've not said or implied that anywhere, nor do I see that is a obvious implication. Taking this step is creating offence where there was none.

And then concluding this could mean these people need to be brainwashed to believe the preferred format. That's a leap on a leap that had nothing to do with what I said, and pulling a worst case scenario into some semblance of the conclusion to focus on.

And not trying to have a go at you, but I do this you've over read on a work and made fallacious leaps in logic flow to a worse case. We can do that with any scenario. I cant see why it has any significant reason to be the focus point based on the previous comment, so I dont see why this is slippery slope as maybe it could happen but there is no direction from previous to align those events.

But that's me, and some people will agree, and some wont :)

It's important to make a distinction between lack of religion and lack of community.

I understand where you are coming from, I struggle with my atheism/beliefs too.

But without doubt, this is good for society. Think about it, we had slavery because bible and other religions, approved of slavery. Then women had no rights because of religion, finally they do. These are good things. I believe homosexuality is next big step for humanity. Once this is accepted, no one would even think about questioning it.

As for old old family values, I am not really sure what it means, but if it means close family ties, then I have seen non-religious families who are very close and religious families who fight all the time. And vice versa.

What slavery was doing, from an industrial and economic standpoint was wonderful for the owners, and very hard to quit - all of the objections to it were moral. I.e. "it's great apart from that pesky little detail where it's horrifically evil."

Quite a few antebellum churches desperately tried to plaster over this extreme cognitive dissonance between their teachings, and the practice of their society. You can find plenty of published material to that effect, but all of it has the same sort of flavor as Orwell's "some animals are more equal than others", wherein it has to somehow invalidate all of their core ideological principles, generally without a logically rigorous reason. ("All humans are equal" -> "well, what about them?" -> "oh well, uh, they're not really human" -> "because?" -> "reasons." )

I had a very similar experience. My mother is a (now non-practicing) catholic and my father is more or less an agnostic. We stopped attending church about the time I was 10 because our parish had one of the pedophile priests. My "faith" died out after I learned that all of these supernatural things I was told existed actually didn't, why was the existence of god any different.

Personally, I'd say I ended up an agnostic. I don't go around telling people what I think they should believe and internally I don't really lean one way or the other. One of those "unknowable" things, along with whether there is an afterlife or not. I kind of hope there is something, I can't exactly fathom non-existence.

But as far as "family values" go, I've never felt my parents' moral teachings to be any less reasonable without an underlying fear of damnation to keep you on track. I'd like to think that I'm a good person and that being a good person is my own choice and not something I'm told to do "or else".

Maybe it was Stephen Fry who said it, but there is a quote along the lines of "I'm commiting as many murders, thefts, and rapes as I want - that number is 0" that kind of resonates with me.

Whose family? Which values?

This honestly just sounds like a “back in my day...” rant to be honest.

> Hey man, you forgot to not do that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6w-zEfdB94&t=12s

That's a term that everyone interprets their own way, without even realising that they have different values to the person standing next to them; different people's "family values" can conflict in significant and very incompatible ways.

So what are "good old family values"? If your young, unmarried daughter falls pregnant, should you cast her out or should you double-down on helping her? Both of those are good old family values.

There was a time in the US when a needy person could walk up to nearly any door (except perhaps those of a few known scoundrels) and expect to find a meal, a bed for the night, clothes if needed, breakfast, and (depending on circumstances) some work to do the next day for pay.

The first great awakening had a profound effect on society - sermons preached in the 1700s directly influenced the US founders, belief in God and moral accountability to him became a basic assumption of society.

"Family values" is a term that focuses on where Biblical teachings have the most impact (the family) but it fails to capture the worldview within which such values arise.

Do you have a source on this? Genuinely asking because I’ve never heard of this depiction of early America, but I’m also a layman and not at all educated on American history beyond 101 college. What if you were black or East Asian?

In many parts of the world, the answer is that her parents would either simply pick her partner or heavily influence her options. In much of the U.S., that would be unthinkable! How do we reconcile those different family values?

Can we stop trying to go to absurd extremes with everything here?

That's massively different to a lot, a LOT, of other people's family values.

Absurd example? It happens every day. Every day parents cut their children off for falling pregnant in some way that's unapproved, and every day parents support their pregnant-without-permission child.

Hopefully we figure out how to build more stable unions by rebuilding a supportive framework (which church used to help with). Rather than forbidding divorce- provide tools, education, safety nets, etc, that parents may be more successful nurturing their relationship with each other. I have come to believe community is really valuable for the health of families, despite the nuclear ideal.

I say this because I got a toddler and sometimes it is easier to make up stories instead of telling truth, like when someone dies they go to heaven. Or if you clean up your room, then maybe elves will come at night and leave a present. It is almost like I can see a religion forming in front of my eyes. Sometimes I am using traditional religious stories like for life and death questions. And at other times, I am using fairytale creatures. This whole thing has made me more atheist while at the same time let me appreciate what religion does.

Which leads me to Santa Claus. I think Santa Claus is a great way to give subtle hint for thinking minds to realize that childhood stories are not real.

But can people still feel good without believing in religion? Do we have atheist societies? What do atheists tell their young kids?

Yes. This shouldn't even be a question.

That’s ironic given that the Church of England was solely setup so that the King could divorce his wife)!

With respect, this is a popular right-wing talking point that has been repeated since the 1970s whenever the US is on the precipice of making real progress in terms of equity and rights.

I'm surprised to see this claim here, as I would have thought the previous four years of the Trump admin, and the disastrous influence of evangelicals on policy making and governance, would have prevented anyone from even bringing it up again.

More recent research indicates that when a society is under immense social pressure and internal conflict, and fails to provide for its citizens, religious adherence tends to increase. However, in peaceful societies where the citizens have access to a wide range of services, religious participation drops considerably.

There's a lot more to this than I'm summarizing, but the data is clear: nonreligious societies are wealthier, happier, and more peaceful.

In the US, the most red, religious states have some of the highest poverty in the developed world. This isn't a coincidence. Religion tends to diminish when good governance provides for its people.

And most tellingly, what did we see happening in the US during the last four years of the previous Trump admin? The rise of Christian nationalism, often aggressive and violent in nature, and the loss of basic governance and services for most Americans.

Source: Ed Diener, Louis Tay, David G. Myers. The religion paradox: If religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011 https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0024402

The whole Christian = right-wing is news to me - again coming from the UK it's not seen like that at all.

> The rise of Christian nationalism, often aggressive and violent in nature, and the loss of basic governance and services for most Americans.

Again - news to me. Do you have examples here?

I should add that I'm not religious at all, and don't think a Iran-style religious state is a good thing for anyone. My main point was that we have lost something without religion, and the woke-ideology has replaced some of that in a very bad way.

Also I'd be careful with any kind of statistics that measure people who conform more closely with Christian values in societies who are largely Christian or structured around christian ideals. Being outsiders in any society is often problematic because of how the society ends up treating/valuing you.

Obviously the numbers able to fit in the churches are capped because of Coronavirus, but it appears as if there are more people who are wanting to attend than can. What I can say with some confidence is that there is at the very least more demand than the capacity.

Unfunny quip aside, it is a social gathering and it is undeniably positive for the community.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/11297461

https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html

Jeremy Corbyn's atheism is an interesting example - the right wing press found all sorts of ways to vilify or criticise him, but his atheism never came up as a criticism - because atheism in the UK is a complete non issue. No-one cares. Compare with Bernie Sanders.

Indeed, well put