My argument is roughly that religions uniquely provide a source of meaning, community, and life guidance not available elsewhere
In my limited experience of religion (brought up Church of Scotland but never took it seriously; attended Buddhist meditation classes on and off over a period of about 6 years; have attended a few Christian wedding ceremonies), I have never witnessed these things. At a church service there are bible readings, hymns, and a sermon, and … that’s it. (ETA: And prayers. Yes. There were also prayers.) Whatever community there is around it is at most just people using the regular services as a Schelling point to meet everyone else.
This surely varies from place to place, but that is what I have seen.
As with most things, there are circles in circles. The closer you are to the center, the more you get of the meaning, community and life guidance. Organized, large churches with lots of levels of structure seem to often be what you’re describing, but the smaller the group, the more involved people tend to be.
My parents were very involved in church activities, in very informal denominations, where it was expected that everyone takes an active part in everything. Or at least your status is very dependent on being involved. Of course it’s highest status to be a preacher, but even things like baking cakes or just tidying up give you more status than someone who just comes once a week on Sunday. There are also additional meetings during the week (e.g. prayer meetings, bible studies etc.), which are not mandated in any way, but you pretty much need to go to them if you want to be high status. This naturally gives you a lot of meaning, as your actions give you local status, but are also believed to give you future rewards in heaven.
The community isn’t just geographically bounded—whenever we would go to a new town or even country, we’d first find out where the local church was (or assembly, as it was called), as you could just walk in and be treated like family, including being taken to someone’s house for dinner, even if everyone was a total stranger to you.
“Pastor” was a job description in these circles, not a title. A pastor is someone who takes care of people (same roots as “pasture”—from the Latin “pascere”) so their whole point is to make sure people have life guidance, a source of meaning and feeling of community. When done well, this works very well. Of course the downside is that this is often correlated with insularity.
Yes, sadly, not all religion provides the level of community and meaning it’s capable of. It took me a while to find the right group even after I found that Zen was right for me, and without the right group I’d probably be less of an adocate because I know what’s possible and how good it can be.
In my limited experience of religion (brought up Church of Scotland but never took it seriously; attended Buddhist meditation classes on and off over a period of about 6 years; have attended a few Christian wedding ceremonies), I have never witnessed these things. At a church service there are bible readings, hymns, and a sermon, and … that’s it. (ETA: And prayers. Yes. There were also prayers.) Whatever community there is around it is at most just people using the regular services as a Schelling point to meet everyone else.
This surely varies from place to place, but that is what I have seen.
As with most things, there are circles in circles. The closer you are to the center, the more you get of the meaning, community and life guidance. Organized, large churches with lots of levels of structure seem to often be what you’re describing, but the smaller the group, the more involved people tend to be.
My parents were very involved in church activities, in very informal denominations, where it was expected that everyone takes an active part in everything. Or at least your status is very dependent on being involved. Of course it’s highest status to be a preacher, but even things like baking cakes or just tidying up give you more status than someone who just comes once a week on Sunday. There are also additional meetings during the week (e.g. prayer meetings, bible studies etc.), which are not mandated in any way, but you pretty much need to go to them if you want to be high status. This naturally gives you a lot of meaning, as your actions give you local status, but are also believed to give you future rewards in heaven.
The community isn’t just geographically bounded—whenever we would go to a new town or even country, we’d first find out where the local church was (or assembly, as it was called), as you could just walk in and be treated like family, including being taken to someone’s house for dinner, even if everyone was a total stranger to you.
“Pastor” was a job description in these circles, not a title. A pastor is someone who takes care of people (same roots as “pasture”—from the Latin “pascere”) so their whole point is to make sure people have life guidance, a source of meaning and feeling of community. When done well, this works very well. Of course the downside is that this is often correlated with insularity.
Yes, sadly, not all religion provides the level of community and meaning it’s capable of. It took me a while to find the right group even after I found that Zen was right for me, and without the right group I’d probably be less of an adocate because I know what’s possible and how good it can be.