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Comment by jemmyw | Hacker News Reader

Do atheists destroy women? Or do you mean women no longer filling some role you think they should because of what your religion prescribes?

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It's that there's no community cohesion. Atheists don't gather every Sunday to meet with each other and be friends and get to know each other even if they don't particularly like each other. There's no atheist pastor that meets with everyone and proactively does couples counseling and group therapy. There's no atheist diplomat peacemaker to mend things after there's been a fight. there's no central thing that everyone can come together and agree on.

Yes, organized religion goes too far and gets perverted and it's bad. but we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in abandoning it.

You're confusing a system.of unsubstantiated belief with social mental healthcare.

I'm saying the system of belief brought along with it social mental healthcare that is now missing since we rejected the system of belief.

And instead there's people coming together under other banners. And just because people don't come together isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unity as a society creates tyranny for those who don't follow. Dis-unity of society creates freedom for those who are happily different, more agility to think more freely and go more freely.

You want it one way but many others are happy with what you don't like.

Ya, I think watching most of my exgfs age into their mid and late 30s single or just into the next 0.5-1 year relationship, makes me think something is wrong. I wouldn't really know it was a problem if every single one of them didn't cry in front of me at some point during or after our relationship about being upset they have to work forever, feel like they might miss out on kids, that guys don't want to settle down anymore, and so on. Obviously the guys are at fault too. We were all clueless in our teens and 20s and not told what we should have been. I suppose parents could tell you, or friends, but they haven't been. The church for the most part is still trying.

I don't think religion is the major factor there. Losing religion is lagging behind these social changes. I mean, anecdotally, I'm not religious and my wife is fiercely anti-religions and we have 3 kids and she doesn't work. We just decided to step outside the rat race we felt we were in and lose some of the lifestyle people seemed to think was so important - moved away from the city, only had one car, didn't take overseas holidays.

There are quite a few people in the area I'm in who have made the same choices, some are religious, some are not. And we're still in touch with plenty of folks who match what you describe and they don't want to give up the career/city/car/lifestyle. Again, some of those people are religious and some are not.

You could make broad strokes about the relationship between religion and social culture but I think in your comment you have the relationship inverted. When you have religious freedom religions are an expression of the social culture of their members, they are not an enforcement of the social culture on their members.

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