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Comment by gregw134 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for sharing this. I'm glad to see a secular author who has a real appreciation of religion--he doesn't treat it as something that makes dimwitted people happy, but as a training regimen designed for self-improvement, a struggle to develop good mental hygiene and psychologically safe communities, etc. If I read the article right, he is saying we need to develop these practices in a nonreligious context.

I agree, but how can secular people and communities practice spirituality in a way that will cause these changes without sharing a common set of beliefs, practices and language?

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It doesn't need to be called 'spirituality' - you hit it on the head before with 'self-improvement'

It's possible for secular people to practice self-improvement, but why would we not share a common set of beliefs/practices/language? I think many self-improvement groups do just that - obvious ones like churches, but also non-obvious ones (book clubs, running clubs, etc).

You can practice self improvement, but there is not really anything to tie people together in ordinary living in the absence of religion. Self improvement groups do not create the kind of bonds in a community that will cause people to make real sacrifices for their neighbors. As an atheist married to a practicing Christian I am acutely aware of the fact that my wife's church offers a level of community, tied together by common beliefs and practices, that I've never found outside a religious context. Book clubs don't give you a shared way of life, and political organizations are linked by a common fight not a common way of living ordinary life. I can't think of anything in my secular urban world that is quite like the barn raisings my wife tells me about from the small, Christian, town in Iowa where she grew up. The closest thing I guess would be some sort of Habitat for Humanity project, but that's very different: focused outward rather than inward; charity rather than reciprocity.

> there is not really anything to tie people together in ordinary living [emphasis added] in the absence of religion. Self improvement groups do not create the kind of bonds in a community that will cause people to make real sacrifices for their neighbors.

1. A sense that we share an on-going narrative can give rise to a shared sense of purpose or mission. That in turn can be a significant motivator of communal behavior, even in ordinary life.

(EXAMPLES: + The founding of the modern state of Israel [many founders were secular or even atheistic]. + American exceptionalism and "manifest destiny." + Tradition in, e.g., military units and sports teams. + Scientific teams in pursuit of a discovery.)

2. QUESTION: Do we share any non-religious on-going narrative that can scalably and sustainably generate a sense of shared purpose or mission? Certainly different individuals are motivated by different things. Here's what sort of does it for me: It's plausible that we're all participating in a cosmic construction project that's been in progress for at least the past 13.8 billion years. In the words of an old story, we aren't just cutting stone to pay the bills, we're building a cathedral [0]. We can't know what the final outcome of the construction project will be, but if past trends are any indication, it'll be amazing. To me, that's pretty exciting.

[0] Self-cite: http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/06/metanarratives_.... and http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/09/creation_a_tita.... and http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/03/progress_hope_a....

Re: (1), it seems to me that, at least in my circle of friends (yuppies, basically), there is precious little narrative that gives rise to a shared sense of purpose. There are bonds of friendship, but between people of comparable social class and experience. There is nothing that binds me to the people in my neighborhoods, etc, at least nothing that compares to the depth of the ties my wife experiences in her religious community.

Re: (2), it is an interesting open question to me. I don't yearn for the spiritual aspect of religion. I don't fear death, I don't lack any sense of purpose, etc. I do lament not being able to participate in the communal aspect of religion. I haven't encountered any secular alternative. I'll give an example: my wife had our daughter dedicated in her church. I have encountered nothing like that in the secular realm. Maybe you can offer a baby shower as an example, but our baby shower would involve other upper middle class people, not a broad cross-section of the people who live near us.

It's worthwhile to note that it's unclear if religion is so decidedly behind a shared sense of purpose among the people. E.g. Pakistan, an Islamic nation with 97% of its populace being Muslim, is littered with social problems, there is very much a lack of shared sense of purpose. I think culture and history are better candidates for what unites people together.

My apologies for getting off-topic, but if I may inquire: how is it, being atheistic and being married to a religious person? Isn't it difficult to work things out, when the other believes that you're destined to hell? To believe that there's nothing after death, and that there's a whole afterlife of heaven (or hell) is quite a gap. How do you reconcile with this, do you often try to convert her, or make her see things differently?

> I do lament not being able to participate in the communal aspect of religion. I haven't encountered any secular alternative.

There are atheist churches our there: http://firstchurchofatheism.com/

The one near me has quite a vibrant community. They do clean-ups, social work, etc. I have made many good friends there.

> how is it, being atheistic and being married to a religious person?

You didn't direct the question to me, but I was an agnostic married (then and now) to a fairly-serious Christian. These days I'm sort of in the believer camp, for reasons that I think are intellectually defensible [0]. I still don't subscribe to many of the official tenets of Christianity [1].

The key to that aspect of our marriage seems to be mutual love and -admiration --- which dictate respectful behavior --- while agreeing to disagree about certain matters theological. We each recognize that for all we know, both of us could be wrong.

We see the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin's approach: Concerning the divinity of Jesus, Franklin wrote, a few weeks before his death at age 84, that, "it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, ... and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." [2].

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> Isn't it difficult to work things out, when the other believes that you're destined to hell?

Your premise won't always be true. I can't speak to what Muslims, Jews, etc., would believe, but most traditional Christians claim that even a deathbed conversion will be rewarded with eternal salvation. Such a Christian, married to an atheist, can thus hope that the loved one will still make it to heaven.

While some Calvinist-style Christians believe in pre-destination [3], they're in the minority. As I understand it, Calvinists don't claim to know who will go to heaven or to hell.

In liberal Christianity, there's a strain of universalist thought that says God would not punish finite sin with eternal damnation; therefore, everyone will make it to heaven eventually.

Finally, not all religious people believe in heaven or hell; some (like me) simply don't know what happens after death.

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[0] Self-cite: http://www.questioningchristian.com/2005/05/why_i_call_myse....

[1] http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/redacting_the_n....

[2] http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/benjamin_frankl....

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination

There isn't really much to work out. She does believe in heaven and hell, but she also believes that God has a plan for everyone. We can't prove each other wrong so we don't find much point in arguing or debating the issue. The only potential sticking point is how we raise our daughter, which we've solved the way most couples solve things: doing what she wants. I think a child has a lot to gain, socially, being raised in a church, as long as we pick one that isn't preaching certain messages (anti-homosexuality or anti-feminism being the two important ones for me).

> why would we not share a common set of beliefs/practices/language?

Religions are big things with many purposes. One of those purposes is self-improvement, and it would be useful for religious people and secular people to be able to communicate about the same set of routines using the same set of vocabulary and so on. However, this seems to introduce one of two strange situations.

A religious person adopting purely secular sets of beliefs and practices may find some of this to conflict with their religion. They're moving from one intellectual/psychological/social context to another. While a secular person might be able to point at how rather non-optimal a set of mental machinery might be, it is also quite likely that a religious person and a secular one have decidedly different understandings of the utility function for 'optimal' (and at very deep psychological levels).

On the other side of that coin, and probably more obviously, a secular person begin asked to acquire religious contexts and practices so as to communicate about this mental machinery would probably find these new shared beliefs/practices/language a bit "crufty". This would be totally understandable because all a secular person here would be after is 'self-improvement' whereas from above 'Religions are big things'. All of these mechanics are suddenly attempting to function outside of the context in which they developed.

Diff'rent Strokes and all, ya' know

"a training regimen designed for self-improvement, a struggle to develop good mental hygiene and psychologically safe communities, etc."

Sounds like a "modern" K12 educational system.

How about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

1) Trust the universe 2) Clean house 3) Be of service

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