But even PZ Myers, who is about a proselytizing New Atheist as you can get, has explicitly said that he doesn't mind people engaging in religious behavior because it feels good (he has used the term "hobby"). The objection the proselytizing atheists have is that a) people don't acknowledge that that sort of thing is purely chemical in nature b) religion in its current forms has massive negative side effects c) lots of deeply religious people make things worse for the atheists.
I go to religious services semi-regularly. This is mainly for social reasons, but that occasional vaguely ecstatic feeling is certainly a positive. Nothing in that constuction requires me to believe that that feeling is coming from anything other than material aspects of my own brain.
I'm also curious about your use of the word discriminate. While that word might have some purely denotative forms, it seems like you are using some connotations or other conclusions that discrimination is in general wrong. Can you expand on your definitions of discriminate/discrimination and point to the logical chain that it is always (ETA: in this case) wrong?
The objection the proselytizing atheists have is that a) people don't acknowledge that that sort of thing is purely chemical in nature b) religion in its current forms has massive negative side effects c) lots of deeply religious people make things worse for the atheists.
I voted you up, because I agree with all this. Religionists in their current form do have massive side effects. They certainly don't acknowledge the chemical basis of their experiences. Atheists are still in the minority, and suffer the effects of being a minority group. YES. AGREED. I'...
In the comments of a recent thread, another poster pointed out that religious individuals tend to report higher levels of happiness than nonreligious individuals. I suggested that the social network of churches, rather than the direct effects of theistic belief, might be responsible for this difference, and after doing a bit of searching around to see if the available studies support such an explanation, found a study that indicates that this is indeed the case.
Religious churches may be far from optimal in the services they provide to communities, but they have a great positive impact on the lives of many individuals. And not just as friendly social gatherings and occasional providers of community service; I've known priests who were superb community organizers and motivational speakers, who played an important role for their congregations to which I know of no existing secular analogue.
It seems probable that a secular organization could effectively play the same role in a community, but would anyone be likely to take it seriously? Since people who're already religious may be inclined to reject the value of a secular authority filling the role of a church, and atheistic individuals may not be inclined to attend, either due to reversing the stupidity of religion, or due to asocial and anticooperative values, it's uncertain whether a secular organization that adequately filled the role of a church would get off the ground in the first place in the present social climate.
So, what are your feelings on the prospect of secular church analogues? Do you think that they're appropriate or practical? Do you expect them ever to become common in real life?