Yes, excellent answer.

I'm fond of pointing out that Jesus would was arguably the first socialist. Or at least not in the dictionary sense of "controlling the means of production", but taught things that if the government did them would be labelled as socialism. Kind of like bailing out and protecting corporations is "corporate socialism".

If the government did what churches do and combined free food with science, civics, and rational thinking education it would probably be labeled "entrapment"

Jesus was hardly the first with feeding the poor - it was considered a governmental responsibility in Rome.

Uh-huh.

"Did God send you?" ... "Yes".

Your god is a genocidal maniac with catastrophic anger management issues. Man up and tell Him to FUCK OFF!

(Sorry, my childhood anger and rage is showing.)

Somehow I didn't think we'd have former missionaries, although it is kind of obvious.

I have a feeling confessions of former missionaries would make for some compelling TV. I guess someone would argue that such a show wouldn't have a big audience or would be unpopular. However shows are made for all kinds of minority audiences - so you'd think with one third of Americans religiously unaffiliated (more than there are non-white, or non-heterosexual in the US) we could easily get programming just for us. Plus you know a bunch of religious people would watch it anyway. Even Trump watches the liberal pundits on TV - crossover happens!

Oh the business aspect is good one I hadn't thought of. Although technically your carpenter probably isn't going to proselytize much - he's along for the free ride even if they don't know they are being used. That would be ironic since one theory says that religion exists as a societal solution for dealing with free-riders. A bit like a gang but with metaphysical menaces not physical ones. Although if you are in an area where everyone is strongly affiliated with a church then the financial aspect may be that of not participating. If you're not in our "family" you won't get our business...

However it sounds like the trumpeter might be at risk of ending up hooked up with a churchy person and before you know it he is raising churchy kids and teaching them how beneficial it is to be a hanger on. Mission accomplished...

@prometheus I doubt that Calvin ever go caught up, just hooked up. He loved his music and was all about sharing the love on an island where people will typically ask you how man kids you have and then follow it up with the question how many inside your marriage and how many outside of it.
The most confusing day in Bermuda has got to be Father's Day.

"the fear of being punished for thinking for oneself" - Exactly!

I've watched a lot of the street epistemology videos. That guy Anthony Magnabosco has the patience of a saint. He doesn't seem to publish videos where he gets a negative reaction - I'm guessing those people don't allow him to use any video he takes - but it is amazing how many people will talk to him for ages. I know he mostly hangs out on a campus where there are younger inquiring minds but its not all people like that.

I could probably carry on that kind of conversation online, but in person, I think I'd find it a challenge. And his seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the subject matter is very impressive.

@Allamanda Wow! Thank you for sharing that.

Thanks for the response, sounds like you understood the question as I intended although not all did and were convinced I was asking something else.

Even with the more generous statistics of no religious affiliation being at 33% is likely that almost everyone who is an adult has had at least some religious indoctrination in their youth, so yeah I get that many may be just lapsing to something that was familiar before, or awakening buried thoughts and emotions.

I get it too having being raised a Christian by my mother (father was completely a-religious and never spoke of it, although he took us to an awful lot of churches from an archaeological/historical perspective) but found my way out through education, science, and pure rational thought. After the death of my father when I was 17 I think I would have been a prime candidate to go full on into religion. Fortunately I escaped that - English churches are mostly non pushy and so was my mother, and I was already counting myself at least as a strong skeptic. One of my brother's did end up sucked into the Church - even dabbled with one of the more cultish ones for a bit and had some pushy young female members showing up "to pray with him". My mother managed to help extricate him from that group. Now he's just a harmless typical Anglican Church of England participant. Never ever preaches to me, and does good but mostly harmless things in his spare time.

Anyway I did briefly date, long distance, a quite religious woman. My first true love I'd say - at least as an adult. We talked about religion and she knew I was an atheist. I think we ignored that for a while because we were besotted. When I eventually met her in person she did take me to her American church which was moderately evangelical / hippy dippy love and Jesus stuff. I was there strictly as an observer, felt zero draw to Jesus. I think I figured this would just be a thing she did on Sundays if we got together long term. Shortly after that she broke up with me because of the religion thing. I could never be part of her relationship with Jesus. I think she did me a favour. But yeah, I guess I can see how someone could get lured in if they were less set in their ways and maybe more desperate for companionship.

I've heard a bunch about 12 step programs. I think I read in the last year or two about someone who managed to get out of a court mandated program because he was able to demonstrate that the accepting a higher power thing was against his atheist stance. Would have to look up a link for that but it sounds like a good step in the right direction. Hopefully there will slowly be more people taking note of this insidious nature of those programs. It definitely sounds tantamount to unconstitutional mandating of religion...

@prometheus you are very wrong that C of E or Anglicans are harmless.....magical thinking destroys scientific thought....thus the painful slow escape from cults ....all religions are cults whether born into each or recruited @ any age .....I taught my children holy days are the gateway drug to cult addiction....the best way to save a neighbor or friend from religion is to be an Atheist example proud methodical and versed in Atheist history of the last 28 centuries....rebuff all their claims for miracles and demand proof = evidence for a rational definition of the alleged words = gibberish gawds gott gods in any language

@Larry68Feminist aren't less than 10% of Brits actual church goers? And they seemed to be the least evangelical bunch when I lived there. If they are dying out then probably best to just leave them well alone.

But the Anglican Church as a whole - well it has a finger in a lot of multinational pies, especially Africa right? Not sure I actually called them harmless, but I guess relative to the evils of American evangelicals... They seem to be the lessor of two evils to me. That said there's barely an organized religion that can walk away from their influence on society with clean hands.

@Allamanda That is true yes, but I suspect that a lot of the people who fall in to New Age woo, come to it from theocratic religion. Especially they see some of what is wrong with that, but do not make the full leap to the rejection of belief.

@Allamanda

True. There are many tribal groups which can be grouped into religion of some sort.

@BestWithoutGods

You have more patience than me.

"We are ALL atheists here," I say to Jehovah's Witnesses, grandly sweeping my arm to include the entire neighborhood.

That shuts them up. Good.

Yeah I lean towards passive measures and socratic reasoning myself. Where I live I seldom get the opportunity - I'm a bit rusty on things like false prophecies or contradictions. But I do know the bad parts they don't like to talk about or pretend aren't important or not really part of Christianity.

But my question was probably more towards societal changes that could be made - I didn't want to make it a leading question with examples but some have come up already: better health and mental healthcare for everyone, take away the burdens of simply living like food and housing, proper rehab in prison and help for ex-cons, better education, more activities for youth outside of possibly toxic homes, non-religious hotlines and outreach for the needy and desperate.

One guy doing a TED talk about how he escaped a cult called it "filling the potholes". Life if full of potholes - just fill them up!

Thanks for sharing. Why did you say "unfortunately for them, and me". Do you regret not being Christian material?

@prometheus Unfortunately for me because I developed schizoaffective disorder soon after converting. Unfortunately for them because I didn't turn out the way that they hoped.

Unfortunately in the US they are doing everything they can to make education as useful and informative as a chocolate teapot. First they break it, then they throw it out for not working, and then they replace it with something worse including meme friendly "home schooling".

So just look at the things they are trying to stop ... Birth control, good education, separation of church and state, universal affordable or free healthcare and mental healthcare, housing for everyone... Sounds like a good starting point.

You've got this all wrong. Atheism is not a belief system to be proselytized onto. It is merely not merely awaiting evidense of deity. It is not believing in god(s). While you are busy being magnanimous and respectful toward all faiths, fundamentalists are busy trying to control society through campaigns to re-write laws and other social codes you would be required to live by.

Lest you think their efforts are fruitless and harmless, just look at the state of the GOP. Look at the massive history of laws that have gravely persecuted those who didn't cow tow to religious rules. Any self-respecting queer person should see how dangerous religion can be.

Religion is not merely an academic question of whether a god or gods exist. Spirituality, perhaps, can be a personal exercise for sorting one's personal value system in a healthy way. But organized religion is something different. It is external to any individual person. It is about social control, and it is powerful and therefore deserves to be checked, countered, held accountable in some way.

@MikeInBatonRouge You can’t have it both ways. The poster is asking for ways to stop adults from being recruited into religion. Trying to stop adults from following their inclinations requires some sort of argument, i.e. proselytizing and indoctrination into your way of thinking—into your world view—your belief system.

I am in no position to be magnanimous toward religions. To me it’s not magnanimity but logical necessity that requires respect for all perspectives. That is because no one person has the complete picture.

Various groups campaign for their values to be adopted or at least preserved.There is nothing illegal or undesirable about that so long as things can be worked out democratically and our basic civil rights are preserved.

History has shown repeatedly that when atheists seize control democracy and civil rights go out the window.

@WilliamFleming Elsewhere I made the same point you did that people have choice, and we can't stop that choice,vso we don't ebtirely disagree. But I also guess the post was possibly overstating its intent. We certainly can influence. What you called proselytizing and indoctrination I call educating and encouraging people to apply reason. The "belief" vs "not belief" arguments is semantics. The problem is in equating belief based on religious faith with belief based on an educated reasoned evaluation of evidence, which is subject to revision pending additional vetted information. Apples and oranges

How does that translate into launching a campaign of proselytizing and indoctrination into your belief system?

I've no idea, those are your words not mine and nothing at all to do with what I was asking.

@prometheus Maybe I misread. It sounds like you are wanting to discuss ways to keep adults from joining religious groups. How could that be accomplished except through persuasion?

@WilliamFleming as many others have pointed out religious institutions often prey on people at their most vulnerable and needy times. By providing comfort and help to people that is secular - non-religious - they can perhaps deal with those situations without being suckered into a religion. There's no pushing on proselytising because these people are already not religious. It's plain and simple humanitarian assistance absent of any religious agenda. Kind of like a doctor just treating your symptoms without insisting you need to get down on your knees and pray for Jesus to heal you... Or an employer just giving you a job based on your merits and not which church you go to. Etc etc.

@prometheus OK, I understand. Sometimes people need someone to talk with when they are having problems. There should be counselors available other than religious leaders.

I've never seen that verse but in context in good old King James rendering (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+1&version=KJV) it is bang on:

26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

It all begins to make sense: they are hell bent on as much COVID-19 death as possible - that means more widows and orphans. Plus they are anti-abortion because more unwanted children also means more orphans.

Do they have purely religious teams or is it that American sports seems to be way too steeped in religious paraphernalia like pre-game prayers and preachy coaches?

But good sports facilities are easy and relatively cheap to provide. Europe is full of them. All school facilities should be open for community use too when schools don't need them.

@prometheus They play in leagues, many are against other churches, but some put together teams to play at county level amateur teams. Rec leagues.

Good points in my opinion. The rise of the ironically named "social media" has been a huge negative for actual social interactions. I rather suspect it has helped increase the lack of in person socializing. You can use it to discover local in person social groups - I attend meetings for my sporting, philosophical, work area, and ex-pat communities - but that is probably not the norm. Way too many keyboard warriors like my wife who hardly get out and find the church their only social outlet (thankfully not my wife).

I attend a group called beer not god - it's an eclectic group from lifetime atheists, young and old, to recent cult escapes - quite a few are estranged from their families and former communities.

In England for many "the pub" is their "church". They have them everywhere. Going to the pub is a social event. There isn't the same stigma with it like being a lifetime bar fly in America. You can take your family, have Sunday lunch in the garden, play games, yak the night away, etc. For villages that didn't have a pub they used to have social clubs which basically did the same. Not sure if they still exist much though.

And more local community participation - religion free - would definitely be a good path IMO. However it seems like wherever there is free association of people the religious are out preying on the vulnerable (and praying for them). I don't know what you do about that other being better at helping each other. Unfortunately that's hard and not something everyone is good at or has the time and patience for. The harder up the majority of people are the harder it is to find time to help and support others. Inequity in society just seems to feed people right into the hands of religion as a spiritual bread and circuses solution to everything our wealthy and powerful masters have burdened us with.

@prometheus I had a friend in college, who told me when he lived in San Francisco, there used to be a gay bar called "The Church". He said it allowed him (and his friends) to tell his (their) mother(s) he (they) went to church every Sunday. They just didn't mention the happy hour part.

In Portland Oregon, which has a ton of microbreweries, there is a Meetup.com group called "Queers and Craft Beers". They meetup at micro-brew pubs to socialize, and they also do fundraisers for local charities.

I think they neighborhood bar has been a place to socialize for atheists for quite a while. Up until the lock down, I'd visit my local pub at least three times a month. The only people I knew though was the wait staff.

I tend to agree with "social media" has made people less social. A virtual conversation is just not as satisfying as a real face to face conversation. Also, you learn a lot more about a person by seeing how they carry themselves, and interact with others than you do from a profile.

I remember before th einernet, bck when you actually had to meet people in person, and I managed to meet a lot mroe persons I considered to be of quality than I have using dating sites and social media. In fact all my "committed relationships were (started) before the internet. Of course in the middle of my last rel;ationship, I started to go blind, which means the internet is probably not as much of a factor.

@snytiger6 "The Church"... That's sneaky. Given how many bars are in churches these days (my niece had her wedding reception in one) more of us could use that line.