I love everything about this post. I say this all the time! To your first point, I think confronting someone on their illogical beliefs only makes them cling more tightly to those beliefs and makes them less trusting of atheists in the future. Arguing with people will never get you anywhere. Accepting people, inspiring people to be better and earning their respect is the only thing I've ever seen that changes minds. 
To your second point, we absolutely lack that sense of community and also the ability to get together once a week and discuss ideas, particualrly pertaining to morality. Sometimes navigating life is difficult and having people to bounce ideas off of and having that support system makes a big difference. I would love to see atheist gatherings; complete with discussion, debate, guest speakers, etc. 

Well stated. All a logical, rational thinking person can do is present the evidence, facts and data in support of reality and "let the chips fall as they may". You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

I think you are correct when it comes to the majority, but there are those of us who are quite comfortable not belonging to anything. I have a feeling, and it is just a feeling, that the percentage of us who have no need to belong may be growing. We shall see.

I guess I have enough interaction with others that I already have a feeling of community.

I believe organised worship was incredibly important in our societal evolution. It was one of the major reasons we evolved the ability to cooperate beyond the scale of communities and tribes. It allowed disparate peoples and cultures to mesh together into the first cities and kingdoms. Yet, in our modern world, I define it as a social appendix. It was useful once, but is archaic now. The only solution to this, is knowledge. We exist in a point where nearly all observable experiences can be defined and labeled from the macro to the micro. Philosophy covers the rest. We need to continue to enlighten those who can be, and hope that those who cant, won't inculculate superstition on the next generation.

Well said and right on. The reason that I joined UU was for community plus there is nothing to believe, no dogma about invisible beings, just a respect for all beings.

Why must we "ween" people from believing in anything? I'm for "live and let live".

An interesting post but it leaves me wondering who is the "average person, " the proverbial John or Jane Doe? Perhaps many people experience a sense of belonging akin to what they formerly experienced when they belonged to some religious organization?

"In most people the desire to belong is greater than the desire to understand. Hence the popularity of cults and religious organizations and the lack of the role of reason in human affairs." Thomas Szasz

I agree, for most people belief isn't about truth. If it was the vast majority would already be atheists. To "unconvert", a person may need to break from family, friends, church and even spouse. This rigs the system heavily in favor of religion.

When I present evidence, I am supporting a truth. When they see the evidence I present, they "feel" like I am attacking the world view they thrive in. They connect to this false information through years of echo chamber logic.

Giving people a alternative support system is every bit as important as convincing them of the false claims of religion.

People like to feel accepted..acknowledged..respected..understood. Few like being outcasts...but who wants to fit in to a community obsessed about something you don't believe in...
Right now you are labelled as strange or odd because you declare yourself to be an unbeliever..
Some day people will be labelled weird for believing.....
Even if there was only one other Athiest on the planet...it would still be a preferable community to be a part of..than living a lie and hiding in the longrass...which I believe many millions quietly do.

I think you make a very good point, a lot of church goers come for the community, especially these days. There just aren’t enough humanist places of worship for that secular stream to fill this gulf.

Yes indeed, and this is a point that the atheist activists like Dawkins and others have made, despite attacks from religionists and even sadly some non believers. What a lot of people get from religion is often not so much the beliefs, which they may not really believe at all, but the other stuff: community activities, the theatre and entertainment of religion, and that feeling of "belonging". It's a serious challenge in pursuing a non religious world. How to replace and substitute these things. Religions are cultural organisms as much as belief systems. There are those who will say that religion is good because of that. I don't agree. The fundamentals of religion are appalling: bad history, awful theology, terrible practise, corrupt activities, harm to people, directly and indirectly due to all those things. What you have raised is one of the most important questions. I do think that with religion in decline in the west, and religious attendance in particular, this aspect of the ongoing momentum of religion is declining.

I completely agree. I absolutely don't care what others believe, as long as they don't try to convert me to their beliefs of govern based on it. I never, ever try to convert religious people to my beliefs. Of course there is an evangelical radical fringe who want to make America a theocracy, and they are enabled by Trump and his minions, so I will fight them with every fiber of my being.

I can see why you think that if you have come from the comfort of being part of a community, such as a Church congregation. I never ever had that and feel quite at home being “different “ from others. Here where I live it would be easy to feel like an outsider if you left your religion I think. I, on the other hand have always been accepted by people of different faiths and denominations as being a bit of an anomaly, but never with hostility , more like curiosity. Never ever having had a faith I obviously am in a completely different category from most of you.

Obviously you can not change another person—only they can change themselves. What might not be obvious is that the other person’s opinions might just be superior to our own, and that perhaps it is we who need to learn and change.

IMO, more important than to express opinions is to respect each other.

It has been my experience that people feel that identifying with Christianity is synonymous with being a "good person". No matter how little, if ever, one practices ANY aspect of an individual's religion they are good people for simply identifying with a religion. That connection is iron clad in the minds of a large portion of the Christian population to the point that they cannot conceive that an openly atheist person is not a complete amoral psychopath. In their minds one who does not practice religion is OK but one who does not identify with a religion is evil. That is based on the old, albeit elementary, concept that Christians are responsible for all that is good and non-Christians are responsible for all that is evil. They cannot even CONSIDER not identifying with being a Christian even if they disagreed with every single tenant of Christianity. To say that it is an uphill battle to convince one who identifies as a Christan that being an atheist is OK can be a major understatement. Those folks are not coming around any time soon.

I agree. I think you are describing the backfire effect. Here is a video that explains how that works.

Yes, it is false thinking, but not "completely", as there are soem peopel otu there who simply never havethought of or considered alternatives to the beliefs they were raised with.

However, the vast majority of religious persons so prefer their fantasies over facts and realities.

Personally, I am more inclined to try to get school to once again teach "logical fallacies" as a part of their curriculum. If people to learn to spot flaw in arguments (religious or political), then they are less likely to cling so strongly to religious views. This would not be a "cure all", but it woudl be a step in the right direction.

You hit the nail on the head! The feeling of belonging is what keeps most people in religion. I have heard jws say that if they had evidence that they were wrong, they would still remain in the cult.

I absolutely agree. My father and I used to argue about a lot of things (religion not being one of them) and he would always say, 'you just don't understand' to which I would reply, 'No, I just think you're wrong.' Understanding doesn't have a lot to do with religious differences. What's going on is that organisms, human or otherwise animal, will stop doing things that don't provide reinforcement and will continue to do things that give them some sort of reward.

The fact that religious thought is so ubiquitous shows that people do got a lot out of it. Otherwise it would have disappeared. Also, when people make choices and then are challenged, their belief becomes stronger (it's called reactance). Since religion is so basic to some people's entire value system, and they chose that value system, disagreeing or arguing with them is only likely to deepen that belief.

I agree that some on this site simply do not comprehend the phenomenon of the "True believer" -- ideological or religious. True believers have literally sold themselves to dogmatic belief and it forms the core of how they define themselves. Their need to escape the feeling of powerlessness, lack of knowledge, and of being alone drives them to tis action, to the extent that, if you take their ideological core away from them, they have nothing. To really understand this, one MUST read Erich Fromm's, ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM.

I don't have to believe in fairy tales to love my fellow man and I don't need to believe in bullshit to give them a hug or a handshake.

We are all we got in this Universe. I feel if more would really think about that and come together we could drop all the religious nonsense.

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I would like to see more secular humanist places where people in need can go when they assistance: food, clothing, shelter etc. One reason the fundamentalists don't like the government helping people is because they want people to turn to their god (via their church, of course) for help so they can say "we love you" and "see what god has done for you."

Couldn’t have said it any better