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I am not religious and have no desire to start being now but sometimes I just want the community people get with church. I am craving connection with the community and feel it's very healthy for families and neighbors as well. The United States is seriously lacking in third spaces and communities. It's leading to a serious loneliness epidemic... Just wondering if there is anything that can fill that need for non-religious folks?

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[-] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You're unlikely (but not impossibly unable) to reap the full benefits of that level of connection to a community completely without spirituality. There are many Hindus and shinto that are functionally atheist and I come from healthcare where atheist chaplains are actually a thing as well.

You are not separate from humanity's history and attempting to separate yourself from it in this manner won't by definition harm you, but will require a level of constant attention that I have not found to be worth it. It's like trying to run the windows version of Firefox or Discord with Wine or a virtual machine just to prove you can. Just run the Linux version, or another program with the same function that is even better designed for the architecture.

I tracked my moods, bodily upkeep, and social tasks with DBT based spreadsheets for years but it eventually became exhausting. What it did do was give me a solid framework to redesign spiritual practices that work for me. Just use the software the human brain was developed alongside and use your processing power on things more useful than trying to feel smarter and more right about the universe, which is mostly just lying to yourself anyway.

this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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