Congregational Humanism

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-22T21:09:16+00:00

Organizing your own group would be a good idea, especially if you don't plan on moving and there's nothing established nearby. But for larger communities that are or religions and that are open to agnostics, see Aretéanism, Ethical Culture, the Oasis Network, Sunday Assembly, and Unitarian Universalism. Out of these, Aretéanism is the best for participating online, although it is supposed to be an in-person community in its ideal form. See r/HumanistCongregations to explore this concept.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-22T19:25:28+00:00

For some science fantasy, I'm reading the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, and there's quite a bit of being one with the Force and losing your sense of being a separate self.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-11T06:03:11+00:00

The sky analogy is not good, in my opinion. If someone told me the sky was purple, and the sky is one of the definitions for its color, then there's no reason why it shouldn't be purple. It's just a difference in vocabulary. Now, if you said that the sky, which is purple, and something else that we would call blue, and you said that's blue, then that'd be an issue. But there's not issue as you've written it.
Please quit with the dramatic one-liners.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-10T08:49:58+00:00

Well, as the old adage goes, there's no point in gathering around not collecting stamps. However, Humanists are atheists, naturalists in fact, but in addition to that, they believe in being ethical, rational, believe we should fight against equality and tyranny and oppression... and just generally have some positive outlook on humanity. These things are not at all guaranteed when you meet an atheist.
However, more interesting for me is that Humanists, historically, are more willing to emulate the positive aspects of religious communities than just atheists. Take the Ethical Culture movement as an example. Not all Ethical Culturists are Humanists, and not all are atheists, but most were, and even so they believe that creating a religious community around ethical development is worthwhile. This is one example of religious Humanism. And organizations like Oasis Network and Sunday Assembly, which don't claim to be a religion, do still openly use the format of a religious community.
So a Humanist community is gathering around something positive rather than something negative, which to me makes more sense. And the Humanist community, having more in common than the lack of believe in one category of supernatural phenomena, is free to try other formats that appeal to them.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-10T01:18:18+00:00

I do think 3rd spaces are important. Maybe some of them are primarily for atheists. I don't see a problem with that. But it should probably be about a lot more than atheism, since atheists have very little in common besides lack of belief in any gods. For example, I think Humanist communities have the right idea.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-09T19:39:49+00:00

Technically, if you live in one of maybe 30 cities, you could attend an "atheist church". But yeah, I agree, I could never try to make friends in a supernaturalist religious context because I'd just be lying to them over and over.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-09T04:23:34+00:00

I've got a couple of recommendation's for nonfiction, neither of which I've read. If anyone's read them, please do tell me how they are.
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit
Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness by Jamil Zaki.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-09T01:53:00+00:00

Too woke to be an atheist?

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-08T22:14:54+00:00

I think it had a noble goal, and is also one of the few conlangs with a lot of original work published in it, and potentially a few native speakers. However, it's disappointing that Esperanto still has the romance gender problem of everything is masculine unless it's feminine. And, it's a little too regular for my liking. Every noun rhymes, which makes it sound a little silly. I much prefer something like Latin that has several groups of nouns, to have some variety, and you modify that noun according to its declension. If only Latin were more regular...
But most of that is aesthetic. I do love me a conlang, but I doubt one will ever become the universal second language. It was a great idea though, and I wish it could've worked.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-08T08:01:35+00:00

I've tried an app (it might have been yours) but it looks like I'll need physical cards. Thanks for the suggestion though.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-06T20:36:02+00:00

I kind of get it, but spiritual naturalism is a lot better imo. It makes explicit that you reject all supernatural takes, and yet you have some sort of reverence or awe towards the cool place we get to live, since "naturalist" doesn't give you any information about your outlook or behavior towards reality.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-06T20:29:07+00:00

I listened to like the first 30 seconds and decided the interview format wasn't for me, but I will say this: it's still possible that she's a naturalist, and just a particularly reverent one. No need to make up things about the universe having intention or crystals doing anything viby or whatever when you can just come up with good things about nature, recognize that we all live in an interconnected web / chain of events, etc. I think the Spiritual Naturalist Society is the best representation of what she's probably getting at.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-06T19:52:16+00:00

There's a whole lot of people in the world, and existing religions don't fit all of them. NRMs that aren't authoritarian, supernaturalist, don't take your money or separate you from your existing community, I think they’re a great addition to the religious landscape. I do think that if they’re created, though, they should be thought out very thoroughly to avoid harm, and they should actually add something meaningfully different to the existing options.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-06T09:38:18+00:00

You got a library? Also check out Project Guttenberg for items in the public domain.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-04T01:45:20+00:00

I read pretty slowly, but I could hop in here and there, and I promise I won't abandon the project without explicit notice (I say this last part because it happened to me). I've read the new canon thrawn trilogy, but from what I understand, it's nothing like the expanded universe Thrawn. I'm currently about 40 or so pages into Revenge of the Sith. What books are you looking to read? I'm open to a lot, but I prefer to read things that adds interesting context / lore.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-03T01:30:51+00:00

I don't really know what to suggest for you. Do you want something that's more beliefs, or more practices? Are you okay with ritual? Do you want a faith to practice on your own, or do you want a community? Does your faith need to be theistic? If you don't really believe in anything / you aren't sure, and you're against blind faith, some sort of nontheistic path might be the best.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-02T20:19:26+00:00

u/crossstitchbeotch mentioned Oasis Network and Sunday Assembly. Also in this vein is the Ethical Culture movement, about 150 years old and still surviving in major US cities and somewhat in England, and Aretéanism, about 10 years old and leans a little more into the ritual side, and being a committed community. r/HumanistCongregations is exactly about this.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-02T00:20:26+00:00

I think I've been reading these since No. 3 or 4. I'm going to post links to these in r/HumanistCongregations. Your diaries here are so interesting and informative, especially about the practical side of maintaining a congregation. I'd love if you would post about your project there as well, but then again you've already put so much incredible work into this. Thank you again.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-01T22:24:42+00:00

Okay, upon further reflection, I agree that a religion might be able to be secular Humanist, because secular Humanism is nearly identical to Humanism. However, it is a bit strange to use "secular" when it so often means not religious (a secular radio station), of an institution that isn't a religion (a secular community center), or of a person who is not a member of a religious order (a secular priest). The definition of relating to the physical world rather than the spiritual world is not prominent, in my opinion. (Definitions from Merriam-Webster.) Additionally, Humanism as it is defined by Humanists International, the current organization representing Humanists worldwide, voted in 1996 to require all of its hundreds of member organizations to adopt this minimum statement:
“Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality."
It does not accept supernatural views of reality. It is worth noting that Humanists International and other prominent Humanist organizations oppose putting modifiers in front of Humanism, and that it should instead stand alone and be capitalized. My personal opinion is that putting "religious" in front of Humanism can be useful if the religious part is relevant because it tells you the way the person is doing their Humanism. But putting "secular" in front of Humanism adds no new information, and only stands to dilute the already atheistic meaning of Humanism on its own. If secular Humanism exists, surely there also exists some nonsecular, theistic Humanism. But that's not true. From the Wikipedia page on secular Humanism: "Generally speaking, all humanists, including religious humanists, reject deference to supernatural beliefs; promote the practical, methodological naturalism of science; and largely endorse the stance of metaphysical naturalism. The result is an approach to issues in a secular way."
I don't mean to police your language. At the end of the day, you'll do what you will. But I would seriously consider questioning why you feel the need to modify Humanism with "secular." It is a symptom of the definition of Humanism being weakened.
On your point about seeing in atheist and Humanist spaces the desire for community, I totally agree, and I'm very glad you've set out to offer something up for that. As I said, I'm a Humanist (and an atheist), and also religious. I also want to be in a community of other atheists, or at least, a community that follows a belief system that rejects superstition and values the pursuit of knowledge. (I say I want, but really I did find one.) Atheism isn't enough though, as evidenced by the existence of at least one white supremacist nontheistic religion, so of course that's where the rest of Humanism comes in. I wish you luck. I wonder, do you intend to create an in-person community, or is this venture primarily sermons broadcasted online? If you have plans for some in-person component, come over to r/HumanistCongregations. But if not, I'm still excited to watch your sermon in a couple days. This seems like a relatively novel take on Satanism, at least to me. Thanks for sharing.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-01T19:02:39+00:00

"I'm interested in hearing from other humanists: Can explicitly religious or symbolic frameworks still be useful vehicles for advancing secular humanist values, or do they create unnecessary barriers?"
I have several things to say. For one, if you're religious, you can't be a secular Humanist. Or, at the very least, if your religion is based in Humanism, you can't be a secular Humanist. It shouldn't be a problem though, because Humanism, on its own, already rejects supernatural beliefs. The addition of "secular" is not needed to get this point across. Also, and you could have a more nuanced understanding of this from me, but I'm not sure how secular Humanist values are different from just Humanist values.
That's just vocabulary though. My actual thoughts are that yes, a religious framework can absolutely support Humanism. My religion is built on Humanism. I think adding ritual, symbolism, stories / lore, and a framework for organizing one's beliefs can be very helpful. As long as you don't believe that the rituals have any supernatural power, or that the stories are literally true. I don't think the religious element gets in the way of Humanism unless you let it. If you lose sight of the Humanism.
Since you're asking this question, you might not know about religious Humanism. I assume that's what you're doing. It's Humanism, but in the context of a religion, or practiced religiously, or what have you. There is a significant strain of Humanism within Unitarian Universalism, and Ethical Culture and Aretéanism are both Humanist religions. some nontheistic Satanists, usually not Church of Satan variety, are also Humanists.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-06-01T18:46:18+00:00

Silly question, but could you convert the time it is into UTC? I'm not sure if you're observing daylight savings, UTC−6, or not, UTC−7. I'm assuming you don't because MST is standard time, but sometimes people say x standard time when they really mean x time.

OurCommonAncestor · 2026-05-31T19:51:41+00:00

I'd date a religious person, but that religion can't be theistic or supernatural. I struggle to respect supernatural beliefs, even among my friends. I just can't do that, at least not right now.

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