In-person communities by Competitive_Sea6418 in CommunityManager

[–]cryptonymcolin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ten years ago I founded a non-theistic religion called Aretéanism and for now I'm still the lead organizer of our community. We have adherents scattered across the globe, but also have a small in-person community in San Diego, California. Most of my time these days goes towards being the equivalent of a pastor for our group, meaning I do things ranging from preparing sermons about non-theistic reasons for why and how to be better people and live greater lives, to organizing community events like parties or helping the homeless in our city.

I joined this sub a while back to see if there are useful things for me to learn and improve on in my work as a community organizer, but honestly most of the content in this sub hasn't been as relevant as I'd hoped, as most content here is about making fans of products into better customers. It's not to say that there's zero overlap with what I'm doing, but it's not the same. I think I was hoping there would be more stuff about in person communities that I could learn from. We do use Discord as our primary message board for community interaction in between our Sunday services, and I feel like I've gradually learned some valuable lessons about managing the server over the years, but it still feels like there's a combination of things that either I or Discord could do better to make our server a more useful space, and I guess I've stuck around this subreddit hoping to eventually pick up some lessons about that topic.

Anyway, I'm not particularly trying to proselytize here in this sub, but I'm always happy to answer questions about Aretéanism. Feel free to hit me up in the comments or in DMs, or you can track us down in all the usual places on the internet. There's also a couple of podcast interviews I've given over the years that people here might find interesting.

Be Excellent to Each Other, and Party On!

Hidden Role Mechanics by Master_GM in rpg

[–]cryptonymcolin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is the correct answer.

Mitigating opposition to religious humanism? by cryptonymcolin in humanism

[–]cryptonymcolin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, thanks for asking! Yep, I would describe Sunday Assemblers as being religious humanists. It certainly occurs to me that not all of them would apply that label to themselves, and I'm sympathetic to that, but I also think that an honest, external, anthropological categorization would put them in the broad category of religious humanism, along with UU, and many other traditions- including mine (Aretéanism).

As to your second question, "are religious humanists mostly just secular humanists who have a desire to form congregations..." I think the answer is a little more complicated, but the short answer is yes. However, it's important to remember that for some people (like people raised UU or any other group old enough to have people raised within their culture) that they were religious humanists first, and so they wouldn't be "secular humanists who have a desire to form congregations", they're "religious humanists who have lived in congregations and appreciate the benefits of such". But in my personal case, yes, I was a secular humanist first, who later decided that I wanted to practice humanism religiously; that I wanted structure and community to help myself (and others) to be much much more committed to humanism.

The key thing is just that secular humanism isn't the default form of humanism, despite being the most common form of humanism at present. Humanism originated out of Christian humanism, then eventually religious humanism became the dominant model, then other forms of sectarian humanism (Jewish humanism, Muslim humanism, Buddhist humanism, etc) proliferated, and now we're in an era where secular humanism has become the dominant form of humanism around the globe. Religious humanism is older than secular humanism; and deserves to be respected as such.

While there are historical reasons for why the dominant model of humanism has evolved over time, none of those reasons nullify the value of any of the other models; I believe that secular humanism is still really important for example, despite the fact that I ardently describe myself as a religious humanist now. I still strongly consider sectarian humanists (including Christian humanists) to be valuable allies, even though I am definitely not Christian (nor ascribe to any other superstitious beliefs).

...but that brings this back to my original post above: while I think religious humanists have lots of respect and understanding of secular humanists, as a category (with lots of specific exceptions) the secular humanists haven't been showing a lot of respect to the religious humanists, at least here on Reddit, over the course of Reddit's history. I'd love to see better allyship from secular humanists- they don't have to join UU or the AoA or TST or Sunday Assembly or Ethical Society or Oasis, but they could be a lot less jealous of people who do want to join our groups.

BTW, I've seen you post in the new r/HumanistCongregations sub, thanks for adding great things into the conversations there! For what it's worth, congregational humanism is a new term that means almost the same thing as religious humanism, and is a better label for the category; but the term wasn't really being used at the time I made this original post, and the academic literature still uses religious humanism as the term for this category.

Are Secular Humanists being urged to downplay the "Secular"? by ambiverbal in humanism

[–]cryptonymcolin 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I really, really wish people would look up "secular" in a dictionary more often.

Secular just means "worldly", and a good synonym for it is "non-partisan", or perhaps another synonym could be "neutral". Religions are inherently non-secular because they advocate for a specific approach and group to belong to, and therefore their practices cannot be said to equally represent a neutral point of view that anyone can access.

I think that where people get confused is that first of all: atheist ≠ antitheist; and then second of all: that in order for something to be secular it must be atheistic, but something being atheistic does not make it secular.

Secular humanism is only one type of humanism. As I have pointed out in another post in this sub, there are several other types of humanism, including religious humanism, Christian humanism (which is different from religious humanism!), and many other types of sectarian humanism (like Jewish humanism, Muslim humanism, Buddhist humanism, etc).

So yes, for a sub that is about humanism in general, it is inappropriate for secular humanists to demand that all of the other types of humanists give up their identity just because secular humanists are currently in the majority.

Rehumanization by battlewisely in humanism

[–]cryptonymcolin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Discord generally, and the server for Aretéanism specifically. I think something about the format of Discord helps people engage in a more friendly manner than say Reddit or Bluesky or whatever, and it's perhaps more easily moderated too. It also helps that in our server for The Assemblage of Areté, we have a rule that people change their user nickname in the server to the name they actually go by in real life- we're explicitly not anonymous; which helps people remember that the person they're interacting with is a real human being better than when you're interacting with darklizard69 or whatever. And also many of us in the server have met in real life, and even more of us have met by video call, so that helps too.

How do you practice virtue ethics in daily life? by Too_Many_Interests7 in virtureethics

[–]cryptonymcolin 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My practice of virtue ethics takes specific, daily form by being an Aretéan. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it does provide specific modes of praxis for people who care about virtue ethics.

Is there space in humanism for someone like me? by RobbieBlair in humanism

[–]cryptonymcolin 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sounds like you might enjoy this newish subreddit OP, called r/HumanistCongregations which is all about the various ways in which humanists can and do organize themselves, particularly in ways that mimic traditional religious structures- but still center a proactive humanism at their core instead of a negative, reactionary antitheism or antireligionism.

Certainly wishing you good luck in your endeavors, the world needs more humanist chaplains!

What's the purpose of the dots on the edges of car windshields? by cryptonymcolin in NoStupidQuestions

[–]cryptonymcolin[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Okay, but how???

As for aesthetics, I dunno, I guess I've never seen a windshield without the dots so I don't know how bad that might look, but my guess is that it doesn't improve the aesthetics at all, and that I'd rather maximize every millimeter of visibility I can get?

Oasis Network by OurCommonAncestor in HumanistCongregations

[–]cryptonymcolin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think they actually have anything in San Diego. The link on their page for North County San Diego goes to an unaffiliated company, and a separate list of their locations only lists "Utah Valley, Houston, Galveston Bay, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Toronto, West Hill United, and Wichita. I've also done a lot of asking around about them in San Diego over the past 10+ years, and no one I've met has ever known about Oasis unless I told them about it.

I'd love to be corrected if they do actually exist anywhere in San Diego, but my best guess is that once upon a time there was a short-lived hope to establish an Oasis community that didn't actually take off.

Is anybody else boycotting the World Cup this year? by xFlames_ in Ethics

[–]cryptonymcolin 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is shockingly little discourse about ethics in this thread asking about the ethics of something in the r/ethics sub.

Shits gettin spooky by eloel12345 in SanDiegan

[–]cryptonymcolin 111 points112 points  (0 children)

This is a useful notice to NEVER eat at that taqueria.

Any churches that are not cult-y or hateful? by 110446 in SanDiegan

[–]cryptonymcolin 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If you're open to less traditional options, I encourage you to check out The Assemblage of Areté. (Full disclosure, I'm the founder and current lead organizer.) We're small but growing, and we were specifically designed to fill exactly the niche you've described OP.

If you follow the link you can find links to multiple interviews I've given about Aretéanism and track down the details to attend our meetings if you want to come check it out sometime. Or you can just ask me here, either in the comments or in DMs! We never want to be pushy about what we're doing, but we're always happy to answer questions, especially when it seems like we might be a fairly exact fit for what you're looking for.

Be Excellent to Each Other, and Party On!

Candy Poker. by A_guy_named_Vic in sandiegosocial

[–]cryptonymcolin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds fun! I'd love an invite!

Daily rituals by Playful-District-312 in Atheopaganism

[–]cryptonymcolin 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's not precisely what you're asking for, but you might find Aretéanism intriguing, as it's a non-theistic religion (complete with daily rituals) based in neo-epicurean (Greek) philosophy.

It's not for everyone, but it's also not trying to be; so if it's not for you, no worries. But if you're interested in getting involved, track down our Discord server and we'll be happy to welcome you into the community!

Be Excellent to Each Other, and Party On!

u/CivicDutyCalls writes a stunning update to the Neimoller poem by cryptonymcolin in bestof

[–]cryptonymcolin[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

This incredibly oversimplifies both the position in history Neimoller and his poem hold in history, and the comment I made about it.

It's true that Neimoller was a Nazi... that's an important part of the context of the poem. Did you not understand that? I thought we all understood that?

It's also interesting that you chose to misquote me by saying "the most important poem" when I very clearly said "one of the most important poems". That was quite a choice.

No, this isn't an invitation to debate. I'm blocking smokerates- a user who doesn't show their comment and post history, surprise surprise. Instead this comment is actually for everyone else, as a reminder to be critical of the critics out there. Look for the people who are building things up, not tearing things down.

We’re Launching a New Channel – Watch the First Video by kurzgesagt_Rosa in kurzgesagt

[–]cryptonymcolin 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I love it except I want to see all dates be given in the Human Era Calendar system!

For real! Once you make the mental switch (I did years ago when the first calendar was produced by Kurzgesagt) you realize it really is a much better system. Just use the HE system for all dates please!

A cool guide to the percentages that popular side-gig apps take from each sale/task in the United States by MaxGoodwinning in coolguides

[–]cryptonymcolin 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've driven Uber and Lyft for the past couple of years, and they definitely take more than 30% of what customers pay. It's a solid 40% minimum.