Thread by @Delafina777

This is not a new story, but there are some important learnings here for any community based around a cause/ideology. rawstory.com/2017/12/religi…

First, I'm really glad to see the trauma caused by religious abuse getting recognition. (Just like moral injury, it's a type of trauma that was ignored for way too long, and the victims were gaslit more or less en masse.)

Winell describes the sort of religious community/practice that causes trauma:

-highly controlling
-prevents people from trusting their own feelings
-demands obedience and conformity
-constant judgment
-promotes alienation from self, others, and the world

She also provides more specific examples of practices that cause religious trauma:
-"toxic teachings" like original sin & eternal damnation
-punishment
-black and white thinking
-sexual guilt
-withholding information or opportunities to develop normally

She also provides a list of characteristics of healthy religious communities, which tie pretty neatly into this: livescience.com/9090-religion-…

Characteristics of healthy religious communities are:
-connects people
-promotes self-knowledge and personal growth
-places high value on respecting differences
-empowers members as individuals

cHealthy religious communities also provide:
-social support
-events/rites of passage
-exchange of ideas
-inspiration
-opportunities for service
-connection to social causes
-spiritual practices like meditation
-principles for living like the golden rule

The most fascinating part of this was the reference to an "atheist congregation" that had formed in London and received 200+ inquiries from people who wanted to replicate their model.

But the interesting question for me is why people join abusive religious communities in the first place. Once you're in for a while and have been brainwashed, I get why it's hard to leave, but why join in the first place?

And I think the answer's buried in the same urge that led to the formation of an atheist congregation. Because that one's an interesting question, too. If you're not into religion, why replicate a religious community?

The obvious answer here -- and the fact that it's obvious doesn't mean we don't need to talk about this -- is that there are very few other organized venues for basic human community these days that are around *life in general* and not a specific time or cause.

And outside of specific cultural/ethnic practices not available to everyone, there are very few non-religious communities providing lifecycle support--rites of passage, etc. The non-religious practices that exist in mainstream American culture are usually pretty commercialized.

So much in the way our society is set up is designed to alienate people and make them dependent on corporations. The push to move to the suburbs in the latter half of the 20th century helped destroy the recognition of interdependence, for example.

The obsession with youth has helped destroy positive lifecycle rites and recognition for elders. (See "over the hill" parties versus honoring elders.)

All of which is to say, I think the development of atheist congregations is a very healthy thing, especially if it's backed up with research into what makes a community healthy vs unhealthy, and is built with clear intention.

So does this mean I don't see any need for spirituality besides being an excuse to form functional human communities and engage in healthy practices like meditation, gratitude, etc.?

I dunno, honestly.

I know, for me personally, that I don't believe in a divine being that sits up in the sky and watches our every move and has a human-like personality and is either pleased or offended with us.

But I do believe that reality has a consciousness and a purpose and we can either be in harmony with it or in dissonance with it. And when I talk about the sacred, I'm talking about tapping into that harmony.

And I know that that sense, that feeling of being in harmony with the sacred, that awe and connection and purpose when I see the leaves change, or the moon rise, or taste wine, or attend a baby naming, or light the candles on Friday, makes my life richer and fuller.

And I don't know that I would get that sense of connection to something, I dunno, cosmic, in a purely secular community.

Which isn't to say that everyone needs or wants that--or that everyone SHOULD need or want it. But enough people do that I think it's important to compare those lists of healthy and unhealthy characteristics, and use them to examine our own communities.

Because that "promotes self-knowledge and personal growth" characteristic is just as important on a community level as on an individual one.