The key to getting along is... (God, beliefs, belief, exist)
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Saying "grace" would of course grate on me, but provided I wasn't obliged to join in (If I was, I would have to leave) I would be fine with their doing it within their own walls. And you raise one of the biggest shift in my views of recent years - the value of organized religion.
You may recall the De Botton proposal - to have the benefits of religion without the trappings. I already had the idea of believers still having religion with or without the trappings. There is room the religious and the irreligious (non trappings) God -believer. I don't altogether buy the argument that religion somehow is the only reason we have charities. I would argue that charity would do as well or batter in a secular -humanist society.
I think part of De Botton's "Atheism 2.0" notion is that unbelievers can develop a sense of community / refuge (the main actual social value of most churches) independent of a coalescing attractor like a religious denomination. I think that's a nice theory, but atheism itself is way too limited of a topical area to sustain it, I think. It would devolve into the usual "herding cats" problem. Humanism might be a better organizing principle.
I don't much care, we're just looking for local things to be involved in that we can get behind, and
whether that's secular or religious is not terribly germane to me unless it imposes things on me that I'm not willing to ignore or go along with in order to be a part of it.
As a former fundamentalist I have almost no practical experience with liberal Christianity so this is sort of an experiment for me: how "different" and possibly non-participatory can I be, before someone objects? And how much can I overlook or go along with before I object? I probably don't care enough to find out for myself, but as I said, my wife really cares about these kinds of activities and so I'm trying to be supportive.
I wonder if getting along, in and of itself, is even a worthwhile objective. It's all contextual. The fear of "not making nice" has been the undermining of many people's character. Sometimes taking a stand is more important than "going along to get along".
In a non-toxic, reasonably well-functioning society, it might be true that one should be ABLE to get along for the most part without compromising things that should not be compromised, or being less than honest -- such that not getting along often might be a sign of trouble. But it's not necessarily universally so.
If you have compassion, wouldn't you automatically have tolerance? It wouldn't be compassionate to be intolerant, right?
IMO the basics are compassion, and humility, i.e. keeping the ego in check.
Good point. I was thinking one may feel they have compassion but it's just for like minded individuals and be intolerant towards those who differ. So I guess compassion for all.
Nobody has the munchies bad enough to bogart the last bag.
Sharesies is the norm.
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