Is a particular atheist community too church-like for your tastes? Don’t join!

I’ve been attending a humanist unchurch for a couple years now.  I can tell from experience that PZ has no idea what he’s talking about in this recent blog post.  He’s set up a false dichotomy between ritual and thought/action that can be blown away if he had attended even the most recent Sunday morning platform at the Ethical Society of St Louis.

Turns out, people can both sing in the choir and have a moment of silence, and listen to a presentation on community outreach projects to help keep homeless people from freezing to death and to support the local LGBT community center.  Or hear different perspectives on government regulation of vices such as gambling and drug use.  Or listen to someone’s personal story about her time in the Peace Corp.  Or learn how to combat climate change.

So sure, unchurch meetings not for everyone, and you won’t be hearing me tell anyone they “ought” to join such an organization.  But it by no means equals being “shackled by rote and rites”.  Such a narrow-minded viewpoint to think all humanist communities need operate under the same organizational principles!

Or maybe I’m deluded into thinking all these topics are anything other than pseudoreligious dogma:  http://www.ethicalstl.org/res_libraryaudio.html