Secular institutions
People who share a common philosophy have always built institutions to develop, promote and pass on these philosophies to future generations. Organized religion has been the dominant form of institutional philosophy for thousands of years.
Even before there was organized religion there were oral traditions and mythologies that served this same social and psychological purposes. The fact that some level of cultural organization around shared beliefs exists in every society ever known makes it likely there is some genetic basis for it.
The Big List
The Organizations page contains a more complete list of organizations that have secular or universalist philosophy.
Secular Second Services
Universalist and other progressive churches should consider organizing a second Sunday program that offers a fully secular version of the service that caters to those who do not believe in the supernatural. They can form partnerships with local secular humanist groups or Sunday Assembly congregations to share facilities, revenue, members, event planning and promotion.
This symbiotic relationship can foster improved relations between the religious and secular communities, and give these churches a way to bring back members who no longer connect with supernatural allegories and traditional worship services.
Examples of Modern Secular Institutions
Modern secular institutions are found in our schools and universities where science is researched, promoted and taught to the next generation. While universities serve many of the same institutional purposes of organized religion, there are some necessary components that universities lack.
- A cohesive philosophy that provides holistic perspective on the different areas of study being taught.
- The ability to continue to be a part of the institution throughout one's life.
- Rituals and traditions to help celebrate foundational ideas and personal milestones.
- Pro-social elements like building community, charitable outreach and political engagement.
While universities do provide some of these elements for some people during some parts of their lives, there is no secular institution that provides all of these elements for all comers over the course of their entire lives the way that organized religion does.
Until a secular institution is created which serves these purposes that our DNA commands us to build, these aspects of our culture will continue to be dominated by organized religion.
Sunday Assembly is one attempt to create such a space, and comes the closest to replicating the goal of creating "secular spirituality." Since it was conceived as an "atheist church", it tends to appeal more to the atheist community rather than those that identify as both secular and spiritual. It is the latter that tends to be more willing to join groups and do singalongs. Finding ways to appeal to those people will be key to growing any movement like Sunday Assembly.
There are many universalist churches that cater to progressives and whose members contain many pantheists and atheists. However, these tend to be more rooted in the monotheistic traditions they grew out of, and often feel archaic to those who don't have a connection to those traditions, or antagonistic to those who were traumatized by them.
The Lifefulness program has grown out of Sunday Assembly to expand its mission and provide online content related to the creation of secular communities. It's a great organization with a wonderful mission, which metaculture attempts to expand upon.
Where Secular Communities Fall Short
There are many key elements that make religion and spirituality work which have not really been replicated within the secular community.
It's About Brains Not Beliefs
Atheists tend to focus on the literal beliefs of religion rather than the function those beliefs serve within the mind of the believer. The true purpose of any spiritual tradition is to help you better know how your mind works and develop techniques to make it work better for you so you can flourish as a human.
However, most secular communities are focused more on understanding the outer universe than the inner one. When psychology is studied it is usually from an academic perspective, Very few advocate any kind of ritual or mindfulness practice to help improve one's emotional state or self-awareness, and when they do it is usually fairly superficial since it is not tied to a system of morality.
For secular communities to successfully fill the role of religion in society, they need to prioritize practical positive psychology.
Admit Your Values
A core value of the postmodern age is that no culture's values are superior to any others, and everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. Virtually any progressive community organization shares this core value, since they ironically see it as superior to more primitive ethnocentric values systems. Understanding the nature of meta and self-reference can help you resolve this cognitive dissonance, untie that mental knot, and realize that it is possible to advocate a shared, deeply held, yet still fully inclusive values system.
Only when you do that can you truly start building rituals to reinforce specific aspects of that value system.
Don't Fear the Ritual
Another hangover from religious trauma is the association of any organized rituals with brainwashing. This often prevents secular communities from doing the kind of group bonding activities that truly get the brains of the community members in sync, and help reinforce the in-group.
Rituals are also meant to reinforce our shared ethics and beliefs. In doing so, they help us become better, happier people! It doesn't just train your brain to respond reflexively instead of thoughtfully. Rituals often help us be more mindful of our actions and emotions. A gratitude ritual before a meal helps us appreciate delicious food more. A bedtime ritual helps you reflect on and remember the day, and prime yourself for positive dreams.
Jennifer Michael Hecht's book The Wonder Paradox makes an excellent case for the incorporation of ritual into secular life. She uses poetry in place of scripture as a way to elicit desired ideas and emotions to fit any occasion, and reinforce humanist values.
Collective Effervescence
Collective Effervescence is a core spiritual experience and an essential part of building a multi-generational community. There are many ways to create this experience, but many secular groups tend to focus exclusively on group singing.
Peak Experiences
There are many ways to create peak emotional experiences. Adventures that take you out of your comfort zone. Extreme sports. Regular sports. Discovering the wonders of nature. Meditation retreats. Concerts and music festivals. Doing psychedelics. These are the kinds of things that build core memories and create lasting friendships. These are also the kinds of activities that will attract young, fun, interesting, happy people that can form a community that other people really want to be a part of!
Unfortunately the kind of nerds that tend to join atheist groups aren't into this kind of stuff. People that do all of that stuff are usually more in touch with their spiritual side, too.
Convergence Point
What's more likely? Will the secular groups learn how to have more fun and embrace the goal of spiritual practice to know thyself? Or will the progressive religious denominations drop their supernatural doctrines and new age woo and embrace science?
Why not both?
There are so many people out there who have left traditional religion but not found a home within the secular community. So where are they going?
- Nowhere. Ain't nobody got time for spirituality when you're working 3 jobs!
- Superficial spirituality. Yoga classes, mindfulness apps, self-help books.
- Buddhism, Paganism, Vedanta
- New Age movements like A Course in Miracles, Integral Theory
- Psychedelics. Burning Man. Music Festivals. Ayahuasca retreats.
- Cults. Usually recruited from one of the above.
- Sobriety and recovery groups.
Secular communities and progressive religious communities should be teaming up in order to provide a rational, evidence-based spiritual alternative that will appeal to all of these groups.
Providing a way to integrate spiritual experiences, particularly psychedelic ones, within a scientific context, will be critical to preventing the spread of magical thinking in the next generation. We must meet people where they are and show them the path towards scientific enlightenment and away from superstition and grift.