Boston (CNN)— It's Sunday in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and a rapt congregation listens
to a chaplain preach about the importance of
building a community.
A few dozen people sit quietly for the hourlong
service. Music is played, announcements are
made and scholars wax poetic about the
importance of compassion and community.
Outsiders could be forgiven for believing this
service, with its homilies, its passing of the
plate, its uplifting songs, belongs in a church.
If so, it's a church without one big player:
God.
Sunday's congregation in Cambridge is a
meeting of the Humanist Community at Harvard
University and the brainchild of Greg Epstein,
the school's Humanist chaplain.
A longtime advocate for community building,
Epstein and his group of atheists have begun
to build their Cambridge community and
solemnize its Sunday meetings to resemble a
traditional religious service.
To Epstein, religion is not all bad, and there is
no reason to reject its helpful aspects.
"My point to my fellow atheists is, why do we
need to paint things with such a broad brush?
We can learn from the positive while learning
how to get rid of the negative," he said.
Godless congregations
For Epstein, who started community-building at
Harvard nearly 10 years ago, the idea of a
godless congregation is not an oxymoron.
"We decided recently that we want to use the
word congregation more and more often
because that is a word that strongly evokes a
certain kind of community - a really close knit,
strong community that can make strong change
happen in the world," he said.
"It doesn't require and it doesn't even imply a
specific set of beliefs about anything."
Epstein is not alone in his endeavor. Jerry
DeWitt, who became an atheist and left his job
as an evangelical minister, is using his pastoral
experience to building an atheist church in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
This Sunday, DeWitt's congregation will hold its
first meeting as a "Community Mission Chapel."
"When you become a part of this congregation,
this community, you are going to become part
of a family," DeWitt told CNN. "There is an
infrastructure there for you to land in. There is
going to be someone there to do weddings
and to do, unfortunately, the funerals."

SOURCE

So hasn't atheism become a (pseudo) religion?

Hehehehehehe! Look at me now.

LordReed:
Hehehehehehe! Look at me now.

You, my kind sire, evolved

jaephoenix:

You, my kind sire, evolved

I sure did. LoLz.

LordReed:


I sure did. LoLz.

You only evolved into a more daring sinner, happens every day and vice versa.

Image123:


You only evolved into a more daring sinner, happens every day and vice versa.

LMFAO! The standard religious response. Bwahahahahahahaha!

You go to church to worship the Christian god, if you don’t that doesn’t make you an athiest.
The Christian god is just one of the numerous gods.