If churches did not believe in a deity what would you think of them?

Atheists.

I would call them a country club.
I talked to a guy at church once wanting to put people’s occupations in the directory. I told him that I joined a country club for networking and a church for worship.

@mazingerz88 I’ve never heard of a similar atheist organization.

@digitalimpression You’re right. I was just foolin around there. Sorry. : )

@digitalimpression

Unitarian Universalists might come as close as it gets in the real world to the kind of “church” you are describing. You can be an atheist and be a Unitarian Universalist and they have churches, congregations, services even, though I’ve never been to a Unitarian Universalist service so I don’t know exactly what they are like. Here’s more

Add a spa and golf course and sign me up.

I was wondering that the other day. The difference in my postulate was this: What if church believed in a deity that wasn’t supernatural? How different would the world be if the deity were believed to live on say alpha centauri?

I know some pretty fanatical golfers and little league select baseball coaches. Some hockey parents are pretty crazy too. All of them have a certain dogma which runs their entire world view. All of them see life through a jaded lens.

Some of them would kill us all to death if we disrespected their philosophies.

Not much difference…churches as well as religion do not just fulfill people’s notions about the divine, they fulfill their needs to feel as part of a collective that’s connected to something deeper…lots of research has shown people care more about what the church thinks of them within their community than about any particular beliefs (which are quite variable)...as Durkheim proposed…by worshiping god, people are worshiping society…something to think about..

I “approve” of any individual or group that promotes caring, kindness, altruism and unity of all life regardless of the form it manifests in.

I’d call them Unitarians.

I would think they probably voted liberally.

This is very vague. What are doing in the club? Trading tupperware?

A community social and service club. Every community should have one.
Where does Bahai fit in?

What would I be doing if I attended? Would I attend what? I’m confused.

Not sure they’d exist in the first place seeing that the whole point of Church is Christianity.

This describes Quakers, doesn’t it?

It does, @dappled_leaves, except for the waiting on God and Holy Spirit part of the Quakers meetings. It is the same, only different as my husband likes to say.

There are plenty Eastern religions that don’t have a diety, like Taoism. I think they have temples. I don’t think Buddism has a deity either, yet they have beautiful temples that are visited by probably millions of people, I would think.

Redundant.

I’d probably think it was some kind of bank.

The reason I ask is that the churches I’ve been to do a lot of benevolent things for the community. They do it out of love and respect for God and the people they are helping, but it is benevolent regardless of their reasons. I have personally never seen anything like it in any other organization.

@digitalimpression You might be interested in this. I don’t know if you are familiar with Kiva, but the Kiva

Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious lending group is kicking the Kiva Christian lending groups butts.

They outnumber the Christians 2 to 1 and have out lended them $5,708,475 to $3,253,800. Just an example of how you don’t need to be a member of a church to do good things. Lots of non church members and groups do all sorts of things.

There are all sorts of non-religiously affiliated groups and secular and humanist non-profits and charitable organizations that do good things all around the world like Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Oxfam International, S.H.A.R.E, PLAN, Meals on Wheels

And the Unitarian Universalists run soup kitchens

:-)