How to Replace Church Life

While I've been involved with Atheist groups for some decades, I know very little about the many ways people go forward after leaving the Christian faith. Apparently, there are a gazillion different groups that form around arm's length study of philosophy and mythology. They don't advocate any belief but try to understand a variety of beliefs.

Reading about this variety of groups, I'm reminded they are similar to what I know to be Universal Unitarianism. We're seeing that skeptics are just like believers, each has his/her own version of the deal. I'm no different. I've attended several Unitarian groups, been a speaker a few times, but it just doesn't speak to me as something to attend regularly.  

What is refreshing, however, is that all these groups to off doing and believing their own thing and they do not, or cannot, force everyone else to suffer prayers at public events and all the other garbage Christian push on society.

Among the groups meeting are Satan's Church, Pagans and Witches. I suppose we can add "spiritual but not religious" and everything else. A few years ago in my local atheist group a couple was encouraging others to attend their other group. The other group had meeting discussing the danger of Islam. I gathered they studied the Koran and picked out passages that advocated violence. Since many of us in the atheist knew Muslims and those we knew ignored those parts of their book we had no interest in joining such a group. I think the couple dropped out of an anti-Islam group eventually.

On Christian websites, Christians write about the coming tragedy when there are no longer churches. They see church attendance as a kind of human necessity. There will not be volunteers, people will be alone and lonely, etc. It is not surprising those who most urgently talk of the importance of attending church are the preachers/priests who depend on an audience.

It seems like it is not necessary to wonder what will happen if people stop attending church. They already have stopped. Only about one in five adults now goes to church each week. This is based on surveys and what churches themselves report and may be an over estimate. Churches are closing, people are going out to brunch and all is well.