7 Things Atheists Turn to When They Have Problems Without Resorting to God
People who don't believe in God handle difficulties very differently from believers.
"But people need religion for community! For social support! People get so much from religion—counseling, emotional help during hard times, financial help during hard times, rituals and rites of passage, day care, even job networking. Why do atheists want to take that away?"
There are a lot of arguments people make for religion. But this one gets atheists' attention. Not because it's a good argument for religion—it's not. People don't need religion to help each other out, or even to form organized groups to help each other out. We form communities and support networks around all sorts of ideas and identities: philosophies, political views, sexual orientations, gender identities or lack thereof, hobbies, geographical accidents, food preferences, and much, much more. And the communities people build around religion are hardly evidence that God exists... any more than Dickens re-creation societies are evidence that Oliver Twist exists.
This argument gets atheists' attention, not because it's a good argument for religion, but because we recognize that there is a real need here. In many parts of the world, religion is deeply intertwined with the social and economic and political system -- and when atheists leave religion and come out as atheists, they often find themselves isolated, cut off from the support they've relied on all their lives, in some cases cut off from their families and closest friends. And even when religion isn't an overpowering behemoth dominating the social landscape, support systems can have religion woven into them in ways that people aren't even aware of -- but that can make these support networks alienating to many atheists. Atheists often have distinct needs -- when you don't believe in any gods or any afterlife, you often handle things like grief, illness, rites of passage, bringing up children, very differently from people who do believe in a god or an afterlife. And support services often don't meet these needs: even when they intend to be inclusive, they often aren't.
http://www.alternet.org/belief/7-atheists-support-groups?paging=off
