I realize that people seem to have some kind of innate urge to congregate in like-minded groups — and the recent success of the so-called The Sunday Assembly shows as much — but nonbelievers holding what can only be called “church” services seems a bit over the top to me. After all, part of the criticism of religion in the first place is the zombie-like ritualism. And now, nonbelievers in Boston have also started a “church.” Like standard church services at First Baptist in Anytown, USA, these programs are replete with music, announcements, speakers and collection plates. The only difference: no God.
That’s not exactly a small omission. In any case, I think it can be beneficial for fellow nonbelievers to hold “meetups” in their communities to make friends with people who have similar experiences, since the path from faith to nonbelief is often fraught with difficulties, but I see a problematic distinction between merely hanging out with fellow skeptics and freethinkers in a public setting and forming congregations that do all the “churchy” stuff in the same way that it would be odd for a bunch of scientists to congregate and literally sing praises to the cosmos. I say this is problematic because no matter how much these atheist churches tout love, fellowship and community betterment — and kudos to them for it — adhering to rituals as a body of like-minded individuals can lead, in my view, to a kind of institutionalized, provincial mentality that is at the heart of organized religion. For proof of this, we need to look no further than the estimated 41,000 denominations just within Christianity, not to mention the local congregations that have suffered schism after schism based on an individual interpretation of laws or church practices. Of course, atheists do not have to worry about different interpretations of any holy book, and they most likely have more ideological similarities than differences, but when nonbelievers begin forming churches, it would seemingly create — again, and in reverse — a dichotomy between us, the churchgoers, versus them, the Sunday drifters.
Harmful? Certainly not. The potential for parochialism? Yes.