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i have to disagree here.
1: "Church is a great place to socialize and network" of the devoutly religious folks I've met, a distressing number of them have been either obtuse, unpleasant, uneducated, stupid, or old. serious churchgoers suck, as a rule. they are not fun to hang or converse with, and they are generally prudish and close minded.
This is a fair point. I wasn't really thinking of making true friends at church, for the most part. I was mainly thinking about business generation and meeting other influential people. Most leaders (whether political or in corporate america) attend church at least semi-regularly.
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2: I think that Americans are way less religious than you are claiming. I have no problem meeting non-religious friends.
How many of them are in influential positions in corporations or government? In my experience, there are not many open non-believers in influential positions. But, I live in the South. I also suspect that a great many of the leaders in our country are actually fakers ala my OP.
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3: I dont believe in God, but I'm still bothered when I or anyone lies about serious matters. Frankly, I find the suggestion that I need to believe in God to care about lying to be insulting.
I didn't mean to insult you. But, if you don't believe in god, why not lie when it serves your purpose? I qualified my post by noting that I was talking to "rationally self-interested atheists." From my perspective, a rational person lies about important things almost never. But the reason is because credibility and reputation are incredibly important for achieving success in most endeavors that require cooperation.
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4: there is an objective morality, and that is rooted in human solidarity.
Not without god. You can't justify "human solidarity" (or anything else for that matter) as an end worth achieving without god. Sklansky has hammered this point home to death on this board, so I won't fill in all the details.