It's so refreshingly open. You basically just make friends with people trying to make friends. GOOD friends with open minds. Everything is *discussed*, not commanded.

Christianity is basically the science of becoming happy afaic.

If you go to an early service it's mainly old people. Not much pressure.

One of my red flags is, why are these people trying to make new friends? What have they done in life that they don't already have a lot of friends to bond with? Did they move away or something?

I don't have enough time to see all my own friends enough, why would I go take the time to try and make new ones?

I'm sure they are good people. Good people are good to have around. But there's something to be said about the bond you have with your pals who you can sit under the stars with and eat mushrooms and discuss life.

I feel like deep down people who go to a church like this are longing for something. It means they are incomplete. Yes they can be a good person, but they still have an underlying issue they are trying fix. A rather large one at that. I have a hard time connecting with people like that.

get saved today.

Romans 10:9 King James Version (KJV)

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

There are lots of reasons. Like I recently removed some, I "could" use some news ones. As I was among the last to stay besides them, they most certainly need new ones.

Surely, you can pressume such people have done "wrong" but also a lot have been "wronged" and for most likely both is true. But at a Christian church which is about forgiveness and repent, I would at least put the presumption that they are here to be better friends above others.

Desiring community is some sort of clinical issue? Thhhbbt.

If they are incomplete, it's good they are doing something about it.

I tried the Epis but the sermons were too high a price for making it to the coffee hour. Hope the OP keeps getting something out of it.

I didn't know Christianity is a science.

Believers should give non belief a shot

How exactly does a believer give non-belief "a shot?". You believe something because in your mind it is true. How do you suspend thinking that something is true if you really think that it is true?

Funny Example: Believers in food relieving hunger should give believing that food does not relieve hunger a shot.

Well, that’s fairly silly, plenty of people stop believing.

How does a non believer give belief a shot? You don’t believe something because in your mind it isn’t true. How do you make yourself believe something that you don’t think is true? Why would I find an Episcopalian church a better fit IF I DONT BELIEVE IN GOD? Interestingly enough, I was Episcopalian as a kid. It didn’t take.

Your example is flawed because food relieving hunger is verifiable and repeatable. You don’t “believe” food relieves hunger, you “know” it. You don’t have to believe facts, but you do have to believe things that haven’t been proven to be factual.

And why “should” atheists try any church? We’re not doing anything that needs to be corrected.

Yes, many people stop believing. They stop believing because they no longer think that the belief is true. But they aren't believers who are "giving non belief a shot."
A non believer cannot "give belief a shot.". One believes when one thinks that the belief is true. I'd be surprised if even half of Episcopal priests believe in God these days.

I agree with you that it was a bad analogy.

Summary: You can't believe something that you think is false. And you can't disbelieve something that you think is true. Hence, a believer can't give non belief a shot, and a non believer can't give belief a shot.

Free coffee and donuts.

That was my favorite part of the services!

The word "believe" has a religious meaning and a secular meaning.

I think religious belief is largely the same as faith. Faith is the turning off of one's critical thinking skills and judgement and the adoption of a position for no "good reason"(meaning, rational reason).

A sane person can "believe" anything but he can't think anything.

No sane person can think that a God of love and justice and decency wanted Abraham to slice off part of his own penis, but he can believe it, just like those guys in California 25 years ago who all committed suicide to "spiritually" jump on that passing asteroid.

So, one can try non-belief by reactivating his critical thinking skills and judgement, but it doesn't happen over night.

I'm not aware of any serious phi!osopher of religion who understands "faith" in that manner. Your take on "faith" is the typical one as understood by people who have done virtually no study at all on the subject.

The Bible itself in Hebrews 11 defines "faith" in a quite robust manner as, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of unseen things."

A sane
person can only believe what he thinks is true. Please give me an example of someone who "believed" something, while at the same time "thinking" that it wasn't true.