Church for Non-Believers

Some people meditate during the sermon.

 

For meditation, there are several types:

Seated (chair or cushion)
Walking
Guided
Staring at a mandala

Guided relaxation techniques are awesome too. Teaches you how to tense up and then relax your muscle groups throughout your body.

I highly recommend the Calm app. Check it out.

 

I found value in going to a place with other people to meditate, at least to get started. I was lucky enough to stumble into a great instructor who led free, nearly-weekly two-hour sessions that were a mix of meditation and discussion. (Her name is Sharon Salzberg, and if you're interested, she has a podcast).

In addition to hearing about meditation from a person who knew what they were doing, I also liked that the sessions felt like gatherings of broken people who wanted to get better.

 

No, it's not wrong. Go for it. Some churches will have more structured liturgies than others (it can differ within an denomination and always differs from denomination to denomination) but don't feel any pressure to do those. Or sing. Or put money in the bag/plate. You can do all those things, but it's not anything anyone has to do.

There are many atheists/agnostics in church. There are certainly dozens in mine, and they tend to stick around. (We've got a good worship leader who's smart and talented and she's not trying to blast you out the door with a rock concert.)

 

Those churches pay rent to those schools, FWIW. Usually pretty, pretty good rent. It's a nice little moneymaker for public schools.

It is true older churches in the middle of cities are often empty, but that's in part because those congregations have built new spots on the edge of town that attract younger, wealthier folks, while the church itself (that is, the denomination) still owns the downtown building, has paid it off, and rents it out for occasions.

 

Only if they're sacrificing virgins. Otherwise, swing away.

I was raised Catholic and my mother was actually in a nunnery for a spell while my father was overseas (and before their marriage and my conception). But she was pretty open-minded and even became a justice of the peace, marrying people in our living room on occasion. (That was kinda weird.)

But if I learned anything in the spiritual realm from her, it's that the only important rule is the golden rule. Everything else is extraneous. There's no harm in attending a service where you don't completely believe. As long as you're respectful of the goings on, etc.

 

I can think of a way to keep a virgin from being sacrificed.

 

It isn't wrong to seek community and fellowship among, what one assumes, are good people. I can't see any reason why they wouldn't accept you and your girlfriend being among them.

You may feel fraudulent from time to time as the messages transition from the secular to the superstitious, but we overcome misalignments in our beliefs in our everyday lives.

 

Everytime I see this thread this earwig goes off in my brain:

 

Congregation rises, starts to chant a hymn
Of evil, lust and hatred, the root of every sin
The priest he stands before them
Tells them why they are this way
Why they worship metal gods each and every day
By the hand of Oberon, dark into the deep
Love the evil things we do, the secrets that we keep

Metal church, unholy, can't you be the sacrifice
Metal church, the only church, don't you know the time is right
Metal church will find you, you can't run very far
Metal church inside you, it knows just who you are