"I don't believe in God but I believe in community and the benefits to society that believing bring."
Doesn't work that way fam. Can't be an atheist and have all the blessings of the covenant.
Discussion
Kinda does. You’re not going to force an atheist who is otherwise a solid member of your community to take your god pills. Might not have the blessings but that probably correlates with his care factor as an atheist.
You can get some residual blessings from a society that by and large believes. But not all.
Do you think there’s any benefit in disbelievers in an otherwise faithful society?
Do they perhaps temper the most extremist elements of the faithful whilst peacefully coexisting despite differences in faith?
No. There's no benefit to unbelievers in society in a spiritual sense. They don't temper extremism in believers, they end up fueling cultural degeneracy like is happening now.
Pastors, particularly fervent ones, won’t allow their cults and sects to be undermined by non-believers.
It’s why we see strict rejection, and expulsion by insulated religious groups of apostates; to that extent, they will attack the character of the non-believer, and are willing to break-up families to achieve their desired outcome - the ostracisation of the threat to their following.
They will 100% cut off the limb because they know if they don’t, the non-believer’s presence will eventually result in more people being willing to question that which they have been indoctrinated with.
I came to acknowledge that there isn't a person who doesn't have the need to believe, it's inbuilt, it's an impulse.
See the early 2000s and the rise of popular atheism, I was right there. That movement left a God shaped hole in the minds of an entire generation, maybe two, and IMMEDIATELY they started their own religious movements, most prominent the woke cult. A secular religion that mimics the old, copies the most nasty parts but lacks the forgiveness. Just the lust for power, the greed for recognition and desire for instant gratification. Everybody wants to be God. That just doesn't work, its cultivating a mindset that accomplishes nothing and only destroys.
If you don't believe in something you fall for anything. Surely not a simple task to draw the lines here but outright neglecting the need for spirituality is like a toddler not wanting to go to bed.
I was thinking about this earlier:
I was put off as a youngster by the idea of 'serving in heaven' or serving the light, in any language (English is not my first) the term serving evokes connotations of of polishing shoes, serving refreshments, opening and closing windows, cleaning the pipes under the sink... Doesn't sound appealing, that's not how I would like to spend eternity but that's not at all the idea. God doesn't need me to pull the weeds in his driveway.
Serving the light and the kingdom of God means to elevate your consciousness against the pull of deconstructive desires so that you may contribute to what is eternally good ('be perfect!') here on earth. You uphold what has been built, you protect it, you spread the word. Here on earth. You stop being a shadowy creature of the dark that pretends to be happy ruling over a moldy kingdom of dishes and instead face the entropy and the deamons in your heart and maybe one day help others to face theirs. I can get behind that.
Saturday thoughts.
Facts