...there's a lot of this going on not out of appreciation for traditions and rituals, but as a survival technique.

Imagine sitting next to a... closeted atheist. Who would have expected such hideous creatures to exist? Do I even need to mention I was being sarcastic?

which is a lot more common than one might think.

http://www.amazon.com/Caught-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief-Behind/dp/0615927904/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405117916&sr=1-4&keywords=daniel+dennett+books

and listening to all the preaching, but not believing a bit of it. The only way I can see an atheist enjoying the ritual would be in the traditional Catholic churches where they did everything in Latin, even though no one had a clue what was being said, and there were a lot of rituals mixed in.

That would not have worked for me, I see rituals as ridiculous. If I did believe in God, I still would shun church because of all the silly traditions.

...... you can get all the good church music on a CD.


But live is so good! So if it's like a big mass at a big cathedral, it can be worth it. But I agree....the price is high.

There were people bobbing and swaying in the front row, with their hands up, palms out, like it improves reception or something.

Freaky. F- would not attend again.

Yep, down in the back of beyond at Raccoon Creek in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Men on one side, women on the other, everyone dressed in black. No music, because music was a sin... along with anything else fun that you could think of. (They did sing but it was a cappella.) They had the foot washings and all those rituals. My grandfather, whose painful arthritis made it difficult for him to kneel, always chose to do the foot washing for his cousin Dewey because my granddad, ever the practical one, pointed out that Dewey only had one foot.

http://www.pb.org/pbfaq.html

Funny how all these backward-ass sects generally want to avoid the evil modern world. But Gawd gave us the Internet, which justifies using it to try and rope in new suckers.

We had PB's in my neck of the woods too. Which wasn't all that far away from you.

The believers who surprised me with musical instruments were the Fire Baptized Pentecostal Holiness Church, which one of my relatives dragged me to as a kid. They used electric guitars in the church!!! Nowadays every mega-church has a lame faux-rock band onstage. But this was a long time ago and I'd never seen such a thing. Beat the hell out of our mundane Baptist church, which only had the usual piano and organ.

Still doesn't beat the one I saw outside Hagerstown, MD - Church of the Holy Ghost Explosions! I wondered what denomination that was but wasn't about to ask.

of the flailing of the arms in the air----improve reception. Woe be to the religious practitioners who don't go into for that sort of thing. Their prayers are not being heard nearly as well.

He knows I am an atheist and told me not to say a word about my disbelief if I talked with the pastor who performed the ceremony.

And it isn't any business of the pastor. You did it right.

And that's purely a matter of the practical, not wanting to wash my hair with the soap bar after scrubbing my ass.

So you wouldn't have to limit the time you spend scrubbing your naughty bits.

I actually saw something called Jalapeno soap in a store the other day. There's just no way.

No point on the shampoo. I have more hair on my ass than on my head.

My skin is literally crawling. I've pretty much figured out I am not a deBotton style "ritual" atheist. Like 30 years ago.

Luckily I don't drink either, so there is no escape. I will survive the weekend, but just barely. Somebody will bring up religion and I will utter the atheist word and things will go downhill.

Is this your version of the "lost weekend"?

Next time you find yourself in that situation, remember to pack a suitcase full of tie-dyed gay pride shirts. You'll find that a lot of your fundie relatives will avoid you like the plague and you can enjoy some peace for a couple of days.

That should be interesting.

Luckily my training as a gd host facilitator will come in handy.

You should be writing everything down for posterity.

Friday Shabbat services 6:30 - 8:00
Saturday Shabbat services 9:30 - 12:00
Lunch
Saturday Mincha service 1:30 - 7:00
Dinner
Sunday Kabbalat Panim (I have no fucking clue) with "Tish" for men and something else for the subhumans
Followed by an actual wedding.
Post wedding stuff that will be party-like.

We will be skipping the 27,000 hours of praying.

I guess. Tapped to be an usher for a good friend, the groom. Got to wear a yarmulke and everything. It was nteresting to me, since I grew up in a place where Jews were about as common as Martians.

This was his SECOND marriage, which probably made a difference. His first wife was a classic Jewish-American princess, who ran off with a neighbor much older than her. Go figure.

Still, the happy couple stood under the canopy, stomped the glass, etc. The whole deal.

Even better, his second wife was one of my people - hillbilly/redneck/white trash. As an usher I was paired off with one of her bridesmaids, another hillbilly. So at least we spoke the same language and could discuss common problems like grits withdrawal pangs.

The ceremony didn't take long at all, then the Jews and shit-kickers put aside all our differences, held hands and sang Kumbayah, and celebrated our common humanity. (Translation - we all got drunk.)

Without a doubt, the most miserable wedding I ever attended was a full-dress, all-bells-and-whistles Catholic ceremony. I thought that thing would NEVER end. On and on and on. In an old, non-air conditioned church. In Sacramento, CA. In AUGUST. In the end, I think the damn wedding lasted longer than the marriage.

I was just visiting my grandmother in the nursing home over the fourth of July weekend. She's in a home run by the Catholic church. She's had some trouble with her meds lately, so she watched Sunday mass from her room on a closed-circuit channel rather than going to the chapel. I arrived shortly after she had finished watching mass, and during my visit a nun came to her room to give her communion. I usually have a pretty good tolerance for the rare religious ceremonies that family obligations foist upon me, but I found this brief ceremony made me especially uncomfortable and a bit creeped-out. That nun made a big fucking deal over that cracker, that's for sure. Anyway, it was over quickly and I think I was able to conceal my discomfort. Good luck on enduring an entire weekend of such nonsense.

The study identified six different kinds of nonbelievers, though Silver says even more types could appear as the number of nonbelievers in the U.S. climbs....

What a colossal waste of time and energy. I really do wonder why theists are so bothered by atheists.