And here we have yet another point towards religions being at least partly “how to survive” guides in ancient times, and there still being good secular life lessons that can be learned from them.

I’m religious as well (with the same command for a day of rest), but even when I was not, I could recognize the potential social, community, and moral benefits.

There’s a lot of bullshit, and a lot of assholes out there looking for any backing they can use to be self-righteous about their asshole beliefs. But there’s still good rattling around too. Like I love Christianity’s core rule that effectively says “Don’t be a shithead to people unless you want them to be shitheads back”. Wish more Christians could live that. It’s not the only plainly practical advice either.

I also personally believe that there’s a lot of problems in society stemming from the general disconnection that most people have from any source of local community and the people living around them. Communities definitely don’t need a local religious organization to gather around, but historically they were cornerstones. In the modern world we’ve moved on from them without much concentrated effort to backfill the benefits that have been lost.

Same here, and it’s kept me sane through a crazy-busy school term.