By Graham Lawton
(Image: Sylvia Serrado/Plainpicture)
The human mind is primed to believe in god, so why are so many people abandoning religion – and should we be worried about living in an atheist world?
ON AN unseasonably warm Sunday morning in London, I do something I haven’t done for more than 30 years: get up and go to church. For an hour and a half, I sing, listen to readings, enjoy moments of quiet contemplation and throw a few coins into a collection. At the end there is tea and cake, and a warm feeling in what I guess must be my soul.
This is like hundreds of congregations taking place across the city this morning, but with one notable exception: there is no god.
Welcome to the Sunday Assembly, a “godless congregation” held every other week in Conway Hall, home of the world’s oldest free-thought organisation. On the day I went there were at least 200 people in the hall; sometimes as many as 600 turn up.
Further reading: Faith of the faithless – Is atheism just another religion?
Founded by comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans in 2013, the Sunday Assembly aims to supply some of the uplifting features of a religious service without any of the supernatural stuff. Atheism is also off the agenda: the Assembly is simply about celebrating being alive. “Our mission is to help people live this one __life as fully as possible,” says Jones.
The Assembly’s wider goal is “a godless congregation in every town, city and village that wants one”. And many do: from a humble start in a deconsecrated church in London, there are now 28 active assemblies in the UK, Ireland, US and Australia. Jones now
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