interfaith for the faithful and faithless

December 1, 2010 10:52 AM

Are there any organizations, non-profits, etc. that support or encourage building relationships and positive dialogue between atheists/agnostics and various religious groups? Like interfaith organizations, but including the faithless.
posted by raztaj to human relations (5 answers total)

The three I can think off off the top of my head are:
- The non-religious Society of Friends and their religious brethren in the Society of Friends (Quakers)
- The Unitarian Universalists and various Interfaith committees
- ReligiousTolerance.org

Those resources (unfortunately I don't have time to link them) may link you to other similar sorts of endeavors.
posted by kalessin at 10:55 AM on December 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

The most prominent one I can think of is Unitarian Universalism. It's a church, I know, which may or may not meet your criteria, but it's notable that 18 percent of them readily identify as atheists and the church requires no belief, and promotes acceptance. So there's that.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 10:57 AM on December 1, 2010

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State includes both religious and non-religious people who believe firmly in the separation of same in the US.
posted by Sidhedevil at 11:02 AM on December 1, 2010

I had someone ask me privately for links to the non-religious Society of Friends. Turns out that I'd misremembered it as a formal group, but I think it may just be that often atheists/agnostics feel comfortable attending Friends Meetings (Quaker services) because they can often be very non-God-centric.

An interesting blog post about it:
http://lightwithspirit.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/quakers-atheists-in-the-religious-society-of-friends/

I blame the fact that I joined as a kid for my inaccuracies.
posted by kalessin at 12:23 PM on December 1, 2010

Not any major one, but I've been involved in a few university-based 'secular societies' and some of them have been more about interfaith/dialogs between the secular and religious.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:26 PM on December 1, 2010