As an atheist, I would say that I can see the benefits of the community that churches provide. Basically having a close network of friends and supportive people is always going to be good.

But you don’t need religion for this. We definitely need closer communities. Like if we had some other place we could all go to and make some effort to actually go at least once a week for an hour or two or however long. This would definitely be a good thing as it helps with loneliness which is a big problem these days. It would also be a much healthier alternative to the default pub social setting.

However religion can be very harmful. So I’m definitely against religion. I’m not against religious people, apart from the people who say stuff about things being gods plan or that god made whatever bad thing happened to them for a reason. They’ll say it in a way that makes it sound like they’re being nice but it can actually be really harmful for people who have been through trauma. An example would be how people saying how god saved Trump. Which actually means god murdered those other (two?) people that died by pushing the bullets around Trump and into them lol.

Or if you come out as gay in a lot of religious communities that means instant rejection and you lose your whole support system overnight unless you repress your true self.

So yeah - religion bad - community good.