I've always wanted to ask this
What exactly does 'non-practising' (insert religious belief) mean to you? This sort of identification puzzles me. Why do people insist on holding on to their faith when it has little effect on the actions of their everyday lives?
I guess I'm non-practicing Quaker. As I mentioned earlier, I was raised in that faith. I was lucky that Quaker morality is strongly humanist, so when I became agnostic and later an atheist after college, most of what I was taught as far as ethics translated very well into a life without any sort of higher power.
Because of this, I still strongly identify with Quakerism and on some levels still consider myself a Quaker. Quakers don't have a religious authority within a church (like a minister or preacher), only a secular head (called a clerk) which is elected every few years. My father, despite being an avowed and open atheist, was clerk of our Quaker church for several years. This, I think, reinforced the idea that the belief in God was not necessary to associate oneself with at least certain faiths.
Churches seem to be both religious and social institutions. Some emphasize one more than the other. Quakerism is very focused on its role within the community and society, and historically always has been. Who I am morally is a Quaker. So this is my form of being non-practicing. I suspect for most people it's just that they were raised in a certain faith, believe in it nominally because it's been indoctrinated, and now simply are too apathetic to go to church.
On a different note, both my fiancee and I are atheists, but when we have children we plan on raising them in the Quaker faith. America lacks a strong humanist moral tradition. Thus as people abandon faith for rationality, there is little as far as a rational moral code to jump to. As an atheist I despair at the amount of sex and violence on TV, in music, and in games...generally their large social presence. I believe this is because America lacks a strong moral alternative to religion (Christian or otherwise), and thus I think that faith still plays an important role in society (though its presence has perhaps stymied the development of moral alternatives) and should not be easily dismissed.
No worries; on an intellectual level I pretty much agree with you. There is no doubt that I am an atheist, and this should preclude me from belonging to most, if not all, religions.
I was raised in as a Hicksite Quaker, so it was far closer to a philosophical upbringing than a religious one. In many respects, Quakerism is Christian only genetically. Some Quakers (according to Wikipedia, at least), question whether or not they should even consider themselves Christian anymore. I was never taught that Jesus died for our sins, or that he was the son of God, or that he performed miracles. I wasn't taught otherwise either...just that such things were of relative unimportance. I was always taught that he was a righteous man who lived a virtuous life, one which should serve as an example for myself and others.
The belief in God was always secondary to the belief of the inherent goodness and social responsibility of humanity. Quakers, including myself at one point, attribute this to "that of God" inside us, but the actions it led to were always more important than the source. Like I mentioned earlier, my father was clerk of our church (though Quaker churches are actually referred to as meetings...I'm just saying church because it's easier) despite being openly atheist. He, however, never considered himself a Quaker, which posed no problem to those who elected him.
Both my philosophy and morality are Quaker, and my philosophy and morality didn't change even slightly when I moved from someone who believes in God to someone who doesn't.
In the end, I don't know if I am a Quaker or not. But I don't think atheism is inherently contradictory to Quakerism. Atheism seems to be more about not believing in any sort of higher power; religion doesn't enter into it. Buddhists, for example, are arguably atheists.
I don't think there is any branch of Christianity where the role of God is so diminished as it is in Quakerism (at least, Hicksite Quakerism). So while you may hear such things a lot, unless you are hearing it from Quakers, it's a bit different. A good question would be: is Hicksite Quakerism, as practiced today, Christian in anything more than its heritage?
I am, for the most part, a pacifist. I will not insult people (this is a form of violence) nor will I physically assault another. I say for the most part because a do think that war, while always evil, is sometimes necessary. And if someone else were being hurt and the only way to save them is to hurt the attacker, then I think I would (because my own personal morality is my choice, and it shouldn't be imposed on others to their detriment). This fact is more damning to my case as a Quaker than my atheism.
I believe that there is an inherent goodness in all people, and that through meditation and self-reflection we can get in touch with that goodness and allow it to dictate how we interact with the world around us. This is the central tenet of Quakerism and is what determines how Quakers actually practice their faith.
The tl;dr summary:
To be philosophically Quaker carries more meaning than to be philosophically Catholic or Methodist or Baptist simply because Quakerism is less about God and more about philosophy and action than other faiths.
[EDIT]: Hicksites are one of the main branches of Quakerism, but the others are far more in line with traditional Christianity, so what I was raised in is different from what Evangelical Quakers and Conservative Quakers are
I can't presently speak to the "why do bad things happen to good people" dilemma, as my response is: I don't believe in a higher power. However, I was taught that neither evil nor the devil existed, but that the urges/passions/whathaveyou (greed, lust, anger, etc) are a part of our nature as, and that it is our Inner Light (that of God in all of us) which allows us to moderate these impulses to productive levels. This seems like a reasonable approach consistent with internal logic.
It was mentioned in an earlier post, the phrases "faith through action" and "faith through praise." I've always liked the way both sound (but only ever adhered to the former).
This thread has made me think about the level of reconciliation between my atheism and Quaker culture. I'm going to try and be a better (atheist) Quaker, practice "faith through action" without the faith. Going to see about getting involved with the Non-theist Friends* Network.
*The formal name for Quakerism is the Society of Friends...the only thing I never liked about being a Quaker was that we have silly names for various things.
