[kubanczyk]

> The community is great in and of itself, but it exists explicitly to advance a particular set of beliefs.

No. The community is above the beliefs.

Humans benefit greatly from acting within a group. Yes, it always grows a "here are The Best Practices" division. (It's just a sad side effect.) But one can identify with a smaller and humbler subgroup with the wink-wink approach to rules: switch to the higher levels, seek new goals, etc.

As an atheist, I took me years to notice this minority. Talking with deeply religious people often reveals that stuff they are actively pursuing is not only very interesting, but it's far above what you can achieve just by pondering about some Nietzsche text in your armchair taking mental notes "oh this definitely goes on the top of my todo list now". The group is the magic ingredient to the real-life results.

On this forum, a good analogy is the difference between a huge Agile© event and a small team-only standup meeting.

Disturbingly big part of modern atheism is actually sheer laziness. If I've written my final conclusion "Therefore all religion is useless." it's easy to come up with hundred semi-honest-but-true arguments to reach that conclusion. There is a lot that goes under the radar, like supporting the self-improvement of your children/family and coping with bad problems in your own life, chiefly including suffering and death. Atheism mostly says: better be rich and be able to afford some good professionals.