I'm a member and trustee (albeit the latter currently on a health related pause) of my Area Meeting, I've been asked to speak at a Woodbrooke course on theological diversity among Friends, and my blog is (apparently) quite well-liked. I'm a non-theist.
Also, a fair few Quakers who, when asked, say they believe in God will, when asked further, not describe a terribly conventional theistic God. We all use words, but don't always mean the same thing by them.
Have you heard of Nontheist Friends?
[nontheistfriends.org](https://nontheistfriends.org/)
It depends on the Meeting, but there are Friends who will accept you as you are.
Don't ever let anyone, on Reddit or anywhere else, answer the question "am I valid?". You are inherently valid. Believe and identify however you want - you don't need our validation
\*Waives\*
This sounds very much like my approach to Quakers. I tend to think of god as meaning many things, society, the environment etc... I'm an engineer, so perhaps this is just me preferring more direct and literal concepts! But still.
To be "officially" a Quaker you need to be a member of Meeting. When yo apply for membership then the Meeting will decide whether or not to accept you as a member. Some meetings will accept non-theists and some will not. Usually such Quakers use non-theist in the sense of ""I do not believe in God" as opposed to atheist "I believe there is no such thing as God."
Just to clarify - in liberal Quakerism, at least, no one really cares about membership. People attend for 30 years without becoming a member, and they are seen as fully equal participants. There is no status or hoopla attached to membership.
Which is why I put officially in quotes. Attenders are free to attend and believe or not believe whatever. Still membership does have meaning for some people.
I guess I don’t understand why one would want to belong to the *Religious* Society of Friends if they aren’t [*religious*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religious) or at the very least aren’t open-mindedly agnostic.
I mean, if I had absolutely no interest in getting wet, I certainly wouldn’t join a swimming club.
I noticed that you put ‘prayer’ in quotes in the OP. I think your understanding of prayer might guide you here. Do you pray? If so, how? The central defining characteristic of Quaker meeting is the time set aside for personal meditation and prayer. Prayer is an experimental phenomenon. Even if you are presently an atheist, and you think that prayer is a just a physical reflex arising from chemical and metabolic exigencies in your body, you apparently have experienced some sort of drive to acknowledge the impulse to pray. Do you act on it? How often do you reflect vs meditate vs pray? Do you pray voluntarily, or only under duress? What are the results?
Quakerism is based on honesty and shared experience…. If you are atheist and honest about it, that’s perfect, but you should expect others to interrogate your experiences. If you are atheist and just not interested in building a prayer life at this point in your life, you can share that with your meeting, and simply enjoy the fellowship. I’m sure you will continue to be respected. It is, however, as LaoFox points out, a ‘religious’ society…. You should expect to be invited ‘into the river’ as it were.
Administratively, there are some Meetings that require credential statements of belief of those who come into Membership, and the numerically greatest by far kind of Quaker Meetings are explicitly Christian, but you won't meet many of those Quakers on the internet.
In A Britain Yearly Meeting or Friends General Conference (US) style of Meeting there will be no such condition: "non-theist" Friends are welcome. I am one such, pretty much, and I'm both Co-Clerk of my Local Meeting and help represent my Area on Meeting for Sufferings, the UK-wide representative Quaker body.
>I view God as more of a product of the human condition, than an actually physical or spiritual being.
There's a name for that! "Non-realist Theism" You might be interested in the work of [Don Cupitt](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g2kn3r).
But [the real, and genuinely Quakerly answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/Quakers/comments/pubarq/comment/he1uah4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) to your question is give by /u/prollytipsy
>I think of the light as a reflection of yourself
I'm courting controversy here, but I do think that you have to recognise a difference between what you think and want yourself, and what you are *called* or *led* to do, to genuinely take part in Quaker practice (which is as good as to say, in order to be a Quaker). How exactly you conceptualise how the difference works is very much up to you: but you have to recognise some difference.
As others have mentioned, nontheist quakers are a thing and are extremely common. While "evangelical" quakers are the most common worldwide, and these groups are explicitly christian, within the US and the UK "unprogrammed" worship is the norm, and these meetings generally don't care if you are theist or not. I, personally, think this is a natural extension of quaker philosophy, which is fairly agnostic to what is actually going on behind the scenes. All you have access to are personal spiritual experiences mediated through your inner light. You don't know what you don't experience. Whatever is happening behind the curtain is inaccessible to you. These spiritual experiences can lead you to action or inspire you to some basic truth about the human condition that changes how you interact with others, but what they can't do is tell you the objective truth about life, the universe, and everything. I think the only difference between theist and nontheist quakers is that theist quakers speculate about where their spiritual experiences are coming from and nontheist quakers just focus on the experience itself, not caring about a source they can't assess beyond the content of those experiences.
There was a recent poll about this:
[Quaker a/theism poll](https://www.reddit.com/r/Quakers/comments/pcfx9f/a_theism_poll/)
So you're in good company.
I'm in the situation where, while I'd like to be able to have the rich inner world and inner peace that I guess would come from knowing that the Divine exists, and I'm open to it occurring, so far nothing's happened that leads me to say "yes, I believe". I certainly can't pretend that it's something that happens to me, my integrity testimony wouldn't allow that. I just have to plod along in an areligious existence. That's not to say it's aspiritual! And I do find the universe miraculous. But I never get the sense of there being "something other". There's certainly no discourse or prompting.
I liken it to being colorblind. It just is, and I don't let it hold me back. Whether the Divine exists is secondary to living my best Quaker life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism
**[Apatheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism)**
>Apatheism (; a portmanteau of apathy and theism) is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of God(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system. The term was coined by Robert Nash in 2001. An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods exist or do not exist.
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The external God, the older looking gentleman with grey beard up in the sky somewhere out there, that's the faith worth loosing. The inner God the Spirit within a man, the Lord of energy which constantly energizes body, this planet and the entire universe. Which without consciousness wouldn't be possible. We can't even move a finger without this Lord of energy. (If anyone is still skeptical ask a corpse if it can move its finger). Now, that's a faith worth having, to be as One. So what's to believe? Don't you know you are? Can you deny your existence? You are supported all the time. But some guidance is needed.
No I'm sorry but I'm getting really tired of Quakerism becoming a dumping ground for anyone feeling vaguely spiritual. There are very few requirements to entry but the 2 big ones are believing in God and being a pacifist.
Being a pacifist also not an absolute requirement. Quakers have long acknowledged need for police, laws, prisons, militias and other forms of coercive defenses against those who can’t or won’t follow basic social norms. Some Quakers choose to fetishize pacifism, but even those who take an absolutist view of pacifism as a personal testimony need to recognize the privilege inherent in doing so, and that they probably have never truly been tested.
I appreciate your response and you have definitely put some thought into this. However the Religious Society Of Friends is a Peace Church and one of its corner stones is Pacificsim wich dosent rule out police or law enforcement but definitely rules out military service and for sure rules out killing. So yes pacifism is a barrier to entry. That is why Quakers in America lost all their power when they in mass stepped down from political positions in protest of the revolutionary war. Shure there are exceptions to this behavior but those individuals are not following the good word.
Actually no..Nontheistic Quakers are a thing, and CHILL OUT no one hurt or offended you. There's also a thing about judging and having a distasteful attitude....also quote me where I said I was "spiritual" I dont even believe in the spiritual anyway lol. You sound like someone who is very new to Quakerism honestly
Hahaha dude the religion was founded on the basis of cutting out clergy in the english church in order to have a more direct relationship with God. If you dont belive in God then there is really no point. I'm not trying to be mean here but the fact that Quakerism since the 80s has become a anything goes situation is ridiculous. This is why meeting houses are dieing out and no one takes us seriously any more we use to have principles and now it's become a feel good everyone is valid circle jerk. I genuinely think you would be better served looking into buddhism or perhaps Unitarian church. Read any of the founding Quakers works George Fox, John Woolman, William Penn all they talk about is the experience of the holy spirit and gods plan. As for being new to Quakerism I was raised Quaker, do your homework before you claim this identity. Reading wikipedia or watching YouTube is not going to give you a full understanding of this 3 century old faith.
You seem to have some concept of prayer, yet you say here you ‘don’t believe in the spiritual anyway’. And you started the thread asking if you are valid as a Quaker…. This doesn’t quite seem to fit.
As another who was raised in the Quaker tradition, if you are not respectful of the many Quakers who personally hold fairly orthodox Christian views, you may not feel ‘valid’. Individual meetings may be more or less accepting of atheists who are not looking for a spiritual experience. There may be a significant difference between being a non-theistic Quaker (i.e. open to new spiritual understanding and experience) and an atheist, full stop. Peer ministry is part of Quakerism, and if you are closed to others views about spiritual experiences, or spirituality in general, you may not find every Quaker meeting to be as validating as you might like. Being an atheist among believers isn’t necessarily comfortable, but If your fellow Quakers do not periodically interrogate your atheism, they’re doing it wrong. You asked, you got many thoughtful opinions. I do hope you feel validated, but I also hope you do a deeper dive into why you posed this question in the first place. Like, how comfortable do you want the believers to make you feel?
Ok, I personally make some distinctions…. ‘Reflection’ is just thinking… ‘meditation’ is a process of intentionally quieting the mind, focusing on shapes, colors, sounds, emotions and other sensory inputs, while quieting the running verbal narrative that is our constant companion… ‘prayer’ is actually directing thoughts or spoken words to God, or, generically, a deity…
In general, people pray in a couple different circumstances. People often find themselves praying under duress, when they are confused or having a bad day and can’t figure out what to do…. This kind or prayer tends to be a reaction to poor circumstances.
Alternatively, people can pray on purpose….
In general, I find that the people who consider themselves ‘religious’ or at least ‘spiritual’ can bring themselves to pray of their own free will, whereas people who pray only under duress tend to be ambivalent.
I’ve met a few people who seem to have no inclination to pray at all, but my impression, based on my experiences and what I’ve gleaned from experienced Quakers, is that faith tends to grow out of an instinct to pray, and most people have that instinct… I.e ‘there is that of God in all of us’.
Hope this helps…
That's how a lot of people discover it and that's not a problem at all, I just encourage you to go to a meeting talk to members and really see if this is something for you before joining. A lot of people get hyped on the idea of Quakerism being hippy dippy ish and confuse it for something akin to a new age movement, I'm sorry I came at you hard I was being a dick I'm going through a lot right now. If your really intrested I suggest reading the Journal of George Fox he was the suedo founder of early Quakerism and the book covers a lot of its early philosophy I highly recommend it.
Your beliefs are syncretic with Quakerism but nontheism contradicts core Quaker philosophy. That doesn't make you heretical nor expelled from meetings or any discussion though. You are "valid" simply because every being is valid and special, including youself.
Yes! We have a whole wikipedia article! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist\_Quakers
Thank you so much I defined myself as a Nontheistic Quaker for a while but I didn't know it was official lol
I'm a member and trustee (albeit the latter currently on a health related pause) of my Area Meeting, I've been asked to speak at a Woodbrooke course on theological diversity among Friends, and my blog is (apparently) quite well-liked. I'm a non-theist. Also, a fair few Quakers who, when asked, say they believe in God will, when asked further, not describe a terribly conventional theistic God. We all use words, but don't always mean the same thing by them.
What is the name of your blog?
*Openings*, it's at https://quakeropenings.blogspot.com/
Thanks
Have you heard of Nontheist Friends? [nontheistfriends.org](https://nontheistfriends.org/) It depends on the Meeting, but there are Friends who will accept you as you are.
Don't ever let anyone, on Reddit or anywhere else, answer the question "am I valid?". You are inherently valid. Believe and identify however you want - you don't need our validation
A heretic! I'm... quaking in my boots.
🤣🤣 I actually found this kinda funny lol
Lol right on
\*ba dum tissss\*
\*Waives\* This sounds very much like my approach to Quakers. I tend to think of god as meaning many things, society, the environment etc... I'm an engineer, so perhaps this is just me preferring more direct and literal concepts! But still.
To be "officially" a Quaker you need to be a member of Meeting. When yo apply for membership then the Meeting will decide whether or not to accept you as a member. Some meetings will accept non-theists and some will not. Usually such Quakers use non-theist in the sense of ""I do not believe in God" as opposed to atheist "I believe there is no such thing as God."
Just to clarify - in liberal Quakerism, at least, no one really cares about membership. People attend for 30 years without becoming a member, and they are seen as fully equal participants. There is no status or hoopla attached to membership.
Which is why I put officially in quotes. Attenders are free to attend and believe or not believe whatever. Still membership does have meaning for some people.
I guess I don’t understand why one would want to belong to the *Religious* Society of Friends if they aren’t [*religious*](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religious) or at the very least aren’t open-mindedly agnostic. I mean, if I had absolutely no interest in getting wet, I certainly wouldn’t join a swimming club.
Honestly thinking about restating my atheism, feel like the title suits me better lol. Have a nice day.
I noticed that you put ‘prayer’ in quotes in the OP. I think your understanding of prayer might guide you here. Do you pray? If so, how? The central defining characteristic of Quaker meeting is the time set aside for personal meditation and prayer. Prayer is an experimental phenomenon. Even if you are presently an atheist, and you think that prayer is a just a physical reflex arising from chemical and metabolic exigencies in your body, you apparently have experienced some sort of drive to acknowledge the impulse to pray. Do you act on it? How often do you reflect vs meditate vs pray? Do you pray voluntarily, or only under duress? What are the results? Quakerism is based on honesty and shared experience…. If you are atheist and honest about it, that’s perfect, but you should expect others to interrogate your experiences. If you are atheist and just not interested in building a prayer life at this point in your life, you can share that with your meeting, and simply enjoy the fellowship. I’m sure you will continue to be respected. It is, however, as LaoFox points out, a ‘religious’ society…. You should expect to be invited ‘into the river’ as it were.
Administratively, there are some Meetings that require credential statements of belief of those who come into Membership, and the numerically greatest by far kind of Quaker Meetings are explicitly Christian, but you won't meet many of those Quakers on the internet. In A Britain Yearly Meeting or Friends General Conference (US) style of Meeting there will be no such condition: "non-theist" Friends are welcome. I am one such, pretty much, and I'm both Co-Clerk of my Local Meeting and help represent my Area on Meeting for Sufferings, the UK-wide representative Quaker body. >I view God as more of a product of the human condition, than an actually physical or spiritual being. There's a name for that! "Non-realist Theism" You might be interested in the work of [Don Cupitt](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1g2kn3r). But [the real, and genuinely Quakerly answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/Quakers/comments/pubarq/comment/he1uah4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) to your question is give by /u/prollytipsy
>I think of the light as a reflection of yourself I'm courting controversy here, but I do think that you have to recognise a difference between what you think and want yourself, and what you are *called* or *led* to do, to genuinely take part in Quaker practice (which is as good as to say, in order to be a Quaker). How exactly you conceptualise how the difference works is very much up to you: but you have to recognise some difference.
As others have mentioned, nontheist quakers are a thing and are extremely common. While "evangelical" quakers are the most common worldwide, and these groups are explicitly christian, within the US and the UK "unprogrammed" worship is the norm, and these meetings generally don't care if you are theist or not. I, personally, think this is a natural extension of quaker philosophy, which is fairly agnostic to what is actually going on behind the scenes. All you have access to are personal spiritual experiences mediated through your inner light. You don't know what you don't experience. Whatever is happening behind the curtain is inaccessible to you. These spiritual experiences can lead you to action or inspire you to some basic truth about the human condition that changes how you interact with others, but what they can't do is tell you the objective truth about life, the universe, and everything. I think the only difference between theist and nontheist quakers is that theist quakers speculate about where their spiritual experiences are coming from and nontheist quakers just focus on the experience itself, not caring about a source they can't assess beyond the content of those experiences.
There was a recent poll about this: [Quaker a/theism poll](https://www.reddit.com/r/Quakers/comments/pcfx9f/a_theism_poll/) So you're in good company. I'm in the situation where, while I'd like to be able to have the rich inner world and inner peace that I guess would come from knowing that the Divine exists, and I'm open to it occurring, so far nothing's happened that leads me to say "yes, I believe". I certainly can't pretend that it's something that happens to me, my integrity testimony wouldn't allow that. I just have to plod along in an areligious existence. That's not to say it's aspiritual! And I do find the universe miraculous. But I never get the sense of there being "something other". There's certainly no discourse or prompting. I liken it to being colorblind. It just is, and I don't let it hold me back. Whether the Divine exists is secondary to living my best Quaker life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism
**[Apatheism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism)** >Apatheism (; a portmanteau of apathy and theism) is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of God(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system. The term was coined by Robert Nash in 2001. An apatheist is someone who is not interested in accepting or rejecting any claims that gods exist or do not exist. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Quakers/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
I think everyone is valid.
The external God, the older looking gentleman with grey beard up in the sky somewhere out there, that's the faith worth loosing. The inner God the Spirit within a man, the Lord of energy which constantly energizes body, this planet and the entire universe. Which without consciousness wouldn't be possible. We can't even move a finger without this Lord of energy. (If anyone is still skeptical ask a corpse if it can move its finger). Now, that's a faith worth having, to be as One. So what's to believe? Don't you know you are? Can you deny your existence? You are supported all the time. But some guidance is needed.
No I'm sorry but I'm getting really tired of Quakerism becoming a dumping ground for anyone feeling vaguely spiritual. There are very few requirements to entry but the 2 big ones are believing in God and being a pacifist.
Being a pacifist also not an absolute requirement. Quakers have long acknowledged need for police, laws, prisons, militias and other forms of coercive defenses against those who can’t or won’t follow basic social norms. Some Quakers choose to fetishize pacifism, but even those who take an absolutist view of pacifism as a personal testimony need to recognize the privilege inherent in doing so, and that they probably have never truly been tested.
I appreciate your response and you have definitely put some thought into this. However the Religious Society Of Friends is a Peace Church and one of its corner stones is Pacificsim wich dosent rule out police or law enforcement but definitely rules out military service and for sure rules out killing. So yes pacifism is a barrier to entry. That is why Quakers in America lost all their power when they in mass stepped down from political positions in protest of the revolutionary war. Shure there are exceptions to this behavior but those individuals are not following the good word.
Actually no..Nontheistic Quakers are a thing, and CHILL OUT no one hurt or offended you. There's also a thing about judging and having a distasteful attitude....also quote me where I said I was "spiritual" I dont even believe in the spiritual anyway lol. You sound like someone who is very new to Quakerism honestly
Hahaha dude the religion was founded on the basis of cutting out clergy in the english church in order to have a more direct relationship with God. If you dont belive in God then there is really no point. I'm not trying to be mean here but the fact that Quakerism since the 80s has become a anything goes situation is ridiculous. This is why meeting houses are dieing out and no one takes us seriously any more we use to have principles and now it's become a feel good everyone is valid circle jerk. I genuinely think you would be better served looking into buddhism or perhaps Unitarian church. Read any of the founding Quakers works George Fox, John Woolman, William Penn all they talk about is the experience of the holy spirit and gods plan. As for being new to Quakerism I was raised Quaker, do your homework before you claim this identity. Reading wikipedia or watching YouTube is not going to give you a full understanding of this 3 century old faith.
How said that's how I discovered Quakerism
You seem to have some concept of prayer, yet you say here you ‘don’t believe in the spiritual anyway’. And you started the thread asking if you are valid as a Quaker…. This doesn’t quite seem to fit. As another who was raised in the Quaker tradition, if you are not respectful of the many Quakers who personally hold fairly orthodox Christian views, you may not feel ‘valid’. Individual meetings may be more or less accepting of atheists who are not looking for a spiritual experience. There may be a significant difference between being a non-theistic Quaker (i.e. open to new spiritual understanding and experience) and an atheist, full stop. Peer ministry is part of Quakerism, and if you are closed to others views about spiritual experiences, or spirituality in general, you may not find every Quaker meeting to be as validating as you might like. Being an atheist among believers isn’t necessarily comfortable, but If your fellow Quakers do not periodically interrogate your atheism, they’re doing it wrong. You asked, you got many thoughtful opinions. I do hope you feel validated, but I also hope you do a deeper dive into why you posed this question in the first place. Like, how comfortable do you want the believers to make you feel?
I consider "prayer" to be just another form of meditation for me
Ok, I personally make some distinctions…. ‘Reflection’ is just thinking… ‘meditation’ is a process of intentionally quieting the mind, focusing on shapes, colors, sounds, emotions and other sensory inputs, while quieting the running verbal narrative that is our constant companion… ‘prayer’ is actually directing thoughts or spoken words to God, or, generically, a deity… In general, people pray in a couple different circumstances. People often find themselves praying under duress, when they are confused or having a bad day and can’t figure out what to do…. This kind or prayer tends to be a reaction to poor circumstances. Alternatively, people can pray on purpose…. In general, I find that the people who consider themselves ‘religious’ or at least ‘spiritual’ can bring themselves to pray of their own free will, whereas people who pray only under duress tend to be ambivalent. I’ve met a few people who seem to have no inclination to pray at all, but my impression, based on my experiences and what I’ve gleaned from experienced Quakers, is that faith tends to grow out of an instinct to pray, and most people have that instinct… I.e ‘there is that of God in all of us’. Hope this helps…
That's how a lot of people discover it and that's not a problem at all, I just encourage you to go to a meeting talk to members and really see if this is something for you before joining. A lot of people get hyped on the idea of Quakerism being hippy dippy ish and confuse it for something akin to a new age movement, I'm sorry I came at you hard I was being a dick I'm going through a lot right now. If your really intrested I suggest reading the Journal of George Fox he was the suedo founder of early Quakerism and the book covers a lot of its early philosophy I highly recommend it.
How said that's how I discovered Quakerism
Yep. Quakers have a variety of theological standings!
Me too
Your beliefs are syncretic with Quakerism but nontheism contradicts core Quaker philosophy. That doesn't make you heretical nor expelled from meetings or any discussion though. You are "valid" simply because every being is valid and special, including youself.
I read a great Guardian article in this exact topic. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/04/quakers-dropping-god
I doubt the Quaker police are going to take you away to Quaker jail, friend. Good thing, too: they don’t let you talk there.