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RE: Whom to ask for goodies if you aren't religious?
I am a Serb and I live in Serbia. The construction company in which I work was building some objects in Russia. Six years I lived and worked in several Russian cities.
The church insists on morality. Priests tell believers not to lie, not to steal, not to deceive spouses ... (these are some divine commandments) That is positive. Many church leaders abused their positions. That's negative.
My associations with Orthodox church are cultural and historical!
In the past, many of my fellow countrymen have died in the struggle for Orthodox faith! The obligation towards them also creates a national connection with Orthodoxy.
I have a bunch of friends from Serbia back in China. Fun and nice people they are!
Ah, I see
I hope you wouldn't mind me pointing out that this is not the only things the church teaches. For example, it also teaches homophobia or staying in a bad marriage even if you are getting physically and emotionally abused because divorce is supposedly immoral and so on and so on. Priests also tend to advise believers to read the Bible which is full of horrific and immoral stuff sandwiched between the moral teaching you mentioned and blatant scientific inaccuracies.
So in my opinion, it's not fair to say it's all good.
The fact that people have died protecting an idea or an ideal has nothing to do with the ideal or ideal being beneficial, good, moral or correct and those are things that need to be assessed on their own merits.
Additionally, there is nothing wrong or impossible about keeping your culture and even the good parts of religious tradition, but not supporting religion.
I do not mind criticism, but I do not think you understand me. I stressed what I see positively in church teaching. Divorce? The church is against divorce, but not always! It is not negative to read the Bible. If I need to search for negatively in church learning, I would say that this is the position of a woman. In all traditional religions, except for Judeism, a man is favored. Are you saying I support religion? How? I do not know in which country you live? I grew up in a country where religion was banned. Despite the ban she was present! The presence of religion in our lives is a reality! The reality we have to accept. I just think it should be taken positive from it. Against all the negative should be struggling!