
When I was growing up, my parents' favorite response when I complained about being forced to attend church was that it was good for me. If I was feeling particularly oppositional (which was often the case when forced church attendance was involved), I'd ask them to explain how it was good for me. The only response I ever received to this question muddied the waters even further: "It is good for your soul."
I suppose if one were to believe that one really did have a soul, one might be able to convince oneself that attending church benefitted it in some way. The problem I always had with this, even when I believed the soul nonsense, was that I was fairly sure the god in which I believed knew how I felt about attending church. The best I could manage was to endure it. Even as a Christian, it struck me as unpleasant and mostly pointless. I did not think I could conceal this from supernatural entities, and so I wasn't sure how going through it every week was helping. Who was I fooling?
As you might expect, the soul argument became truly absurd once I admitted that I no longer believed in gods. My parents tried to insist that I had a soul whether I recognized it or not, but I think they had to realize on some level how silly this sounded. Assuming their god knew I did not believe in it, why would it want me in its church? And if their god knew I did not believe in it, how could my attending church possibly help my soul? It seems like the disbelief would have been a bit more of an issue.