(August 22, 2011 at 2:47 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: I know it seems like we're all pissing in your cheerios (though I promise we're not all bad) so I hope you realize I'm not trying to be especially bitchy or anything - I just want to point out a few flaws in the ideas you have that I see. I realize from your comments in your first thread that it's not as easy for everyone and that any of my opinions come from my own experience and those of my friends. Just getting that out of the way.
Appreciated. And you know, I do realise I can be a bit of a prima donna or whatever ... demanding attention and stuff. But time's slowly running out for me and I'm sh1tting myself regarding the way the world's gonna be for my grandkids. Anyway...
Quote:I realize that others may not have the luxury, but here in Charlotte there is an area specific forum who meets up on a regular basis to do social functions, to do volunteer and charity work, etc. They're incredibly welcoming.
Sounds great. If there's anyone in your group who would be interested to give me any guidelines on the workings of the group I'd be dead interested. If you OK that in principle or PM me I could PM you with an email address or dropbox or something. My other half is originally from approx. the same latitude as you, btw - Arizona.
Quote:I know you don't like the reception you received on this forum, but my personal experience is that before you try to ask the hard questions of any group you should first establish a little cred.
Yeah I know the theory but in practice I've always found that when I lay low I stay low. So I tend to hit the ground running in the hope that I might strike a few sparks with the friction, and see if anything catches. Which it occasionally does. Can be a bit painful though...

Quote:The core group of us are familiar with each other and quite loving - and also quite welcoming to new comers, as you will see from just about every introductory post. As an atheist, I'm sure you're at least somewhat familiar with the habit of people trolling our forums and virtual hang outs. It makes us suspicious.
You mean people like religious zealots trying to zap you all with the hell thing, or whatever? "Your eternal soul will burn in agony for ever, you vile blasphemer" or whatever? I can imagine!
Quote:Now, we've all heard the line that "atheists have nothing in common" other than the fact that we don't believe in gods.
Yeah. But when you think about it, given the power and the commonplace of religions over the millennia, that's actually quite a big thing to have in common
Quote: The thing about religions, no matter how many permutations they have, is that they are all under one major heading, following the message and supernatural ideas you mentioned. Atheists don't have that.
Absolutely. I mean, the three biguns are all linked, they all think they worship the same god, whether its called Yahweh, Allah or Jehovah. That's part of the power, because it makes it all the more convincing to the susceptible. I mean. there is a kind of screwy logic to it all, it's like a fantastic computer game or something, a kind of "Dungeons and Dragons" only played out over millennia.
However, isn't it also true that Atheism itself also goes back a pretty long way, the ancient Greeks anyway, weren't some of them atheist?
Quote:Some of us might have similar interests, but the best you could hope for is a community center that catered to a diverse group.
That would be something! But what are the numbers to make a viable community centre? I'd guess not far short of a thousand folk over all. With a hard core of 50+. That would take some building up to.
Quote: If you want something more like a church with the organizing power of a belief system, atheists would have to congregate with their particular philosophical systems. I know there is actually a humanistic Jewish "movement" that meets up, but my problem is that on Friday nights I'd rather be shooting the shit about agriculture and smartassery with Rhythm than discussing Jewish history with a bunch of other people - even if they share my beliefs. Because there's no "god" expecting me to meet up with anyone and listen to his message, I'm not even interested in hearing philosophical points expounded on. I could do that on a podcast and save the gas money. I understand that this is just me.
But suppose there was say a sing-along, something like "A Thought for the Day", maybe a bit of local news, wedding announcements, births and deaths, stuff like that, as well. And perhaps a counselling "drop-in" or whatever, and other such? Couldn't that make it a bit more attractive? Added to the fact that you'd be able to invite anyone you happened to know was getting a bit disillusioned with their own "faith"... oh yeah, and if the thing took off then you'd be able to visit the local one when you travelled around somewhere else, and so on. And it wouldn't have to be a Friday. It could be Sunday, or Wednesday evening, or different times for different places, or whatever. It could be every ten days or something so that it landed on a different day of the week each time. Whatever.
Quote:People respond to incentives, and unfortunately there isn't something intrinsically bound into atheism itself to make people bind together in a powerful enough way to over-topple religion. Humanist groups might have a good start by providing the "be nice feel good" social setting, but not every atheist identifies as a humanist, or cares. Skeptics promoting science and critical thinking have an excellent chance, but not all of them are actually atheists. And not all atheists are actually anti-theists. They just want to be left alone and valued as humans.
I'm sure you are right about loads of people. But nevertheless I suspect there are just as many who would like to actually do something about the religion thing instead of merely grumble about it. Right now, there's not a great deal the ordinary Joe like me can do to counter the curse of religion - and I do see it as a curse, because it's basically a total fu**-up. And I'm also pretty confident there are not a small number of people who basically don't really believe in god but just go along to the Church for the social kudos or some sense of comfort or whatever. I don't see why an atheist structure could not be created to absorb them.
Quote:There's no easy way for us all to band together to get religion out of our lives because we all have a slightly different idea of how it should be done - politically, scientifically, etc. Christians at least have the unifying factor of believing in Christ, but atheists don't even have the want to undermine religion to bring them all under one roof.
Atheists have zillions of unifying factors. The Big Bang for a start. Evolution.
Dark matter. Electricity. Plus there's loads of unifying problems. Population control, global warming, peak oil, wars (largely religion inspired) ...
Quote:PS - I don't have a short attention span,

Quote:even though it's hard for me to get into long posts at work. I still really like them, so keep them coming.
We'll see what happens. Thanks for being nice to me.
