Community help for Non-Cognitive?

[mralstoner]

Bottom Line: as a result of thinking and practice I have built up a good, honest, highly effective communication strategy for dealing the majority population. Not so with my own.

You mention the 'internet' community, but I can confirm in experience over the last year that it happens on the ground in groups and conferences also. Describing myself as an atheist among atheists is something of an invitation to have a harumph about how dumb Christians are, or have yet another debate about why pascal's wager is a bad idea...

In the end I may need to describe myself as an atheist among Christians and a humanist/agnostic among atheists, but it seems a bit sub-optimal for me and I'm not entirely comfortable with it yet.

I see your point. In Australia we are largely non-religious these days, so the topic rarely comes up at all. I understand it's different in the USA. But I agree that if I were to attend an atheist/humanist group here, I expect there would be the same harumph and religion-bashing. The big atheist convention we had this year in Melbourne looked much the same.

Regarding what to call ourselves, I answered a similar question at Atheist Nexus the other day. My main point was that the word choice was not the main problem. Rather, it was a lack of organisation/identity/community behind the idea. So if we had an internet forum or formal organisation that had a complete view of emotion and reason, then we would have more impact and respect in both the atheist and general community.

But, that said, the word choice is still important. Paul Kurtz ("the father of humanism") recognised the complementary nature of emotion and reason and created a word "eupraxsophy" to include both (eu = well/good/happy, praxis = conduct, sophia = wisdom):

... one of the great failures of the atheist and freethought movement may be attributed to the fact that it was largely cerebral and cognitive in function ...

... in spite of the scientific/technological revolution, the secularist outlook will not succeed in enlisting human devotion and dedication unless it appeals not simply to the mind, but to the hearts of men and women; unless, that is, it is able to arouse and stimulate feeling, and unless there is some intensity of emotion.

And that is why I think that the term "humanism" is crucial, because humanism is an effort to suggest that if we reject God and proclaim that "God is dead," we need to affirm human worth ... Humanism has a basic cognitive aspect, and it involves a commitment to rationalism ... But humanism involves not simply that, but a way of life. Humanism must address itself to the heart and the passions; it must have some relevance to practice and conduct; and it must have some effect upon how we live. I submit that broadly conceived the freethought movement has failed in that direction ...

True, but we need a word more self explanatory than eupraxsophy - because the public has no idea what it means without an explanation. Someone on the philosophy forum called themselves a rational emotivist. That's closer to the mark.

I've been looking for somewhere to hang out that is more cognitively/emotively focused (both forum and in person), haven't found it yet. I just started being 'active' in the last year though so I came here to start asking around. mralstoner's book list is a good start both for my reading but forums where discuss dawkins=false, discuss Jacoby=true is also a good start.

I don't think such a group exists yet, either in reality or on the internet. Someone will probably have to start a new forum. I will try to start a blog and do a short video on the topic of emotion and reason, but that's about all I can do.

If we had a forum to educate people, then people could take these ideas to existing humanist groups and broaden their outlook. Humanist groups should be teaching the complementary nature of emotion and reason, so that is the place where we should take these ideas, and change the groups from within, rather than creating a new group. If that fails, you can always start your own group.