Atheists turning to cult behaviour?

[Mister Agenda]

I think I am in agreement with you. You do not need to identify with it, as an independent atheist you have the right to distance yourself.

Very reasonable.

However, if atheists are holding conferences, if atheists are congregating in public spaces and meeting in online forums, then this does constitute a community in a sense.

Yes. A community of THOSE atheists. And that community may have problems, which we are all free to criticize,

And I feel there has to be some set of principles that limit bad behavior. It's just not right when the others shrug their shoulders to these acts.

How do you propose to impose those principle on groups to which you don't belong? You're certainly free to join the group you consider the most despicable and try to change it from within. That's far more likely to have an impact than complaining to random atheists about it.

And I do not say that atheism causes their bad behavior. I just feel a group of atheists without rules can be as bad as a group of religious people with religion.

Granted. But freedom of religion is really freedom of belief and conscience. It means atheist groups have just as much right to be wrong as anyone else does, and the only thing we can do to counter it is exercise our own freedom to express our convictions.

And when they are meeting up regularly, whats to stop a crazy bunch from doing some damage?

Are you talking about terrorism? Really?

---

Thank you. I think you put it way better than me. I don't think there is anything intrinsic within Atheism that leads to this. However, since each atheist identifies with a little more than just pure non disbelief I can see a few subcultures forming.

It would not be a good idea to arrange ourselves in such a way that subcultures can't form.