RE: everyone (else) seems to be hating on atheists
June 4, 2012 at 5:44 pm
(This post was last modified: June 4, 2012 at 6:00 pm by Mister Agenda.)
For what it's worth, since I can't recall the details of the study, the only one I'm aware of that compared the right apples to the right oranges found that atheists and pious Christians were ethically comparable. That is, both atheists and pious Christians averaged more ethical than nominal Christians. I don't like putting out unsourced claims like that, but it occurs to me that the finding explains pretty much everything that anyone has claimed on this thread: the less religious ARE more obstreperous, but the people at the extremes are less so, like an upside-down moral bellcurve with the most faithful at one end and atheists on the other.
Thanks for the opportunity to give a little testimony: In 2004 I read that atheists had shorter lifespans on average than theists. Wondering why this was, I did a little research and found this effect did not exist in Western and Northern European countries where atheists were large minorities. Suspecting social isolation might be the culprit (I was 42 and had only knowingly met two atheists besides myself my whole life), I looked into atheist social groups and found none in Columbia, SC. I did find an atheist 'Meetup in the making' with 13 people signed up but no organizer. After failing to encourage any of those people to become the organizer and naively thinking 13 people was a good start, I became the organizer and gave the group a very dry name and spent three or four months in meetings where I was the only one to show up. Now the Freethought Society of the Midlands (FSM is our third name, but I think this one will stick) has events pretty much every week: Drinking Skeptically, Sandhills Rationalists, Science and Religion, Regular Meeting, and UU Humanists; plus occasionally events like bowling or roller derby (only spectating!). Two of our events are held at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation. Atheism is a weak glue to bind a group, shared committment to reason and humanist values (even our two resident nihilists are humanist nihilists) on the other hand, seems to work fine.
(June 4, 2012 at 5:23 pm)Aiza Wrote: There are atheist social groups (theres a local atheist societies/forums), though they spend a lot of time bashing religion as opposed to building up their own communities, probably because there's not a ton which binds atheists together to base a community on.That being said, there's no point in creating a dichotomy between atheist and religious. There are religious atheists (and irreligious secularized theists) as well. You can be a church-going atheist.
Thanks for the opportunity to give a little testimony: In 2004 I read that atheists had shorter lifespans on average than theists. Wondering why this was, I did a little research and found this effect did not exist in Western and Northern European countries where atheists were large minorities. Suspecting social isolation might be the culprit (I was 42 and had only knowingly met two atheists besides myself my whole life), I looked into atheist social groups and found none in Columbia, SC. I did find an atheist 'Meetup in the making' with 13 people signed up but no organizer. After failing to encourage any of those people to become the organizer and naively thinking 13 people was a good start, I became the organizer and gave the group a very dry name and spent three or four months in meetings where I was the only one to show up. Now the Freethought Society of the Midlands (FSM is our third name, but I think this one will stick) has events pretty much every week: Drinking Skeptically, Sandhills Rationalists, Science and Religion, Regular Meeting, and UU Humanists; plus occasionally events like bowling or roller derby (only spectating!). Two of our events are held at the local Unitarian Universalist congregation. Atheism is a weak glue to bind a group, shared committment to reason and humanist values (even our two resident nihilists are humanist nihilists) on the other hand, seems to work fine.
