(June 4, 2012 at 5:44 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: 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.
I recently participated in a little atheist meeting that happened here called Reasonate. First atheist event in the city of Madison in over twenty-five years. Nothing major. Maybe 50 people. They said it'll be an annual thing. I haven't heard anything since the event itself but I'm really hoping it becomes something more consistent and constant than that...
Also yes. Atheism isn't much of a social glue unto itself. A single idea or view ["I don't believe in that which is neither provable nor disprovable in the sense of god"] isn't much. But it IS a good foundation from which a lot of other like-minded views tend to spring from, like humanism.
