Never been to social atheist events. What to expect?

[TaraJo]

So, I was at Houstons' pride festival this weekend. It was lots of fun, but extremely hot and I was exhausted from it. One of the tables there was Houston atheists, so I made a point to check them out. I mean, I've been relating more with atheist/skeptics/humanists lately than I have with the GLBT community. I talked with them for a minute, got a few phamplets and they told me about some sites online. They have a local meetup that I'd go to if I ever bothered to use meetup.com but this time there was something a bit more. There's an event next month in Houston at the Museum of Natural Science with several atheist/humanist speakers there:

http://www.meetup.com/humanism-177/events/127065932/

I'm interested in going, but like I said, I've never been to something like this. The closest I've been able to do was to get to a science-themed speeking event an hour late so I could get some extra credit at school. I know there are a lot of atheist events and symphosiums and stuff like that. Has anyone here gone to them? What would I expect? And is anyone here interested in going?

[My imaginary friend is GOD]

My experience with social atheist events is that they involve a lot of beer drinking and laughing at religion. I've never been to a more serious atheist event like what you are talking about though.

[Foxaèr]

My experience with social atheist events is that they involve a lot of beer drinking and laughing at religion.

Seems like my kind of party/gathering.

[Something completely different]

Alot of realy good debate and loads upon loads of nice people.


At least that was my expirience.

[TaraJo]

Alot of realy good debate and loads upon loads of nice people.


At least that was my expirience.

I'm hoping for that. Although one of the speakers is PZ Myers. Question is, am I going to get the reasonable, intelligent biologist PZ or the crazy, intollerant, fundie feminist PZ?

[Angrboda]

Alot of realy good debate and loads upon loads of nice people.

At least that was my expirience.

I'm hoping for that. Although one of the speakers is PZ Myers. Question is, am I going to get the reasonable, intelligent biologist PZ or the crazy, intollerant, fundie feminist PZ?

PZ has seemed pretty casual the times I've met him, once at a regional AA conference, and another time at a talk given by JT Eberhard at a local university. While there's bound to be shop talk, I find it's hard to distinguish one group from another in terms of social events, the emphasis is usually on the social rather than the specific. Though I wore one of my Minnesota Atheists t-shirts one time and I went to get something to eat near the library where I had attended a MN Humanist event, and the girl at the counter confided in me that she had recently attended a "newbie night" and she felt that there was a lot of hostility towards religion expressed. I think that may be characteristic of newbie nights in general, as the skeptic newbie night I attended had that feel as well. I also note a general hostility towards religion in the critical thinking meetup groups locally. However if you're worried about confrontation and such, you can probably relax. If you want to stand out, there's opportunity for that; if you just want to blend in, I doubt you'll have any difficulty. (And if the event you're attending has a lot of speakers and events, you may have to go out of your way to be social. At the regional AA conference that I attended, there was little time for any but the most cursory of social exchanges surrounding events. Granted, I'm shy and so I did little to buck that trend, but all the same.)

[Fidel_Castronaut]

lots of babies and lots of BBQ sauce.