TL;DR: you should join or start an atheist group in meatspace, if you're not too much of a loner.
Real version:
Recently, I've had two relatively minor (I say relatively, because it feels that way, but I'll get to that in a second) situations come up which have made me somewhat soppy and reflective about the way my life has changed in the past couple years in comparison to the handful of years before that. In one, my boyfriend and I hit a deer on the way up to NOVA, producing a week and a half's worth of repairs on my beloved Scion. No airbags deployed, and I have no idea if we even killed the deer or not, but she definitely did structural damage, as I found out. If you're on my Facebook, you know that USAA and Toyota have taken sublimely excellent care of me, which is a 180 from EVERY experience I had with my Saturn, Jeep, and Ford Focus combined. The second situation is that yesterday morning my boyfriend was admitted to the emergency room for possible kidney failure. He's on the mend now, back at home on bed rest. What he ended up having was this. Fortunately, he caught it in time and won't have any lasting damage, and gets four days out of work scott-free.
Why does all of this connect up with an atheist group?
When I first moved down here six years ago, I was alone except for my boyfriend (Baptist), and his family (ultra Baptist), who lived 2 hours away or more. If anything happened to me - sickness, car breaking down, etc, I was more or less on my own, being as he was mostly useless.We broke up after one year of living together, and I moved in with a long-hours-working roommate who helped me as much as she could in many things, but we were both single, struggling women. She eventually joined a church again some months before I moved out, but before that we were all each other had, with some help from her close-knit family.
Basically, I was alone. I had no friends, my coworkers sucked, I had no family within 6 hours of me, and I went through many car-breakdowns which I couldn't afford, medical problems I couldn't pay for, depression, job-loss, and myriad relationship issues (not helped by me never dating anyone who was local). This is not unlike some of the ostracizing believers can face when they find themselves bereft of belief and unable to 'fake it', unfortunately...communities can be that ugly towards atheists.
Almost two years ago, I forced myself to connect with the local atheist group I had tentatively contacted a year prior. I began pitching into the volunteer efforts and going to the monthly "socials" they held. Telling you my life has changed drastically is an understatement of the decade.
When my Focus finally busted, I had free rides to work and to the Toyota dealership. I had friends to teach me how to drive stick. I had people giving me numbers to repair shops that didn't charge me to make attempts to fix my busted car. This past weekend when I thought I'd be car-less, people I don't even know outside of a list of names who respond to posts on the CAA's FB page were willing to give me a ride just because I needed it, to speak nothing of people who are actually friends. When David fell ill, our phones were blowing up with people willing to provide shuttle service, or help, or errands, etc.
Not to mention the fact that I met my wonderful boyfriend (who is probably THE best decision I've made in my entire life) through that same group.
Now's where I get to the 'relative' part. This is going to be a really tight (like, REALLY tight) week financially, especially with his new medical expenses. I don't expect the tightness to go away until next month, and after that it will still be snug as I try to squirrel away money for the next auto/other emergency. But unlike the years prior when depression and isolation magnified EVERYTHING into insurmountable problems, I realized I wasn't worried any more. Everything will work out somehow. Not because I have the money or whatever, but because I'm not alone anymore. I have my 'mate', and we're a team, and I have a bonafide social network that cares about both of us...and not because some 'god' told them they should, but because they enjoy the pleasure of our company, in some cases, and because in other unrelated cases they are genuinely good, generous people. They are helpful and inclusive to everyone. I didn't have faith that things will work out - I have trust that I can reach out and expect someone to grab my hand because I'm in need. God isn't watching over me - live human beings are willing to, should I need it.
So what I wrote all that to say is: if you can join a local group, you should. Do it because you like the activism in promoting secular values and rights. Do it because you like the company. Do it for positive reasons. That's what our group stands for: community, outreach, and positive atheism. A lot of atheists say they don't like these sorts of ideas, being as they're too much like churches, but it wasn't until I hit massive stumbling blocks that I realized how "no man is an island" is a harsh truth, and not until these events that I realized how much more positive in emotion I had become in comparison due to my social interactions.
If you can't join a local group, you should see about starting one. Seriously. Make it for all the right reasons: be insistent on it being a constructive force - one that is willing to work WITH theists, not against them. You never know - by doing so, you might create a community of people willing to help someone who was terribly in need of support...someone who wouldn't have gotten it any other way.
We don't normally get together to talk about how we all don't believe in god, of course, but we do now have whole inner groups of people who enjoy myriad things: book clubs, crafting appointments, brewery and winery tours, movie nights, socials, anniversary events, random dinners together, cook outs, fetish club visits (seriously), hiking trips, Darwin Day brunches, etc. If my boyfriend was the best decision I've made, joining this group surely ranks in the top five of my life.
This is what studies are actually referring to when they say people who go to church live longer (I'm sure you've all scoffed at those headlines). It's not religion that does it, but the social interaction which caters to introverts and extroverts alike.
It is A Very Good Thing.
Anyway, that's my soppy ramble and I'm sticking to it.
Real version:
Recently, I've had two relatively minor (I say relatively, because it feels that way, but I'll get to that in a second) situations come up which have made me somewhat soppy and reflective about the way my life has changed in the past couple years in comparison to the handful of years before that. In one, my boyfriend and I hit a deer on the way up to NOVA, producing a week and a half's worth of repairs on my beloved Scion. No airbags deployed, and I have no idea if we even killed the deer or not, but she definitely did structural damage, as I found out. If you're on my Facebook, you know that USAA and Toyota have taken sublimely excellent care of me, which is a 180 from EVERY experience I had with my Saturn, Jeep, and Ford Focus combined. The second situation is that yesterday morning my boyfriend was admitted to the emergency room for possible kidney failure. He's on the mend now, back at home on bed rest. What he ended up having was this. Fortunately, he caught it in time and won't have any lasting damage, and gets four days out of work scott-free.
Why does all of this connect up with an atheist group?
When I first moved down here six years ago, I was alone except for my boyfriend (Baptist), and his family (ultra Baptist), who lived 2 hours away or more. If anything happened to me - sickness, car breaking down, etc, I was more or less on my own, being as he was mostly useless.We broke up after one year of living together, and I moved in with a long-hours-working roommate who helped me as much as she could in many things, but we were both single, struggling women. She eventually joined a church again some months before I moved out, but before that we were all each other had, with some help from her close-knit family.
Basically, I was alone. I had no friends, my coworkers sucked, I had no family within 6 hours of me, and I went through many car-breakdowns which I couldn't afford, medical problems I couldn't pay for, depression, job-loss, and myriad relationship issues (not helped by me never dating anyone who was local). This is not unlike some of the ostracizing believers can face when they find themselves bereft of belief and unable to 'fake it', unfortunately...communities can be that ugly towards atheists.
Almost two years ago, I forced myself to connect with the local atheist group I had tentatively contacted a year prior. I began pitching into the volunteer efforts and going to the monthly "socials" they held. Telling you my life has changed drastically is an understatement of the decade.
When my Focus finally busted, I had free rides to work and to the Toyota dealership. I had friends to teach me how to drive stick. I had people giving me numbers to repair shops that didn't charge me to make attempts to fix my busted car. This past weekend when I thought I'd be car-less, people I don't even know outside of a list of names who respond to posts on the CAA's FB page were willing to give me a ride just because I needed it, to speak nothing of people who are actually friends. When David fell ill, our phones were blowing up with people willing to provide shuttle service, or help, or errands, etc.
Not to mention the fact that I met my wonderful boyfriend (who is probably THE best decision I've made in my entire life) through that same group.
Now's where I get to the 'relative' part. This is going to be a really tight (like, REALLY tight) week financially, especially with his new medical expenses. I don't expect the tightness to go away until next month, and after that it will still be snug as I try to squirrel away money for the next auto/other emergency. But unlike the years prior when depression and isolation magnified EVERYTHING into insurmountable problems, I realized I wasn't worried any more. Everything will work out somehow. Not because I have the money or whatever, but because I'm not alone anymore. I have my 'mate', and we're a team, and I have a bonafide social network that cares about both of us...and not because some 'god' told them they should, but because they enjoy the pleasure of our company, in some cases, and because in other unrelated cases they are genuinely good, generous people. They are helpful and inclusive to everyone. I didn't have faith that things will work out - I have trust that I can reach out and expect someone to grab my hand because I'm in need. God isn't watching over me - live human beings are willing to, should I need it.
So what I wrote all that to say is: if you can join a local group, you should. Do it because you like the activism in promoting secular values and rights. Do it because you like the company. Do it for positive reasons. That's what our group stands for: community, outreach, and positive atheism. A lot of atheists say they don't like these sorts of ideas, being as they're too much like churches, but it wasn't until I hit massive stumbling blocks that I realized how "no man is an island" is a harsh truth, and not until these events that I realized how much more positive in emotion I had become in comparison due to my social interactions.
If you can't join a local group, you should see about starting one. Seriously. Make it for all the right reasons: be insistent on it being a constructive force - one that is willing to work WITH theists, not against them. You never know - by doing so, you might create a community of people willing to help someone who was terribly in need of support...someone who wouldn't have gotten it any other way.
We don't normally get together to talk about how we all don't believe in god, of course, but we do now have whole inner groups of people who enjoy myriad things: book clubs, crafting appointments, brewery and winery tours, movie nights, socials, anniversary events, random dinners together, cook outs, fetish club visits (seriously), hiking trips, Darwin Day brunches, etc. If my boyfriend was the best decision I've made, joining this group surely ranks in the top five of my life.
This is what studies are actually referring to when they say people who go to church live longer (I'm sure you've all scoffed at those headlines). It's not religion that does it, but the social interaction which caters to introverts and extroverts alike.
It is A Very Good Thing.
Anyway, that's my soppy ramble and I'm sticking to it.
![[Image: Untitled2_zpswaosccbr.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i1140.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fn569%2Fthesummerqueen%2FUntitled2_zpswaosccbr.png)
