Oasis Networks- what do you think of them?

[Casca]

[Little Rik]

Being Atheist doesn't mean anti-social. Some people really like the sense of community that a shared religion can give them. When doing my Atheist News show this week, I came upon Oasis Network- kind of a secular gathering on Sundays, similar to church.

They have five core principles:

People are more important than beliefs.

That is ok.

Reality is known through reason.

Not really.
Reason can only give you an understanding of what is right but in order to make that sense of right yours and you become that reality you got to struggle a lot and that is not achievable by just knowing what is right.

Meaning comes from making a difference.

Everything move and change in this universe therefore it is obvious that with a positive change we can improve.
At the same time we can also make a difference in the negative so that sentence means very little.

Human hands solve human problems.

Yes and not.
Human hand can only solve material-physical problems.
As far as the main problem that human aim to definitively NOT.
Peace of mind and total happiness is something that is outside human hands.

Be accepting and be accepted.

It really depend what is offered to me.
If somebody offer me the magic pipe I will not accept.  

[robvalue]

They sound like fairly good principles to me, although I would hope they don't become dogmatic. I'm not sure if this would appeal to me personally. I'd certainly give it a try if I was close enough.

I see this kind of thing being most useful to people coming out of religion, who may miss the regular gatherings.

I'm all in favour of more secular gatherings in general.

[Angrboda]

Sounds like the Unitarian Universalists church I used to go to. It was fine.