The Varieties of Organized Atheist Experience
Ophelia Benson posted part of a Q&A session at the Reason for Change conference:
A great moment. At the secularism panel just now with Barry Kosmin and Ron Lindsay and Phil Zuckerman, moderated by Paul Fidalgo, Paul asked the audience, how many of you have attended a Secular Assembly?
Ron said something I didn’t hear, and Paul said, “That’s a great question – how many of you have gone twice?”
Those questions remind me how much I’d like to see a greater variety of atheist meetings in more places. I’m lucky to live in a city where there are several Humanist and atheist groups (not all of which suit my schedule or style). Plenty of places have no organized activities, and, even where such groups do exist, any given group won’t be for everyone, as the Q&A response indicates. That’s why I’d also like to see more dialogue about—and encouragement toward—new groups.
Sunday Assembly works for some people. It’s not my cup of tea. I’d likely not mind going from time to time, but Assemblies aren’t the kind of place I’d feel at home. Likewise, I attended services at a UU fellowship for several months before deciding it wasn’t for me, though I have enjoyed attending the monthly meetings of the UU Humanists there.
There’s a wealth of examples new groups can use, either starting as official affiliates of a national group or using other groups as templates. Greta Christina runs through a partial list of groups that make up organized atheism demonstrating the breadth of potential activity. It’s no easy task to get a new group off the ground or keep it going once started. Perhaps as those involved with the Secular Student Alliance graduate college, they’ll continue to use their organizing skills to develop groups.
One way to help make starting new groups easier is if already existing groups made conscious efforts to encourage the growth of new groups as part of wider atheist communities. The UU Humanists have one of the best examples I’ve seen of such encouragement in their mission statement. The group aspires to be an “interface” between UU Humanist groups and other atheist and Humanist groups by:
Helping to establish and/or strengthen local Humanist and freethinker groups (in close cooperation with secular Humanist organizations) and encouraging UUs across the country to join them.
Mobilizing UU individuals, institutions, and congregations to actively support the activities of our partner organizations, especially the Secular Coalition for America and its member organizations.
This position sees one group as an integral part of a wider diversity of organized atheism where different groups will meet the needs of different people. If people don’t end up going back to their local Sunday Assembly, for example, I hope they will find a place that will engage them. (Caveat: If they want to participate in organized atheism at all. Many atheists are content to find social interaction with groups that don’t devote explicit attention to questions of religion and worldviews.)
Image Credit: Daniel Horacio Agostini (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
