communityI’ve seen several questions asking about specifically atheist groups, which has me wondering a few things.
I’m not a “joiner” in general (some days I border on outright misanthropy), I’ve never had a need for a support group as such (my family are awesomely tolerant), and frankly, most Big-A (a.k.a Gnu) Atheists manage to piss me off enough that one of the last things I want to do is join a specifically atheist organization (as opposed to an organization where many if not most of the members may also be atheists, but they’re not there because they’re atheists, if that makes any sense).
Does that make me unusual among atheists? I have a core group of friends that I enjoy spending time with, but one of the few things we don’t have in common is our views towards religion (several of my oldest and closest friends are actually quite religious without being Bible thumpers), and I’d rather hang out with them than join any freethinker or atheists groups.
Again, does that fall outside the norm for other atheists?
You sound like me.
I as a child seemed to choose not to like what everyone else liked as a group. Everyone of the boys at school loved football so I refused to play and ended up playing netball as a punishment but all that did was to get me in with the girls at and early age. Result.
I used to go to church at school and look at all the people doing the same thing and thought, this is crazy. I like to do what others did not, not the opposite, but just something else.
I am not the git you might think I would have turned out to be, infact I am one of the most sane people I know. My friend base is small but awsome. I went to join a Atheist/skeptic group but left because it was an echo chamber.
John, you sound like a dude.
I personally find socializing exhausting. I have a few people in my life I am completely comfortable with, they live 50 miles away. I joined cfi, the first set of emails I received from the group mailings exhausted me. It is a good 2hr. hour drive to go to the meetings, so it’s really hard to get up the gumption to get involved. I could never see myself joining a group like UU, to groupie, to much like the religion. I live in the country and love the solitude. I am probably much more of a hermit than most.
People tend to have different needs as they go through the various experience of life. Deconversion is no different. If you were educated in a religious or religious-friendly environment, deconversion can often be a disorienting process. Support groups tend to be very useful, as they provide a safe place to discuss one’s feelings about the process, as well as giving the person going through deconversion real-life cases to draw upon in one’s own search.
But once a person has fully integrated their new identity as a person without faith, the need for specifically atheistic support groups tend to be reduced. That doesn’t mean that one never needs or desires the company of other atheists, just that it’s no longer felt as a driving need.
More often than not, Faith (or anti-Faith) groups are used to reinforce a weak identity. You feel attached to a specific identity, but sense that this identity is vulnerable in some way. So you seek a place where it won’t be challenged and will be reinforced. That’s the primary role of Churches for many believers, and when raised in a religious environment, many ex-Believers will tend to seek the same for their new Atheist identity. It’s understandable, but ultimately incorrect.
I believe that most Atheists, after an initial period of adjustment, are more secure in their identity as non-Believers than the majority of Believers are in their own identity, and as such won’t feel the driving need for a specific community dedicated to re-inforcing such identity.
But ultimately, every human being is a social animal, and will seek social contact of some sort. It will obviously vary from individual to individual (I’m an Aspie, so my need/desire for socialization is quite low), but it will be present. It just doesn’t need to be a “community of non-Believers” per se.
Not this atheist.
Some folks are more social and do the convention-type thing to hear talks and meet other atheists interested in the same stuff - sometimes to meet people they have known through the internets for years. Some may join or support groups with a particular agenda which is of mutual interest to atheists in general, for example, keeping religion out of government. I don’t think either behavior necessarily indicates a joiner mentality. I don’t think you could say that atheists generically are joiners or not joiners.
Serious joiners are probably not likely to be atheists, as they tend to join whatever group is handy, just to be a part of something. There doesn’t seem to be any indication that most human groups have atheism, rational reasoning, or skepticism as part of a core culture.
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