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Has anyone else found that atheist communities in their areas are hard to organize?

JohnWasTaken 3 May 31
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I used to be part of an atheist group/community near my hometown. They had a charter; conducted yearly elections for president, vp, secretary, and treasurer; organized monthly meetings as well as volunteer work and game nights. It was a really fun group of people.

I joined 1 year after the group had been created; in fact, my first meeting I attended was their 1 year anniversary party. From what I remember the group started out with just a handful of people, but between year 2 and 3 of its existence, the group had over 100 members. I wasn't part of the governing body, so I'm not sure how hard it was for them to organize everything. However, after our first president stepped down and a new president was elected on the 3rd year, the community eventually fell apart and just became a Facebook group.

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Sadly, in my formative days, I lived too deep in the woods to conveniently organize in my hometown, Oregon’s largest.. I would make the long trek to monthly meetings and special events, but maintaining a stable, funded, and cohesive group of Atheists appeared impossible…

First a ‘chapter’ of American Atheist, that did OK. Got to meet ‘Honest Jon Murray!’ Seems we constantly scrambled to find meeting places, schools and libraries were a mainstay.

After AA reorganized, though we’d been one of their more successful chapters, as far as I know, all their associated chapters disbanded. ‘We’ became “USA,” United States Atheists, seperate from AA. ...then the hunt for an actual building of our own, had two..

Basically, the same core organizers as when we were the local AA Chapter, but putting up ‘their money.’ One problem, we couldn’t get insurance on our eventual building - agencies assumed we’d be a target! ...all those ‘loving religions’ out there.. So our lead guy, said fuck it, and we went without!

Weddings, meetings, local cable programs, feasts, highway cleanups, USA was active for some time. Weird thing was - Portland, Oregon became so progressive (AKA Weird), most thought we were nolonger needed. I’m sure we helped!

Now, in a small town in rural Virginia, where religion has a stronger grip… I’ve not bothered to contact what appears to be the only ‘Atheist Organization’ in the vicinity.. Actually, I did …. but their ‘social filtering’ method put me off, and ..yet again, it’s too far away to conveniently attend meetings, let alone ‘help.’

...I think they’re out there.. But now, I’ve got here! No dues.. No driving, No bomb threats.. No organizing. But good question - I hope there are many and plenty Atheist Organizations ‘out there,’ everywhere & anywhere 🙂

Varn Level 8 June 1, 2019
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Fortunately, there's no need here. It's the god botherers who are in the minority, with a huge swathe of less than devout Christians merely paying lip service to whatever denomination they claim, and an equally huge swathe denying any religious affiliation.

Same here

@Amisja Aren't we lucky? !

@Petter I realise how much

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Never looked for one, intend to join one and certainly not look to start one. I don't define myself as 'atheist' any more than I would define myself as hairless.

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I know of no atheist communities "in my area" and if I did why on earth would I want to organise them ?

Christian groups for instance cross denomination lines to form strong voting blocks and coalitions like the moral majority not to mention super PACS. I guess we have something similar in the FFRF but it just seems like secularists could do more.

@JohnWasTaken I think that shows the difference between the USA and the UK

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