St. Pete-Atheists//Free-Thought Group

St. Pete-Atheists//Free-Thought Group

Contact: Gary Thompson

Book Recommendation: Pending

Religion: Free Thought

Denomination: N/A

Web Page: http://atheists.meetup.com/209/?a=wm1_gn

You can listen to my interview with Mr. Jeff Handy here.

There are atheistic religions out there. So far, I've interviewed two - Humanism and the Church of Satan.

But "atheism" isn't a religion, any more than "I believe in God" makes a religion either. So why even talk about them for this project?

As I see it, if there can be non-denominational churches where the only shared values are is "believe in a Divine Being", then I can visit a group of people who's only shared belief is "non-belief in a Divine Being."

That said, hanging out with a bunch of atheists and seeing how the meeting was run, the phrase "herding cats" came to mind. The current leader Gary Thompson does have intentions on performing more focused actions, such as helping out prison inmates prove their innocence or other worthwhile tasks.

But for now, most of the meetings for the St. Pete Atheists group is pretty informal. People show up, they greet each other, introduce new people. People take pictures of the group, engage in conversations with one or more individuals. Sometimes it's about their experience being a non-theist in a very theist community, dealing with issues of religious groups trying to enshrine their beliefs into public government spaces. Or conversations they had with believers that wanted to convince the atheist their religious values. Or politics. Or - well, anything.

Each religious group I've run across is just as much the community as they are their beliefs. For some, it's a liturgy that everyone knows and can recite. Others, it's a shared set of values. Or planning social events.

For the atheists groups like this one, it's about having a place where they know they will be accepted for their viewpoint of the world. They have morals as much as any religious person, they just ground them in reason, logic, and the scientific method.

So for these people, their sense of community is going to a place where they can fit in with others. They don't all agree on politics, or business ideas, or maybe anything else. Just the fact they can be somewhere where they don't be demonized just because they feel that there isn't enough evidence for a divine being.

I'm going to take a second to address the latter point. I've talked to people who who think that atheists don't believe in a divine being out of some sense of "hatred" of God, or because they have "faith" in there *not* being a divine being, or some other reasons. Talking to other atheists - and yes, I'm one of them - it's like hearing about unicorns or Santa Claus. It might be nice to believe those things exist, but they need evidence. If someone proves that a divine being exists, great. If not - well, then they're not going to believe it. And, no, just saying "This Holy Book says that a Divine Being exists" doesn't cut it.

Some of them came to their opinion about the supernatural after a lifetime raised in a particular religion, others have always felt that way. They're not wearing black robes, they're not into world domination. They just want to be allowed to live the way they want without having someone else's religion enforced on them by laws or their children by having it pushed into the schools.

And get together with like minded friends and have some drinks with them.