Cats, Presidents and Atheists

Before Religion Came Crashing Into Town

Finding common ground with other free-thinkers is often the first step in building a complete alternative to religion in society. This is not as easy a task as it may seem. The idea that getting atheists together is akin to herding cats is quite often demonstrably true.

Consider a series of events that, over the last few months, have rocked the free-thought community in the New York City area. They concern the NYC-Atheists, a well known and influential group of out-spoken, card-carrying atheists, who maintain a powerful web presence. Disagreement between group members is to be expected in any gathering of people with strong opinions and independent mind-sets. What is different about the NYC-Atheists fiasco, however, is the nature of the disagreements and the way in which they were dealt with.

The issue came to my attention when noted evolutionary biologist and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci wrote about his stepping down from the advisory board at NYC-Atheists. Massimo’s concerns had to do primarily with the apparent lack of democratic transparency in the management of the group. The group’s President was abusing his powers, in some cases in violation of state law, and running the group in an autocratic style. This is indeed a serious affliction, particularly for a group that represents the rejection of authoritarian ideologies.

Massimo’s post was written about in other blogs and suddenly it seemed that a host of issues surrounding NYC-Atheists were coming to a head. To my understanding, none of these issues were ever resolved satisfactorily and the NYC-Atheists group continues to rope in members because of its prominent web presence, at about the same pace as it loses them because of its dismal management style.

cc:lumaxart

One issue in Massimo’s blog post was conspicuously missing from the entire debate that ensued since its posting. Towards the end of his post Massimo wrote about the need for a positive atheism- a sort of atheism that tries to infuse meaningful dialogue into the “angry-atheist” movement.

At this point I’d like to share with you my own experience with NYC-Atheists.

It is to be expected when challenging the basic outlook of a social organization that the leaders will respond in typical primate fashion, defending their positions and thus their status as leaders. I was not, however, prepared for the outright dismissal of my reasonable suggestions without rational response or even perfunctory consideration. In case you are wondering what these outrageous suggestions were, here they are:

1. We are a divided group of non believers.

2. However, we do have a lot more in common with each other than with the religious folk, when it comes to our beliefs.

3. We need to understand and make use of the common ground we’re on if our voice is to be heard in the marketplace of ideas.

4. We all believe that science is the best method available to us for understanding reality and that scientific naturalism is our unifying philosophy.

5. We must use science to inform us in our quest for a moral and effective strategy to achieve our common goals.

6. We must work to incorporate a naturalistic worldview into popular culture.

These are as generic as possible in characterizing the free-thought movement. Apparently, the president did not think so. He dismissed me saying “some people believe naturalism is a religion (so there!)”, or something to that effect. When I asked how this was so and suggested that under such a definition of religion, atheism would be one as well but only more ineffectual in offering anything positive, he ignored me completely and changed the subject fast without even bothering to attempt a rational answer.

On another occasion, I was in private conference with some others and we were talking about methodological naturalism as a positive alternative to religion, when the president of NYC-Atheists broke in rudely and proceeded to monopolize the conversation.

I suspect that the reaction of the NYC-Atheists president was meant to protect his self and the power that he held over this large organization, from competing ideologies. This is to be expected. As free-thinkers, however, we must not let our emotions disrupt open and honest dialogue. More importantly, we need to consciously work towards identifying the common goals that we share. Unless we recognize the value of the naturalistic beliefs that we hold in common and start organizing under a meaningful positive philosophy , we are bound to keep chasing the elusive clowder of atheists.

cc:Piez