Organized atheism (please don't vote if you aren't a self-identified atheist!)

[Imagist]

There is ample evidence that atheists make up a sizable chunk of the population. Furthermore, atheists are on average smarter and more educated than the average person (I am not making a claim of a causal relationship, at least not here). This leads to, among other things, greater wealth and position, which in turn should put us in the position to exert greater political and social influence than other groups of comparable size.

However, this reasoning is not borne out in practice; atheists are largely disorganized and notoriously individualistic. Leading atheists has been compared to herding cats; they all do their own thing so it's impossible to get them to all go in the same direction. As a result, atheists exert less, not more, political and social influence than other groups of comparable size.

This is problematic because, despite their individuality, atheists do generally hold certain important values in common, particularly in relation to the separation of religion from government. Atheists might appear to hold their own on issues such as the teaching of intelligent design in schools and the prayer in schools, but these areas are only areas of success because of our theist allies. In contrast, we should be able to raise awareness in areas such as the proseletyzation of children from an early age, but there has been little success on this issue because we have few theist allies to do it for us and little internal structure to do it ourselves.

To address this issue some have seen fit to organize (the unfortunately-named Brights, for example). More visibly, local groups and recently an international campaign are raising awareness of atheism the sides of buses and billboards, such as, "There's probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life." or, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." The trend seems to be leading to larger-scale organization, perhaps not of the size of the Assemblies of God, the Church of Latter-Day Saints, or the Roman-Catholic Church, but perhaps with a scale able to weild a reasonable amount of social and political power.

But such organization comes with its own dangers. Organized atheism shares many features with organized religion; membership recruitment becomes a form of prosetelyzation and any statement of values encourages membership to homogenize rather than to reason their own beliefs. Already we have history in Karl Marx and Ayn Rand that shows atheism has the potential for religious zealotry. As I have said before, a reasonable theist is better than an unreasoning atheist. Organization creates an environment in which reason can be devalued in favor of unity.

So my question is, what are your opinions on the growing trend toward organization in atheism? I have attempted to present a reasoned summary of the pros and cons but more information and opinions would help.

My reason for asking is that I am unsure and would like help forming an opinion.

 

[whereismynotecard]

It would depend on how it is organized. A lot of organizations of any kind only end up clumping everyone together, taking away their individuality, by setting up rules and morals. Certainly organized atheism would do the same, making it no better than any other organization. But I suppose if a group of atheists want to work toward a common goal by organizing together while keeping certain aspects of their individuality, then it might work out. The only thing all atheists agree upon is that there is no god(s) though, so it would be difficult to find any issue that every single atheist would agree upon. One would think they would all wish to keep religion out of schools, but how could you know without first asking all of them?

 

[Smoke]

The kinds of issues I'm interested in organizing around -- civil liberties, equal rights, separation of church and state, science education, etc. -- are issues that appeal to large numbers of theists, too. I don't see much point in having specifically atheist organizations.

I don't have any objection at all to atheist/agnostic/humanist organizations, and I don't have the slightest problem with atheists' advertising or encouraging the spread of atheism. I think they're good things. They're just not how I want to spend my time.

 

[Alceste]

I couldn't answer, because I don't think of "atheism" as a meaningful characteristic. How can you organize anything around something that is not there? I think the bus ads are good, but they don't strike me as the early stirrings of a religious movement based on non-belief. To me, they seem more reactionary - non-religious people are fighting back against the increasing influence of religious political lobbies. (Besides, strictly speaking, the ads are agnostic, not atheist. Hence the "probably".) If the angry evangelicals stopped poking their noses into our personal business, the bus ads would stop too.

Anyway, as a simple, friendly atheist (as opposed to a hostile anti-religionist) I don't think I'd like to spend a Sunday morning with the likes of Richard Dawkins, but if he were laying on coffee and cupcakes and there was going to be a string quartet instead of some fool harping on about the evils of religion I might consider it.

On the other hand, I would probably not find whatever "rules" a pack of atheists could agree on offensive or oppressive, since they tend to also be humanitarian, secularist, reasonable advocates of civil rights and freedoms like myself, and they tend to require a rational justification that holds up in the face of reality for any standard of ethics they choose to apply. So that's bound to be an improvement on what religion has to offer.