Devil's in the details

When I started joining in and participating in humanist and atheist groups I really thought they would be a very mono-philosophical group. Boy was I wrong! When you get a group of people together who's one thing in common is the desire to analyze and question everything you get a very diverse spectrum of opinions. There seem to be a few scales though that help to measure (at least for myself) the differences.

The first is how scientific. This includes aversion to academic learning (the "I know a lot and I didn't need university" people, which is fine but they clearly have a chip about it) and scientific literacy. The other is upbringing and tradition which includes age. The latter is usually a good tell in how far these people are willing to "push" their views into society (not onto individuals) by making their voices heard along side the religious. The placement on this two-dimensional grid gives some idea where people will answer some of our communities vexing question such as: is humanism a religion?

I find a lot of these arguments pointless since they usually come down to the definition of some word. In fact I've found this to be a great niche for myself. As a board member of the Humanist Association of Toronto (HAT) I've enjoyed clarifying the debate by narrowing it onto the actual core question and then proposing my answer to that question. Even if other disagree with my answer they at the very least speak then only about the actual core question not side bars or irrelevant tangents. Oddly though I've also learned that as a general rule some "discussions" at meetings are actually intended simply as an airing of grievances. I've found many times people will first spill out a bunch of emotive statements in a discussion who's only purpose is to unencumber themselves of the grievance. I find it is best to let people get it out but that they should only be allowed a single turn and it becomes time to step in once and refocus once people seem to have exhausted the general feeling and before it becomes impolite and personal. It does seem to me that a strong group can dispatch of many ill feelings by a short airing in the form of a discussion as long as it is terminated quickly.

In my short time with these organizations I have definitely learned that there are many types of atheists and some are not on par with me. For instance brutal Buddists or "spiritualists" are not really people I have much in common with. They are still religious except of rigid dogma they have fluid dogma. This is in some ways worse since if you say nothing you can't ever be wrong but it means you stand probably change with the times (i.e. no stonings). But there are a few commonalities between all the non-spiritual atheists that I've noticed. The first is that we are a very positive bunch. It seems most if not all of us are optimists by nature. Secondly it is a community that is will to debate ANYTHING!! This has its ups and downs but is only a positive since you can walk away from any discussion based on interest and you can start any discussion. This makes the community vibrant and always interesting since we are always on the edge of the marketplace of ideas and always willing to contemplate new problems.