Reply #6: Some agreement, some not. [View All]

[dmallind]

I love the idea of an atheist bar, but concede I have not found one.

I have met surly gays and flamboyant atheists, but your generalization is probably true.

The real niggle I have is with the negativity. I know (or guess with much evidence) that you mean negative as in negation rather than as in harmful, but even there that's only a surface view. The GOOD things the groups I have been in, which I should mention to balance my earlier whining, included plenty of positive activities in both senses of the word. We set up free critical thinking classes and visited schools explaining elementary logic, only tangentially connecting it to god-belief. We set up debates on morality to spread the idea of teleological and thoroughly human ethical systems. Sure we did our share of complaining - in an 83% Christian nation that's inevitable, but our lobbying volunteers spent their time trying to strengthen science curricula as much as trying to keep creationism out of them (same thing I guess). Heck we even had a Toastmaster's club to practice all those public speaking skills for the above.