A Viewpoint on Secular Atheist Community

Somebody should really get on the secular community deal especially if there's not too much aggression towards it. The brights idea seemed a little weird, but then again I don't remember very many details about it. But primarily the idea is to shield it from being showy, loud, and ridiculous - something that most "things" in today's world have not managed to avoid. Keep it real and based.

A little anecdote: "The term agnosticism". What's it mean to be open minded towards confident atheists by being agnostic towards secular, spiritual communities? The reason this is meaningful is that most people consider confident atheism to be way off base. But it's really not. Perhaps theists wouldn't care if there were atheist communities. But I think realistically, they'll treat it like a war on religion. Anyway, making such a thing real and based means that it's not a politically motivated joke. And, this is partly because if it were a joke, then in fact it would be a political statement against theism. And so additionally, if it's going to be a shallow political game, then don't even bother. Because it would be a waste of time, and a jerk thing to do. But it's very worth doing in a sincere and nontoxic way.

Religious community is not about how closed minded a person is for identifying with religion. Open mindedness is important in a religion. However it simply does not need to be the utmost priority. If openmindedness were the religion's utmost priority, then all religions would attempt to be Unitarian. There's not community Utopia. By comparison, a secular community cannot please all people all the time either. Certainly from a particular angle, it might. But it simply cannot be purely defined in those terms, and it should avoid involving that as its primary tagline or primary definition, but in its proper place as a concept within it. But in some terms, it would necessarily by definition be somewhat biased towards atheists. If you're not an atheist, then why would you even bother with it really. Seriously. Just be a unitarian or an outright theist. A secular community in this sense is effectively atheist adjacent. It's not secular in terms of general American secularism.

Now, secular humanism is potentially a term to identify with these ideas, but it's also something different. Secular humanism as an institution already exists. And it has its existing practices and organization. And, I don't think it's really a congregational thing either. But as a concept, it's not something that can be owned I don't think. It's just a matter of association and whether the ideas really do have the right details and focus.

Atheism 2-point-O, or: New Atheism

With some ideas, there really is no such thing as failure, well, and especially if they were never really tried.

Some ideas are closer to the heart of a fundamental analysis of . . . things as they are, and things as they will always be, and then things as they will always be because they are closer to our naturalistic realities.

It might be said that theism will always be a thing, and it is most likely true. But there are also reasons that atheism will be around forever - and potentially even longer than theism.

Atheism is Timeless

Coming from ground zero, atheism in and of itself bares strange conditions by comparison to theism. Atheism in one sense will always exist as an automatic contrast to theism. In that sense, the length into the future of the reoccurring appearances of atheism have something (not nothing) to do with theism's own timelessness, in a kind of strange twist of irony perhaps.

But secondly, atheism exists by virtue of form. You might call that form "naturalism". But it's simpler than that. Atheism exists at the ground intuitively.

In many cases, it's theists, even if in some denominations more than others, who draw towards this idea without intending to. Many theists tout their theism as a brave and courageous declaration of something over nothing. Most denominations consider themselves to constitute something more than atheism. But it's primarily only in concept, and only if that concept is true. Even further, it's said that theism requires faith to believe. And so the truth claims of theism are yet again put at odds with reality by definition.

Maybe there is some kind of rhyme of ideas here that means we are accidentally describing the same elephant in small ways. I'm saying atheism has always been present in the psyche in some sense. 

And this is before citing any of the literal practices of atheism through all time as well. Independent of any labeled practice in the East, or particular references in the West (You can read the Wiki page) aside from the concept that people literally do identify as atheists - or that historically there have always been people who lacked belief in any deities.

Atheism's Day in the Sun

By virtue of its timelessness and form, atheism is worthy of efforts towards its cultural potential, beyond placing the condition of its supposed failure on whether or not it caught like wildfire in some historically unprecedented grassroots movement spurned by 6 or so books and a few TED talks. That's not a plausible condition for success.

That concept, that atheism already had its day in the sun by virtue of a few individuals attempting to bring it up in the public forum for ten or so years in the early 2000's is extraordinary in its insult to peoples' intelligence. It's remarkable evidence of something wrong with mass conception in general.

It's a bit quaint to refer to such a thing as Atheism 2.0, or "New Atheism". It sells the concept short.