Today I attended an atheist meetup

My girlfriend and I went to an atheist meetup today. The Orlando Atheists and Freethinkers screened Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God. Sweeney is a wonderful comedian and terribly fun to watch. She treats the subject of her deconversion with equal parts humor and sincerity. Unfortunately I had a tutoring appointment this afternoon and couldn't stay for the whole thing. It was difficult to walk out of the screening during the break in the middle.

Before the organizer put Sweeney's DVD on there was a bit of discussion. I've never been to a meeting of this group before but my girlfriend has once or twice. Before going there she had shared some of her impressions with me and today I was able to see for myself. My first disappointment was seeing immediately that almost all of the attendees (there were almost 30 people there) were over 40. In this country of course more young people are nonbelievers compared to the older generations. What accounts for this group's lack of youth appeal?

The organizer killed a wasp that landed on the projector screen. Someone said, "make sure to give it a Christian burial." Someone else said, "the trash!" In the context, the potshot against Christianity seemed to come out of nowhere. My girlfriend said, and I agree, that atheism should be bigger than to simply be against Christianity.

There was also a short discussion about spirituality. The organizer opened up by asking for anyone's definition of spirituality. A couple of answers were offered, some that didn't seem to mean anything at all and one which was the positive and connected feelings you get from the beauty in the natural world. Somebody else offered, "we have to acknowledge the slight possibility of something...".

I was confused. If spirituality is the feelings you get in contemplation of beauty, then we can do more than acknowledge a slight possibility. In fact I think that we can all agree that the feelings which are sometimes evoked by the beauty in the natural world can be inspiring, even life-changing. The comment seemed to imply that we should acknowledge the possibility of something more unusual or even supernatural. I don't feel like we need to go out of our way to acknowledge the slight possibility of something which up to this point has not been defined.

In any event, attending the meetup today was interesting and stimulating, particularly getting to see Julia Sweeney's show. It also helped my codify in my mind a little more what the current state of atheism is and what direction I would like to see it go. I don't mean to pick on the Orlando group particularly, especially since I've only seen a small slice of what they have to offer.

On the other hand, I've been thinking quite a bit about how the growing atheist movement needs a bit more development in terms of its identity, direction and goals. Expect more posts about this in the future.