DarkBronzePlant

Well, I'll start off answering ohwilleke's question by pointing out that I found DC's comment interesting:

In fact, that's precisely why one needs a focus group, to ensure that a thought that seems obvious to someone involved actually works for other people as well.

The thing I should note as well is that most people in the group (I think, even, everyone but me) belonged or have belonged to the American Atheists. And in fact when asked about his current AA membership, one member did point out that he could deal with less inflammatory information being sent to him, and more action to actually do something about it.

But in discussing what might be done to increase membership (remember, this would be among people who aren't currently active), the general consensus is that more disturbing information should be spread around. Maybe via advertising or whatever. To let nonative atheists know that, hey, if something isn't done, then this is the sad direction that the country is headed.

The questions might have been better posed to atheists who in general weren't part of a national organization, but I believe that there was another focus group right after ours, made up of just that type of person.

Okay, so in general what did the group say? Well, we were hung up for awhile on how to get more local, community atheist groups together. Kind of like an atheist version of a church. We basically admitted that theists had some advantages over us, in that church offered a good social circle, a good place to network (e.g. for careers), etc. And wouldn't it be nice for atheists to have similar groups. Except that, as we soon learned, there are few universal ties that would pull all atheists together in order to form such a group. Theists at least have their get-out-of-hell-free cards that they renew everytime they go to church.

Then, we got steered by the moderator to think more national. Why would we join any national-level affinity group? What's the motivation? What do we expect to get out of belonging to such a group? Of course, there were a lot of different answers to that, but the most common themes seemed to be 1) that we might gain a little bit of useful information, or some usefull contacts (beneficial with, say, an industry affinity group, but not so much with an advocacy group like AA) and 2) that those of us who are extremely busy can still feel like we're donating a little bit of money and a little effort to "the cause" (which would be more beneficial to a group like AA).

We then discussed the notion of approximately how many atheists there are in the country, and what (relatively low) levels of atheism-related activity there are among those atheists. And given the relatively low level of activity, what can be done to recruit more atheists into belonging to/participating more with groups like AA? As I mentioned above, one thing that was centered on was that these folks--some of them, at least--probably aren't aware of, or aren't much impressed by--the violation of their rights that are going on around the country. So they need, quite simply, to become aware of them. To realize that there is a need for activism. It was also generally agreed that a lot of non-active atheists out there are just complacent. That they happen to not believe in any god, but that's about all the thought they ever care to give to the issue.

So for the former group, what type of information would be the most likely to convince people that there is a need for activism? We threw out a bunch of issues, but mostly ones dealing with kids, school prayer, etc, resonated well with the group.

We actually ran out of time... 2 hours flew by. What I mentioned is, of course, an over-simplification of the discussion, and just the bits that stick out in my mind.

Rusting Car Bumper

It would have been interesting to find out what they came up with.

Like theChurch of Freethought. They already exist but AA doesn't seem to like them because 1) They encroach on their power and 2) because of hair splitting philosophical problems with the church model.

It takes effort to do it and when I point out to people that *you* could start this group I usually get the "that's too much trouble" excuse.

I disagree on the last point. The Church of Freethought has been together almost 10 years. The fact is that non-believers have more in common and NOT in common. All people have to do is get up and try it.

This brings up another issue. The problems and general concerns of atheists are not limited to atheists. It should be noted for practical purposes of everyday life all non-theists are far more closer than they are apart. Calling a group "atheists of ...." limits it. However, other names which are more broad (freethinker, humanist, etc) allow for a greater variety of non-theists under the same roof.

It depends on the activism. As I hinted to earlier its not politics that will change things or make them better. It is things at a deeper level. My life is not more fufilled by carrying protest signs. However, my life is more fufilled by knowing that the general community doesn't hate non-believers. Thus, I believe our problems are more social than political. Atheist groups simply haven't been fitting into people's everyday "organic" (if you will) needs.

DC

Secular Pinoy

The brights movement is trying to unify the anti-supernaturalist communities under one name. What do you think of them?

Rusting Car Bumper

I've already piped up on that. "Brights" is a ridiculous word for non-believers. Well intentioned but it misses the real problem.

Label choice is not what non-believers problems are about at the root. It's a deeper social problem about what people think non-believers are and what they represent.

As someone said in a different thread,
"If you want better PR, become better people."

DC