Secular Portal Blogs

Drink

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

One of the perks of city living is the ability to walk to the pub and home again, finally removing my need to drive to Tuesday night socials.

It’s a bit of a walk up from my apartment though with the way back being down hill it feels a lot shorter at the end of the night which is always a positive. In any case it felt really good not having to worry about how much I was drinking for once, a great improvement on the situation.

Summer Sum

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

We might not be seeing the perfect summer in terms of weather, but A-Soc’s weekly socials are definitely one of the high points of the summer calendar.

Meeting every Tuesday at 7pm at the Library pub on the corner of Hyde Park we enjoy an evening of light hearted revelry, drinking of fine (and by fine I mean cheap ) beverages and even the odd discussion about the society, religion, swine flu et al.

So if you are in Leeds over the summer feel free to head on down and join us for the evening.

Summer Sum

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | Leeds Atheist Society | No Comments

We might not be seeing the perfect summer in terms of weather, but A-Soc's weekly socials are definitely one of the high points of the summer calendar.

Meeting every Tuesday at 7pm at the Library pub on the corner of Hyde Park we enjoy an evening of light hearted revelry, drinking of fine (and by fine I mean cheap :P) beverages and even the odd discussion about the society, religion, swine flu et al.

So if you are in Leeds over the summer feel free to head on down and join us for the evening.

Selling education

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | Norman Ralph | No Comments

I have been involved in the atheist community for a little over four years now and I have often pondered the question on how atheists and humanists can actually convince other people that their worldview is just as fulfilling and worthwhile as any other, particularly the religious world views.

I first dabbled in an organised atheist society when I joined Leeds Atheist Society, the student society for atheists and associated free thinkers at the University of Leeds. Drawn by the prospect of heated debate and intellectual stimulation I quashed the feeling of unease that most atheists have at the back of their minds when considering any form of organisation for atheists. Within a few months I had converted to a believer in the necessity and usefulness of a society for atheists. This conversion enabled me to take on more and more responsibility within the organisation, delivering talks and lectures and after six months I was elected Secretary. This committee position meant that I now had to consider not only what I wanted from the society but how the society should develop and what it should provide for its members. This led me to first really think about the atheist brand and how best to sell the worldview that excludes a supreme being or beings, that excludes absolute morality and embraces rational, sceptical thought as its cornerstones.

The year I served as Secretary saw Leeds Atheist Society develop some tools with which to answer these questions, namely the One Life course aimed at non self-identifying atheists on how a secular world view could offer the same benefits and comfort as a religious one. The society itself also tried to start opening up its appeal to a wider audience by reducing the reliance on anti-religion themes and embracing a more educational feel to its meetings.

Whilst a lot was achieved, I felt more could be done to increase the appeal of the society to religious students as well as our traditional base, the atheists and agnostics. It was on this agenda that I ran for President in April 2008; as ever in a small society, the competition for committee places was low and I was elected unopposed to run the group.

The year I was in presidency saw a lot of changes to the attitudes and direction of the society. We introduced a second and third course, Perspective and Answers respectively. The former gave a soapbox to a different religious speaker each week to give a talk and explain their world view and then accept questions from the audience. The purpose of this course was to promote understanding of the world views that we are trying to compete with. The course was a resounding success and really helped develop our image on campus. Answers was a course designed to develop the debating and speaking skills of our members so that they had the ability to discuss their own world view with a sound understanding of what it was they actually believed.

The whole year had a very education theme to it, with many talks and debates on important moral and ethical issues as well as trying to define exactly what it meant to hold an atheist world view.

Through my work with Leeds Atheist Society, I got involved with setting up the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) and ended up serving as its president for seven unforgettable months. The AHS raised many questions around the idea of selling the atheist world view. One of our main aims was to promote and facilitate the formation of new societies across the UK.

Alongside the formal involvement with the atheist community which fired by interest in the idea of developing the atheist brand, I have had the pleasure of working with a number of other people that have also had a passion for the question. My friend and colleague at Leeds Atheist Society and the AHS, Chris Worfolk, is a keen believer in the idea of spreading the atheist and particularly the humanist world view through charitable work and direct action. Chris, through his foundation, has set up and continues to be heavily involved with the Humanist Action Group, Leeds Skeptics as well as serving as president of the Leeds Atheist Society whilst a student and sitting as a trustee of the AHS since his graduation. His article in the inaugural edition of Secular Future (the AHS’s quarterly newsletter) was the spark that ignited my desire to document my grappling with this topic.

Chris believes that the only way to develop the atheist and humanist brand is to compete directly with the religious brands. That means offering the rewards that can be found by being involved with those ideas. Humanist Action Group offers a range of charitable activities with its current focus being on feeding the homeless of Leeds and offering community services such as graffiti removal. Leeds Skeptics provides an environment for sceptical discussion and a number of social opportunities too.

Richard Parker, medical doctor and co-founder of Humanist Action Group, is another friend and colleague that believes quite strongly in community action to help sell the atheist and humanist world views. Richard considers that one of the best ways to build the brand is to make an impact on both the practical and political fronts. Richard’s has long considered how he can make the difference by being involved with local and national government.

Whilst community action and involvement are clearly practical ways to offer the physical rewards that religious charity offers its followers I am left feeling that there needs to be more effort made to compete with the spiritual and emotional needs of adherents to a secular world view.

Religion offers a number of benefits that atheists cannot compete with; eternal life, salvation, love, forgiveness, security and absolute truth being a few examples. Whilst academically an atheist or humanist can refute the philosophy of the examples, they cannot offer an alternative. It is no good for an atheist to say they eternal life is a fiction and that absolute truth is a myth if they cannot offer a suitable alternative. In many ways, belief in these ideals is like an addiction. The believers are unwilling to cold turkey; they do not want to just give up their warm, fuzzy feelings of comfort and easy answers. They need an alternative, they need something to help wean them off a religious world view that, most surveys say, their adherence to is cursory and towards the atheist or humanist one.

Many atheists will not agree with that conclusion as they feel that an atheist’s role is not to convert people to “atheism” and on the whole I agree with them. The issue here is that I am not advocating conversion but merely the recognition by the majority that their apparent world view does not actually explain how they see the world.

The biggest question of all is what can we use to replace those emotional and spiritual crutches outlined above? My gut instinct is the same now as it was during my time as officer of the Leeds Atheist Society, education. Educating people about what atheists thing and believe, what it means to be a humanist, how a life as a non-believer is richer and more rewarding that the alternative.

I would urge fellow atheists and humanists to accept this challenge and start teaching people what it is you believe, not what you don’t believe!

Tags: ahs

The name

Friday, July 17th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

I attended the York Brights meetup on Wednesday. You’ll never guess what we talked about.

Oh my god, why, why can’t the debate just stop. It’s endless. It doesn’t matter what we call ourselves. Of course it actually does matter but it’s not the most important thing in the world, we have far bigger problems as a movement.

The seperation does fall into the category of a major problem but it would cease to be one if we could just all work out it doesn’t really matter that much what we call ourselves as long as we’re pushing the same agenda.

Can we please, please, stop talking about the name.

Oh those Tuesdays

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Tonight saw the usual Tuesday night Atheist Society social which again delivered a fairly recent turnout given that it is the summer holidays and nobody is around. More importantly they managed to put some dressing on my burger this week which was most welcome .

The message is spreading

Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

I was driving to work yesterday when I saw a land rover with the A-Soc slogan on the back. I can only presume they are a big fan of the society .

Back on top

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Despite flagging turn outs to recent Tuesday night summer socials, we ended up getting around a dozen people down to The Library tonight, possibly given more life by the recent camping trip but hopefully something that will continue throughout summer.

Summer Camping 2009

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | Chris Worfolk | No Comments

Last weekend saw Atheist Society’s annual summer camping weekend, this week hosted by Dalesbridge at the far end of the Yorkshire Dales near Austwick and Ingleton.

Despite it throwing it down with rain for days beforehand the sun came out once we got there and beyond the odd shower it was generally good weather which made for an excellent time all around.

It was a mix of walking and drinking which is what you want on any camping holiday. There is something brilliant about starting the day at 8:30am with a bacon sandwich and a beer.

In between drinking on the site and checking out the local pubs we also made it round the waterfall trail, white scar caves and even a rather large mountain climb all the way up to the base of Penyghent .

New Exec – Big Plans

Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | AHS | No Comments

 

The AHS would like to announce its exciting plans for the coming year and the new leadership team who will make them happen. The group’s Annual General Meeting, held at Warwick University on June 20^th marked the end of our foundational year. Now, with a fresh, determined trio of students at the helm and a host of Regional Representatives, the AHS is looking ahead to an action-packed first full year.

 

 

 

Coming soon:

• A Nationwide Recruitment Drive. Our team of student Regional Representatives are going to train up new and existing societies around the UK this summer to help them flourish and make their mark on campus this autumn.

• Brand new website. The AHS will be upping the stakes with a brand new public site. Complete with forums, news, students areas, banks of resources for societies, and a wikipedia section. (It’ll be better than UCCF’s website – guaranteed.)

• A National Convention. We are delighted to announce that this February the AHS will hold a grand scale national convention of atheism, humanism and secularism for students and the public. This should be the UK’s largest ever gathering of young people free from faith – anything could happen! Watch this space. It’s going to be big news.

• Going Global. All we can say right now is that we have some exciting plans underway with another European country and the USA. More details as they come.

Meet the New Executive Team: