Herding Cats, or organizing the unchurched.

I've been in this little college town for over a year now, and while I was initially encouraged by the existence of such organizations as the North Texas Church of Freethought, and the Free Thought Alliance (FTA) of UNT, I found that NTCOF, based out of Irving, Texas, was just a long darn way to drive, even only once a month. Same was true of many other atheist/agnostic/freethought groups in and around the DFW Metroplex. I found myself unwilling to drive out to Plano, or Arlington, or Fort Worth, or downtown Dallas, just to participate in these groups. It was all just too damned far from "Little d". Even here in "Little d", the UNT chapter of Free Thought Alliance, though I did enjoy attending one or two meetings and one or two parties, their limitations as a campus-based group--and not my campus--became readily apparent. They meet 5pm sharp, on the UNT campus, which is extremely inconvenient for someone who doesn't get off work until 5pm, and whose own campus isn't on the same side of town as theirs. The practical reality is I'd be 30 minutes late at best, each and every time, and that got old. They also hosted stuff on the UNT campus during the week and during working hours, which, while ideal for on-campus students, were impossible for those not attending UNT or working as a UNT staffer.

While my campus, TWU, has more Christian groups than I can count on both hands, I don't think they have a single atheist/agnostic/freethought type group of any description. Women, lamentably, tend to be more religious than men, which is especially unfortunate considering just how misogynistic the "Big 3" Abrahamic religions have been for most of their history. FFRF publishes a little tract detailing just how bad religion is (and has been) for women, actually...something I always remember when I see a spontaneous bible study either on campus or downtown...especially a group of women being led by a guy evangelist.

Anyway, more out of exasperation than anything, I decided to take the plunge and found my own Denton-centric "Meetup.com" group for Atheists. I didn't include Agnostics in my group description for a couple of reasons. One, because I once married a wishy-washy agnostic who ended up reverting back to something resembling the Fundamentalism of her youthful upbringing, making our already eventual difficult divorce that much uglier. Two, because a lot of people say "agnostic" out of a sense of politeness when "atheist" really is the more accurate word for their real worldview. Three, because technically speaking, agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive positions. Case in point, I am myself an agnostic atheist. Meaning that sure, I don't know for absolute certain that there is no supreme being/god thing, but at the same time I lack any kind of active belief in such an entity. I'm skeptical of religious claims, critical of religious moral systems predicated on the necessary existence of a divine law giver, etc.

The stubborn, fence-sitting agnostic who feels superior to self-proclaimed atheists and believers alike is a confused, self-absorbed poser who I just have neither the time or patience to deal with. They're trying to maintain an artificial position of absolute neutrality that is simply untenable, in part because it relies on a distorted definition of what atheism is so that it can contrast itself with a straw man rather than the real deal.

I had to pony up a stiff start-up fee for a six-month run, about $72 bucks, so yes, I will be charging a minimal fee at meetings (one buck per person per meeting) until I recoup these costs. There seemed to be a core cadre of people interested in this meetup, and wanting it in Denton, but for months nobody (including me) was willing to pony up the cash and the organizational moxie to make it happen. Well, I finally stepped up to the plate and took a swing. It remains to be seen if I can hit a home run or I will strike out with this group concept. I emphatically do not want to steal any thunder from FTA over at UNT. I love those guys, and I think they do great work for their core base, but it just wasn't working out for ME personally, and I want to connect with other nonbelievers in similar circumstances to my own...working adults for whom UNT-FTA isn't practical, and for whom it's too far to go to Plano, Arlington, Dallas, etc. I've had one committed member join...from McKinney. Ok, not precisely what I was looking for, but if we're closer than any of his other options, he's welcome to come out here. I just really hope we get some actual Denton residents to show interest and more importantly SHOW UP. I'd like to see us patronize local Denton businesses wherever possible and avoid chain places. That has nothing to do with my atheism, of course, it's just good citizenship and keeping money in the local economy rather than sending it out of the community, something I feel is kind of important from an economic point of view.

I'm also founding this group because I've just noticed more and more bible studies popping up at local coffee houses that I haunt, and they annoy me. Around Christmas time a church group came around passing out pamphlets and claiming to want to sing Christmas carols, but printed in the pamphlets were none of the crowd-pleasing holiday favorites that everybody knows but rather all were explicitly Christian religious hymns. I thought this was supremely annoying and I made a point of utterly ignoring them and continuing to talk to my friend during their "concert", and to crack jokes poking fun at religion. If they'd stayed with mainly secular seasonal songs that are classic American favorites, even this crusty old atheist might've joined in, but their having to bash everyone over the head with overly religious songs...forget it.

There are few things as disappointing as seeing a really pretty girl out in public who you're moderately interested in pull out a bible while in a circle of her girlfriends and you realize it's a bible study group. This has already happened to me at least once so far. Even the same girl lighting a cigarette instead isn't nearly as much of a turn off as that. If the girl's pretty enough, and charming enough, I can forgive the smoking. I've kissed smokers, and yeah, it's kind of yuck, but it's still a kiss, and a prolonged, lingering kiss is pretty damn awesome, even from a smoker. But I don't care how hot or good looking a girl may be, if she's got religion on the brain she's damaged goods as far as I'm concerned. Hellbound, promiscuous sluts are way more my type. ;-) But only if they're bona fide atheists, not the "mad at God" emo-chick/faux "atheists"...I don't want a young lady to hop in the sack with me because she's mad at God for hating her gay male best friend or let her kid sister die of a horrible disease or in a car accident or something. Such people may call themselves atheists out of confusion, but such persons are just as likely to revert back to a modified theism as to really become a mature, rationally-grounded atheist. When I finally rid myself of any last vestige of the God delusion, I found myself incredibly at peace. If the world was f*cked up, it wasn't because of the will of some divine being, but because of the actions and inactions of ordinary people. Instead of waiting for holy deliverance, one had to get off one's duff and do something in the world.

I do have a close friend at UNT, who also works in the library world, and who is also an atheist, and we do hang out together a great deal, but at times it feels like it's just the two of us against the world, and I'd like to know there's more than just two atheists in this little college town for frak's sake. Also, I learned that UNT's FTA has "Officer's Meetings" which welcome general members which are held at a time and place that actually *does* work for me, so actually I will try to start showing up to that, and won't schedule my Meetup.com group to conflict with that. On my Meetup.com group, I specifically encourage UNT students to seek out their campus FTA *first* before joining my Meetup group. TWU students I tell to go ahead an join the Meetup.com group, because I don't think we have any similar campus group at all.

I thought about calling the group "Denton Secularists" or "Denton Secular Alliance" or some variation thereof to avoid the Atheist label, but then I said no, I want to go ahead and embrace the scarlet "A"; Only time will tell if this was a tactical mistake or a wise marketing decision or not.