So, my significant other and myself went to a meeting of our campus atheists (well, atheists, skeptics, and humanists) last week. We had been considering joining for a while, but we had timing conflicts for a few weeks (D&D games take precedence, of course). Last Friday, though, they were hosting a pool party and we had nothing better to do, so we stopped by.
The first observation was this: Never before have I seen so many antisocial, silent men hovering around a pool, fully clothed, with no intention of getting wet. They mostly appeared to be younger than me, but I tend to think college students always look (and act) younger than me.
As the awkward, quiet minutes went by, conversation began to pick up and more people arrived. The conversation was nerdy in nature, as you would expect from a gathering of atheists at a computer science/engineering school. Enjoyable, but leaning more towards the "I've seen the internet!" shallow end of the discussion pool.
Before I continue, I wasn't expecting much in the way of serious debate or anything at a pool party. Most of their meetings are housed indoors and revolve around presentations and discussions, so I'll consider this meeting an outlier, I guess.
So, the crowd grew. Some people started swimming, and fun started a little bit. However, the conversations never got very deep, even when controversial topics were broached.
For example, one girl started explaining the evolution of atheists, by saying, "All atheists start out hating God." I sputtered a little and tried to offer the old, "You can't hate someone you don't believe exists," but she just shrugged and said that all atheists start by losing faith because of an event in their life. Speaking as an atheist who did not go through a traumatic event that made me lose faith, I told her she was wrong, but she didn't seem to listen.
It also turns out, and I don't know if she was part of this, the campus FOCUS group likes to send their members to the ASH meetings in order to "talk about worldviews" and offer their "respect" or something. They're welcome, and I'm sure they'll be interesting to talk to, but I wonder how they would react to ASH camping out at their meetings. Hell, probably in swarms of ministry and spam.
There was also one guy there, who was basically the embodiment of this xkcd comic. He called himself "The Skeptic" in the group, I guess insinuating that everyone there was incapable of skeptical thought. He also had a sneering way of talking about atheists, though he reserved more of his criticism for the predominant type of member in the ASH group, what he affectionately termed "Fuck You, Dad" atheists, which I hope isn't truly the case. Of course, he also hates "New Atheists" and thinks Richard Dawkins "just wants to hate-fuck Jesus," so that's how credible he is to me as a witness.
I tried to press this guy for his own theistic stance, but he dodged and danced around the issue, finally saying something like "Well, if you flip a coin enough times it will land on its side," as though that was meaningful in the slightest. He also made plenty of racist and sexist comments, and tried to tell us that his mother got to work for NASA by having a triple degree in Latin, Greek, and some other language. I have a feeling this guy is into feeling superior to everyone else, and if that means being a non-theist non-atheist "skeptic" who hates everything and makes up impressive stories about his parentage, so be it. I don't consider myself a fan of that approach, though.
On a slight tangent: This idea of "Well, both sides could equally be wrong" is not skepticism, to me. Not only is it incorrect (two options does not mean they are both equally likely), it's an embracing of cynicism and ignorance. My Intro Philosophy professor has tried to say that skeptics are people who, when looking at a difficult issue, throw their arms in the air and say "Well, nobody can really know!" That's not any skeptic I know.
Skeptics demand evidence before belief is justified. On difficult subjects like the existence of a god, it's not a matter of "both sides." The side claiming a god exists is the side that needs to provide the largest amount of evidence for that claim. At least, my rough framework understanding of the burden of proof in philosophy (and positive/negative claims) tells me so. I will happily admit to being under-educated in this field.
I struggle with seeing the claim that god does not exist as a negative claim, or one that also needs evidence. It makes sense to me for the neutral position to be "There is no god," because someone had to create the idea of a god existing. People did not start out originally weighing the possibilities of gods or no gods. They were neutral on the matter (living as though no god existed) until someone stopped and said, "What if there's a giant sky fairy that made all of this and is really, really angry at us for being the people he created?" But this is all very off-topic.
Anyway, the pool party was... interesting. I ran into an acquaintance or two, heard some rather disappointing conversation, some interesting conversation, and some purely idiotic conversations about the "Ground Zero Mosque" which is neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero.
Will I go back? I'll probably give a "real" meeting a shot, see how it goes. If Mr. ~*Skeptic*~ is doing a lot of presenting and talks, I highly doubt I will enjoy it much. But I crave this kind of intellectual stimulation, the chance to debate and discuss. I don't know if I have the balls to do it in person, but my ironic God, if Matt Dillahunty and the gang haven't provided me with the ammo I need to do it, I don't think anyone could.
I wish I lived in Austin. Sigh.
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