The Atheist Alliance of America Convention

Me and Steven Pinker

Last August I attended the annual conference of the Atheist Alliance of America, which conveniently took place just south of Seattle. It was my first exposure to the atheist community, and it was an eye opener. When I say that I wish atheists would dial back the negativity and dial up the empathy, my experiences at this conference contribute to that opinion. I’ve been to dozens of gamer and science fiction conventions, but this was different. It was an annual convention, like most are, but it moves from city to city. That means the people at the AAA running the convention were not familiar with the local secular community, and the locals had never been to the convention before, or to any atheist convention for most of us. The locals demonstrated a desire to be part of something, but the AAA offered programming that leaned toward being against something. For a few hours on Saturday, I staffed the welcome table in the hotel, with a big “Atheist Alliance of America” banner high on the wall behind me. Most of the people walking by were not with the convention, and I’m sure some believers looked at me and figured that we atheists were gathered there to make fun of them. It was a little embarrassing to sit at that table because to some degree they were right. The negativity was bad enough to even turn off some of the atheists. Opponents of friendly atheism accuse me of wanting to accommodate believers better. Beliebers? How about we accommodate our fellow atheists better?

How negative was the convention? Not all that negative. There were talks about secular volunteer work, news about a first-responder organization that’s in the works, a reading of quotes by and about the famous agnostic orator Robert Ingersoll, and some comedy aimed at atheists. But the anti-Christian and anti-religion slant was evident. One headline event was a documentary about how terrible the black church is. The film presumes that churchgoers are dupes, getting nothing from the church experience. We got Steven Pinker to speak to us. What luck, Steven Pinker! As atheists, we know our minds come from our evolved brains instead of from our souls. Did Pinker explain to us how the evolved brain works? No, his lecture was about how religion has no evolutionary value. As if we atheists hold religion in too high esteem, and we need to have its down side spelled out to us. A debate over whether Jesus existed got big billing, too. Richard Carrier was there promoting the idea that Jesus never existed. This fringe idea is naturally popular among atheists. Carrier wisely chose not to debate against someone holding the mainstream, Encyclopedia Britannica answer to the historical question of Jesus. Instead, he found a Bible-thumping Christian. Compared to the Christian view, the Jesus-myth idea looks pretty good. Presumably that’s why the consensus view was excluded from the debate and they didn’t invite me to take on Carrier. In addition to Carrier, there were two other Jesus-myth authors in attendance, and none of the three offer a plausible explanation for where the stories in the New Testament came from. Like creationism, the idea that Jesus is a myth has gone nowhere in mainstream scholarship but survives among die-hard fans. We atheists like to style ourselves as evidence-driven skeptics, but we’re human and we’re prone to tribal biases just like anyone else.

Could this negativity have been what people wanted? Yes, there must have been plenty of people there who ate up all the anti-religious rhetoric. Politicians and talk radio hosts know that us-versus-them talk is golden. We’re born ready to adopt tribalism as our way of life, and talking about the enemy gets our attention. I’d like to think that the Pacific Northwest is home to soft, nice atheists, but that’s a suspiciously self-serving opinion. Still, judging from the people I talked to there was more interest in community than you would infer based on the official programming. At first, I didn’t talk about being a Unitarian Sunday school teacher because I didn’t want to draw a hostile reaction. When I did talk about it, one con-goer accused me of indoctrinating children, but then I met two other Unitarians, including one who also loves teaching Sunday school. Maybe I should do a panel about Unitarians at my next atheist convention. In atheist community-building, the latest news worldwide is the Sunday Assembly. Several locals expressed a real interest in the project, but there was no official mention of it anywhere at the con. The guy who was running AV for the con is a secular humanist celebrant, and he recently gave an historic humanist invocation at a local city council meeting, but there was no information about the celebrant program. Nor was I the only atheist to be put off by the negativity. One attendee told me she walked out of some of the talks. Another said it was her first atheist event ever, and she wanted to know why there was so much attention being paid to Christianity. Her young son was along, and the event was billed as family friendly, but there were hardly any kids and not much for them to do. 

Sam Harris says that the critical posture that’s prevalent in atheism is driving away women. He’s half right. It’s driving away people who are more interested in connecting with each other as people than in tearing down outsiders. It’s not gender per se that’s at issue, but the net effect is to drive away more women than men. As a professional game designer, I know about communities that are full of brainy guys, and it can be a weird place, especially on the Internet. Let’s grow beyond that. Let’s get working on a secular community that’s more about what we can do together and less about identity politics, something that’s welcoming to a broader range of people. The AAA convention tells me that there are secular people looking for something. Let’s build something.

Atheist Alliance of America: This national organization is distinct from the one that erects confrontational billboards at Christmas, the American Atheists.