No group in your area - yet!
There is no secularist group in your area - but there may be a humanist group - check the British Humanist Association (BHA) web site for more details. Many humanist groups are actively taking part in the same campaigns so there is no point dividing our resources!
Please click here to visit the web site of a typical local group - Derbyshire Secularists.
Finding contacts in your area
Please complete the information below and click on Submit for the following to happen:
- Your details will be added to the contact database.
- You will be sent details of any contacts in the same county (if there are any on the database.)
- Your details will be sent to others in the same county.
Note: the database is used only for putting NSS members in touch with one another.
Please contact us by email if you want your contact details removed from the database.
Important: please do not enter any commas within your text.
Setting up your own group
Obviously, as a freethinker, you are totally free to do your own thing - and we atheists don't like being told what to do!
On the other hand, you might see some merit in being part of a larger whole so that we can coordinate campaigns across the country - working together we may be able to achieve more than dozens of groups going off in dozens of different directions.
We can provide you with everything you need to set up a group:
- Getting a place for regular meetings
- Setting up a web site - done via this site so there is very little to do.
- Creating an identity - all our groups share a similar identity to present a common image nation-wide.
- Help with contacting the local media: newspapers, radio, TV.
- Topics for meetings - and visiting speakers if you would like them.
- Resources: speakers notes, recommended books/DVDs, educational material, artwork for leaflets etc.
- Campaign guidelines to help you join in the campaigns talking place right across the country.
- In the future we may run short courses for group leaders - but only if there is demand for them. Given the nature of the people who run secular groups, (very intelligent and very able) we are convinced that most people can just get on with the job after our help getting things started
Guidelines to help you get started
Please click here for guidelines on setting up your own local group.
We are here to help at all times - so, get started, contact us and let's work together to get a successful group set up in your area.
Campaigns
Our groups campaign actively for change - we are not talking shops.
Those who wish to be active are already committed atheists (or at least agnostics) so there is no point meeting every week/month to discuss some obscure aspect of religion or to bemoan the latest stupid statements made by religious leaders.
Our task is not to talk about it - but to do something about it.
Group size
We are not trying to create large local groups - this would be naive - we are not a religion!
We are not trying to convert everyone to become an atheist.
Any attempt to "build a mass movement" is destined to fail for two reasons:
- Atheists don't need to get together for regular meetings - most of them have much better things to do than worry about religion!
- It can become very frustrating and disheartening for those passionate about secularism. Repeatedly going over the same ground with "new recruits" month after month can be very wearing.
One person can set up a group - and can start to make waves locally.
Two people can bounce ideas off one another and share the tasks to be done.
Three people can get a huge amount done.
Campaigning group or debating society?
Problems may occur when groups get beyond 10 people - unless they are all very committed to active campaigning. The group starts to develop a "structure" and may decide to be "democratic" in the election of "officers" and may write a "constitution" and have a "treasurer" to look after the money. Bureaucracy sets in and the focus slips away from campaigning.
The question then becomes: "what is the group for?" Can it still retain its focus on campaigning or has it become a social group for secularist/atheists? There is the danger that it can rapidly become a debating society where individuals and sub-groups start to differ about what the current campaign should be and how it should be carried out.
We are not going to win our campaigns on day one, or day two - or maybe for years! This can be very frustrating for some people so instead of keeping up the pressure they turn inwards and argue amongst themselves. This is exactly the reason why religions have split time and time again over the last two thousand years.
We do not have time for this in secularism
Local groups should be small and made up of those who feel passionately about the issues and who are willing to be active in local campaigns - and willing to get the job done rather than arguing about it.
We are conscious that this sounds like a very hard line - and it appears to be very undemocratic. Obviously everyone can express their views - but in the context that the campaigns have been agreed and the jobs need to be done.
Anyone more used to the long-winded debates that take place within political groups will not be happy in a local secularist group - we have better things to do.
There is always a place for discussion, sharing ideas and formal debates. The British Humanist Association (BHA) has many groups throughout the UK and many members of the National Secular Society, and its local groups, are also members of the BHA.
We atheists have no ideology - there is no such thing as atheism. There are New Labour atheists, Liberal Democrat atheists, fascist atheists, communist atheists, money-grabbing capitalist atheists, hippy-dippy atheists, Jewish atheists, Conservative atheists, selfish atheists, socialist atheists - what would be this ideology, "atheism", that they all share?
As atheists we don't believe in a god or the necessity to postulate one. That's what the word means - end of story. We don't have, or need, a common ideology to replace gods and religions. A strong shared set of social values and responsibilities - yes. Laws to implement those social values - yes. Ideology - no.
Warning to the over-enthusiastic - or the young and passionate
Organising atheists is like herding cats.
Each one is a free-thinker. Each one wants to go his/her own way. Each one will never accept being told what to think or what to do.
Many atheists simply don't care about religion - they adopt a "let them get on with it" attitude - which they stick to firmly until the demands of religion start to impact on their personal lives or they see one too many atrocities committed in the name of religion.
Cats spend most of their time on sofas - asleep. Atheists spend a lot of their time on sofas bemoaning (boring?) their friends about the state of the world because of religion.
Getting atheists off their sofas, and getting them active in the cause of secularism, is incredibly difficult - they just don't see the point or they find a feeble excuse - it's amazing how many of them suddenly become busy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week when you suggest doing something to oppose the privileges of religion.
Unlike the religious, we atheists are not sheep to be led - we are individuals doing our own things and sorting out our own world-views.
So anyone who can organise atheists, and get them to work together in our best interest, deserves a medal!
Are you up to it?
© 2007 UK Secularists
|
