First, we’ve finalized the date and location of our new book club. We’ll be meeting the first Tuesday of each month at Our Town Cafe at Broadway and Kingsway in Vancouver. The discussion starts at 7:00PM and our first book will be Hitch-22 on February 7th. RSVP to the meetup group here.

Next, we have agreed to give two scholarships to students or low-income BCHA members to go to the Northwest Freethought Alliance Conference in Renton, WA featuring Richard Dawkins. If you’re interested in learning a bit more about the scholarships or interested in applying, just fill out the form here.

We will also be helping to sponsor the Imagine No Religion 2 Conference in Kamloops. This was a very successful conference last year and this year the speaker’s line up is headed by astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss. If you register for both conferences you can save 15%.

We have also created a tentative schedule for our Spring Series of Sunday morning meetings which includes speakers on Secular Meditation, Canada’s Race History, Darwin Day, and Occupy Vancouver.

Between March 15 and 17, Secular Student Alliance speaker and award-winning journalist Ted Cox will be doing a whirlwind tour of the Lower Mainland, speaking for the UBC Freethinkers, the BC Humanists, and SFU Skeptics (in that order). Details are still being finalized for his tour.

Finally, we’re also going to be advertising aggressively online and streamlining our fundraising so that we can keep this pace up well into the future.

It should be a good start to 2012!

The show's byline is "it's about free enterprise" and is unapologetically right-wing, so take what you want from the rest of it.

I wish I hadn't called humanism "atheism plus" and would have expanded a bit more on how we believe in people's ability to be good on their own, but it is what it is. Every interview could go a bit better, and this represents a bit of exposure and some practice.

The South Fraser Unitarian Congregation was kind enough to send out a press release for my upcoming talk on humanism. Peace Arch News, based in White Rock, picked up the story under the headline “Atheist to speak in Newton.”

It’s a fine article, but does set the bar for all the things I need to explain:

Organizers say Ian Bushfield is to discuss how humanism…promotes living a good and moral life without the need for divine revelation.

Bushfield will also explain why humanists choose not to rely on immutable words and holy books, but instead find value and purpose in life through reason and science.

Of course, I think I wrote some of those words into the abstract that I sent along, so it may be my own fault.

For more information on the talk, check out the Unitarian’s website.

Related to the entire theme though is a recent Dan Gardner article on leadership in isolation. In it he discusses recent studies that have found that we make poorer decisions the more power we get.

The concept can be understood in Darwinian terms. Ideas, like organisms, compete for their environment. A bad idea with a lot of competition will die off, while it may have a better chance if not exposed to variation. I’m not talking about memetics, since we actively select out good ideas when we can contrast them with bad ones.

If a leader is surrounded by yes-men and women who agree with him or her, the landscape of ideas generated will be very small. Meanwhile, when people are able to disagree without fear of punishment, more ideas can thrive and compete.

This is why, regardless of one’s own aptitudes and skills, power corrupts. Everyone is susceptible to it.

Being good skeptics, we need to identify and be aware of issues like this when we design our organizational structures. The root causes of the ongoing CFI Canada debacle are a lack of trust, transparency, and accountability. Without an open exchange of ideas, corruption and acrimony spread.

Such drama isn’t the exclusive purview of CFI and it’s corporate structure. Humanist Canada was embroiled in a strikingly similar controversy a year ago when their board split over the actions of their executive director. HAC seems to be getting back on track, potentially a testament of the ability of the membership to throw the board out and elect a new slate.

I don’t know the perfect solution to these types of divisions. I think there needs to be clear lines of accountability, and a means of dealing with divisions in boards that doesn’t make every issue so personal. I’m wide open to any and all ideas, and I’m definitely willing to try anything to ensure the stability and longevity of the BC Humanists for years to come.

Realizing that we all (generally) agree that humanism is good, I decided to mix it up a bit and my topic is now more focussed on the continuing spat between Greg Epstein and PZ Myers. Here’s the abstract I threw together this afternoon.

Humanism and Interfaith

Humanism can be described as atheism with a heart. Yet some New Atheists and Humanists have sparred recently over a number of issues. Some of these key issues are how we structure of our communities; the legitimacy of humanist chaplains; and whether secularists should engage in interfaith dialogues with the religious. Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, calls humanism a faith in his 2009 bestseller Good Without God. He has recently announced plans for a new book to serve as a how-to manual to establish groups similar to his Harvard community. On the other side of the debate, many atheists recoil in disgust at terms like interfaith and chaplains. They argue that the unquestionable hierarchy of religion is antithetical to free inquiry. Such structures are to be demolished, not simply rebranded. Amidst the debates on Twitter and the blogosphere, humanist communities are thriving in cities and on campuses around the world. Progressive theists are also actively starting to seek out humanist representatives for interfaith panels.

In this discussion, I will attempt to weave our way through the arguments and concerns raised by both camps. What does a humanist community look like? Are humanists trying to create church for the unchurched? Is there a need for humanist chaplains and officiants? Is humanism a faith? And can, or should, atheists participate in interfaith events?

Some related reading and viewing:

Do Atheists Belong in the Interfaith Movement? Christ Stedman, 15 June 2011

Transfaith, The New Atheist Interfaith, Ed Clint – Secular Student Alliance, 18 August 2011

Nonbelievers striving for humanist connection, Boston Globe, 17 October 2011

Atheist church? NO THANK YOU. Pharyngula, 17 October 2011

Just don’t call it church then, Canadian Atheist, 17 October 2011

A Successful Humanist Community in Boston, Friendly Atheist, 18 October 2011

Just call me a Quaker, I guess, Pharyngula, 18 October 2011

What #HumanistComunity? Pharyngula, 19 October 2011

#HumanistCommunity, Twitter, ongoing

The event is scheduled for Saturday, November 19th at 11:00 am at SFU Harbour Centre and there should be coffee and donuts.

I haven’t written the talk yet (that has to wait for the 18th of course), so I’m open to any and all suggestions.

And I’ll post something about the Unitarian event closer to that date.

After I’ve hopefully identified my chief concern, hypothesis about the issue and presented the first steps to rectifying the issue by building positive-action centred communities (in addition to and not in replacement of the existing organizations), I want to turn my attention to one more concern that should be addressed. This final concern is about diversity.

Hemant Mehta posted a very illuminating picture a few days ago from a Skeptics Conference in 2006.

He asked if we could notice anything “manly or white” about it…

Of course the diversity question is slowly being addressed and people are more willing to talk about it now, but that doesn’t mean our work is done.

Doing the same things and expecting different results is Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity, so it’s well worth recognizing that to appeal to a greater demographic, our events are going to have to be more appealing than to just our current members – predominantly 18-35 year old white males, which, coincidentally, appeals primarily to other 18-35 year old white males.

While finding positive activities to focus on should help, I think we can be even more successful if we work on finding niches that need to be filled.

I’m not claiming my ideals are novel or that none of this is being undertaken. CFI Vancouver is launching a book club under my fiancée and my coordination next month, and the Saskatoon Freethinkers have been pioneering secular parenting in Canada with a Secular Parenting meetup and a Freethinker Family summer camp.

Not every event needs to be about debunking woo or bashing religion or drinking in the pub. We need events for mothers, fathers, singles, women, and children.

Heck, even just having a secular equivalent to Sunday School would allow many parents to come to events who wouldn’t otherwise make it.

These things aren’t hard to do (first-aid training and child care licensing are not difficult to obtain) but are just not always in the minds of people who mainly plan events to fit what they would want to do (something I’ve been guilty of too). On the basis of the increased membership alone, it’s worth at least trying to diversify our appeal.

So far I’ve discussed the issue of non-active atheists and how the cynical skeptics and their tone may keep them from joining and being active in our organizations. Today, I hope to outline some constructive ideas for starting to build these communities.

The benefits of community building that result from collectively bashing religion are not limited to negative activities. It is very possible, and in fact relatively easy to build a community on positive and constructive discussions. There’s a few ways to build such a community, and I think each of them can help a group break out of a funk of deconstructive cynicism.

A great example is that of the Students for Freethought (notice their relatively kick-ass website) at Ohio State University. For two years in a row, their group has paired with a campus Christian group and travelled to New Orleans to help with the ongoing reconstruction efforts since Hurricane Katrina. While not every group needs to pair with Christians, the positive emphasis on charity work and (literal) community building is something I think every secular group out there should emulate.

I also appreciate non-religious groups that participate and support local Pride Parades (Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver, etc.). It’s great to defend our own community, but the true nobility comes from the solidarity we can show to other minorities who’ve been victim to relentless religious discrimination.

One final thing that I think is of vital importance to establish in BC is a humanist officiant program, mirroring the successful programs in Ontario and several states. These officiants provide guidance and oversee major life events which don’t cease to happen when one leaves their faith. Marriages, deaths and even birth (or naming) ceremonies are already in a large demand for people who don’t want a church service but don’t find a civil / government ceremony to be meaningful enough for them. These ceremonies are a great chance to show how we can use humanism to build communities of like-minded individuals.

Of course there are many, many more ideas and opportunities out there, which all take money and volunteers. The lucky thing is the more services we start to offer and the more people who start to attend and take ownership over the community, the more resources that we will have available.

I’ve hopefully introduced my main concern in the discussion of the non-active atheists and cynical skeptics and how I think we as a community need to find ways to make them feel more welcome in our groups. Today I want to try to discuss one of the major roadblocks for the non-active atheists for them getting involved in existing groups.

I think the issue is not our overall message. There is a documented, large support base for secular groups in Canada, and especially in BC. The idea of limiting religious influence on government and society is generally popular here, and science still commands a reasonable amount of respect.

The issue that I think is keeping many from joining communities is a matter of communication and appearance.

To put it bluntly, the atheist community (science departments as well) suffers from a bloat of members with varying social deficiencies. We have a number of charismatic speakers (James Randi, Phil Plait) but at the local level, a number of people either forget or do not realize that many people are not won over by a mere resuscitation of facts and logical arguments.

What separates Phil Plait from an IRL internet troll is not an ability to create and use logical arguments, but the skill at which they are applied to discussions with other human beings. Being a douche bag may be very self-satisfying, but when a group is fighting for a broader social change, lacking the ability to actually interact with people is something that just needs to be accepted.

Hell, it’s even scientifically wrong to think that throwing facts at someone will change their mind. People get entrenched in their position and will defend it, no matter how irrational.

Tone matters

Don’t get my message wrong. I support the New Atheist approach to demonstrating that it’s okay to challenge the taboo of belief, but there is definitely a time and place for everything.

An organization that wants to be taken seriously as a community beyond belief needs to conduct itself differently than the members within it. If I want to make fun of religion and be a dick, that’s just fine, but I think larger groups need to be aware of what their audience is.

If we only want to appeal to hardcore, angry, stereotypical atheists, then attacking religion is just fine. But I think if our goal is to attract a larger audience, we need to tread lightly.

Perhaps it means that angry atheist groups and compassionate humanists groups would be more successful apart, but I think until our (active) numbers are much larger, fragmentation represents a reduction in the resources available to any one group.

The key concern I’m trying to address with this series is: Why would atheists who generally agree with our positions feel unwelcome at an average skeptics event (based on the various ones that I’ve been to, but likely generalizable to other communities, with exceptions of course)?

I think the issue, and it’s one that I’m as equally guilty of as anyone, comes from the tone and level of discourse at these events.

I’ve found that when you put a group of atheists in a room together who have a general dislike of religion that they tend to get pretty vocal about their dislikes, especially regarding religion. I think it has to do with the liberating feeling of knowing that you can broach a taboo topic like religion and not experience any negative social repercussions. Of course, to those a little less critical (or maybe just vocal about it), these situations can get uncomfortable and will basically appear as a bitch fest where belief is torn to shreds.

So our events tend to get tainted by a cynical skepticism. By cynicism, I’m not referring to a tacit denial of anything out there in the realm of possibilities, but a more negative attitude that can infect a conversation whereby the discussions tend to focus on the problems of irrationality and superstition and can quickly denigrate into all-out dickesh mocking (be sure to read PZ Myers’ The Dick Delusion).

And while I have nothing inherently against being a bunch of dicks and mocking religion (it can often be fun), it doesn’t necessarily accomplish much (at least in the group meeting setting) and potentially represents a threat to a groups longevity.

The other issue with relying on the negative discussions to hold the community together is that it creates a clique. It’s natural to want to talk to and associate predominantly with your closest friends in any group, but the danger lies in the raised bar for entry into the club. Shyer potential members can easily have difficulty engaging in discussions when everyone seems to know everyone else and you’re left on the outside of the room, and less likely to return next time.

Benefits of the cynicism

I should also recognize some of the positives of negative discussions before people get the idea that this entire series is going to be a soft-accomadationist piece about tone (more on tone tomorrow).

For many, a meeting at a campus atheist group is the first time they can actually say aloud that they think religion is stupid (this was especially the case in Alberta). Having that peer group that completely agrees with you, and often encourages you, is helpful. It can build self-confidence in ones atheism/skepticism and establish the fact that it’s okay to not believe in unsupported superstitions and better to be good without god.

Out of these discussions can come some great ideas for the group to take on. Whether it’s mocking an attempt at a documentary or chalking to defend free speech.

[This post is part of a week-long series from July 24-30 about issues within the secular community. The introduction can be read here.]

Yesterday I outlined my basic goals for this series, today I hope to outline the main issue that I’ve had on my mind and a possible first response (that I reject).

This series was partially inspired by a conversation I had the other day with a group of what could be called “non-active” atheists, basically those who don’t believe in a god but don’t see a reason for being involved in the atheist or skeptics community/movement. This had me thinking for the rest of the day: What do groups like the Centre for Inquiry or campus skeptic/atheist really have to offer non-active atheists?

Of course there’s stock answers like what’s written on the CFI Canada website:

We are an educational charity with a legal mandate to educate and provide training to the public in the application of skeptical, secular, rational, and humanistic enquiry through conferences, symposia, lectures, published works and the maintenance of a library, and to develop communities where like-minded individuals can meet and share their experiences. We focus on three broad areas: 1. Religion, Ethics and Society, 2. Pseudoscience, Paranormal and Fringe-science claims, 3. Medicine and Health

But for most people with families, careers and a handful of other hobbies, “conferences, symposia, lectures and published works” will hold little appeal. It’s great to have educational aspects (and I am by no means advocating an end to CFI’s lecture series or conferences), and to inspire inquiry into these topics, but for many people, I get a sense that such events hold little reward. If I had a full-time job, 1.5 kids, exercised 30 minutes per day, and went vacationing every once in a while, I doubt that I would be able (or willing) to find time to attend lectures and conferences.

In Canada, nearly a third of people under 30 are non-religious and in Vancouver the number jumps to almost 50%. This should represent a large target demographic for secular and skeptics groups looking to expand, yet there still seems to be a ceiling much lower than this on both membership and donations.

The “live and let live” mentality

The easy way to dismiss that any issue here exists is to proceed under a “live and let live” philosophy. Basically, this consists of viewing the non-active secularists as generally onside with the issues secularists care about, so there is no real need to preach to the converted. They can be seen as a soft-support base which will support our issues at the voting booth.

Immediately though, I find this view is a bit naive. The first complaint I have is that I’m not convinced that non-active atheists are generally onside with secularists issues. In fact, many view the criticism of religion as needlessly offensive (along the lines of the accommadationists), and have in their own minds a “live and let live” mentality with regards to religious and superstitious people. Of course there’s also the portion of the greater non-religious community that worships “energy” and other obscure forms of mysticism (or whatever Oprah peddles that week).

I think there’s even evidence that the non-active atheists don’t really support us. Many of the non-active atheists would likely disagree with the us as to the severity of the crisis of ignorance in society. Conservatives who preach creationism, homophobia and anti-science rhetoric are continually elected. It’s easy to take solace living outside the United States, but we shouldn’t forget that our Minister of State for Science is a former chiropractor who is unsure how old the Earth is. But the argument of whether we should care about secular issues is a topic for another time (I think so).

Another issue with this mentality is that it dismisses our our potential support base and neglects the requirement of any organization to have members, volunteers and donors. At the very least, without people to come to the events, the lecture halls will be empty and the organization will represent nothing but a social clique. But more on that later.

So for me, the issue with the “live and let live” mentality is dangerous because of the worry that those who seek to establish a society based on superstitions (be they religious or woo-based) will get their way while our potential allies sleep.