Thanks for the free advertising Drasonak!

Well I'll say that it would be great to have things like debates back however, there could be people like that are not as highly as educated as others. Me being an example since I only graduated from high school so I obviously wouldn't know what to say besides agree and bring nothing to the table.

As for having an atheist community like this one, I see nothing wrong with it. I seen other kind of religious forums out there on the Internet so why can't we have ours? It's not causing any harm IMO.

I agree that the Internet does provide us with a lot of information that we can use when we want to discuss something.

I think that Q&A thread would be a great idea since people like me can learn more about religion and other stuff. I'm getting tired of those OT threads as well, there are users there who don't take anything serious (trolls), refuse to understand, and repeat the same damn things. Also yes I do agree that upsetting someone because of what they believe is also a problem, I'm just glad this union is not like OT.

Education level has nothing to do with it - it depends on what you're educated in. There are some very intelligent theists on the planet.

The relentless bellittling of other religious people on OT by a supposed "atheist" community here is hard for me to take. I guess attempting some sort of intellectual superiority is of value to them. I don't think atheists are necessarily intellectually superior and many of those tossing their bile towards religious people actually are showing inferior traits to me. They have nothing to do with being atheist and much to do with self-aggrandisement.

For #2, "Why is it seen as a bad thing?" I think is because people of faith feel threatened when given any slight criticism of their beliefs and they usually know they can't legitimately backup their claims without looking bad. That and uneducated views about what it means to be a person without a faith. I see it all the time on The Atheist Experience show, on interviews with Richard Dawkins, and in debates with the Four Horseman of Reason on youtube. People just make assumptions about poeple like ourselves here in this union and either attack us or wish to avoid us alltogether. I heard from Sam Harris (one of the prominent non believers in the world today, if you didn't know of him) that atheists (or people of non faith in general) are the 2nd most 'untrusted' group of people in America.

I agree with Sam Harris that maybe the word Atheism needs to be thrown out. It has a stigma attached to it, and it's sad that such a term has to even exist. We don't make groups or labels for non-biologists, for example. The word atheist carries so much unnecessary weight and that's perhaps why you don't see as many people engaging here as we'd like. I would like to thank Mindstorm for showing up now and then, though. He certainly broke the barrier.

1. What could we do to get more visitors and contributors? As great as it is to have what is essentially an atheist circle-jerk (excuse my rudeness, but that is essentially what it is), in order to truly have some productive, meaningful discussion, we need people who either genuinely believe in an opposing view point, or can successfully argue as if they did. I was thinking that we should bring back debates, but do so more informally, and without set users on certain sides. Give everyone a chance to contribute, and do so as many times as they wish for either side.

It may be hard to get a lot of new visitors/contributors simply due to the fact that unions are waning in popularity as a whole. However I suspect that we may be able to attract some new users, or users of different perspectives, by turning this more into a general religious debate/discussion union. I don't know the mechanics of that (union name changing, etc.) or if that would even be possible, and it may move the union away from its original intention as a gathering place for free thinkers.

Someone could also just design a cool banner to put in everyone's signature! I'd do that if I wasn't so out of practice with Photoshop.

2. The Drasonak thread brought up another point I've been thinking about for the last little while (a few weeks). Why is an atheist community, whether on the internet or in real life, considered a bad thing? Why shouldn't atheists come together and form a coalition that fights against anti-science movements, for human rights and equality, or just general ignorance of religion/irreligion? I've seen this concept be described negatively by both religious and non-religious types, and don't see the issue. What about atheists that share similar views, gathering in a group, doing atheist-type things together, is bad or negative?

I guess a growing population of atheists can be somewhat blamed for the negative light cast on "atheist communities" online or otherwise. A lot of religious people (very evidently) feel threatened by this. I have no problem with it. I do think coming together as a "gathering of atheists" is a bit odd, though, in the same way as a gathering of religious people of mixed belief would be odd. It may not be directly analogous, but people who share a specific religion often have social and political views in common, where as atheists (being defined by a lack of belief) can be of a broad spectrum of other standings, politically and otherwise, even going so far as to have varying degrees of aversion/acceptance toward religion.

I would say having something like, for instance, a secular humanist union would make much more sense to me personally. However, I generally have a "live and let live" policy, and there is definitely no real harm in atheists coming together as a community. Out of curiosity though, what are some examples of things you would consider "atheist-type things"?

I'm not making fun of you. Just wondering.:P