kitty_tape

I often see people speaking as if atheists have some sort of group identity. A useful fact to know: we don't, except in so far as it is forced upon us by society.

Atheists are less like a coherent group and more like people who refuse the bags at the grocery store. We bag rejectors have some commonalities, e.g. most of us use cloth bags. We are happiest when people just give us the time to indicate that we do not want to participate in their plastic bag rituals, and most of the time people do. But some people start grouping us together as "liberal tree hugging hippies", and at that point we have to start acting as a group and try to get bag rejectors treated like normal people. Yes, we hope that more will join us along the way and we realize that telling people they are dirtying up our sidewalks will make us unpopular. Some of us will cringe at the inaccuracy of statements that imply that plastic bags are single handedly destroying the planet. We do not speak in one voice; we do not even have shared goals. Some will want to get everyone using reusable bags. Others will just want to open people up to the idea that this might be a good thing. Still others just want to be able to go on their grocery trip without, once again, confusing the clerk and getting dirty looks from other customers for slowing down the line. However, we all recognize that, regardless of the particular statements we make, the only way to accomplish our goals is to get out there where people will see us.