Ok, I guess I was wondering if the goal is to widen your community or if you are just happy with it being the comfortable size it is?
Re: Forum Goal?
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 1:31 pm
by Irrev-Black
Theisticproatheist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2024 1:28 pm
Ok, I guess I was wondering if the goal is to widen your community or if you are just happy with it being the comfortable size it is?
That depends entirely on individuals.
Poon's Chinese Restaurant in Footscray has (or had, when I was last there) a quote on the wall.
"All people bring happiness into our lives. Some have merely to walk in..."
An earlier incarnation of the forum was, by affiliation at least, dedicated to the promotion of atheism, but these days it's not part of the brief AFAIK. Our numbers have shrunk and the forum has come close to extinction at times, but there are enough of us who like sharing our thoughts to keep it alive. We enjoy a few common interests, and we accept contrary views of other members... to a point. On occasion some users have felt the need to make an issue of their differences and won't let it go, they just have to double down. They've ended up parting ways with us, I miss a few of them, but not all. We had one very nasty person who was pretty much a racist and tried to enact an elaborate revenge plot after we chased him away. The utter futility of his efforts was about the best part about that whole episode.
A salient point in the link from Mr Black above is that we've sort of exhausted the topic of atheism. There's only so much you can say about a thing that you DON'T believe in. OTOH, I do still enjoy a little bit of rhetorical biffo, perhaps in the same way that exponents of Glima (traditional Icelandic wrestling) persist with the sport more than a century after its only appearance at the Olympic games in 1912.
Re: Forum Goal?
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 4:37 pm
by Irrev-Black
stylofone wrote: ↑Mon Jun 10, 2024 2:40 pm(SnippoTM, the Wonder Abbreviator! Try it on your sesquipedalian quotes today!)
A salient point in the link from Mr Black above is that we've sort of exhausted the topic of atheism. There's only so much you can say about a thing that you DON'T believe in. OTOH, I do still enjoy a little bit of rhetorical biffo, perhaps in the same way that exponents of Glima (traditional Icelandic wrestling) persist with the sport more than a century after its only appearance at the Olympic games in 1912.
Yeah, I still have the theological reflexes, but I care more about racists and fascists in religious guise these days than I do about how many imaginary beings can dance on a pinhead.
Re: Forum Goal?
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2024 5:03 pm
by pipbarber
I'm far more interested in the political than the religious, or non-religious, as the case may be. Personally, i'd rather hang out in RL with a religious person whose politics were progressive and compassionate than an atheist that voted for Trump (by way of example). Off topic perhaps, but i do occasionally hang out with a Uniting Church minister and we've had some great conversations about American politics (he's from Canada originally). The topic of religious belief has never come up, he's never asked, it's not impossible that he's secretly an atheist actually, but anyway.
I know nothing of forum goals, but i check in everyday because this place is a great resource for relevant media stories both political and scientific and also analysis and opinion from my fellow forum members. I certainly don't see a missionising aspect here. The new atheists of 15-20 years ago (almost) all turned out to be right wing grifters and conservative assholes and that's not my bag, so fuck them.
Maybe there is no purpose here beyond it being a small online community, and that's all it can ever be, and that's ok. But i'm definitely open to new contributors and members, it's just not something that can be forced, imo.