In the time between sessions, people grab food, buy books (everyone’s promoting a book here), and talk to each other. Check out the photo — that’s a lot of atheists, that’s for sure.
I used to think that atheists were usually ex-believers (because who else would care?), but here I’ve met quite a few folks who have never been religious and still identify closely with the aims (loosely defined though they are) of the atheist movement.
There’s quite a connection between political liberalism and atheism. There are but few conservatives here. There was a funny moment where Philip Adams asked for a show of hands: Who’s politically left-of-center? Thousands of hands. Everyone I could see. Conservatives? I couldn’t see everything from my vantage point, but I could see maybe one or two hands out of thousands. I think there are also more vegetarians. I wish there were a survey going around. It would say some interesting things about the more committed atheists, anyway.
I also met Sarah from the Australian Sex Party. Slogan: “Where you come first!” Yes, that’s right. In Australia, there are many political parties, and your vote is not wasted if you vote for a smaller party, because votes from non-winning parties flow on to your next preference. If America used Instant Run-off Voting, they could have a sex party too!
At first, I thought “Australia Sex Party. Right. Catchy.” I actually wondered what they were doing there, since it seemed kind of orthagonal to atheism. But when I read their platform, I thought, “Hey, wait a minute, I support lots of these!” They’re for things like:
- Equal marriage for gay people
- Convening a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in the nation’s religious institutions
- No government-sponsored Internet filter
- Better sex education in schools
which I think lots of atheists would be down with.
Atheist conservatives: here’s your chance to make yourselves known in comments.
14 March 2010 at 8:59 am
Awesome, thanks for introducing me to the ASP. I think this will be very useful in my preparations for teaching Health Studies at high school level.
14 March 2010 at 9:04 am
Just be sure and check the site yourself first. There may be dodgy things back there, and sex + high school students is political dynamite.
17 March 2010 at 2:49 pm
Absolutely. I was thinking of it as a resource for me rather than the students. To get a sense of the current issues.
11 June 2010 at 10:31 am
I'm obviously pretty late to the party, but I've only just stumbled across this blog. Looking for an atheist conservative? Well, here's one! I've been an atheist my entire life and I'm a die-hard conservative.
But conservatism gets such a bad name these days. The movement is full of religious nutjobs wanting a controlling government that can place all of God's restrictions on the people. However, for me (and a lot of other people, you'll be glad to know), conservatism equals small government and a free market, with a focus on border protection, prosperous capitalism, and individualism instead of collectivism: essentially the core values of the Australian Liberal Party. Not a trace of religion or social oppression at all. It's not the typical definition of conservatism that one would find in a neo-con populated America, but absolutely valid and absolutely right-wing. And in Western Australia especially, people like us seem to be quite prevalent.
So yeah, I just thought I'd share and maybe that will give you a tiny shred more faith (ha!) in us right-wingers 🙂