Cancellation of the 2018 Global Atheist Convention called a massive blow to the Atheist Foundation of Australia

In my previous post, I wrote about the cancellation of the 2018 Global Atheist Convention which was sponsored by the Atheist Foundation of Australia (see: The 2018 Global Atheist Convention has been cancelled. Substantially lower ticket sales was given as the reason. ).

Robert Martin from Melbourne’s City Bible Forum indicated about the cancellation of the 2018 Global Atheist Convention: "This is a massive blow to the Atheist Foundation as an organisation and to organised atheism in Australia. Where to next? What do they stand for?”

According to Martin, fragmentation within today's atheist movement in Australia is a key reason that the convention may have been difficult to sell. 

2016  Reason Rally was a failure in terms of attendance

The 2018 Global Atheist Convention has been cancelled. Substantially lower ticket sales was given as the reason. The boring nature of atheist conferences was not mentioned

The 2018 Global Atheist Convention has been cancelled.,

 According to the Atheist Foundation of Australia, Inc.

The Convention Committee secured Victorian government funding, a great program of speakers and the same venue that housed the successful 2010 and 2012 conventions. With those elements, the AFA proceeded with the Convention. However, ticket sales have been substantially below expectations and below the levels for previous conventions, so, unfortunately, the Convention cannot proceed.

In the article Atheists are boring snoozefests. Incontrovertible proof!, I wrote about how boring atheists/atheism are/is. 

 The atheist Jeremiah Traeger wrote about atheist conferences:  

"As for conferences, I could imagine a number of reasons why they are getting smaller. Isn’t it possible that atheism, as a movement, just isn’t really as exciting or novel as it was 7 or 10 years ago?" 

The atheist Jerry Coyne said about atheist conferences which he attended:

But to me the speakers and talks have often seemed repetitive: the same crew of jet-set skeptics giving the same talks. 

...a few things bothered me, most notably the air of self-congratulation( which I excused on the grounds of enthusiastic people finding like-minded folks for the first time), the “fanboyness” directed at some of the famous atheists (they hardly let poor Richard alone, and I’m not sure he liked that!), and the lameness of quite a few of the talks. Again, how much new can you say about atheism?^[

Atheist David Smalley wrote relating to atheist infighting: "And we wonder why we’re losing elections, losing funding, and our conferences are getting smaller."

In 2017, The atheist activist Lee Moore said about atheist conferences, "Most conferences are gone now.They're either gone or in some kind of life support form."

Atheist activist Seth Andrews keeps seeing reports on social media and the media that the atheist movement is dying

The atheist activist Seth Andrews indicated that when looks around on social media and the media he is seeing reports that the atheist movement is dying. 

In his video entitled Is the atheist movement dying? Andrews declared:

You know lately when I look around on social media and in the media in general really. I see these proclamations. Proclamations that the atheist movement is on life support. It's dying. It's probably beyond saving. 

Now I know some people out there are very weary of all the public infighting and the squabbling and the division and just the general nastiness out there between various camps. And I totally get that. I totally get it. 

Some people draw a big circle around New Atheism... And they declare New Atheism is dead or it's dying or irrelevant or whatever... 

As an atheist activist myself, I can understand myself why some activists have just left the party... 

They just got tired of it. All the politics and the posturing and the trolls and the bad faith operators out there. They have seen first hand that atheists are not immune to scandal, to ugliness to irrationality. To this unhealthy rage.

 In 2017, the atheist activist Lee Moore declared about American atheist organizations:

If you look at the major atheist groups right now, like the national groups, the ones that are doing the real activist work... They are not bringing in the kind of donations they used to. Most of them are starved for cash. They're downsizing left and right. Because people aren't just giving like they used to. And I talked to a lot of the major donors out there and they said, "Well, we're kind of tired of seeing the atheist community just fight amongst itself and not really get anything done. We'd rather not give money if we don't think it's going to go somewhere.

Picture credits for Grim Reaper picture atop page:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CathedralOfTrier_Skeleton.JPG

Description

	English: Statue in the Cathedral of Trier, Germany
Date	April 2006
Source	Own work
Author	Jbuzbee

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

Atheism, loneliness and depression

The atheist activist Seth Andrews candidly admitted: "Religion does community and activism and it does it really well."

The atheist Guy Stagg wrote in The Telegraph:

It shows that, although secularists have realised that they cannot simply be defined by opposition to religion, nevertheless they have little to offer in its place. Crucially the secular tradition has no successful institutions to preserve and spread its principles. 

This is something that few secularists admit: atheism is quite lonely. Not just existentially, but socially as well. Secularism does not offer the sense of fellowship you find in religion. Watching old Christopher Hitchensdebates on YouTube with a like-minded sceptic is entertaining, but I doubt it's as nourishing as Sunday Mass.

National Public Radio interviewed the African-American atheist Jamila Bey and the host of the interview said:

...for a couple of centuries, African-American culture has been imbued with Christianity. The church figured prominently in both the abolitionist and civil rights movements. And today in many communities, the Christian church continues to be the nucleus of black life. 

So, what about the black nonbelievers? It's one isolating experience, according to Jamila Bey.

In December 2003, the University of Warwick reported:

Dr. Stephen Joseph, from the University of Warwick, said: "Religious people seem to have a greater purpose in life, which is why they are happier. Looking at the research evidence, it seems that those who celebrate the Christian meaning of Christmas are on the whole likely to be happier.

The website Adherents.com reported about atheism and suicide:

Pitzer College sociologist Phil Zuckerman compiled country-by-country survey, polling and census numbers relating to atheism, agnosticism, disbelief in God and people who state they are non-religious or have no religious preference. These data were published in the chapter titled "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns" in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). In examining various indicators of societal health, Zuckerman concludes about suicide:"Concerning suicide rates, this is the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health 

Organization's report on international male suicides rates (which compared 100 countries), of the top ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, all but one (Sri Lanka) are strongly irreligious nations with high levels of atheism. It is interesting to note, however, that of the top remaining nine nations leading the world in male suicide rates, all are former Soviet/Communist nations, such as Belarus, Ukraine, and Latvia. Of the bottom ten nations with the lowest male suicide rates, all are highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism.