Did anyone else ever fantasize about creating a community of non-believers? I’ve envisioned a compound where each freethinking resident has his or her own private home and where we build a community center where group activities/events can take place. Despite the emphasis on community, residents could choose to be as social or anti-social as they please. The need for solitude would be respected. Sometimes I’ve even gone so far as to begin conjuring the streets in the compound: there’d be Carl Sagan Way, Bertrand Russell Boulevard, Susan B. Anthony Trail, W.E.B. Du Bois Street, Bart D. Ehrman Alley and Aldous Huxley Byway. We’d invite guest speakers to address us in the theater that would be part the community center—speakers such as Elon Musk, Daniel Day Lewis, Julia Sweeney, Ann Druyan, Vincent Bugliosi and Dan Barker. Freethinkers from the musical and entertainment worlds would perform for us, then stick around after their gigs to share fellowship in our community living room (complete with a stone fireplace, comfy couches and overstuffed armchairs, a bar and crystal dishes laden with joints or weed brownies). The village would be handicapped-accessible, of course, and all ages of non-believers would be welcomed to live there. The arts would be championed and encouraged. Gun ownership would be prohibited (uh-oh, I just lost some of you!), and we’d have our own school(s), grades K through senior high, staffed by eminently qualified freethinkers. School sports would finally take a backseat to students’ intellectual pursuits. Oh, I could go on and on, but how attractive my fantasy scenario seems! Just to clarify, I’m not stoned or drunk at the moment, just a bit giddy from a lively conversation that took place over our vegan dinner tonight. I’m certainly not foolish enough to think there wouldn’t be problems within our imagined community, but I don’t think there’d be as many, or of the same depth or of the same ilk as the problems that exist in the “outer world”. I suppose I started ruminating about all this while re-reading “Atlas Shrugged” several years back and getting off on the concept of “Galt’s Gulch”. Before I receive some excoriating responses to this post, I am no longer kindly disposed toward Ayn Rand as I was as a callow youth just emerging from a sheltered but rocky adolescence. Rand was, after all, a horrible, horrible person in many ways. A late friend of mine was Ayn’s cousin, and boy did I get an earful from her (the cuz)! Anyway . . . Just wondering if any of you have had fantasies similar to mine.
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22 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Its called Norway , Belgium, Sweden and the other Norwegion countries
benhmiller
Level 7
June 11, 2018
6
Constantly!!! But not just one community! I fantasize about pulling a full "Buckminster Fuller" by creating an international humanistic "nonreligion" (organization) with "churches" (humanist community centers) that offer an alternative to every religious churchgoer who really just wants community!!! There would be potlucks and preschools! Outreach programs for homebound members. Every kind of community service imaginable, all in the name of HUMANITY!!! We would buy hospitals and create colleges....do everything the religious organizations do now....to entice people to the "light", but not by bashing religion; but by purely offering the logical alternative. When I fantasize, I GO BIG!!!!!
Humanist5
Level 6
June 11, 2018
5
Throw in a nearby beach, reasonably priced massage, and free streaming services and I'm in.
David1955
Level 8
June 10, 2018
6
Yes. I still love, without shame, my modern day creature comforts.
you didn't lose me on the gun prohibition
HeraTera
Level 7
June 10, 2018
5
I have one but would readily get rid of it for such a lifestyle. I think happiness would preclude it’s usefulness. However, I also don’t think the national problem is gun ownership so much as NRA worship.
My secular community fantasy only consisted of a community resource center, for gatherings, events, support for living a secular life in a religious community, etc., It didn't extend to living quarters or anything like what you're describing.
I'm not sure I'd want to live in the community you describe, but it might make a fun vacation destination, to socialize with like-minded folks, hear secular speakers, see agnostic entertainers. etc.
Julie808
Level 8
June 11, 2018
4
I lived those fantasies with other commune-members in the early 70s. We were all dreamers, nudists, and free-thinkers who had rejected the stifling restrictions of society. At least that's how we dreamed it would be. But the dream was lovelier than the reality since the human drama doesn't exist in my imagination. I loved it for about a year. But I'm a hybrid introvert so maybe that's why it didn't work for me in the long run. LLOL
josephr
Level 7
June 11, 2018
3
OR, just move to Thailand. Or Japan. Or Canada. Or Australia.
The US seems to be unique in being aggressively "Christian."
birdingnut
Level 8
June 10, 2018
3
Yeah, I thought of Thailand, especially reasonably priced massage. No gods, just Bhuddas, thankfully. You should know that national religion here in Australia is worship of the US. No heretics allowed.
@David1955 Hopefully you don't do the sex tourist thing in Thailand, exploiting the local girls. Their families are often in debt to wealthy land owners who force parents to allow them to use their daughters in the sex trade.
@birdingnut I meant traditional Thai massage, generally a few hundred baht, in respectable places where that is provided. One to two hours on my bad back does it the world of good. I miss it. Therapeutic massage here is too expensive. I know and agree with you about the sex trade there.
@birdingnut iknew a guy who went to Thailand and had a " girlfriend" 7 years alter he died of aids related
@birdingnut, @David1955 the are Bhuddas everywhere
Yep @Ravenct and I have been talking about this for a while now! ?
OpposingOpposum
Level 9
June 11, 2018
3
All of the time! And people love this idea.
One of my "if I won the lottery" dreams was to build a permanent facility for atheists. I used to belong to an atheist "church" called HCOF (Houston Church of Freethought" They only meet once a month at a motel meeting room, and had no facility of their own. So, providing a permanent facility was on my mind at one time. I'm sure in some academic circles, something close to this exists. Well, a community of Freethinkers that is.
novoxguy
Level 6
June 11, 2018
2
I would happily give such a place a number of years before passing judgment. Yes, let’s find a place and do it. Possibly it could begin as a camping society until people could put down tiny houses?
rainmanjr
Level 8
June 11, 2018
0
@RobLawrence Those who have RV's could provide bathroom facilities until we could build our own. Waste is more a problem than showering, I'd guess. I also don't like spiders but don't know what to say about that. Check your bag before getting in.
Had me till the gun ownership thing
Dfox
Level 4
June 10, 2018
1
if there is peace no need for guns
Dfox:
@benhmiller well that doesn't add in sportsman hunters or people who just like guns.
I read it. she was addicted to diet pills the speed of the time. her writing reads like it. yes she is horrible and also collect social security and Medicare. What she said was" It is my money I earned it". which is true how ever she bad mouthed the system her whole life. It is a lousy book and goes on and on. like she was on speed she could have edited it down about a third. and also sickening. what a horrible world . And weird not one she would belong to
squiggy_70
Level 6
June 10, 2018
1
What are eminently qualified freethinkers? Sounds very elitist. And you are stuck with a very bourgeois notion of education. Your fantasy seems to be very controlled. I like the idea of a freethinkers' community, but your's has a few elements of an Anglo-vegan gulag.
PontifexMarximus
Level 8
June 12, 2018
0
I don’t want to be any where there are “others” that aren’t welcome. I have a problem with we are better than they are on any level. We aren’t neither are they.
I stopped reading at Elon Musk ... Why would you want to invite him?
PontifexMarximus
Level 8
June 12, 2018
0
@RobLawrence Initially I was struck by Elon Musk ... Then I read more and was somewhat befuddled ... From memory Betrand Russel was not all that in favour of the traditional education. I appreciate your further comment.
@RobLawrence I didn't know much about him until I learned about the TESLA brand. About half a year ago I saw a TESLA monster on display in an shopping centre and I was utterly disappointed just by the sheer weight and the dimensions of the wheels. Old fashioned designs just hyped up. More than 4500 pounds to move mainly a driver.
Then I read about Mister Musk catapulting his car into space and all I could think of was Oh, what a wanker
Why would you include Vincent Bugliosi? I'm not aware of any secular views of his. I am aware very much of his legal clean up work for the US Establishment, specifically the Robert Kennedy assassination, and his Manson Trial tale of deflection and misdirection that he maintained right up to his death.
David1955
Level 8
June 11, 2018
0
@RobLawrence in return I'll check about any connection to agnosticism. I've never heard that. You should know that more and more people consider his book Helter Skelter on the Manson murders ( he was lead prosecutor ) to be as much fiction as real. Hardly a work of truth.
Really? Are you aware that his followers admitted to the killings? The killings also stopped after Manson was arrested. Coincidence? I read HS and thought it was very good.
@rainmanjr no, you misunderstand me. I've read everything on the subject. I'm not saying Manson and his cult weren't guilty, for heavens sake. I sign petitions to keep them in prison. But the full context of Manson's connections and some of his main murderers, like Tex Watson, and other aspects of the murders were manipulated by Bugliosi, and those who have looked into it now know about this. His book saw version of the truth, leaving out what the powers that be wanted to keep quiet. He was an Establishment man.
@RobLawrence interesting, thanks. Now I think of it I do recall that he was not religious. Well, everyone has a secret. Great prosecutor, but his record is much questioned, especially on Kennedy and on the cover story he spun on Manson. I don't say Manson wasn't guilty; a more evil creature has never existed. But the whole story, well that's something else.
Are you going to allow mystics and believers in the paranormal into your commune? Aldous Huxley was both, and he was an active member of a Hindu religious group in California, yet you are naming a street after him. I know that he coined the word “agnostic”, and described himself as one such, so maybe he qualifies as a nonbeliever, even after writing a religious book like “The Perennial Philosophy”.
Maybe I’ll apply for membership.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
June 10, 2018
0
Not really, no. Because some of the people I respect most and have influenced me greatly in life are not necessarily non-believers. And some of the most thought provoking conversations I've had were with people who are nothing like me. Pursuit of knowledge is a noble goal, I don't see the benefit of voluntarily segregating yourself at its expense.
recluse
Level 4
July 12, 2018
0
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