From: Randy Smith (randysmith101@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jan 21 2002 - 17:59:52 MST
>From: "Clint O'Dell" <clint@freethoughtradio.com>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>To: <extropians@extropy.org>
>Subject: I Want To Disbelieve
>Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 19:03:10 -0500
>
>This article was printed in Portfolio Weekly (January 22nd issue) and
>written by D.D. Delaney.
>
>I Want To Disbelieve
>
>PAT ROBERTSON, take note. A young man has come to Virginia Beach with a
>mission to make the world safe for atheists and free-thinking secular
>humanists, and his organizational model is the Christian Coalition.
>
>Clint O'Dell is just getting started, but, like Pat before him, he hopes to
>go far. He has a vision of a global Atheist Coalition, with its own
>broadcasting system, charities, and a political agenda to defeat
>faith-based
>legislative initiatives and elect atheists to high office.
>
>Describing himself, at 23, as "the youngest atheist activist there is,"
There are younger--Micah White, for instance....but who cares?
>O'Dell believes there is an atheist awakening dawning in America.
>
>I'm hoping to pick up (that) slow-moving ball," he says, "put it in a
>cannon, strike a match, and set off that cannon."
That is going to be MIGHTY slow mover...but we ahve to start somewhere.
>
>In partnership with like-minded Lauren Floyd of Chesapeake, he has put out
>a
>call for all doubters, skeptics, and non-believers to attend the first
>meeting of Freethinkers and Atheists of Virginia on Sunday, Jan. 27, from
>1-3 p.m. in the auditorium of the Virginia Beach Central Library.
>
>The organization's purpose, O'Dell says, is to achieve legitimacy for
>atheism and "to promote secular values." Membership is open to "anyone who
>is for helping to make America become more secular."
>
>"We have no idea" how many people might turn out for the first meeting,
>says
>Floyd, who, at 43, is O'Dell's senior partner in the start-up. "Getting
>atheists to join a group is kind of like trying to herd cats. They're
>typically individualists, suspicious of any organized group."
Atheists have been the subject iof a few studies; one recent one said that
atheists were by nature less dependent on other people. So therefore they
are not joiners; therefore they do not organize....
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