The SSA Is Our Future

BY R ICH AR D CAR R IER / ON JUN E 6, 2012 / 8 COMMENTS

The Secular Student Alliance has become the most superb institution for promoting and supporting young atheists, at
both the college and now high school level. This is more than just a campus group. The future of atheism rests in their
hands, and they are doing more than any other organization on earth to actually increase the number of atheists who are
out, active, and organized, while providing them with the informational and logistical support to be out, get organized, and
spread the word. They are the money driving the best meme machine in town. I want you to support them. With money.
Whether it’s just $10 (you can spot a tenner, surely) or $100. Or $500. Or $50,000 (yes, a single donor has ponied up
fifty grand this very day). Oh, and yes, they are a 501(c)(3) charity.

If you aren’t already clicking here to donate and need some persuading (“Why the hell should I give money to
the SSA? Who the frack are they?”), please give me a chance to convince you. Here’s why you should do it…

In just the last year or two the SSA has expanded the number of high school atheist groups from just a handful to over fifty
nationwide, and growing. Fast. And that despite constantly facing opposition from school authorities. They have the clout
and legal resources and know-how to help make it happen. College groups have likewise exploded under their care in the
last decade, from a few dozen to over three hundred, all across the country, and again growing. Fast. The support of the
SSA, whose resources have been brilliantly developed and managed so far, has also greatly increased their retention and
continuity (one of the biggest problems for atheist campus groups, as the originators graduate and move on). Why do
campus groups matter? They give atheism a higher profile and help us recruit more atheists where the market is most
agreeable (the young, the learning). In other words, thanks to the SSA, we can now compete directly withCampus
Crusade for Christ (which is trying to rebrand itself now as the supposedly hip Cru).

But as the SSA mission grows, the cost to continue this trend rises.

As any sociologist will tell you, grabbing the next generation is crucial to defeating religion and superstition. And the iron has
never been hotter, with unprecedented numbers of youth abandoning churches or even religious affiliation and asking
questions about what they should really believe and why. So dire has this problem become that religious orgs are creating a
whole industry to try and fight what they now call the Youth Exodus Problem. And the reasons they are leaving are often
reasons that lead to atheism–at the very least, reasons that show these seekers are much closer to our thinking on many
issues, such as morality and science and questioning of authority (see Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church and
Five Myths on Why Young People Leave the Church). We need to appeal to them and bring them over. They are
willing and ready to listen to us. The time is now.

But the expansion of campus groups serves an even larger need as well: it also creates islands of sanity and friendship and
networking and information-sharing for already-closeted atheists who often feel or think they are alone. It connects them
not just with local atheists but the whole national network of atheists and atheist literature and resources. It gets them
meeting like-minded people and energized about atheist issues (atheist rights, secularization, and other humanist issues from
free speech to social justice), growing our movement and its influence and diversity. (And yes, we are a movement.)

On every objective measure the SSA ismaking real, documented progress. Yet it remains far behind Campus Crusade
for Christ, both in group number and size, and in budget. The CCC has an annual budget in the hundreds of millions of
dollars. The SSA, onlyone million. The CCC has thousands of paid staff. The SSA, fewer than twenty. Recent events
involving the gross oppression and bigotry against atheist high school students (like, but by no means only, Jessica
Ahlquist) expose a real need for national organizations like the SSA to help support them, socially and legally. The
opposition to atheist student groups in high schools has been exposed in several high profile cases (see The Challenges
for High School Atheists for some examples). They need our help. Indeed, the high schools that don’t yet have atheist
groups need it even more (because you know there are atheists there, when clearly they are everywhere else…and the
statistics back this up). College groups matter as well, as that is where the most rapid growth and exposure is possible
(adults having more freedoms).

I can also vouch for the amazing people running the SSA. LikeJT and others have reported, they are an outstanding
bunch who have done a lot of hard work that is much appreciated by students all over the country. I’ve been aware of this
for years, ever since I met Augie for the first time (August E. Brunsman IV, Executive Director), and then I met Debbie
Goddard [who liaisons with SSA for Center for Inquiry On Campus], JT Eberhard, and many other young, energized,
totally cool weirdos making this thing happen. They are not only creating our future, they are already a snapshot of it. They
are competent, dedicated, hard working, and as irreverent as being professionals allows them to be. I trust my money in
their hands. They are turning it into movement gold.

And why now? Because there is a matching offer on the table, up to $250,000 (which might be renewed if the SSA can
raise that). That means for every dollar you give, someone out there will give another. That means your donation is worth
double what you pay for it. The goal set for now is to raise $100,000 by June 16, which will mark the end of what has
become SSA Week, a ten day bonanza of tweeting and blogging, including several wild blogathons here at FtB and
beyond, starting this very day. (I had been planning a plug for SSA for months already and was slated to do one later this
month, but then I heard about this, and decided to get in on it. JT explains why a week became ten days.)

If you want to follow the many blogathons spooling up over the next ten days (some I’m sure will be a marvel to watch,
aiming to blog every half hour for twenty four hours), you can check out the twitter feed at #SSAWeek and the evolving
schedule at the bottom of the SSA Week promo page (the event will be capped by Jen McCreight’s amazing
blogathon on the 16th, her post explaining why and what’s going on).

So get in on this. Support the fight for the future of atheism and against godist madness and superstition. Donate.

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20 QUESTIONS H I S T O R I C I T Y C O U R S E T H I S J U LY

8 comments
B O O K F A N A T I C • JUN E 6 , 201 2, 4:1 8 P M

Only 29% of young adults attend church weekly. Adults under 30 are twice as likely to be an atheist as those
over 30. I think 2/3 of them are male.

In any case the most promising trend for secularism is our youth. The evangelical/fundamentalist anti-science
attitude is something that disturbs and distresses us for good reason. However, in the end I think it will also be
the death of it for young people.

I also think the church attendance statistics that are often used as an indicator of religiosity in the U.S. are
misleading and hide a trend towards secularization. Living in Texas I know a lot of regular church attendees that
appear to live completely secular lives the rest of the week. The fact that you attend church says nothing about
what you really believe. Georges Rey has argued that religious believers don’t act like they really believe. Some
do, but my experience is that many don’t.

R E P LY

ST EVEN GA R MO N • JUN E 6 , 201 2, 7:03 P M

I thought you were planning on answering Thom Stark?

R E P LY

R I C H A R D C A R R I E R • J U N E 7, 2 0 1 2 , 1 1 : 5 3 A M

All in due time.

R E P LY

JAMES C R OF T • JUN E 9 , 201 2, 7:59 AM

I was just inspired to give a little more. The SSA is certainly one of the movement organizations I have the most
respect for – fantastic work, fantastic people. But here’s a question: what do these energized, excited, activist
students do to stay engaged with the movement after they graduate? To me the future of the movement requires
the SSA and a cogent answer to that question.

R E P LY

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • JUN E 1 1 , 201 2, 1 :01 P M

I concur. We have a variety of orgs that meet that need for different demographics. And the
SSA helps get students aware of those orgs and so greatly increases the probability that they
will join and remain connected to one. But the SSA could still push this as a goal (not to get
students to join any specific org, but to get them to think about picking at least one to join
and remaining a member of going forward).

What the orgs themselves can do is (a) work with the SSA in organizing or promoting college
conferences, events, and activities (whether charitable, activist, or just entertainment), and it
does appear that that is happening; and (b) define themselves in a way that fills all niches of
interest and thus all aspects of future interest will be covered and thus available for students to
choose from (and unlike religion, their choices would not have to be exclusive).

That latter task is something that needs doing.

For example, no single national org has stepped up to fill the niche of organizing atheist
charitable giving and volunteering. A few have done little things along those lines, and several
local orgs have done more, but it is self-evident that there is an unexploited market niche for a
skeptical-godless charity org, which collates data on the religiosity and efficiency of existing
charities (Charity Navigator already suffices and would be a major resource to use and
point users to, but it doesn’t vet charities by how much they evangelize or otherwise spend
resources on antiskeptical or superstitious or other undesirable goals, and an org could
devote staff to vetting charities on this dimension, which might be two dimensions, “secularity”
and “scientificity,” which would be a great service to atheists; it could also put front-and-
center charities that directly serve secular interests like the SSA, the NCSE, or FFRF),
pipelines access (using a centralized website to help connect atheists with existing charities,
e.g. Habitat for Humanity for volunteer work; Red Cross for monetary giving; etc.),logs and
promotes actual atheist charitable works (e.g. AOF of Sacramento runs a soup kitchen
every month, etc., info atheists might like to know about and that might inspire more orgs to
do similar things), and perhaps eventually even organizes its own charitable works (although it
should focus on the first three tasks before moving on to the much more challenging task
four).

There are other niches that could be filled and thus served besides that one, and existing orgs
are best positioned to parcel out which ones they are best at (and then get cracking at
meeting the need in that niche well).

These need to take into account the one single difference between atheism as a movement
and religions: we are scattered geographically and thus do not have concentrated
communities. That’s why we don’t have a church-building model of movement growth: such a
model depends on at least two hundred active atheists being within walking or very short
driving distance of the central meeting hub; we just don’t have communities of that geographic
density yet, and this limits what we can do, not just in organizing and movement building but
also in atheist charity work–our community is connected, and cooperates, along the online
dimension, not the physical one, which makes much of our current charitable work invisible to
the public, the more so as we work within existing secular charities like the Red Cross and
Kiva, which do not get counted as “atheist” charities when comparing churches with atheist
orgs.

R E P LY

JAMES C R OF T • JUN E 1 2, 201 2, 2:30 P M

I would point to the Foundation Beyond Belief as the national secular charity and volunteering
organization, and to the Humanist Community Project as the institution seeking to develop
dense congregational communities at the local level

R E P LY

R IC H AR D C AR R IER • JUN E 1 3, 201 2, 1 1 :1 0 AM

Thanks, James!

For those who are unfamiliar, The Foundation Beyond Belief picks five
humanist-friendly charities per quarter (one in each of five different areas
of charitable service) and let’s you decide how your donation gets
distributed among those five (you can nominate charities for
consideration). It’s thus a highly streamlined version of what I was
proposing. And it’s awesome. Highly recommended.

As for the Humanist Community Project, please tell me what

substantial gains it has made in achieving what I had in mind. I don’t know
how it could, unless it is facilitating atheist families moving to the same
neighborhoods (which it isn’t). For example, how many HCP “church”
analogs (like a permanent meeting hall) are there in the country (outside of
Harvard), and what is the projected rate of increase in that number over
the next five years?

I fear that it is still the case that there are generally no communities of
sufficient density that such a building could cost-effectively serve. That’s
why the only gains in this area I know of are made by other orgs that
don’t actually serve concentrated communities but scattered individuals
across large metro areas (e.g. CFI has achieved a few permanent
structures, like in LA and Indianapolis, loosely serving this goal, but not
many, and most who make use of them do so only by undergoing a
hardship getting to them because they do not live within walking distance
of them, which greatly limits attendance and effectiveness in rallying
significant action).

That’s why I think I see most atheists work with local charities already
established (like Habitat for Humanity), because there is no atheist
 equivalent that can be feasibly constructed right now.

Or am I wrong? If there are real changes in this situation in the works, I

definitely want to know!

R E P LY

MI K E • JUN E 1 5, 201 2, 1 :43 P M

Thanks for plugging this! I didn’t know this organization existed. After deconverting about five months ago, I’m
glad to support them — religious groups pop up out of nowhere all the time, but free-thinking and anti-
authoritarian groups… not so much.

Btw, I think CCC’s name change was mostly about getting rid of the serious baggage associated with the word
“Crusade”. Gotta love the C-bomb when you’re trying to have a civilized conversation with a Muslim.

I was super involved with CCC in college, and there were a few barely-interested Christians that came to our
Bible studies and meetings seemingly because we invited them and gave them a place to belong (or maybe we
just helped them check a box). I wonder what the SSA’s value proposition is for people who aren’t religious,
but also aren’t that fired up about secularism.

R E P LY

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