Oasis, a Secular Group, Creates Community for Atheists and Agnostics in Kansas City and Elsewhere

Where do nonreligious people go to find community? Some might join a sports league or a film society or attend a local atheist meet-up. Some might hang out online. But in certain parts of the country, some might join Oasis, a community of humanists, agnostics, atheists, self-identified freethinkers, and even questioning theists. Oasis members see their fellowship as guided by values that emphasize people’s common humanity, the first being that “people are more important than beliefs.”

Oasis started in the summer of 2012, when Mike Aus, a former pastor, began meeting with friends in Houston who, like him, shared an aversion to religious dogma, but were drawn to the social benefits of organized religious life. They wanted the solidarity of meeting with like-minded people. They wanted to gather weekly “to hear good music and thought-provoking talks.” Moreover, they wanted to be part of a community in which being secular wasn’t a bad thing: less of an absence or “loss” than a positive outlook on life. They had no grand plans to start a movement, the 52-year-old Aus told me recently. What they had was a collective sense of need....
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/oasis-secular-groups/499148/?utm_source=feed