I've been in situations where I'm the only atheist in an explicitly all-theist group, or the only male in an all-female group. I imagine it's not unlike being the only minority in an all-white group. It's slightly uncomfortable, you're constantly aware that you are the exception, and sometimes the conversation turns to things you have no knowledge of or interest in, and you just wait through that period, maybe pick up some things on how the "other half" thinks.
I don't see why a rationalist group has to be any different. A group can be explicitly atheist and still welcome theist members without sacrificing any integrity by kowtowing to their pet irrationality. Atheists need groups where they can be the majority for once as well. Let the theist feel slightly uncomfortable if they have to, we can still welcome them and enjoy their company.
Honestly, the whole "should we make accommodations for the religious" feels like the servile attitude ingrained into a subgroup by an entire lifetime of being taught that they are worth less than the ruling majority. The atheist population needs some sort of Pride movement already. I have a hard time imagining a gay group agonizing over whether or not they should be "accommodating" of their straight friends. Be welcoming, be nice, but don't bend over backwards to make YOUR group be extra-pleasing to them. It doesn't work, and it corrupts the movement by driving away those who find such groveling distasteful - which includes most people in the theistic camp. Really any people who value things like integrity and self-respect. The only people who will be drawn to a group that is displaying such submission are those you don't want and will never win over anyway. Those who are intoxicated on privilege and entitlement.
Plus, you know, there's the whole being objectively wrong part.
This post grew out of a very long discussion with the New York Less Wrong meetup group. The question was, should a group dedicated to rationality be explicitly atheist? Or should it make an effort to be respectful to theists in order to make them feel welcome and spread rationality farther? We argued for a long time. The pro-atheism camp said that, given that religion is so overwhelmingly wrong on the merits, we shouldn't allow it any special pleading -- it's just as wrong as any other wrong belief, and we'd lose our value as a rationalist group if we began to put status above truth. The anti-atheism group said that, while that may be true, it's going to doom us to be a group exclusively for eccentric nerds, and we need to develop broad appeal, even if that's hard and requires us to leave our comfort zone.
Things got abstract very fast; my take was that we need to get back to practicalities. Different attitudes to religion have different effects on different types of people; we need to optimize for desired effects and accept what tradeoffs we must. We can't appeal equally to everyone. So I came up with a sort of typology.
The Four New Members
Annie