It was a little more crowded than usual at the Freethinkers of UTA meeting on Wednesday. The group of about 35 people was crammed in a room in the Life Science Building instead of its normal spot in the University Center Palo Pinto Room. The group also had a few more attendees, who said they came because of fliers handed out earlier in the week.
The room wasn’t too small for the group’s big topic: free will. Members sat in a circle of desks and exchanged thoughts and arguments. They brought up points such as the consciousness, the sub-consciousness and neurology.
For the group, no topic is off limits.
“I think it’s good to have a group like that for people to feel free to say what they actually feel without repercussions,” said Becky Robinson, founder of the group and psychology graduate student.
The group of atheists, agnostics, skeptics, rationalists, humanists and freethinkers meets every other week to debate various subjects with a focus on faith, science and reason. Since its creation in 2006, the group has invited people from all backgrounds, even religious ones, to engage in discussion.
Octavia Pinckney, an architecture freshman and a Christian, joined the meeting on Oct. 19 because she likes to debate.
“That’s the only reason I came: to learn and to argue with people,” she said. “I like that everybody’s coming from different perspectives. We learn from other people and we’re not trying to change each other’s minds.”
Robinson, an atheist, said she created the group because she felt there was a need for a place where people without religion could voice their thoughts. She noted how differently religion is viewed in Texas compared to her home state of Pennsylvania.
“Here, religion is more of the society,” she said. “I’m used to religion being more of a private matter. It’s between you and your god. And then I moved here, and it’s so ingrained and so pervasive.”
The reaction to the new group was positive overall, Robinson said. The first debate had a larger turnout than she expected.
“In our first meeting, I remember I would have been excited if five people showed up,” she said. “We had over 30 people come to our very first meeting.”
Robinson said there have been negative reactions as well such as Christian groups not wanting to participate in debates. Shawn Dunlap, a biology freshman and the current Freethinkers president, said the group is misunderstood because of preconceived notions about its members.
“People do peg us as the ‘atheist’ group, and that word does have a negative connotation, especially in Texas,” he said. “We’re just trying to present a new idea about how the world may actually be. That’s something hard for some people to stomach.”
Freethinkers of UTA meeting
Next meeting – “Is religion a natural phenomenon”When: 5-6:30 p.m. Nov. 2
Where: University Center Palo Pinto Room
Attend one of the meetings to join the Freethinkers of UTA.
Dunlap said the group is in the works to organize a food drive with the Baptist Student Ministry. He said it’s beneficial for the group to have religious people involved because it balances the argument.
“What’s the point of talking with a bunch of people you agree with all the time? It defeats the purpose of our discussion,” he said. “We had to play devil’s advocate sometimes because no one’s there to disagree with us.”
Robinson said the group never intended to be strictly for atheists or agnostics. Anyone who wants to logically approach a topic is welcome.
“I’ve always been an advocate of being much more of an umbrella group than the atheist group,” she said. “We definitely have members that are very atheist, but, as a group, we’ve always tried to maintain an open-door policy.”
The members do stress the importance of respecting one another during the debates.
“In our meetings, any idea is free for attack, but attack the idea not the person,” Robinson said.
The group does more than discuss different topics every other week. It also organizes fundraisers for charities and goes on field trips to places like Hell House, a Christian haunted house in Cedar Hill.
For the “Stone a Heathen” fundraiser, the group sold water balloons and allowed students to throw them at the members on Sept.29, the group raised $64.25 for the Polaris Project, an organization aimed at stopping human trafficking. The group has also raised money for Foundation Beyond Belief, a secular charity with humanist and atheist members.
“We’re not different people,” he said. “We just share different views about the afterlife and what it means to be a human being. That doesn’t mean that we can’t help people that have it more difficult than us and not as well off as us.”
Robinson said the group also directs students to other secular organizations in the area such as the Secular Student Alliance and the DFW Coalition of Reason.
“I feel like we’re the gateway to these other organizations,” she said. “This is a great place to find like-minded people, but there’s a lot more out there. Once you’re done with school, it doesn’t mean that you have to leave that part of that community behind.”
