Filipino Freethinkers February 1, 2009

Filipino Freethinkers

By Guest Contributor
February 1, 2009

It’s always scary to plan a gathering for atheists. You don’t know how many people will attend, or what they’ll be like, or if they’ll enjoy meeting the others.

It’s always nice, though, to hear of first meetings that are successful.

Benj and Red helped put together a gathering for the Filipino Freethinkers in one week — and 26 people showed up. Very impressive, considering the first atheist meeting I ever put together brought in about three people…

Hopefully, his group will only grow from there. You can see pics from the event (and plans for future ones) at the Filipino Freethinkers website.

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  • Red

    Thanks for your support! We’re mostly fans of your blog and are thankful to writers like you who continue to influence freethinkers in a positive way. Keep up the great writing!

    P.S. One of the participants, John P, proudly showed us his signed copy of your book. Mike took a picture 🙂

  • Hey! I “helped” but Red *points up* was the guy who did 99.99% of the work! Thanks Hermant! We’ll keep you posted. We’re planning bigger things for this month!

  • max

    the “huge” turn out (or turn up?) can maybe attributed to the nature of the group – free thinkers which encompasses atheists, deists, secular humanists .. .etc …

  • …actually, most of the people in attendance chose to put “None” or “—-” under the “faith” column (oh yes, we had an attendance sheet!).

    There were a handful of atheists, a couple of deists and a good number of secular humanists as well.

  • Red deserves our gratitude for successfully herding us into one place. The striking thing about most of us was, we were mostly “friendly” in our approach to religion… still, sitting with a group of like-minded people is a great relief if you live in a society where BS has a monopoly on the public discussion. Here’s my take of the meeting.

  • The Catholic Bishops union takes part in government functions in the Philippines. They try and stop “evil” things like a womans right to choose, and contraception. There is also a site called “Pinoy Atheist: A Journey of an Atheist in Manila.” This dude writes great essays and worth a looksie. Thanxs “H”. Great work as usual.

    K.T.S.A.

  • Red

    Hi Kriss,

    Pinoy Atheist aka John the Atheist is a member of Filipino Freethinkers, and also a part of the meetup Hemant was referring to. Check out his latest post — it’s very moving.

    Red

  • Awesomesauce

    I’m likely to be visiting the Philippines this summer. Are visitors allowed to the group?

  • Sure! Come on down.

  • We’re putting on the first-ever Atheist Film Festival in San Francisco — an easy place for it, sure — would love to have some Filipino youtube videos in it — if you have some, send them to our curator: vernoicachater@mac.com — also, we want to take the festival to Manila, if there’s a theater we can show them in

  • I am from Baguio. Is there any meetings in that area?