A New High School Atheist Group in Brooklyn

There’s a new secular group at Midwood High School at Brooklyn College in New York and they recently got coverage in their school newspaper! Hooray! They’re known as the Midwood Freethinkers Club, and their three meetings (thus far) have been characterized as ‘lovely’.

Mr. Joseph Peters, the club adviser, said that the goal of the club is to give back to the Midwood community and to prove that non-religious people do not “eat babies.” They are often wrongfully stereotyped as immoral human beings.

“We’re here to do good things because we’re good people,” he said.

I mean, I agree with not eating babies. I’ve always been more of a fan of toddlers. 🙂

Midwood Freethinkers Club started after an anonymous student came up to Peters and pointed out that, while there were several outlets for religious students, there wasn’t one for secular students. Good for him to step up and be an out and proud adviser!

While the Midwood Freethinkers Club may be in its infancy, it looks like they are already eager to start some dialogue with other religious groups on their campus.

“Don’t let the name of the group turn you away. Anyone, religious or not, is welcome. We just want to have honest discussions about anything related to religion,” said Mr. Peters.

Rachel Papert ’13 contributed an idea for helping the club to connect with other groups in the school. She said, “If any religious club wants to share ideas and have discussions with us, it would be great.”

They don’t appear to be affiliated with Secular Student Alliance (yet!), but I think it’s fantastic that there are more and more high school students creating groups.