I’ve thought about asking CFI to come to the university campus here, but I’m not sure how well it would go over in this town. See, I live in the belt buckle of the Bible belt and the headquarters of the Assembly of God.    I know of one prof who is a Humanist, but he didn’t reply to my inquiry as to how he thought it would go if I invited CFI to our campus.  He did tell me there are VERY few Humanists in this city and out of 13 maybe 7 or so come to the once a month meetings that meet at the only U.U. in town.  Which is sad.

Even so, it would be nice to have CFI here on campus, but given all of that, I’m skeptical about the turnout.  :( If anyone needs CFI it’s this town, but it could be met with a lot of headaches- unfortunately.  Thoughts?

Debates on topics like God’s existence are usually a big draw in Bible Belt-type areas.  (Is this Missouri?) CFI has organized dozens of formal debates on this subject, with audiences ranging from a few hundred to 4000.  So there are events you can hold that would have a large turnout.

In my experience, such a climate can be an advantage when organizing a freethought group, because there is much present in the environment to motivate freethinkers to get involved.  On a liberal progressive campus, students (who are probably secularists anyway) don’t always feel the need to get involved with a freethought group, because the problem (Fundies, Dominionists, creationists, whatever) is not in their grill.  There isn’t as much to organize against, and, as many who have been involved with organzing knows, it is often easier at first to build a group around what you stand against, rather than try to focus on what parts of your identity you have in common.  We could both support church-state separation, but I might have a lot of problems philosophically calling myself a humanist, and you aren’t willing to call yourself an atheist, etc. etc.

What campus are you referring to?

Debbie

Missouri State University, Springfield.

So, what sort of events and how would I go about it?  Well, yes, the first place would be to fill out the form and throughly read the information on the CFI on campus site for starters, but beyond that I’m just not sure what would be successful here.  I’d hate to ask CFI here and it be a BIG flop.