This was Sarah Kaiser's statement for the Secular Alliance of IU (at Indiana University Bloomington) callout meeting on September 11, 2008.  The group, of which she is president, decided that it should have a semi-formal callout meeting at which the president stood up and spoke about what the group is and what they want to do, as well as talk about upcoming events and activities. 

You might be wondering: what is the Secular Alliance and what does it mean to be "secular"?  Secular is a word that encompasses many nonreligious philosophies, which include atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, freethought, and humanism, among others.  It can mean many different things, but in the context of our group, secularism is simple—it focuses on the assertion that one can lead an ethical, fulfilling, and complete life without religion or supernatural belief.  It is also a social ideology in which religion and supernatural beliefs are not seen as the key to understanding the world and are instead segregated from matters of governance and reasoning.  Thus, secularism can be involved in the promotion of science, reason, and naturalistic thinking.

First off, some information that you may or may not know.  There was a recent Pew poll that showed between 5 and 12% of the population being atheist (that is to say, they agree with the statement that they "don't believe in God").  If we take the lower value of 5%, that makes about 2,000 members of the IU community and 3,500 members of the Bloomington community who are atheist.  This is just an estimate for the number of atheists, based on national statistics, so we should take these as approximate numbers.

But still—if you are an atheist, or even a nontheist at IU Bloomington, you are clearly not alone in your campus or community.

I'd like to tell you all a little bit about what we are.  There are four important reasons to have a secular group at IU, and four reasons that you might like to be involved with the Secular Alliance.  But first, I'd like to tell you what this group is not.

You may be familiar with the term "evangelical atheist," a term which has been used to describe atheists who try to convince others not to believe in a God.  While this tactic may work for some individuals, it will never be a goal of our group to convert believers into nonbelievers.  While we support our members' right to individually act as they choose, we will never take a position as a group that is 'anti-' any religion.  We are here to positively support our members' nontheist, secular beliefs.

You all are likely here today for various reasons, and hopefully because something about our flyers or publicity made you think "I want to be a part of that."  I have found, in our approximately six months of existence, that members want various things out of a secular group.  The four main reasons people want to join up are education, activism, service, and community.

First, education is one of the principal reasons a secular group is necessary on the IU campus.  There are two prongs of the education goal: educating others about secularism, secular philosophies and worldviews, and the virtues of science, reason and naturalistic thinking, and educating ourselves so that we can better explain and understand what we believe.

Secularism emphasizes that religion and supernatural belief should be separated from matters of governance, and it follows that the support of church-state separation is an important secular issue.  Thus, activism to keep religion and government separate is an important goal for many members of secular groups.  Activism can take the form of protests, letters to local papers, or letters to elected officials.  It is an important way of saying "Hey, secularists exist, we're out here, and we care about the issues that affect our campus, our community, and the world we live in."

There are people who philosophize and argue that it is possible to be "good without God" (and some who argue that it isn't), but can we show others that we feel helping those in need is important?  Service is an important goal of the Secular Alliance of IU, because we believe there is only one life for all of us, and thus, as social, compassionate creatures, we want to help our fellow human beings to each lead rich and fulfilling lives.  But compassion in action is much more powerful and meaningful than the assertion that we care, so service is an important goal of our group.

Finally, SAIU is fundamentally a community of nonreligious people who want to derive knowledge and understanding about the world through science and reason.  By sustaining ourselves and making ourselves known to the campus and Bloomington community through events and publicity, we are a resource to others who may not have even known irreligion is an option!  We are a place for discussion, friendship, and maybe even fun.  We exist always in the spirit of using science, reason, and compassion to make the world a better place.  And we hope you'll join us.  Even just by signing up on our email list and coming to one or a few events this year, you are becoming a part of the growing secular movement around the world.  

After this, I encouraged members to sign up to be on our listserv and another member went through our upcoming events.  We encouraged people to ask questions, and then hung out and talked after and had some good discussion.  We had about 40 people come to the callout, many of them new who had seen the flyers or chalk around campus from earlier that week.  Something I should have done was taken a poll by show of hands or with slips of paper to see what brought people to the meeting—it would have been helpful in the future to know if flyers, chalk, an email, or something else brought them that night.

 

Sarah Kaiser is a junior at IU Bloomington studying physics, math, and voice performance.  She is the co-editor of a local magazine called Cultureweek (cultureweek.com) and works as an intern at the IU Cyclotron Facility.  She is the president and founder of the Secular Alliance of IU, a group that works to affirm the idea that all people can lead ethical, fulfilling lives without religion or belief in the supernatural.