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Who and Why We AreThe purpose of FreeThought Arizona is to establish, grow, and support a community of freethinkers, skeptics, agnostics, atheists and humanists based on reason, science, and critical thinking. The goals are to maintain separation of church and state, advance education and science, examine and discuss literature, support families, work to eliminate prejudice and discrimination and protect the civil rights of our members and others through meetings, lectures, debates, discussions, protests, letters to the editor, blog, podcasts, broadcast appearances and any other reasonable and civil means available. FreeThought Arizona is an organization that grew out of the Southern Arizona branch of the Center for Inquiry, a transnational organization. We are a group of rationalists, skeptics, and humanists in and around Tucson serving all of Arizona. We have joined together to provide an ethical alternative to religious and paranormal worldviews, protect civil liberties, defend reason, and to work toward increasing scientific literacy in Arizona. To achieve this goal, FreeThought Arizona sponsors:
We draw upon volunteers, members and other supporters who are enthusiastic about our agenda and wish to take part in our movement. In addition, FreeThought Arizona sponsors social events for freethinkers as well as intellectual programming, and assists with campus outreach and other community organizations with whom we share similar goals and philosophies. |
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March 18, 2012 10 am
"Recovering from Religion"
Duval Auditorium at UMC, 1501 N Campbell Ave - Free Parking on Sundays
Jerry DeWitt
Jerry DeWitt is the new executive director of Recovering From Religion (RR).
Mr. DeWitt has the strange history with Tucson! Years ago he spoke for a very large church in Tucson that followed the teaching of the long deceased William Branham.
Jerry DeWitt became an atheist after more than twenty-five years of Pentecostal ministry in his home state of Louisiana. His ministry experience begin at the early age of seventeen and included evangelizing across the United States and being the assistant pastor of two United Pentecostal churches and one Apostolic church. During his dilemma with doubt Jerry ultimately held the senior pastorate of two very unique congregations, one charismatic dominionist and the other non-denominational fundamentalist.
He also holds the distinction of being the first graduate of, and a spokesman for The Clergy Project, a private, invitation-only “safe house” community of current and former ministers who no longer hold the supernatural beliefs of their religious traditions. The Clergy Project was started by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, philosopher Daniel Dennett, researcher Linda LaScola and former minister and author Dan Barker. http://clergyproject.org/
Even though Jerry has only been in the Freethought movement for a short time, he’s already been honored with a seat on the board of directors for Atheist Nexus. Atheist Nexus is the world's largest community exclusively for non-theists, which is administrated by former fundamentalist minister “Brother” Richard Haynes.
Most recently, Jerry was appointed Executive Director of Recovering from Religion which was foundered by Dr. Darrel Ray the author of The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture. The RR mission is to coordinate and facilitate face-to-face meeting for those who desire support in leaving their religion. RR also facilitates on-line forums and resources in cooperation with other secular organizations and groups. It tries to connect those in need with secular therapists in their local community.
Want automatic reminders of all our events? Join meetup.com/freethoughtaz. Click Join us! in the upper right section of the meetup page. Meetup.com is an independent social network Internet company that promotes many local groups including FreeThoughtAZ. You can join meetup.com/freethoughtaz absolutely free.
However, to join FreeThought Arizona as a supporting member, we ask for a small donation.
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