The newly formed Long Beach Secular Students held a special speaker event May 3.
Self proclaimed "friendly atheist" Hemant Mehta spoke to an audience of a little over twenty about the controversy surrounding his ebay auction where he "sold his soul" for $504, and also to promote his new book I Sold My Soul on Ebay : Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes.
A section of the book Religion on Campus, depicts Mehta’s experience prior to the auction at the University of Illinios (UIC) at Chicago, where he was a student at the time. In it, Mehta writes about the difficulty he had finding secular students like himself on campus.
“It turned out UIC had not a single atheist club, but it had 27 religious groups! And most of them were Christian.” Mehta wrote. “I was stunned.”
This lack of secular student clubs is also present at CSULB. There are twenty-three religious clubs on campus, none of which are secular, or of a non-spiritual nature.
However, Sean Bernhoft, 20, a CSULB history major, is the president of the newly forming Long Beach Secular Students.
“There needs to be a secular club because there wasn’t really any social environment for atheist, agnostics, and skeptics on campus.” said Bernhoft. “We want to meet people with similar opinions and we thought the best way to do so would be to take initiative and start the group.”
For more information on Mehta’s religious experience, check out his blog at friendlyatheist.com
Self proclaimed "friendly atheist" Hemant Mehta spoke to an audience of a little over twenty about the controversy surrounding his ebay auction where he "sold his soul" for $504, and also to promote his new book I Sold My Soul on Ebay : Viewing Faith Through an Atheist's Eyes.
A section of the book Religion on Campus, depicts Mehta’s experience prior to the auction at the University of Illinios (UIC) at Chicago, where he was a student at the time. In it, Mehta writes about the difficulty he had finding secular students like himself on campus.
“It turned out UIC had not a single atheist club, but it had 27 religious groups! And most of them were Christian.” Mehta wrote. “I was stunned.”
This lack of secular student clubs is also present at CSULB. There are twenty-three religious clubs on campus, none of which are secular, or of a non-spiritual nature.
However, Sean Bernhoft, 20, a CSULB history major, is the president of the newly forming Long Beach Secular Students.
“There needs to be a secular club because there wasn’t really any social environment for atheist, agnostics, and skeptics on campus.” said Bernhoft. “We want to meet people with similar opinions and we thought the best way to do so would be to take initiative and start the group.”
For more information on Mehta’s religious experience, check out his blog at friendlyatheist.com
*** Media Credit: Long Beach Secular Students posing with Mehta from the event. Taken from friendlyatheist.com.
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