Sacramento State has a diverse body of students, not only in economical and sociological backgrounds, but in theological views as well.

Sac State’s Atheist Student Organization hosted an “Ask an Atheist” booth at SacFAN’s annual Freethought Day on Oct. 23 at Sacramento City College. SacFAN is for Sacramento Freethinkers, Atheists, and Nonbelievers.

“This is the first real event for our club. We’re feeling out interest and figuring out what we need to do differently for other events,” said Atheist Student Organization President Hanna Jenks, sociology major. “Preparation is casual. We’re not hitting the books all night or anything.”

For these events, the Atheist Organization prepares multiple speeches, ranging in topics from why they feel they should be a group on campus to their views on morality. These speeches also include insight into why some members choose not to believe in religion. Each speech ranges from three to seven minutes, and totals about half an hour.

“While I consider myself Christian, I’m also a freethinker. I might attend their next meeting just to see how much they agree with religious people on basic moral values. It’s kind of an interesting concept, having this club,” said communication studies major Mark Hanger.

Directly following the speeches, there was a question and answer portion where the audience engaged with the members. There is a Frequently Asked Questions sheet that addresses 10 topics, such as knowing right from wrong and why the club does not actually consider atheism a religion. This sheet also contains a book list for further reading.

“We’ve been asked a lot of questions and we’re taking questions as they come,” Jenks said. “We’re not filtering them out. I hope that we get some we’ve never heard before at this event. We anticipate interesting questions, but often times they’re similar to other ones we’ve had before.”

Audience questions can be directed at the individual writer of the speech, but the whole group panel has the option to answer. There are seven panel members giving speeches and offering insight to audience members’ questions.

“The nice thing about being a panel is if one person can’t handle a question, someone else can. There’s such a range in the type of knowledge that the people here have. We all specialize a bit,” said philosophy major Amy Cools.

The Atheist Organization meets Wednesday afternoons in Mendocino Hall, but members can also be found hosting their booth in the Library Quad. Members will ask passersby if they would like to ask an atheist a question.

“We’ve had very little resistance. It seems to be a very open community,” said anthropology major Angelina Lacue.

The Atheist Organization was started a year ago and is one of Sac State’s newest clubs. There are fewer than 20 members, but they all participate in the club’s weekly meetings.

“We’ve been pretty well received by students. There’s been no physical violence, either. There has been some sticklers, not representing any clubs, just individuals being rude,” Jenks said. For the most part, even if people don’t agree with us, most of them know we contribute to the diversity on campus.”

Each campus group has a different reason for making itself known in the community and spreading its ideas to others, and this includes the Atheist Organization. Each member of the group has a different outlook on what to advocate and which aspects of atheism to focus on to share with the public.

“I think we all have different opinions on why this club should exist. It’s not necessarily about having anyone change their minds, we just want to get to know each other and feel comfortable bouncing ideas around,” Jenks said.

“The more atheists you know the less hostile you’ll feel toward them, and we just want people to understand us.”

The Atheist Organization chose SacFAN’s Freethought Day to open up the minds of the general public who are interested in other peoples’ ideas.

The group’s “Ask an Atheist” events are designed to make people feel comfortable by asking their own questions instead of just being told the group’s ideology. The group’s slogan, “Atheist? Agnostic? Skeptical? Just curious? You’re not alone,” is designed to bring in students of all theological backgrounds and beliefs.

“It’s all about being visible on campus and having people understand who we are,” Cools said.

Ivy McDonald can be reached at [email protected]