Pardon the alliteration.

SSU is excellent in every way, and is becoming more excellent every week, but just in case it doesn’t satisfy all your skeptical and secularist needs, or if, like me, you are looking with both anticipation and trepidation toward graduation, there is, in fact, a proverbial reality-based community outside of UW. Here are some links to get you started. (As an aside, while we college students nowadays organize via Facebook, those not in college tend to favor Meetup.com, so several of these are Meetup groups rather than actual organizations.)

Seattle Atheists is an actual (incorporated) non-profit in Seattle dedicated to defending the rights and interests of atheists and agnostics in Seattle and to performing secularly motivated community service. It also organizes charitable and educational events.

Seattle Atheists/Agnostics Meetup Group meets regularly on the third Thursday of every month  (e.g. tonight) to eat, drink, be merry, and talk about whatever it is atheists, agnostics, and people of other creeds who hang out with atheists and agnostics talk about. The group also has irregular events, like an upcoming Halloween party. There is a suggested donation of $0.50 to help pay for the Meetup.com group.
Drinking Skeptically meets on the third Tuesday of every month at a restaurant to either hear a presentation on a skepticism-related topic or hear skeptics’ usual targets (”prey”?) make their case. The presentation is followed by a discussion and/or a debate. Past presenters include Discovery Institute, SkepDoc, and 9/11 Truthers. The upcoming meeting (a “Halloween special”, if you will) will have paranormal investigators. There is no suggested donation (that I’ve noticed), but it is recommended that you get something to eat and/or drink at the hosting restaurant. The linked Meetup group also lists other events of interest to self-identified skeptics.
Seattle Society for Sensible Explanations is an older group, gathering approximately once per month for a presentation by a speaker from the skeptic and/or secularist community. Past speakers have included Michael Shermer, PZ Myers, and Ray Hyman. Most of the meetings take place at a restaurant, and require an RSVP and the purchase of a dinner, usually around $30, also covering the venue and the speaker’s honorarium. Of particular interest to those interested in secularism is the upcoming speaker, Josh Rosenau from NCSE.

There are others, such as Seattle Humanists, and several on the East side of Lake Washington or farther North (e.g. Lynnwod), but I haven’t had a chance to go see what they are about. If you’ve been to any of those, post a reply with your impressions, and I’ll add them to this entry.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 12:07 am and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.