Secular Portal Blogs

Leeds Rationalist Week 09 Biggest Student Atheist Festival in UK Yet

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 | AHS

Since the launch of the AHS in February there has been a rapid growth in the number of student-run atheist societies, and their effects are being felt. Week-long campus festivals celebrating atheism, humanism and secularism have been springing up around the country.

This week sees the country’s largest atheist festival so far at Leeds University. Comprising nearly 40 free “interfaith”, ethical and political debates, talks, films and social events for students, ‘Rationalist Week 2009′ will run 24 hours a day for 7 days in a large tent baring a ‘there is no god’ sign over the entrance. This is the festival’s third year and it is expected, once again, to draw crowds of hundreds across the week.

Chris Worfolk, organiser, on the aims of the week:
‘As well as bringing our “interfaith” and educational events to a wider audience and we’re really aiming to dispell some of negative stereotypes surrounding atheism. This is about fun and also social responsibility, so we’ll be raising awareness of things like the organ donor’s register and hopefully some blood drive stuff too.’ 

Event titles include ‘It’s Only Water’ – concerning homeopathic medicine, a church service to the cult god the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the ironic ‘Why are evil dictators always atheists?’.

Leeds Atheist Society is one of the most active in the country. It runs educational, “interfaith” and social events every week and has recently set up a charitable Humanist Action Group (working at local homeless shelters etc). They have experienced discrimination, vandalism, theft and death threats from religious groups on campus, who oppose the open expression of an atheist viewpoint and blasphemy.

Southampton and Durham University groups have also held ‘Rationalist’ and ‘Reason’ Weeks in the last six months, while Edinburgh University Humanist Society have held ‘blood drives’ to coincide with Christian Prayer Week, aiming to contrast donating blood with praying for the sick in terms of of usefulness and effect. As the AHS comes to the end of its first academic year, all focus will be on establishing new societies and strengthening existing ones, enabling more Awareness Weeks in UK further and higher education establishments next year. Elaborate plans are already in the pipeline, including a touring humanist theatre group and an ‘AHS Party Bus’, presumably one that tells us to stop worrying and enjoy our lives.

No comments yet.

Leave a comment