Vision
Universal respect for secularism.
Mission
Lake Superior Freethinkers (LSF) is an educational and friendship group that provides mutual support and intellectual growth for Duluth’s humanists, secularists, agnostics, and atheists. LSF supports discussion of and learning about a wide range of issues pertaining to religion, secularism, science, society, and our shared environment. LSF demonstrates secular morality through its commitment to a healthy community and a healthy planet.
Values
- We understand humans as an evolving animal species.
- Science is our best tool to know ourselves and our world. Accordingly, we rely provisionally on the best evidence and most trusted authorities we can find.
- Ethics and morality are evolved constructs that are subject to human revision.
- We choose to be as compassionate as possible toward other persons, other living things and our planetary environment.
- We
are committed to a society that is free of the harms of religion’s
policies and behaviors, superstitious beliefs, and intrusions into in
civil life.
Approved by the Planning Committee
January 20, 2019
Are You Atheists?
Freethinkers are generally unconvinced of the existence of supernatural entities such as ghosts, gods, devils, leprechauns, heavens, and hells. We try to frankly admit what we don’t know instead of making up answers without evidence. We regard the scientific method as our best hope of understanding our universe, including ourselves. Some freethinkers are atheist, agnostic, secular, or humanist. Some are Unitarian-Universalists.
Can You Be Moral?
Freethinkers believe moral behavior is vital if people are to thrive and not destroy one another. We feel that respect and care for others gives us our best chance to develop and enjoy ourselves. Many freethinkers believe that it is moral to do that which minimizes suffering and maximizes well being of thinking creatures. We feel it is harmful and immoral to teach children that ancient tribal beliefs are true, established facts.
What About The Bible?
Freethinkers regard books such as the Bible and the Koran as records and speculations of human authors, and not sacred. Some parts of them are admirable but others are abhorrent. We think of labels like sacred and blasphemy as mind control techniques. The support for slavery, demeaning treatment of women, and instructions to burn people alive or stone them to death that are found in some “holy books” are not acceptable to us.
Is Life Meaningless?
Freethinkers believe that, if life is to have authentic meaning, we must discover or select it for ourselves, To live in compliance with one or more of the claimed gods seems like being enslaved to outmoded and erroneous conceptions of the universe. Also, we think this is the only life we are likely to have. It seems shameful to trivialize it with unnecessary self-deprecation, suffering, and fighting to curry favor with imagined gods who might gets us a preferred seat in an afterlife for which there is no evidence.
What Do You Do?
We meet on the first Sunday of every month at 9:00 am for social time. Then we offer an optional breakfast buffet. The official meeting begins at 10:00 with announcements and such. Then there will typically be a thoughtful presentation on an interesting topic from a freethinking perspective. After about an hour, there might be a question and answer period. On the third Wednesday of every month, we gather for a social evening at a local venue that rotates from week to week.
Why Should I Join?
You will be proud to seek the truth and try to avoid self-deception in all aspects of your life. You will find many friends who, like you, enjoy their inquiring minds and are not ashamed to say, “I don’t know” when they do not have sufficient reason to believe something.
ecco homo sine superstitione [Behold mankind without superstition.]
LSFreethinkers@outlook.com
A CHAPTER OF THE FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
LAKE SUPERIOR FREETHINKERS 