We have posted new content to our Youtube channel. Head over there and check it out! You will find recordings from our monthly speaker series, including talks from Ben Radford, Dale McGowan, Richard Berry, and Ed Buckner. We welcome your feedback, and be sure to like and subscribe so you don’t miss out on the latest with AFS!
Welcome!
Here are our latest news and events:
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AFS Gardening Day
Sunday, April 26 from 11am-5pm
Come join us as we beautify the grounds at AFS! We will remove some yard waste, create some flower beds, plant flowers and generally improve the grounds at our wonderful Freethought Hall.
Please bring your own gloves, and we would really appreciate it if you could also bring some plants that you’d like to add to our garden!
Location
Atlanta Freethought Hall
4775 N Church Ln SE · Atlanta, GAAbout us
Anyone interested in learning about secular topics and meeting other like-minded people in the metro Atlanta area. The Atlanta Freethought Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that exists to provide a community for non-theists in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia area through educational, advocacy, and social activities.
Membership in AFS is $50/year per person, $20 for low income. Membership includes AFNews by email or mail. (Tell us which one you want.) Sustaining Membership is $100. Life Membership is $1000. Subscriptions only are $30 for 12 issues. The Atlanta Freethought News has a membership form which you can fill out any time, and we can also take Paypal donations (log into PayPal then search for afs@atlantafreethought.org). You can subscribe to our mailing list here.
Atlanta Freethought Society also has two active Yahoo email groups: AFS Announce is an Announcements email list that provides subscribers with reminders and updates on AFS activities. AFS Forum is a place for discussions of freethought, atheism, agnosticism, church-state separation and religion. Our website is www.atlantafreethought.org. We also post a lot of articles and news on our Facebook page, so be sure to check that out too.
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Benjamin Radford – Phantom Clown Panics
Sunday, April 12 at noon
For our Sunday, April 12th meeting, AFS is delighted to welcome our old friend and well-known skeptic Benjamin Radford to speak about evil clowns!
Most evil clowns are fictional, but some bad clowns are reported to roam streets and parks looking for innocent children to abduct—yet seem to vanish just before police can apprehend them. Some say they are real, while others claim they are figments of imagination. They are known as phantom clowns, and were first sighted in 1981, when children in Boston reported that clowns had tried to lure them into a van with promises of candy. Other reports surfaced in other cities and in later years, with the same pattern: Parents were fearful, children were warned and police were vigilant, but despite searches and police checkpoints no evidence was ever found of their existence. They returned in the fall of 2016 when reports spread across America—and later around the globe—of these menacing clowns.
Join researcher Benjamin Radford as he explains the history, causes, and nature of this bizarre phenomenon. This presentation is based on his 2016 book Bad Clowns, which was featured in numerous publications including People Magazine, Time, Newsweek, BBC, and NPR.
Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and a Research Fellow with the non-profit educational organization the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He has written thousands of articles on a wide variety of topics including urban legends, the paranormal, critical thinking, and science literacy.
He is author of over a dozen books including Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking (with Bob Bartholomew); *Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us**;Lake Monster Mysteries (with Joe Nickell);Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries*; Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore; Investigating Ghosts; Big—If True: Adventures in Oddity; and most recently, America the Fearful: Media and the Marketing of National Panics.Radford was a regular columnist for LiveScience.com, Discovery News, Skeptical Inquirer magazine, and the Skeptical Briefs newsletter. Radford created Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination, the world’s first satirical board game of religious warfare. He is also an award-winning filmmaker, writing and directing two short films: Clicker Clatter (2007), Sirens (2009), and State of Nebraska v. Crotchy the Clown (2025).
Radford is one of the world’s few science-based investigators of the ”unexplained,” and has done first-hand research into mysterious phenomena including psychics, ghosts and haunted houses, exorcisms, miracles, Bigfoot, stigmata, lake monsters, UFO sightings, reincarnation, crop circles, and many other topics. He is perhaps best known for researching and solving the mysteries of the Santa Fe (NM) Courthouse Ghost, the Pokemon Panic, phantom clown attacks, and the Hispanic vampire “el chupacabra.”
Radford holds a Masters degree from Dartmouth in Public Health, a Masters from SUNY-Buffalo in Education, and a Bachelors in Psychology from the University of New Mexico. Radford has appeared on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the Travel Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Learning Channel, CBC, CBS, BBC, CNN, and other networks with three letters. He also served as a consultant for the MTV series The Big Urban Myth Show and an episode of the CBS crime drama CSI. Radford has appeared in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Ladies’ Home Journal.Location
Atlanta Freethought Hall
4775 N Church Ln SE · Atlanta, GAAbout us
Anyone interested in learning about secular topics and meeting other like-minded people in the metro Atlanta area. The Atlanta Freethought Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that exists to provide a community for non-theists in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia area through educational, advocacy, and social activities.
Membership in AFS is $50/year per person, $20 for low income. Membership includes AFNews by email or mail. (Tell us which one you want.) Sustaining Membership is $100. Life Membership is $1000. Subscriptions only are $30 for 12 issues. The Atlanta Freethought News has a membership form which you can fill out any time, and we can also take Paypal donations (log into PayPal then search for afs@atlantafreethought.org). You can subscribe to our mailing list here.
Atlanta Freethought Society also has two active Yahoo email groups: AFS Announce is an Announcements email list that provides subscribers with reminders and updates on AFS activities. AFS Forum is a place for discussions of freethought, atheism, agnosticism, church-state separation and religion. Our website is www.atlantafreethought.org. We also post a lot of articles and news on our Facebook page, so be sure to check that out too.
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Freya Harris Celebration of Life
Sunday, March 15 at 12 pm (Noon)
Please join us at Atlanta Freethought Hall on Sunday, March 15 at 12 pm for a celebration of life for Freya Harris, a cherished community member of Atlanta Freethought Society (AFS), Sunday Assembly Atlanta (SAA), Mensa in Georgia, and more for many years.
Freya was described by Laura Ross, past president of AFS, as “vital to the secular community.” She hosted events with Atlanta Atheists and was a lively participant in just about any local discussion group in the nonreligious space for a decade or more. She proudly drafted a book on the logistical absurdities of Noah’s Ark that may never see publication.
Freya passed on March 16, 2025 suddenly at Grady Hospital. We gather a year later because many of her local connections in and around Atlanta did not learn of this until now.
The program is being planned and will include opportunities for anyone attending to share their memories of and experiences with Freya. Whether you knew her personally or simply wish to support a community marking this loss, you are welcome.More formal attire is lightly encouraged but not required.
At the conclusion of the event we may visit the nearby Viking Alchemist Meadery in recognition of Freya’s Norse name and craft beer enthusiasm.
Location
Atlanta Freethought Hall
4775 N Church Ln SE · Atlanta, GAAbout us
Anyone interested in learning about secular topics and meeting other like-minded people in the metro Atlanta area. The Atlanta Freethought Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that exists to provide a community for non-theists in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia area through educational, advocacy, and social activities.
Membership in AFS is $50/year per person, $20 for low income. Membership includes AFNews by email or mail. (Tell us which one you want.) Sustaining Membership is $100. Life Membership is $1000. Subscriptions only are $30 for 12 issues. The Atlanta Freethought News has a membership form which you can fill out any time, and we can also take Paypal donations (log into PayPal then search for afs@atlantafreethought.org). You can subscribe to our mailing list here.
Atlanta Freethought Society also has two active Yahoo email groups: AFS Announce is an Announcements email list that provides subscribers with reminders and updates on AFS activities. AFS Forum is a place for discussions of freethought, atheism, agnosticism, church-state separation and religion
Our website is www.atlantafreethought.org. We also post a lot of articles and news on our Facebook page, so be sure to check that out too. -
Dale McGowan—The Death Problem
Sunday, March 8th
Potluck at 11 AM and Talk at 1 PM
For our March 8 AFS meeting, join Dale McGowan to talk about the Death Problem.
That humans are afraid to die is not news. But an intriguing subfield of psychology has gone much further, finding mortality awareness at the root of a staggering array of human behaviors, from body art to social media fixation to religiosity to career ambition to pretty much everything about MAGA. Dale McGowan dusts off his anthropology degree to highlight the way in which our awareness of death casts a wider and deeper shadow on our lives than we tend to think.
Dale McGowan, Ph.D., is an author, educator, and philanthropist with a diverse background in both the arts and sciences. He holds a double major in anthropology and music theory from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory from the University of Minnesota. After a 15-year career as a college music professor, Dale shifted his focus to writing and advocacy, becoming a leading voice in the nonreligious community.
Dale is best known for editing and co-authoring Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers, as well as writing Atheism for Dummies for the popular For Dummiesbook series. In 2008, he was named Harvard Humanist of the Year for his work in nonreligious parenting education. Dale also founded Foundation Beyond Belief (later renamed GO Humanity), a nonprofit that became the world’s largest humanist charity.
There will be a potluck lunch before the event (11 AM – 1 PM), and below are suggestions for what to bring, according to the first letter of your last name:
A-G: Bring a main dish
H-P: Bring a dessert
Q-Z: Bring a side dishAFS will provide drinks, plates, and silverware.
For more details, check us out on Meetup.com
Location
Atlanta Freethought Hall
4775 N Church Ln SE · Atlanta, GAAbout us
Anyone interested in learning about secular topics and meeting other like-minded people in the metro Atlanta area. The Atlanta Freethought Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that exists to provide a community for non-theists in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia area through educational, advocacy, and social activities.
Membership in AFS is $50/year per person, $20 for low income. Membership includes AFNews by email or mail. (Tell us which one you want.) Sustaining Membership is $100. Life Membership is $1000. Subscriptions only are $30 for 12 issues. The Atlanta Freethought News has a membership form which you can fill out any time, and we can also take Paypal donations (log into PayPal then search for afs@atlantafreethought.org). You can subscribe to our mailing list here.
Atlanta Freethought Society also has two active Yahoo email groups: AFS Announce is an Announcements email list that provides subscribers with reminders and updates on AFS activities. AFS Forum is a place for discussions of freethought, atheism, agnosticism, church-state separation and religion
Our website is www.atlantafreethought.org. We also post a lot of articles and news on our Facebook page, so be sure to check that out too. -
An Afternoon of Board Games
Saturday, March 8th 1–5 pmCANCELLEDAn afternoon of gaming will happen again at Atlanta Freethought Hall, starting at 1 pm until 5 pm on Saturday, March 8. Please bring any board or card games you’d like to share and bring your children as we plan to have puzzles, paintings, and kid-friendly games there too. Snacks and beverages are are always welcome!
For more details, check us out on Meetup.com
Location
Atlanta Freethought Hall
4775 N Church Ln SE · Atlanta, GAAbout us
Anyone interested in learning about secular topics and meeting other like-minded people in the metro Atlanta area. The Atlanta Freethought Society is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization that exists to provide a community for non-theists in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia area through educational, advocacy, and social activities.
Membership in AFS is $50/year per person, $20 for low income. Membership includes AFNews by email or mail. (Tell us which one you want.) Sustaining Membership is $100. Life Membership is $1000. Subscriptions only are $30 for 12 issues. The Atlanta Freethought News has a membership form which you can fill out any time, and we can also take Paypal donations (log into PayPal and search for afs@atlantafreethought.org). You can subscribe to our mailing list here.
Atlanta Freethought Society also has two active Yahoo email groups: AFS Announce is an Announcements email list that provides subscribers with reminders and updates on AFS activities. AFS Forum is a place for discussions of freethought, atheism, agnosticism, church-state separation and religion
Our website is www.atlantafreethought.org. We also post a lot of articles and news on our Facebook page, so be sure to check that out too.
