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- Founders
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Seattle atheists was co-founded by the efforts of Wendy Britton, Pat Inniss, and Jerry Schiffelbein.
Wendy Britton is a second-generation atheist who was raised in Berkeley, California. Wendy’s parents always allowed
her to find her own way and allowed her to attend church with her friends to figure it out for herself. She never
said the words “under God” during the pledge and always lifted her hand from her heart during that part, which led
to more invitations to church. After living in six states by age sixteen, she gave up church-going, as she felt she
had collected enough data to explore other options.
After college, Wendy got a job in Austin, Texas, where it was tough to be an outspoken atheist. In 1992, she found
an ad in the Austin Chronicle for an American Atheists convention and became a member of the organization. After the
O’Hairs disappeared from Austin, she lapsed for a couple of years, waiting to find out if it was safe to be an atheist
in public anymore. Later, she joined an affiliated AA group called the Atheist Community of Austin (ACA).
After 9/11, Wendy relocated to be near her family in Seattle, Washington. Finding no atheist groups with the word
atheist in the title, she formed a Seattle Atheist Yahoo group, inviting folks from other groups, including humanists,
skeptics, agnostics, and freethinkers, to events at her home.
The group merged simultaneous efforts by Pat and Jerry who
had created SANE (the Seattle Atheist Network Experience) and drew on a large pool of atheists that were already attending
meetup events. In 2003, the group was founded as a Washington State non-profit organization and subsequently applied for
(and received) Federal 501(c)(3) status.
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This page was updated on:
Wednesday, 06-Jun-2007 22:40:23 MST
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