Atheists seek to create lakeside oasis in rural Alabama

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By ERIN EDGEMON Al.com
November 12, 2013 - 10:27 am EST

MUNFORD, Alabama — Roger and Pat Cleveland, of Talladega County, first had the idea in the 1980s to create an oasis where atheists in Alabama and the South could gather.

They wanted to have a place in the heart of the Bible Belt where atheists could feel free to congregate with those with similar beliefs and feel safe, Pat Cleveland said.

The Alabama Freethought Association, formed by the Clevelands in 1989, is now the Freedom From Religion Foundation's longest-running chapter in the country and is the only one that the national organization teamed up with to build a meeting hall, FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said.

For years, Alabama was one of the organization's largest and most active chapters with its own retreat on Lake Joan in rural Munford, which they call Lake Hypatia.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/c1a686d1ad4447ddbf6c240a888cdaff/AL--Atheist-Oasis

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