Pittsburgh
Freethought Community
Promoting science, reason and secular humanist values in the Greater Pittsburgh area |
What Is PFC?
Our Purpose
Promoting science, reason, and secular humanist values.
The Pittsburgh Freethought Community is a secular, humanist, and evidence-based community serving the Greater Pittsburgh area.
We bring together people who value science, reason, critical thinking, compassion, church-state separation, and the freedom to ask honest questions.
Our members include humanists, atheists, agnostics, skeptics, freethinkers, secular families, and people who are simply curious and looking for thoughtful community.
Our Mission
Promote secularism, science, reason, critical thinking, and humanist values.
Provide a respected public voice for Pittsburgh’s secular community.
Create a welcoming and caring community for people with a humanist worldview and an evidence-based perspective.
A Community for Freethinkers
You do not have to keep part of yourself hidden here.
Maybe this sounds familiar.
Maybe you have questioned religious beliefs but did not feel safe saying so out loud. Maybe you have felt pressure to conform, stay quiet, or avoid difficult conversations to keep the peace.
Maybe you have sat through messages that made you feel judged, excluded, or misunderstood. Maybe you simply want a community where questions are welcome and no one asks you to pretend.
PFC is different.
PFC is a place where you can be honest about what you believe, what you doubt, and what you are still figuring out.
You do not need to have all the answers. You do not need to label yourself perfectly. You do not need to agree with everyone in the room.
You are welcome here if you value open inquiry, evidence, compassion, and respectful conversation.
What You’ll Find Here
A place for honest questions, real connection, and shared values.
Room to Question
Ask questions without being told that curiosity is wrong. Unanswered questions are welcome here.
Space to Be Honest
Be open about being secular, humanist, skeptical, atheist, agnostic, questioning, or somewhere in between.
Thoughtful Community
Join lectures, discussions, social events, book clubs, volunteer opportunities, and community gatherings.
Respectful Disagreement
Disagree without being judged or pushed out. PFC is not about replacing one dogma with another.
Our History
Built from Pittsburgh’s secular and humanist roots.
PFC’s roots go back to several secular and humanist efforts in the Pittsburgh area. One of the most important predecessors was Center for Inquiry – Pittsburgh, which began in 2004 after Professor David Campbell invited atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, secular humanists, skeptics, and similar-minded people to meet and organize.
CFI–Pittsburgh became one of the most active secular groups in Southwestern Pennsylvania, bringing together people interested in skepticism, humanism, science, social justice, and human rights.
Center for Inquiry – Pittsburgh begins organizing local atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, skeptics, and secular humanists.
Steel City Skeptics forms as part of the broader local secular and skeptical community.
Local leaders begin working to simplify and strengthen Pittsburgh’s secular landscape.
Pittsburgh Freethought Community is formally created as a nonprofit corporation and receives 501(c)(3) status.
Stay Connected
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Why PFC Matters
Freethought is not just about what we do not believe.
It is about how we think, how we treat each other, and how we build meaning together.
PFC exists for people who believe that morality does not require religion, that questions should be welcomed rather than feared, that public policy should be shaped by evidence and human well-being, and that community can be built around shared values rather than shared dogma.
PFC Socials
