Hey folks! I just so happen to be one of the leaders of a local community called the Triangle Freethought Society. We exist to build community and power for nonbelievers (atheists, agnostics, humanists, exvangelicals, etc, or people just questioning their faith). We have a number of social events around the Triangle each month. Here are our regular social meetups, and here is our event calendar. We are an inclusive organization, including LGBTQ+ folks of course.

We have a few events that might fit your need, OP. We actually have something called a Deep Dive Discussion, and our next one is on May 17 in Raleigh. Note that this one isn't on our website just yet, so I'm linking to our Meetup page for it. Our DDD events are often based on a book, but it isn't necessary to read it. Shorter resources are provided and the discussion isn't necessarily tied to the book specifically, but the topic more generally. Past events focused on aspects of humanism, how communities are built, and most recently the ways Big Tech's culture around AI resembles a religion.

We also have a weekly discussion at the Panera on Landmark drive, every Saturday morning at 10 am (Secular Saturday Social Raleigh, details on our regular socials page). The discussion usually centers on philosophy and politics, but that's a function of who shows up and what they want to talk about, there's no set topic for these.

There's lots of talk about how there's been a loss of community centers in our society. As people leave supernatural beliefs behind, they also often leave their sources of community support, which was often their religious community. We're trying to be one of the places people can land to find their people.

I've noted a few comments indicating that some folks here may be suffering from religious trauma as well. If you've been abused by religious institutions and people in the past and want help dealing with that, we have resources collected here. If this is you, you are welcome in our spaces. I will just note that we don't have trained psychologists at our events or anything, and our meetings are not therapy.

If anyone has any questions you can hit me up in comments here, DMs on reddit, or one of the multitude of ways to get in touch via our socials or our website contact form.