Discussion of Different Types of Cakes

Hello Everyone!

Announcements and Philanthropy

We are trying to put together a few items for the IRC; 

In that vein, and I don't mean to pester anyone, but I think it's worth our time... We're going to do a packing event where we put together any donated items. Also, socks, backpacks, shoes, and other items are appreciated.

Adopt-a-Highway is on the February 10th! DO EEET! DO EET! I'm seeing a high of 51° F. Should be a good day for it! I will be there, and my mom says that I am awesome!

Sunday's Meeting Wrap Up

We had a fantastic Secular Sunday discussion this week, and it was great to see everyone - there were, I think, more than twenty people. Lyn brought up this, though I think her source was FFRF. That segued into the idea of taking a knee and a few of the tests that we've recently seen with regard to the US Constitution's First Amendment. Our announced topic for the weekend dealt directly with that: if religious bakers should be made to bake cakes for non-traditional weddings, should *ahem* non-nazi bakers be forced to make cakes for Nazis? 

(Also, WHAT THE &%$#?)

Zoe was quick to point out that being a Nazi is a choice and therefore not really analogous to being a member of the cis-hetero community. While this very nearly ended our discussion very early, someone mentioned that until the government recognizes this fact, it doesn't really do much good. The conversation meandered a bit around personal and hypothetical circumstance - is it more of a help or a hindrance to be an atheist when it comes to being a small business owner. To wit, is it easier to serve a broader community when you recognize that all of the deities out there have the same amount of actual indignation as the Easter Bunny?

THEN...

Christian brought us to the subject of government coercion - he may have only been the first one to use that word, let me know if my notes are inaccurate. This subject more or less dominated the remainder of the meeting. Because the argument is as clear as it is old: if the government has the power to force you to do something, simply because you agree with what they are making you do right now, does not mean that you will agree with it in the future. Obviously, a person who is objectively right in resisting an oppressive regime, (sorry, Godwin) represents a moral majority of one, like those who, at times alone, resisted the Nazis. However, if we strip the government of the right to enforce its rule of law, we can end up with very unjust pockets of society, such as places that resisted racial integration. Or, in a lot of cases, the power to oppress minorities can be given by the government - as it was in places like the antebellum United States.

Statistics were marshaled. Supreme Court decisions were cited. By the time the dust had cleared, we had solved this age old social question, for good. Everyone walked away completely satisfied, and we had planned to submit our findings to the UN and all large government bodies.

BUT

I forgot exactly what our outcome was. So, yeah, that's lost.

LASTLY, but still very importantly

Yes, Geeksboro was a tad leaky last time. We love them very much, however, and Joe Scott works very hard to keep our location as awesome, safe, and welcoming as it can be. So, please, please, please, be cool about stuff like that. We're lucky to have a spot like Geeksboro.

Next Weekend

A lot of you will not care that it is Superbowl weekend, BUT bear with me. I think this is a good time to talk about tribalism. I get the sense that most of us are going to agree that in most of its forms, tribalism is bad. Are there any where it isn't? I used to joke that nationalism had its place, and that place was sports, but a number of people have pointed out that that sort of thing can still get really, really ugly - after all, I am phrom Philthadelphia. ...and if there is one thing that the City of Brotherly love does really well, it's having the most cantankerous, nasty, and brutish sports fans. (Though, they did not actually throw batteries at Santa Claus. That was two separate incidents. They threw snowballs at Santa.) And Europe? It seems like some countries have an inverse correlation between progressive social policies and bellicosity about things that do not actually matter.

Anyway, this topic can clearly be extended beyond sports, and I think it would make for some good discussion: it's easy to patronize people whom we see as being followers, but if we're all going to be cats, it's going to be really rather difficult to accomplish anything, isn't it?

I hope to see any of you and all of you there! Have a great rest of your week!

January 21st and January 28th

1) Here are some books that have been brought up in the past few meetings:

• Bill Bryson's At Home - 19th century English country rectors contributed heavily to scientific discovery because of the preponderance of free time that they had to pursue everything from architecture to biology.

• Nasim Taleb's Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder - He actually references the previous information, in the previous book, but he also brings up a point about education that I wish I had had the presence of mind to bring up today, and that is this: education tends to spring from wealth, rather than the other way around. People who are in the middle class tend to be able to stay in the middle class because they can afford to go to college. Many of the current educational systems that are viewed in a positive light were created after said country achieved wealth, not the other way around. It's an interesting point.

• Atul Gawande's Being Mortal - Michael has brought this up, I've added it to my "to read" list, and I felt it worth a mention here. 

2) The link for the FAACT store:
https://www.zazzle.com/faact_shop

3) This week, we batted around a lot of topics, but (perhaps I was paying more attention because of how close to home this is) I felt that at least one of the largest chunks of our discussion centered around education. We talked about the level of education and employment among parents and what potential effects that can have on children. We also talked about the evolution of American society into one where people lack critical reasoning ability and a few of the causes of that. We also talked about the conflicting and potentially outdated goals of educational systems. If society simply needs fewer people working because of automation, what will happen to people at the lowest strata of socioeconomics? What happens to the people at its topmost echelons?


4) For next week's discussion, I'd say that this topic is as controversial as it is important. We're going to talk about legislating morality. To wit, I think all of us would agree that refusing to make a cake for a gay couple is wrong. But if the Westboro Baptist church wanted you to make a cake for one of their events, most of us would probably like the right to refuse that. I know that our group tends to be very left leaning, but I would really, really like to encourage some of the independent or right leaning FAACT members to chime in here. I bring up this topic specifically because I don't believe that it is easy to talk about. Come! Discuss! Argue! I hope to see you on Sunday the 28th!