More Updates and Events

Yesterday

We discussed the connection between observation and causality that seems to imply subjectivity on the part of the universe. As usual, our conversation turned a few corners, stopped for a while on Big Cancer (the link, as I promised - sorryt, it wasn't last week tonight, I was referencing a very old episode of the Daily Show, and this archive link is tough to navigate, but it's worth a watch), the obligatory mention of Prez 45, and what do we do with the possible elimination of free will?

As John pointed out, a lot of our discussion is meaningless unless we have something we can take away from it and apply in our own lives. So, the slit experiment (I don't think that anyone NEEDS this explained to them like they are five, but it's just internet parlance for having things broken down to a basic level) shows us that we were always going to pick x or y? Great. What do I do with that information. Well, as Ann, and I believe several others pointed out, it should cause us to rethink our views of criminal justice. If we look at antisocial behavior as a problem and not an act of, say, "evil," we can get at its causes and perhaps prevent them more easily - rather than just making judgments punitive.

Wednesday the 1st

I think I forgot to mention this at the meeting, but the Rally for our Lives is going to be stopping in Greensboro. This ISN'T a side protest or anything like this. The actual heads of the movement are going to be here, speaking at Lebauer Park in downtown GSO. The FAACT event page is here.

Next Week

There will be an open topic - (no topic?) - this Sunday. I will be up Fluffya with the Jehovah's Witnesses and hopefully having a relatively peaceful time. Will my father try to re-convert me? Will we discuss the fact that his religion teaches that the world is less than 7,000 years old? We shall see!!!

I will return on the 12th of August.

Drinking Skeptically

There will be a Drinking Skeptically in Asheboro on August 18th. The event is here.

IRC Donations

We're doing IRC donations again soon. I believe that we decided on October for the donation date, but I will have more information (sorry, Pam, I should have gotten a picture/copy of that from you at the meetup) for what specific supplies are needed soon. We are going to be creating a meetup for putting together a meal for the homeless, to test the waters of how much interest and availability there is for that kind of an event.

Links for Next time! ALSO AN UPDATE ON ACTIVISM!

Good evening everyone

We had a great discussion, particularly dealing with how "hands on" to be when it comes to allowing them to make their own choices with regard to religion. There were some differences of opinion, interesting ideas, and cookies! (Thanks, Courtney!)

I'll be in attendance on the 29th, where we will be discussing Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics. Here are a few points, in different media, all except the second one are courtesy of Gene Garner, to give us some food for thought:

1) TED talk, regarding what consciousness is

2) BBC article, the link between consciousness and quantum mechanics

3) Newsweek article, "life" after death?

4) LIVE SCIENCE post, brain activity under anestheisa - this, IMO, begs the question, if we are unaware of so many of our mental processes, how does anyone draw a line, saying, "my consciousness starts here; this constitutes 'me'"?

I will, over the course of the next week, try to cobble together a coherent question that encapsulates these, so that we have a diving in point for discussion. Hope to see any and all of you there!

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ALSO, I didn't mention it my last update, August 1st is Rally for Our Lives. The meetup RSVP is here.

Love you all!

The end of July and the beginning of August

Good afternoon everyone!

I hope that this e-mail finds everyone well. I just wanted to throw a few things out there for this month and next:

Last Sunday

Not one of my prouder moments, but I should probably have planned to be absent from the meetup after the Bastille Day shindig. Thank you to everyone who made Secular Sunday grand, sans me. I heard that it was a good conversation and am sorry that I missed it.

This Sunday (the 22nd)

I don't know if anyone came up with a topic last time, but I was thinking that we could talk a bit more about things that we can do for kids/growing up secular/growing up religious/growing up in a cult/how weird must it be to be Suri Cruise? (mom Catholic, dad Scientologist). There are going to be a few people there who I know have kids - if they feel like dedicating a meetup to that. As any good organizer would do: I am abdicating all responsibility for this event - just let me know what YOU want to talk about  

Next Sunday (the 29th)

Hardball time, everybody. Gene has sent me a bunch and a half of articles dealing with consciousness and quantum physics. It's time we talked about them. I'll send some of his links and mine by next time. If you can message me before, say, five on Sunday, I should be able to include any articles that people would like sent out to the group.

Drinking Skeptically and Sundays Beeeeeeyond:

The 5th of August, I will be in Pennsylvania and cannot astral project myself to Greensboro (yet.) I leave this meeting in all of your very capable hands. Love you all.

Additionally, I'll be adding another Drinking Skeptically for August, but this is going to be the last one that I organize for a while because the school year is starting. And while summer is a great time to wake up on weekends praying to a god for death even though I don't believe in him, the I am getting old and cannot do that when I have to confront teach the children who are the future of our world. Let me know if you have any suggestions for locations, days, themes, etc.

Objective Right

Hi everyone!

I hope all of you are well. We had a great meeting today - twenty-one people in attendance (maybe more - I don't remember if people came after I counted.) At the opening of the meeting, I mentioned that Ann Brady, Joe Lantz, Lyn McCoy (who sent me some information on the Congressional Freethought Caucus, which led me to this), and I have all been promoted to Co-Organizers and are planning to put together some new initiatives to help the group grow interactively and transparently. Also, we would like a single coop jet. Kidding. Seriously, if anyone has ideas for new activities, volunteering, or modifications that we could make, please let us know. Afterwards, we discussed, again, the objectivity of morality... um... at first. As usual, the conversation wended its way around to it over and over again after finding various tangents to follow.

Lily opened up with a thought experiment very similar to this one I plagiarized from the internet:

It's war time, and you're hiding in a basement with a group of other people. Enemy soldiers are approaching outside and will be drawn to any sound. If you're found, you'll all be killed immediately. A baby hiding with you starts to cry loudly and cannot be stopped. Smothering it to death is the only way to silence it, saving the lives of everyone in the room. Assume that the parents of the baby are unknown and not present and there will be no penalty for killing the child. Could you be the one who smothered it if no one else would? 

(There's an article in first link on that page, but the morality quiz has been taken down. Perhaps, we live in too different a world than that of 2007...)

We batted a few notions around dealing with the morality of killing and the subjectivity of what makes something "good." Historical relativism made its predictable appearance, as did Godwin's Law. This segued (a few times in different directions) into the polarization of politics. Ann narrated a very good model of what it might look like if the United States were to descend into... well, where we have descended, with the dividing up of families as something that some people might find morally excusable. What some of us might, with a bit of acidic taste in our mouths, refer to as "the New Normal."
Joe(y) brought up the quote from Martin Niemöller:


Rob made a lot of good points regarding historical relativism, regarding whether or not someone would be able to understand that their society was wrong if it had been normalized for them for their entire lives. A couple people pointed out that anything like slavery or human sacrifice would have been probably seen as not great from the point of view of the slaves and sacrifices - no matter how the oppressors saw it. That having been said, I think a great number of people echoed the idea that they would be able to allow for someone to die for the greater good, but they would not be able to kill for it.
That having been said, and I mentioned this during the meetup, if any thinking person were to weigh heaven and hell, it would be completely rational to do whatever necessary to attain one and escape the other. To wit, if they can get you to believe absurdities, they can get you to commit atrocities. (Francie sent me this related article.) Simply because a society socializes something into normality doesn't mean that everyone is going to accept it. Otherwise, we might never have social progress. After all, how hard would it be to discount the cries of people who have been degraded by a society to be seen as inhuman. We would have had no progress if our empathy couldn't overpower conditioning - if that makes sense.
And, as Rob pointed out, we've lived through some pretty tremendous and positive social change. While all of that seems threatened right now, there have been a number of smaller, local victories. These may translate into greater ones as time goes on.  The important thing is to stay sane about what we think and do. There was a great amount of discussion dealing with the political left being pulled right in America and the inherent danger therein. Most of Europe would see the American left as, perhaps, center right. Whereas our right wing would seem ultra-nationalist to many Europeans. Our far right would be quite literally illegal in many places.
In summation, we, as members of the most stigmatized group in the United States, do actually live in a golden era, in the sense that we cannot yet be imprisoned in our home country for our beliefs, but that we must be ready to be as politically active as possible to prevent backsliding in terms of civil rights and liberties. Yes, morality may be subjective, but history (provided that there are people left to write it) will judge us on where we stand right now. I know that there is a variety of political opinions within this mailing list, but I do believe that we all share more than separates us as far as looking at something like civil rights. After all, who wants to have to go to church?

Lastly, check this website from time to time to see some changes. Joe and I will be attacking it a bit here and there. Have a great one, and I hope to see any and all of you at Secular Sunday!!!