Updates for December!

Hello everyone!

We had a pretty decent size crowd this past Sunday: Ann, Sean, Brian, John, Tabitha, Lisa, Tara, Adam, Molly, Lyn, Jessica, Suze, Joe, Sue, Judy, Charles, Derek, Pam, Adrienne, Antonio, and Scott!

Good to see you if you were there, if not, hope to see you again soon!

Apparently, Saving Christmas was a hit for the Christmas Movie night at Lyn's house - Kirk Cameron explained away the pagan roots of the Christmas tree by pointing out that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree... as was the cross. OH. EM. GEE. The next movie night will be Footloose.

Also, in local upcoming events that our members might find interesting, there will be this.

Book Club will be having a Holiday Party on the 28th from 5-730 pm at Earth Fare. Gently used books, wrapped, can be exchanged as part of the party's book swap! Huzzah!

We are updating the SCOTT directory. Adrienne is in charge of it - if you'd like a copy, just be sure to sign up yourself. Only people included get copied in on it.

Charles has completed treatments for his tumor! More good news!

There is talk of a Drinking Skeptically in Winston Salem at a bar/bookshop. I think it's this one? Let us know if you'd be interested, and we can set it up!

Apparently, IHOP does fundraising breakfasts where 15% of the bill comes back as a donation to the group's cause.

We're going to be setting up a walk through the neighborhood where they host the Running of the Balls, an event I didn't feel well enough to participate in this past weekend. We were thinking January 1st! It should be up on the Meetup site soon! Come, walk, enjoy the lights!

We finished the shelving project!

Working on shelves

Staining!

Remember these? Our first project at the IRC, in use!

One of the finished, stained shelves!!! ...and John!

We talked about polygamy. This was an almost oddly centered discussion - it ranged a bit, but mostly it came back to the main topic. It was pretty quickly pointed out (by Lyn, I believe) that polygamy is nearly always used to talk about polygyny - not polyandry. I found this yes, it's wikipedia, but it's cited: Of the 1,231 societies listed in the 1980 Ethnographic Atlas, 186 were found to be monogamous; 453 had occasional polygyny; 588 had more frequent polygyny; and 4 had polyandry.^[3] Polyandry is less rare than this figure suggests, as it considered only those examples found in the Himalayan mountains (28 societies). More recent studies have found more than 50 other societies practicing polyandry.^[4]

Charles talked about the Canaanite "El," his wife Asher. We talked about Eloh and the plural Elohim. Moonies, or Church of God, believe in a YHWH as a father god and Elohim as a mother god figure. We talked about gendering of language and how the spirit of god is often referred to as feminine. We got, a bit, into a discussion of pronouns and gender neutrality. We talked a bit about polyamory.

A few people shared anecdotes about polygyny from Mormon sects and from other countries. One of the newcomers did not appear to enjoy this, so we tactfully told her that this was a safe space for people to share opinions and experiences.

This particular discussion was a lot more focused than some of the others we've had, but I thought it was a good one and would like to applaud everyone who had anything to contribute. You guys are great, and I can't wait to see you all next week (though not the one after that - I'll be in PA.)

Next week, we'll be bringing up a topic from the list.

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Organizer Meeting

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We're going to be setting up a PayPal Account/Quickbooks - this was approved unanimously.

We're changing the bylaws to reflect the following election procedures:

• We will be asking for nominations AND acceptance from the nominees before anyone can be elected - thereby ensuring that people WANT the positions for which they are being nominated.
• We will be introducing consecutive term limits - officers may be elected twice in a row but not a third time sequentially. Someone else must run, be elected, and serve a term before an officer can be re-elected beyond their second term. Obviously, this is to make certain that no one fossilizes in leadership, and that we get good people in the rotation as often as possible.
• We will be holding elections every year on the 2nd Sunday in February. (Survey will be opened)

501c3 Status will be applied for in January of 2020.

Dave Warnock will be coming early next year, we will be contributing money for a hotel room for him, though he will be driving here on his own dime. We wanted to collect a small honorarium at $5 a head for those attending - or more if anyone wants to contribute more.

We have a line on t-shirts. More information will be forthcoming.

Street Cleanup will be the January 11th. Stay tuned for location and event.

Treasury reports that our current funds are $497.97

Until next time, love you all!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone!!!

Sorry for the late e-mail; I think I need to, maybe, just send out what notes I have on the day off - that is to say, the late e-mail is not the fault of our wonderful Secretary, Ann Brady. Here are some announcements and upcoming events:

- There are several Thanksgiving activities going on today - I see from the RSVP lists that they are going to be well-attended. Awesome!

- Book Club discussed Our Non-Christian Nation on the 23rd; there was some confusion and members are looking to create a better method of communication.

- Speaking of communication, we have had a group directory book for some time now, and it is badly in need of an update. The way that it works is IF you would like to be included, you submit your name, address, and/or phone number. It is shared only with the other people who have submitted theirs. Much like our meeting notes, I need to get better at either delegating the directory responsibilities or keeping track of them. Pre-New Year Resolution, perhaps.

- Several members of our group confronted the Westboro Baptist Church as they tried to harass people in the Piedmont Triad. Apparently, there was a huge turnout of counter protesters. 

- I dropped the ball on mentioning that the "Galaxy Quest" documentary, "Never Surrender" was playing at the Regal Grande in Friendly Center on the 26th. Sorry. :(

- Charles the Great returned from his international trip with stories of feeding hyenas and falcons, as well as eluding a robber in Addis Ababa. 

- The final Shelf Assembly will take place that IRC on Saturday, December 14th. All we should need to do is attach the dividers into the shelves and stain them! (Flying Spaghetti Monster willing!)

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Our topic for this week was traditions (aka - peer pressure from dead people). Karen brought a bunch of cool secular/Pagan ritual books for us to look through. A lot of people shared what they do (and don't do) as far as Christmas. We talked about a lot of the Germanic origins of Christmas - Krampus, etc. We talked about secular and non-secular Christmas music. It seemed to be the prevailing attitude of the group that , "just because I don't believe in the subject of the song doesn't mean that I cannot find it beautiful/fun/nostalgic, etc."

It seemed that most of the people present still did some form of Santa belief with children. Speaking of children, a new member messaged me not long ago about putting together some kid centered or family oriented events for the group. We've talked about this before, but it hasn't really gotten beyond the idea swapping stage. Would anyone like to step up as a family event organizer? I would LOVE that. Alas, I digress... as evidenced by my next point:

I brought up Rant by Chuck Palahniuk because of this.

Next time, our subject is CATHARSIS (or, how we deal with difficult family members/venting.)

MUCH LOVE TO YOU ALL ON THIS THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY!!!

Another Two in One!

Hi everyone!

I wanted to write you earlier, but, per Chris Garland's question - I wanted to see what we might be facing if the very probable outcome of Friday night being a white flag night - so I've emailed our contact at the IRC. Kerry Nance said that it won't be an issue because the center will be open Saturday morning.

November 3rd

Updates/News:

There was a fantastic Halloween ritual, courtesy of Lyn.

Book Club will be meeting Nov. 23rd in the community room of Earth Fare at 5-630 pm - They'll be reading Our Non-Christan Nation.

Lyn told us about this amazing museum exhibit.

We will be doing shelving assembly at the IRC on November 9th.

On the 10th, we will be doing Deconversion Stories. Members, who want to, will be sharing stories of how their faith disappeared or changed.

Here are the summary and the updates from last week: we talked about (many other things but circled back around to) comedy and all of its various facets:

Derek kicked things off telling us about Pete Holmes. It was interesting. Molly went on to talk about the hypocrisy of people who are offended by slights against their ideals, but when they make similar comments, they are "just kidding." This segued to the outrage at Happy Holidays and the war on Christmas.Apparently, Hallmark has begun its 24 hour movie marathons of formulaic Christmas movies. Someone mentioned, either a documentary a book, called The Lie Everyone Loves - I can't remember which it was - anyone?

Eventually, we got to satire and Poe's Law, which brought out a lot fake news, bots retweeting, and the shouting down of anyone dissident. We talked about the line between fascism and mob rule. This brought us back to laughter - particularly as a coping mechanism. We brought up Nihilist Memes and what it says/means about the society that has spawned it. When is something satire? When is it something higher or lower? We talked about identities and the use of humor as a cultural shibboleth. When is something satire and when something is just making fun, rather than making a point. Was it all right to make fun of Sarah Palin - the general consensus was that making fun of her absurd political positions was fine, but attacking her ad hominem was off the charts.

This segued into a discussion of what is admissible for humor and what is mean or bullying. Lyn brought up William F. Buckley - the guy who pulled this. ...and this.

Chris Garland brought up Ricky Gervais' Humanity and, again, the nuance with regard to what is off the table (or not off the table) as far as comedy goes.

Not long after this, Scott brought up a few points: chem trails, black helicopters, George Soros' being a supposed Nazi, and other things of the ilk - that, I think, may have given some people (myself included) *ahem* pause. I cannot speak for the group in its entirety, but I think we handled it as well as we could: people tried to find a common ground, appealed to rationale, and used direct communication. Scott has dropped his membership without saying anything else to me.

Eventually, humor won out, as Karen brought us back to our discussion about profanity and connected it with the scatology, religion, and in group vs. out group. We continued on to talk about the out group jokes target Polish people (with a brief stop mentioning the renaissance fair) and the proclivity of recently discriminated against groups going after new groups. No one could think of, for instance, an Italian American Presidential hopeful who has become a front runner for either of the major parties. (From what I could see, the closest was Mario Cuomo with vice presidential contenders: John Pastore, Peter Rodino, Joseph Alioto, Geraldine Ferraro - my sources on these the Wayback Machine.)

We closed out with how a discussion of how we may have been meant to perceive Archie Bunker. Were we supposed to laugh at his relative ignorance and harmlessness? Or, were we supposed to feel animus toward him?

Next time: We will be doing deconversion stories! I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!!

Here are notes from the lovely Ann Brady - regrettably, I dropped the ball on sending these out. We love you Ann! Thank you!

Secular Sunday

November 5, 2019

Attendees:

·         Ann Brady	·         Bob	·         Sean Bienert
·         Karen	·         Judy	·         Ronnie
·         Chris	·         Tabitha	·         Hunter
·         Ryan	·         Adrienne	·         Deanna

Announcements:

Dave Warnock speaking thing will not be until Feb or March 2020. He wrote a book called Dying Out Loud. He has ALS and is a member of the Clergy Project.

We have two dates for the shelving – November 9^th, and December 7^th or 14^th . The 9^th is definite, Dec. is going to be “if needed”. You can rsvp on Meetup.

Book club met yesterday. Small group, 5 people. Karen’s daughter is writing a mashup of Good Omens and the Scarlet Pimpernel. She went and said the meeting was good.

Halloween party was great.

Discussion Notes:

Coming out as atheist – fear of rejection. Ronnie says he is pretty open about it now, but it does put people off sometimes. Karen recently had her secular and political coming out. She ran a state-wide homeschool group. She was outed by a friend on Facebook.

Chris wanted to know if anyone has every been denigrated as an atheist by any religion other than Christians. Ronnie has experiences with Hindus, but they weren’t really bad about it.

Deanna has experienced that many times over the years. It’s more acceptable to be gay than atheist.

Scathing Atheist says we should be glad that Christians don’t follow the Bible closely (not sure I got this right.)

Grace vs. works.

Christian pop music – KLOVE. Take a pop song, change out the word “Baby” and replace it with Jesus and you have a Christian pop song.

Where are the good bad guys? Rise of the anti-hero. What is the back story for the really bad guy?

History of the group: GAO, Science Sunday, then Sean took over the Sunday meetings and we started having Secular Sunday. We became FAACT because some people had issues with the word atheist. Then we became SCOTT. 

Two in One

Hi everyone!

Obviously, we aren't going to do the shelving construction this morning - unless anyone has a time machine and a really messed up sense of priorities. So, that question on the survey is off - I'm going to set up two dates for shelving construction - November 9th and December 14th. If the job doesn't get finished on the first one (I will not be able to be present for that), we'll knock it out for sure in December (I will be able to be present for that).

Next, I realize that the first question on the survey is worded a bit funny - so I'm going to revise it. Right now, it's split 4/3, but I'm not sure that the question made sense. Please, please, please, respond to that question - I don't want to use (or not use) any of our moldy old money without a lot of responses. I'm sending out a link to the revised survey with the notes from tomorrow's meeting.

Here are the results for the (now closed) survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-BZBLTRQQ7/  

For shirts, I have looked at a couple of sites that could help us put that together. There are some good ones - it seems like a popular idea, so just watch for updates on that.

Hope to see you soon!

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Hi everyone,

As usual, sorry about getting this out so late, but I wanted to make sure that I had a few things down as far as dates go.

Anyway, here's is the survey with a few amendments. 

And, here are the notes from last week's meeting!

Kia and I are hosting a Halloween Bash on the 26th!

Secular Sunday

October 13, 2019

Attendees:

·         Ann Brady	·         Brian	·         Sean Bienert
·         Gina	·         Joe	·         Molly
·         Gene	·         Tara	·         Adam
·         James	·         Stephanie	·         Tabatha
·         Derek	·         Lisa	·         Pam
·         Bob	·         John	·         Hunter

Announcements:

First shelf assembly at the IRC was yesterday. We managed to get one set assembled but not stained. All the cutting is done. We can either do the others in October (there is at least one more Saturday when they will be open in the morning), or in November or even in early December. To stain or to paint? The stain is free. May have paint donated. In November, the date is November 9^th. In December, the date is either the  7^th or the 14^th. Sean will not be available on Nov. 9^th.

Book Club is October 26^th, the book is Good Omens by Terry Pratchett.

We have an Adopt-A-Street. Date for cleanup will be announced soon.

Lisa – still pushing for Oct. 27th for David Warnock to come and speak.  Difficulty in finding a room in a local hotel because of Furniture Market. We may need to have a donation for him. He is a former pastor. Through the Clergy Project, he met another pastor (Cas Midgely) who does a podcast, Everyone is Agnostic. Dave just found out that he has ALS and is doing a “Dying Out Loud” speaking tour.

Molly – Weaver House, once a month or once every two months provide a meal for about 75 people. We would have to cover the cost of the food.

Oct 24^th College Park Baptist Church, Emmanuelmovie screening 6:30 pm. Free popcorn.

Discussion Notes:

Taming your tongue. Ellen Degeneres/Bush kerfluffel.  Is it a good idea to be nice to people who hate you?  Bush was in power and was opposed to LBGT+ rights. 

The Hidden Brain Episode about the acceptance of "non-traditional marriage" and the LGBTQ community by the broader public.

Cursing – when you are in need, you need to conform (James/Adam). Hierarchy of needs at least a little, must be met before you can afford to be non-conformist (Tabatha). We value individualism, but in a very conformist way (Molly).

So much of youth rebellion is born in corporate America (Sean).

Math Rock – very technical, very crafted, like a wall of noise. Do you like it because its good, or because you just like it?

How do you convince homeless people that they need to conform? What is their goal? Do they want to get off the street? Are they happy where and how they are? Aren’t these the same people who would be the explorers and opening up new territories in past times?

Aren’t homeless people deserving of housing, basic care?

It isn’t our job to determine what is success for others. We can only speak for ourselves.

Mental illness is a causal factor in becoming homeless. If you become a danger to others, then intervention may be necessary, but are differing ways of looking at the world a reason to medicate people? (James)

The wealthy have more in common with each other, no matter what their politics, than they do with any of us.

All social experiments to get rid of classes and castes has failed in the end. (James)

Somehow we ended up on the subject of whether animals have souls. EDITOR'S NOTE: THEY DO. MORESO THAN WE DO. HAVE YOU MET PEOPLE?

&%$# It All (Secular Sunday about Profanity!)

Updates:

I shan't be at the Secular Sunday tomorrow. I'll miss you all. I shall return next week 

Book Club is

Shelving Cutting and Staining will be this coming Saturday. We need saw horses, a chop saw, and a table saw. Please, RSVP and comment what you can bring on the event site.

We talked this past Sunday (sorry for how late this is) about a few things. Here they are:

Lisa told us about Dave Warnock, a former Nashville preacher who has deconverted, been diagnosed with ALS, and runs a Clergy Project. We could, for the low, low price of about 85 twice - (hotel room for two nights) have him come and speak to our group. Look him up, I think you'll find him fascinating. As fro money, we'll have to have 1) a survey on whether or not we want to afford that 2) an accounting of how much cash we've got after shelving at the IRC. Speaking of which, I am going to need to call an Organizer Meeting in late October or early November. Organizers? What do we think?

Karen told us about Shane Mauss and his recent performances at the Idiot Box. He apparently incorporates the teaching of science into comedy, stylishly.

The subject was profanity, and there was a lot about which to cuss. We started off with the absurdity of what we call profane - Cornelius Evazan losing his arm (yes, he had a name) in Mos Eisely in Star Wars Episode IV vs any kind of a butt being shown in just about anything. Additionally, we talked about just how much boob can be shown before it becomes "pornographic," and how ridiculous that is. Is society saying that murder is more natural than a naked body?

We talked about the prudishness of the American profanity and the comparative relaxation of English humor. Specifically, this. We went on to talk about Winning Through Enlightenment. And this darling of the idea that one should - correct me if I am wrong about the quote, "Never raise your opinion to the level of relevance." I like it anyway.

Karen brought up the fascinating What the F and the categories of swearing: profane vs sacred - HOLY, sexual (taboo) F***ING, scatological S***, and in/out group N***** - we talked about natural disinclinations toward subjects, such as swearing based on fecalphobia, coming from an instinct of the amygdala. Karen also introduced us to the colorful world Quebecois Swearing. 

We talked for a while - to be extremely - I'll be diplomatic and say - succinct, about different nonverbal profanities, the possible biblical roots of verbal profanity, Mark Twain, "The Awful German Language," "The Life of Brian," and phonaesthetics which I misnomered as metonomy. For instance, the hard "c" of the c word for the female anatomy vs. the soft "f" of the f word.

I won't be there next time, but next time the subject is supposed to be the changing zeitgeist with acceptability in gender roles.

OH MY GOD I HAVEN'T POSTED SINCE LAST MONTH!

If there is great hue and cry (I got curious and the etymology of that is fascinating!) I'll find some of the older e-mails and post them. If not, the record is as it stands.

Here is my e-mail (late) from last week:

Hi everyone!

Sorry to be getting you this the day before we meet and I send you another one...

Things of Note as Possibilities for the Group

If you aren't following the March for Science, friend of the group, one Randall Hayes, posted this on their page. It's taking place at a church, but I don't think any of us will combust if we go to it. 

Next, Lisa Duke mentioned this to me, and I think it is certainly worth a look - we've had guest speakers before and talked about  having more. Well, here's a possibility. From her e-mail:

"If you don't already know Dave Warnock, he is a former preacher who deconverted and then, within the last year, has a diagnosis for ALS. 

He is giving talks about what he calls Dying Out Loud so it's death from a secular perspective. 

His assistant says:

'Since it's a reasonable driving distance away, all he would need would be the 2 hotel nights (~$85/night). Honorariums are appreciated but we let the group decide what they find reasonable. All profits go towards future costs of travel for the Dying Out Loud message, etc.'"

Shelving Update

As for the shelving update, I've received word that we can probably get in two days of work on the shelves in October - I'll talk to management at the IRC about it, but I think we need to see how things go on the 12th, first. That having been said, we really need at least one table saw, one chop saw, a table to set the table saw on, and some saw horses. Several people have said that they have the items that we might need, but I am wondering who among us can commit to bringing them that Saturday. I'll be there, but the best I've got is a crappy little jigsaw that's not going to do much of anything. (sad face)

So, please, if you're going to be able to be there, please, click this link, RSVP, and comment beneath about what you can bring as far as tools, etc.

Notes

Secular Sunday

September 28, 2019

Attendees:

·         Ann Brady	·         Bill Sparks	·         Sean Bienert
·         Charles	·         Jabari	·         Stephanie
·         Lynne	·         John	·         Brian
·         Staci	·         Bobby	·         Pearl
·         Pam	·         Molly	·         Will
·         Joe	·         Chris	·         Derek
·         Keeler	·         Adrienne	·         Richard
·         Karen

Announcements:

Team Rubicon – donations for the Bahamas. PBGreensboro.com for participatory government. Book club – Mere Christianity. Next Saturday. See Meetup site. Next video night – Mazes and Monsters. IRC shelving Oct. 12 will be cutting and staining the wood. Assembly tentatively November 9^th. This is also on the meetup site. Pride day – Will. Will gave out free hugs at Pride. Some of the people were very, very happy to have a dad hug. It sucks that there is the void there for affection. We gave out a bunch of literature and buttons.

Discussion Notes:

Charles is leading the discussion today. Topic is when was Jesus born. 2 sources, Matthew and Luke. Neither of them give us an exact date for this. The Bible is not history. They are strictly theological. It is up to us to figure it out. Dionysius, in 525 calculated the date which was accepted by the church and the Roman gov. (which was by then, Christian) made that year 1. There is no year zero because the Romans did not have the numeral zero.

Brief history: starting with David (who we aren’t sure was historical) was about 1000 BC. The kingdom broke up after David. Judea was the main tribe in the south. At the end of the 8^th cent BCE the Assyrians destroyed the 10 tribes in the north. They marched as far as Jerusalem. They exacted a ransom according to both the Bible and the Assyria history which Judea paid. This is when the prophets started talking about god’s plan. Micah chapter 5. He prophesized that Bethlehem would be the place where a ruler will come who will defeat the Assyrians. This is the only place where Bethlehem is mentioned and it was NOT a messiah and he was ONLY going to defeat the Assyrians.

The Romans made Herod the king of a large part of the middle east (Herod the Great). He had 4 sons and the Romans, on the death of Herod, made his 4 sons tetrarchs. Herod Antipas, 4 BCE – 39 AD ruled Galilee. Herod Herculaus 4 BCE – 6 AD  ruled Judea, only ruled 10 years. Romans took over the administration of Judea. Quirinius was the governor and held a census.

After Quirinius, Pontius Pilate ruled from 26 AD to 36 AD and was fired for being too cruel. Josephus tells us that he crucified hundreds of people and there were a great many rebellions. In 66 – 74 the Jews did revolt and were defeated and the temple was destroyed.

All the gospels were written after the fall of Jerusalem. 72 – Mark, 82 – Matthew, other 2 later. The two that talk about the birth of Jesus were completely different (Matthew and Luke).

December 25^th was adopted as his birthday because of other holidays that were already in place.

Isaiah also made a prophesy about Emmanuel who would also crush the Assyrians. He was Hezekiah according to the Jews, also not a messiah.

The Septuagent (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) was in general circulation from 200 years before Jesus and was probably what the authors of the New Testament were reading and most familiar with. It translates ama (young woman) as virgin, which is incorrect.

Matthew: Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem and she was pregnant by someone else. Joseph didn’t want her to be stoned to death so he was going to divorce her quietly. Angel Gabriel comes to visit him 3 times and tells him not to divorce her because god is the father of the baby.  The wise men come to King Herod and ask directions to the new born king. Herod issues an edict to kill all the infant boys. But before he can, the wise men get to Bethlehem and give him gifts. There is no mention of him being king except in Matthew. The story about the killing of the innocents was the story of Moses. The second time the angel comes he tells Joseph to leave and go to Egypt. The 3^rd time he tells Joseph to go back to Israel, but don’t go to Bethlehem, go to Galilee because one of Herod’s sons is ruling in Bethlehem at the time and it isn’t safe.

The genealogies in Luke and Matthew are completely different.

Luke starts similarly to Abraham and Sarah story (old man, old woman, have a baby). Luke starts by saying that Zaccariah and Elizabeth (old) are going to have a son, who turns out to be John the Baptist (during the time of Herod the Great). Elizabeth’s cousin is Mary, who lives in Nazareth. In Luke, Gabriel goes to Mary, not Joseph and tells her that even though she’s a virgin she’s going to have a baby. She goes to see her cousin Elizabeth (70 miles away). Elizabeth is 6 months pregnant and her baby leaps in her womb. So 10 years later (Mary pregnant for 10 years?) Quirinius calls a census which the Bible calls it a world wide census. Joseph takes Mary who is now 9 months pregnant to Bethlehem for some reason for the census. They have Jesus in a manger and then later take him to Jerusalem to be circumsized and performed the normal purification rituals.

Matthew and Luke seem almost to have been writing to two completely separate audiences. Luke didn’t seem to care about Matthew’s version of the story.

Topic for next time – marriage, profanity, raising children as non-religious. Which topic do we want? Looks like it might be profanity.