So, I seriously thought I'd sent this out last week. Then, I thought I'd get this sent out earlier this week. I didn't. I blame...
So, there's that. Now, you wonderful people get a double dose of updates - all of which should still be not only relevant but incredibly exciting [provided that your thresh hold(s) for incredulity and excitement are, well, extremely low]!
I'll start with the more recent news because... well, it's more recent.
IRC Shelving Update:
Several moments ago, I returned from the IRC, where I took some measurements and got a good look at the shelves that they already have. The ones there are pretty nice, and while it is certainly up to the group, I am going to go ahead and guess that it sort of scraps my idea for putting together some with cinder blocks and 2 x 4s. After all, if we're part of our goal is to have the community acknowledge that the non-religious are capable of doing charitable work, it's going to be partially counterproductive if our completed projects look like a public health hazard.
So, I'm going to spend some time putting together some blueprints of my own. I just (whilst writing this!) got the go ahead from our contact at the IRC (she wasn't present at the time of my visit), but it looks like we're trying to put in right around a total of 26' wall space for shelving. It seems like, for the purpose of things being modular, we're looking at three 8' shelves - we can model them after the existing ones. They are really nice: painted plywood and 2 x 4s, sturdy and aesthetically pleasing. They are three cubbies high (about 33" across, 20" high, and maybe 24" deep) with thick, supported pieces of plywood on the bottom of each. Each one is also three units across at a total of roughly 8' 2". (So picture a shelf, 3 x 3 cubbies.) If you have some experience with carpentry, please let me know. I've done some carpentry, but it's not exactly my forte. Once we have a definite blueprint, we can figure out cost and start fund-raising. It sounds weird, but I am really excited to have another project like this!
July 7th, 2019 - Secular Sunday
Attendees:
Sean
Steven
Roger
Pearl
Brian
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Gene
John
Adrienne
Mark
Vince
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Bob
Judy
Tara
Antonio
Joe
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Upcoming events:
Book Club - July 27th - 5 pm - Community Room at Earth Fare - Text is here!
Cat Cafe Get Together - TBA - if you're interested, when can you make it?
Announcements:
We've collected more cash and should be getting close to the - correct me if I am wrong - $275 necessary for us to file for 501c3 status. Eventually, we'll need to pump another 90ish dollars into the meetup site, but there will be announcements as events warrant. If you want to give something, that's great. I can get you a receipt.
Tara suggested the possibility of our awarding a local church with recognition for its lack of respect for the separation of church and state. (I feel like that's sort of a poor interpretation of what you said, Tara - correct me?)
Brian has been good enough to include the book list for our secular library - I'm going to work on putting that into Google doc format.
Discussion:
We talked about religion in the workplace and our reactions to it. Pearl kicked things off by mentioning an incident where something of a memo was sent or meeting occurred because of an employee saying, "Goddamn." A few other people chimed in on the level of secular (dis)comfort one is likely to experience where they work. Adrienne pointed out that this is often because churches are often the social center of small towns, and so it's natural for people to invoke them in any interactions. Steven pointed out that larger companies are more like to respect HR guidelines about keeping religion in church - smaller setups (as we've probably seen in the news) are less likely to respect this.
John spoke about conservative cognitive dissonance and how the lord works in mysterious ways when it comes to professional misfortune.
I brought up an incident involving the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the edges of religious freedom emphasizing, as someone else put it, we have a freedom to CHOOSE religion but not freedom from it. We talked about how fungible people's beliefs are when they can choose, I think it was Gene that said it, their brand of theism like Baskin Robbins. Mark mentioned that people often decide their faith based on what fits certain specific preferences - music, community, and (perhaps most importantly) what works best for their wallets. It seems odd to make such arbitrary judgments when a person's immortal soul is supposedly on the line. As usual, a great comedian has said it best. We got into a discussion about denominations and whether or not its members who decide how devout they'll be, or if, as Roger expressed - do certain denominations have a tendency to zealotry?
From there, we talked about Vacation Bible School, what people remember of it and just how predatory it actually is or isn't. Members shared personal experiences with actually having been there or Christians approaching them with regard to whether or not they were going to "let their own children decide." From there, we got into whether or not it is actually Child Abuse to indoctrinate children - and what constitutes child abuse. Eventually, we made our way round to whether or not it's intellectually lazy to assume that someone who doesn't believe in evolution is an idiot. All in all, it was a good discussion of How We Interface. Sorry if I misquoted or didn't manage to get notes on something good that someone said.
NEXT, here are the notes from June 30th.
Secular Sunday
June 30th, 2019
Attendees:
· Ann Brady
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· Bill Sparks
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· Sean Bienert
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· Derek
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· Gina
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· James
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· John
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· Brian
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· Pearl
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· Penny
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· Bob
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· Marsha
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· Chris
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· Stephanie
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· Katie
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· Pam
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· Ronnie
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· Dawn
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· Tara
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Announcements:
Chem trails, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers. Don’t ask. Book club meets on July 27th at 5pm. Why I Am Not a Christian by Richard Carrier. Bastille Day drinking Skeptically, July 13th. Trivia will be all things wine, France, and Revolutions. Francie’s get together is July 9th. Leave G’boro about 9 am. Brian has the library. See the list. Gerrymandering discussion (SCOTUS decision).
Discussion Notes:
Nostalgia – remember the good old days? Not great. An iron-clad view of how good things used to be even though they weren’t so great. The American Dream isn’t alive for many of us. Real ID (and voter id) wasn’t necessary until recently. Globalism is something that we have to deal with now.
Corporations are already global. In fact corporations drive globalism. But we’re also more tribal. Nationalism is kind of a dirty word in some circles, but more popular in others. Thomas Friedman (economist) says globalism has made the economy a level playing field (it’s not). Racist, nationalist groups in the last 20 years have grown, especially since Trump when it became acceptable to openly espouse those feelings. You used to be able to/have to hide your racism.
Blocking Fox News using parental blocks on TV.
The Villages in Fl. Retirement community. Culty, predatory men. A cross between The Good Place and Get Out. Fake nostalgia. Golf carts and STDs.
Regarding nostalgia – if most of our memories are good, we remember the past as good. If our memories are bad, we remember the past as bad.
Look for Upcoming Updates about Adopt-a-Highway!
