Storms

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all safe and under decent roofs. Kia and I were okay after last night, but we were a bit wigged out to see just how close the storm came to where we live - we didn't get any kind of warnings or anything from our phones. Nothing of any import happened to us. The extent of it was something like this:

Sean is grading on the couch; Kia is in the shower

Sean: Wow, it's really raining hard out there. Like, sheets of rain.

Kia: What?

Fin.

Then again, I hear that some of the worst devastation occurred... *ahem* very close to Summit and Cone boulevard... that's a section of town that should be familiar to several of you.

If you are a member of the FAACT community, are having any issues from the storm (or, I mean, really any issues - we're a community for all seasons, right?), please reach out to us. There is a lot of need out there right now; some people have been displaced and are without access to things like drinking water. Anyone who has already volunteered to help out: good on ya. Anyone who would like to do something/more, check this out.

Be safe and keep your noses clean.

love,

Sean

Two Recent E-mails in One Post (Sorry, I've Been Slacking!)

Below is the more recent of the two: April 15th, 2018

Hi everyone!

Last Week

I'm late again with the summary - apologies. I'll dive right into the morbid details of our discussion on the 8th: we talked about death. We started off with the strange phenomenon of the fear of death in those who believe in an afterlife. It is next to impossible for me to open up my Facebook page without seeing a call for "Prayer Warriors" in an attempt to help out someone sick or otherwise suffering. Within that same feed, it's not uncommon for people to happily comment on the passing of friends and relatives with "s/he's with God now."

The conversation found its way to the opportunistic nature of coffin salespeople and what we, as agnostics, atheists, etc., might want our remains handled. There are plenty of options for the nonreligious.

This Week

We talked about the future of religion - will the god of the gaps eventually shrink to the point where there just isn't any space left for him? Or, as was pointed out today, religious people have a tendency to move the goalposts when confronted with incontrovertible evidence. There is also the possibility that religious people

John pointed out that people do have certain needs that are met by religion - whether it's a sense of community or some kind of connection with the eternal. We batted around different reasons for those needs and how they can be/have been met. We also talked about the limits of a community before it becomes a religion. We talked about religion's place in western society as it reflects or inspires capitalism. We talked about the purported inclusivity of Christianity, its history of oppression, and the role of the church in some progressive movements.

Yesterday was the Science March, and while I missed the beginning of it, the ending was great. It was good to see some support for Science in the Piedmont Triad. Keep up the energy, everyone! There are a lot of opportunities to help with science education, and we should try to show support for any of them that we can! 

Next Week

First and foremost, I forgot to make an announcement today - on the 22nd at Secular Sunday, we'll be hearing from an ACLU rep. about getting status as legal observers for any protests, marches, etc. that we might be attending. If you'd like to be a part of that, please, come this coming Sunday! 

For a topic, we have talked a lot about humor at Secular Sunday already. I'd like to address a few of the attendant issues that we've already touched on, but I think that the discussion would do really well to discuss 1) what Randall brought up a couple of weeks ago - using humor to take the sting out of the confrontational nature of discussing religion. 2) are there limits to what is in good taste with humor? If humor is a coping mechanism, is there a line that, objectively, should not be crossed? Or, is life truly a comedy in long shot and tragedy in close up?

Lastly, Drinking Skeptically will be at my place at 730 Julian street in Greensboro. We're theming it for the 90s - which isn't a big deal because, you know, 90s were kinda, like, whatever anyway. Right? This will be the inaugural fire pit night of 2018 - Kia and I will be providing some snacks, vegan hot dogs, and a six pack of Zima to be drunk with skittles in it... just like the 90s. I'll have some beer, as well, but BYOB - alcoholic or non. Hope to see you there, but please, RSVP or e-mail me back so that Kia and I can get an accurate headcount!

That's it! Love you all!

This one is from March 31st, note the edits:

Last Sunday
We started off last Sunday with an announcement from Randall about the March for Science - which can be found here, here, and here. Any and all political leaning aside, I think that the one of the main things that unites us is a healthy skepticism toward dogma, the hallmark of organized religion. That having been said, I know that a lot of these marches are predominantly left wing (though there is often a healthy amount of Libertarian presence), but scientific thinking is something that innoculates society against the kind of blanket acceptance that lays the foundation for religiosity.

The conversation made its way, from there, to morality clauses in schools and the ways in which the current zeitgeist filters teachers and information. We brushed on the topic of a "moral majority" or a majority of one, as it were. The topic arrived upon and repeatedly returned to how school dress codes penalize women and girls more than their male counterparts. We batted around the intents, types, and outcomes of different uniform policies in public school and the workforce. This eventually led to discussing school budgets and arming students with rocks. We talked about the Walk Up movement and victim blaming. 

Victim blaming, it would seem, is the correlatory of the religious notion that because everything is part of a plan, if something bad happens to you, surely, you must deserve it somehow. We talked briefly about the legal and social ramifications of labelling shooters as "terrorists" vs. anything else that may positive of negative connotations. To wit, if someone trains with a hate group, surely they can be labelled as a terrorist. What about someone who just claims allegiance to one?

Antonio brought up the idea of economic desperation and how it can feed into people joining stigmatized groups at all levels. (Forgive me, Antonio, my notes indicate that, but I can't really remember what it was that you said - correct me if I am misrepresenting.) Kia talked about the book The Hate U Give and its handling of some of our society's recent problems and its proposed, albiet implied, solutions. This moved on to the lack of uniformity in sentencing of felons and the various factors, societal, ethnic, economic, etc. that cause said lack. Someone brought up that Christians have a tendency toward the No True Scotsman fallacy with regard to not claiming Christians who have acted in accordance with, say, the old Testament. This, of course, brought up cognitive biases and the prima facie rejection of ethical atheists by some Christians. 

We talked about the causes of this sort of rationale and the way that we Interface. Eventually, this rounded into the point that nobody forms political opinions in a vacuum. We talked about the fact that people who have not internalized ethics and still need to be rewarded for doing good or punished for doing bad are that way because they have somehow been hobbled morally. Francie spoke out about how infuriating it can be to have people try to come to terms, audibly, with our own perceived lack of morals, despite the fact that we are not doing things for any sort of cosmic carrot. 

We talked about the othering of atheist because people cannot accept that people like Hitler could bear any resemblance to them, as human beings. Everyone's favorite person to blame is whoever is not connected to them. We talked about potential solutions to lessening the strange threat that we pose to people, how we can make ourselves seem more approachable (which, I think, most of us understand is as necessary as it is insane that we might need to). Randall therapy had some great thoughts about making the transition to acceptance easier through humor and a kind of distancing abstraction. Self-deprecating humor allows us to appear to be on the side of people who might hate us, and it takes away some of their proverbial fire. But, it has the added benefit of allowing them to laugh at the ridiculousness of attacking us because it is ridiculous. This digressed into using "The Planet of the Apes" to talk about evolution, which digressed into this actual batshit crazy experiment. I had to mention Oryx and Crake because it's such a fantastic book (I might add that you should probably just imagine that the series to which it belongs ends there. The later parts of the trilogy are disappointing.) We then spoke of Oliver the Chimp and the differentiation between humans and chimpanzees. Eventually, we returned to the humor, the recent sentencing from the not so recent Nazi pug scandal, and Ricky Gervais's commentary on humor that is rape adjacent. From here, we finished talking about Ireland's blasphemy laws and good ole Santorum (all definitions).

Tomorrow

As mentioned, I shan't be there tomorrow, and I know that a few of our other regulars are going to be out of town for familial functions that may even necessitate some atheist taquiya. I am up in Pennsylvania with my Jehovah's Witness family. In about an hour, we will be on our way to "Creepy Jesus Funeral" to borrow a Kiaologism. My brother, who has previously paid lip service to our former faith, has made light of the religious observances in earshot of my parents, even mentioning that he might show up to the Memorial service drunk. This has elicited eyerolls from my parents.
While I shan't be there, I have noticed that our discussions do tend to work a little better at least when there are topics. To this end, I was thinking that the attendees could:
1) Compile a list of topics to be posted on the FAACT facebook wall. That might lead to some good conversation by itself, and I think it would be nice to have that kind of an on-going thread.
2) Talk about humor - there's SO MUCH to discuss! Evolutionary biologists believe that we developed it to cope, but there are so many other facets that humor uses to find its way into our lives. We've done humor as a topic before, but there's absolutely no way that with a) the different members we have b) the infinitively creative nature of language (Chomsky) that the conversation would be dull.

Next Week
I plan to return next week - if the group doesn't come up with a discussion topic this weekend, I'll come up with one sooner.
Drinking Skeptically
The weekend of the 7th, Kia and I were thinking about doing a 90s night/firepit/the birthday of the Joes (Lantz and Crawford - also, Joel and Antonio) for a Drinking Skeptically. St. Joe's of the 90s? Maybe, you guys could come up with what you would want to be Patron Atheist Saint of? Up to you guys! Let me know if that sort of a Drinking Skeptically (BYOB) firepit night would be interesting to everyone. Flannels or band t-shirts and busted jeans for dress code? Let me know!
Love you guys! I am the proudest atheist reverand (irreverand?) I know!
-Sean "Save Me from Being Saved" Bienert

Social Media, the Hive Mind, and Dunbar's Number

If you're familiar with the above reference, I have influenced you to hear this in his voice, and I feel like I can almost guarantee that.

...aaaaaaaaaaanyway...

Tribalism

We had an amazing discussion today, and while I love our discussions in general, this one was even better than usual. Last time, we talked about tribalism and ended up mostly talking about our own tribe. Randall's blog post was particularly lauded, and if you missed it, you can read it here. I don't remember anyone directly addressing this last time, (though Randall's post mentions it twice) but Brian gave a name to the anthropological hypothesis that a person can only track a certain number of people at a time: Dunbar's Number.  Susan brought up this commencement address that she felt was inspirational. Jayne mentioned something that she had read (and forgive me Jayne, I'm having trouble finding articles about this - help me out and e-mail the group?) about the psychedelic drug tests that question basic notions about the "self. "

This sort of segued into a discussion of inter-tribalism. Everyone obviously belongs to any number of tribes from familial to collegial, etc. We discussed nationalism at some length and whether or not it will eventually go the way of the dodo because of the internet creating a new, strange uniculture. Eventually, the conversation sort of distilled down to one of our older discussions: how do we interact with religious people (non-members of our strange little tribe)? We talked a bit about the diversity of belief and skepticism within our own group. Our acronym, Freethinkers, Atheists, and Agnostics is really the only way to describe us, and the "herding cats" (not to be confused with hurting cats - which my neuroticism always causes me to worry that people are hearing when I say that) bon mot from our meetup site. Eventually, the conversation came to how we identify ourselves to others who ask, as they often do, "where do you go to church?" Or, "what religion are you?"

A lot of us said that it was situationally dependent, but "I'm not religious" was a place where many of us started.

If someone persists, more of us said that we'd reveal more, but it was, again, situationally dependent. A Jehovah's Witness or Mormon on your front door is, according to many, more likely to get a debate than a random person who approaches on, say, a hiking trail. Colleagues are also accorded a special range of responses and, as a few members pointed out, the positioning of our family members can influence how we might interact with the community at large. We talked about the possibility of courting other faiths to hang out with us as a method of humanization - several people talked about how believers have been surprised to learn that they were atheists. "Really? But you're such a good person."

To paraphrase Mark Twain, exposures is fatal to prejudices. So, we joked a bit about "share a meal with an atheist" and things of that nature. John brought up that there are already some similar efforts in progress. Lastly, today's discussion was really awesome, and I think that I should mention here that the friendliness and warmth of the Secular Sunday group has been really fantastic. You guys are wonderful, and I hope to see you all again next week!

Social Media and Announcements

We have opened some new social media accounts:

There's a Twitter account:  @FAACTgreensboro 

A secret Facebook account so that those of us who do not want to be outed to the community at large can retain our anonymity. 

Next Time:

We're going to be discussing the possibility of group consciousness. Are groupthink and mob mentality evidence of a more substantial link between people? I suppose we'll find out what you think next time!

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!

A Requiem for 2017

Hi everyone!

Today:

We had a great conversation today at Secular Sunday. While, as usual, there were a great many tangents, our topic was basically about whether or not it's okay to make fun of religious people. How non-religious people Engage is something we've talked about at great length. Charles and Andy began by pointing out that this a case by case, person by person, situation by situation thing. To wit, it might not be a great idea to start a conversation with a significant other's parents by pointing out a lineage of justifying rape and murder within the religious text of their choice. But, if someone shows up on your doorstep and wants to tell you about the dangers of Xenu, their religion is fair game. A few people shared their feelings on this: ranging from (and I am paraphrasing and probably taking some big liberties, correct me if you feel that I misrepresented or did not represent what you meant) "I just want to be left alone" to "if you're going to knock on my door, be prepared to listen to my feelings" to "if it's someone I care about, I'll act out the act because their comfort is important to me" to "the religion of the person is inconsequential to me, so long as I can sense that they are good people."  Again, responses vary as much as the people involved and the situation at hand.

Somewhat predictably, the conversation eventually found its way to the political, pointing out that if a group of people is intentionally forcing religious beliefs, via laws, on another group of people, being polite just isn't going to cut it. That having been said, we talked a bit about how to talk to religious people without coming off as what Michael had aptly described as "the stereotypically combative atheist", which will often turn the discussion into a contest rather than an actual discussion. We talked about having to out-Christian the Christians. And Betty Bowers name was deservedly mentioned. Christian pointed out that attacking fundamentalists of any religion is 1) pretty low hanging fruit 2) a kind of straw man argument. If we were judged - and I'm sure many of us have been - by the craziest examples of atheists, it's a logically fallacious as it counterproductive. That having been said, if a gauntlet has been thrown down and there is no way out, it could be beneficial to make sure that expectations are made clear in the beginning of the discussion. Additionally, if someone is a frighteningly fundamentalist variety of any religion, we discussed the possibility of pointing out to them that there are people, say Episcopalians in the Christian religion, whose views aren't quite so draconian - I don't remember if it was brought up during the discussion, but I think it is quite probable that a true fundamentalist would see any tepid believers as undeserving of whatever reward their religion has promised them  or even heretical. That having been said, I think it does stand to reason that we'd be in a lot better world if all of the Baptists were Episcopalians - to make a sweeping generalization. After all, they're the Church of England in America, and we know that they can't have an Inquisition (NSFW and the relevant bit is at the end, but it's worth a view if you haven't seen it.)

Mike asked how much success people have had confronting religious people with the fallibility of their own beliefs, which then brought up what percentage of people's beliefs they actually believe. After all, when Jesus walked (if he existed to walk) the earth, the ideas of Virgin Birth and Resurrection weren't the sole property of any one religion. Followers of Jesus probably even knew this, but at a certain point it wasn't so much whether or not the story was believable as much as it was: is this a good story? And, for better or worse, Jesus' ideas of inclusivity, humility, and charity give Christianity a kind of soft power that's lacking in other religions. Now, many Christians have about as much truck with loving their fellow man as the church did in the poem in Tolstoy's The Brothers Karamazov. (Sorry, English teacher.)  As Christian pointed out, these are bad Christians.

There was more to the discussion than that, but I was honestly enjoying myself so much that I didn't take notes. Still, I hope everyone had as good a time as I did.

Next Meetups:

I need to amend what I said at this past meet up and let everyone know that I'm going to be absent for the next two meetups, per plans for Saturnalia and the ushering in of 2018. I shall return on January 6th, perhaps with Douglas McArthur corncob pipe and aviator glasses. The Meetup dates will still be open so that people interested in them can RSVP if they'd like to. Please, if you can think of a topic you'd like to discuss or any changes you might want to float past the group for one of those two dates, you can post them in the conversation threads for December 24th and December 31st, respectively.

2017:

2017 was a year that brought about a lot of changes. I don't think that I am alone in saying that a lot of them were terrible. What I do want to say though, as this will be my last mass e-mail of the year (I think?), is that I love this group. You are all people with whom I feel a significant bond, and I want you to know how important your friendships have been to me. I've been really busy and stressed out since I started teaching in High Point, but I look forward to Sundays as a respite from the pressures and stress of the week. I never had that when I was religious. I either felt bored, felt bad that I felt bored, felt bad that I wasn't good enough, or (as a teenager) was really just pissed off that I had to be there. The members of this group (that's YOU even if I haven't seen you in a while!) challenge me, laugh with me, and make me want to be the best me that I can be. 2017 stunk, but we're about to see the other side of it. I believe that 2018 will be a better year, if for no other reason than the simple dark fact that 2017 hasn't set that bar particularly high. And, even if it isn't, I look forward to facing its challenges with a great group of friends. I know that I am not the only person in the group that feels that way, but we never know unless we tell each other. So, reach out! And, because I cannot resist, if you don't believe me, take it from him! Have a great couple of weeks till I see you again!  

(Don't forget to check out www.jovialitybeforemortality.org! I'll be updating it as I've just bought the domain for another year - though right now, it's just going to be this e-mail and a backlog of our older meetings and content. But still, check it out!)

A Few Topics and Other Items

Hi everyone,

I hope that this finds you well, and that everyone is as happy and as healthy as they can be. I just wanted to throw out an update for a few things.

1) Topics

I'm putting together topics for a few Secular Sundays, starting with the next one - November 19th. At that, I plan to discuss Skepticism vs. Denial. We've discussed things pursuant to this several times, and I find it worthy of revisitation. Hope to see you there.

The 26th of November, I won't be able to make it to Geeksboro that morning, but I will leave the event open to anyone who would like to be there.

I'd like to discuss Artificial Intelligence on December 3rd. I am reading up on the subject and would like the discussion to keep its footing in what is currently possible as ground work before we start mentally inventing HAL or even Johnny 5.

December 10th, I think we can take a break from topics, unless a reason presents itself.

December 17th, I was thinking we could talk about blasphemy/insult/hate speech and nuances and baggage that come with all three. Credit to Lyn for thinking of it, and I'd agree that it's a very relevant thing to discuss. After all, how many of us have been accused of nastiness in the name of truth. Beyond that, is it wrong to make fun of something that gives other people hope? Is it wrong to profane that which others will kill and die for? We've had a lot discussions along these tracks, but every time, we come away with some new ideas, and new people get to share their thoughts.

2) Potential Topics

I have wanted to talk about Quantum probability for a very long time. That having been said, it's not a topic that too many people understand. The implications of it are, I think, certainly worth discussing - if my understanding of it is correct. If anyone is versed in the subject or knows someone who could be invited to our Sunday discussion, that would be fantastic. I don't want to, as several of you have heard me say, enter into ultracrepadarianism. 

If you have a topic you'd like to discuss and a date you'd like it discussed, let me know!

3) Directory Information

Those of you who have given your directory information, I'm going to send private e-mails to you in the next few days with the rest of the list included in it. If you've submitted info, but would like to opt out. Let me know.

4) Memories

I just wanted to let you all know - and this is NOT a guilt trip - that I haven't seen some of you in a while, and I miss you! I do not in any way want for Secular Sunday to ever feel like an obligation. After all, isn't that sort of thing why people leave religion? The "thou shalt" sort of mentality? Anyway, even if you can't drop by, I understand. I just hope that everyone is doing and feeling well. Drop me a line!

Have a great one! Love you all!