April 28th Meeting Notes!

Sunday's meeting was fantastic, and our group continues to grow! I've included a couple of links in today's e-mail, as well as some follow up information from different members. (There are more events listed in the meeting notes.)

First of all, there is an Indivisible movie event on the horizon, the information is as follows (thank you Tara!)

Friday May 17
6:30-8:30
Carl Chavis YMCA
2757 Granville St High Point

Join us for a free screening of Wilmington on Fire.

This feature-length documentary depicts the story of a government-sponsored massacre committed on an African-American community in North Carolina during the Jim Crow era, which is considered one of the only successful examples of a violent overthrow of an existing government and left countless numbers of African-Americans dead and exiled from the city. This event was the spring-board for the White Supremacy movement and Jim Crow segregation throughout the state of North Carolina and the American South. This incident has been barely mentioned and has been omitted from most history books. It was not until 2006, after the North Carolina General Assembly published a report on it, that the tragedy became known to the general public.
Trailer at: http://wilmingtononfire.com/about/

We are honored to have Phyllis Bridges, who is an award-winning historian and documentary film maker, leading a casual, organic discussion after the film.

This is a collaborative effort of Indivisible Guilford County NC, The High Point Peacemakers, High Point Commemoration for 400 Years of African American History, and the Carl Chavis YMCA.
FB event:  https://www.facebook.com/events/380692716114513/

FREE POPCORN

Here are our notes for today's discussion, if you missed this one - come to the next one!

Secular Sunday

April 28, 2019

Attendees:

Ann Brady	Sean Bienert	Mike
Jason	Molly	Chris
Brian	Diane	Lisa
Derek	Bob	John
Tara	Dawn	Ann Asheby
Lyn	Stacey	Aaron
Ronnie	Tina	Pam
Joe	Kia

Announcements:

Molly led a great discussion yesterday on The Handmaid’s Tale. Next month is The Year of Living Biblically on May 25th at 5 pm

Indivisible’s next film is “Wilmington on Fire”. May 17th 6:30 – 8:30 High Point Library

Movie Night – May 11th. Elmer Gantry (see the Meetup site for details)

Bowling tonight at Countryside Lanes in Kernersville

Towel Day Pub Crawl is May 25th at Natty Greens starting at 1 pm. How does the Community feel about opening it up to the general public?

Time article The Science of Good and Evil (Do animals have ethics?)

American Atheist Convention was awesome (Lisa)! Religious Blitz is going on across the country (Google it). Response? A lot to do with abortion. Met many prominent atheists. They put together 50k meals for homeless people in Cincinnati. Very cool.

We are getting quite large as a group. Sean (prez) is trying to put together a committee to brainstorm ideas for events.

Gibbs Hundred is sponsoring a farmers market today 12-5

Discussion Notes:

Why do people pray?

Ann (AC) says she likes to pray but doesn’t know how to do it in a non-religious way

Lyn – positive thoughts/vibes

Pam – I will keep you in my heart

Aaron – Sam Harris book Waking Up: A Guide to Being Spiritual without Being Religious

Lisa – Brain studies – when asked what God thinks, religious people think of something they believe. Prayer is a self-soothing mechanism

Molly – In DBT prayer is taught as a coping strategy.

Sean – almost everyone talks to themselves from time to time. Prayer is a safe space to talk things out and figure things out.

Molly – a way to have deep reflection.

AC – you need words to say and if religion is in your past, the words of religion tend to come out.

Aaron – in the east it is common to not direct prayer at specific being. Not so common in the west.

Lisa – NPR 1A – a secular minister/humanist did a secular prayer. (This is a link - again, thanks Tara! The prayer is toward the end.)

Ann – FFR is pushing for government orgs to allow secular invocations

Sean – Jesus says that people shouldn’t pray in public for attention.

John – cognitive dissonance when his sister prays over meals. Says she is reminding an omniscient being of things he already knows. Some other people have had varying experiences.

The generalized “other” – prayer is just one example of our conversations that we have all the time.

Lyn – prayer in Shennando movie with Jimmy Stewart – funny prayer.

Aaron – thanking God instead of the people who actually did the work.

When you’re in control you need to make sure that you keep people under control. God is a good tool for this.

Sean – dramatic scenes where people can’t pray (like in the Crucible) where you must pray in order to stay in good with God.

Aaron – as atheists we should avoid trapping ourselves into ritual behaviors that have no penalty (like  refusing to say amen after prayers). There are so many behaviors we do when we are religious that don’t help anyone. Don’t do the same to yourself now.

Diane – it’s too irritating for her to do it.

Tina – if it doesn’t cost you something. But for her when her husband died the “prayers” and platitudes were offensive. How do you convey that to religious people? How do you enforce your boundaries? It does cost you something sometimes.

Lisa – there is something to be said for standing up for yourself. Not doing it will affect your self-esteem.

Kia (who has NO trouble standing up for herself) – she tries to look at it as if they are toddlers who don’t understand.

Chris – they may be saying it because they don’t know what else to say.

Derek – it can be important to challenge people on the words they use.

Sean – you can’t do that all the time and get along in the world.

John – remember this discussion on movie night. There is a group of free-thinkers and atheists at a tent revival in Elmer Gantry. Sister Something recites a prayer that is very personal that defangs her detractors.

Aaron – watched God’s Not Dead the atheist is the biggest strawman atheist ever. He was a Christian at that time and thought that’s what atheists are. Seeing real atheists helped. Being a Jerk for Atheism is no better than being a Jerk for Jesus.

Sean – the idea that Christians have that atheism is a religion is a common misconception.

Lyn – Andrew Sullivan quote – we are all religious. It is built into us. (She doubts this).

Sean – seeking agency is a survival mechanism. It isn’t an imprint left from god.

John – when he talks to his sister about why he isn’t religious she gets hostile. He tries to tell her that he is trying to use his own mind to figure things out. It is tough to try to do, but you have to.

Aaron – “Show me and I’ll believe” – Thomas. Jesus- “No believe and I’ll show you.”

Sean - the thing that allows people to blindly follow people like Kim Jung Un is very similar to religious belief.

Aaron – preacher told him that the only way you can test god is through tithing. Pay god and see if he performs.

Jews – chosen people. So chose someone else for a while!

John – the closest he gets to prayer is that you just have to recognize sometimes that you are not in control and accept that. That can be a prayer too.

AC – Control the controllable

Everyone (the Serenity Prayer)

Aaron - Dark Matter 2525 on youtube. Wonderful material

Scathing Atheist is also funny.

Mid-April Updates and Notes

Hi everyone!

Tomorrow is our Mad Hatter Tea party - pretty stoked! Anyway, as Kia has been asking me for quite some time to take a Sunday off, I feel that tomorrow is probably the logical choice, seeing as how I will no doubt be very tired (and that is all) that morning.
Additionally, here are the Magnificent Ann's notes (thank you Ann, you really are magnificent!) from last week; Hope to see you soon!

Secular Sunday

April 19, 2019

Attendees:

·         Josh	·         Cheryl	·         Ann
·         Gina	·         Pam	·         John
·         Sean	·         Emily	·         James
·         Uzma	·         Antonio	·         Lyn
·         Tara	·         Lisa	·         Stephanie
·         Derek

Announcements:

April 20 2-11 pm – Mad Hatter Tea Party (Drinking Skeptically) at Sean’s

May 25 – Movie Night at Lyn's and Towel Day (Drinking Skeptically) (See Meetup site!)

April 14 – Hemant Mehta at Carrboro

Jim Hilton has resigned from his position with American Atheists so he won’t be coming in August

“Equal Means Equal” – movie screening at High Point Public Library 4/18 5:30 – 7:30

Discussion Notes:

Text Study!

Niels Bohr quote – “The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. “

The Bible is a way of expressing things that are difficult to express in words. The difficulty makes it seem otherworldly or magical. Our hubris makes us feel that we should be able to understand everything. The wisest among us are usually the least confident.

The Bible is not a historical document but that does not mean that there isn’t truth in it. There are truths that are not facts. Making things binary does not permit this.

Richard Elliot Freeman’s documentary hypothesis is that the Bible is many texts woven into one.

“Meaning of Heb. uncertain” appears under a lot of the text in the Bible. It is especially problematic for words that appear only once so there is not an opportunity to figure it out.

Even when the text is not labeled as “uncertain” it doesn’t mean that the translation is good.

It is written in ancient Hebrew. It was an oral tradition before it was written down and canonized as the Torah. Translation to modern Hebrew is tough. Translation into other languages is even harder.\

Elohim or the 4 letter name of God. (I kind of lost the thread here)

Priestly texts – rules and prohibitions exist because whatever it was talking about was actually happening. Otherwise there is no need to prohibit. The text was contentious when it was written and is still contentious today.

We cannot approach the Bible as a new thing of which we know nothing because it is so woven into our culture.

Mythology  - reflects truth even though it isn’t factually true. Myth is not the opposite of truth.

To Josh, the Bible’s importance is as literature that helps to illuminate the human condition.

1)      Factual

2)      Written to control people

3)      It was inspired. By what? what is inspiration. Is it materialistic.

Dichotomies are a way of framing something so we can understand it. Oppositionality is kind of built in for us. But it isn’t useful all the time. Some things do not lend themselves to binary (yes/no, this/that) types of understanding.

Written for and about humans. Revelations in the text are not of the deity revealing a plan. They reveal things about us.

Writing things in someone else’s name was considered a good thing so attribution to someone “better” is common.

Jennifer Michael Hecht – Doubt, A History

The threat of punishment is an ongoing theme in scripture and in law. Our desire for justice is universal, if not in this life, then in the next.

The Bible is an attempt to impose/overlay order onto what was happening in the real world.

There was a lot of communication and sharing of stories between cultures in the ancient world (Hammurabi’s law code, flood myths)

*Ambiguity in texts is intentional. In translation, the ambiguity is lost. Example – blue has many meanings and associations.

*Internalog (sp?) (as opposed to dialog or monolog) – interal awareness of some critical thing that changes everything for you.  After life isn’t what happens to you after you die. It is this understanding that changes everything so that your life after is different. The world becomes a different place. Example: He-na-ni (Hebrew) – Here I am, can be read as “Oh, this is where I am.”

Erich Fromm – Escape from Freedom people don’t really want to be free.

Levels of the text

1)      Mythic

2)      Moral                                                    ---- which of these is central? None. All essential

3)      Metaphor

“In the beginning…” is one word in Hebrew. Can also be translated as “at the head” or by sound, as “in seeing the light”. It begins in the mind. Let’s start with this idea – light. It is an enlightenment text. Then quickly it becomes conflict between men.

Eden is a compound word – “until judgement”. Is it until we are capable of judgement (adulthood) or until we are judged? Either works in the Eden story.

April is the Gruellest Month

We're having some good Irish weather, and I've been listening to a lot of the Scathing Atheist. If you're not familiar, you should be. It's good.

Be sure to check the meetup.com site for new events. There are a couple up there.

Here are the notes from last week's meeting, courtesy of the wonderful Ann Brady:


Secular Sunday


April 7, 2019


Attendees:

• Ann Brady
• Bill Sparks
• Sean Bienert
• MJ Loflin
• Mike Loflin
• Bob
• Ronnie
• Geoff
• Gene
• Derek
• Pam
• Uzma
• Tara
• Molly
• John
• Gene
• Brian
• Pearl
• Cheryl
• Kathryn
• Joe

Announcements:


Hemant Mehta will be at TFS on Sunday April 14th 2-330. Update on Orange Barrel Guy from Bill. Sean has a new motorcycle. Book club April 27th at 5-630 at Earth Fare. Book is The Handmaid’s Tale. Mad Hatter Tea Party time change 2pm. April 20th . If you have RSVP’d and can’t come, let Sean know because the RSVPs are closed.


Election results: Sean – president, MJ – treasurer, Ann – secretary. Term of office is until April Fools Day 2020. Next time we will have a nominating committee or something. We can move now to a 501-3C status.





Discussion Notes:


John’s sister had a conversation with a woman who came to her church looking for community, as we were discussing last week. Most of us are looking for community. Sean – community is important, but core beliefs are important too. We are not scientific enough for some, too liberal for others, and we’ve been accused of being dogmatic (we don’t get this one at all!)


Limits of God’s powers in the bible. Jesus healing blind man using dirt. If god is limitless, why are the bad things so prevalent and easy to access? Why are some things seemingly necessary in the bible, like child sacrifice.


Ronnie – two grandparents died and Ronnie went back to Texas. His grandfather began a gay relationship after a 20 year marriage. The attitude towards gays in his community caused him to hate his grandfather without ever knowing that he was gay. He only changed his mind when he became an atheist. He picked up on attitudes from family and community that influenced him without actually saying that his grandfather was gay.


MJ – microaggressions. Like the expectation that women should be nice.


Gene – in more closed minded groups they may have friends in the ostracized group, but “those” people are okay, it’s all the rest who are bad.


“Hate the sin, love the sinner.” – it is such and obnoxious saying. In terms of being gay, this is something people cannot control.


Mental health is another area that is taboo, shameful.


Lots of really tacit things that affect how we treat or think about other people.


Christians say that even without heaven as a reward they would still believe. But would they?


Determining what is right and wrong is somewhat subjective (Gene’s survey link www.yourmorals.org)


Even without god you can believe in an objective morality (Sean). If there is an objective morality then some of the things in the bible (comparing Caananite woman to a dog) is objectively wrong.


Kathryn – the western legal system is based on Judeo-Christian beliefs. Morality is cultural.


Tara – justice is something that is inborn to small children, so maybe.


John Stuart Mill is the basis of modern liberalism (Gene). There are other foundations that can inform your beliefs. Erisology – studying why people can’t disagree and come to some sort of common ground (see Plato’s Cave posting).


John – flaming gays make him uncomfortable even though he feels that being gay is normal.


In the Righteous Mind there are 5 traits that define our personalities. (Gene). Openness is a defining characteristic of being liberal (the omnivore’s dilemma).


Cultural and societal norms are what influence us (Molly).


It is easier to object to people when you don’t know them.


Moral licensing (Malcolm Gladwell) – “I have a black friend, how can I be racist?” People do something good so it excuses the bad things we do. This also plays into the punishment aspect of criminal justice.





Joe Biden – led into a discussion of touching and when it is okay. Overcoming your habits, etc.

Missionary Dating

Secular Sunday

February 24, 2019

Attendees:

·         Ann Brady	·         Joe	·         Molly
·         Lyn	·         Brian	·         Rachel
·         Bob	·         Lisa	·         Derek
·         Roberta	·         Toni	·         Josh
·         Tara	·         Mike	·         Charles
·         Jessica	·         Stephanie	·         James
·         Dawn	·         John	·         Katie
·	·	·

Announcements:

Lisa – Jim Helton is interested in talking to any groups in NC (American Atheists). Topics include conversion therapy, onboarding, Gideon bibles in public schools, sex education, toolkits for activism. Starter kit from them. Last week of March. Tues 26^th, Wed. 27^th, Thursday 28^th. Can we vote online? Should we partner with another group so that we can meet people outside our area?

Lisa – American Atheist convention is at the end of April. Starts on April 18^th (Thursday). Tickets are roughly $100. Rooms are $105 a night. (3 nights). In Cincinnati.

Molly – if you are interested in the book club give Molly your email by the end of the meeting.

Brian – lending library. Sign up. Brian will bring the book next week.

Lyn – last couple of weeks there were a letter in the paper about praying for Trump. Also 2 amendments were struck down by Winston Salem Superior Court judge.

Fair Districts NC will come to speak to a group about gerrymandering if anyone wants.

Discussion Notes:

Missionary dating – Christians date atheists to try to convert them. OMG.

Charles – married a Christian, was a Christian himself. Lost his faith when his children were growing up. It was very difficult. He does not date Christians now.

Molly – dated a Christian who never tried to convert her.

Derek – dated a fundie but she never tried to convert him.

Katie – her last Christian boyfriend was anti-science.

Rachel – her husband is religious but is not a problem. They argue about Trump, but not religion.

Sean – were any of us in religions that forbid dating outside the religion. Premarital sex will get you kicked out in JW. Being JW is banned in some countries.

Charles and Josh – discussion about Ruth (Moabite) and whether the bible indicates that that disqualified David and Jesus from being Jewish. 2Cor6:14 – Do not yoke yourself to unbelievers.

Sean – Heller – God Knows – the David story from David’s perspective in a Catch-22 way.

John – how has being married to a believer affected your marriage.

Lisa – grew up Catholic but was still looking for something Christian. Her husband was not religious (maybe an agnostic theist). He is conservative and is uncomfortable with her lack of faith. He is concerned that she will influence her son and maybe they will think he is stupid.

Josh is uncomfortable with the term atheist because he feels that it is off-putting to many – seems to be taken as an attack on them. Fear and seeing have the same root in Hebrew. It maybe that they have a fear of something that is unknown.

Jess – religious people are not really well equipped for the unknown because they are used to having answers for everything. If you take God out they don’t have answers.

Back to dating believers – Quiverful Christians. They have conventions where they take their sons and daughters to make matches. Have bunches of kids to populate the world with Christians.

JW – conventions amount to the same thing.

Jesus Camp – movie

Every religion allows loop holes that allow about any kind of behavior. (Josh – Muslims having “marriages” with prostitutes). The divider (in this discussion) is not religion, it’s how dogmatic or tolerant or accepting they are of other ideas. Presenting narrow-mindedness as a virtue is not attractive whether it’s religion or atheism.

Pam – her husband is concerned that his clients will find out she is atheist. He feels outnumbered by Pam and kids. The only way to take the sting out of the word is to use it.

Sean – we are trying to address broader goals in that we have people who are believers.

Charles – likes free thinker.

Josh – words are the way we communicate and miscommunicate. 

YourMorals.org

Secular Sunday

February 24, 2019

Attendees:

·         Ann Brady	·         Pam Hill	·         Sean Bienert
·         Ronnie	·         Derek	·         John
·         Joe	·         Molly	·         Sean
·         Bob	·         Brian	·         Michael
·         Geoff	·         Caro	·         Tara
·         Josh	·         Lyn	·
·	·	·
·	·	·

Announcements:

Brian brought a book list from library

Bylaws – there have been some questions about the bylaws but consensus seems to be to wait until they pass, then change them.

Book club interest meeting right after meeting.

Bible club once a month.

Discussion Notes:

Started with a weird discussion of morality. Gene had posted some stuff in Plato’s Cave about “what if…” scenarios. Website “YourMorals.org” Moral foundation theory – six categories of how you lie on the Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian scale.

Subjectivity of morality – topic

John has a fascination with skulls (don’t judge) but sometimes the collection of them seems weird to him. This has been since high school. He knows how to boil them down and reassemble the skeleton. He hastens to say that this is not an obsession. He hit a hawk with his truck and it was injured enough that he had to mercifully kill it but removing the head seemed not quite right to him. There is no logical reason for this.

Tara pointed out that dead is dead. Think back to the terrorists who cut off their captives heads and how horrified we all were. There is no logical reason this should bother us more than shooting for example.

6 moral foundations

Care/harm – feeling others’ pain. The degree to which this is important in our judgements.

Fairness/cheating – ideas of justice, right and proportionality

Loyalty/betrayal – tribal ideas. Patriotism,

Authority/subversion – hierarchical social order

sanctity/degradation – disgust, contamination. Religious ideas.

liberty/oppression – hatred of bullies

When data was parsed conservatives are more equal in all areas. Liberals weighted towards care/harm and fairness/cheating. Libertarians weighted more towards liberty/oppression.

Example – the wall. Conservatives post things like “do you lock your door at night?” Difficult to argue with that. When you question them, they will say it protects us from enemies, but can’t name specific ways it does that.

Knowing where someone is on the scale helps you to figure out how to discuss things with people of opposing views in a way that will help you convince them of your position.

Josh - “All the arguments I’ve heard are either … or …” We make decisions then look for reasons to justify it. We have to give up the need to be right. Opinions and arguments are not the same. Arguments are things you need to win. Opinions are ideas you form.

We need to give up making things binary. That promotes argument. Nothing is as simple as this or that. It is a sorting mechanism that allows us to think more quickly and make decisions.

Kluge – talks about the haphazard organization of the brain.

Tribalism tends into this too. Binary arguments allow us to identify our “group” more quickly.

Unless we are being really intentional about our thinking, we are on “autopilot” most of the time. Lyn objects to this idea. She feels that we are often very rational.

Michael – The Economist podcast says that learning more things doesn’t so much broaden our minds and make us more open to new ideas. No evidence of this.

Back to equality/proportionality – liberals tend to look more for equality. Conservatives lean more towards proportionality (people pulling their own weight).

Sean asked if the study Gene mentioned was based in the US. Mostly. Some in India. Depending on your socio-economic status, your moral foundations will be different. Same results worldwide.

The definition of liberal, conservative, etc is different in other parts of the world but the divisions stay the same. Political systems are not binary, but the ideas tend to be.

Josh – some differences in regionalism, what is important historically, etc. but there are areas of broad commonality. It’s more like a color blob with the colors shifting around the edges, but mostly the same, depending on the issues that are important. Morality is not dependent on a position on the wall, but it is being made into a moral issue by both sides. Morality in politics is different than morality in general. Need to look at ethics too. Moral positions have some things/groups that remain the same over time. Political and ethical standards do shift over time.

Sean - Where our morals are right now is not where they are going to be in 50-100 years. Good idea to try to figure out where we are headed and how our legacy will be impacted.

John – question for Gene – did the study look at how religion affects your moral foundation? Not so much the affect of religion, but more political ideology. Conservatives have an advantage because they operate more evenly across all areas of foundation. Liberals have more trouble with this.

Sean points out that this accounts for 3 groups, but most studies look at 4 areas. Economic x-axis, authoritarianism on the y-axis. (Ronnie) Some of these do not lend themselves to states, only individuals. Authoritarian is based on how much control/power the central government has so most modern democratic states are authoritarian in this model.

You have to differentiate between how groups label themselves and what they actually do. Ridiculous to call Stalin a communist, he was totalitarian. What do people actually do? Figure out what you are trying to assess, then look at the actions and how they line up with the thing you want to assess.

We create our own fictions about what we do and are willing to do. A lot of conservatives will answer questions more liberal than they would think but who label themselves as conservatives because it’s what they are comfortable with.

Examples – Insane Clown Posse – born again Christians who talk about rape and murder and very bad things. People identified with them and then got left in confusion (I don’t get this cultural reference, so maybe Sean should elaborate).

Bob – what about those who don’t identify with any of these groups? Gene – doesn’t really address them.

Some labels don’t make any sense to us now – Liberal Republican, for example. We make sense of our world using words. If we don’t have a word to describe something, we make one up. Changing world zeitgeist.

Gene – example - voluntary human extinction movement – moral questions that are very difficult will continue to challenge us. Fritz Haber invented nitrogen fertilizer. Also invented chlorine gas used in WWI. He was also a nationalist German Jew who was run out of Germany. He also invented Zyklon gas which was used to exterminate Jews during WWII.

How We Can Care For Each Other

Secular Sunday

February 4, 2019

Attendees:

·         Ann Brady	·         Pam Hill	·         Sean Bienert
·         James	·         Gina	·         Amber
·         Tara	·         Pearl	·         James
·         Geoff	·         Brian	·         John
·         Lisa	·         Chris	·         Derek
·         Penny	·         Adrienne	·         Annette
·         Caro	·         Rachel	·         Ronnie
·         Antonio	·         Bob	·         Josh

Announcements:

·         Bill requests prayers for the Patriots tonight.

·         Movie night on the 16^th.

·         Drinking Skeptically is the 22^nd.

·         James Milloways’ birthday is the 21^st.

·         Bylaws have been completed by Brian. We will be sending them out ASAP.

·         Need to set up something for the IRC and adopt-a-street

·         Directory was sent out – some names updated. Let Sean know if you want in

·         Brian will bring books if you let him know (he will post a list)

·         Need a shared space like a Google Drive.

·         Indivisible is having their rural canvas. Need drivers this afternoon. See Tara.

·         John’s brother (pancreatic cancer). His brother is doing some better but the cancer is still growing. They have given him stronger meds. He has learned that his wife will be taken care of so he is relieved and doing better because of it.

·         Need some way for the community to support our members. Josh – how do we find the language to support others even though we aren’t religious? “I will hold you in the light” – Quakers. Pastoral care. These are good reasons for having the directory – so we can help each other.

·         Excommunication is the opposite of communication.

Notes

The discussion about John’s brother has morphed into a discussion of how we can care for each other. Josh pointed out that it takes courage to ask for care from others. Sean says that it helps to know what others have gone through. Our stories of religious deconversion help with this. Shared experience helps in so many ways.

Penny – it’s hard not believing sometimes. When stuff happens you can’t say “God has a plan.” You have to just accept that stuff happens sometimes. It’s just chance.

Geoff – can’t remember having been asked what church do you go to. Almost all of us raised our hands when asked if they had had that question. Younger members do not have as much experience with that as we do. Ronnie said he is not asked because he works mostly with Indian software engineers. Sean says that he is a human Labrador so a lot of people talk to him, so he gets asked a lot.

Power of prayer – there are studies that show there is a measurable effect from prayer to believers.

Everyone Sean knows who says they love church don’t really. It’s like a box to check – I’ve done Jesus this week. We are like that because we seem to feel guilty if we don’t show up for a while. But overall, we seem to enjoy being here.

Rachel says that just knowing that we’re here helps.

Sean says there are other groups near by who do the same things, but it is encouraging to see that we as a society are making progress.

Discussion of slavery in early America. Example – Josh said that G. Washington’s house in Philadelphia had slave quarters.

Josh – the founding fathers understood the awfulness of slavery and did it anyway. The Constitution referred to white MEN when they were discussing rights. We live with ambiguity on many levels. Their real values were the ones they lived by, not the ones they wrote about.

Sean – we discus this sort of thing all the time in reference to televangelists. Aesop’s fable of the lion and the lamb. Those with power (wealth) set their own rules.

Josh – the question is who is being hurt by what I allow myself to do.

James M. – not really. How outcome oriented are we?

Josh – there is a difference between saying “I’m a vegan but I wear wool” and owning slaves, although some vegans equate eating animals to slavery.

James – less prominent people do things without getting into trouble.

Sean – analogies will always have something that doesn’t work.

Discussion of Quakers, Shakers, Mennonites, Amish.

Fake curse words. Oh Fudge. Holy Guacamole. Kicking thebucket (??)

We have resolved to get everybody to stop saying “based off of” instead of “based on”. - Josh

“Fucking A” comes from WWII. A book.

Thank you, Ann - these are wonderful notes!