Two Weeks of Updates and Another IRC Project!

i everyone!

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

Gene John Adrienne Mark Vince

Bob Judy Tara Antonio Joe

Upcoming events:

Bastille Day Party - July 13th

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	·         Bill Sparks	·         Sean Bienert
·         Derek	·         Gina	·         James
·         John	·         Brian	·         Pearl
·         Penny	·         Bob	·         Marsha
·         Chris	·         Stephanie	·         Katie
·         Pam	·         Ronnie	·         Dawn
·         Tara

Announcements:

Chem trails, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers. Don’t ask. Book club meets on July 27^th at 5pm. Why I Am Not a Christian by Richard Carrier. Bastille Day drinking Skeptically, July 13^th. Trivia will be all things wine, France, and Revolutions. Francie’s get together is July 9^th. 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!

A Movie Recommendation, A Fond Farewell, Drinking Skeptically You Call It, And A Few Other Things..

So, Kia and I were watching a class after finals and happened upon an absolutely fantastic animated movie with skeptical undertones - Small Foot is a movie about bigfoots (bigfeet?... yetis?) who live in denial of us - the small feet. Their various credos as a society boil down to, "don't question stuff; if things appear to contradict the ancient wisdom, the truth is wrong - the ancient wisdom is always correct." It's good. Anyway, that is all.

This past Sunday, Josh Yarden led a wonderful text discussion of Genesis 22 - which I would love to subtitle here, but I feel like Josh would probably respond: Hm, interesting idea, but no, your joke inaccurately represents the text on an objective level. ...to which Lyn would then say, "Right and wrong? Isn't that a binary?" And we would all chuckle to ourselves. The Secular Text study was informational an interesting. I feel unqualified to do too much paraphrasing, but sufficed to say we went from "hineni" <here I am> to existentialism and back - see Josh's previous e-mail or ask someone for a forward if you didn't get it. It brought up the fact that Isaac doesn't really have words with Abraham anymore, which I never really questioned as a religious person but leaves me say, "Well, duh, he almost burnt him!" (Insulted? Sacrificed? AMBIGUITY!) Unfortunately, as Josh said in his e-mail, he is moving. I have given him his name tag as an unburnt offering that he may do with as he wills. We wish you safe travels and to see you again when the various primal forces of the universe throw us together. We are poorer to have lost you but richer for having known you. All the best.

Here, I would like to pose to you the next Drinking Skeptically venue - Grasshoppers game on the 22nd of June? Or, a bar night this weekend? I will not be able to make the former, as I will be in Fluffya (Philly, as the outsiders say). I wanted to leave it up to you! What do you think? Message me back and let me know!

We have a few things coming up soon! 1) We're going to need to figure out dues, and I'll get you more information about that soon! 2) We'll have more information about shelving at the Interactive Resource Center soon! 3) We're going to start doing adopt a highway again... guess when? SOON!

Much love!

JUNE!

Good day to you all!

I thought I'd post this out (a little later than I wanted to, as usual) somewhat before this week's Secular Sunday, which I will not be attending. My school year will be ending soon, and because of that I am excited to get started on some of the projects that we've been talking about as a group, particularly our 501c3 status and shelving at the IRC. More on that in a few.

RECENT EVENTS

On May 25th, our first every SCOTT pub crawl was a smashing success, where we visited 8.5 bars (Preyer doesn't count as a full bar because there was a private event going on there when we tried to show up) and ended up at Boxcar. I had a blast, and I think most everyone else did as well. The next Drinking Skeptically will be either a fire pit night, a baseball game, or... perhaps a brunch??? Message me if you have an idea!

The Book Club got together to discuss The Year of Living Biblically. Though I've never finished the book, I am fairly familiar with it and have read a few funny excerpts. I gather that the discussion and camaraderie was great, and we are lucky to have Molly organizing this. The next meeting will be June 22nd, and they will be discussing The Poisonwood Bible which is phenomenal. The meetings are in Earth Fare's common room at 5 pm. The Meetup link is here.

Last Sunday, we discussed alienation. The semi-paradoxical nature of social media came up pretty much immediately (memory fails me as to whether or not a I brought it up at the beginning of the meeting or the conversation just sort of flowed that way), as well as people who document life rather than experience it - why do people feel the need to do that? Are we, as a species, streamlining our paths to validation with carefully curated and sometimes dishonest appraisals of our own lives, or are we trying to record something for posterity with a subtle fear of death and a desire for any kind of digital immortality we can get?

 We talked about how much and how often any of us use social networks. What counts as a social network? And, if you're friends on Linkedin, does that person actually even like you? Kidding about the last one.

Friend of the group, Ashish George, sent me this a little while ago, and I felt that it hit the nail pretty firmly on the head when it comes to what happens when we're trying to live in the present and be on social media as well. It's good, even if - as someone who, on occasion, grades whilst netflixing - I did feel a little attacked. BTW: remember when you didn't have to fear for your life because of people texting and driving?

The Autumn of the Mulitaskers

MONEY IS NOT THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

Nope, it's the love of money - thank you 1 Timothy 6:10. Ann and I are still sans golden jet some years into this, but it's time we buttered up a couple of people because I still have to fly steerage coach when I fly. Actually, it's because registering as a 501c3 requires the payment of a fee. And, we'll also need some money to keep the Meetup site up, but that won't happen for a little while yet.

Lastly, shelving at the IRC is probably going to cost us something. A few of you wonderful folks have already come forward with potential sources and donations of shelving, which might be all we need (more money for the golden jet). At some point, I need a project manager to say, all right, this is what we're going to do - either having gone to the IRC themselves or having spoken more with the fantastic John Perry (who has pictures and connections) can come up with a more specific plan for exactly how much we're going to need, when we're going to do it, what everyone will need to do/bring/pitch in, etc. Now, Kia has probably stopped reading at this point, so I'm going to go ahead and say that I can probably start heading this up once the school year is completely over. You'll know whether or not she's read this part of the message because she will actually murder me if I take this on. In addition to summer lesson planning, several hobbies, current group responsibilities, summer projects, and, of course, waffle making.

Kidding about the murder...

I think.

So, we're going to need to collect some money at some point. Some people have already been generous, and some others have promised future generosity. I 1) want to keep the group going 2) am hoping to keep it entirely donation-based, but that may be tough, going forward. Anyway, I thought I'd ask if anyone had any ideas for this because, of course, you, the members, are what makes this group what it is. Ideas?

GROUP UPDATES

Next, I've already talked to the esteemed Joe Lantz about being the webmaster for the website that we have and actually does exist. (You're here now!) He encouraged me to put out some feelers to see if anyone else might say, "Joe Lantz? I could do a heap of a better job than him!" Note: You don't actually have to say that, but if you can offer the group some help with our currently very rudimentary website, that would be wonderful. Just so you know, you will not be hurting anyone's feelings, but you will have to fight Joe... to the death.

With an organizing body having been elected and appointed, it is now time to call for any changes to the bylaws - we've already had it suggested that people are nominated and can accept/decline/campaign for their position before there actually is a vote on that position. I have a feeling that that will pass unanimously at the next leadership meeting, but I wanted to ask if there were any other suggestions for additions to the bylaws. If you need a copy, e-mail me.

Let me know what you think.

All right, I shan't see you all tomorrow (and if I do, I'll ignore you and quietly whisper under my breath "But it's my day off from these people!")  Kidding. I love you all. And, I will see any and all of you who come to NEXT week's meeting. I believe we will be doing a text discussion then, June 9th, but let me clear that up with our good Mr. Yarden!

Have a great week, everyone - there may be a follow up e-mail with more news or more updates after the meeting tomorrow.

Much love,

Sean

News, Dues, and Booze - A Tale of Three Meeting Summaries and Some Other Updates

Here are the last two e-mails that I sent out. Have a wonderful day!

Hi everyone!

Our organizer meeting went swiftly, and there are two small updates pursuant to it.

As we pursue 501c3 status, we're going to need to collect a small amount of money - $275 dollars according to this. As our treasury currently has $70, we'll need to ask for some donations; Kia has put it into my head that maybe we could do some sort of fun fund raiser. My idea was immediately a 5k race in the blazing heat of summer: The Run to Heck. Obviously, this is not a practical solution. Additionally, we will eventually need to collect some more money for the meetup.com site, but that's quite a few months away.

Also, a few people had mentioned making some amendments to the bylaws once they were created. Now that we have an official group of organizers and an official set of bylaws, we have the means to do this and welcome any and all suggestions, especially if they are about Ann and I getting a solid gold jet.

All righty, here are notes from today's discussion. I'll be posting everything, including this e-mail, on the website which can be found here: Click me for a good pretty-okay time.

Secular Sunday

May 19, 2019

Attendees:

·         Ann Brady	·         MJ Loflin	·         Sean Bienert
·         Molly	·         Joe Lantz	·         Michael
·         Brian	·         John	·         Chris
·         Pearl	·         Bob	·         Jason
·         Charlene	·         Sheryl	·         Josh
·         Tara	·         Aaron	·         Ronnie

Announcements:

Bob is back to his beautiful, colorful shirts!

John’s brother’s chemo has stopped the growth of the cancer. Chris’s mom was having some cognitive problems until lion’s mane mushrooms. Coincident or not, she has improved.

Charlene went to a baseball game for the first time in her life. She had a great time! This precipitated a round of dad jokes after the bat dog was mentioned.

Book club this Saturday – The Year of Living Biblically 5 – 6:30 at Earth Fare in the meeting room. Josh pointed out that the author is a nut (read Enc. Brit from first to last to become the smartest man in the world).

Towel Day bar crawl (also May 25th), starting at the Bearded Goat at 2 pm. Check the meetup.com discussion on that event page for updates as to our location as the day progresses.

Discussion Notes:

Democracy – choice and structure. Looking at how democracy currently functions (or doesn’t) in the US. Eventually all democracies will lead to oligarchies (Plato’s Republic?) Sheryl points out that Plato and Socrates were NOT pro-democracy (she teaches the philosophy of education). The key thing is that each individual has an inherent nature that leads them to do one thing and one thing only all their lives.

Josh – you want a dictator, but a benevolent one.

Sheryl – the philosopher king. The idea of everyone doing what they are meant to do, everyone will be happy.

Josh – every topic can be reduced to free will (bingo!) Free will is the operating system of everything.

Aaron – free will encompasses everything we do.

Sean – in the case of religion, free will is the most important tenet. We have a choice or otherwise religion is meaningless.

Josh – religions are all metaphors about how we figure things out – whether we have free will, or don’t.

Sheryl – to some degree we are independent individuals and we have choices. As long as we are here, what are we going to do with our lives?

Josh – we don’t have ultimate control, but we have some control. When we mess up is when we attribute our decisions to a higher power. Some of us are predisposed to accept or reject certain things.

Aaron – Sam Harris video on free will. There will be an answer about the free will question soon.

Molly – the dialogue around love is anti-freewill. (Sean has no free will about love because Kia will kill him if he leaves her.)

Josh – the idea of fear in free will is very important. We are constrained by our fear of consequences.

Josh – Sam Harris is brilliant, but he thinks he’s wrong. He has holes in his argument that he isn’t willing to recognize. He fills them with things he does know and ignores the stuff he doesn’t know. He has an almost religious zeal about rejecting other people’s ideas about free will.

Sean – looking at John’s idea that it doesn’t really change anything whether we have free will or not. It can help us reform criminal justice and other things. Back to democracy – the problem with it is that we are yoking our free will with the free will of others.

Abortion – it’s almost as if they want to control women.

Josh – the people who are consistent are the most restrictive – no exceptions for anything.

Lyn – the catholic church is consistent – they oppose the death penalty too.

The issue is complex.

Our current situation is orchestrated by the “old guard” who see their influence dying out. (Sheryl)

If you divide the country into thirds, the top third is doing very well.

Jason – we have a chance to change things but the younger people are apathetic.

Michael – so many parts of a liberal arts education are not easily seen as pertinent.

Sheryl – all parts of education are vital.

Ann – students focus on what they have to do to get a job because they graduate with crushing debt.

Josh – why does government profit from education without funding it?

Hyper-capitalism, corporatization of education and marketplace mentality all feed into the problem because we expect kids to know at the end of high school what they are going to do.

Military same – we have basically private militaries.

Josh was reading an article on Israelis living in Portugal – it is very corporatized in Israel. Portugal is a much more relaxed in Portugal so it is very pleasant to live there. It is really is expensive to live here (in the US), but to get out of it, you have to live in a backwater like Portugal. We need to define success differently.

As we look at a much more automated society, we are going to have to look at success differently.

Progressives using their dollar to influence policy is a mixed bag. We are not in large numbers influencing using our spending.

The Walmart model is to find the bare minimum they have to do to get the organic or non-gmo label. It corrupts the thing we are trying to accomplish.

Josh - The other essential question is when we look at the global problems it seems that the intricacy of how much the corporate take over has been, it doesn’t seem like there’s any place to get a toehold to change. The system seems to be unbreakable. Are the future children going to have any kind of chance to have a decent future?

Sheryl – being true to our beliefs is how we change things. Live authentically. Do it in face-to-face conversations. We can each choose to do these things. People are dying for this personal communications.

Aaron – a lot of his college classes are pretty good for this kind of thing. Debates, writing, researching all help.

Lyn – we are all buying into the isolation. There are many ways we can get the human interaction.

Sheryl – we breed conformity through education.

Sean – wrap-up. Topic for next time – alienation.

Hiya.

Apologies for putting these out in such a delinquent fashion : updates at the top, two Sundays worth of notes at the bottom.

1)  There will be an organizer meeting after tomorrow's Secular Sunday. 

2) Treasury report is that we have $40. We will need to discuss dues and rewards for people who give more at the next organizer meeting (see below), so as to be fair and transparent. To this point, we have operated on donations to keep the Meetup.com website running, and the most recent transaction + another donation makes our account record look like this: $110 (previous donation funds) - $90 (meetup fees) = $20 + $20 donation = $40 current balance.

3) There was a movie night on Saturday, May 11th. Previous movie here, and there were suggestions made for this movie and/or perhaps some of these clips at the next film night. There was also talk of a documentary about a Mormon polygamist, but unfortunately, Google searching that revealed... *ahem* several possibilities.

4) We have a new project at the IRC!!! They need some shelving for White Flag nights when the building has to house many times its normal capacity. We're looking into materials and numbers. There will be more updates about this soon, but my big question to everyone is this: What day/time would work well for you to help with the assembly of the shelves (if you're interested, obviously.) I'll run it by the group tomorrow as well.

5) It was suggested that, as a topic, we could talk about the difference between Godless and God-free.

6) We will be having TWO events - count 'em, TWO - on the 25th

a) Book club will be meeting at 5-630 in the community room at Earth Fare. There's a website for the book!!! 

b) Towel Day bar crawl for drinking skeptically - we're starting at 2 at Bearded Goat. Dress comfortably - 4.2 k (2.6 miles) around downtown. It's going to be hot. We'll try to wait out the hottest parts of the day in good old air conditioned bars.

7) Noats! (May 12th)

Last Sunday, we started off talking about Baptism, Vacation Bible School and early religious brainwashing. We had some amusing stories that ranged from gross and ill conceived baptisms in shallow or snake infested water. We talked briefly about the various schisms in Christianity, and how they've progressed - from Eco's epic to Gad Saad (LOVE the name)'s ideas about religious evolution. Santeria is the Australia of religious evolution. We somehow transitioned to how Jesus is pretty much chopped liver as far as to whom the Catholics pray. (hint: they pray to saints way more.)

We talked a bit about Georgia's Abortion bill and its function as Supreme court bait to try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course, we went around about the simple fact that the same people who are pushing the laws don't care about babies at all, and their positions on children post-birth make this obvious. We talked about the responsibility of men in the lives of children, including things like child support, etc. People shared experiences dealing with abortions or the potential for them - I'm not going to say too much more about that in an e-mail except for the comment that someone made: I'm like a microwave: hot, and if you put a baby inside me, I'll kill it. We talked about a lot of aspects of abortion - its disproportionate effect on those of lower income, the fact that we need  a revolution in sex education, how genuine the "righteous" indignation of certain parties and whether or not they should open their fu- *ahem* open their mouths.

Briefly, at the end of the meeting, we talked about whether or not Democracy is sustainable. This was offered as potential subject for next time. So, there it is: tomorrow, we can discuss Godless vs God-free or the limits of democracy when it has the potential to become a kleptocracy.

Meeting attendance for May 12th was: Ronnie, Lyn, Molly, Joe, Bob, John, Geoff, Michael, James, Gina, Sean, and anyone I forgot <3

8) Here are the notes from the 5th, courtesy of the wonderful and fantastic Ann Brady (who takes better notes than me.)

Secular Sunday 5/5/2019

Attendees

Pam	Brian	Kathryn	Bob	Aaron
Tina	Derek	John	James	Joe
Pearl	Lyn	Sean	AC	Ann

Announcements

·         Bob wore a very cool belt in lieu of his normally very colorful shirt!

·         Teachers March,  May 1, 2019. Sean and Ann attended. Lower turn out than last year. Legislators were conspicuous by their absence. Usual nuts were there including Bible Guy who called all the women marchers witches and unruly women.

·         Video night is 5/11. See the Meetup site for more details.

·         On 5/19 Doodad Farm is holding a benefit concert for Harmony Music School. The event is from 2:30 – 8:30 at Doodad Farm, 4701 Land Road, Greensboro, NC 27406. It will celebrate art, music and history of women. They are suggesting a donation of $15 - $20 per adult, but no one will be turned away. Dogs welcome. Food trucks will be on site. All entertainers will be women and the food trucks are women owned. Coolers and lawn chairs are welcome.

·         International Geek Day (Towel Day) beer crawl is 5/25. The distance has been reduced from 4.2 miles to 4.2 k after feedback from those of us who prefer to not die.  It starts at 2pm at Natty Greens on Elm Street.

·         John, our IRC contact person, says that the IRC needs shelving built for homeless people to use when the weather is really bad and they must stay indoors at the IRC for longer periods of time. We have a little money in the treasury, but will need to do more planning. This is a great community service opportunity!

·         Book Club is also scheduled for 5/25. The book this month is The Year of Living Biblically

·         Aaron invites anyone interested to join him any Sunday evening for bowling at Countryside Lanes.

Topics

Faith and anxiety (these kind of merged at some points in the discussion, but most of the discussion was about faith)

Faith – the idea of faith. Faith is not based on observation. But at some point you do have to believe that someone has observed it (science). Even for the stuff we don’t know, there are explanations that don’t necessarily  include God.

-          Occam’s Razor

-          Hanlon’s Razor

-          Shit happens

Where do morals come from in the absence of God?

-          Genetics (Dawkins) – family (shared genetic material), society (also shared genetic material)

Science and scientists are funded by non-ethical corporations.  At least their primary focus is not ethics, but profit. Corporations share reward and dilute guilt.

Road to hell… Humanity is its own tragic hero. Drive to keep our genetics going is the cause of both altruism and greed. Morality is a side-effect of genetics.

Intelligent people are not reproducing. Is this leading to a dumbing-down of humanity?

In the battle of faith vs science, religion will never win for scientific questions.

Medicine (natural medicine) used by early men was based on observation.

Religion accepts science when it doesn’t conflict with belief.

Stupid design YouTube videos – Neil deGrasse Tyson

What if we described humans in monster terms? What would that look like?

THANK YOU ALL,

Much love,

Sean

AA Conference Summary, Courtesy of the Wonderful Lisa Duke!

As someone who is new to atheism, I have been binge-watching atheists on YouTube and devouring all I can to understand the arguments and evidence we have on our side so I can speak intelligently if confronted with theists. I am very inspired.

The convention started off on Thursday 4/18 with fundraisers and ice breakers. Between the Pub Quiz and Cards Against Humanity game, I met many people and laughed a lot.

On Friday, Dr. Hector Garcia shared some information from his book Alpha God comparing animals with features meant to make them look larger than they really are like male lions’ manes or orangutans’ fatty cheeks versus those of religious organizations with headdresses or beards.

The connection is between the violence of the animals and the unquestionable dominance of the head of the church/temple/mosque. Whoever is head of the community is dominant, powerful and not to be questioned.

Then Kevin Bolling, executive director of the Secular Student Alliance, spoke about the power of young people in the movement (those younger than 30?) and how we can approach them to help us. I was lucky enough to be around him at a social gathering Saturday night and he told me the Secular Student Alliance in NC is very strong (and has been for a while despite turnover due to graduation) so I think we could learn a lot from them on how to join forces and/or get together with the many atheist/skeptic/secular/humanist groups across the state.

After lunch there was an equality rally at the local (Cincinnati) public square where both local and nationally known people spoke about the different causes we as atheists could get behind. Some local groups spoke of the 20+ laws that were passed limiting women’s access to abortion in the Ohio area. This is not something to be taken for granted here in NC. Others with more nationally known names spoke about the damage religion as done and they spoke more extensively later in the day.

Debbie Goddard spoke of the virtues of grass roots and local group causes, ultimately benefitting the atheist community of the United States as a whole and how American Atheists can help us mobilize, if necessary.

The Friday keynote speaker was Jim Obergefell who you may know from the suit he brought to the Supreme Court regarding marriage equality. Fraidy Reiss spoke about her forced marriage and subsequent abusive husband and the struggles she endured trying to escape the Hasidic culture (including shunning and being declared dead by her family) which motivated her to found http://www.unchainedatlast.org/ for adult women and children who are trapped in marriages not of their choosing.

Dr. Zachary Moore talked about the changing landscape of the Evangelical movement and how they seem to have no interest in a dialogue and how our focus may best be suited to proudly wear the atheist label and normalize it.

Adriana Buenaventura-Martinez talked about Female Genital Mutilation. I did not sit in on this talk but, as you can imagine, there is a huge surge to not only address this as the increase of Muslims join our society but also address male circumcision and how this may not be the right choice for our culture.

Alison Gill, Vice President of American Atheists Legal & Policy, shared information about Project Blitz, a plan for Christian Nationalists to blanket the United States with policy (mostly abortion bills) in the hopes to reverse protections for bodily autonomy for women. https://www.blitzwatch.org/

I did not stick around for the speech by Heron Greensmith but they are a senior research analyst focusing on LGBTQIA+ issues.

The VIP Reception & The Awards Dinner were exclusive for which I did not participate. However, the God Awful Movies event was very funny. They reviewed Breakthrough with Crissy Metz, Topher Grace and Josh Lucas. Mediocre, I understand, hahaha. … God Awful Movies is hosted by Noah Lugeons of Scathing Atheist fame Eli Bosnick, and Heath Enwright..

On Saturday, the day was started off talking about Philanthropy in a Post-Religious World with Noelle George, Sale McGowan and Jude Lane. The importance of putting our stamp of Atheism was stressed. I know many people feel the a-word can be a detriment but overall, the consensus is normalizing the word and the idea that atheists are OK.

Lorelei Eschbach talked about how atheists can use the Satanic Temple to help our communities. I did not attend this one so I can’t give you details but I encourage you to google it.

Gayle Jordan is an openly atheist woman who ran for Tennessee senate.

Nick Fish, the president of American Atheists, talked about Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges by putting a human face on atheism. Main point: if you are appealing to politicians, don’t just write a letter. Visit them, give them a face to the name of atheism. Let them know you are an atheist and oppose such-and-such bill and why.

At this point, there were several breakouts. Talk Heathen did a live taping, Erica Klein conducted a workshop about seeking employment while atheist, Phil Ferguson conducted a workshop on poscasting, and Alison Gill conducted a workshop for “Stopping the Blitz: State Level Advocacy”

I attended the latter.

At 3pm there was a live taping of The Atheist Experience. At the same time, there was a workshop for “Your Life, Your Death” with Kevin Bradley (talking about death with dignity and what to do after someone has died who wishes for a secular memorial. Another workshop talked about Local Activism and yet another talked with state directors.

At the end of the afternoon, Anthony Magnabosco talked about street epistemology, Stephanie Zan talked about Dealing with Shame associated with atheism (and the family & close friends, I assume; I did  not attend), Josiah Mannion talked about Art as Activism and Kent Mulcahy talked about  Win More Grants, Make a Bigger Difference.

On Sunday, there was a “members” meeting at 9:30am and a discussion about speaking out on social media, being more assertive. After that, there was a panel about protecting our right to engage since there were several people who had been blocked by Stanley Jason Rapert of Arkansas and American Atheists are supporting Karen Dempsey and Robert Barringer.

Frank Zindler talked about the Necessity of Atheism and using the a-word, again. Being more assertive and if you find yourself in a situation where it is theism versus atheism, have the courage to speak out.

Candace Gorham talked about a lot of things but mainly spoke about people of color and how difficult it is to break free when indoctrinated as a minority.

At the end of the day on Sunday, people who could stay used a conveyor system to make 50,000 meals for people in need in the Cincinnati area. Reinforcing, of course, the idea Madalyn Murray O'Hair said “Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.”

If you have any questions, let me know.

-Lisa