A fun social group that gets together to discuss current events and how they affect us as atheists. Join us for a meeting sometime. www.meetup.com/meanil
Tonight's meetup was allot of fun. New members Jason, Todd, and Amanda joined in. Also, recent additions, Kevin and Fabian took part too. After general discussion, we voted on probable Group Trips, and then shared some brew at Johnny's Sidebar next door.
Of all the ideas presented at the June 26th Meetup the following four garnered the most interest and we'll attempt to plan each one at some point in the near future:
Most Voted for:
Visit the St. Louis Science Center *possibly the Doctor Who event
Behold! The directions necessary for getting to an imaginary place of ultimate boredom! Found on every urinal and toilet in my local Sam's Club restroom. Just classy.
"...on May 20, the Seattle Times announced an affiliation agreement between the University of Washington system and Peace Health. Even within Catholic-controlled hospitals, less than five percent of revenues come from the Catholic Church. Most are tax payer funds in the form of Medicaid, Medicare and capital grants for public services—and insurance reimbursement. So, the thought of the bishops influencing a public owned and funded institution adds insult to injury. In response, Columnist Danny Westneat, of the Times, framed a pointed question. “Most of us aren’t Catholic, so I’m guessing we’d never go along with letting the creeds of that one faith run something as universal as education [even if ‘the Catholics have a good record of running quality schools’]. So why are we allowing it with healthcare?”
Read the full article:
Hi all! I'm in Austin, Texas having fun at the 50th Annual American Atheists Convention and...WOW! I never thought I'd meet Dr. Richard Carrier and Mr. David Silverman. So cool!. Anyway, wish you all were able to attend. I've collected lots of freebies from the different vender booths and I'll bring them to our next Meetup for discussion. Off to tonight's dinner.
Regards,
Tim
Hey everybody we had a great meeting tonight. We watched a variety of videos and had some good conversation. The first few videos we watched were from a series called Mr. Deity They are short 5 minute skits with several characters. The main god character, Mr. Deity is married to Lucy (Lucifer) and have discussions with Jesus and other advisers Each skit uses humor to point out contradictions, errors, and extreme rules of the bible and religion. Take the time to watch a few, the first one we watched was about stoning women who are not virgins when they marry.
We then watched an excerpt from The Invention of Lying where Ricky Gervais' character has to explain god to people. Watching as he had to come up with and explain the rules to people who had never heard of the man in the sky.
We then watched some stand-up by Eddie Izzard about Jesus explaining to god what he did while he was on Earth.
Then some Ricky Gervais as he jokes about the old testament god and dealing with his religious education teacher when he was young.
We also watched a music video by XTC, this is from their 1986 album when it was shown on MTV.
We finished it up by watching some of Richard Dawkin's documentary, The Genius of Charles Darwin. Then we also watched some excerpts from Roger Nygard's, The Nature of Existence.
Overall we had a great time and I think we all either learned something or at least saw something that we haven't seen before. A big thanks to Andrea and Luke for hosting tonight. I look forward to seeing everyone at the next meeting, which will be scheduled soon and most likely be a game night at the library or possibly a trivia night.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful new year. Here are a couple of news stories that have come my way this week. The first story is about Indiana Senator Dennis Kruse, he has proposed legislation that would allow districts to require that the Lord's Prayer be recited daily at the beginning of school. Click here to read the full story.
Dennis Kruse
Now he must know that a law like this will never pass, yet he is still wasting legislative time trying to force his religion on students.The next article is about a faith-healer, Ariel Ben Sherman. In the early 2000's he convinced a mother not to seek medical treatment for her 15 year old daughter who had cancer and rely only on "faith healing". However, later on when he developed cancer he chose to put his faith in medical professionals. He has passed away, but there are still some possible legal and constitutional questions that need to be answered stemming from this case. You can read more about this case here and here.
Ariel Ben Sherman
Lastly is an article from the New York Times, written by Susan Jacoby who talks about how she came to her atheism as a young girl after a friend's illness. She speaks to how atheism actually is more of a benefit than a fictional belief in times of sorrow. She encourages us to be more open about our atheism lest we might be pushed into the background. We need people to realize that humanity is responsible for it's actions and not dismiss behavior as the will of god. That is what allows tragedies like the one that happened to Jessica Crank the 15 year old girl with cancer. So I encourage you to read Susan's article and let me know what your opinions are. Should a parent be allowed the right to refuse medical treatment to their child?
