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| Roundtable |
| Book Club |
| Third Sunday Roundtable |
| Reflections |
| Other |
Driving Directions
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Join our list to get occasional updates about meetings and important events. You can be removed from the list at any time without hassle.
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Reflections Meeting
The May 26 Reflections Meeting and potluck lunch will be held at the home of Schera and Ted Lollis, 9219 George Williams Road, Knoxville 37922. Call 865-690-8742 for directions. The topic is "Are We Compassionate about Individual Rights of Minorities?"
Our nation and many religions profess to respect the rights of individuals and minorities. The American Civil Liberties Union, for example, “works to extend rights to segments of our population that have traditionally been denied their rights.” Yet public opinion often condemns minorities, and it often requires acts of individual courage to defend the rights of the underdog.
o What do we think about immigration and other moral issues of today?
o What do we think about the man on the recent PBS broadcast on the Constitution who said: “Non-Christians don’t have any rights because they are less than five percent of the population”?
o What about the human rights of the two Boston bombers?
o Were the three "Transform Now Plowshares" activists correct to argue in federal court that their civil disobedience at Y-12 was sanctioned by the historic examples of Mahatma Gandhi and the civil rights movement?
This topic is wide open and skirt the boundary (if there is one) between civil rights and personal morality. You may choose to address broad principles or specific examples.
May 26, 2013, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
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First Sunday Meeting
“Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking
has Undermined America” – a DVD presentation by Barbara Ehrenreich from the Skeptics Society Distinguished Lecture Series.
In this utterly original take on the American frame of mind, Barbara Ehrenreich traces the strange career of our sunny outlook from its origins as a marginal 19th-century healing technique to its enshrinement as a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude. Evangelical mega-churches preach the good news that you only have to want something to get it, because God wants to “prosper” you. The medical profession prescribes positive thinking for its presumed health benefits. Academia has made room for new departments of “positive psychology” and the “science of happiness.” Nowhere, though, has bright-siding taken firmer root than within the business community, where, as Ehrenreich shows, the refusal even to consider negative outcomes — like mortgage defaults — contributed directly to the current economic crisis. With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster.
Location: Goins building cafeteria annex, Pellissippi State Comunity College, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm.
June 02, 2013, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
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The Skeptic Book Club
“Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” by Jared Diamond - Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 8029 Kingston Pike, 4:00 pm.
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning “Guns, Germs and Steel”, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization
Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. “Collapse” moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.
Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, “Collapse” is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide? (Amazon review)
June 09, 2013, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
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Third Sunday Meeting
“Third Rock from the Sun – a Biography” – a presentation by RET member Ralph Isler . The origin and history of the earth has fascinated people from the earliest civilizations to the present day. Almost all ancient societies have creation mythologies, usually involving supernatural, or at least superhuman, gods. But over the last 150 years or so, modern science has allowed us to produce a detailed, naturalistic, evolutionary history of the earth from its origin 4.57 billion years ago to the present. This undertaking represents the quintessential model for how historical sciences work to illuminate the past. Emphasis will be not only on what we know about the earth’s history but on how science has determined its age, the time of formation of the first oceans, the origins of life, the great extinction events and much more.
Goins Building Cafeteria Annex, Pellissippi State Community College, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm.
June 16, 2013, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
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Reflections Meeting
There will be no Reflections Meeting in June.
June 23, 2013
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Summer Solstice Party
The RET Summer Solstice Party will take place on Saturday, June 29 starting at 5:00 pm at Carl and Aleta Ledendecker's home, 2123 Stoneybrook Road, Louisville, TN 3777. This is a pot-luck, BYOB event that will feature swimming, bocci, and badminton, in addition to great conversation and socializing. Call 865-982-8687 for directions.
June 29, 2013, 5:00 - 9:30 pm
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