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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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About RET
Rationalists of East Tennessee is an organization created to benefit people by expanding understanding of the universe through the use of empirical and rational methods. Our purposes are as follows:
- To foster an environment suitable to free speech and exchange of ideas.
- To promote free inquiry into the nature of the universe and of human societies.
- To encourage critical thinking on all aspects of human life.
- To emphasize the importance of the scientific method.
- To explore ethical and intellectual alternatives to supernatural beliefs.
- To model humanistic ethics through service to the greater community.
- To provide a fellowship for people who share these purposes.
Visitors are Welcome
How Do I Join RET?
We welcome you to attend our meetings to find out more about us. Find out what we're doing next by browsing the calendar at left or by sending email to info@rationalists.org. Once you've decided we're a group you'd like to associate with, either download our brochure and fill out the blank, print the HTML application found here, or use PayPal.
The Skeptic Book Club for May
Don't forget to attend the Book Club on Sunday. May's book is "The Invisible Gorilla" by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons.Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot.
Sunday May 13, 2012
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 8029 Kingston Pike.
Posted by risler
May 11, 2012
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Annual Public Lecture
Please remember tomorrow, Sunday, May 6, is the Rationalists of East Tennessee annual public lecture.
Dr. J. Anderson (Andy) Thomson M.D., psychiatrist, author, and trustee of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason will present the RET Annual Public Lecture at Pellissippi State Community College 2-4 p.m. in the Goins Auditorium. Please note the time change from our usual Sunday meetings. The presentation is titled "How and Why Human Minds Build and Believe in God(s)". Dr. Thomson notes that few people realize the cognitive neurosciences have mapped out how and why human minds produce beliefs in the supernatural, but this knowledge is now available and should soon be a usual part of a 21st century education. The talk will describe the basics of the current psychological explanation of religious beliefs and how certain rituals reinforce them. Andy is a staff psychiatrist at the University of Virginia Student Health Center and at the Institute for Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. He also has his own private practice as a psychiatrist in Charlottesville. He is noted for his work on evolutionary psychology, as well as for his exploration of the cognitive and evolutionary basis of religious belief, as presented in his recent book with Clare Aukofer entitled "Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith" (Pitchstone Publishing, 2011). In an interview with the Austin American-Statesman (6/17/2011), Thomson stated, "There is a massive, irreconcilable conflict between science and religion. Religion was humanity's original cosmology, biology and anthropology. It provided explanations for the origin of the world, life and humans. Science now gives us increasingly complete explanations for those big three."
Posted by risler
May 05, 2012
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Is America Heading Toward Theocracy?
Come to Sunday's Roundtable for a lively discussion of the religious right's agressive political agenda. Local residents complain because they can’t have open prayers at public meetings. Theists around the country complain that religion is under attack. Yet the Christo-Republicans, with their control over many state governments, are waging a religion-driven war on women and on science. They are openly trying to impose the mostly anti-American Ten Commandments on citizens everywhere. Tennessee has just passed a "Monkey Law" bill that is intended to surreptitiously sneak Creationism into the classroom. Bring your comments, complaints, and rants to the meeting for an open examination of the threats the current crop of politicians poses to a free secular society.
Time and location: 10:30 am – 12:30 pm, Pellissippi State Community College, Goins Bldg., Cafeteria Annex
Posted by risler
Apr. 12, 2012
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The Skeptic Book Club
April's book is "The Fair Society.: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice" By Peter Corning
We have been told, again and again, that life is unfair. But what if we are wrong simply to resign ourselves to this situation? What if we have the power—and more, the duty—to change society for the better?
We do. And our very nature inclines us to do so. That is the provocative argument Peter Corning makes in The Fair Society. Drawing on the evidence from our evolutionary history and the emergent science of human nature, Corning shows that we have an innate sense of fairness. While these impulses can easily be subverted by greed and demagoguery, they can also be harnessed for good.
The Book Club meets at Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 8029 Kingston Pike, 4:00 to 6:00 pm the second Sunday of every month.
Posted by risler
Apr. 06, 2012
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First Sunday Meeting
Don't miss April's First Sunday Meeting of the Rationalists of East Tennessee.
Professor Aleydis Van de Moortel of the University of Tennessee will discuss archaeological excavations at the prehistoric site of Mitrov in central Greece. These investigations are throwing new light on the rise of the Mycenaean elite (circa 1600 BCE) as well as on their demise and the region's transition to the Dark Ages (circa 1200 BCE).
Pellissippi State Community College. Sunday, April 1, 10:30 am.
Posted by risler
Mar. 29, 2012
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Rally for Reason
Carl and Aleta Ledendecker will be renting a van in order to attend the Reason Rally in Washington D.C. on March 24, splitting the cost with any who wish to ride with them. They expect to leave Friday morning in time to arrive in DC for dinner Friday night. Plans include staying at a "relatively" inexpensive motel in Alexandria and taking the Metro to the Mall on Saturday morning. Return to Knoxville will be either Saturday evening or Sunday morning, depending on the wishes of participants and the number of available drivers. In order to secure a place on the van for this RET field trip, call Aleta at 865-724-5273 or email her at aletaledendecker@earthlink.net.
Posted by risler
Mar. 18, 2012
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