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Rationalists of East Tennessee Newsletter August 2025 |
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First Sunday In Person Meeting
August 3, 2025 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM Eastern Time Pellissippi State, Hardin Valley, Goins Bldg Cafeteria Annex
Evolution of the UT/Oak Ridge partnership presented by Lee Riedinger.
In 1940 Oak Ridge did not exist and UT had no PhD programs. Much has changed in the last 80 years as UT and the federal facilities in Oak Ridge have grown enormously and in many examples jointly. The UT partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory is unique in the country. Some of the history of this will be discussed, along with the benefits that have come to each institution. This topic is explored in detail in a new book released last summer by UT Press: Critical Connections: The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge from the Dawn of the Atomic Age to the Present, by Lee Riedinger, Al Ekkebus, Ray Smith, and William Bugg.
Coffee and other beverages will be available, and you are invited to bring a snack to share.
The meeting takes place in the cafeteria annex of the Goins Administration Building. There is direct access to the room from the back of the building.
For those who are at a distance, the meeting will be shared via Zoom.
Topic: RET First Sunday August
Time: Aug 3, 2025 10:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) |
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***********************************************************Zoom links to meetings are no longer going to be publicly available because of rude interlopers. Look in the Newsletter for Zoom links. *********************************************************** |
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Blount County First Wednesday Meetup
Wednesday, August 6 6:00 - 7:30 pm
Come join us at "The Bird and The Book" Cafe, 1509 E Broadway Ave, Maryville, for socializing and dinner.
If you have any extra copies of Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer, Freethought Today, or other Freethought magazines, bring them to the social. We will try to have RET stickers ready to place over your addresses to make the magazines suitable for distribution for outreach.
This will be a monthly event, normally on the First Wednesday. All are welcome to join in. |
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RET Skeptic Book Club
August 10, 2025 Sunday 4:00 – 6:00 pm EST Zoom Meeting
by L.A. Paul
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As we live our lives, we repeatedly make decisions that shape our future circumstances and affect the sort of person we will be. When choosing whether to start a family, or deciding on a career, we often think we can assess the options by imagining what different experiences would be like for us. L. A. Paul argues that, for choices involving dramatically new experiences, we are confronted by the brute fact that we can know very little about our subjective futures. This has serious implications for our decisions. If we make life choices in the way we naturally and intuitively want to - by considering what we care about, and what our future selves will be like if we choose to have the experience -we only learn what we really need to know after we have already committed ourselves. If we try to escape the dilemma by avoiding an experience, we have still made a choice.
Choosing rationally, then, may require us to regard big life decisions as choices to make discoveries, small and large, about the intrinsic nature of experience, and to recognize that part of the value of living authentically is to experience one's life and preferences in whatever way they may evolve in the wake of the choices one makes. Using classic philosophical examples about the nature of consciousness, and drawing on recent work in normative decision theory, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, Paul develops a rigorous account of transformative experience that sheds light on how we should understand real-world experience and our capacity to rationally map our subjective futures. 202 pages.
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August Third Sunday Zoom
Aug 17, 2025 10:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada) For this meeting we will be examining the story of Gilgamesh. The meeting will start with a video, followed by discussion.
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August RET Reflections
08/24/2025 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Zoom
Are Negotiations Always Better than Force?
Many of us feel that it is better to talk things through and work out a compromise rather than to use force. But what if talking just leads to more talking while damage and even death occurs? Is using force to set clear boundaries a moral option? Do we sometimes get things wrong and engage in catastrophic thinking because of a strong bias toward "talking" and "compromise". How do we know that compromise is even a solution? For a deterrence through strength argument see:
How the West got the Israel-Iran war so wrong
The sentiment betrays the Western delusion: that process is always preferable to power. That negotiation, however one-sided, is morally superior to pre-emption. But pre-emption is not always a moral failing. When executed with precision, intelligence and legitimacy – as it was in this case – it prevents greater wars. It reinstates deterrence. And it spares civilians, infrastructure and economies the toll of prolonged conflict.
This is the paradox many in the West struggle to accept: restrained power can be more humane than endless diplomacy. Especially when that diplomacy serves only to delay the inevitable, embolden aggressors and paralyze allies.
So where does this put us? Tip one way and we have endless war, tip the other way and we have instability and terrorism. Peace through strength has been around a long time, but so has fear of escalation.
What do you think?
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Knox County Fourth Wednesday MEET-UP08/27/2025 6-8 pm, Corner 16 Restaurant, 9637 Kroger Park Drive
Come join an informal gathering for food and conversation at the Corner 16 Restaurant, 9637 Kroger Park Dr, Knoxville, TN 37922 near Pellissippi and Northshore.
If you are interested in seeing the menu beforehand, you can check it out here.
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RET's Participation in the Farragut July 4th Parade (reported by Forrest Lee Erickson)
There were about ten of us participating.
Weather was warm. But we had an early start and finished before noon.
It was gratifying how many of the people lining the parade recognized the Flying Spaghetti Monster and cheered for "his holy noodliness."
There were people who greeted us as Rationalists.
We had a burst of three sign-ups for the RET Meetup this week, perhaps encouraged by "his holy noodliness."
We handed out FFRF tracts: "Is America a Christian Nation" and "What is a Freethinker?"
Our photo was in the Knoxville News Sentinel and the Farragut Press. |
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On October 27, 2024, in Knoxville, Seth Andrews gave a speech about beliefs, brains, and why data often doesn't make a dent. If you missed it or would like to see it again, it is available on Seth's YouTube channel, TheThinkingAtheist. |
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Copyright © 2020 {Rationalists of East Tennessee, Inc.}. All rights reserved. Please request use of any material at contact below.
Contact email: info@rationalists.org
Edited by Sharron King: newsletter@rationalists.org.
Opinions expressed are those of authors and/or editors and are not necessarily the opinions of RET
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