Seth Andrews (a former Christian broadcaster) is the creator and host of The Thinking Atheistonline community -- both podcast and YouTube channel.
Seth will deliver an enlightening (sometimes controversial) lecture on
Facts (Usually) Don't Change Minds
followed by questions and answers.
There is free parking on weekends at City and County owned lots. The closest to the location of this event is the Locust Street Garage at 540 Locust Street. This free parking lot is diagonally across from the UT Conference Center located on Locust Street. The conference center is also accessed on Locust Street. (Do not park in the Hilton parking lot which is across the street, as it is NOT FREE.)
First Sunday Meeting - IN PERSON
November 3, 2024 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Pellissippi State Community College, Hardin Valley Road
Member Aaron Tyrrell will present on “Better Communication Through Applied Cognitive Development Theory” How can we use the cognitive development theories of Paiget, Kohlberg, Maslow, Haidt, and others to better understand the perspectives of others, and help us communicate more effectively? Can we separate the science from the New Age “woo” in Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory? As we grow up as individuals, and evolve as societies, the complexity, accuracy, and universality of our worldview is continually increased. Learning these stages of development enables us to make faster progress in our own development, as well as helping others with theirs.
Coffee and other hot beverages will be available, and bring a snack to share if you wish.
We meet in the cafeteria annex at the rear of the Goins Administration Building. There is a direct entrance to the meeting room from the back of the building.
Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/klMZYpubN
Blount County First Wednesday Social
November 6, 2024 Wednesday 6:00-7:30 PM
The Bird and The Book, 1509 E. Broadway, Maryville
Come join us at the Bird and the Book, 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.
The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots in Preparing for War.
Combining his own experiences in the youth groups and prayer meetings of the 1990s with an immersive look at the steady blending of White grievance politics with evangelicalism, Onishi crafts an engrossing account of the years-long campaign of White Christian nationalism that led to January 6. How did the rise of what Onishi calls the New Religious Right, between 1960 and 2015, give birth to violent White Christian nationalism during the Trump presidency and beyond? What propelled some of the most conservative religious communities in the country--communities of which Onishi was once a part--to ignite a cold civil war?
Through chapters on White supremacy and segregationist theologies, conspiracy theories, the Christian-school movement, purity culture, and the right-wing media ecosystem, Onishi pulls back the curtain on a subculture that birthed a movement and has taken a dangerous turn. In taut and unsparing prose, Onishi traces the migration of many White Christians to Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in what is known as the American Redoubt. 237 pages.
Third Sunday Meeting
November 17, 2024 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Zoom
Member Ryvyr Mutsu will share his story of "Deconversion from Religion." Afterward, others are invited to share their own stories if they were formerly religious and found their way out.
Bring your own snacks and coffee (or breakfast if you are in earlier time zones).
Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kdLSW60HEp
Fourth Sunday Meeting - Reflections
November 24, 2024 4:30 PM - 6 PM
Zoom Meeting
When was America really great?
At what time was America really great? The 50's, the 60"s, the 90's? Well, the people who track such things seem to think America was great was when you were in your early teens. Yes, greatness is determined just at the end of childhood and before the messy world of adulthood. Check this out:
One of the pieces of business we handle at the membership meeting is the election of officers and board members. If you are interested in serving on the board, please contact nomination@rationalists.org.
Several RET members attended the 2024 Knoxville Pride Fest and helped at the booth shared with FFRF East Tennessee Chapter. They included: Aleta, Carl, Trish, Norm, Chris, Lee, Aaron, Jane, Terri.
Below is an essay submitted by Oliver Terry, one of the recipients of a 2024 RET Scholarship. Essays from other scholarship recipients will be included in future newsletters.
How have you (or a person whom you know) been affected by the recent attacks on human/women’s rights? What if any, are your plans to combat this?
While I and those around me are somewhat more insulated from backsliding in women’s and human rights, being in Canada, current political and societal trends certainly do not inspire confidence that the same could not happen here. While the legal landscape in Canada is different, the same often religious right groups are in opposition to abortion, as well as to more recent and to them related legal medical procedures such as gender-affirming care and the right to end one’s life – in Canada, Medical Assistance in Dying. As a future physician, I’m in a unique position to not only take direct action in advocating for these legal medical procedures as an authoritative and (hopefully) respected voice, but in fact to take action to help maintain access to these. In the short term, I am a member of McGill Medical Students for Choice, having helped to organize events for medical students at my university in the realm of reproductive rights and abortion. I last year completed a course by the National Abortion Foundation Canada on safe provision of medication abortion and will be completing a rotation this year where I hope to have some exposure to Medical Aid in Dying; in the long term, I hope to spend at least some of my professional career in helping to provide these essential services and others to which some might object on religious grounds.
Oliver Terry, recipient of an RET Secular Scholarship, lives in Montreal, Quebec and will study medicine at McGill University. A member of Humanist Canada and McGill Medical Students for Choice, Oliver hopes to help maintain patient access to abortion, medical assistance in dying, and gender-affirming care.
