Meeting #6: Happiness and Religion

Meeting number six is upon us! This Wednesday at 7pm, meet us in Matherly 105 to discuss the connection between happiness and religion, such as the fact that many people justify their religious beliefs in terms of the happiness that it gives them.

Come prepared with whatever you find fit for the meeting!

Also, don't forget that our last meeting is the Wednesday after Thanksgiving break, and instead of meeting in Matherly, we'll be heading over to the Christian Resource Center to listen to Dr. Whitmer's talk about rational disagreement.

Also, it's very hard to find a comic about religion and happiness, so...here you go:

Meeting #5: The Innateness of Good and Evil

This week, it's time for our most requested topic: The Innateness of Good and Evil. In this meeting, we will be discussing a mix of topics related to good and evil while exploring human nature as it relates to morality. Come prepared with questions and arguments, and feel free to bring along your friends for this sure-to-be-exciting discussion!

Important: This week, the meeting will be on THURSDAY at 7pm in Matherly, and not Wednesday. We assume most of you will be out trick-or-treating on Wednesday, so we decided to move it.

Meeting #4: Logical Fallacies and Paradoxes

Sorry for the late update! This next meeting should be self explanatory, so bring your favorite logical fallacies, paradoxes, even conspiracy theories that fit into the theme!

Meeting #3: Social Inequality

Our third meeting of the semester will be about all aspects of social inequality from any angle you wish to address: why does it exist? can it be removed from society? should it be removed? is it permanent? And so on, and so forth.

The meeting will be held, as always, in Matherly 105 at 7pm. Come ready to debate!

Protestors from Pastor Terry Jones' church outside the Gainesville Pride Festival.

Meeting #2: Weapon Rights

Our second meeting of the semester will take place tomorrow at 7:00pm in Matherly 105 (same as last time!). Our next topic will be weapon rights, which recieved the second highest number of votes. Come prepared and ready to debate!

Along the topic of weapon rights, we hope to instigate discussion about not only an individual's right to have weapons, but also a state's right. What distinguishes a state from an individual? Why can the state own a nuke, but for a citizen, it's illegal? What kinds of weapons should someone own, if any at all? What about regulation? Education? Why are weapons necessary/unnecessary? The list goes on.

And what about our right to bear arms?

Courtesy of ToonPool.com, link here.
 

Fall 2012 Topics

Thank you everyone for a fantastic first meeting! The turnout was great and the impromptu discussion went really well.

During our first meeting, we voted on the topics that we will discuss for the rest of the semester. I've assigned them in a random order to keep people coming throughout the whole semester, and not just for the first couple of meetings.

Schedule of Topics:

• Sept. 19: Weapon Rights
• Oct. 3: Social Inequality
• Oct. 17: Logical Fallacies
• Nov. 1: The Innateness of Good and Evil
• Nov. 14: Happiness and Religion
• Nov. 28: Dr. Whitmer's Talk at the CSC.

See you all next Wednesday, same place, same time!

Fall 2012: Meeting #1

Our first official meeting will be Wednesday, September 5th, at 7PM.

 

We have NOT heard back from room reservations, so we do not have a room officially available to us at this point. We're going to be meeting outside Matherly 105. Michael and I will be there early. If the room is open, that is the one we'll be using, if not, we'll snag another and leave a sign directing people to it.

 

If you don't see Michael or I outside the room, but people are inside, please double check we're in there before entering. This problem should be resolved by the next meeting.

 

Our primary focus for the first meeting will be forming a list of topics to base this semester's meetings on. We'll nominate a number of topics for the semester, and vote for the ones we want to discuss. Topics are not limited to religion or irreligion, so be creative.

 

We'll also be discussing a few events we have planned for the semster.

 

In addition, depending on time, we'd like to have a warmup discussion. The tentative topic will be "What is Freethought?" We can explore anything having to do with this, or we can ignore the topic all together and work on something else.

 

We don't have any specifics readings or information on the topic. We'll provide a few dictionary definitions at the meeting.

 

See you all on Wednesday!

Fall 2012 Schedule of Meetings

Good day fellow Freethinkers! Michael here updating you all about our schedule of meetings for the Fall 2012 Semester! The location will be announced at a later date, and we will give plenty of advanced warning both here and on our Facebook page! The meetings will be from 7pm until 9pm every other Wednesday. (Should this time slot conflict with any members, we can decide during the first meeting if we want to push it back to 8-9:30 as it was during the Spring.)

Dates:

• September 5th
• September 19th
• October 3rd
• October 17th
• November 1st (Thursday!)
• November 14th
• November 28th

Meeting #4 - Politics and Religion

Gator Freethought's fourth meeting of the Spring 2012 semester will be Wednesday, February 29th at 8:00pm in Matherly 105. Our topic for discussion will be the second-most requested topic of the semester, Politics and Religion.

This meeting was originally intended to be Dr. Witmer's talk with us on "Rational Religious Disagreement?" but due to unforeseen schedule complications he has had to reschedule for later in the semester. Dates will be announced as soon as they are confirmed.

Also, we will still be carpooling to Dr. Witmer's Christian Study Center talk this Thursday.
Gator Freethought's faculty sponsor, Dr. Gene Witmer, will be speaking from 7:00 - 8:30 at the Christian Study Center, and we will be organizing a carpool from UF Campus to make sure that everyone who needs a ride to the CSC for the discussion can get one.

Please post on the facebook event if you need a ride, or if you can offer a ride, and how many people you can take.

The full title of the talk is: “Religious Belief, Rationality, and Religious Experience: An Atheist’s View” by Gene Witmer, Associate Professor of Philosophy at UF Part II of “Theism, Reason, and Faith: In Conversation with the New Atheists.”

The address of the CSC is
112 Northwest 16th Street
Gainesville, Florida 32603

Meeting #3 - LGBT Rights

Join Gator Freethought on Wednesday, February 15th, at 8pm in Matherly 105 for our third meeting of the Spring 2012 semester. The topic of discussion will be LGBT Rights.

The topic of discussion will be LGBT rights, including the battle for marriage equality, examination of which rights are unalienable and what makes them so, and the legitimacy of federal classifications based on religious practices. See you there!


Administrative Notes
Officer elections will be held at the end of the semester. Get involved! Get active!
Gator Freethought T-Shirts are still available for sale, for $10. If we sell out of last year's batch, we will hold a new design competition and order new shirts.

Meeting #2 - Logical Fallacies and Paradoxes

Join Gator Freethought on Wednesday, February 1st, at 8pm in Matherly 105 for our second meeting of the Spring 2012 semester. The topic of discussion will be Logical Fallacies and Paradoxes.

To start the meeting, we will present some of the more common fallacies and paradoxes so that everyone is familiar with them.  Free thinking relies upon honest evaluation of evidence and the ability to draw valid conclusions, so the ability to recognize faulty reasoning not only in the speech of others, but also in ourselves, is vital.

Key points of discussion will include:

• Recognizing common (and uncommon) fallacies, and why they create invalid conclusions
• Places that we see and use those, and how to handle invalid reasoning
• What we can do to avoid using these in discussion

Administrative Notes:
    Officer elections will be held at the end of the semester. Get involved! Get active!
Gator Freethought T-Shirts are still available for sale, for $10. If we sell out of last year's batch, we will hold a new design competition and order new shirts.