Spring '10 Meeting #6 - Officer Nominations and -Isms

This meeting will not be in our usual room. It will be in Griffin-Floyd 100.

     Gator Freethought's sixth meeting of the Spring 2010 semester will be held on Thursday, April 1st, at 7:30 pm in Griffin-Floyd 100

This will be the second-to-last meeting of the year for Gator Freethought. First, we will be taking nominations for officer positions next year.  Once we know who is being nominated, officer elections will be held at our final meeting of the year, on April 14th.

The topic of discussion for this meeting will be either Eugenics, or the history and application of various -Ism biases (classism, racism, sexism), depending on what people prefer to discuss.

Dr. Witmer's notes - How not to attack religious beliefs

For anyone who wasn't able to attend the meeting, or wants a copy of Dr. Witmer's notes from his March 17th presentation on How NOT to Attack Religious Beliefs, his notes are available here.

Spring '10 Meeting #5 - Dr. Witmer on How NOT to Argue About God

Gator Freethought's fifth meeting of the Spring 2010 semester will be held Wednesday, March 17th at 7:30 PM, in Anderson Hall 101.

Our guest speaker will be Dr. Witmer, from UF's philosophy department. He will be discussing how not to approach the topic of God and religion. IE, what sort of arguments are unappealing, rude, illogical, or likely to be perceived as such, and thus should be avoided.

In addition, Gator Freethought t-shirts are still available for purchase.  If you're interested, please contact an officer either in person, by sending an email to GatorFreethought@gmail.com, or through our facebook group.

A closeup of the design on the shirts can be seen below:

Spring '10 Meeting #3 - Movie Night: Inherit the Wind

Gator Freethought's second meeting of the Spring 2010 semester will be held Thursday, February 11th at 7:30 PM, in Griffin-Floyd 100.

Please note that this is a different room than where the rest of our meetings have been held this year.

We will be showing Inherit the Wind, a film originally produced in 1960, which depicts a fictionalized version of the Scopes monkey trials. Come out and discuss the historical and future implications of both the movie and the trial with us.

He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.

Proverbs 11:29, King James Bible

Spring '10 Meeting #2 - Quantum Physics

Gator Freethought's second meeting of the Spring 2010 semester will be held Wednesday, January 27th at 7:30 PM, in Anderson Hall 101.

The subject of this meeting is quantum mechanics.  We'll be introducing the subject (no prior knowledge required), and then discussing some of the common misconceptions about and applications of its principles.

Gator Freethought T-Shirts are still available, and can be purchased at the meeting for $10.

Spring '10 Meeting #1 - Logical Fallacies

It's that time again. Gator Freethought's first meeting of the Spring 2010 semester will be held Thursday, January 14th, at 7:30 PM, in Anderson Hall 101.*

The topic will be common (and not-so-common) logical fallacies used in informal discussion.  If you have one that you find particularly interesting (or irritating), please share it!  To start with, our officers will be presenting some of the more common ones, so that everyone can see what we're talking about and participate in the discussion

"Rating" the logical fallacies:



*Our meeting is scheduled to be held in Anderson 101, but that room may not be available. If that's the case, there will be a note posted outside of Anderson 101 to redirect people to where the meeting is actually being held.  If we know in advance, we'll post the new location on the website as well.

Also: Gator Freethought t-shirts are still being sold for $10, and are already printed, so you can walk in with cash and walk out with a t-shirt!  See the shirts haphazardly modeled at our last meeting:

Note of interest

For those who are in any way interested in a spectacular back-story to the Dixie County 10 Commandments case, read on...

The media archive I compiled covering the case hasn't been updated for quite a while, but it's time to write a post just to explain some rather interesting developments. I've kept in contact with Glenn M. Katon, lead counsel on the ongoing ACLU vs. Dixie County lawsuit to remove the Decalogue from in front of the County Courthouse, and spoke with him some this summer. Things were going well in the case, but it isn't a guaranteed win by any means, and requires a lot of work. By random chance today, I found out that every one of the major players in getting the monument posted in front of the courthouse have been convicted of various crimes, including Joey Lander, the attorney appearing opposite me on the Hannity and Colmes interview.

From Gainesville.com:

In early August, former Dixie County commissioners John Lee "Big John" Driggers and Alton James Land, and former inspector Willie Dewey "Billy" Keen Jr., were each convicted of conspiracy, soliciting bribes and lying to federal agents about the money they accepted in exchange for promising favorable decisions by the County Commission on specific development issues.

All three men face up to 20 years in prison and were scheduled to be sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Stephan P. Mickle on Nov. 9.

Earlier this week, Mickle agreed to delay sentencing for Driggers and Land until Jan. 4. The two men remain free under special conditions and the delay will allow them to spend the holidays with their families.

Recognize the names? Read the minutes from the Jan 19 2006 meeting of the Board of Commissioners and what do you see?

Commissioner Driggers had a call from a resident who would like to see the Ten Commandments on the steps of the Courthouse. He wanted to know if the Board is bold enough to do this.

All members agreed that they would like to see this accomplished.

Attorney Lander stated that he will defend any law suits for free.

Motion by Commissioner Land, seconded by Commissioner Valentine and carried to go ahead with having the Ten Commandments placed on the front of the courthouse steps.

And what about the County Attorney and my interlocuter on Faux News?

Before:

After:

Joey Lander was indicted Dec 2008 and convicted in Oct 2009 of:

...five counts of mail fraud and 11 counts of money laundering, in connection with his involvement in an investment fraud scheme and a separate scheme to defraud the citizens of Dixie County.

Evidence introduced at trial established that between the fall of 2005 and July 2009, Lander executed a scheme to defraud and to deprive the citizens of Dixie County and others of the intangible right to his honest services. Specifically, while acting as County Attorney, Lander fraudulently demanded and received payment of an $820,000 performance bond from developers having business before Dixie County. At the time Lander demanded payment of the performance bond, he knew that no bond was required and had no authority to personally accept payment of the bond, which was deposited into Lander’s law firm account. Lander then spent more than $300,000 of the money on luxury items and other personal expenses.

In addition, evidence at trial established that Lander also defrauded private investors of more than $400,000 that he fraudulently induced them to invest in a retail vitamin and health supplement venture.

Following forfeiture proceedings conducted at the conclusion of the case, the jury also issued a special verdict forfeiting Lander’s ownership interest in the Dixie County Advocate newspaper in Cross City, Florida.

Lander faces a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment on each of the mail fraud convictions, and a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment on each of the money laundering convictions. Sentencing is scheduled for January 4, 2010.

Unbelievable. Every one of the Dixie County officials involved with this case has been found guilty of serious crimes. You can't make this stuff up!
________________
Technorati tags: Gator Freethought

Winter Hiatus

There are no more Gator Freethought meetings scheduled for Fall 2009.  Best of luck to UF students taking final exams, and look back here early in January for our full Spring 2010 schedule.

T-Shirts!

Finally! Gator Freethought will be ordering T-shirts, so that our members can further promote and represent the goals and ideals of our organization. The final design is shown below, and is printed on the front of the shirt.

The cost to you is $10 per shirt, the same as it is to the group. Gator Freethought is not profiting off the sale of shirts.

To order one, please bring $10 to Meeting #5 this Thursday, November 12th at 7:30 PM.  (See the post below for more information about this meeting).

If you would like to order a shirt, but can't attend the meeting, please contact a Gator Freethought officer by either sending an email to Gatorfreethought@gmail.com or messaging them through our Facebook group. 

Please note that we are only able to order shirts in batches. Therefore, if you miss this first printing, we won't be able to get more printed until there are at least 30 more that need to be made.  Don't miss out!

________________
Technorati tags: Gator Freethought

Fifth Meeting of Fall 2009

Our fifth meeting will be held Thursday, November 12th, at 7:30 PM in Anderson Hall, room 101.

Is it really up to you to decide to come or not? This meeting revisits a classic Freethought topic:

Free Will

Does it exist? What is it? What are the implications of knowing it exists/doesn't exist?

Get ready for an intense debate - I know some people in GF are pretty hardcore one way or the other.

It is STRONGLY ...recommended that you at least read the wikipedia article on Free Will before coming to the meeting - it contains a lot of the concepts and terms that people are going to bring up, and it will definitely do everyone some good to have some kind of basic knowledge, so that everyone can better partake in discussion.

Be familiar with the differences between libertarianism, hard determinism, and compatibilism if you want to be able to hit the ground running.

At the beginning of the meeting there will be a 10-15 minute presentation going over the different schools of  thought, so that everyone will be very clear on what we're talking about.

This is gonna be really fun! Hope to see you there everyone.

________________
Technorati tags: Gator Freethought