For our last meeting of the term, we watched “A.J. Jacobs’ year of living biblically.” Jacobs is a writer for Esquire magazine, and enjoys living life as a series of experiments. One such experiment entailed him living his life according to the laws of The Bible as closely as possible. Watch the video for some entertaining anecdotes and a few lessons he learned along the way.

One key point was that everyone picks and chooses when it comes to religion — what he and many others call “cafeteria religion,” picking the good stuff and avoiding whatever turns your stomach. No matter how literally people think they take The Bible, they’re pretty much always filtering it somehow because a lot of it is just crazy in modern society.

Another of Jacobs’ takeaways was “Thou shalt not disregard the irrational” — a point that was difficult for him to admit at first as an agnostic with a scientific worldview. But he observed throughout his year that rituals, Biblical or not, give us a sense of meaning whether or not they make sense. He also came to appreciate the concept of sacredness — keeping the sabbath, having respect for rituals. This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about since watching Letting Go of God; religion builds in time and space for reflection, which is something I miss. I love the art and architecture of churches, and wish there were comparable secular spaces. Sure, we have libraries and museums and whatnot…but it would be nice to have some place dedicated to nothing other than introspection and discussion and taking a break from the bustling world.

Well, that concludes our first full term of activity. Thanks to everyone who’s made it out, and if you haven’t, we hope to see you next term! If you have any ideas for events, let us know. Good luck on finals and have a great spring break!

Over the course of about two hours, Sweeney recounts her personal journey from believing in traditional Catholicism, to a more liberal, “mythish” interpretation of Christianity, to exploring Buddhism and New Age thought, to seeing nature as God, love as God, and then not seeing a god at all. Many of us connected with her progression, and though it’s a little long to listen to one person talking, she keeps the mood light with the sense of humor she was known for on Saturday Night Live.

Prof. Bishop described it as “a down home, folksy way of explaining to people” how one can come not to believe in god. Sweeney is much more approachable than atheist poster-boys Dawkins and Hitchens. She has no agenda to convert or attack — she’s simply telling her story.

If you missed the event, it’s definitely worth checking out. Here’s a 15-minute preview on TED, and check out some memorable quotes below the jump.

• “Jesus’ story made me want to go out and campaign for free speech, not sit in church and worship him.” “If this is all there is, everything means more, not less, right?”
• “[Those big maturing moments in life involved...] accepting what is true over what I wished was true.”
• “Truth is such a poor competitor in the market of ideas.”
• “When I think of myself as my inner most being, I don’t think of it as a body function. My brain creates this idea that myself is not itself. I think of myself as something separate looking out from my eyes, listening through my ears, pulling the strings that make my body move. That is because the brain cannot perceive its own functioning. … the mind is what the brain does, just like pumping blood is what the heart does.”

In the spirit of Valentine’s, we watched this TED talk by Helen Fisher on the biochemical foundations of romantic love, which spurred a rousing discussion on love vs. lust, conditioning oneself to love, marriage, arranged marriage, monogamy’s biological and societal basis, and the similarity of love to cocaine.

Do freethinkers believe love is something beyond chemical reactions in the brain? Many of us were still on the fence—let us know how you feel in the comments.

Thanks if you came out to the meeting tonight. We had a pretty good turnout. At the meeting we watching Dan Dennett’s TED talk, highlighting Rick Warren’s previous TED talk, and his book Breaking the Spell. Dennett believes that everyone should be taught facts about the world’s religions, and everyone at the meeting seemed to agree that this is a laudable though logistically problematic goal. Watch his discussion, and let us know what you think.

James Randi, world-famous magician, skeptic, and debunker of paranormal claims. He has offered a $1,000,000 challenge since 1964 (started at $1,000) for a person that can provide proof of a paranormal claim. So far, out of over 1,000 applicants, no one has ever succeeded in providing proof for their paranormal claim.

We were introduced to the web series, and almost-HBO-series, Mr. Deity. This is a funny web show that has been in production since 2006. I encourage you to watch their show, it is quite funny. The first episode is posted below:

If you missed our first meeting of the term, here’s the video we watched (just barely, thanks to all three Dragonfly networks sucking as usual). Kary Mullis, Nobel Prize-winning biochemist discusses the crucial role of experimentation in science. Read on for some excerpts from our discussion, and an interesting follow-up video by physicist David Deutsch.

Discussion takeaways:

• This video dates itself a bit (2002), as Mullis’ closing comments related to global warming are a misinterpretation (see the comments on the video page). This in itself is a good reflection of the fact that even the brightest scientists with extensive observational evidence still may not draw the correct conclusions.
• Science is not always the noble pursuit of knowledge we are brought up to believe. It is not impervious to bias, not insulated from the real world of economic and political motivations. Even within academic circles, science is sometimes taught dogmatically, with much reverence for its methods and forefathers, with a sense of faith that some might describe as religious.
• There seems to be a higher barrier to entry to science today than in days of yore, as higher levels of math and theoretical understanding are required — there is so much that has been discovered, particularly explaining the things that we can see and deal with day-to-day, that science has largely moved into the realm of the unseen.
• Scientists are also generally a fairly elite bunch by nature. The language alone separates them and their findings from the average person. Specialized language is necessary to communicate scientific concepts, so how can we “dumb it down” to accurately enlighten the masses? The media and the internet have helped spread and even democratize information, but do we lose necessary nuance and context? Is it too easy for us to filter and zone in on only sources that agree with our preconceptions?

Apologies if I missed anyone’s insightful points here (or injected my own biases Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments! And here’s the video I mentioned about observation not necessarily being enough grounds for a good theory.

Read on for a recap of the meeting and video discussion.

Meeting Recap:

Around 10 members met. Discussed ongoing affiliation efforts, organizational goals, and future events. Tossed around ways to communicate what secular people do around the holidays for the December intercultural reception. A history of the winter holidays was a favored idea.

The group elected to watch episode 11, “The Persistence of Memory” of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Discussion ensued.

Event Takeaways:

• Though the series is old, only a little of the biological science is out of date, and the major themes remain extremely relevant today.
• Sagan takes a unique approach to exploring memory by starting with DNA/heredity, moving into neuroscience, then to language (which he says was evolved for survival, to store what we couldn’t keep as a species in our brains/DNA) and books and computers (the internet being in its infancy at the time)
  • aka — genes >> brains >> books >> computers
  • and at each level he compares how many “bits” or “volumes” of information are stored (seems sort of exponential)
• He also makes an interesting comparison to brain structure and city infrastructure — how we build on top of the old pathways (what I’ve heard called elsewhere “paving the cow-paths”) … as well as forging new ones in parallel (what he compares to having cars, trains, trolleys, horses, etc. all running side-by-side…the obsolete just sticks around unless it’s molded into something new)

Quotes:

• “It takes a great deal of information to make, or even categorize, a living organism.”
• “[Organisms] are packed with information. Every one of them has a rich, behavioral repertoire to ensure its survival.”
• [after making whale sounds] “We’re interested in communication with extraterrestrial intelligence — wouldn’t it be better to improve communication with terrestrial intelligence?”
• “The DNA knows.”
• “The brain has evolved from the inside out.”
• “Civilization is a product of the cerebral cortex.”
• “We never see the machinery of logical analysis, only the conclusions.”
• “No longer at the mercy of the reptile brains, we can change ourselves. Think of the possibilities.”
• “The units of biological communication are genes; the units of cultural communication are ideas.”