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Berkeley Meeting Sunday, August 29, 1:30 to 3:30 PM Berkeley Main Library, 3rd Floor Meeting Room 2090 Kittredge St., One Block From Downtown Berkeley BART
Early in his talk Aronson gets our attention with this amazing observation: “[As non-believers] not only are we [publicly portrayed as] part of an insignificant minority, but we mostly get treated as invisible in a whole series of public ways, and respond to that by treating ourselves as invisible.”
He further states: “In response to living out of the American mainstream, a non-believer may come to feel a bit defensive and self protective, rather than self confident and path breaking. She may be wondering about how to raise her children among other families who speak so often of church and god and prayer. She may even be unsure of what she believes, struggling to answer her own and other’s questions, belonging to no circle, informal or formal, where she might explore her doubts and clarify her thinking. She is in short less likely to be looking outward to change the world, and more likely searching for personal clarity, like minded people and even breathing space.”
Later he shows us that the majority of Americans (64%) are not fundamentalist, and nine out of ten of those people say they get their morality from somewhere other than religion. And then he reveals that approximately 25% of the people who say they believe in god only believe in a vague spiritual essence or a Deist god. In practice they live their lives very similar to non-believers.
Aronson argues that because of how we are treated and how watered down the religion of much of this country actually is, we need to take three steps to affect change:
1. We have to become visible rather than invisible.
2. We need to become a secular political force.
3. We need to be positive in our perspectives on life, showing people the joy of being without gods. Aronson outlook is one of gratitude, not to some invisible creator, but to life, to nature and to the development of human thought and progress. For Aronson this gratitude expresses our very nature as social beings.
Please join us in this exploration and the discussion afterwards.
After the meeting let’s go to dinner at the King Dong Restaurant, 2429 Shattuck Ave. (near Haste) in Berkeley.
After the meeting let’s go to dinner at the King Dong Restaurant, 2429 Shattuck Ave. (near Haste) in Berkeley.
BART Access: From the downtown Berkeley BART Station, walk 1.5 blocks south on Shattuck Avenue, then turn right on Kittredge. The library is a half block down the street on the left.
Parking: The city parking lot at Allston & Harold Way, a short block from the library, is $5 for the entire day on Sunday. If you don’t mind walking, take University to MLK, turn right and then instead of proceeding left on Allston to the parking lot, turn right. In several blocks you will see parking on the side streets.
Larry Hicok, Coordinator: 510-222-7580 Ski Grabowski, Treasurer: 510-652-8350
In September we will have our annual picnic on Sunday, September 19 in Tilden Park. No meeting in the library in September. Details next month. | ||||
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Many theists and even some Atheists think that living without god(s) requires letting go of meaning in life. Yet many other Atheists embrace lives filled with meaning. This month we feature a video of Prof. Ronald Aronson, speaking on his book,