Weekly Meetings: Fridays, 3:30PM, 180 Helen Glass

[trevor]

This thread will be updated weekly with the topic o' the week. Feel free to suggest a topic by replying to this thread.

Next Meeting: Friday, March 14th @ 3:30 p.m., 180 Helen Glass: US Presidential Election

The US economy, illegal immigration, foreign policy... what could be more interesting? This Friday we'll chat about the 2008 US Election. Any favorite candidates? Anyone you absolutely do not want in the white house? Does this really have an effect on us as Canadians, or is talking about it just a bit of wankery?

Past Meetings

• Friday, January 18th - Truthiness
• Friday, January 25th - Should we debate philosophical / scientific issues?
• Friday, February 1st - Penn & Teller: Bullshit! on the Bible and discussion
• Friday, February 8th - DGE & other CfC events discussion
• Friday, March 12th - UMSU elections

[trevor]

Updated. Anyone have an idea for a question/idea to debate this week?

[Steven]

Peanut butter: chunky vs. smooth 

It's hard to think of topics where there are an equal number of people who believe in each side of the controversy. I think one side will largely end up having to play devil's advocate. It also depends on how complex of an issue we want to debate.

Do we want something like "Is alternative medicine a good thing?" or "Is it wrong to eat meat?".

A question that interests me is this: "Is there a place for spirituality within a rational worldview?" It's a bit of a broad topic, but I think a case could be made either way.

I'm far more interested in discussing something worthwhile rather than something like "Do UFOs exist?" I guess it depends on what kind of things other people enjoy discussing. Sometimes those are fun topics to discuss (not necessarily the UFO example, but others) but I think it would be a waste of all the intelligent people in our group who are more than capable of having a real discussion about important issues.

Just my $0.02...

[brian]

I think as a bunch of mostly atheists, there are a lot of topics related to religion and atheism where I think it would be hard to get an even split.  Unless we can somehow trick Campus for Christ into coming...

Some random ideas:

Somewhat on-topic:
Debate on whether we should be debating Christians and creationists or not
Accommodating religion and cultural practices (especially those of minorities) in Canada
Are pro-lifers anti-woman or simply deluded?
How do we go about making our voices heard in a country basically dominated by theists (more specifically Christians)?
What sorts of issues face atheists in Canada today?  And what should we do about them?

Completely off topic:
Afghanistan (we seem to have some people on both sides, from last meeting)

[Steven]

I think as a bunch of mostly atheists, there are a lot of topics related to religion and atheism where I think it would be hard to get an even split.  Unless we can somehow trick Campus for Christ into coming...

Some random ideas:

Somewhat on-topic:
Debate on whether we should be debating Christians and creationists or not
Accommodating religion and cultural practices (especially those of minorities) in Canada
Are pro-lifers anti-woman or simply deluded?
How do we go about making our voices heard in a country basically dominated by theists (more specifically Christians)?
What sorts of issues face atheists in Canada today?  And what should we do about them?

Completely off topic:
Afghanistan (we seem to have some people on both sides, from last meeting)

I like the idea of debating whether or not we should debate Christians as well as the accommodation of cultural practices.


Or we could do "Who is better: Kirk or Picard?" It could be all of us vs. Brian

[wordwan]

Truthiness...

Hm...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis22.html

Heather, upping the ante a bit.

[brian]

Wow... normally I consider the Lew Rockwell gang a bunch of nuts but that article was pretty good. 

It is worth noting that in Afghanistan in the 1970s, under the Communist government and I think the one immediately preceding it women were treated very well.  I have seen pictures of Afghan women in the 1970s without headscarves, wearing skirts, driving buses, etc.

Of course, then Jimmy Carter decided it might be a good idea to bring in a bunch of religious nutbars from Saudi Arabia, give them guns and rocket launchers, and let them go nuts for capitalism democracy

Compare that to now when they wear burqas, get beaten, and after six years of Canadian troops giving them their human rights and building schools for girls and all that propaganda, only 1-3% of Afghan girls get to go to school.  Real improvement there guys.  And Hamid Karzai is NOT a feminist.

And in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it is important to distinguish who "we" are fighting and what their motives are (no, "they hate our freedom" isn't a good analysis).  A lot of the violence is anti-imperialist, they simply want us to get out of their country and get rid of their puppet governments.

Also fuck the troops.  I don't support the troops.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1714664

[Steven]

Also fuck the troops.  I don't support the troops.

The whole "support the troops" thing is complete bullshit. A complete straw man, distracting from the real issue. It's like sending a bunch of preschoolers into a burning building and when someone objects you say that they "don't support our preschoolers". Silly example but you get the point.

[trevor]

I agree with Brian and Steve: we should have a meta-debate by debating whether or not we should debate Christians/creationists. The timing coincides with the upcoming DGE event held by Campus for Christ. I'll send out an email about this tonight.

Next week I will not be able to attend the Friday meeting, but that doesn't mean the meeting shouldn't go on as scheduled! If anyone wants to lead the discussion next week, then that would be awesome. Otherwise, I'll offer up my Bullshit DVDs and we can learn a little bit about why the bible and some other stuff is bullshit; again, possibly useful for the DGE event.

[Katie]

I will be at the next meeting for sure, so I could head the discussion. We're going along as planned with 'Should we debate creationists'?

[Steven]

We're going along as planned with 'Should we debate creationists'?

No, that was the topic of discussion this past Friday.

I'm in favour of the Bullshit idea. We could watch one episode (I'm assuming the episodes are less than an hour?) and then discuss it in whatever time is left.

[brian]

Yeah... I think Bullshit would be more fun

[trevor]

Episodes are about half an hour, so you could either do two episodes or one + discussion. I would suggest the episode on the Bible, as it may come up during the DGE thing; but it is, of course, up to you guys.

[Katie]

Seems like a good idea to me.

[brian]

I think that sounds cool as well.  Who's bringing the DVD?