Come join the conversation about freethought, philosophy, politics, religion, atheism, science, logic, reason, rationality, social issues, morality, current events, and more!
Where I (Nick) live, autumn is just around the corner — and I couldn’t be happier about it! What’s not to love? The cooler air, the smell of fallen leaves, the excitement of a new school year, pumpkin-spice lattes, and the fast-approaching “spooky season” all bring back so many favorite memories. Since 2019, this has also been the time for our Autumn Festival (previously named our “Wisdom Fest”). You’re invited to join this year’s celebration by playing board games, taking part in a free book exchange, and discussing the virtues of wisdom and reason with your local chapter! We’ve even recently updated the event’s primer for you!
If the gems found at our festival don’t satisfy your search for excellent new reads, perhaps I can interest you in our own list of great books! These selections are extremely well written and have potentially life-changing content. But you don’t have to take my word for it.
School’s in session for all of you aspiring Chapter Leaders out there! I’m pleased to announce that we’ve recently added a few more helpful pages and articles to our website that give great advice on how to start and run your chapters! (A couple of them are featured in this newsletter.) We’ve also made some great progress on our book — so stay tuned for a few exciting announcements in the near future!
Please be safe out there. The Delta Variant causes more infections and spreads faster than earlier forms of the Coronavirus. We’re still a long way from the end of the pandemic, but we’re starting to close that distance as more of us are getting vaccinated.
If you haven’t yet, please get your full COVID-19 vaccination as soon as possible. Even after we’re vaccinated, we should still wear masks whenever we’re in crowded areas, around children, and/or near those who are unvaccinated. ◼️
Top Stories
Fresh New Primers
The Board has been busy this month researching, writing, and peer-reviewing fresh new primers that your chapter can use in future discussions. During your chapter’s next Planning Meeting, feel free to choose from among these shiny new options. As always, we’d also love to hear your suggestions for future topics!
If you’d like to register a new discussion group for freethinkers in your area, you can do so through our New Chapter Page. ◼️
Production Notes
This Issue of the SEEKER’S KEY was written by our Board of Directors and other guest writers (as noted) under the direction of our Editor-in-chief, Nicholas Burk. Unless otherwise specified, all photos and images used are either original productions or in the public domain. The SEEKER’S KEY is produced with gratitude to all of our supportive members and donors.
An archive of every past issue of our newsletter can be found on our Newsletter Page.
If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter and receive links to future issues each month in your email inbox, please visit our Newsletter Page and fill out a quick subscription form (we respect your privacy).
If you would like to unsubscribe, please let us know by replying to one of our emails with the word “unsubscribe.” Afterward, we will promptly remove your information from our mailing lists.
100% of our programs and projects are made possible by our volunteers and our donors. If you’d like to support our cause, we now accept donations via Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal! You can also set up monthly donations through our Donate Page. Thank you! ◼️
Your first step in bringing a chapter of the Free Thought Forum to your area is securing a great venue where you can host your group’s events. Luckily, this step is far easier than it sounds!
Consistency is Key
Your group of freethinkers will need a reliable place to meet consistently, week after week. That consistency is essential. Consistency builds trust and dependability. It lays the foundation for a healthy group dynamic. When your members can rely on your meetings being held at the same time and place each week, they’ll feel more comfortable sharing their ideas, bringing their friends, and supporting the group.
Your goal is to develop a positive reputation of consistency within the wider community. Locals may not know much about the Free Thought Forum, but they’ll know that your chapter always meets at the same time and place. Therefore, it pays to think long-term about your choice of venue. Will it be a great place to meet in warm weather, in the rain, or on the coldest day of the year?
Changing your location between events is risky business. It’s never fun to hear your members explain how they went to the old meeting spot, only to find it empty. Whenever you change location, you’ll lose the interest of some of your members (for several reasons). It’s best to secure a great meeting location on the first try and stick to it!
What You’ll Need
Your chapter can meet in almost any public space. However, for best results, look for venues that meet all or most of the following criteria:
Regular hours of operation
A table (coffee table, bar, etc.) around which 5-15 people can sit on chairs, stools, and/or couches
Air conditioning/heating (as needed)
Low ambient noise (so your members won’t need to shout to be heard)
No distractions (TVs screens streaming sporting events, band performances, trivia games, poetry readings, church sermons, etc. are all things that can distract your members from the discussion, ruining the flow of a thoughtful conversation.)
Look for locations with enough space in which 5-15 people can meet for two hours on Saturday mornings, Saturday evenings, Sunday mornings, or Sunday evenings. (Other meeting times may work, but those are what we recommend.) Prioritize those locations where the owners and other patrons won’t mind the noise of excited discussions and debates. Above all else, look for where your group can meet FREE OF CHARGE! (Constantly asking your members for donations to cover your meeting location fees can undermine your chapter’s growth.)
Do a few venues in your area come to mind? Start writing them down!
Make a List
Start a list of potential meeting locations. List the name of the venue, its hours of operation, and its contact information (phone, email, etc.) Jump on a few online maps of the general area and see what is within convenient walking, biking, and driving distance for you and most of your potential members.
The following types of establishments have served our chapters well in the past, but feel free to expand your search to similar venues:
Cafes and Coffee Shops (A natural fit for freethought discussions!)
Public Libraries (Especially those with conference rooms)
Casual Restaurants (Those that encourage the public to use their spaces for meetings, board games, working on a laptop, etc.)
Student Commons (Look for wide indoor areas within a college or university campus)
Book Stores
Hobby Stores
Highlight the meeting places that sound more promising with further research. Cross-off those that don’t match the suggested criteria. Once you’ve narrowed the list down to three options, you’re ready for the next step.
Contacting Potential Venues
Meeting Spaces may look amazing on paper, but there are always unknown variables that you’re far better off finding before your members arrive. Have some note paper handy and briefly contact your top three options during their regular business hours. If you prefer to use your phone, that conversation could go something like this:
Sample Phone Call
Kyle: “Hello, this is the Esperanto Cafe. How can I help you?”
June: “Yes, hello. I’m June and I’m looking for a good place where my nonprofit group could meet. We’re the Free Thought Forum, an inclusive community that hosts public discussions on science, philosophy, and healthy life skills. I had a couple of questions for you if you don’t mind.”
Kyle: “Sure, what are your questions?”
June: “Well, I think that we’ll have around 10 people who’ll want to come to our discussions. Do you think there is enough space in your cafe where 10 people could have a 2-hour conversation each week?”
Kyle: “Yeah, that wouldn’t be a problem. We have a few tables that are big enough, and you’re free to move chairs around if you need.”
June: “Excellent! Do you need me to make a reservation? Are there any fees involved with using your space for meetings?”
Kyle: “No nothing like that. However, we’d really appreciate it if your members picked up some coffee while they were here. Also, we may not have time to clean up after your meetings, so if you could clean up any messes you make, that would help us out, big time.”
June: “That sounds great! We could totally do that. Those are all the questions I had. I’ll let you guys know if we decide to go with your cafe for our meetings. Thank you so much for your time!”
Kyle: “Ok, no problem. Take care!”
Using email would be a lot slower than making a phone call, and you’re less likely to get a response. However, if you prefer to send your top three options emails, here is a sample of what you could write:
Sample Email
Dear Laketown Library,
How’s it going? My name is Charles and I had a few questions about your meeting rooms.
I’d like to start a local chapter of the Free Thought Forum in our city. But first, we’ll need a place for that chapter to meet. Our members would like to meet every week to host public discussions on all kinds of topics like philosophy, science, critical thinking, religion, and current events. We value inclusivity, free speech, and model citizenship. If you’d like to learn more about the organization, you can check out our website (https://www.freethoughtforum.org).
We plan to meet for two hours every Saturday morning (from 10:00 AM to Noon). I was wondering, do you have meeting rooms available at that time? How can I reserve a meeting room? Are we allowed to bring food and drinks inside the library? Also, are the rooms soundproof? (We certainly wouldn’t want to bother any library patrons with our conversations.)
Thank you so much for your time. If you have any questions for me or about my group, let me know!
Sincerely,
Charles Green
As you learn more about your top picks, you’ll most likely find the venue that seems to be the best fit. Onto the next step!
Visiting the Venue
Contact your venue of choice again to schedule a 2-minute visit with their manager, head librarian, lead supervisor, etc. The goal of your visit is to establish a professional relationship with your host so that you can seamlessly work with them to coordinate meeting times and logistics. Be sure to give them your name and a good way to reach you directly. (The fewer people needed to relay messages and questions between the two of you, the better!)
When the time comes, bring a welcome pamphlet and a sample Discussion Primer so that the person in charge can look over the kind of materials that will be distributed within their establishment. (You can find printable copies of these on our Leadership Resources Page.) Chances are good that the manager of the venue would be happy to have a group of potential customers visit their establishment every week. Be sure to thank them for their time. Be friendly and come ready to honestly answer questions about you, your chapter, and the Free Thought Forum itself. By the end of your visit, your new host should have a good idea of what to expect at your upcoming meetings. Hopefully, you would have also gained a valuable ally as you establish a positive presence in your community!
Working With Your Host
The relationship between a hosting venue and a chapter of the Free Thought Forum should always be mutually beneficial (in the short and long term). Speak positively about the venue before, during, and after your meetings. Encourage your members to show their gratitude for the free meeting space by making small purchases or donations, positive recommendations on social media, and so forth.
Strive to be the best group that has ever met at that location. Greet the people behind the counter when you arrive and wish them the best when you leave. Thank them multiple times for their hospitality. Do your best not to bother any other guests or customers while you meet. Avoid causing your hosts any headaches or requiring them to do any extra work. Leave your meeting space cleaner and more organized than how you found it. No matter the venue, your hosts should feel glad that you’re there.
The Chapter Leader is the official liaison between a hosting venue and their chapter. As long as clear lines of communication are maintained, both parties will be happy. When your host contacts you, politely and promptly respond. If they have any requests or complaints about your group, take them seriously and modify how your chapter meets accordingly. If, for whatever reason, there is a change in your schedule that would affect them, let them know of the change at least a couple of weeks in advance.
Give Yourself Some Time
Once you’ve secured a venue, it’s tempting to start meeting immediately. However, your next step is to schedule your chapter’s first meeting about four weeks in advance. You’ll need that time to get the word out about your chapter and generate interest on social media, so a little patience can really pay off!
As long as you follow these guidelines, your chapter will have a great place to meet where your group is welcomed and their good work is appreciated! ◼️
A little preparation can go a long way! As first-time visitors give your meetings a try, they’ll quickly notice that you’ve come prepared. Having your printed materials and meeting supplies at the ready will communicate that you take your meetings seriously and that you’re dedicated to the cause of the Free Thought Forum. After some time, several members will follow your example and add their dedication to the group as well!
The following is a list of essential supplies that you should have with you at all of your meetings. These items may be purchased online or at most office supply stores. (Of course, assembling your Chapter Record Book will require some extra printing and organizing.) In total, this and the following materials should only cost around $45.00 or less. (If you record these purchases and save your receipts, you may be reimbursed for them through your Chapter Events Fund.)
Before your chapter’s next meeting, take some time to assemble all these materials and learn how to use them in the context of our programs and services. If you’re nervous about leading your group, being prepared with these supplies can help you feel more relaxed and ready for anything!
Shopping List:
(Large) Supply Bag
Dark Fabric Tablecloth
Two (Different) Bank Deposit Bags
Two Donation Receipt Booklets
Spare Pens
Sturdy Two-Pocket Folder
Your Chapter Record Book
A standard-page-sized 3-ring binder with a wide spine
Your chapter’s Supply Bag should be large yet portable enough to conveniently transport all of the following supplies to and from meetings. Use a bag that is made of a sturdy, long-lasting material that’s easy to clean. It may be a backpack, book bag, canvas tote, or large suitcase that has been purchased for (or donated to) the chapter itself.
Whenever a change in leadership is in order, this bag (and its contents) should be handed to the new Chapter Leader. When the previous supply bag can’t be obtained, a new one should be created with all-new materials.
2. Dark Fabric Tablecloth
To make our events more inviting and to ensure that we don’t leave a mess for our hosting venue, our chapters have adopted the new practice of bringing at least one tablecloth to our meetings. It should be machine washable, large enough to fit over most tables, and made of sturdy dark (black, gray, blue, or purple) fabric. Before your event begins, unfold the tablecloth, center it on the table, and voilà! After your meeting, neatly fold the tablecloth and return it to your Supply Bag. (Wash the tablecloth between meetings as needed.)
3. Two Different Bank Deposit Bags
Every form of monetary donation made to your chapter must be made to one of two of your chapter’s separate and distinct funds:
The Chapter Events Fund (This general fund may only be used to cover the practical expenses directly related to the chapter’s events and programs such as purchasing basic supplies, printing promotional materials, and paying venue fees.)
The Mutual Aid Fund (This special-purpose fund may only be used for mutual aid, community service, volunteer projects, and other such programs.)
You’ll need two bank deposit bags to store and transport the money donated to your chapter (one for each fund). It’s best if they are different colors and clearly labeled. (Smaller chapters will keep their cash donations in these bags between meetings, but larger chapters should consider opening two bank accounts.)
4. Two Donation Receipt Booklets
Each bank deposit bag should have its own dedicated receipt book. Whenever you (or your officers) receive a cash donation, it’s a good legal practice to use a receipt book to create tangible records of the contribution. Buy receipt books that create white, yellow (canary), and pink (or blue) copies so that you can give the white copy to the donor and keep the others for your records.
5. Spare pens
While it’s a good practice to have a few pens to take notes, fill out donation receipts, and complete forms in your Chapter Record Book, those pens may disappear after a few meetings! Plus, several members also like to take notes during a riveting discussion and may ask for a spare pen from time to time. Therefore, you should overstock your Supply Bag with more than enough spare pens, but be careful to store them where they won’t cause too much damage if broken.
6. Sturdy Two-Pocket Folder
On the table, at the center of every meeting, should be printed copies of that week’s Discussion Primer and at least 15 Welcome Pamphlets. (These can be found on our Leader Resources Page. Each pamphlet should be printed on both sides of one piece of paper and folded in thirds to create a simple brochure.)
To keep these and other printed materials in pristine condition as you transport them, store them in a sturdy two-pocket folder!
7. Your Chapter Record Book
While it may seem overwhelming at first, your Chapter Record Book is a streamlined tool that will make running your chapter simpler and more enjoyable. Using our forms and following our procedures will help you stay organized and handle the necessary behind-the-scenes parts of being a Chapter Leader more efficiently, enabling you to better enjoy meeting interesting people, making life-long friends, hosting stimulating freethought discussions, and more!
To begin assembling this book, purchase the following from your local office supply store:
A standard-page-sized 3-ring binder with a wide spine
A matching 3-hole puncher
3-hole punched lined notepaper
Plastic page-protectors (for 3-ring binders)
Section dividers (for 3-ring binders)
All of the forms you’ll need for your Chapter Record Book and further instructions about how to assemble it can be found on our Leadership Resources Page.
Your Chapter Record Book will contain forms and resources that you’ll use during your meetings, so be sure to have it open and ready in front of you before your meeting is scheduled to begin! ◼️
Hello Freethinkers! If you happen to live near Salt Lake City, Utah, (or more specifically, near West Jordan) you’re cordially invited to participate in the first meeting of our newest chapter on Saturday, August 14th! We’ll vote on when and where that group will meet, play a trivia game, and get to know other freethinkers in the area. Click here for more details. (Our online chapter that had previously met via our Discord server is merging with this all-new in-person group, but we’d love to start a new online-only group in a couple of months if you’re interested.)
Members from our Provo chapter will be there in support and the Provo group will continue to also meet at their usual time and place in the weeks following this event.
But why should Salt Lake City and Provo have all the fun? After much deliberation over the last few months, the Board has decided to grant Chapter Leaders far more autonomy and flexibility when it comes to creating and running their chapters. For example, rather than applying for an interview with the Board before getting an official charter, you can now start a new chapter by filling out a quick registration form. Doing so will ensure that your group will be included in our Chapter Directory!
This month, our organization is also taking a harder stance regarding the reality of the ongoing global climate crisis, as discussed in this issue’s main article. You may have noticed a new science primer on the topic, but it certainly won’t be the last. In the coming months, you’ll also find primers on sustainable living, effective activism, and more!
It’s always important, however, to remember that political debate, activism, mutual aid, and making a positive change can take a toll. From time to time, we can all use a break. This is a friendly reminder to limit your news consumption to an emotionally sustainable minimum, enjoy time in the sun with friends, go on vacation, and make a conscious effort to enjoy the subtle beauties in every moment. Likewise, while discussing interesting and pressing topics with your chapter is a worthy enterprise, be sure to balance those discussions with casual and recreational group activities during the week! Your fellow forum members (not to mention your family, co-workers, and friends) will certainly appreciate being around a more well-rounded you! ◼️
Contents
A Message from the Board
Climate Change is Getting Harder to Ignore
You’re Invited to our SLC Chapter’s First Meeting!
Fresh New Primers
Our Chapters
Production Notes
Top Stories
Fresh New Primers
Our writers (Sam, Nick, and Sage) have been busy this month researching, writing, and peer-reviewing fresh new primers for your chapter to use in future discussions. While you’re looking over our Primer Library during your chapter’s next Planning Meeting, feel free to choose from among these shiny new options. As always, we’d also love to hear your suggestions for future topics!
Our Chapters
By this month’s end, we’ll have two registered chapters in operation. To view a chapter’s events, please click on the links to its social media accounts.
If you’d like to register a new discussion group for freethinkers in your area, you can do so via our New Chapter Page. ◼️
Production Notes
This Issue of the SEEKER’S KEY was written by our Board of Directors and other guest writers (as noted) under the direction of our Editor-in-chief, Nicholas Burk. Unless otherwise specified, all photos and images used are either original productions or in the public domain. The SEEKER’S KEY is produced with gratitude to all of our supportive members and donors.
An Archive of every past issue of our newsletter can be found on our Newsletter Page.
If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter and receive links to future issues each month in your email inbox, please visit our Newsletter Page and fill out a quick subscription form (we respect your privacy).
If you would like to unsubscribe, please let us know by replying to one of our emails with the word “unsubscribe.” Afterward, we will promptly remove your information from our mailing lists.
100% of our programs and projects are made possible by our volunteers and our donors. If you’d like to support our cause, we now accept donations via Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal! You can also set up monthly donations through our Donate Page. Thank you! ◼️
Climate Change is Getting Harder to Ignore
Aug 09, 2021
By Nicholas Burk (President)
Our organization was founded to combat certain issues plaguing our society, such as widespread isolation and depression, pervasive misinformation, failing social cohesion, preventable illness, and poverty. Recently, we've added a new issue to that list: Human-Caused Climate Change.
Does this mean our organization is “getting political” to keep up with popular trends? Have we given up our commitment to creating inclusive communities that respectfully engage with people from all backgrounds and beliefs? Are we losing our edge as skeptics and freethinkers?
Overwhelming empirical evidence shows that anthropomorphic climate change is a clear and present part of our reality. It may be easy to forget, but before global warming was made into a political issue, it was a purely scientific one. Much like the safety of vaccines or the reality of evolution by natural selection, human-caused climate change is a matter of testable and observable fact, not opinion or political preference. While we may discuss and disagree on what could or should be done, we’re still an educational organization seeking to increase scientific literacy. Therefore, we owe it to all of our current and future members to make the reality of this crisis crystal clear.
Of course, several of you reading this have always believed in the overwhelming evidence of humanity’s effect on our atmosphere. But large swaths of our population have been affected by decades of political and profit-driven misinformation and propaganda, largely from oil companies, gas companies, and right-wing politicians like Ted Cruz who elected to go on a tropical vacation while several Texans froze to death during last year’s freak winter storms. When confronted with the ongoing water shortage crisis in Utah, Republican Governor Spencer Cox said that the problem could be solved with, "some divine intervention." (He failed to specify, however, if his constituents should pray to a bronze-age god, bathe a sacred statue, sacrifice a virgin, do a rain dance, or some other ritual.) And how could we forget the several occasions on which Donald Trump called global warming a “hoax.”
This anti-science stance used to be mostly an American political phenomenon. For decades, several right-wing politicians in Europe and Asia had no problem acknowledging the science showing our society's role in rising sea levels, deadly heatwaves, ocean acidification, etc. But they’re now mimicking their American counterparts at an alarming rate, another reminder that what we believe and how we live here can have a devastating impact on people everywhere.
The effects of anthropomorphic climate change have never been clearer. In the Middle East, summer temperatures have climbed high enough to cook meat, creating new waves of mass migration. In 2019 and 2020, Australia’s wild bushfires burnt 19 million hectares. Wildfires in Siberia have destroyed an even greater land area. This year, after months of dozens of states experiencing exceptional drought, hundreds of record-breaking wildfires have sent acrid smoke clouds that caused places like Salt Lake City and Denver to have the worst air quality on Earth! Wildfire smoke from the west coast has blocked out the sun as far as New York City and Washington D.C. where astonishingly ignorant arguments against the reality of global warming still take place (sometimes featuring snowballs).
Of course, average temperatures have risen everywhere, every year, hence the term “Global Warming.” But fires and warming are only part of the big picture. Flash flooding has destroyed several cities, especially this year in Europe. Rising sea levels continue to threaten the existence of island nations in the South Pacific. Our hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are growing larger, and more powerful. Increasing global temperatures alter ecosystems, causing the accelerated extinction of native species and the expansion of invasive species (and pandemic-causing viruses). But it is difficult to put all this death and destruction into perspective since it has become a regular part of our news cycle. Is it the warmest summer on record again? What else is new?
It's long past time to call a spade a spade. We can begin to make a positive impact by encouraging productive conversation about what needs to be done to slow (and in some cases, reverse) these trends, not as partisan pundits, but as scientifically literate freethinkers and concerned citizens of our one and only home planet. Those conversations need to happen more, but we shouldn’t stop there.
Why is this all happening in the first place? It's not a secret. Scientists had figured out what was going on long before the mid-90s. As time passed, their measurements and predictions have only gotten more accurate. Our society produces CO2 and other greenhouse gases at a rate greater than what can be naturally incorporated back into our planet’s carbon cycle. About 1/3 of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (and dissolved in our oceans) was only added since the industrial revolution. Carbon dioxide levels now exceed 417 parts per million, the highest they've been in 4 million years.
True, there are small things we can individually do about reducing our "carbon footprint." We could travel less, carpool, bike, and use public transportation. We can all eat less meat, buy local produce, live in smaller homes, buy and live on less, throw away less, replace our green lawns with environmentally-friendly gardens, plant trees, and so forth. Just look at how dramatically a few weeks of quarantine allowed our planet to heal in 2020! But the day-to-day lives of citizens only account for a tiny fraction of the CO2 dumped into our atmosphere. Since 1965, over 1/3 of it, for example, was produced by only a handful of companies. So if you really want to make a difference, it's time to write to your lawmakers, show your support for green initiatives, protest, and "get political."
It's not our place to tell you who to vote for or which political movements to support. But moving forward, the Free Thought Forum will publish more Discussion Primers for your chapter on the reality of human-caused climate change and how we can all live more sustainably. Chapter Leaders and members are encouraged to bring up climate change and political activism in your monthly Mutual Aid discussions. If other chapters, groups, and organizations are taking action, feel free to combine your efforts so that each protest or letter-writing campaign can have a stronger impact. The more we work together, the better our chances will be of leaving a cleaner and more sustainable future for generations to come. ◼️
You're Invited to the Epic FIRST Meeting for our NEW Salt Lake City Chapter!
Aug 07, 2021
By Nicholas Burk (President)
After several months of online meetings, we're excited to announce that an all-new chapter of the Free Thought Forum will start meeting in person every week in West Jordan, Utah! You're invited to join us on Saturday, August 14, 2021, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM MDT for this special occasion, share your thoughts, and get to know other open-minded people in the area!
At this, the first meeting of our all-new chapter, we'll be happy to answer your questions about the Free Thought Forum, its mission, and so forth. We'll also vote on our future meeting times, plan upcoming discussion topics, and play a game of science and philosophy trivia.
This meeting will help our Board of Directors get an idea of the level of interest for a group like this in the area, so by inviting a friend or otherwise spreading the word about this event, you'll be helping us out in a big way. Thank you so much, and we look forward to meeting you in person!
HOW TO FIND US
We've reserved the conference room at the High Point Coffee shop in West Jordan (1735 7800 S, West Jordan, UT 84088). Look for the chatty group handing out Free Thought Forum pamphlets between 10:00 AM and noon! High Point Coffee serves great drinks, smoothies, pastries, and more in a warm and hospitable setting. You're invited to join us as we show our appreciation to our fantastic host by ordering a drink or snack at each meeting.
ABOUT OUR ORGANIZATION
The regular meetings of the Free Thought Forum are celebrations of free speech, civil discussion, and the free exchange of ideas. Our members and visitors come together from various backgrounds to share their perspectives, hear new viewpoints, develop positive friendships, perform community service, and learn about science, rationality, philosophy, and life skills. Each chapter is an inclusive and supportive community that meets regularly under volunteer leadership.
If you would like to start a new chapter in your community, please visit our website (https://www.freethoughtforum.org) for more information. ◼️
This last month, the United States celebrated its newest federal holiday. While some of us had never heard of it, others regard it as a date with more historical and cultural significance than the 4th of July.
Juneteenth (June 19th) celebrants recognize that many problems in our society, such as slavery or systemic racism, may persist despite having been abolished on paper. While laws on the books protect our liberties in theory, those liberties, in practice, may continue to be ignored. This event calls attention to the fact that years after the Emancipation Proclamation, several Americans remained enslaved, kept ignorant of their legally codified liberty by their owners.
Nevertheless, despite the setbacks and widespread resistance to progress, both then and now, Juneteenth is a symbolic celebration of persistent optimism in the ongoing struggle toward equality. Every small victory and step toward a better future has a moment to shine, one day every year.
Our Provo, UT Chapter celebrated Juneteenth as part of their Courage Festival with pizza, watermelon, and water games at the park. We hope you've had a great Juneteenth this year and look forward to celebrating it with you in the future! ◼️
Contents
Happy Juneteenth
Rethinking our Discussions on Religion
The Forum Cycle (Step 2)
Our Bylaws have been Signed!
Podcast Episode: How to Act with Courage
Our Chapters
Production Notes
Top Stories
Our Chapters
As of this month, we have two chapters in operation and one super-close to being formed! The current leadership, meeting details, and links to their events and social media pages will be made available soon on their chapter pages!
Would you like to create your own group of friendly freethinkers? CLICK HERE to get started! ◼️
Production Notes
This Issue of the SEEKER’S KEY was written by our Board of Directors and other guest writers (as noted) under the direction of our Editor-in-chief, Nicholas Burk. Unless otherwise specified, all photos and images used are either original productions or in the public domain. The SEEKER’S KEY is produced with gratitude to all of our supportive members and donors.
An Archive of every past issue of our newsletter can be found on our Newsletter Page.
If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter and receive links to future issues each month in your email inbox, please visit our Newsletter Page and fill out a quick subscription form (we respect your privacy).
If you would like to unsubscribe, please let us know by replying to one of our emails with the word “unsubscribe.” Afterward, we will promptly remove your information from our mailing lists.
100% of our programs and projects are made possible by our volunteers and our donors. If you’d like to support our cause, we now accept donations via Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal! You can also set up monthly donations through our Donate Page. Thank you! ◼️
Rethinking our Discussions on Religion
Jun 28, 2021
By Nicholas Burk (President)
Our organization faces a difficult question. Should we continue to host conversations that feature "great ideas" from various religions, or should we replace those meetings with discussions that explore logical fallacies and cognitive biases? In this article, I'll frankly share my evolving opinions on the matter. In the next meeting of the Board of Directors, we'll vote on the issue. In the meantime, you're invited to weigh in with your thoughts via email or in the comment section below. (Your feedback will help our Board better represent the interests of our members, so it is deeply appreciated.)
Our curriculum of discussion primers currently fit into five main categories:
Special Occasions (Planning meetings, Mutual Aid meetings, festivals, etc.)
Scientific Literacy
Western Philosophy
Healthy Living
World Religions
We've found that our members prefer that their chapters rotate between these categories so that their meetings don't feel repetitive. Thus far, this approach has worked well. However, a growing number of our members and leaders are asking, "Why are we going out of our way to host discussions on religion when our society desperately needs better education on logic, rationality, and skepticism?"
There are several good reasons to study world religions. We’ve done so, in part, to send a clear message that our organization is for everyone, not just atheists and skeptics. Our goal has always been to be as inclusive as possible and create communities that accept people as they are. Each belief system discussed has been like an olive branch to members of that specific community. However, it could also be argued that hosting conversations based on logic and rationality would be far more inclusive, useful, and inviting to a greater number of people.
Since the spring of 2019, our discussions on world religions and religious movements have been among our most well-attended. For example, just a couple of weeks ago, our primer on Wicca and Pagan Witchcraft attracted dozens of new interested parties to our Provo, Utah chapter's meetup page. At such meetings, however, current practitioners of the religion sometimes reach out to those interested in joining it. Active recruiting and promotion of the lifestyle take place. Yet, as hosts preoccupied with being inclusive and supportive, we may fail to prioritize the real-time exercises in skepticism that our meetings typically feature. Whether the discussion is about Sikhism, Buddhism, or Judaism, we may inadvertently connect people to those who eagerly espouse magical thinking, pseudoscience, and the lack of skepticism that plagues our society.
Why else have we included religion in our curriculum? After all, doesn't our organization exist to promote scientific literacy and critical thinking skills? Our religious studies were meant to be purely academic, a form of cultural exposure and a chance for secular freethinkers to consider novel points of view from around the world. Just as with our other programs, it was a way to shatter the echo chambers in which we find ourselves. We perceived a cultural trend toward atheism and skepticism, so it seemed prudent to include the study of world religions within our exploration of moral philosophy. We could discuss reality, it was reasoned, through our science primers, and we can discuss morality through our philosophy and religion primers.
However, this approach has had some unfortunate consequences. We've asked our Chapter Leaders and their Assistants to run discussions on ideologies they believe are harmful. Our leaders who happen to be atheistic or agnostic have been in the awkward position of defending certain religious beliefs in front of visitors who ultimately shared in their atheism, but who quickly lost interest in the Free Thought Forum before finding that common ground. The opposite has also been the case. Our discussions on religion piqued the interest of some, only for that interest to fade when science or skepticism was discussed. Most importantly, we've learned that several of our members have been victimized and traumatized by the same religious movements we've featured at our meetings. That trauma has even been what led many people to give the Free Thought Forum a try in the first place.
Like many of you, I love to study religion, superstition, spiritual movements, cults, mythology, and failures in critical thinking as a hobby. Yet this hobby is, admittedly, like playing with fire. After all, while religious movements claim that their popularity comes from the good they do, such as the direction and comfort they give, it is simply ignorant to claim that subtle emotional manipulation and fallacious logic aren't at play. Several of us are lucky enough to have had an informal (or formal) education on logical fallacies, so we have a form of mental immunity to them. Several of us may spend days studying and discussing the Baha'i Faith, Taoism, Jediism, etc., without feeling the temptation to convert. But others aren't as fortunate, and exposing them to some of the most persuasive and harmful movements in history is like exposing a newborn to a deadly new virus.
I've found that most of our visitors and members know almost nothing about logical fallacies or cognitive biases. Without a doubt, the American educational system is a fault, but there doesn't seem to be much public will to improve it in this regard. I see an obvious need that our organization can fill. But when do we have time to explore things such as the backfire effect, the false cause fallacy, or the sunk cost fallacy? Our Board has contemplated encouraging our Chapter Leaders to briefly introduce a "fallacy of the week." However, there doesn't seem to be a reasonable time within our weekly meeting schedule for such.
Therefore, I propose that we solve both these problems with a single, simple solution. Despite how much we have loved exploring world religions, doing so has been harmful to our members. Those victimized in the past by religious thinking or who lack the education needed to recognize the deceptive and manipulative methods of religious movements have been especially ill-served. Even when we've tried to preserve the so-called "baby in the bathwater" by highlighting healthy moral ideas from religion, we needn't present such as inseparably tethered to superstition, deceit, or dogmatic belief.
I propose that our primers on religion should be replaced by those that feature a logical fallacy or cognitive bias. By discussing these new topics, our chapter members will be empowered, enlightened, and enriched in profound ways. I believe that as we study logical fallacies and cognitive biases regularly, we'll be better able to live as freethinkers and resist the controlling, thought-limiting, and persuasive tactics that are all-too-common in our modern world.
What do you think? Can we still be an inclusive community if we abandon our discussions on religion? Is a transition to more primers on logic and rationality long overdue? Is there a third option we have yet to consider? Feel free to send us an email or add your comments below. Thank you! ◼️
“Judge a person by their questions, rather than their answers.”
― Voltaire
“The one who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”
― Confucius
“We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”
― Carl Sagan
Is this step in the Forum Cycle covered by the questions featured in our Discussion Primers? Yes and no…
The most recent version of every Discussion Primer available on the Free Thought Forum’s website was specifically engineered to stimulate freethinking discussions. After each section, our primers usually feature an open and non-threatening question that ties the abstract topic back into the experiences and opinions of our members. While our Chapter Leaders are strongly encouraged to discuss each of these questions with their group, they're also encouraged to let the conversation wander.
When our conversations wander, we may step into uncharted territory. This is, of course, by design, and an intellectually stimulating part of the meetings of the Free Thought Forum. Straying from the linear structure of the primer can lead to intensely enjoyable and fascinating discussions. However, those discussions should still be facilitated with the help of the Forum Cycle. This article is a guide on how to think of good questions on the fly when a discussion drifts beyond a primer.
A Form of Recognition
“What do you think?”
What other phrase so concisely communicates such a clear recognition of someone else’s humanity and value as a freethinker? “Please,” “Thank you,” and “I don’t know,” are emotionally potent and impactful communication tools. But “what do you think?” is also a powerful phrase, at least on the same level as “I love you,” or “Maybe you’re right.” It’s a question we should all start asking more, especially in our organization.
What do you think?
Being asked a thoughtful question can be a deeply rewarding experience. Such questioning implies that the one being asked has something of value to share, like an expert who has been invited to weigh in on an important issue. In those moments, a Chapter Leader plays the role of an interviewer, an eager journalist getting at the juiciest bits of a story. A thoughtful question from a Chapter Leader sets their members up for success, like a basketball in a layup, waiting for someone to grab it and score with a slam-dunk!
Unfortunately, this is in stark contrast with an average person’s day-to-day experience. They have ideas and opinions, of course, but these tend to be expressed only in social media posts and other self-published content, launched into the void of the internet. Our society typically deems their views superfluous, ordinary, or unimportant. But when they visit the Free Thought Forum, their perspectives matter, because they matter as human beings. They matter, and asking questions is a vital step in showing that we know it.
For a conversation to be truly engaging, there must be a real exchange of ideas. If you skip over this vital step, then you may come off as closed-minded, arrogant, insufferable, or someone who has only come to share their opinion and dominate the conversation. Everyone else may feel like a captive audience, mere spectators to the conversation you're having with yourself. Such an experience can feel alienating and dehumanizing, causing people to wonder why they've wasted their time to be here in the first place. If you sense that this is the case, then you can course-correct by apologizing for hoarding so much time. Immediately ask an open question and encourage everyone present to weigh in with their thoughts.
It helps to imagine that the conversation has a spotlight. When this spotlight is on someone, its warming glow feels empowering and energizing. If you don't share the spotlight often enough, then your fellow freethinkers are left in the cold, feeling unappreciated or annoyed.
When we enthusiastically ask one another thoughtful questions, we are showing a form of respect, genuine curiosity, interest, and modesty, the same attributes that most of us appreciate in our closest friends. When asked what they think, people feel validated, respected, appreciated, and valued for their unique perspective and experience. Even if their views are technically wrong or come from a place of ignorance, the invitation to participate in the first place can be heartwarming and encouraging. Indeed, we all have stories to tell and helpful things to say, but too many of us have grown accustomed to having our opinions ignored or undervalued.
First, Build Bridges
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
— Dale Carnegie
“Until every soul is freely permitted to investigate every book, and creed, and dogma for itself, the world cannot be free. Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends.”
— Robert G. Ingersoll
The vast majority of visitors to the Free Thought Forum do appreciate our stimulating discussions. However, their main purpose for attending is to form meaningful human connections. The good news is that we have the same main purpose! While our mission is to educate and serve our communities, our long-term goal is to help people forge life-long relationships. Asking open and non-threatening questions helps to build bridges between people and strengthens the cohesion of the group. Therefore, this simple step serves both why people visit the Free Thought Forum and the main reason our organization exists.
Whenever you ask a question, do so with these reasons and long-term goals in mind. If a question would likely jeopardize your budding friendship with someone, or violate the inclusive and supportive environment that you’ve worked hard to establish, then that question should be rephrased or abandoned. Ask yourself, “Will my next question build bridges or burn them?” While so-called “gotcha questions” and “zingers” make for good television or exciting internet debates, they don’t belong in the Free Thought Forum.
Does this mean that we should never challenge assumptions or explore controversial topics with our questions? Not at all. However, there are good times and bad times to ask challenging questions. If your questions poke into the assumptions of a first-time visitor, there is a good chance that the criticism will lead them to conclude that your chapter is a place in which they don’t belong.
We’re here to build bridges, establish communities, and forge life-long friendships. This is our priority. Critical questions should only be asked after a robust foundation of trust and friendship has been laid. Our emotional need to belong, to be recognized, and to be appreciated must come first. Without that essential foundation, even our most sincere questions may come off as accusatory, insulting, or dismissive.
Sincere Curiosity
“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”
― Bertrand Russell
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
― Albert Einstein
“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't.”
― Bill Nye, the Science Guy
In engaging conversations, nothing is asked just for the sake of asking questions. Instead, we ask questions to breathe life into the moment and stimulate reflection. Good questions can stir the imagination and encourage people to step into an all-new headspace. Therefore, every question must be asked with sincerity and a real desire to hear the answer. Be deeply curious about what your chapter members will say. Otherwise, the question will feel hollow and pointless.
Avoid the temptation to anticipate another person's answers. When we make assumptions or try to predict where the conversation will go, we mentally remove ourselves from the moment and undercut our ability to listen well. Ask every question with a completely open mind, like a blank notepad eagerly awaiting exact quotes and careful notes.
Asking open questions helps us show respect to our fellow freethinkers, strengthens our connections to one another, gives our members the power to take our conversations in new directions, improves our understanding of one another, and helps us avoid alienating and offending one another. What we have yet to discuss, however, is how developing this skill is an essential part of improving our cognitive skills as freethinkers, skeptics, rationalists, and everyday scientists.
A scientifically-minded person isn’t satisfied with believing in claims at face value. They want to dig deeper, deconstruct, and uncover the inner workings of what they don’t understand. When we ask someone about what they think, we’re exercising our natural sense of scientific curiosity. When we embrace this insatiable aspect of our nature, our discussions become thrilling games of discovery.
It isn’t hyperbole to say that every person you meet has valuable insights to share. This is a major reason why our communities emphasize inclusivity to such a large extent. We truly believe that every person, no matter their age, race, sex, education level, or background, has a unique and valuable perspective that the rest of us lack. When we properly understand this, we approach each meeting of the Free Thought Forum with bubbling anticipation to experience new ideas that have never before crossed our minds.
The questions you ask your fellow chapter members should glisten with the enthusiastic raw curiosity of a scientifically-minded person. Navigating life, after all, can be complicated. We are all limited by our narrow frames of reference. When we invite others to open up about the lessons they’ve learned along the way, our perspective is enriched in ways that we could never have predicted.
Asking the Right Questions
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
― Francis Bacon
“There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
― Carl Sagan
Sincere curiosity is paramount, but the structure of a question also matters. Close-ended questions, for example, can be answered in one or two words. Do you have a telescope? Yes. Do you agree with John Locke about how people have a right to revolt? Yes. Have you created a personal budget that you use daily? No.
Close-ended questions are like stop signs and speed bumps. They kill the momentum of a conversation and add unnecessary pressure to the group as they often seem like they have only one correct answer. Close-ended questions usually make members feel like they’re on trial or that they’re taking a test. Who needs that extra stress?
Open-ended questions, on the other hand, expand and deepen the discussion. They allow it to wind and weave in new and interesting directions. Open-ended questions can’t be answered in one or two words. Instead, they invite people to speculate, elaborate, and tell stories. Why do you think people enjoy using telescopes so much? What might John Locke have thought of the American, French, or Haitian revolutions? How has living with a budget changed your life? Adding open questions to a discussion is like adding logs to a campfire. Without them, it will quickly fizzle out.
Like close-ended questions, accusatory or biased questions add unnecessary pressure to a conversation. They raise the emotional temperature of the meeting and make everyone feel uncomfortable. Biased questions assume or imply a correct answer and draw a line between the person and the rest of the group. With only a few words, they can isolate and alienate people. Accusatory questions assume that people are rigid and locked into a belief or idea. They fail to separate people from ideas. These questions represent a mindset that contradicts our values. Is that supposed to be funny? Why would you ever believe in “intelligent design.” As a woman, how have you seen discrimination in the workplace? What kind of a mother wouldn’t vaccinate their children? Doesn’t that seem like a waste of time?
We should never ask questions that force people to assume a defensive position or fight for an ideological team’s position on a controversial issue. Always remember that when people come to the Free Thought Forum, they do so as unique individuals, not as representatives of a political party, the spokesmen for their ethnicity, or some other ambassador of some group identity. As freethinkers, we allow one another the flexibility to change our minds and follow our unique philosophical paths. Therefore, no question should be asked that pins a person to an identity or idea, as if people and opinions can’t change over time.
Good group questions are non-accusatory, open-ended, not-too-personal, thought-provoking, related to the topic at hand, and easy to answer with a story. They come with no pressure or fear of “getting it wrong,” and allow for several valid answers. What makes you say that? What would you say is the most convincing argument for that position? If you’ve experienced discrimination in the workplace, how would you describe it? Why would you say the anti-vaccination movement is so popular? What do you enjoy most about that hobby?
When in doubt, ask “What do you think?”
Clarifying Questions
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”
― Socrates
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.”
― Eugene Ionesco
When you’re listening to someone’s answers, you should listen to understand. No other agenda should interfere with that goal. Clarifying questions are valuable tools for active listeners. As you run through the Forum Cycle throughout a conversation, this step shouldn’t only be used to start up a new train of thought. It should also be the step in which you ask probing follow-up questions to better understand what has been said.
When we share our thoughts, we tend to assume that we always make sense. After all, our thoughts and conclusions seem obvious to us, so why shouldn’t they be easily understood by everyone else? It usually isn’t until after we’re asked to clarify something that we realize that we’ve been ambiguous or illogical. When people ask us clarifying questions, they are doing us a service. Again, they are showing that they have respect for us and interest in what we are saying. However, asking such questions takes some practice and tact. Some people may believe that they’ve been clear enough and might be insulted by any suggestion to the contrary. Being asked to restate something can seem like an accusation or a personal attack. Rather than expand on their views and the topic at hand, they may cut themselves off, defeating several of the purposes of the meeting. This is why tact is essential.
Use clarifying questions in your conversations as often as needed, and maybe even more often than you’d expect. It’s human nature to assume that we understand something more than we actually do, isn’t it? So asking for clarification, even when you don’t think you need it, is a good habit to form. Erroring on the side of caution is certainly warranted.
The most friendly and effective clarifying questions don’t smuggle any judgment or assumption. They are neutral, open, and clinical, like the questions of a doctor trying to zero in on a specific diagnosis. We don’t want to change the direction of the conversation or derail someone’s train of thought. Rather, we want to get a closer and clearer view of what they truly meant to say in the first place. This is communicated through our tone, body language, and word choice. Here are a few good examples:
“What makes you say that?”
“When you say… What do you mean by that?”
“I may have heard that wrong. It sounds like you said… Is that right?”
“Just to make sure I understand you, you meant that… Is that a fair way to put it?”
“I hear people use that word a lot, but I’m not sure that I know what it means. What does it mean?
Summarizing what the other person has said by rephrasing it in your words is incredibly effective. Represent what was said in the most generous possible way because, more often than not, the pressure of articulating an idea without any time to prepare causes people to use less-than-ideal phrasing. If what was said has an odd flavor of being out-of-character, incorrect, or morally repugnant, take a moment to think about what a more friendly, correct, and morally sound version of that statement would be. Share the edited version of the comment and ask what the original speaker thinks of it. You may be surprised by how often people will thank you for “reading their mind” and sharing what they really meant.
Generously giving people the time and space to clarify, edit, or rephrase their comments is a major part of establishing an environment of inclusivity. We should be quick to forgive off-color comments and quick to praise their improved revisions. Consider the following conversation between April and Zach:
April: People think that money and stuff bring happiness, but where does it end? We don’t need more money and stuff. We need to be content with what we have and care more about what really makes life meaningful!
Zach: I think I understand. Are you saying that, after someone’s basic needs are met, the search for more material possessions has diminishing returns? I mean, who needs a third yacht, right?
April: Right! That’s what I’m talking about!
Zach may have disagreed with April’s first statement, but rather than being confrontational or starting a fight, he tested her position with a clarifying question. As it turns out, they happen to agree on the topic at hand.
Here is an example of the usefulness of a clarifying question even when the participant’s don’t see eye to eye:
Ben: The world would be a better place if children were more obedient to their parents. After all, they’re just kids! They need to understand that their parents always know what’s best for them.
Yvette: I can’t help but consider cases involving abusive or inept parents. When would you say a child would be right to question a parent?
Ben: Well, you’re talking about super-rare exceptions to the rule. I think that 99.99% of the time, children should be obedient.
Ben and Yvette probably won’t agree on this issue. However, Yvette’s clarifying question helped her better understand Ben’s position. The question also revealed that Ben is (most likely) not going to be flexible on the issue. Yvette now knows that if she wants to continue, she either needs to continue with caution (so she doesn’t start a fight) or transition into a new topic.
Note that Yvette’s clarifying question wasn’t accusative. Rather than say something confrontational like “Are you kidding? You must have never heard about terrible parents,” She talked about her thoughts and asked a neutral, open-ended question that gave Ben room to reply in several different ways.
Dispassionate Disagreement
“Rationalism is an attitude of readiness to listen to contrary arguments and to learn from experience... of admitting that ‘I may be wrong and you may be right and, by an effort, we may get nearer the truth’.”
— Karl Popper
Healthy freethinking communities foster informed disagreement, not conformity or consensus. At our meetings, every person should feel free to disagree with anything said. These disagreements, however, should never be shared in ways that are overly personal, alienating, disenfranchising, divisive, or emotionally charged. The goal is to keep each conversation strictly academic. Your questions will either help or hinder that goal.
Keep your questions high-level, hypothetical, neutral, abstract, and dispassionate. Resist the urge to ask emotionally charged and poignant questions, especially when you disagree. Curt or blunt statements of disagreement often spell the end of constructive discourse. The emotional or social harm caused by saying something like “I disagree” or “you’re wrong” usually far outweighs the intended good. It is far more productive to allow the other person to think through the issue with you side-by-side as their companion. Ask neutral questions. What do you think is the strongest counter-argument? What would it take to change your mind? What do you think would be a more extreme version of your position?
The “backfire effect” (as understood in psychology and logic) is the human tendency to double down and dig in our heels when accused of being wrong. Rather than change our minds when confronted with sound arguments and clear evidence, we tend to stubbornly tighten our grip on our erroneous beliefs. This is one reason why you should never be blunt and direct about disagreeing with someone in a meeting of freethinkers. Saying things like “you’re wrong,” “that’s obviously stupid,” or “do you really believe that?” makes people defensive and freezes the conversation in an awkward no-win scenario. That kind of talk destroys goodwill and dissolves communities. The good news, however, is that such a head-on collision is easy to avoid. Even the ancients understood this well enough.
Rather than overtly accuse others of foolishness or overconfidence, Socrates preferred to ask a series of thought-provoking questions. This allowed his friends to make logical, reasonable, and often unintuitive discoveries on their own. This method circumvents a person’s emotional and reflexive defensiveness while also showing respect for their cognitive abilities. This approach is commonly known as the “Socratic Method.”
A Chapter Leader is not a preacher or a professor. We don’t have congregations who come to listen to their wise guru. There should never be a teacher/student dynamic at our meetings. Instead, we sit in circles, like college students in a library. Like Socrates or Plato, we metaphorically walk side-by-side with one another, as equals and fellow freethinkers. Remembering this makes it far easier to handle potentially controversial or heated topics with a dispassionate disconnect.
Free Thought Forum discussions should always be academic, hypothetical, and impersonal. Even when considering important topics, the conversations themselves should always be low-stakes, like those held by long-time friends at a barbeque. However, from time to time, the tension rises, and things could get far too personal. This is usually because one or more individuals feel like they need to defend themselves, their ideas, or their ideological tribe. When our defenses go up, our ability to communicate diminishes, an outcome that we should all work hard to prevent.
When we ask one another questions, they must be non-accusatory, non-confrontational, and non-threatening. Always remember that your friends and fellow-freethinkers are not on trial. No one is here to “win” the conversation. No one is expected to represent “their team” like some athlete, political pundit, or professional debater. Some people may walk in with terrible opinions, and they should be allowed to walk out with those same opinions. Our organization builds communities and educates. We aren’t here to change or control what people think. We allow for good arguments and the free exchange of ideas, but most importantly, we respect every person to come to their own conclusions.
Asking non-threatening questions is all about respect. When we truly respect one another, it’s easier to set our emotions and passions aside. When we respect one another, asking challenging questions no longer seems frightening or dangerous. Of course, members and Chapter Leaders may always express when they disagree. They may even want to explain why they disagree. But this should be a trivial thing. Again, we are not trying to convince one another. Instead, we are exploring a topic together. That topic may take odd turns and lead to unexpected places, but the conversation itself is the prize, not the destination. There should never be a struggle to have the “final word” or to “set the record straight.” There is no such record, and the conversation is ongoing, week after week. If (after a primer discussion) a member wants to bring up follow-up comments from a previous meeting, that should be encouraged.
Good questions don’t have an intended or predictable answer. They are a springboard that members can use to launch the conversation into novel directions. They shouldn’t hint at the right answer or divide the group into those who know better and those who don’t. If people feel unqualified to voice their opinion (or are offended that everyone doesn’t agree with them), then the wrong question was asked. When that happens, it helps to say something like, “actually, that was a poorly-worded question. Let me try again.”
Exercises in Critical Thinking
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
― Aristotle
“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”
— Bertrand Russell
To be a skeptic or a critical thinker, a person needs to be able to entertain more than one hypothesis, viewpoint, or explanation. Skeptics and critical thinkers are willing to drop good ideas for better ideas. They choose to let go of superstition, debunked conspiracies, and fallacious pseudoscience. But that is easier said than done.
It’s human nature to maintain a firm grip on our favorite ideas and beliefs, no matter how false. In our minds, treasured ideas and beliefs are often attached to our relationships, careers, self-esteem, and identity. They’re interwoven with our emotions and, like an arrowhead, cause a lot of damage both when piercing the skin and when being removed.
So how can a Chapter Leader help sharpen the critical thinking skills of their members? Discussions on logic, science, and skepticism help, but the best option is to give members something sturdy to hold onto while they let go of their misinformed beliefs. Think of a child navigating the monkey bars in a jungle gym. They’re perfectly willing to let go of an overhead bar, but only if their other hand has a firm grasp on another. So what can members of the Free Thought Forum hold onto while they transition between mindsets and belief systems?
They can hold onto their inclusive and supportive community. Those relationships and friendships provide the safe assurance that whatever ideas they entertain, one hand may always be kept on the trust and respect they share with fellow freethinkers. Their friendships with members of their forum need to be stronger than their devotion to a debunked idea. This is why building that foundation of trust is paramount, an essential step that must come long before any group exercise in skepticism or critical thinking can be successful.
After a sturdy foundation of trust and respect has been established, your questions can set the stage for real breakthroughs and life-changing moments of clarity. A good place to start is with the idea itself. What are the strongest arguments against an idea? Has anyone tried to disprove it? How did the original claimant respond to the refutation? These simple questions invite people to think in all-new ways and see mistakes that are only obvious when viewed from new angles.
If what you are saying is truly ridiculous, a true friend will do you the service of pointing that out. Likewise, when we hear a fallacious or deeply flawed argument made at our meetings, our desire to point out the mistake can come from genuine goodwill. But how can we draw attention to a logical fallacy or cognitive bias without being offensive or confrontational?
If you follow the steps in our Forum Cycle, you’ll be able to thread the needle. Like Socrates, our goal is to ask questions that will help people think more rationally. Our goal should never be to change people’s minds or tell them what to believe. By asking thoughtful questions, we hand them the tools they need to patch up the holes in their reasoning. Consider the following:
Cindy: Well, I just can’t explain how butterflies, birds, and squirrels can possibly be so beautiful unless they were created and designed for us to enjoy.
Xander: Are you saying that beauty is clear evidence that something has been designed?
Cindy: Yes, I think so. How else could we explain it?
Xander: I think I see what you mean. Sometimes we have no good explanations for things. For thousands of years, our ancestors could only explain things by talking about spirits and gods. But here’s the problem. I can’t explain what causes lightning, so that’s solid proof that Thor, the god of thunder, exists! Is that right?
Cindy: Well, no. Thor isn’t real.
Xander: How do you know that Thor isn’t real?
Cindy: Well, I guess I can’t technically prove that he isn’t real. But isn’t lightning caused by electrons, opposite charges in the atmosphere, and things like that?
Xander: I think you’re right about that, but what mistake did I make? Why was I wrong when I said that my lack of understanding was proof of Thor’s existence?
Cindy: Because you not knowing something isn’t proof of something else.
Xander: You’re exactly right. This logical fallacy is known as the “god of the gaps.” Just like you said, not knowing something isn’t proof of something else. It just means that we can't explain something. And it’s always ok to admit that we can’t explain something.
Cindy: Well, I already knew that. But I still can’t explain how butterflies can be so beautiful.
Xander: Me neither, but maybe we will be able to one day. It took us thousands of years to figure lightning out, right?
Cindy: Right.
Lucky for Xander, he happens to be Cindy’s close friend and has earned her trust. But if she was a stranger, that conversation could have easily ended poorly, despite Xander’s attempts to be friendly and informative.
In that conversation, Xander turned an offhand comment into an opportunity for the group to review a common logical fallacy. Being able to identify logical fallacies is an important skill for any freethinker, especially a Chapter Leader. A good idea will be coherent and internally consistent. If there are several steps to an argument, each step must be valid. It is important that you learn to recognize appeals to authority, appeals to emotion, false dichotomies, arguments from ignorance, and other common logical fallacies that are used to make an idea sound much more reasonable than it actually is. In short, becoming familiar with several logical fallacies is well worth your time.
There are many ways that Xander could have handled this impromptu exercise. He could have asked Cindy what she meant by “designed.” He could have made the argument that natural things can be just as beautiful as artificial things. But the important thing to note is that he didn’t accuse Cindy of being delusional or ignorant. Instead, he was sure to make it clear that he wasn’t attacking her (or theism), but merely bringing up an important idea in logic. In this case, Cindy was a good sport, but if she showed signs of being offended, Xander would have hopefully compensated by changing his wording or the direction of the conversation.
When you hear what you think is a ridiculous or illogical comment, your first instinct should be to ask open and non-threatening questions. Rather than bluntly say something like, “That doesn’t sound right” or “Are you sure about that?” begin with clarifying questions. More often than not, the further clarification will sound much more reasonable than what was initially said.
Using open and non-threatening questions to review logical fallacies is usually a good idea in any meeting of the Free Thought Forum. However, there is always a risk that such questions could make people feel stupid, ashamed, or unwelcome. If you think that pointing out a fallacy may embarrass someone, see if you can rephrase it into a question that anyone could comfortably and enjoyably answer.
Exercises in critical thinking may be launched in simple and subtle ways. Here are a few easy steps to follow:
Ask your members to clarify what they believe.
Ask them why they hold those beliefs. (Their explanations will reveal the process and rules they follow as truth-seekers.)
If you recognize any logical fallacies in their process, don’t spoil their discovery by bluntly pointing it out. Instead, imagine an alternative scenario in which following that process will produce a nonsensical result.
Ask the member to explain why the result was flawed. This will help them to find, on their own, the flaws in their logic.
Here is another exchange between Cindy and Xander to consider:
Xander: A society is either free or safe. We can’t have both. If we want to be safe, we’re going to have to give up our freedoms.
Cindy: What do you mean by the terms “safety” and “freedom?”
Xander: A country that cares about keeping its citizens safe can’t also prioritize individual liberties.
Cindy: What makes you say that?
Xander: Because to thwart terrorist plots, the government had to monitor all of our smartphones, right?
Cindy: (Recognizing that this is the “Black and White Fallacy” or “False Dichotomy”) I remember that being a major issue in the news a few years back. But when I think about how local police prevent criminal activity, don’t they usually use other methods? They don’t usually have access to a suspect’s cell phone, right?
Xander: Right. Well, I suppose that the NSA, FBI, and CIA, like local police departments, have more than one tool at their disposal. Maybe even tools that keep us safe AND preserve our liberties.
Cindy could have confronted Xander’s claim directly. Instead, she used a non-direct approach. Rather than making Xander defensive, the non-direct approach gave him space and energy to think clearly. With such open and non-threatening questions, Cindy helped Xander detect the flaw in his reasoning like a true friend. ◼
This month, we’ve made a giant leap in our progress as an organization. Early on June 13th, the Board submitted its final signature needed to ratify the official Bylaws of the Free Thought Forum! This is our core governing document, the constitution of our organization, and the rules under which our leaders operate. You’ve been hearing about it for months, but now you can see it for yourself!
While we have been in operation hosting events, editing curriculum, and developing our programs for almost two and a half years, the ratification and publication of this important document launch us into an exciting new phase in our history. Effective June 20, 2021, the Free Thought Forum will be an official Unincorporated Nonprofit Association, a step above the informal association that we have been during the first experimental phase of our organization, and just one step below our long-term goal of becoming a Nonprofit Incorporation. This special event also grants us a new founding date and added cause for celebration during our annual Courage Festival.
These bylaws establish the duties of our Directors, codify our purposes and values, assert the rights of our members, and set forth the legal framework within which our organization can thrive. Publishing this document on our website is part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and our dedication to operating as a model institution in full compliance with local and national laws at every step of our development.
This is an exciting time to be involved with the Free Thought Forum. We’ve resumed meeting again in person, secured the trademark for our name, been contacted by new potential Chapter Leaders, have adopted a new logo, are designing a new official flag, and have implemented new primer standards, improved topic schedules, updated the forms used by our Chapter Leaders, replaced our volunteer program with a robust Mutual Aid program, and much more! This month’s achievements have been made possible by the hard work of our founders, volunteer leaders, and, of course, the feedback and support from you — our members! Thank you! ◼️
Welcome to the first issue of our newsletter published entirely through our website! We hope that this new format is to your liking.
In our last issue, distributed last March, we announced that we’re now focusing our efforts as a Board on creating a comprehensive handbook that will guide new Chapter Leaders in the creation, promotion, and management of new chapters and communities for freethinkers. As a result, work on our other projects, including this newsletter, has slowed.
This month, however, we have some great news that we can’t wait to share! We also love sharing our progress and thoughts with you, so we’re happy to announce that we’ll resume bringing you monthly newsletters, starting with this one! ◼️
Contents
Welcome Back
We’re Meeting Again In Person!
Current Projects Update
Podcast Episode: Responsible Parenting
You’re Invited to our COURAGE FEST in Provo, UT!
Our Chapters
Upcoming Online Events
Production Notes
Top Stories
Our Chapters
As of this month, we have two chapters in operation. The current leadership, meeting details, and events calendar for each chapter can be found via the pages below:
The Board is also looking forward to working with volunteers who’d like to create all-new chapters! CLICK HERE to get started! ◼️
Upcoming Online Events
Production Notes
This Issue of the SEEKER’S KEY was written by our Board of Directors and other guest writers (as noted) under the direction of our Editor-in-chief, Nicholas Burk. Unless otherwise specified, all photos and images used are either original productions or in the public domain. The SEEKER’S KEY is produced with gratitude to all of our supportive members and donors.
An Archive of every past issue of our newsletter can be found on our Newsletter Page.
If you would like to unsubscribe, please let us know by replying to one of our emails with the word “unsubscribe.” Afterward, we will promptly remove your information from our mailing lists.
If you would like to subscribe to our newsletter and receive links to future issues each month in your email inbox, please visit our Newsletter Page and fill out a quick subscription form (we respect your privacy).
100% of our programs and projects are made possible by our volunteers and our donors. If you’d like to support our cause, we now accept donations via Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal! You can also set up monthly donations through our Donate Page. Thank you! ◼️
Your continued support means a lot to us as we pour countless hours into research, writing, editing, and everything else we do behind the scenes to improve the Free Thought Forum and prepare it to better serve people around the world! To show our gratitude, here is a quick update on the progress the Board of Directors has made in recent months on our top two projects.
Early Cover Art Concept
Our Community-Building Book
Co-Author Sam Wagner and I are on track to have the first draft of our community-building book written by January 1st, 2022. It is currently 95 pages long with the working title: “Building Friendly and Free Thinking Communities: Healing a Divided World and Forging Life-Long Connections Through Public Discussion, Free Education, and Community Service.”
At this stage, we plan to include everything a Chapter Leader would need to start and run a new chapter within the book, including over 150 ready-to-use Discussion Primers in our new Primer Format. This includes the final version of our “Forum Cycle,” our discussion facilitation model. You can read early versions of the first parts of this model on our new Forum Cycle Page.
New Primers and New Formats
How have you enjoyed our new discussion primers? In addition to a flashy banner image, our primers are now being written at a much higher educational standard and are being proofread and fact-checked by at least two Directors before publication. They are longer than our original 1-page primers, but are significantly shorter than our 2-full-page primers, making it easier for our members to complete them in a reasonable time frame. They also have more questions specifically engineered to spark thoughtful discussion. In time, all of our old primers will be updated and revised to match the new format, and you’ll be able to find both print-ready and electronic-device-friendly versions of them in our New Primer Library! ◼️
Publisher’s Note: The original version of this article was published in Vol. 3, Issue 3 of the Seeker’s Key. An archived copy of that issue is available on our Newsletter Page.
“We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That’s it. Conversation and violence…”
— Sam Harris
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
— John Stuart Mill
“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”
— Voltaire
Human beings are, primarily and essentially, emotional and social creatures. We share a deep psychological need to belong and to have meaningful relationships. No matter one’s mental state, background, personality, or social skills, we would each do well to prioritize the development and maintenance of friendship in every stage of life. Tremendous joy can come from making a personal connection, listening to a person’s reflections on their journey, thus far, and forging lasting friendships.
However, most of us find ourselves in judgemental societies where we’re surrounded by insecure people (online and offline) who are eager to find the first reason to dismiss or dislike us. When we’ve been slapped by a few too many unfair and reflexive judgments, we tend to close-off and protect our thoughts and feelings. This coping mechanism is so common that we may not even be aware that we’re doing it. After all, our ideas and feelings are precious things. How can we keep sharing them with those who may fail to value them?
Even when our ideas are wrong, misguided, or half-baked, they still matter to us. They are still an honest reflection of our unique perspective, products of our mind as it tries to make sense of life. True, people are technically doing us a service when they point out how wrong we are, but our emotional nature tends to undercut their efforts. More often than not, a harsh correction can lead us to double-down on our erroneous convictions. This is known as the “Backfire Effect,” one of several logical fallacies and psychological errors we all make as a result of our nature.
Therefore, if we are all to become better thinkers, we need freethought communities that are willing to listen to our ideas, our REAL ideas, without sugar-coating or pretenses. Such communities should accept us, as we are, warts and all, before, during, and after we share our honest thoughts. And when we need correction, it is delivered to us in a generous and non-antagonistic manner. Real friendship lays the foundation needed to make these bitter pills easier to swallow in the healthiest way.
The first step in the Forum Cycle addresses these needs. At the beginning of every freethought discussion, and multiple times throughout, we need to establish an environment of inclusivity, support, and clear rules. In other words, we must set the stage well enough that even the most guarded, shy, or self-doubting person can feel safe sharing their perspective. Every participant should feel that their experiences and insights aren’t wasted on the group. Most importantly, we need to do what we can to clearly communicate that we want to hear what they have to say. No matter how unpopular, inarticulate, or nervous they feel, every freethought discussion should be a refreshing and self-affirming experience.
Every Person, a Philosopher
While our meetings are designed to help meet the emotional and intellectual needs of our members, they’re also a continuation of the rich legacy of freethought and informal philosophy. In the days of the European Enlightenment, for example, common workers, academics, and scientists met together in cafes to freely discuss mathematics, religion, politics, current events, and every other topic under the sun! These casual conversations paved the way for some of the greatest discoveries and progress in science and ethics.
Immanuel Kant offered advice on how to host such conversations. He taught that everyone should agree to not repeat any offensive or foolish comments made by anyone present so that a truly free exchange of ideas could occur. Conversations should begin with a review of current events, continue with serious discussion, and end with humor.
Spinoza observed that the theological discussions enjoyed by our ancestors focused too heavily on obedience and conformity, robbing us of true innovation or critical thought. He argued that unconstrained discussions based on reason and philosophy are what we need in our search for real understanding and rational truth.
Voltaire loved the free markets, religious tolerance, diversity of thought, and the inclusive values of British Protestant Culture. Even though he was a cynical French Deist, his ideas were welcomed by his British contemporaries, just as he would go on to welcome theirs. Voltaire’s values are often summarized with the common saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Thomas Paine was also a champion of free speech and a firm believer in every person’s capacity (when given the opportunity) to think rationally. These values inspired his famous pamphlets which served to unite the 13 American colonies into one nation with the shared vision to become a beacon of liberty to the world.
Generations later, John Stuart Mill wrote that every person should be well-educated, free to express their opinions, eager to expose those opinions to honest criticism, and open to changing their mind when convinced to do so by strong arguments. While a government should allow its nation’s citizens to say, think, believe, and publish what they want, Mill also believed that our society should never try to control people through social pressure, cultural norms, or what he called “the tyranny of the majority.” He encouraged every person to live life as if it’s an experiment, try new things, be unique and eccentric, and allow others to do the same. This, he argued, was the only way to ensure that the truth was never suppressed and that society can improve over time.
The Free Thought Forum proudly carries on this tradition. We affirm that every person should be allowed to say, in-person, what they need to say, even if, like these past freethinkers, their opinions may seem erroneous or nonsensical at first blush.
What Inclusivity Sounds Like
What can you say to establish such an environment? The following are a few suggestions. Practice reading the following statements out loud a few times. You’re free to memorize and borrow them, but your goal should be to become comfortable enough with the message that you can use your own words to express the same meaning.
“Thank you to those who’ve felt safe to share their thoughts. And thank you to everyone else who has helped them feel safe enough to do so in the first place.”
“This is a place where we all can think out loud, so it’s ok if your thoughts aren’t complete or well-polished. We’re here to help one another, not judge.”
“We want to make sure that everyone has time to participate without interruption, so I am reminding the group that we all need to follow Rule 1 and keep our comments reasonably concise.”
“Feel free to agree or disagree with any comments made today. People come to our meetings to test out some of their ideas, so your feedback is always welcome.”
“We all believe in different things, so you’re welcome to honestly speak your mind. We’re here to support each other on our different paths, not tell people what to believe.”
“Every person here has the opportunity to discuss their evolving beliefs. We’re each allowed to come to our own conclusions.”
“Rule 5 states that we should ‘allow for amicable disagreement and diverse opinions.’ It’s important that we remember that rule when talking about controversial topics.”
“Putting your thoughts into words is an important intellectual exercise. The Free Thought Forum is like an intellectual gym!”
“I appreciate you sharing your story. It’s given us all something to think about.”
“We’ve covered a lot of ground. Still, I can’t wait to hear what you all have to say about this next part.”
“I think that this has been one of our most interesting and thought-provoking discussions. I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to share it with this group, and I’m sure several of you feel the same.”
Remember to begin and end every meeting with positivity. Freely thank everyone for their willingness to discuss important ideas with you. When expressing appreciation or re-establishing the proper tone of the meeting, be quick and specific. Sometimes, one or two simple comments like those above will do the trick!
Welcoming First-Time Visitors
The Free Thought Forum is a place where people can, and do, build life-long friendships. It’s primarily the responsibility of the Chapter Leader to create an atmosphere where any kind of person feels welcomed and appreciated. No matter what they believe or what emotional baggage they bring, the tremendous value of every person should be respected. Even in chapters where no member agrees with any other on a given issue, every member should still feel like they have an equal claim to chapter membership. In short, every chapter is made for its local community, so every person who visits should find belonging, by default.
In our everyday lives, the fear of judgment, criticism, rejection, social pressures, and other factors cause many of us to socially isolate or self-segregate. The best way to counteract this is to approach each member, guest, and visitor as a potential life-long friend. A Chapter Leader takes the initiative, shares their name, starts a conversation, and acts like the kind of person that anyone would love to meet. They’re positive, helpful, grateful, genuine, and do their best to bring out the best in their fellow freethinkers.
Our custom is to ask first-time visitors to share a little bit about themselves. (This usually takes place at the start of a meeting or its midpoint.) We ask things like, “What has been your journey as a freethinker so far?” At first, visitors may not feel like going into much detail. However, if they are, we should always be ready to listen!
When interacting with a visitor for the first time, you may want to talk about yourself (and your chapter) and make your experiences, ideas, and opinions clear. However, this inclination may backfire and unintentionally communicate general disinterest in others, closed-mindedness, and even a few narcissistic tendencies. Therefore, a far better practice is to share very little about yourself while asking a generous amount of questions. Keep in mind that if a person properly feels welcomed and appreciated, you’ll have plenty of time in the future to talk about whatever you want.
Be genuinely interested in what your new acquaintance has to say and ask follow-up questions. Let them talk about their ideas, their history, their interests, and their philosophical journey. Resist the urge to constantly declare when you agree or disagree. Avoid labeling or categorizing others while they share their stories. Enjoy their unique perspective without passing or expressing judgment.
All this helps to convey that people can comfortably be their true selves around you and at the Free Thought Forum.
Enforcing Our Five Rules
Jumping into a pool is less daunting if we know that we’ll be able to touch our toes to the bottom. It’s safer to walk down a staircase with the help of a handrail. Likewise, all healthy relationships need limits. In our interpersonal relationships, we should be clear, up-front, and consistent about personal boundaries. In much the same way, every meeting of the Free Thought Forum should be reliably and transparently run within the limits of our Five Rules for Civil Discourse.
This set of clear and strict rules give the minimum amount of structure to our freethought discussions so that they may yield the most fulfilling and educational experience for all involved. More or less regulation has consistently led to diminishing returns, so we’re confident that we’ve found the right balance. At the beginning of a meeting, in spoken or written form, a Chapter Leader ought to share the following.
By participating, all visitors and members agree to abide by these five rules:
1. Be respectful of each other’s time by making your comments reasonably concise and by listening to the comments of others without interruption.
2. Focus your comments on ideas, not people.
3. Recognize the authority of the Chapter Leader as Moderator.
4. Be prepared to explain the reasoning behind your ideas, if asked.
5. Allow for amicable disagreement and diverse opinions. (Your aim should not be to convince, convert, or "win" the discussion.)
A Chapter Leader also serves the important role of moderator, so whenever participants grow lax on any of these rules (or break them outright), this is the step in the Forum Cycle where the conversation is paused so that a reminder of the rule(s) in question can be given. For the vast majority of the time, this should be a plain, direct, and unemotional reassertion of the rules made to the group under the assumption that it was simply forgotten (as this is usually the case). It is almost always better to assume ignorance before assuming ill-will. People who’ve accidentally crossed a line tend to appreciate friendly reminders over personal attacks. Sometimes, we all need to hear things multiple times before it “sets in.”
Bring up concerns early, when they’re still small. If you ignore casual rule-breaking at the beginning of the conversation, it can be impossible to fix the problem further down the road. By participating in our discussions, all visitors and members agree to abide by our five rules, so nearly everyone comes with the expectation that those rules will be enforced. Our Chapter Leaders have the authority to interrupt any participant, point out any rule violation, or call for additional five-minute breaks if any difficult situations arise. Most of the time, of course, they can sit back, enjoy the conversation, and preserve civility simply by being present.
Helping Shy Freethinkers Out of Their Shells
Not all social gatherings are created equal. If people sense the smallest hint of hostility, that there is an in-group and an out-group, or that the social stakes are high, then they will typically keep quiet out of a fear of rejection. After all, who can risk making a bad impression among people who could be judgmental, overly critical, or close-minded? On the other hand, people are much more likely to open up and share their thoughts when they feel like they’re surrounded by open-minded, friendly, tolerant, and easy-going people.
We would all do well to better communicate to others that they are welcome to share what they have to say. Invite your forum members to go on (and on) about their lives and their thoughts. Allowing someone a reasonable amount of time to properly put their perspective into words will help them feel more like you “get them,” and that they are, indeed, free to be themselves.
Throughout the meeting, casually invite all participants to share their perspectives. Of course, if someone would rather listen and participate only as a spectator, they are certainly free to do so! Still, some people may consider it impolite to share their opinions unless they’re asked directly to share. So ask!
An invitation to participate should be warm and casual, free of any tension or pressure, so that the person being asked feels like they have all of the liberty in the world to respectfully decline.
Does someone want to listen, or are they patiently waiting for their turn to speak? If you don’t know them well enough to answer that question, it’s best to politely ask, from time to time, if they have something they’d like to say. If nothing else, this invitation serves as an important acknowledgment that they are a valued member, whatever their level of involvement.
Hyper-Talkative People
Sadly, it’s common for some visitors to arrive at our meetings starved of basic human recognition, validation, or any kind of friendly adult conversation. These situations present a special challenge that, if handled properly, can be tremendously rewarding for all participants.
Some people simply have not had the chance to honestly express themselves in a healthy way. As a result, they have something of a backlog of ideas that have never been expressed. Once given the opportunity, they may try to unload years of pent-up thoughts in a way that can be overwhelming or uncomfortably personal.
When this happens, resist the temptation to dismiss them in your mind as merely someone with underdeveloped conversational skills or a dominant personality that simply enjoys the sound of their own voice. More often than not, something more complicated is the case.
The hyper-talkative person may have recently escaped a mind-limiting cult, been stuck for years in a workplace where their opinion was not valued, or come from an abusive family dynamic. Whatever their unfortunate baggage, they may see your chapter as the one place where they can finally get some things off their chest.
In these situations, a Chapter Leader should remember three things:
Give them a generous amount of time to let off some steam, but not too much.
If needed, interrupt them with a reminder that the time is limited and other people have important things to say as well.
Let them know that you want to hear more of what they have to say at future meetings.
We should always be ready to give a newcomer some time to finally give voice to months (or years) of pent-up thoughts. If we can help them release even just a little bit of steam, then we’re performing a much-needed service.
It is up to the Chapter Leader to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to participate as much as they’d like within reasonable time constraints. Sometimes, this means inviting someone who has been speaking for a while to “hold that thought” before asking someone else if they have something to add to the conversation.
Prevent Dogpiling At All Costs
When controversial topics are discussed, a problem may arise that we call “dogpiling.” Dogpiling can be distressing, alienating, demoralizing, and cause a freethinker to leave your chapter forever.
Dogpiling begins when someone has an unpopular opinion that they are pressured into defending by the overwhelming majority. They may face an onslaught of criticism from a few forum members while others remain silent. In the worst case, every other member may turn against them. A lone theist may feel piled on by a majority of atheists. A lone progressive may feel smothered by the opinions of a group of conservatives.
This problem may arise from a failure to follow rules 2 and 5. In those cases, a brief reminder of the rules can dissipate the situation. However, since dogpiling causes tensions to escalate quickly, more direct intervention is usually needed.
Dogpiling has no place in the Free Thought Forum. A Chapter Leader must be able to detect and defuse it before it becomes a problem. No person should be made to feel ashamed because of their position or opinion, even if they are technically incorrect or deemed offensive or ignorant. A Chapter Leader must immediately come to the aid of any person who may feel alienated or overwhelmed. As a neutral participant, he/she becomes a de facto ally.
A simple example deals with pet preference. Let’s say that someone casually expresses their love for their cats and their unabashed dislike for dogs. When hearing this, the rest of the group responds in a passionate uproar. They happen to be dog owners and can’t understand how anyone could honestly prefer cats. This is when a Chapter Leader, despite their opinion on the subject, should come to the aid of the cat owner, and challenge the assumption imposed by the majority.
There are many ways to dispel these situations and tone things down so that no one feels attacked. The solution may call for humor, a more objective perspective, relevant facts, a historical perspective, a global perspective, a personal anecdote, a change of topic, or some other creative response. When in doubt, you can always say something like the following.
“Jack has already explained why he prefers cats to dogs. We covered some interesting ground, but I think we can all use a break. I’m going to give him a minute to share the final thought on the subject and then we’ll table this topic so that we can pick it up again at some later date.”
Again, whatever the case, no one person should ever feel alone or piled on because of an unpopular opinion. At the bare minimum, the Chapter Leader will be their advocate (if only academically, for the sake of argument, or to maintain an environment of inclusivity).
Be as Inclusive as Possible
A Chapter Leader should be non-judgmental, inviting, warm, and great at listening. They do their best to help all members and guests feel welcome, included, and appreciated for their participation. Indeed, everyone is welcome (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, education, race, sex, etc.) to join our weekly open and civil discussions and activities every week.
For our communities to be truly inclusive, certain standards must be upheld to encourage the participation of the highest possible number of people. Our Five Rules represent some of these standards. We also ask our leaders and members to use professional and inclusive language, free of NSFW humor, obscenities, or “inside jokes” that would discourage first-time visitors or regular members from bringing their friends or children to future events.
An inclusive community is also one in which every person feels free to be themselves without fear of becoming an outcast. Therefore, one of the most important things our leaders can do is to maintain the golden mean between two extremes. We should do what we can to ensure that our meetings are welcoming to the highest possible number of people while also allowing each member the chance to say what they need to say.
What should a Chapter Leader do if a member expresses bizarre, offensive, dangerous, or even illegal ideas? As long as that member is (1.) CAPABLE and (2.) WILLING to follow our Five Rules for Civil Discussion, (and is indeed doing so) then they should be invited to remain and speak their mind.
A CAPABLE person has the ability to lawfully attend our meetings as well as the obvious and apparent mental capacity to understand and follow our rules.
A WILLING person shows by their actions (not just their language), that they are making a reasonable attempt to comply with our stated standards of conduct.
Dealing With Terrible Ideas
Our open forum events are public celebrations of Free Speech. The values of our organization are inspired by enlightenment thinkers who follow the Voltairean principle. Therefore, any dismissal, censorship, or disrespect to one’s freedom to express themselves goes completely against our core values. A capable and willing participant at our events should never be expelled from our community because of their opinions, especially those dealing with religion, politics, or philosophy.
If you’re in a situation in which distasteful views are being shared, what is there to do? Our Chapter Leaders (and members) ask open and non-threatening questions. We focus on ideas, not people. When that unpleasant, ridiculous, or unpopular opinion surfaces, Chapter Leaders respectfully give members the time to explain themselves. Along the way, it’s alright to say something like, “What do you think is the strongest argument against that idea?”
Cultivate a conversation that is happy to entertain multiple perspectives on the topic. If needed, “zooming out” to an even more general (yet still related) topic may give others a better opportunity to participate. These are all techniques you can use until your chapter’s general interest organically migrates to another issue.
It’s easy to forget that our organization was created with this exact scenario in mind. Those with radical, unconventional, or terrible-sounding ideas need friends that will, in extreme cases, see their distasteful views as an opportunity for compassionate intervention, rather than the impetus for rejection, isolation, or shame. If correction or intervention is deemed necessary, we ask academic and dispassionate questions. We engage as peers, not as paternal figures. We give those with extreme or harmful views the questions, space, and tools they need to intellectually pull themselves out of dark places.
If a member routinely has outlandish or uncomfortable things to say, a Chapter Leader should cultivate with them a relationship of trust and friendship. Pull them aside before and after your meetings. Let them know that this is a place where their perspective is valued, even if others in the group disagree with some of their opinions. Indeed, disagreement is not a bug within our organization, it’s a feature.
Any kind of “thought crime,” or an unpopular opinion should never be used as a reason to remove someone from our meetings. We do not create so-called “safe spaces” where our members are protected from bad or harmful ideas. Instead, we seek to equip and empower our members so that they may be able to grapple with all kinds of ideas and respond to them in an academic, responsible, and adult manner.
When The Rules are Broken
If a participant breaks one or more of our five rules, then they should be given up to three direct reminders or explanations of the rule(s) in violation. These reminders should be followed by specific questions that act as comprehension checks that the rules are properly understood. Sometimes, a group reminder works best. Other times, specific individuals need specific reminders. Consider the following examples.
“Alright everyone, let’s bring the meeting to order. We haven’t been following our five rules very well, so let’s take a minute to review them. Neema, could you start us off by reading the first rule?”
“I don’t think we reviewed our rules before the meeting began. Janet, can you please explain Rule 5 for the group?”
“When we make things personal, we risk alienating and mistreating our fellow freethinkers. Isaac, what does ‘focus your comments on ideas, not people’ mean to you?”
“It’s my job to moderate today’s conversation. Hiroko, before we continue, how would you say a moderator keeps conversations civil and beneficial?”
99% of the time, continuing with the Forum Cycle and allowing the conversation to continue to evolve will solve any problem that may arise.
In the rare worst-case scenario, if rule-breaking or overtly disruptive behavior continues to be a problem, then it is 100% appropriate for a Chapter Leader to call for an extra five-minute break in which they speak privately with the disruptive person. If a participant isn’t mentally capable of following the rules, they may be asked to continue to participate only as a quiet spectator. A disruptive participant may be asked directly if they’re willing to follow the rules. If they aren’t, they should be asked to leave. If they are not willing to leave, then a Chapter Leader may end the meeting early.
Whatever is decided, a Chapter Leader has the authorization to make these requests whenever they deem it necessary, according to their best judgment.
Of course, if any member or visitor threatens physical violence or engages in harmful criminal activity at one of our events, (perhaps because of some mental illness issues or drug abuse) the Chapter Leader should immediately ask a trusted member to call local law enforcement and take steps to keep their chapter members out of harm’s way. (Again, this is concerning physical harm, not potentially harmful ideas.)
When in doubt, a safe option is to end the meeting early and ask that all members make their way outside. If it is safe to do so, a Chapter Leader should remain on the scene to cooperate with local law enforcement officers. If the meeting was held at a private business like a cafe, the owners of the business should also be contacted. Explain the situation and how episodes like this will be prevented in the future.
If an agitated or aggressive participant is not technically doing anything against local or national laws, then local law enforcement should not be called. An alternative course of action is to end the meeting early and use the time between meetings to think of a strategy to deal with similar situations in the future.
In the vast majority of cases, a Chapter Leader who works to improve their proficiency with the Forum Cycle and the tactful enforcement of our five rules will be well-equipped enough to prevent any need for drastic action.
Healthy Disagreement
Our goal is to bring together people from all backgrounds and belief systems to have meaningful conversations. Talking with such a wide range of people allows us to process big ideas, find the flaws in our current thinking, gain unconventional advice, build unlikely relationships, and shatter the intellectual isolation created by social media algorithms, mainstream propaganda, and echo-chambers.
However, any interaction with others can lead to intense disagreement or conflict. In an open discussion with fellow freethinkers, we should always be open to the possibility that one or more parties involved may become agitated, anxious, or aggressive. People can feel strongly about their views on certain topics, and that's alright. It should be expected. After all, freethinking and disagreement go hand in hand.
Even when the discussions of these topics are handled well, it is impossible to guarantee that all involved will behave predictably. So what can you do in these situations? Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Every perspective should be valued, even if it is technically incorrect or considered immoral.
In a Free Thought Forum, having a civil conversation matters more than ‘getting it right.’ We should all be free to be wrong from time to time.
There is no pressure to come to a consensus or a final verdict at the end of the meeting. The conversation is ongoing, week after week.
Disagreements are not a problem. Rather, they are a sign of a healthy community of freethinkers.
One major function of the Free Thought Forum is to create a space in which lasting friendships may be forged. It’s important to remember that disagreement is a healthy part of any relationship. When we view disagreement as a critical flaw or a crisis, we risk isolating ourselves in the long term or terminate friendships that could have, if allowed to grow, enriched our lives in countless ways.
Be a Genuine Friend
When we’re meeting with strangers, it’s hard not to feel misunderstood or defensive about our opinions. Visitors may come to their first meeting guarded and expecting the worst. With this mindset, they may see any hiccup or unexpected comment as some false confirmation that they’re not wanted. This negative bias is like a force of gravity that we must intentionally counteract. Just as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, the best policy is to establish a friendly atmosphere long before any person begins to feel out of place.
If you sense that someone is frustrated or exhausted by the conversation, then you’re already too late in getting ahead of this problem. Being a Chapter Leader means feeling the room and developing a sensitivity to the shifting dynamics of the conversation. Your goal is to help the conversation begin and end in positive places that enlighten, enrich, and empower every member present.
The best way to do this is to be a genuine friend to your forum members. If you are hesitant about making life-long friendships and meaningful connections with people, then that is your first obstacle to overcome. ◼️
Publisher’s Note: The original version of this article was published in Vol. 3, Issue 3 of the Seeker’s Key. An archived copy of that issue is available on our Newsletter Page.
Over the next few months, Director Sam Wagner and I will be developing, refining, and publishing a training program for all those who would like to create and run new chapters of the Free Thought Forum! Today, we’re happy to give you a sneak-peak, behind-the-scenes, at some of our progress thus far!
Soon, a Chapter Leader’s primary discussion facilitation tool will be the “Forum Cycle.” In this article, we’ll share with you an introduction to that cycle, It is the first in a series of articles that will explore each step in great depth. We’d also love to hear your feedback and suggestions as we draft these early versions of the cycle so that the final one will be even more refined!
Facilitating Freethought
“It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.”
— Tacitus
“I believe that people want to be free. They want to read what they want to read, and they want to form their own opinions. They want trustworthy leaders who are responsible and accountable. They want people they can look up to, and who provide good role models. They want love and respect.”
— Steven Hassan
“The truth springs from arguments amongst friends.”
— David Hume
Experimentation is at the heart of good science. It’s typically housed within controlled environments or laboratories where the results may emerge, as they are, to reveal the secrets of our universe. We may not be on the hunt for things like new sub-atomic particles or novel mutations, but we are looking for good information, honest feedback, meaningful friendships, and a community where we are, finally, free to be ourselves. We all still need a laboratory of sorts, but one in which we have the freedom to express ourselves and change our minds as often as needed.
Every chapter of the Free Thought Forum is such a laboratory, a haven for all freethinkers, no matter their backgrounds, current beliefs, or philosophical destination. Every public discussion is rich with real-time experimentation in which we all voice our thoughts, test out alternative points of view, and break free of the intellectual echo chambers that are all-too-successful at splintering our society along religious, political, racial, and cultural lines.
Too many communities will only accept you if they can pin you down to one worldview or another, but that isn’t what we need! In an age of free information mixed with overwhelming misinformation, we all need freethinking communities that can help us develop the skills to sort the epistemological wheat from the tares. We need a place where our friends won't abandon us because of our unorthodox opinions. We need a community that doesn't ask us to check our skepticism and rationality at the door. In short, we all need a home where we’re free to say what we need to say as we each figure out our own philosophical path.
Every person can, by design, find belonging in the Free Thought Forum. We hope to be a safe harbor for those who have been denied acceptance elsewhere. We are eager to listen to those who have been silenced. We recognize the tremendous worth of every unique perspective, no matter how unconventional. When individuals are deemed too radical, nonconforming, or otherwise undesirable by other communities, we want them to be able to come to us, build long-lasting friendships, and breathe a sigh of relief.
The Process All Chapters Have in Common
While we encourage radically unique and experimental thinking among our members, we must also balance this with a predictable and uniform process between chapters. In addition to our standardized educational curriculum (discussion primers) and procedures, what makes a meeting of freethinkers a proper “Free Thought Forum” rests in HOW the conversation is run and moderated by a qualified Chapter Leader who has been trained in our five-step discussion facilitation process, the “Forum Cycle!”
Under the Hood
Unlike our Five Rules for Civil Discourse that are conspicuously established at every meeting, our Forum Cycle has been carefully designed to operate subtextually, behind the scenes, as a memorized conversational roadmap in the mind of a trained Chapter Leader. It's a loop of five steps designed to seamlessly repeat dozens of times throughout a typical two-hour conversation. On the surface, it's a simple mode of operation, yet it has been tried and tested in its various forms among various interlocutors and settings since our first meeting in March 2019.
The purpose of the Forum Cycle is to maximize the healthy intellectual stimulation and positive emotional experience essential to the educational and social value our members have come to expect, while also ensuring that those who wish to participate have the greatest opportunity to do so, practically speaking. It has been engineered to allow us to better carry out our important mission while increasing the communication, critical thinking, and relationship-building skills of all involved. Week after week, these skills will hopefully become second nature for a Chapter Leader as well as for regular participants.
We’re confident that anyone will be able to learn and master the Forum Cycle, from experienced interviewers, teachers, counselors, or therapists, to the average volunteer who is eager to bring freethought to their community. It’s a process that allows a conversation to wander organically while also recognizing the humanity and moral value of every participant and perspective. It emphasizes active listening and utilizes techniques familiar to those trained in verbal de-escalation. It also draws on our (the Board of Directors’) research and professional experience in education and other fields related to human psychology.
External Influences
Several elements from external conversation models have also been extensively researched and have been, in part, incorporated into our model. These include (but are, of course, not limited to) the following, with our gratitude to their respective authors and proponents. (For those who are serious about taking their conversational skills to the next level, these resources are highly recommended.)
The Socratic Method (The Elenctic Method of hypothesis elimination and fallacious argument exposure through successive non-antagonistic critical questioning)
The Cooperative Principle (Gricean Maxims)
Rapoport's Rules (for successful critical commentary) as represented by Daniel Dennett
The Complete Street Epistemology Guide: How to Talk About Beliefs by Anthony Magnabosco, et al. (Street Epistemology International)
Better Conversations: A Starter Guide by Krista Tippett of the On Being Podcast
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It by Chris Voss, Michael Kramer, et al.
Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults by Steven Hassan
The World Cafe Book: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations that Matter by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs
Five Simple Steps
It’s funny. When we’re around certain people, we feel like we can talk all day! Yet in other situations, thinking of something to say is like pulling teeth. We sometimes hold back our comments for fear of judgment. Other times we can’t seem to stop talking, like a pressure-cooker that can finally release steam.
An important goal of a Chapter Leader is to help all guests and members feel welcomed to speak freely and enjoy participating at our events, whatever the topic at hand. Creating and maintaining engaging conversations takes real skill and practice, but keeping each intricate step in mind can seem like a super-human task. That is why the Forum Cycle was created with simplicity and flexibility in mind. While learning it, a Chapter Leader may tap their finger on each step as the conversation flows. However, it should be memorized and mastered so that no crucial step is skipped, forgotten, or added in the wrong order. Whether or not you’re an aspiring Chapter Leader, please take a moment to consider the following steps.
Establish an Environment of Inclusivity, Support, and Clear Rules.
Ask Open and Non-threatening Questions.
Listen Intently to Every Participant.
Validate Feelings and Recognize Tone.
Acknowledge and Add to What Was Said.
In the next installment of this series, we’ll focus on the cycle’s first step that sets the stage for questions while also serving as a follow-up step after a Chapter Leader shares their thoughts. ◼️
At last, the good news is here! On May 13th, 2021, the CDC made a long-anticipated announcement. According to the preponderance of evidence gathered thus far, it is now safe for people who have been fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus to meet again in small groups, large groups, outdoors, and indoors without masks or social distancing! “If you are fully vaccinated,” the CDC reports on its website, “you can resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.”
In their most recent meeting, our Board of Directors likewise made the unanimous decision to begin hosting in-person events again, starting in June! Our online meetings will continue to be held on Sunday evenings through our Discord Server, but we are thrilled to announce to our community that our Provo, UT Chapter will now hold (beginning on June 5th) in-person meetings every Saturday morning from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon!
Our Provo Chapter will meet at the Paul Ream Wilderness Park (1600 W 500 N Provo, UT 84601) at Pavilion #2, near the southwest corner of the park. Look for the chatty group with our flag and pamphlets! (When the seasons change, that chapter will make arrangements to meet at an indoor location.)
If you don’t happen to live close enough to the Provo Chapter to enjoy its events, why not start your own? There has never been a better time to create your own local chapter of the Free Thought Forum, especially since so many of us are eager to get outside and meet new people!
Our organization’s Pandemic Threat Level Meter has now been officially moved from Red (Level 4) to Yellow (Level 2). While it is now much safer to meet again in person, new cases are on the rise in several parts of the world where access to the vaccine is limited. Some of our members may also not be able to receive the vaccine for medical reasons. If you’re physically able to receive both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, the Free Thought Forum strongly encourages you to do so as soon as possible. If you have symptoms, you should still get tested for the virus, even if you’ve been vaccinated. If we each do our part, this pandemic will quickly become a thing of the past!
RAISING AND SUPPORTING CHILDREN ON THEIR PATH TO BECOMING UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
These days, the average parent tends to feel unfairly judged, like they are constantly under a microscope. This is understandable, given how much more we know now, psychologically speaking, about the significance and impact of a person’s early childhood. But how much of that early childhood is actually influenced by parents, and how much of it is determined by genetics, friends, and other factors completely outside a parent’s control? Are we being too hard on parents? And what does it even mean to be a “responsible parent” in the first place?
Sage, Sam, Cristina, Charlotte, Dallas, and others join me in this episode to discuss this sensitive topic. Ironically, several children and other distracting noises were in the background as we held our online meeting. I’ve done what I could to edit most of that out, but I wanted to let you know that listening to this episode will be a bit more turbulent than usual. Nevertheless, I’m sure you’ll agree that the honesty, experience, and advice shared about raising children is well worth the listen!
ABOUT OUR ORGANIZATION
This program is brought to you by the Free Thought Forum.
Our members come together from various belief systems and backgrounds to share their perspectives, hear new ideas, develop positive friendships, volunteer, and learn more about science, philosophy, and life skills. Every meeting is a celebration of free speech, civil discussion, and the free exchange of ideas. We want to ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to speak their mind and have their ideas contested and reviewed among peers in an inclusive and supportive community. So we are now authorizing the creation of new chapters around the world!
If you would like to start a new chapter in your community, find official events near you, participate in our online meetings, or support our programs with a donation, please visit freethoughtforum.org for more information.
LISTENING OPTIONS
Subscribe for a fresh new point of view on freethought, philosophy, politics, religion, atheism, science, logic, reason, rationality, healthy habits, life skills, social issues, morality, current events, and more!
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our organization and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or for the Free Thought Forum? Feel free to share your perspective.
Welcome to our newest program! Every month, you’ll find a new volunteer assignment in our Newsletter and on our Volunteer Page. Will you rise to the occasion?
By the end of the month, your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to send some support and relief to our frontline healthcare workers in the form of a gift basket! Our local nurses care for those in need during pandemics, natural disasters, and other health crises, often with no or few breaks. So why not drop off an open-package for 10+ workers filled with new (individually packaged and unopened) goodies?! You can include candy bars, hand lotion, Chapstick, nice pens, padded shoe-inserts, sweet-smelling candles, water boles, gift cards, hand-written notes, and more. Just about any simple container will do. Once it’s ready, deliver it to the receptionist at a hospital or clinic near you and let us know how it went by filling out a Volunteer Report through our website. Take care!
During the Covid-19 pandemic, we could no longer safely host in-person group volunteer events. To solve this problem, we encouraged our members to volunteer online and/or accept Community Service Challenges that could be completed without a group! Each challenge is an individual mission or assignment to be accomplished by a sole volunteer by the end of the month in which the assignment was accepted. This allows us to safely continue to improve our communities, even under less-than-ideal circumstances. If you’re ready to take on a Community Service Challenge, click on one of the mission folders on our Volunteer Page or check out the most recent issue of our newsletter to receive an assignment.
The Science of Time
Feb 12, 2021
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 41
INTRODUCTION
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to Episode 41 of the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
By the end of your life, your feet will have passed through about one second of time more than your head. Likewise, if you work on the top floor of a skyscraper, you will age slightly slower than your twin who works on the ground floor. This isn’t all just theoretical math and equations, mind you, it’s a real and measurable consequence of the curved and warped fabric of the cosmos that links gravity, space, and time.
In this episode, I’m joined by Connie, Sam, Alice, Walter, and Sage in an exploration of the science of TIME. In our conversation, we consider how humans experience the flow of time, the speed of light, the possibilities of time travel, the so-called “Twin Paradox,” the illusion of a force of gravity, entropy, and what happens when we stretch Einstein’s laws of relativity to their breaking point.
Like our last episode on how we can reduce stress by simplifying our lives, the following is a recording of the first half of a live online meeting of the Free Thought Forum. None of us involved are professional physicists or experts on the subject, but we nevertheless see the value in talking about things at the edge of our comprehension. It’s an educational exercise and one that I’m happy to share with those of you listening in the future.
ABOUT OUR ORGANIZATION
This program is brought to you by your local Free Thought Forum.
Our members come together from various belief systems and backgrounds to share their perspectives, hear new ideas, develop positive friendships, volunteer, and learn more about science, philosophy, and life skills. Every meeting is a celebration of free speech, civil discussion, and the free exchange of ideas. We want to ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to speak their mind and have their ideas contested and reviewed among peers in an inclusive and supportive community. So we are now authorizing the creation of new chapters around the world!
If you would like to start a new chapter in your community, find official events near you, participate in our online meetings, or support our programs with a donation, please visit freethoughtforum.org for more information.
LISTENING OPTIONS
Subscribe for a fresh new point of view on freethought, philosophy, politics, religion, atheism, science, logic, reason, rationality, healthy habits, life skills, social issues, morality, current events, and more!
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our organization and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or for the Free Thought Forum? Feel free to share your perspective.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to Episode 40 of the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Chronic stress is a big problem in our modern world. It can sap our energy, positivity, focus, patience, and motivation. It can lead to procrastination and depression as it negatively impacts almost every aspect of our lives. Sometimes, we can do something about the things that stress us out. Other times, however, we can’t. So how can we deal with the corrosive anxiety that can loom over us, day after day? Well, we can start by taking back some control by better organizing our lives, planning out our days, cleaning our living spaces, and by using the practical knowledge gained through the science of human psychology!
Sage, Cristina, Sam, and Jacob have returned to help me explore this week’s topic. Our last conversation on John Stewart Mill’s Utilitarianism went so well that we’ve opted to record another one of our public online meetings. I am happy to say that we were also joined by our new friends Alice, Walter, and Irene who stopped by to give one of our meetings a try! I was impressed by the breadth and depth of the advice shared in this discussion and I’m sure you will be too. Many insights and experiences were also shared with stunning honesty, something I find refreshing and fitting in a discussion on such important issues.
About Our Organization
This program is brought to you by your local Free Thought Forum.
Our members come together from various belief systems and backgrounds to share their perspectives, hear new ideas, develop positive friendships, volunteer, and learn more about science, philosophy, and life skills. Every meeting is a celebration of free speech, civil discussion, and the free exchange of ideas. We want to ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to speak their mind and have their ideas contested and reviewed among peers in an inclusive and supportive community. So we are now authorizing the creation of new chapters around the world!
If you would like to start a new chapter in your community, find official events near you, participate in our online meetings, or support our programs with a donation, please visit freethoughtforum.org for more information.
Listening Options
Subscribe for a fresh new point of view on freethought, philosophy, politics, religion, atheism, science, logic, reason, rationality, healthy habits, life skills, social issues, morality, current events, and more!
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our organization and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or for the Free Thought Forum? Feel free to share your perspective.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to Episode 39 of the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
We’ve all heard of Aristotle and Kant, but are you familiar with Jeremy Bentham, John Stewart Mill, or Harriet Taylor Mill? If you’ve ever waved a rainbow flag at a pride parade, attended a Libertarian conference, or listened to an American rant about free speech, then you already have some sense of the powerful influence of Utilitarianism, an approach to ethics popularized by these great philosophers. They asked questions like, “Do the results of our choices matter more than our intent?” “When is it permissible for a government to force a citizen to do something?” and “Should maximizing individual liberty, happiness, and well-being be the primary objective of our society?”
Cristina, Sage, Sam, Ian, and others have joined me to discuss these fascinating topics. After several months, you’ve all finally talked me into recording the first half of our weekly online meetings. So I gave it a try! The recording began, with the permission of all involved, just after our announcements and ended a few minutes into the 2nd half of the meeting. Since this is our first attempt at capturing a typical weekly discussion, the audio quality isn’t ideal. Technical hiccups and user error notwithstanding, I was impressed with the quality of the comments and perspectives shared (and I hope you will be too), especially as we consider how relevant these ideas still are!
About Our Organization
This program is brought to you by your local Free Thought Forum.
Our members come together from various belief systems and backgrounds to share their perspectives, hear new ideas, develop positive friendships, volunteer, and learn more about science, philosophy, and life skills. Every meeting is a celebration of free speech, civil discussion, and the free exchange of ideas. We want to ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to speak their mind and have their ideas contested and reviewed among peers in an inclusive and supportive community. So we are now authorizing the creation of new chapters around the world!
If you would like to start a new chapter in your community, find official events near you, participate in our online meetings, or support our programs with a donation, please visit freethoughtforum.org for more information.
Listening Options
Subscribe for a fresh new point of view on freethought, philosophy, politics, religion, atheism, science, logic, reason, rationality, healthy habits, life skills, social issues, morality, current events, and more!
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our organization and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or for the Free Thought Forum? Feel free to share your perspective.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed by the authors of the articles of our newsletter and blog posts do not necessarily represent the opinions held by the members, leaders, or affiliates of this organization.
A Message from the President of the Free Thought Forum
By Nicholas Burk
What does the future have in store for us? On January 10th, 2021, our Board of Directors, Chapter Leaders, and members assembled to answer that question. Of note of the matters at hand was the election of our first executive officers. I, Nicholas Burk, am honored to have been elected the first President of this organization. I'm further enthused by the appointment (via unanimous election) of my recommended officers, Sam Wagner as Secretary and Cristina Reyes as Treasurer.
A Shared Reality
In my lifetime, there has never been a greater need for the Free Thought Forum than there is now. While online resources and social media have helped form the most educated generation in history, those same tools have also been used to popularize harmful propaganda and "alternative facts." Disinformation and delusion saturate our society's online and in-person discourse. Conspiracy theories, widespread denial, cultish dogmatism, and opportunistic deception have splintered our shared reality and compromised our common ground.
In the United States (and beyond), we are more polarized and divided along political and philosophical lines than I've ever seen. Violence, hatred, bigotry, disgust, and distrust are widely lauded as virtues while our society's thought leaders pay lip service to compromise, cooperation, and unity. Self-appointed thought police, on all sides, coupled with an intense rise of search-algorithm-spawned echo-chambers and intellectual bubbles have made us strangers to one another and de facto defenders of beliefs we deem too precious to question. Skepticism, rationalism, reason, and logic call for a healthy amount of self-awareness and self-reflection. When we're primarily driven by fear and hatred of "the other side," such self-reflection is too-often abated in favor of the worse kind of rigid loyalty.
The future that the Free Thought Forum is here to build is one in which we are not loyal to any one idea or social group. Rather, our dedication is to the time-tested processes by which we can most-reliably gain true knowledge. How can we hope to find a version of reality that we can all share? By employing humanity's greatest truth-seeking tool: the methods of modern science! No other system or methodology has produced anywhere near the empirical findings of modern science. It is a self-correcting mechanism, a self-justifying enterprise, and the crown achievement of our species. As members of the human family, we have no greater inheritance, nor can we leave a more profound legacy. By providing for the public, free of charge, an unapologetic and interactive science education program, we stand ready to heal division, dispel misinformation, and empower our members with the critical thinking skills they need to see the world as it really is.
An Inclusive Community
Throughout the last two-or-so-years, I've also encountered a sobering amount of loneliness, depression, and isolation in the eyes of first-time visitors. I wish I could better communicate the profound problems so many of us face when we are ostracised from communities (often for some form of thoughtcrime) or leave the warm embrace of conformity for the rough road of free thought. So many people out there need a community like ours. They need a place where their friends won't abandon them because of their unorthodox opinions. They need a community that doesn't ask them to check their skepticism and rationality at the door. They need a home where they are free to speak their mind and be appreciated for forging a new philosophical path.
In our organization, every person can find belonging. We hope to be the haven for those in need of acceptance. When individuals are deemed too radical, nonconforming, or otherwise undesirable by other communities, we want them to be able to come to us, build long-lasting friendships, and breathe a sigh of relief.
Our organization exists because its founders had to, for various reasons, leave their friends and communities. In contrast, the Free Thought Forum is where any person can find community, acceptance, and support. No matter your political beliefs, your religious convictions, your immutable characteristics, or eccentricities, you are welcome to join us as a valuable member.
Philosophically-Diverse Discussions
While science education helps us stay grounded in one reality, our organization takes a different approach to moral questions. We openly discuss history's philosophical milestones and the world's religions in an ongoing search for universally-applicable gems of moral wisdom. In such discussions, every perspective is valued because no one perspective can possibly be conclusive. After all, what person can claim to be an authority on how life should be lived? What criteria could be satisfied for us to unanimously justify such authority? No one can honestly claim that they have the best answers to life's biggest questions. No one ethical system or religion has the reliability, self-correcting mechanisms, or investigative rigor we see in science.
Throughout human history, morality and ethics have been (predominantly) matters of cultural norms, commands from those in power, and personal opinion. But does that mean that moral discussions are pointless? Not at all. History has been sprinkled by brilliant minds, philosophers, who have asked novel questions, shared highly influential insights, and challenged the conventional wisdom of their day. We stand on their shoulders, sample their arguments, and consider what may be their greatest ideas. We should never assume that we already have the best answers to life's moral questions, but we also needn't reinvent the wheel.
We encourage our members to engage in open philosophical discussions because we trust that every member has the intelligence, moral sense, and humanity necessary to form and modify a sufficient personal moral system. What rules should guide our choices? What is the purpose of life? How should we raise our children? What is the ideal society toward which we should all strive? These are only a few of the open questions that we embrace. We claim no divine knowledge or moral authority. Instead, we recognize the power in every person to contribute to these discussions in meaningful ways. As unique perspectives are generously shared, the moral philosophy of every participant is refined.
Looking Forward
We have a lot of work to do. As President, I will simplify and streamline our operations, reduce possible points of failure, and lighten the workload of our Chapter Leaders. My vision is that, in the not-too-distant future, our organization will grow primarily from the ground up. Inspired by our upcoming publications and marketing efforts, interested parties from around the world will be able to easily and quickly build thriving chapters with minimal oversight. Our essential operations will be reinforced against the foreseeable fluctuations in our revenue. Most importantly, we will continue to be accountable to our members and donors, emphasize transparency at every level, and listen carefully to every form of feedback we receive.
While I've never known a time in which the Free Thought Forum is more needed, I've also never seen so much opportunity for us to grow and improve. Thank you to all of our Directors, Chapter Leaders, Assistants, volunteers, and members for the good work you've done and the progress you've made thus far. I look forward to serving as your President, and to another year promoting science, free speech, community action, compassion, and the best of the humanity we all share. ◼️
Weaponized Delusion
Jan 13, 2021
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed by the authors of the articles of our newsletter and blog posts do not necessarily represent the opinions held by the members, leaders, or affiliates of this organization.
A Response to the US Capitol Insurrection Attempt by the Far-Right
By Nicholas Burk (Director)
The original version of this article was published in the January 2021 Issue of The Seeker’s Key.
The Free Thought Forum is an organization that encourages its members to frequently and deliberately exercise their rights to freely express their political, religious, and philosophical views, believe what they will, and peaceably assemble. These rights, in addition to those of the free press, are essential for our mission. More importantly, they provide the bedrock needed for the survival of any freethought movement. Current events that lay bare an attempted violation of these rights serve as more than enough impetus for responses such as this.
An Attack on Democracy
On Wednesday, June 6th, 2021, millions of us watched live streams of Congress in their (largely ceremonial) meeting to count the official ballots from the electoral college to confirm US President-elect Biden’s apparent victory. We should have known what damage that night would have in store for our institutions of democracy.
I trust that, by now, our politically right-leaning, centrist, and left-leaning readers are all well aware of the details of what happened. But the long-term context matters as well. For years, the world’s news outlets and our country’s centrist and left-leaning news outlets have exposed the President’s despotic maneuvers that have now culminated in the overrunning of our Legislative chambers by armed and murderous far-right insurrectionists. This is exactly the kind of behavior that the free press has been predicting since 2016. Rather than heeding these warnings, half of us were dismissive, accused Trump's critics of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome,” and doing nothing more than crying the hyper-partisan equivalent of “Orange Man Bad.”
While there is, no doubt, abundant hyperbole and needlessly divisive rhetoric in all corners of the current news media climate, we all now face the uncomfortable fact that almost all of Trump’s most vocal critics have been vindicated.
For years, President Trump has been loudly demonizing government officials, the free press, and every one of his critics. After months of publicly and baselessly denying the results of November’s free and fair presidential election, making over 60 legal attempts to overthrow its results, and promising his supporters that he will never concede or surrender, President Donald Trump incited a riotous mob to storm the capitol and pressure members of Congress to throw out some of the votes for President-elect Biden in an attempt to reverse the results of the election.
In an even more upsetting twist of fate, several Republicans in Congress (led by Ted Cruz) had, earlier that day, already been making a case to throw out some of the votes for Biden under the pretenses that voter fraud had taken place at the state level. This farce is obvious to anyone paying attention. Some of the Republicans calling the integrity of the election into question were even put in office by the very same ballots they claim were fraudulent. President Trump was the one who put the idea of mass voter fraud on the table in the first place. Moreover, he was claiming that there would be voter fraud months before the election even took place. When asked multiple times by the press if he would accept the results of the election, the President refused to answer directly.
For years, President Trump has willfully instilled doubt, distrust, and disdain for our Government officials in the minds of his followers and supporters. His unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud and the traction those claims gained in the conservative media, on conspiracy theory chat boards, and (thanks to some Republicans) the Senate and House floors, five people have died (including two capitol police officers), over 50 other officers have been seriously injured, several reporters have been assaulted, our elected officials have been terrorized, and hundreds of thousands of legally-cast votes were put in danger of being thrown out.
Fueled by “the Big Lie” and weaponized delusion, our rights were attacked by the conspiracy theorists in Congress AND by the MAGA-hat-wearing terrorists. The stability of our democracy should be of the utmost importance to every American (and every freethinker). Any threat to the institutions that protect our rights constitutes a threat to our rights themselves. For several Americans, the greatest manifestation of their freedom of speech is their vote. On Wednesday, several Republican lawmakers nearly succeeded in discarding legally-cast votes from Arizona, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. If ANY legally-cast vote can be so easily called into question by opportunistic politicians attempting to appease a delusional base that has been primed by a pandering and power-hungry president, then that constitutes a threat to the rights of EVERY American.
The Truth Matters
In philosophical, political, and religious discussions, far too many of us have slipped into the habit of generously encouraging others to have “their own truth” and operate under an obviously false version of reality. Certainly, every person should be allowed and encouraged to hold their own opinions, but can we say that everyone is entitled to their own truth?
No. When we, as a society, are comfortable with fudging the lines between what IS real and what WE WANT to be real, then we cross an intellectual Rubicon. We can (and should) discuss, debate, and disagree about our opinions, philosophical abstracts, moral codes, ethical systems, and cultural ideas. However, when it comes to the facts and nature of reality itself, we all have a practical obligation to live, as best as we can, in the real world.
Delusion in all its forms, including self-delusion and mass-delusion, can be dangerous. It may seem harmless or inconsequential at first, but our beliefs matter. Our beliefs influence our actions and, to some degree, impact every other human being. When we believe in falsehoods, even in subtle or small degrees, we turn away from logic, reason, science, skepticism, and freethought, and are left vulnerable to the mind-limiting effects of even more delusion.
The attack at the capitol is a clear demonstration of what can happen when large swaths of our population care more about what feels right, rather than what is factually correct. This is what happens when we fail to share a cohesive and accurate view of reality.
Attacking Ideas, Not People
When any of us stray from reality, we deserve to be held accountable for the harm we may have caused. Criminals should be held responsible and prosecuted in a manner proportionate to the crimes committed. I think we can all agree that one’s delusional beliefs should never be used as justification to thwart the demands of justice.
When it comes to our views of reality, any false perceptions should be openly criticized and met with the best arguments against them. Ideas have no rights or inherent moral value. No ideas deserve, by default, any special treatment or protection. Ideas only deserve to be exposed, tested, contested, and scrutinized in a Darwinistic struggle for relevance.
When it comes to those who have held false beliefs, however, I believe that humanistic compassion should prevail. Individuals have rights and inherent moral worth. Every person, no matter their political, religious, or philosophical background, should be treated as a work-in-progress with tremendous potential. It takes a tremendous amount of kindness and patience to help someone out of their delusions, but don’t we all deserve as much?
What these Trump supporters did was disgusting and disquieting. However, at the end of the day, aren’t many of them the mere victims of delusion? Several of them were radicalized in ideological bubbles, for years, where the light of day could not penetrate. Their greatest crime was trusting their community and their President. In most cases, that is a completely reasonable sentiment.
Moving forward, we must resist the urge to dismiss any Trump supporters as delusional or dangerous fools. We should continue to point out terrible ideas, strip them of their fallacious facades, and expose their failures. But no matter what, we need to be willing to see the humanity in our fellow Americans. We should give them every opportunity to change their minds, just as we would hope that they would compassionately help us out of our delusions (which we are all sure to hold) in the future.
In Conclusion
I hope that this moment in history serves as a reality check for all Americans. While free speech matters, the truth matters as well. Even small political lies can threaten our lives and our most essential rights. Ideological echo-chambers, false media narratives, and compulsive liars in power should all be taken seriously. I believe that we all have a moral obligation to use our speech in ways that help unite people under the most accurate version of reality. Furthermore, I hope that none of us will hesitate to challenge any dangerous lie, no matter how politically inconvenient, in the future. ◼️
Moving Back Online: The Next Phase of the Free Thought Forum
Oct 09, 2020
Dear Freethinkers,
This has been a rough month for our members as five of us have tested positive for COVID-19. Thanks to your diligence and adherence to our extensive safety measures, no one has caught the virus at our events. However, we can never be too careful!
As case numbers continue to rise across the country, the Board has decided to move all of our events back online starting on October 10th and for the foreseeable future. Every week, all Free Thought Forum groups will meet in one combined online Sunday evening meeting through our Discord Server. If you haven’t yet joined our Discord Server, please use this link to do so: https://discord.gg/JEbtd29
The pandemic “threat level” on our website has been moved to “RED” and all of our event listings on our website, Meetup.com, and Facebook have been changed (as much as possible) to online-only events. These decisions are never easy, but our dedication to the health and wellbeing of our members remains paramount. Stay vigilant, stay safe, and thank you, again, for your flexibility.
The Free Thought Forum has some great news! Our Articles of Incorporation have been drafted, our Bylaws are ready, and we are now filling out our 1023 form for the IRS so that we can become an official 501c3 nonprofit!
To cover our costs to make this important step forward, we have three months to raise $2500, and we can’t do it without you. On average, our donors sign-up to send us about $20 a month. With your help, we are certain that we have what it takes to blast past our objectives and milestones because we’ve always met our fundraising goals in the past.
Why Should We Become a Nonprofit?
Why do we even want to incorporate and file to become a nonprofit in the first place? We could dedicate a whole podcast to answering that question, but here is a quick answer:
Becoming a 501c3 Nonprofit will allow the Free Thought Forum to become a tax-exempt organization. This means that, instead of paying 20% (or so) of the funds we receive in taxes to the IRS, we’ll be able to use those funds to carry out our mission. After we achieve tax-exempt status, the donations you send us may also be tax-deductible. Our organization will also gain a certain amount of legitimacy that will help us qualify for grants and receive support from foundations. Most importantly, this step will allow us to grow quickly, create chapters and groups like never before, and operate with more transparency.
Making History
Take your place as an Official Founding Member of the Free Thought Forum by donating at least $20.00 during this drive! If you would like, we’ll send you a limited-edition certificate (embossed with our corporate seal) naming you as an official founding member, as noted for all time in our records!
Donation Options
We accept in-person donations at our events as well as Venmo, PayPal, Stripe, and more through our Donation Page.
Our Overall Goal is to raise $2,500 Before December 1st, 2020, to cover our costs to trademark our name (~$850), rent office space (~$920), meet with a lawyer to review our legal paperwork (~$300), incorporate ($30), and file for Tax-Exemption (~$400).
Objectives
Total Donations Raised:
$500 by OCT 1 st 2020
$1500 by NOV 1st 2020
$2500 by DEC 1st 2020
Updates on our progress each month will be published in the regular issues of our newsletter.
Spread The Word
We’re right in the middle of the story of this organization’s formation! Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping us rise to such an important occasion. In addition to sharing this blog post on your social media, you can also help us spread the word by downloading, printing, and sharing copies of our Operation Strong Foundation flyer. Every little bit helps!
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to Episode 38 of the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Every June, the Free Thought Forum celebrates the stoic cardinal virtue of Courage, also known as “Fortitude” or “Bravery.” In this episode, I’ll share some of the new traditions observed in our “Courage Festival.” But first, I’d like to dive deep into what it means to be courageous. How does a brave person behave? How can we become more courageous people? Come with me as we consider these and other questions unfit for the faint of heart.
This program is brought to you by your local Free Thought Forum.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and freethinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society. Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate in these open and civil discussions every week.
To learn more about our organization, to find a local group meeting near you, or to take part in our weekly online meetings, please visit FreeThoughtForum.org.
This episode has four main parts:
Cardinal Virtues
What is Courage?
Becoming a More Courageous Person
Courage Fest Traditions
Before I jump into this episode’s main topic, I have a few quick but important announcements. As of June 2020, our Springville and Draper groups have begun meeting again, in-person. At this stage of the current pandemic, we will only meet outdoors while all participants are required to wear CDC-Compliant face coverings. These safety guidelines may be adjusted if the situation improves or worsens, so be sure to keep an eye on your group’s official webpage. As always, our Online Group will continue to meet on Discord every Sunday evening.
To better utilize our content creators’ resources and ensure that we release high-quality content on a more regular basis, the Executive Board has decided to adjust the upload schedule of this program to one release per month. Thank you for your understanding and flexibility.
To keep up with all other announcements from the Free Thought Forum, be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter, complete with thought-provoking articles, quotes from famous intellectuals, a complete list of upcoming events for every one of our groups, and more. Sign-up today at freethoughtforum.org/news.
Part 1 – Cardinal Virtues
One main purpose of the Free Thought Forum is to build inclusive, supportive, and freethinking communities. We want to bring people with different backgrounds and beliefs together to have meaningful conversations and build lasting friendships. Our founders believed that seasonal traditions and celebrations could play a major role in bringing communities together. But what should we celebrate? What can groups of conservatives, liberals, the religious, spiritual, and secular people around the world possibly have in common that could unite them four times every year?
We answered, “Virtues,” or positive human traits that we would all do well to remember and adopt at any time and in any culture. This is how our four virtue festivals were born, each observed at four roughly equidistant times of the year as determined by our planet’s natural solstices and equinoxes that result from the earth’s axial tilt and orbital position relative to the sun.
Our next step was to decide which four universal virtues we’d celebrate. Our search led us through great philosophical and religious works around the globe until we settled on ancient Greece, the birthplace of Western Philosophy. In Plato's famous work, "The Republic," written in 375 B.C., he described an ideal society that was governed by four essential moral characteristics. These were the virtues of “Wisdom,” “Harmony,” “Temperance,” and “Courage” (also known as “Prudence,” “Justice,” “Self-Control,” and “Fortitude”). He and his students argued that all other virtues, such as honesty, patience, hope, compassion, mercy, humility, and endurance, flowed from the mastery of these pivotal four. Several of his students over the years founded what we call “Stoicism,” and continued to promote these four stoic values throughout ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Eventually, Rome became the center of Christianity, and the early Catholic Church incorporated the four as “cardinal virtues.”
Today, Freemasonry, Protestantism, and secular organizations such as ours carry on this tradition. To Plato’s credit, these four virtues have even proved broad and deep enough to allow for the inclusion of essential moral characteristics promoted by non-western traditions such as the eight virtues of Taoism and Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path.
Part 2 – What is Courage?
“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.” – Thucydides
According to Aristotle, courage is the virtuous middle-ground between the extreme vices of cowardice and recklessness. By considering these extremes of absence and excess, we can better understand the virtue between them.
The first extreme shows us what we all would be without a sufficient amount of courage. A coward keeps their head down, makes excuses, and doesn’t want to get involved. Like a prey animal, they run and hide. They live life as a perpetual victim and are quick to blame others for their misfortunes. They are too careful and miss opportunities to change themselves, their circumstances, or their society. Likewise, those around them are left to be victimized as well. Cowardice is related to laziness, moral impotence, and freezing in the face of challenges, like a deer in the headlights.
Recklessness lies on the other end of the spectrum. A reckless person is led by false assumptions. They stubbornly believe that no one else can help. They insert themselves into situations where they are not wanted. They live like an addict, constantly on the prowl for their next fix. A reckless person isn’t careful enough and carelessly puts themselves and others in danger. They are the gambler who takes far too many risks, the thrill-seeker who scoffs at safety nets, or the pig-headed friend who fails to see the big picture. Recklessness is similar to selfishness, aggression, and greed.
Between these two extremes, a brave person is one who acts no more or less than according to what is necessary. The brave don’t let fear or hesitation stop them and they are wise enough to temper their actions with considerations to the consequences of those actions. They act for the betterment of everyone, not only themselves. Put a different way, Courage is only courage when it is modified and tempered by the other cardinal virtues of temperance, wisdom, and harmony. When someone is acting brave while undisciplined, foolish, or self-serving, it is far more accurate to describe them as reckless.
This virtue is related to Assertiveness, Valor, Confidence, Bravery, Strength, Stoicism, Resoluteness, Integrity, Boldness, Gallantry, Optimism, Hope, Enthusiasm, and Positivity. How is courage related to positivity? At its core, courage is essentially the will to act. We stand up to a workplace bully, ask a lady to dance, and resist the marauding invaders (or die trying). Courageous action is done with full intent and never as an empty performance. Therefore, I think it is related to optimism because we expect our actions to make a difference. We act with a vision of a better future. Sometimes, showing optimism itself is an act of courage.
In a well-written story, its “hero,” or main protagonist, has a noble goal. However, as they try to reach that goal, they meet resistance, challenges, and obstacles. By facing and adapting to those obstacles, they’re later able to claim their goal by paying a heavy price. Because they persevered through this struggle, they experience growth as a character. Tales that follow this classic outline tend to resonate with us because they mirror a fundamental human experience. When we want to improve ourselves and/or the world, it can seem like the universe conspires to hold us back. So many things get in our way, and we quickly learn that many problems have difficult solutions. It takes courage to press on and be the hero of a story. This is one reason why we think of courageous people as “heroic.” As the hero of your own story, courage is essential for your personal growth, and indispensable if you desire to make a meaningful impact on the world.
If we, like fictional protagonists, strive to live virtuously and do what is morally right, then we'll encounter resistance and social pressure to compromise on our values. We may be tempted to lose our resolve and dismiss our goals (like the coyote and his sour grapes). At first, it seems like rejecting the call to adventure is the easiest option. Like the coward, we may be all-too-eager to give up, make excuses, escape from consequences, hide, appease, and avoid conflict at all costs. In contrast, a courageous person is focused on tomorrow's reward, not on today's discomfort. The brave care most about doing what needs to be done, no matter the cost.
How can we tell if we're courageous people? Courage is something that is constantly tested and proven in moments of pressure. If you aren’t encountering any pressure or resistance in life, then you aren’t being brave. We may like to think we’re brave. We may imagine that we'll act heroically if called upon in the distant future, but this isn't true courage. Courage is proven with action. It’s proactive, so we can’t wait for opportunities to present themselves. Likewise, if you typically deal with challenges by running back to where you're comfortable, then you have some work to do.
“Sometimes, even to live is an act of courage.” – Seneca
When we act courageously, we boldly rise to the challenges of life and take appropriate action, even with the threat of pain, suffering, danger, uncertainty, intimidation, harsh judgment, shame, rejection, loss, discouragement, despair, or anything else we may fear. In short, we don’t let anything stop us or slow us down. We get out of our own way and permit ourselves to go above and beyond what has been done before. As we develop courage, we grow more willing to take reasonable chances and make mistakes so that we can learn and improve.
Accepting responsibility is a key element of courage. When we look to great fictional heroes such as Arjuna, Gilgamesh, Perseus, Saint George, Obi-wan-Kenobi, or Captain America, we soon notice that they approach problems differently than most people. While most people complain, cast blame, ignore, or hide away from important issues, heroes step up and face them. They don’t wait around for someone else to save the day. They adopt the problem as their own, bare it on their shoulders, and work to solve it. They, like us, may seek the help of guides and companions, but they never abandon the mission at hand.
“Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.” – John Locke
Another thing to consider is “Moral Courage.” While it may be easier to face our fears and perform heroic deeds, it is no less important to do what is morally right despite the pressure to compromise. It takes courage to think for yourself, to change your mind, to reject dogma, social norms, and conventions, to go against the grain, or to swim upstream. Admitting to a mistake, offering forgiveness, and owning-up to a crime are also important examples of bravery. This virtue isn’t about seeking recognition or decorating your uniform with medals and ribbons. Rather, real courage is about doing what is right in all cases and at all times, especially when no one is looking or keeping score. Likewise, a good test of your moral courage comes when everyone around you has compromised on their values. Should you also relax a little and follow the crowd? A courageous person isn’t afraid to say “no.” They have certain lines they won’t cross, even if they are the last person on earth upholding the standard. They are the mountain that refuses to bow to the wind.
Courageous people do not define themselves as victims of circumstance. Instead, they live proactively, heroically, and intentionally. They accept new challenges, adapt, and do what needs to be done. By being more courageous, we are better able to carry out our responsibilities, persevere through hardship, protect ourselves and others, come to the aid of others, and more!
Part 3 – Becoming a More Courageous Person
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” – Marie Curie
By exercising courage, we can become more courageous. As we develop this virtue, we'll come to understand it better and experience personal growth. It can be developed like a skill and strengthened like a muscle. But how is this done? I have three suggestions.
1. Actively Remove Obstacles
“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.” – Lao Tzu
Consider what is holding you back from pursuing what matters most. What is slowing you down as you try to do what needs to be done? Identify and make a list of the “roadblocks” in your life. Be careful to only list things reasonably within your control. For example, listing “Becky” as the reason for why you can’t find a better job won’t help anyone. Once you have your list, focus first on the smallest obstacle. You’ll have plenty of time to tackle the larger ones later. Make a morally sound and responsible plan on how to remove or adapt to it. (The best plans are the ones that require some character growth and refinement on your part.) Try each plan, replace them if necessary, but don’t stop until your life’s roadblocks are checked off that list, one at a time.
2. Stop Making Excuses
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” – William Shakespeare
To be clear, it is perfectly realistic to say that much of what we experience in life can be random, unfair, and pointless. While we are no-doubt shaped and buffeted by things outside our control, it is far too common to pretend that nothing is in our control. That unhealthy mindset can cause us to give up the limited power we have. It is like driving a car, only to be stopped by red traffic light. Does this mean that we should get out of the driver seat and shut ourselves in the trunk to morn our lost agency? Of course not. We should continue driving. When we are affected by things outside our control, we still have the power to decide how to respond to them.
Stop making excuses. This mental exercise is simple. Whenever you feel like you need to come up with an excuse, don’t. Whenever you feel the need to defend yourself with some explanation about things outside your control, don’t. Become aware of just how often the average person makes excuses. Was your homework turned-in late? Accept the penalty and say you’ll do better next time. Are you getting a speeding ticket? Thank the officer for doing their job and make a mental note to follow the law more closely. Did you forget to do yesterday's load of laundry? Don’t make excuses. Rather, look forward, to the future, and make plans to make better habits. It takes courage to be responsible and admit to our mistakes. When we stop making excuses, we allow ourselves to become more confident, capable, and courageous people.
3. Face Your Fears
We naturally tend to avoid whatever makes us anxious or uncomfortable. However, when we seek to better understand our fears, think deeply about them, and if prudent, take measures to confront them head-on, we may find that we are far more capable than expected. What makes you nervous, anxious, and uneasy? It is easy to think of something like “heights” or “spiders,” but I encourage you to think of what truly derails your good mood or ruins your day. It helps to think of a time when you were miserable and trace the steps back to what caused that feeling in the first place. Are you depressed because you hate your job? Do you hate your job because you are forced to work overtime? Do you have to work overtime because there isn’t enough time in the day to do what was expected of you? Why aren't you more honest with your boss about how you need more days to complete your current workload? In this example, this game of connecting-the-dots has led us to the fear of talking to your boss, a fear that matters far more than that of heights or spiders. Fear holds us back in a lot of ways. Sometimes, this fear keeps us safe and allows us to live long and healthy lives. Other times, fear keeps us from doing what we need to do to be happier, more fulfilled, more successful, and/or more impactful. When you come across one of these hindering fears, face it. Even if you fail at first, each attempt can help your confidence and courage grow over time.
Part 4 – Courage Fest Traditions
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” – Bertrand Russell
If you can hear me right now, then you are invited to join the Free Thought Forum for one of our biggest events of the year! As midsummer approaches, we have an opportunity to come together and take a healthy break from current events to enjoy some positivity, games, and an epic outdoor festival!
Our Courage Fest is an annual celebration that takes place near the June Solstice. The solstice usually falls on June 20th, 21st, or 22nd, so our festival will probably be held on the third Saturday or Sunday of the month. Be sure to check out our website to see exactly when and where this year’s festivities will take place.
Come and enjoy some great music, rounds of steal-the-flag with foam swords, a water fight, team sports, and some free food! We have something fun planned for guests of all ages and a gift bag for you before you go. After our festivities at the park, all participants are encouraged to consider how they can become braver individuals, face their fears, and pursue their goals with increased vigor. Here are nine traditions introduced in this festival’s first year:
1. Freethinkers, Assemble!
In contrast with our Temperance Festival, held 100% online, and our Harmony and Wisdom festivals that are celebrated at the group level, this occasion calls for the members of all of our groups (plus our awesome neighbors, guests, and visitors) to come together, in-person, once a year! (This one event will replace all other regularly-scheduled events on that same weekend.) This festival is celebrated outdoors and will include water games and physical competitions. Be sure to wear dark clothes that can withstand a wet and rugged day at the park!
2. Bring Requests for the DJ
Which upbeat tunes get you moving? Be ready with a few of your favorites that our volunteer DJ can add to our party music playlist. Before jumping into our park games, don’t forget to smile for a group photo!
3. Foam-Sword War
The festival will kick-off with a classic summer camp game of Steal the Flag! Every participant will be lent a foam sword and assigned a team with a corresponding flag and a “base.” If you’re hit by a sword, you’re “out” and must drop your sword (and the flag, if you have it), before returning to your base. After that, you're back in the game! (Only one sword may be held at a time and no sword-tossing is allowed.) The game continues until one team has both flags at their base. We will probably play two or three rounds before declaring the victorious team and returning all borrowed swords, team handkerchiefs, and flags, to be used by next year's combatants.
4. Water Games
What has your Group Leader planned? Will you use a beach towel to vault water balloons to a partner, run a relay race with soaked sponges, chase your rivals with a water-filled bucket, or some other watery mayhem? Come ready to play a few water games to help us all beat the summer heat!
5. A Free Summer Lunch
After our visitors are thoroughly soaked from the water games, it will be time to enjoy some freshly-cut watermelon and sizzling slices of pizza! After serving all festival-goers, our Directors, Group Leaders, and Assistants will eat last.
6. Team Sports
Each year’s festivities will wrap up with a few friendly games of basketball, volleyball, Ultimate Frisbee, soccer, or whatever else our guests would like to play. If you would like your favorite team sport considered, be sure to bring a ball from home.
7. Gift Bags
Before you leave, be sure to pick up a gift bag including some candy, collectible buttons, and other goodies including a thought-provoking discussion primer about what it means to be courageous.
8. Suggested Family Tradition: Blood Donation
Local hospitals don’t only need donations in times of crisis. New patients need them every day! After the festival, why not show some bravery and heroism by donating some blood, red blood cells, platelets, or plasma to those in need? Check out our festival webpage for a couple of online resources that can help you find where, when, and how you can donate.
9. Decorations and Theme
To ground the abstract concepts featured in this celebration, the following symbolism is utilized:
The Colors Red and Violet
In many cultures, the color RED is strongly associated with the planet Mars, gods of war, passion, conflict, aggression, sacrifice, and courage. It is a traditional color of happiness, good fortune, and celebration in China and India and has been used in fearless revolutions throughout history.
Thanks to Tyrian Purple Dye, VIOLET has been associated with royalty and nobility since ancient times. Today, this color commonly represents individualism and unconventional thinking. Flowers traditionally representative of “freethought” also tend to have violet petals.
The Black Panther
Lions, cougars, and other large wildcats are some of the most widely recognized animal symbols in human cultures. They represent power, nobility, strength, and courage, especially when depicted in an aggressive “rampant” stance in western heraldry. The Egyptian goddess of war, Bast, was depicted as a lioness. The panther is one of the avatars of the Hindu God Vishnu, the “preserver.” Similarly, lion statues are also found outside of Chinese buildings, serving as symbolic protectors.
Crossed Swords
The symbol of upward-pointing swords, crossed like an X, calls to a readiness to fight and defend. It is an invitation for a challenge and brings to mind one who is ready and willing to face the unknown.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective.
A Special Shout-Out goes to Sam Wagner, Penny Davis, Dale Thurber Ph.D., and Brooke Freeman!
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Peaceful Protesters in Washington D.C. meet Police Resistance on June 1, 2020. Image Credit: JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AFP via Getty Images
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed by the authors of the articles of our newsletter do not necessarily represent the opinions held by the members, leaders, or affiliates of this organization.
Your First Amendment Rights Under Fire
By Nicholas Burk (Executive Board)
This article was originally published in the June 2020 Issue of The Seeker’s Key.
Every Local Group of the Free Thought Forum is a celebration of your rights and freedoms to believe what you will, speak your mind, publish your ideas, and peacefully assemble. These are the civil liberties listed in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the United States:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
However, in recent days, these rights have been publicly and frequently violated by those we’ve trusted to serve and protect.
Compliant Protester pepper-sprayed in Minneapolis on May 31. Image Credit: Kerem Yucel/Getty Images
Silencing our Citizens
The Free Thought Forum is not a political partisan or lobbying organization. However, the essential set of natural human rights listed in the first amendment, in particular, must be respected for causes such as ours to survive. Where these rights are threatened, diminished, or ignored, we support the political movements that work to ensure their protection.
I wrote this article to share my perspective and experience concerning the highly complicated and controversial George Floyd protests with a focus on public violations of first amendment rights. These protests constitute a critical moment in history. Therefore, I encourage all of our readers, members, and leaders to likewise freely share their opinions and perspectives on current events at our meetings and via our social media platforms. Even if we disagree and/or inadvertently get many facts wrong along the way, the conversation itself is worth having among those who can stomach these intense issues.
A clip from a viral video of two NYPD SUVs ramming into a group of protesters in Brooklyn.
Damning Evidence
What does it look like when these rights are violated? With a basic understanding of political history, dystopian fiction, and real examples of government censorship around the world, even the most casual spectator can recognize that something is wrong.
Those unafraid to dig deeper have found shocking and overwhelming video evidence, from across the country, that shows police officers and military personnel beating, assaulting, and arresting peaceful protesters, press crews, and bystanders without provocation, even as the world watches. Those skeptical of these claims are invited to inspect the evidence. In early June, Lawyer T. Greg Doucette and mathematician Jason Milleron compiled the following list of links to hundreds of videos.
WARNING: Many of these videos contain graphic images of violence that viewers may find disturbing. Please view them with discretion.
"Michiganders against Excessive Quarantine" on April 15, 2020. Image Credit: JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Different Protests, Same Police
Many of us find the claims of unwarranted police violence against American citizens hard to believe. This is understandable. For most of us, the vast majority of our experiences with the police are nonviolent. Depending on where we get our news, we may never see an American Police officer strike an unarmed citizen. But how could that be? The answer may have a great deal to do with your skin color, and whether or not the officers involved respect your cause.
In mid-to-late April, dozens of groups of white protesters waved star-spangled banners and open-carried firearms as they stormed government buildings across the country. What were they protesting? They saw the measures taken by city and state governments to slow the spread of Covid-19 as tyrannical, clear evidence of government overreach and creeping authoritarianism.
Those protests were supported by mainstream media, the president, and several politicians. There were zero fatalities, zero cases of police violence, and zero arrests. Days later, much of the country was “opened.”
Demonstrators at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, June 2nd. Image Credit: Pennsylvania Real-Time News
After walking free for more than two months, despite damning video evidence, the father and son who shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery as he jogged down a street in Georgia were finally charged and arrested.
On May 25th, Christian Cooper’s video went viral. The recording showed how he was harassed by a woman in central park as he was bird-watching. The woman, who also happened to have the surname “Cooper,” called 911 and blatantly lied about being threatened by a black man, apparently knowing that the police will take drastic action against him on her word alone.
On that same day, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who knelt on his neck for over eight minutes. Floyd was already in handcuffs and was completely compliant, as he repeated, “please, I can’t breathe.” How do we know this? Because this tragic incident was also filmed from a smartphone.
These examples, of course, are only three in a long list of flagrant injustices that reek of a racist subculture that is still alive and well in the United States. Since George Floyd’s death, the stories of Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Javier Ambler, Derrick Scott, D'Arreion Nuriyah Toles, and others have only added to the public’s deepening realization of this cancer.
Police make arrests during a protest in Austin. Image Credit: Ben Carneiro
Protests have erupted across the country and around the world. Some have devolved into riots filled with arson, broken windows, looting, and the death of bystanders such as retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn. The majority of protests, however, have remained entirely peaceful. Over 10,000 demonstrators have been arrested, countless have been brutalized, and at least 11 have been killed while protesting.
Were those marching (unarmed) against racism and police brutality treated with the same respect as those marching against the partial-quarantine? Obviously not. For those on the fence about whether or not real racism exists within our justice system, this is just one more piece of compelling evidence to consider.
Smoke canisters used against protesters in Lafayette Square on June 1st, 2020. Image Credit: The Hill video, YouTube
The Videos Don’t Lie
Immediately after the George Floyd protests began, smartphone recordings conflicted with official police reports. Several official investigations into the most viral cases of police violence have led to the firing of multiple officers, yet the prosecution of almost none. I’m left to wonder about all of the other people who have been hurt without being lucky enough to be knocked over, hit, shot with rubber bullets, or pepper-sprayed while on camera.
While social media platforms were flooded with the devastating footage of police abusing compliant and law-abiding protesters, the mainstream media seemed to obsess over a handful of fires and riots. Early in the coverage, protesters were being largely painted as lawless opportunists. If you only watched mainstream media at this time, you may have easily believed that the most tragic victims of these events were Target, Vans, and Nordstrom.
Minneapolis Fires caused by Rioters, May 27, 2020. Image Credit: Chris Juhn/Zenger
Before long, looting and property damage stole the spotlight and received far more air time than the deaths of Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, and several others just as tragic as George Floyd’s. Stolen shoes seemed to have mattered much more than black lives.
If the mainstream news outlets were to be believed, the general public was not concerned with civil rights violations or police violence. They simply wanted someone to put out the fires.
All for a Photo
If all the viral examples of police silencing protesters were listed here, this article would be dozens of pages long. However, the “It is a Bible” instance on June 1st in Lafayette Square serves as a suitable illustration of what innocent Americans have been experiencing all over the country.
Do you remember that time when American police and soldiers were ordered to attack peaceful protesters in the streets of Washington D.C. with flash grenades, smoke canisters, rubber bullets, pepper-spray, bullet-proof shields, and batons, all so that the president could walk from the Rose garden to St. John’s Church?
Just days ago, that all happened. It was a moment that sums up just how easily our rights can be hand-waved away.
While Donald Trump was giving a speech, an order was given to clear the street in front of the white house of all demonstrators. The National Guard was deployed and charged into the crowd. News crews were assaulted. Kneeling demonstrators with their hands up were pepper-sprayed. The military was indiscriminate. Black, white, male, female, old, young, Americans, Foreign Press, everyone was targeted. And this all happened more than 30 minutes before Washington D.C.’s new curfew took effect.
News cameras and cell phones filmed the whole thing. Several protesters were streaming live. This was not a riot. This was a peaceful gathering of American citizens on public property. If our first amendment rights can be so casually disregarded here, how can we be so confident that they won’t be ignored again?
CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and crew arrested on live television by Minnesota Police. Image Credit: CNN
Silencing the Press
On May 29th, a rubber bullet was fired from an on-duty officer directly at Linda Tirado’s face as she was reporting on a protest in Minneapolis. She is now permanently blinded in her left eye. On that same day, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez and his camera crew were arrested as they were reporting, on live television, by Minnesota Police.
Australian Channel 7 News US correspondent Amelia Brace and her cameraman, Tim Myers, were covering the White House protest on June 1st when they were punched, shoved, and shot with gas canisters by D.C. Police and the National Guard. This, too, was broadcasted live.
More than 300 cases of police violence against the news media have been reported in the past few weeks. Boldly displaying press badges and even shouting “Press, press, don’t shoot,” (as seen in so much of the footage) have failed to prevent these atrocities. What is happening must be something officers do not want us to see.
Seattle Police use smoke bombs and pepper spray against protesters. Image Credit: realtalktime.com
What Can We Do?
Hopefully, this tragic moment can lead to real and meaningful change. Of course, most of us personally know brave and sincere police officers who we trust with our lives. However, there is no doubt in my mind that a culture exists within our criminal justice system that allows for racism, excessive use of force against unarmed citizens, and the violation of our most valuable freedoms with impunity.
Civil liberties can easily be quashed in obscurity. If the first amendment only applies to some of us, then it truly applies to none of us. Therefore, it is the duty of every freedom-loving American to speak out whenever injustices such as these arise.
You can continue to exercise your freedom to speak, write, and protest. If you chose to join the protesters in-person, please remember that the number of new Covid-19 cases is spiking all over the country. We are still in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Please take every precaution including wearing a CDC compliant mask, social-distancing, and using hand sanitizer.
If you are confronted by police or the military, record everything! Encourage those around you to have their phones out as well. Share the footage to social media before your phone can be confiscated. If you are assaulted and/or arrested, several law firms and activist groups are ready to help you with funds for bail and free representation. Many of these can be found by a simple internet search, but here is a directory provided by Black Lives Matter:
You can email your city councils, governors, representatives, and senators. Demand substantive and lasting change in how police are hired, trained, and held to account for their actions. Here are a few popular suggestions of measures that can be taken to improve how our communities are policed:
Outlaw all choke-holds.
Replicate the non-violent de-escalation training required of law-enforcement officers in other countries.
Require body-cams to remain on while officers are on-duty.
Make public all records of investigations into police violence.
Launch an investigation into every case in which someone has died while in police custody.
Offer highly competitive pay for new officers at every level to bring out the highest qualified members of our communities.
Demilitarize every police department and ban the use of rubber bullets and tear gas against protesters.
Allow community members to serve within police departments to provide oversight.
Require all officers to go through free regular and frequent psychological evaluations and treatment.
Create specialized citizens’ units to respond to calls that don’t warrant the potential use of lethal force.
With enough pressure from the public, even the most entrenched and resilient problems within our society can be solved.
Answers for My White Friends
Jun 18, 2020
Speaking From Personal Experience
By Cristina Reyes (Executive Board)
This article was originally published in the June 2020 Issue of The Seeker’s Key.
Luckily, my family's day-to-day routines have not been drastically affected by current events. Like so many others, we are doing our best to work through and process our emotions. However, I've still received many messages offering support and seeking understanding from my white friends. This article is a response to those welcomed questions.
The Black Experience
First, I want to make clear that I don’t speak for all persons of color living in the USA. We all have a unique perspective on "the Black Experience." With that said, there do seem to be consistencies. We all have experience with the institutional racism that is so deeply embedded in our society. The government, media, and other institutions have played heavy roles in the perpetuation of systemic racism and harmful stereotypes. American history is rife with cases of exploitation and the unabashed denial of civil liberties and rights. It negatively impacts us all, regardless of where (or when) we live.
Black people represent about 13% of this country's population. That means that some 42,800,000 Americans have been disenfranchised in nearly every facet of life. Yet votes from only 13% of the population won't guarantee any election wins, increased dividends, or systemic change. For decades, the most influential and powerful members of our society have done little more than "have conversations" and "spread awareness." Americans have been aware of these injustices since 1619. What more "awareness" do we need?
My Family's Experience
I've made this struggle clear to my kids. This cause isn't new. Now, it's our turn to experience African American history. This is our opportunity to learn how deeply ingrained institutional racism can be, and understand how it's used to keep our people firmly at a disadvantage for centuries. I tell them that all we can do is continue to live our lives and take it day by day.
What needs to change so that my family can feel safe in the land of our birth, the only home we've ever known?
Accountability.
Every institution, every organization, every law, and every policy that has existed to disenfranchise African Americans must be exposed. We must admit to systemic racism and recognize how it has been used to suppress an entire subset of our society. After that, I want to see real and meaningful change.
Looking to the Future
I am sick of only "having conversations." Like so many other patriots and parents, my desired outcome of these protests is substantial and lasting change. Institutional changes, new laws, reformed policies, etc., must be put into place, especially in law enforcement, banking, education, and medicine. Of course, I could go on. There is so much work to be done to help heal the cancer of racism from the hearts of our fellow Americans.
How Can We Help?
I can't give you the right words, phrases, or hashtags to use. However, I can give you an idea of the kind of rhetoric that makes things worse. Too often, stereotypes and assumptions are used about all Black people. No, we don't all think, feel, say, and experience the same things. These shouldn't be "us vs them" debates. Don't dehumanize us or make us out to be some kind of "other." That kind of language leads to real-world consequences. For example, consistent data shows that Black people, when hospitalized, receive less pain medication than White people. The assumption that a Black patient has a higher pain tolerance is just one of many that stem from centuries of dehumanization.
How can you help? You're doing it now! You're asking questions, listening, trying to understand, and educating yourself so that you may be a more socially responsible citizen. Such a citizen knows better than to support the organizations, laws, and policies that further oppress the already disenfranchised. Your support matters. For four centuries, African Americans have had to run into the battlefield empty-handed. When you and others add your voices and actions to our own, we are better prepared to fight the good fight.
We Will Start Meeting Outdoors on June 6th!
May 22, 2020
TLDR: We have some exciting news! In response to the recent announcements from our local government officials and medical experts, our Utah-based in-person groups will start meeting weekly at local parks on June 6th. For the safety of all involved, participants will be required to wear CDC-compliant face masks, exercise social-distancing, and follow other such measures for the foreseeable future. Our third group will continue to meet online.
Our Plans to Meet In-Person
When and How Can We Safely Assemble?
By The Executive Board
Even though the novel coronavirus continues to spread, local governments and communities around the world are taking steps to “reopen” and return to business as usual. Understandably, this reopening comes with added measures and precautions often referred to as “the new normal.”
Likewise, the Executive Board of the Free Thought Forum has recently met to discuss how and when our local groups may safely and responsibly meet again, in-person, and we have great news!
Official Announcement
To all Guests, Members, and Leaders of the Free Thought Forum, we have an exciting announcement!
The Executive Board met recently to discuss when and how we’ll be able to safely meet again in-person. While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a significant health risk for much of our country, the reports and announcements from our government leaders and leading medical professionals here in the state of Utah have given our Executive Board and Group Leaders reason to believe that we can responsibly hold in-person events as long as we:
Meet outdoors
All wear masks
Exercise Social-Distancing
Refrain from Serving Food
Use Hand Sanitizer
More information regarding Utah’s new official “Low-Risk” status, can be found here:
When and Where will our In-Person Meetings Take Place?
Each local group of the Free Thought Forum will continue to meet at their regular dates and times. Starting on June 6th, our Springville group will meet every week at Spring Creek Park (500 E 600 N, Springville, UT 84663). Beginning on June 7th, our Draper group will meet each week at Draper City Park (12500 1300 E, Draper, UT 84020). These are the same parks where our “First Week Feast” events have been hosted in the past.
We plan to meet outdoors for the foreseeable future. If the situation improves, we will make a formal announcement before gladly moving our meetings back to our favorite coffee shops, Art City Coffee and The Clever Bean! In the meantime, we encourage our members near Springville and Draper to continue to support these great local businesses. Perhaps you can pick up a coffee on your way to the park!
On Saturday, June 20th, we will be hosting our first Courage Festival at Spring Creek Park. This will be a combined event where all of our members from every group will come together for fun competitions and games. More information about this special occasion is coming soon!
What Are The New Safety Measures?
While the pandemic may seem to be over, very little has actually changed concerning the risk of catching and spreading the novel coronavirus. Therefore, the following safety measures will be implemented at all of our events.
For the foreseeable future, and for the safety of our members, guests, and leaders, all participants are required to wear face masks, for the entirety of our meetings, which comply with the guidelines from the CDC:
All participants will also be directed to exercise basic social-distancing, refrain from sharing food, and use the provided hand sanitizer at least at the start and conclusion of each event.
If you feel ill or are experiencing symptoms related to COVID-19, please stay home and consider participating through our Online Group, which will continue to meet every Sunday evening on Discord (https://discord.gg/2W4KCMC).
How Long Will We Wear Masks?
These measures will remain in place until the board announces otherwise. Hopefully, we will soon be able to return to our pre-pandemic norms. However, there is the possibility that the current trends in our area may take a turn for the worse. In that scenario, we may return to hosting all of our events online. Whatever the case, your safety remains the highest priority of our Executive Board.
We deeply appreciate your flexibility, resilience, and optimism, and look forward to emerging from this pandemic as a stronger and more refined organization and community.
Sincerely,
The Executive Board
Free Thought Forum
May 2020
How We'll Get Through This Pandemic
Apr 16, 2020
10 Ways to Cope with Life in Quarantine
By Nicholas Burk (Executive Board)
To slow the COVID-19 pandemic and to protect our brave medical professionals and essential workers, many of us now live in some form of quarantine. We have dramatically reduced our shopping trips, no longer meet with people outside, and, if possible, work from a home computer. However, all this social-distancing, no matter how necessary, can strain our relationships, aggravate preexisting financial and health issues, and take a serious toll on our mental and emotional well-being.
Is the remedy worse than the disease? To answer that, we should consider that the United States has now dramatically surpassed all other nations in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths. For the first time in history, all 50 states have declared a state of emergency. This disease has surpassed car accidents and suicides as the leading cause of death in our country. While 80% of us may catch this illness without showing any symptoms, many others will suffer permanent lung damage, or worse.
Without being hyperbolic, we can say that everyone we know has been, or will be, affected by this crisis. In the best-case scenario, most of us will successfully avoid being exposed to the virus until after we have been vaccinated against it. However, the development of a safe vaccine is still at least a year away.
Generally speaking, our community has thus far been fortunate. However, there are members within each of our Local Groups who have already lost their source(s) of income. Due to the exponential nature of viral infection rates, a few of us can also expect to catch the coronavirus itself in the weeks and months to come.
As we look down the difficult road ahead, we all have important choices to make. Here are 10 sensible suggestions for how we all may better weather this challenging moment in history.
1 - Stay Safe, Stay Home, Save Lives
We all have a role to play when it comes to helping our hospitals keep from being overwhelmed. Even if your local and national leaders have not yet issued an order to “shelter-in-place” or quarantine, your wisest, bravest, and the most compassionate option is to continue to practice social-distancing as much as possible. It is important to remember that this pathogen spreads from person-to-person. Even if we don’t feel sick, many of us are, right now, spreading it to everyone with whom we come in contact. This is a highly contagious virus. Throughout this pandemic, whenever possible, we should each act as if we already have been diagnosed with this disease. For the sake of our medical professionals, yourself, and others, please stay home.
Stacked on this health crisis is an economic one as well. Small local businesses will be hit particularly hard. One thing we can all do to keep our entrepreneurial neighbors afloat is to take advantage of their delivery and pickup services. Most of them have expanded these services, so it is well worth it to give them a call to see what options are available. For example, the Clever Bean is now shipping their bags of ground coffee nationwide! Orders can be made through their website (https://thecleverbean.com/).
2 - Wear a Cloth Mask when you go Outside
While staying at home is ideal, most of us must brave the crowds to do our work or to shop for essentials. The CDC has recommended that everyone (symptomatic or not) wear cloth masks when in public to help slow the spread of the virus. DIY cloth masks offer some protection against infected water droplets and can help us avoid touching our faces. (These face coverings are not to be confused with medical-grade surgical masks or N-95 respirators. If you happen to have access to disposable medical masks, please consider donating them to one of the countless hospitals now struggling due to a lack of protective equipment and supplies.)
For those who don’t have time to sew cloth masks, Connie from the Springville (Saturday Morning) Group has already created several dozens that she is selling for $10.00 apiece. For every mask sold through our website, she has agreed to donate $3.00 back to our organization! If you would like to order enough masks for your workweek, or if you know others who could use a few, Connie’s comfortable, breathable, and washable cotton masks are available through our online store!
3 - Meet And Party Online
Connecting with friends and forum members every week adds a refreshing sense of community and helps to remind each of us that we don’t have to go through these hard times alone. No matter how things may change out there, it is our goal to always be here for you and provide a space where you are free to be yourself and speak your mind!
Our weekly meetings have been moved online. Helpful information on how to connect with us can be found on the front page of our website. If you are having trouble using Discord, please send us an email or contact your Group Leader directly. Often, the solution is simple, such as downloading the app onto your phone instead of your computer, or wearing headphones while you chat.
If you are looking for something beyond our intellectual conversations, then why not give our new Video-Chat Parties a try? Starting on the evening of April 18th, we will be hosting online parties featuring impromptu variety shows, party games, and more. For all of you gamers, each Saturday night event will be followed by an after-party where you are welcome to join in multi-player LAN-games! Check out the upcoming events on your group’s webpage for more details.
4 - Volunteer Online
If you are tired of getting pushed around by this invisible enemy, why not push back? By volunteering online, you can make a real difference from your home computer! A few options on how you can help are listed on our NEW Volunteer Page and we are glad to say that more options will be added soon. Through the Folding@Home program, our members have already been able to donate hundreds of hours of computer processing power directly to the study of “SARS-CoV-2,” the virus that causes COVID-19!
To learn more about how our members and volunteers have helped scientists develop treatments for COVID-19, here are a few related articles and reports:
It may take a while to convince your children, relatives, and/or roommates to leave their phones and computers, but doing so may yield surprisingly positive results. Reserve an entire day or evening for an activity that you can all do together (besides watching movies or TV shows). You can build a city or fleet of spaceships out of Legos, make paper boats, put on a puppet show, race paper airplanes, or host a tournament where homemade medals are won by winning a series of card games. Whether you choose to sing karaoke or bake cookies, doing things together can keep a cooped-up family on good terms.
6 - Call a Friend, Every Day
Let’s face it, gathering children or roommates together can be like herding cats. Moreover, many of our freethinkers will be weathering this crisis for weeks (and maybe months) without any in-person human interaction. What can you do if you live alone? The first thing to do is to call a friend. While it seems that the pandemic is all anyone can talk about, your friends may appreciate a few questions about their favorite TV shows, pets, gardens, projects, and any other non-virus-related topics.
Our new Socratic Chats Program was designed especially with our isolated members in mind. If you would like to grant your Group Leader permission to give you a one-on-one phone call every month, please visit our Socratic Chats page and opt-in today!
7 - Take a Walk
Many of us now live, day-to-day, without knowing how we are going to pay our rent, afford healthcare, meet the needs of our kids, or find a new job. If you are in a dire financial situation, please rely on your forum members and leaders for some good advice about where you can find helpful resources. Supporting one another is a big part of what it means to be a community!
If your responsibilities and worries continue to weigh you down, it may help to head outside (with your mask) for some fresh air. Most of our problems can wait for a couple of hours. They’ll be there when you get back, so why not take a break to stretch your legs? Whether you’re alone or with a family member or roommate, taking a stroll outside can help you focus on the beauty in every moment.
If possible, it’s best if your stroll can take you beyond the concrete jungle. After all, many mental and emotional benefits come from experiencing nature. Spring is here, and many of us are understandably eager to soak up some sun and feel the breeze. Unfortunately, many others have this same idea. Several hiking trails and parks near you may already be crowded, so be sure to make a plan. Head outside at uncommon times and take the paths less-traveled.
8 - Make Time to Meditate
Exercise and good eating habits all certainly go a long way. However, elevated levels of emotional stress and anxiety, day-after-day, can compromise one’s ability to fight disease. How can we ensure that our immune systems are ready to fight when we need them the most? Let's start with getting that stress under control.
If you aren’t practiced in stress-relieving meditative techniques, you can start learning them online. There is no better time to refine such an important life skill! Meditation is free, it doesn’t bother your neighbors, and it has a way of helping people think about what matters most. Whether it be a form of mindfulness, yoga, or sincere prayer, we can all use some emotional re-centering from time-to-time.
9 - Stay Positive
In difficult times, we function better when we maintain a calm and hopeful state of mind. Adopting a positive outlook is something completely within your control and can make a positive difference in your relationships with your coworkers, family members, and beyond.
Let’s take a moment to remember that the economy will bounce back. Humanitarians have stepped-up to come to the aid of those most in need. The vast majority of those afflicted by this virus will recover. Most importantly, our society will be able to improve and innovate in unforeseeable ways as we get through this together.
While we all should remain vigilant and strive to keep ourselves informed, that doesn’t mean that we should each live in a constant state of anxiety or fear. Schedule time for news consumption and set aside times in which you deliberately take a break. For many of us, taking a break from a constant stream of updates and alerts means putting our phones and devices aside. That is what makes this such a great time to catch up on your reading. If you could use a few suggestions on what to read next, be sure to look into our Recommended Reading List!
10 - Be a Total Germaphobe
Our last suggestion covers all that good advice we've received since this all began. Please continue to wash your hands often. Avoid shaking hands with others or touching your face. Use disinfecting sprays or wipes to clean all frequently-touched surfaces that may harbor germs such as your doorknobs, countertops, appliances, light switches, keyboards, phones, and anything else that may enter your homes such as your groceries or deliveries. Cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze or cough with the inside of your elbow. If you do feel sick, call your hospital before you plan your visit. Educate yourself on the testing options offered near you, such as drive-through testing clinics.
While being such a “germaphobe” may seem like overkill, it is a small price to pay to help slow the spread of this virus. This is a group effort. The hygienic or non-hygienic choices one person makes have the potential to affect several thousand. And, according to the latest reports, it’s working. Our drastic calls to social-distance and self-quarantine have led to the number of new cases to slow and plateau in several countries. While this pandemic is far from over in the United States, the end may be in sight.
Thank you to all who have taken the necessary precautions, worked diligently to bring out the best in others, and who continue to weather this storm well.
Leading Freethinkers
Apr 07, 2020
What Does it Mean to Be a Leader in the Free Thought Forum?
By Nicholas Burk (Executive Board)
April 4, 2020
Within the Free Thought Forum, we tend to use the term “freethinker” to refer to our members. What does a freethinker believe? What are their priorities? How do they behave? And where do they fit on the political or religious spectrum?
That is entirely up to them.
Unlike many churches or political activist organizations, our shared identity does not come from a central set of answers. Instead, we encourage our members to consider certain questions alongside the answers given by philosophers, scientists, and others across a range of cultures and times. If our organization was built on anything, it is an approach to belief itself. We champion the idea that every person should be granted the opportunity to discuss their evolving beliefs and the allowance to come to their own conclusions.
As stated in our earliest promotional materials, “We promote healthy civil discussion and celebrate the free exchange of ideas with an emphasis on granting all participants opportunities to share. We assert that one’s ability to voice their ideas and have them supported, contested, tested, and reviewed among peers (and in-person) is an indispensable tool in one’s honest search for the correct answers to life’s most important questions.”
“...Every person should be granted the opportunity to discuss their evolving beliefs and the allowance to come to their own conclusions.”
So what does it mean to be a leader for a community of freethinkers? How can someone hope to manage their group or the entire organization when each member is encouraged to find their unique philosophical path? Here are four answers that can help us all serve at our utmost.
There is More than One Trail
If our members need a goal, we are happy to provide one. For example, our Foundational Philosophy encourages everyone to become a Truth-Seeker, to strive to realize their fullest potential, learn to love life itself, and more. So how might one reach such lofty goals? Our approach is to ensure that each person is permitted, enabled, and inspired to find their own answers.
Every human being has the potential to be an intellectual trailblazer. Within our minds, each one of us constructs a unique network of ideas, experiences, and explanations throughout life. While a dogmatic group may insist that its members all stay on the same trail, we trust each freethinker to successfully forge or follow the path of their choice.
Does this mean that, as leaders, we are powerless to advise or guide our members? Is there nothing we can do to help them avoid delusion or danger? Should we consider a poorly-moderated and divisive meeting a job well done?
Of course not.
Just as every hiker could benefit from things like trekking poles, maps, compasses, or good shoes, we can empower our members with a solid understanding of science, diverse philosophical insights, support in their development of general life skills, and, yes, even personal advice. As long as we don’t pretend to be experts or professional counselors, it is perfectly appropriate, and encouraged, to share suggestions, as friends. We are here to support travelers on their journey, not judge them on their speed or their chosen path. As leaders, it is our job to set our members up for a successful trek, not tell them where to go or how to get there.
In many ways, we are, each of us, on a journey. Some of us are re-contextualizing our relationship with the concept of divinity. Some of us are searching for meaning and purpose in the apparent randomness of life. Some of us are simply looking for friends who will walk with us into the unknown.
As long as we each recognize this, we can encourage others to keep questioning and discovering. However, on certain issues, we and our members may be a bit too eager to insist that others join us on our favorite trail. Perhaps we have realized that a certain political party is nothing but corruption and lies. Maybe we have been convinced of a scientific fact that the whole world needs to understand. We may have even experienced a kind of spiritual epiphany and are eager to share the good news. Whatever our insights or conclusions, we should all respect and recognize that every human being should be allowed to form their own beliefs and opinions.
Whether our paths cross or not, whether we always agree or not, we are here to listen, offer suggestions, and allow our members to think for themselves.
We Never Exclude, Ban, or Excommunicate Capable and Willing Participants
Our organization builds inclusive, supportive, and freethinking communities. An “inclusive” community is one in which certain standards are upheld to encourage the participation of the highest possible number of people. Our Five Rules for Civil Discourse represent some of these standards. We also ask our leaders and members to use professional language, free of NSFW humor or obscenities that would discourage members from bringing their friends or children to future events.
An “inclusive” community is also one in which every person feels free to be themselves without fear of becoming an outcast. Therefore, one of the most important things our leaders can do is to maintain the golden mean between two extremes. We should do what we can to ensure that our meetings are welcoming to the highest possible number of people while also allowing each member the chance to say what they need to say.
What should a Moderator, Group Leader, or Assistant do if a member of guest expresses bizarre, offensive, dangerous, or even illegal ideas? As long as that member is capable and willing to follow our Five Rules for Civil Discussion, (and is indeed doing so) then they should be invited to remain and speak their mind.
“We should do what we can to ensure that our meetings are welcoming to the highest possible number of people while also allowing each member the chance to say what they need to say.”
A capable person has the obvious and apparent mental capacity to understand and follow our rules. A willing person shows by their actions, not just their language, that they are making a reasonable attempt to comply with our stated standards of conduct. If someone fails to meet these two criteria, then they may be asked by their Group Leader or Trained Moderator to participate only as spectators for the remainder of a meeting. If someone fails to meet these two criteria, and their behavior is overtly disruptive, then they should be given up to three direct reminders or explanations of our Five Rules for Civil Discussion. (It is usually best to presume ignorance before assuming harmful intent.) If these direct reminders fail to improve the situation, then it is 100% appropriate for a Moderator to call for an extra five-minute break as the Group Leader speaks privately with the disruptive party and insists that they leave the meeting.
Our open forum events are public celebrations of Free Speech. Many values of our organization are inspired by enlightenment thinkers who follow the Voltairean principle: “I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.” Therefore, any dismissal, censorship, or disrespect to one’s freedom to express themselves goes completely against our core values. A capable and willing participant at our events should never be expelled from our community because of their religious, political, or philosophical beliefs.
If we find ourselves in a situation in which distasteful views are being shared, what is there to do? Our leaders ask questions. We focus on ideas, not people. When that unpleasant, ridiculous, or unpopular opinion surfaces, give members time to explain themselves. Along the way, it is alright to say, “Many people disagree with that, and this is why…” Cultivate a conversation on the general topic. If needed, “zooming out” to an even more general (yet still related) topic may give others a better opportunity to participate. These are all techniques you can put to use until your group’s general interest organically migrates to another issue.
If a member routinely has outlandish or uncomfortable things to say, a Group Leader should cultivate with them a relationship of trust and friendship. Pull them aside before and after your meetings. Let them know that this is a place where their perspective is valued, even if others in the group disagree with some of their opinions. Indeed, disagreement is not a bug within our organization, it is a feature.
“Our open forum events are public celebrations of Free Speech.”
Of course, if any member or guest threatens physical violence or otherwise commits a crime, a Group Leader must call local law enforcement. With that said, any kind of “thought crime,” or an unpopular opinion should never be used as a reason to remove someone from our meetings. We do not create “safe spaces” where our members are protected from bad or harmful ideas. Instead, we seek to equip and strengthen our members so that they may be able to grapple with all kinds of ideas and respond to them in an academic, responsible, and adult manner.
Our Meetings Enlighten, Enrich, and Empower
Just as a coffee shop sells coffee or a farmer sells vegetables, the Free Thought Forum has a specific service that it provides. While we build inclusive, supportive, and freethinking communities, there is still more within those communities that our members seek.
By the end of every meeting, we hope that our members and guests feel more enlightened, enriched, and empowered. This is our main objective at every weekly meeting. As a leader of the Free Thought Forum, here are a few things you can do to create a friendly environment where these objectives may be met:
Enlightenment
Education gives the gift of knowledge. It stokes curiosity and stimulates the mind. As our knowledge increases, our ability to think logically, reasonably, and rationally increases as well. It opens the doors to deeper thinking, new concepts, and discovery. Indoctrination, on the other hand, robs and stunts one’s curiosity. It hinders one’s ability to think critically and demands belief, conformity, and obedience. It shuts the door to further questions, nuance, or conflicting ideas.
Our Discussion Primers have been written to educate, not indoctrinate. Therefore, our leaders and members are free to criticize or disagree with what we have presented. However, that doesn’t mean that an enlightened person is free to decide what is or is not factual, real, or true. While we facilitate an environment that allows for a diversity of opinions and beliefs, that is not the same as promoting the idea that all truth-claims are equally valid.
As a leader, here are a few things you can do to help your members feel enlightened and educated, not indoctrinated:
Set an example by taking the time to educate yourself, ahead of time, on a primer topic. If you are not currently enrolled as a student or otherwise seeking formal education, there is still a lot you can do to enhance your personal understanding such as reading articles, listening to podcasts, or watching online videos created by experts on each subject.
If a forum conversation gets lost in rumors or conjectures, you can help keep it rooted in facts and reality. Asking questions such as “What do you think is the fact of the matter?” or “Where do you think the evidence points?” can help.
Certain scientific topics can be controversial. A good practice is to approach these topics by saying something like, “This is the best explanation scientists have proposed, so far, and this is why…” This is an inviting approach that encourages curiosity without calling any person or group of people ignorant or deceitful.
Take notes on the facts expressed at your meetings and thank members for adding such interesting anecdotes.
Freely share your own anecdotes about the interesting things you have heard about or read during the previous week.
Enrichment
Our programs and events are designed to add richness and meaningful experiences to the lives of our members. Participating in a Free Thought Forum should metaphorically add color, flair, flavor, and spice to what can be a dull, gray, and uneventful work week. That is why our group activities should be fun and memorable, our discussions should be thoughtful, and our volunteer projects should be impactful. It is important to remember that our members could be doing almost anything else with their time! Therefore, we should make sure that our events are stimulating, interesting, and well worth their time.
It is important that our leaders are, themselves, engaging and actively participating during our events. They should never communicate boredom or apathy through their body language, by focusing on their cell phone, by playing a computer game, or by otherwise being a poor listener. Our leaders show by their posture, mood, focus, comments, and actions that they grateful for their members’ participation.
Empowerment
Members should expect to leave our meetings with added hope, confidence, and optimism about the future. We want to give them additional tools to accomplish their goals and assure them that they can handle the challenges to come. Much of this echoes the kind of tone that our leaders are expected to set within our meetings. Even if the conversation wanders and weaves, it should still head in the general direction of optimism. As a leader, remember to add a positive and future-focused spin to what would otherwise be bleak or dower ruminations. A good guideline is to invite your members to think about the future rather than ruminate over the past.
Another thing you can do is to give sincere words of encouragement. Let your members know that you believe in them, that every human being has remarkable untapped potential, and that they are capable of far more than they know. An important part of creating a “supportive” community means being willing to give that small “extra push” your members may need to excel!
Lead by Example
When our members and guests want to see how our programs may benefit them and their families in the long term, they look to our leaders!
As leaders of the Free Thought Forum, it is our responsibility to represent our organization well, not only as freethinkers, but also as model members. We lead by example! This means that we don’t ask anything of our members that we are not already willing to do ourselves. We volunteer at our group’s events, we send about $20 of donations every month, we share helpful feedback with the Executive Board, and we strive to live by the values promoted by the Free Thought Forum.
“...We don’t ask anything of our members that we are not already willing to do ourselves.”
Our shared identity, as a community, comes from our shared values. Therefore, our leaders should also strive to increase their self-discipline, develop their skills and talents, be model citizens, parent responsibly, educate themselves on science and philosophy, and more. While the beliefs, politics, and philosophies of our leaders and members may differ, these values help to unify and rally us behind this important cause! ■
Great Ideas from Stoicism
Mar 28, 2020
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 37
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to Episode 37 of the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
How can we deal with the terrible injustices of life? How can we carry on when we are asked to do the impossible? Does your happiness depend more on your circumstances or your attitude? The ancient Stoics, including Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus had some powerful answers to these questions that have survived since ancient Greece and Rome. Today, I'm accompanied by my friend Sam Wagner for a six-part conversation about this fascinating philosophy and what freethinkers like you can learn from it.
This program is brought to you by your Local Free Thought Forum. We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society. Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate in these open and civil discussions every week. To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, or to join in this week’s Online Group Meetings, please visit FreeThoughtForum.org.
Part 1 – The Study of Stoicism
NICK:
“No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” – Epictetus
Zeno of Citium, like many of us, searched for direction in his life. As a young man, he visited his local oracle who said that “he should take on the complexion of the dead.” He would later interpret this advice to mean that he needed to study the wisdom of long-dead philosophers. Although Zeno was a wealthy merchant, he lived a modest life. After surviving a violent shipwreck, he dedicated even more of his time to studying the words of his favorite philosophers such as Socrates and Plato. After his death, his teachings were joined by those of great Stoic writers such as Seneca (the Younger), Epictetus (a former slave), and Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Through several generations, Stoicism went on to influence Christianity and inspire great thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Spinoza, Nelson Mandela, and Viktor Frankl.
Marcus Aurelius once said, “Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”
Today I’m joined by Sam Wagner, an Assistant Group Leader for the Free Thought Forum, a well-read student of philosophy, and an educator working now at Utah Valley University. To start with, Sam, I would like to ask, what drew you to study Stoicism in the first place, and why do you think that it is an important thing for people to study these days?
SAM:
Thanks, Nick! Just as a disclaimer, right at the beginning, I’m not a credentialed expert. My background is in the sciences. I began my interest in Stoicism shortly after my faith transition during a time in my life when I was doing a lot of soul-searching. I was hoping to find a philosophy or world-view that could guide my life. I first came across Stoicism from a podcast by the philosopher Massimo Pigliucci. The podcast was “Rationally Speaking.” As far as why we should study it, I think it is very appropriate for the present moment. Right now, we are in the midst of the coronavirus [pandemic]. Most of us are staying inside so that we can prevent its spread. Stoicism is a philosophy that’s extremely practical. It’s one that can help us deal with challenges as they come up.
It is really counter-intuitive in a lot of ways. A lot of times when we deal with challenges, we just react emotionally. Stoicism, instead, asks us to take a step back to understand the situation rationally and use our rational understanding of the situation to respond in a way that corresponds with our highest ideals; something that corresponds to the Stoics’ four cardinal virtues.
In history, for example, Victor Frankl (who was mentioned) and Jane Stockdale (who was a prisoner of war), this philosophy helped individuals like them deal with really awful circumstances. Even though it is a philosophy that has helped prisoners of war and holocaust victims, it is also a philosophy that can help us with more typical issues that come up (such as challenges we have at work, or challenges that come up in relationships).
Over the last few years, I’ve read up on it. It’s a topic that I love talking about and I’m happy to be here today to discuss it!
NICK:
I’d like to know a little more about these famous Stoic philosophers. An interesting quote comes from Seneca, the teacher of Nero who said, “What need is there to weep over the parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.” What can you tell us about the context of this quote and of Seneca himself?
SAM:
One way that the Stoics handle challenges is that they deal with them before they come up. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s not about reacting to things when they occur. In any life, no matter whose life it is, you’re going to meet challenges. You’re going to have tragedies. You’re going to have difficulties that come up. In Stoic philosophy, instead of waiting until they occur, you prepare yourself emotionally (and even physically) before you have to face them.
So the context of the quote occurred when Seneca was sentenced to death by Nero for being in a plot to assassinate him, although a lot of people think that he was entirely innocent. He was Nero’s teacher, but Nero didn’t really follow his teachings super well. Seneca was sentenced to death. He knew he was going to die and his family, his wife and kids, were in tears! That’s the context of the quote, “What need is there to weep over the parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears?” In Stoic philosophy, there are a couple of ideas that might help us contextualize this quote. What Seneca may have been saying is that, to his wife and children, “You knew that there would be tragedies your entire life. This is something you’ve been preparing for.” There is also looking at the bigger context of things, and recognizing that things that occur are part of a greater whole. So one analogy that’s often given is if you get mud on your boot, you know, it’s not great for the foot, but the foot’s fulfilling an important purpose for the whole.
If you think back to the example of Socrates, he was, of course, a role model for a lot of these Stoics. He was sentenced to death much like Seneca for a reason he shouldn’t have been. He was forced to drink hemlock. Even though he was given opportunities to escape, he turned the opportunities down. Well, in dying while standing by his principals, Socrates set an example for many future philosophers to come. Recognizing that, Seneca acted as though his execution was going to be part of a greater whole. That could have also been something that could be considered a source of comfort.
About Seneca himself… Seneca is, compared to the Stoic Writers… The three that we really have complete writings that we turn to are Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca. Seneca is probably the easiest person to read. He deals with everyday issues that come up. His writing is just very simple. Markus Aurelius kind of rambles and Epictetus is, for the most part, easy to read, but he gets into some deep philosophy too. If you’re looking for some light reading and some really easy to digest good advice, Seneca is the person to turn to.
Part 2 - Before Correcting Others, Improve Yourself
NICK:
What does it mean to live a good life? Several philosophical schools in ancient Greece attempted to answer this question, such as the Epicureans. They taught that the ideal life was filled with pleasures and the avoidance of pain and fear. The Stoics, on the other hand, believed that the good life could be realized if one lived virtuously. Epictetus taught, “The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.”
Sam, what would you say are the major differences between Stoicism and other schools of thought?
SAM:
Well, Stoicism emerged shortly after Socrates, at the same time as many other schools of thought. One that is, of course, really famous is Aristotle’s. Aristotle is the student of Plato, so kind of the intellectual grandson [to Socrates]. Aristotle had the idea of the “Golden Mean.” There are things in life like health and money. Aristotle’s idea is that you don’t want to go to extremes. You need to have enough, but you don’t have to have this over-abundance.
There’s another school of thought that was radically different from Aristotle’s. This school of thought was that of the Cynics. The Cynics believed that, to live a good life, all you had to do was to live virtuously. And things like money and wealth didn’t matter at all. It was actually even more extreme than that. The Cynics believed that you should purposefully avoid the things that most people go after, that money is a distraction, and that you shouldn’t be part of the rat race like everyone else. The most famous Cynic was Diogenes and he took this to an extreme. He actually lived in a barrel (or ceramic pot) just in the street and, in a lot of ways, he was an extremist. He would just mock bystanders as they would pass and pedestrians. In fact, he made fun of Aristotle. There is a story, (I’m don’t know if it’s a true story or if it’s anecdotal) that Aristotle had this idea that man is an animal on two legs without feathers. So Diogenes actually plucked a chicken and said, “This is Aristotle’s man!” and just let it loose.
Stoicism is, of course, different from Aristotle’s view and the view of the Cynics. In the Stoic view, instead of having to just reject money or health or the pursuit of the things that people typically go after, you can take them if they come to you. You just can’t let them get in the way of being a good person. So I think that Stoicism really distinguishes itself if you happen to end up in circumstances where you can’t get things like money and health, where the good things of life are deprived of you, Stoicism says, “Hey you can still be a good person. There is still a way to live a good life.”
NICK:
So would you say that the Cynics were the hipsters of their day?
SAM:
Yeah, they were often homeless, on the streets. Yeah they were, definitely.
NICK:
With virtuous living made paramount, followers focused on their own character development before attempting to correct others. “If thy brother wrongs thee,” Epictetus taught, “remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.”
“Living virtuously” is something within the reach of every human being. It means personally and completely adopting ethical characteristics such as Temperance, Courage, Wisdom, and Harmony. We develop character as we live virtuously, accept responsibility, and close the gap between what we are doing and what we’re capable of doing. This quest to realize one’s greatest potential was considered by the Stoics to be the only true good and life’s most important purpose.
According to Seneca, “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
As far as I understand it, Sam, virtue, character, and life’s purpose for the Stoics were all intertwined. What else can you share with us about this idea of “living virtuously?”
SAM:
Yeah, I think when we hear the word, “virtue,” based on our backgrounds, or in modern times, we view it differently than people in ancient Greece and Rome would have seen it. A lot of times, when we think of “living virtuously,” we think in terms of “moral purity” or “chastity.” But for people in ancient times, it was a lot more than that. Living virtuously had to do with living ethically.
There’s actually a quote that I’d like to share from Markus Aurelius. It says, “Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.” A lot of people think that Stoicism is just really about not having feelings, not having emotions, that it’s a completely dispassionate philosophy. That’s not really accurate at all. Stoicism is a very social philosophy. There are emotions such as the desire to be good that are really at the core of Stoicism. Instead of not having emotions, true Stoicism is truly all about letting reason direct your actions. Part of letting reason direct your actions is trying to do what the Stoics refer to as, “living in accord with nature.” There are different ideas as far as what it means to live in accord with nature, but my interpretation of it is that it has to do with living rationally, understanding the world as it is, understanding your own nature, and then trying to find a harmony between those two things.
I think that one way to think of it is if you imagine that you’re on your deathbed and you’re thinking back on how your life has gone and you’re going through things that you regret and things that you’re happy about. My guess is that things like wealth, money, and reputation, are going to be less important than the things that have to do with living virtuously like being kind with other people, helping people with their issues, and forming social connections. The things that, when you’re on your deathbed, you’ll really value are the types of things that you’ll get when you exemplify the four cardinal virtues, Temperance, Courage, Wisdom, and Harmony.
Part 3 – Let Your Hardships Refine You, Not Define You
NICK:
“We suffer not from the events in our lives, but from our judgment about them.” - Epictetus
When life’s challenges arise, it is common to think of oneself as the victim of a story, rather than its hero. We may believe that we are entitled to some level of happiness or comfort, but this is an idea completely rejected by the Stoics!
We should focus on the things we can control (such as our reactions, judgments, and personal improvement), rather than worry about things outside our control (such as other people, our upbringing, or the weather). Marcus Aurelius wrote, “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love” and “You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
We can’t always control what goes on around us, but we can control our mindset. Someone with a stoic mindset, for example, may reframe and re-contextualize their negative experiences as opportunities to calmly respond with dignity and heroism. According to Epictetus, “The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”
Now, Sam, some people may think that the Stoics are saying that “everything happens for our benefit” or that “everything happens for a reason,” but that really isn’t the point here is it?
SAM:
There are many Stoics who have this idea of “providence,” which is very similar in a lot of ways to the religious idea that comes up a lot. But, you also find that they’re really humble. For example, Marcus Aurelius is really open to the idea that everything is just atoms bumping into each other (which is an Epicurean idea). In order to be a Stoic, you don’t have to subscribe to the idea that the world is what it should be. I think what you can do instead is recognize that there are things outside your control. Things are just going to be the way they are. If you direct your energy to just regretting that the world isn’t what it should be, then you are going to waste a lot of your effort. Learning to accept the world, as it is, and learning to accept the fact that there are things that you can’t change – I think that’s wisdom that you can take from Stoicism without having to believe that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
Part 4 – Money is Just a Means to an End
NICK:
“For the wise man regards wealth as a slave, the fool as a master.” - Seneca
Living virtuously is life’s most important purpose, and the pursuits of wealth, health, fame, or pleasure are irrelevant! According to Stoicism, our common preferences for these comforts and pleasures are not necessarily good or bad, but are “preferred indifferents.” They are things that we may prefer but are not relevant or necessary for living a virtuous life or developing our ethical character. If we have the opportunity, we can accept them, but our happiness should not depend on these unreliable luxuries.
Now Sam, this approach may seem strange to us in the United States, but this idea of “preferred indifferents” is a major part of a Stoic’s life, isn’t it?
SAM:
Yes it is. In fact, it’s really what distinguished Stoicism from a lot of the other philosophies that were around at the same time, especially Cynicism. With the preferred indifferents, actually, one easy way to remember a lot of them, is that they have synonyms that start with “p.” For example, we could talk about profit, pleasure, or preference (for reputation). Power is another one that starts with a “p.” These are things that, in the Western World, we’re just really conditioned to seek after. We want to get more and more money. But when you try to get more money or more power or more pleasure or more luxuries of any kind, what can happen is that your appetite grows as you satisfy things more and more. It’s a lot like addiction. You’re cravings go up!
This addiction, this craving, can be an incredible source of discomfort. There are celebrities that we could look at, you could probably name a few, who seem to have everything. They have money, they have fame, they have everything that you think would be necessary to have a good life, yet they struggle with depression and sadness. Stoicism does something very counterintuitive. Instead of seeking after money and pleasure, you treat it like you’re at a banquet. As previously mentioned, preferred indifferents are things that we prefer to have. You know, everyone likes to have an additional amount of money, but they are different because they are irrelevant to being a good person, so they’re irrelevant to the type of thing that you, on your deathbed, would be happy to have had. So the idea is, treat things in life like you’re at a banquet. If something comes and passes by you, you could put it on your plate, but you can’t do anything unethical in order for you to get it. And if something passes you by, completely, don’t reach out for it or try to get it back. Just let it pass on!
Part 5 – Don’t Fight the Natural Flow of the Universe
NICK:
In our modern society, our culture values the hero who can triumph against all odds, the self-made man, and the underdog who can change the world. Americans generally don’t like to be told what we can’t do. In contrast, the Stoics believed that the universe has been set in a kind of determined-motion. Rather than being like a salmon swimming upstream, a better life comes from “going with the flow” so-to-speak. It is our job to recognize that things just happen, and accept them as they are.
Sam, to some of our listeners, this sounds a lot like the Stoics didn’t believe in free will. Was that the case? And what can you tell us about Stoic Physics?
SAM:
In discussions about philosophy, there is a lot of confusion because “free will” can be used in two different ways. One way that free will is used is in this idea of acting without having to depend at all on previous events that have happened. You know, being able to have done otherwise. Stoics wouldn’t have believed in that type of free will. However, there is another definition of free will. This definition of free will has to do with being able to act independently or being able to make deliberate choices. This type of free will (that many compatibilists, which are philosophers who believe in free will and in determinism like Daniel Dennett), I think, is completely consistent with Stoicism.
This is actually one really common misunderstanding. A lot of people think that Stoicism is a passive philosophy, that it’s just about enduring everything that happens. But if you actually look at Stoic writings, they’re constantly encouraging their readers to exemplify virtue and to do good things in their lives. So Stoicism actually isn’t a passive philosophy at all.
As far as Stoic physics. Stoic physics is incredibly interesting. Stoics believed that the universe began in a great cosmic fire and that, from there, arose a kind of a web of cause and effect that everything came from. There are two parts of the universe in Stoic thought. One part of the universe is passive. The Stoics were materialists, they believed that everything was made of matter. They also believed that this matter was acted upon by this rational active element in the universe. Additionally, the Stoics believed that we have this active rational element in ourselves. It’s what we use to live according to nature.
Part 6 – Keep a Calm Mind
NICK:
“We are too much accustomed to attribute to a single cause that which is the product of several, and the majority of our controversies come from that.” - Marcus Aurelius
A Stoic belief that I especially appreciate is one that sounds surprisingly scientific. It relates to one’s relationship with the “facts of nature.” If your ideas conflict with how nature operates, then that can understandably cause all kinds of emotional, logical, and societal problems.
Epictetus said, “Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.”
According to the Stoics, negative emotions come from misunderstandings and should be controlled and corrected. We should not let negative, impulsive emotions control us. We should instead use our reason to cultivate positive emotions such as gratitude and love. Start by aligning your thinking with the nature of reality! An accurate understanding of the world gives rise to joy and the desire to live well and to do good.
The term, “Keep a Calm Mind” encapsulates so many Stoic teachings, Sam! What are a few other important ideas that I’ve missed?
SAM:
Yeah, I think that was really good, just there.
As far as keeping a clam mind, that’s something that we don’t just do in the moment. As I mentioned earlier, it’s something for which we prepare for our entire lives. In order to do this, the Stoics had a number of exercises that they would do. For example, one Stoic exercise is that when you wake up in the morning, you think about which of the four classical cardinal virtues you may be called upon to exercise during that day. You anticipate which challenges may arise and how you can use the different virtues to meet them in a noble way.
Here is another Stoic exercise that they would often do. They would imagine bad things happening to them. So, for example, if you’re worried about losing your job, you might imagine actually losing your job and go on to imagine how you would change your life in order to meet that challenge. Another Stoic exercise, that I think is really good, expands your circle of concern. You start just by imagining yourself, then you might imagine your family, and those who you see on a day-to-day basis. From there, you can imagine everybody in your community. Eventually, you could get to the point where you’re imagining the entire human family! I think you could extend it even further and imagine all conscious animals.
I haven’t practiced those exercises on a regular basis. One that I’ve missed, though, is actually making yourself deal with hardship. You know, it’s actually similar to what we did last week with the Temperance Festival, where you gave up coffee and I gave up online chess for a week. Giving up a luxury that you enjoy and like, just to increase your will power and to learn to live without it, is a Stoic practice that they would follow.
Another one; let’s say you enjoy lying in bed. Yeah, I think Marcus Aurelius wrote something about how man wasn’t made to lie in sheets. If you really enjoy that, an exercise that you could do to get yourself used to challenges would be to go camping and sleep on the hard ground. Doing so would make it so you would have greater resolve just in case you were put in a situation where you were forced to do that. On top of that, by giving up sleeping on a mattress in a bed for a day, you learn to have a greater appreciation for times when you are able to have the good things.
NICK:
Out of all the things we talked about, what do you think is the #1 takeaway for modern people? What main principle out of stoicism should we be sure to emulate?
SAM:
When we decide to make choices, we should focus on what we really want to accomplish. I think that, for most people, long and careful reflection will reveal that exemplifying a good character is much more important than gaining money, reputation, and fame. Putting “living virtuously” as a priority is really what’s essential to Stoicism. After that, just recognize that there are things about the world that we can’t change.
NICK:
Would you say that the Vulcans in Star Trek follow stoicism?
SAM:
That’s a great question. Yeah, Stoicism is similar but different. Stoicism has some positive emotions. It’s not wrong, you know, to have feelings. You just can’t let the feelings control you. The rational part of yourself needs to be in control. Your feelings are a part of your nature, but they are subordinate to your reason. Actually, in Stoicism, you have this division between good emotions and bad emotions. Joy, for example, is a good emotion. Caution is another good emotion. Fear is a bad emotion and craving is another bad emotion. I think that Stoics, they’re ideal is to not let these impulsive emotions gain control. Never give in to anger. Never give in to wrath. Stoics definitely feel emotions, especially the desire to be good in certain situations.
NICK:
What criticisms do you have for Stoicism, or, how can it be improved?
SAM:
Stoicism is a rational philosophy. None of the Stoic philosophers thought that their words needed to be taken dogmatically. I even have some quotes where they recognize that future improvements would be made, especially in the domain of physics, and even in other domains. One thing that might be a little bit too strong in Stoicism is this idea that things simply are or aren’t in our control. A lot of times, things just happen in life. There can be situations that arise and we don’t know whether they’re in our control or not. It’s not necessarily something we know ahead of time. Instead of things being in or out of our control, it being a sharp distinction, it really exists along a continuum. One improvement that can be made to stoicism is recognizing that, somehow or another, we have to find a way to deal with these ambiguities, things that may or may not be in our control.
One thing that I really like about Stoicism is that, even if there’re parts of it that I don’t fully subscribe to, or believe in, Stoicism is a very easy philosophy to steel-man. I feel like the Stoics were really asking the right questions! So even when they make a statement that appears to be too strong, there’s often a way to improve it. For example, we have this idea that you should only wish for things to be the way that they are. That’s something that comes up from Epictetus, the idea that you shouldn’t wish that things outside your control were different. So one example might be if you have a family member that lives on the opposite side of the country. You don’t really have direct influence on their day-to-day life. It might be out of your control whether something good or bad happens to them, but that’s something that you’d still deeply care about. I don’t think that to be a good Stoic you have to give up that care for the family member who’s living far enough away that their life is not within your control. I think one way that you can steel-man that idea is to direct your efforts to things that will make the world a better place.
NICK:
Sam, you are not just scholar, you are also a gentleman. Thank you for being on the podcast here today, and we look forward to having you on here again!
SAM:
I appreciate that! I think that’s good, thanks for having me on! If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective.
A Special Shout-Out goes to Sam Wagner, Penny Davis, Dale Thurber Ph.D., and Brooke Freeman! Your monthly support makes this all possible. To check out our awesome donor rewards starting at one dollar per month, please visit freethoughtforum.org/donate.
All FTF Meetings will be Held Online for the Foreseeable Future
Mar 17, 2020
TLDR: Due to the growing threat of COVID-19, We are moving all our meetings online. You are invited to join us every Saturday morning, Sunday morning, and/or Sunday evening on our Discord Server. Please spread the word so that no one has to go through this without a friendly community! https://www.freethoughtforum.org/blog/moving-online #QuarantineLife #community #stayhomechallenge #coronavirus #friends
To the Members of the Free Thought Forum and to everyone similarly affected by the isolating measures made necessary by the COVID-19 Pandemic,
Effective March 16th, 2020, all Free Thought Forum meetings will be moved online for the foreseeable future. Also, all additional in-person recreational activities and volunteer projects will be canceled until further notice. This announcement is in response to the rising threat of the coronavirus, the recommended measures from the WHO and the CDC, the unfortunate closure of The Clever Bean in Draper, and the guidelines set forth by our nation’s President and other government officials to avoid social gatherings of 10 people or more.
Many of us, our community members, friends, and family, will soon be dealing with the psychological and emotional effects of social-distancing, isolation, and living under a quarantine. In many ways, the inclusive, supportive, and freethinking community that the Free Thought Forum has to offer will be needed more now than ever. Therefore, we encourage everyone reached by this announcement to invite others to participate in our upcoming online events:
Saturday Mornings (10-12 MDT)
Sunday Mornings (10-12 MDT)
Sunday Evenings (6:30-8:30 MDT)
Everyone is invited to participate (no matter their political leanings, religious beliefs, age, gender, race, or education level). As we spread the word about who we are and what we do, we each give those we care about a positive way to satisfy that ever-present need for social interaction and friendship.
We will continue to operate as normally as possible. Our programs and services will still be made available to the public, and our weekly, monthly, and quarterly events will continue to take place, albeit now 100% online. We will shift to performing internet-based community service, and temporarily convert our Springville and Draper groups to online-only groups.
Our original Online Group will continue to meet on our Discord Server (https://discord.gg/2W4KCMC) on Sunday evenings at 6:30 PM MDT. In addition to those digital meetings, we will also hold meetings every Saturday at 10 AM (MDT) and every Sunday at 10 AM (MDT). With these three options for the public, we will hopefully be able to serve many who are quarantined at home, who can continue to work, those currently receiving medical treatment, and more.
We will continue to use the free services made available by the Discord app. Our Discord Server will serve as our primary online meeting location. If you haven’t yet downloaded that app to your phone and computer, please do so before this weekend’s events. If our Discord Server goes down, our back-up plan is to assemble on our newly-created WhatsApp chat group (https://chat.whatsapp.com/Dm8oQHYHlIICtggGdN6AJ8). To ensure that our community can remain strong and connected through this difficult time, we also encourage our members to subscribe to our newsletter and our other social media accounts as listed on our website (https://www.freethoughtforum.org/social-media).
If you haven’t yet already, please give our most recent podcast episode on the COVID-19 pandemic a listen (https://www.freethoughtforum.org/blog/how-bad-is-the-covid-19-pandemic) and share it with others. It contains important facts and guidance on what we can each do to slow the spread of this virus and help scientists find a cure.
Additional information will be made available to you through our podcast and our newsletter as it becomes available. Thank you, everyone, for your flexibility and resilience during this economic and public health crisis. The Free Thought Forum will be here for you, granting you a place where you are free to speak your mind, every week. Please treat your local grocery store workers with patience and kindness, follow the guidance of your medical professionals, and do what you can to bring out the best in those around you.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to Episode 36 of the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Wow! I can’t get this episode out fast enough! Things are changing crazy fast out there, but I’m sure I have a few things to share here that will still be useful long after this pandemic has run its course. For those listening further into the future, our Folding@Home Team code is 236268. If you don’t yet know what I’m talking about, stay tuned!
The Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 has now become a global pandemic that is hitting the United States particularly hard. While we can criticize the government or stockpile toilet paper all day, that isn’t really doing much about the pandemic itself. In this episode, I will give you a quick recap on how bad the coronavirus is, why it is going to get worse, and what average citizens like you and I can do to slow its spread and even help scientists discover a cure by volunteering some of our computers’ processing power to disease research.
This program is brought to you by your Local Free Thought Forum. We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society. Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate in these open and civil discussions every week. To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, or to join in this week’s Online Group Meeting, please visit: FreeThoughtForum.org
At this point, you may be sick of hearing about the coronavirus. Covid-19 has been a major news story for months that has, itself, become viral. The everyday dramatic closures and rising numbers are like rocket fuel for the 24-hour news cycle. It has flooded our social media feeds along an exponential curve and is dominating our public conversation. But, as usual, the good information about what it is and what to do has been mixed with some pseudoscience.
As far as I can tell, here is the bottom line: Broadly speaking, the more seriously we take this pandemic, the better off we’ll be. If we all take important measures, this exponential rise in cases may slow and plateau earlier than expected. However, the less seriously we take it, the worse off we’ll be, and the more it will continue to spread despite the warnings of the scientific community. The US, thus far, has taken the latter option, so we are all off to a rough start.
I will do what I can in this podcast to give you some good and accurate information along with something positive to do while you self-quarantine. Many of us are not content to just wait things out, and I am glad to say that we do have a way that we can actually help further the scientific research needed to find cures, not only for the family of coronaviruses, but also for cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Influenza, and so on. I’ll be happy to walk you through all that at the end of this episode, so if you can make it to a computer or laptop before then, you’ll be able to follow along! This episode has five parts:
1. How Bad is it? 2. Our Government’s Response 3. How Much Worse Will It Get? 4. How to Slow it Down 5. How to Help Find a Cure
If you have any corrections or updated information that can add to the conversation, please add your comments to this episode. I don’t have to tell you that things are getting crazy out there, and it is almost impossible for anyone to stay 100% up to date. Yet, after talking to a few of my family members, friends, and forum members, I have come to realize that some important ideas seem to be getting ignored in the storm of information on the news and social media. So, let’s give them some time!
Part 1 – How bad is it?
If you have been to your local grocery store recently, you may have been met with something resembling a scene from the Walking Dead. Even in my small town of Springville, Utah, many of our local stores have empty shelves and entire aisles that have been stripped bare. The panic on the faces of everyday people is haunting, to say the least. But if you haven’t yet had a chance to stockpile, you’ll be alright. I’ll get into that more in Part 4. For now, it is time to take a sober look at the pandemic itself.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a betacoronavirus. The name comes from the word “corona,” or “crown,” because of its shape. It most likely came about when a bat passed it to a pangolin (an adorable endangered animal, much like a scaled anteater or armadillo) who then passed it to a human at a large outdoor seafood and live animal wet market in Wuhan, China. (This is just the most recent in a long list of terrible viruses out of China, but that is a discussion for a different day.) The disease caused by this virus is called COVID-19. No human immune system prior to this had been able to create a resistance to this disease. That is what makes it, and other such novel pathogens that make the jump from animals to humans, so dangerous. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease (first discovered in 2019). Symptoms tend to be unusually mild and include a runny nose, sore throat, cough, and fever. Those who are elderly or otherwise at risk may also experience more severe signs of infection such as the development of pneumonia or breathing difficulties. At this point, the death rate of young people infected is somewhere between 3.4% and 0.01%, but this percentage climbs to 5%, 15%, and even higher with age.
One of the most dangerous things about COVID-19 is that it can infect a person without that person showing any signs or symptoms for 2-14 days. This is a particularly big problem because most of the people spreading it don’t even know they have it! In other words, you can spend your time around what appears to be perfectly healthy people for weeks and you may all still test positive. On January 20th, Washington State saw the first cases in the US. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the rapid spreading of this disease an outbreak on January 30th. On March 11th, 2020, it was finally characterized by WHO as a global pandemic.
As of March 13th, 1,629 cases have been reported in the United States, and 41 Americans have died. However, this information comes only from those who have been tested for the virus. No one can say how many more people have COVID-19 that haven’t yet been tested.
Some air travel to other countries has been stopped, and universities, high schools, elementary schools, government programs, churches, political campaign rallies, amusement parks, concerts, Hollywood productions, and sporting events all over the country have been shut down to help slow its spread. Right now, even the members of the Executive Board of the Free Thought Forum are debating about whether or not we will move our in-person meetings to online meetings for the foreseeable future. All of these closures and interruptions to our day-to-day lives have had a real impact on our economy. The stock market has had its worse day since 1987 and has plummeted by over 27% (or 8,000 points).
Now, we may have a very low reported number of people in the United States catching this virus thus far, but according to experts, we are following just 10 days (or so) behind Italy’s same exponential curve, a country that is now on complete quarantine, much like parts of New Jersey, New York, and Seattle. This virus is especially harmful to the elderly, but also to those with other conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease, all conditions that are extremely common in the United States.
Part 2 – Our Government’s Response
Why is our country getting hit so hard when compared with some others such as South Korea, Australia, or Scotland? To answer that, I’ll need to include some of the current political conversations that have crossed my radar. I should note that this commentary is all based on my personal take on the situation. The opinions expressed in this video do not necessarily reflect those of the directors or members of the Free Thought Forum.
As a side note, I do realize that I keep saying “our government” and “our country.” Many of our listeners live outside of the United States and I want to give you all a shout-out because many of the things going on where I live are being echoed all around the world. This episode was originally written with a much more global snap-shot of this moment in time, but seeing as its length was getting out of hand, I had to pull back.
On March 12th, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, had this to say to the US House of Representatives, "The system is not really geared to what we need right now... The idea of anybody getting [tested] easily the way people in other countries are doing it, we're not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes. But we're not... It is a failing. Let's admit it."
Since the virus found its way inside our borders, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has only tested about 11,000 people, total. South Korea, on the other hand, has been testing about 10,000 people per day! Our extreme shortage of test kits is largely the result of our government’s choice to make our own, rather than use those provided by the WHO. But that isn’t the only place where our elected officials have dropped the ball in the eyes of their many constituents.
Much of the problem comes from how we failed to respond to this threat before and during its early stages, despite seeing how terribly it devastated China. By the way, Iran, Italy, and Spain are in the same boat as us when it comes to a failure to get ahead of this emergency. It is important to note, however, that in the US, a strange politically-fueled denial about the seriousness of the coronavirus has become apparent. Republican Matt Goetz, for example, famously wore a gas mask on March 4th to protest what he saw as the absurdity of voting for a bill in the house that would dedicate billions of dollars to combat the coronavirus. Just five days later, he and other representatives announced that they had tested positive and would be self-quarantining until further notice.
In 2018, the Trump administration cut 80% out of the CDC’s budget. Last month, the same administration’s new proposed budget would cut the CDC’s budget by another 16%. On February 26th, President Trump at a coronavirus press conference said that the current number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. was “going very substantially down, not up.” When it comes to the death rate of those affected, he also incorrectly asserted that “the flu is much higher.” On that same day, Trump’s economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, also spread misinformation by saying, “We have contained this,” and “[I]t’s pretty close to airtight.” Most damning, in my opinion, is who our president put in charge of this crisis: Vice President Mike Pence, a politician notorious for not even believing in evolution. I’ll say that again, Mike Pence, someone who does not believe in evolution, is now in charge of our country’s response to a newly evolved pathogen. Unfortunately, any official information that the CDC and similar government agencies would like to share with the public must first be approved by him.
I’ve now just heard that our president has declared a state of emergency and that workers can now expect some kind of reduced payroll tax. If we want our sick citizens to stay home, why would we give them incentives to get back to work to take advantage of a reduced payroll tax? Many of us watching this unfold can’t help but feel like this is all too little, too late.
I’m just scratching the surface of the U.S.’s failure to prepare for or respond to COVID-19, but I think the point is clear. Now I know that some of our listeners and members are Trump supporters and with a situation that changes so quickly, I suppose we can excuse some level of miscommunication between government officials. It is also accurate to say that our lack of infrastructure and systems in place to deal with this can also be blamed on previous administrations. But here is the deal, epidemiologists and experts all over the country, especially those at the CDC, saw this all coming weeks and months in advance. If you don’t believe me, look up their reports on the coronavirus from January and February. A common excuse is that the news has been exaggerating how serious this really is, so we and our lawmakers have not been sure who to trust or what to believe. In response, I say that we need only look at the real situation, happening now, in other countries. If this was all an over-hyped news story, how can we explain what’s going on in China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Iran, Italy, Spain, and beyond?
Experts are telling Americans that if they get sick, they must stay home. However, most of us don’t have any kind of paid sick leave. About 80% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck and cannot afford an unexpected $500 expense. If we stop working, we stop earning. Many of us cannot afford healthcare. Many of us cannot afford to stay home with kids whose schools have closed. As you can see, the seemingly simple problem of slowing a pandemic quickly becomes a major economic and political issue.
However, if you are a major bank you will not need to worry. Over 1.5 Trillian dollars’ worth of bailouts are making their way to Wall Street (an amount, by the way, that could cover an emergency Universal Basic Income of $1000 dollars a month to every American adult for four to five months).
On a happier note, this idea of a Universal Basic Income has already been taken seriously by other affected countries. Japan has begun giving workers about $80 a day to stay home with their kids, and Hong Kong and Australia are now developing similar plans.
Part 3 – How Much Worse Will It Get?
Our number of hospitals, beds, gowns, respirators, and even our number of doctors and nurses is nowhere near high enough to deal with this situation. According to most experts, our hospitals and clinics are going to get slammed far beyond capacity with very little anyone can do about it this late in the game. In Italy, we already have tragic cases where a shortage of medical supplies and staff has led to doctors having to choose which patients to treat and which patients to ignore for days.
Tom Frieden, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, said on March 9th that, “In just two months, the novel coronavirus spread from a cluster in Wuhan, China, to an impending global pandemic with cases in more than 60 countries. This is unprecedented. Never before has a new pathogen emerged and caused a global spread like this. And that’s scary. It’s new. It has the ability to cause enormous social and economic disruption.”
The average infected person will go on to spread the disease to 2.3 other people. At that exponential rate, it is easy to understand why the numbers of confirmed cases nearly double, in certain areas, every day. According to Health Officials, COVID-19 is going to be worse than the epidemics and pandemics of recent memory like SARS, Swine Flu, Bird Flu, and even Ebola. However, it won’t be as bad as the 1918 Influenza pandemic. It may be helpful to compare it to a bad flu season. The seasonal flu can lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. (By the way, this is why getting a different flu shot every year is such a wise thing to do.) Influenza is a big deal. The Coronavirus is about twice as infectious and 10-50 times as deadly. Some early estimates stated that it will be about ten-times more severe than our worst flu seasons.
At this stage, it is hard to say how long we will continue to infect one another. Depending on several different factors, the number of cases may start to slow sometime within the next 2-24 months. That’s quite the range, one that has a lot to do with what I brought up earlier about how many precautions we set in place now to flatten the curve over time. Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard epidemiologist, has predicted that 20-60% of the entire human population will most likely be infected, leading to a minimum of tens of millions of people completely wiped-out before this is over.
On March 9th, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, described this virus as “highly contagious” and said that “it's fair to say that as the trajectory of the outbreak continues, many people in the United States will at some point in time, either this year or next, be exposed to this virus, and there's a good chance many will become sick.” From how things went in China, we can guess that about 80% of COVID-19 cases in the US will be mild, while 15% to 20% of cases will lead to serious illness and death.
Part 4 – How to slow it down
Beyond relying on our governments to help us out of this mess, there are a few things we can each do to help slow down this pandemic. Again, if you have flu symptoms, stay home and avoid contact with other people. Take your temperature several times a day and write down your results, along with other notes about how you feel and when. Close your windows. If it is possible to have friends and family leave you groceries and other things at your door, that is a good way to get around having to go to the store yourself. Even as I say all this, I can almost sense the frustration coming from many of you listening. Most of my past jobs did not offer any paid sick leave, so I can understand. But this really is a life-and-death situation. Stay home if you are sick. Self-quarantine. You’re not the only one going through this, so I’m optimistic that special exceptions with landlords, employers, and others will soon become commonplace.
This virus is spread as we send tiny water droplets from our nose and mouth through the air that land on other people, food, or on frequently-touched surfaces. The coronavirus can survive in the air for several minutes, on surfaces for several days, and on our paper money for even longer. So try not to touch any surfaces when in public. Be sure to clean your phones, doorknobs, light switches, sink faucets, countertops, and other surfaces at home with disinfecting wipes or cleaning sprays. When you cough or sneeze, cover your face with the inside of your elbow or with tissues. If you think you may have the virus, call your doctor before heading to the hospital to be tested. Even if you have mild flu symptoms, don’t hesitate to tell everyone with whom you’ve come in contact within the last couple of weeks. This will help them know that they’ll need to be extra careful and do what they can to prevent the further spread of the virus. If your symptoms are severe, call 911.
If you are healthy, you can improve your immune system by getting plenty of sleep, drinking plenty of water, exercising at home, and by continuing to eat a diet rich with a mix of diverse nutrients. Wash your hands (with soap for 30 seconds) before and after you eat, before and after you touch your face, and especially before leaving your home and just after returning. Avoid handshakes, hugging, or gathering in crowds. Put as much distance as you can between yourself and other people. Remember that anyone, even children, can carry the virus without showing any symptoms.
I talked before about people cleaning out their local grocery stores. Your goal should be to stock up on 2-4 weeks’ worth of the supplies you need such as food, medicine, soap, birth-control, and pet food. If you haven’t done that yet, that’s fine, you can still return in a few days. Even with several people possibly dropping out of the workforce and even as the stock market drops, local businesses will still do their best to stay open as long as possible. Likewise, local governments will do all they can to keep so-called “essential businesses” open for as long as possible. Ideally, we will all stagger our visits to the store so that we don’t all go at once. If your store is crazy busy, fall back and try again in a few days. To avoid crowds, go shopping at odd times like at noon or very early in the morning. If we panic and try to run off with the entire toilet paper aisle, then we force other people to wait and make return trips after the store has had a chance to restock. It is best to exercise some restraint and only get what you need for 2-4 weeks at a time. If you can arrange to have one member of your family or household go on behalf of multiple people, that’s even better. Make a list of what’ you’ll need ahead of time so that you can make every trip to the store count.
The main takeaway here is that the spread of the coronavirus will slow down only when we dramatically cut down our interactions with other people and keep our hands and living spaces clean.
Part 5 – How to Help Find a Cure
One constructive thing you can do while self-quarantined at home is to donate some of your computer’s processing power to help with disease research. I’m talking about the “Folding At Home” project, a new online volunteer option that has recently been posted on our website. Folding@Home helps scientists discover treatments and cures for diseases like cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Influenza and many others! Based at Stanford and 10 other Universities around the world, FAH is a distributed computing project that simulates protein folding, computational drug design, and other types of molecular dynamics.
Your body uses your DNA to manufacture proteins that run your body, your immune system, and even your brain. They are some of the most fundamental biological units within us, and we each carry billions of trillions of them. Each protein molecule can fold in near-countless different ways according to the chemical properties of amino acids, its main parts. Most of the time, proteins fold in ways to produce a shape that causes them to function properly inside us. Some of the time, they fold in ways that negatively affect our health. Misfolding can happen for a number of reasons. For example, their shape can be altered by foreign agents such as drugs or pathogens. In other cases, the conditions in which they were formed may have been a little off.
If we understood all of the ways that every kind of protein in our bodies could fold or misfold, then we would be much closer to understanding many diseases and how to treat them. However, we have a major problem. No person or supercomputer could possibly process the tremendous amount of data to make those discoveries. So, to solve that problem, the Folding@Home project has engineered software that we can each download, for FREE, and run on our home computers. If hundreds of thousands of computers share in the workload of simulating the folding of genes, then we have a chance to dramatically advance this particular branch of scientific research.
Once the Folding@Home program is running on your computer, data will be received and sent by your computer automatically over your internet connection. All you need to do is keep your computer running. Even while your sleeping, your computer’s processing power is put to work to help find these much-needed cures.
If you would like to join thousands of people all over the world to help this project be a great success, and do something positive in our current coronavirus nightmare, then stick around as I wrap up this episode with the steps you’ll need to get going. (These steps have also been added to our Online Group’s page, so you can find them by visiting: www.freethoughtforum.org/online-group.) If you’re following along on your computer or laptop, feel free to pause this recording as needed to give yourself a chance to catch up.
1. Visit the Folding@Home website (https://foldingathome.org). 2. Download and install their client software on your computer or laptop. (This program is set to run in the background, so be sure to grant it “full access” if your computer’s security software asks you for certain permissions.) 3. Make sure that your internet connection is good and run the Folding@Home client. (If this doesn’t automatically open a new browser window, then you may want to start your browser first.) 4. Wait for your client to connect. This may take a few minutes. 5. When your Web Control screen appears, click on the “Change Identity link.” Enter in a new username for yourself and be sure to join the FREE THOUGHT FORUM team by entering our team number: 236268. (This helps us track the good work done by our volunteers over time. If you’d like, you can see our team’s current stats at https://stats.foldingathome.org/team/236268. To help make this number easier for you to find, I’ve added it to the first few seconds of this episode. Simply start it over and you’ll hear it again soon enough. We’d love to see our team grow, so don’t hesitate to share it with other people who may be interested.) 6. Click on the “Get a Passkey” link. 7. Enter your username again along with your personal email address. Click on the “Get Passkey” button. 8. Leave the Web Control browser window open and use a new window to check your email to retrieve your passkey. 9. Return to the Web Control browser window and paste in your new passkey, along with your username and our team number: 236268. 10. Adjust the settings as you like and let the program run on your computer long enough to complete 100% of at least one work unit.
Thank you for your service and for keeping a level head during this pandemic. If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective. A Special Shout-Out goes to Penny Davis, Dale Thurber Ph.D., and Brooke Freeman!
Your monthly support makes this all possible. To check out our awesome donor rewards starting at one dollar per month, please visit freethoughtforum.org/donate.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to Episode 35 of the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Volunteering in your community is a great way to meet awesome people, gain some perspective from those who may be less fortunate, make a positive difference, and even help to further the frontier of science. It looks great on your resume when you are between jobs and makes for some memorable dates, family activities, and forum events. However, not all volunteers help as much as they think! Are you contributing in a meaningful way? How can you ensure that you are serving where your skills are needed the most? How can you avoid burnout?
To answer all these questions and more, the Free Thought Forum has put together this “Elite Volunteer Training,” a set of seven guidelines that you can use in your community, workplace, teams, and anywhere else some common sense professionalism is needed.
This program is brought to you by your Local Free Thought Forum. We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate in these open and civil discussions every week.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, or to join in this week’s Online Group Meeting, please visit: FreeThoughtForum.org
Hello volunteers! Donating your time and skills enables you to actively improve your community, help those in need, and support a worthy cause. On a more personal note, volunteering may also help to improve one’s character, emotional health, professional skills, and work ethic.
I’ve been amazed by how much I’ve come across community service and volunteerism in my studies of effective treatments for things like depression and anxiety. I feel like I can’t emphasize enough the positive health effects of setting your day-to-day concerns aside and unselfishly dedicating some of your time to a higher cause. To me, volunteering is a lot like fasting. It allows us to take a break from worrying so much about ourselves.
When we think about why people volunteer, we may lean a bit cynical. After all, who is going to work hard unless they are fairly compensated? This is all just unpaid labor, right? This kind of approach to volunteerism seems backward to me. I am reminded of small communities such as the Amish who are famous for teaming together to build a barn or a home in just a few hours. I’ve had the opportunity to serve with volunteer emergency response teams, actively preparing for a flood or searching for missing people. I’ve also participated with unpaid actors, directors, dancers, lighting crews, sound technicians, set designers, and singers who pour weeks and months of intense free labor into a performance.
When we are passionate about something, and especially when we belong to a team of people doing something worthwhile, don’t we work just as hard, if not harder, then we do when working for money? I think that realization gets to the heart of why we volunteer. It is more than that rush of dopamine we feel when we are acting altruistically. It is more than an inexpensive treatment for our emotional health issues. It is a celebration of what matters most to us, such as our community, humanity, or art. In my opinion, it is a call back to our evolutionary roots. When our ancestors were all hunters and gatherers, they probably worked hard as teams every single day for the benefit of the common good. This full-time labor helped them survive and thrive, long before personal property or wages came to define our place in society.
Yet, even if our hearts are in the right place and even when we volunteer for all the right reasons, that doesn’t mean we are helping. What are the actual results of our participation? Are we, indeed, contributing in a helpful or meaningful way? If you spend time with other volunteers, you may have already noticed that some of us can be more trouble than we’re worth. Even here in Utah County, I’ve noticed an increasing number of nonprofits and civil services screening and interviewing their volunteers ahead of time. It is getting to the point where “don’t call us, we’ll call you” has become a standard response to those who wish to donate some of their time and skills where they’re needed.
That leads us to the main purpose of this episode, to list some dos and don’ts that will help you be a better volunteer, team member, or employee. When we first collected this advice from experienced volunteers, coordinators, and employers, we couldn’t help but notice a great deal of overlap with general professionalism and self-management skills.) So before jumping into your next volunteer project, the first week at a new job, or something similar, please take a moment to consider the following guidelines:
1. Call Ahead of Time
Schedule each volunteer project at least two weeks in advance. Be specific about how many fellow volunteers you’ll bring and how long you’ll be able to serve. On the day before the event, a member of your group should call again to reaffirm that you still plan on coming to help. For your safety, be sure to also let your family and friends know of your plans.
This may seem like over-communication, but calling ahead of time is a great way to establish a relationship of trust with whomever you are working. Your job, as an employee or volunteer, is to be predictable and dependable. If you are where you say you’ll be, when you say you’ll be there, then those who are in charge will have more reasons to believe that you can be trusted with the important tasks at hand. It is also important to note that volunteer coordinators and supervisors may have to rework their schedule and invest some prep work to accommodate you, so the least you can do is assure them that all those preparations won’t go to waste.
2. Come Ready to Work
On the day of the event, arrive about ten minutes early. Remember to dress right for the occasion. Do you need a coat, jeans, work boots, or gloves? Should you bring lunch, a shovel, or a flash drive? Come ready for any foreseeable task that you may be asked to perform. For your health and safety, it is usually a good idea to bring your fully-charged phone and a water bottle.
The organization you’re serving may have volunteer shirts or hats for you. If you are volunteering with the Free Thought Forum, be sure to also snap on our official volunteer badge that can be ordered through our online store. Whatever the case, boldly announcing that you are here to volunteer through what you’re wearing is a great way to guarantee that you will be put to good use rather than being lost in a crowd.
3. Help Precisely As Asked
A great volunteer shows that they are just as serious about volunteer work as they are about paid work. They never try to simply “look busy,” nor do they stand around with their hands in their pockets. Stay engaged and make every volunteered minute count. Depending on the activity, casually chatting with others or texting could be extremely unprofessional. Follow the directions you are given as exactly as possible and ask questions if you are unsure about what to do. This can also help prevent burnout over many different projects. Over-performing or under-performing often causes more harm than good! (For instance, if you are helping to lift more than you can safely carry, then you may become a liability risk.) Once you finish a task, report right-away to your volunteer coordinator or supervisor for your next task. Stick to the plan, take breaks as directed, and leave only at the pre-determined time.
4. Adopt Your Volunteer Coordinator’s Perspective
How quickly should you perform your duties? How committed should you be to the task at hand? When in doubt, do your best to match the earnestness, commitment, seriousness, and vision of your volunteer coordinator or supervisor. When we try to put ourselves in the shoes of those in charge, we may gain a better perspective on how the whole operation could run more smoothly.
5. Be Positive and Friendly
Don’t forget to smile! Sometimes, a volunteer coordinator or supervisor is in charge of dozens of people, so a little patience, politeness, and friendliness can go a long way. Things like general negativity and gossip can spread like wildfire and quickly undermine the morale of the entire operation. Make sure constructive criticism goes where it will do the most good for everyone involved. A good goal is to develop a reputation as someone with an uplifting effect on others.
6. Report on what you Do Well
In the competitive scramble for promotions and recognition, it is up to you to be your own cheerleader. In the workplace, it is unreasonable to hope that someone else will notice you excelling at one task or another. Whatever your reservations about what feels like bragging or boasting, reporting your best accomplishments can lead to you being placed where you can do the most good in the future. When we look at the big picture, it is our responsibility to bring our skills and strengths to the attention of those in charge.
7. Ask for Additional Training and Feedback
You’ll know if you are a great volunteer if you are invited back to help again. Before you go, report on what you did well and ask about what you can do better. Your goal should always be to enthusiastically increase your skills and usefulness! If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective.
A Special Shout-Out goes to Penny Davis, Dale Thurber Ph.D., and Brooke Freeman!
Your monthly support makes this all possible. To check out our awesome donor rewards starting at one dollar per month, please visit freethoughtforum.org/donate.
Welcome to the second installment in our series exploring the Foundational Philosophy of the Free Thought Forum! Last time, we considered the need for a robust personal philosophy, the problems with many philosophical frameworks in existence, and the solutions proposed by this organization.
Today, we will explore the first major proposal of the Foundational Philosophy, an idea offered as a possible guiding principle to the freethinker, a suggested secular set of values inspired by modern science and the careful study of moral wisdom from around the world.
The idea is simple:
The Truth Matters Most.
But what do we mean by “The Truth,” and what can possibly take its place in the priorities of an individual or a society? Answers to these questions fill the world’s libraries. Today, we will try to answer them in one article.
A Suggested Epistemology
What is true and how can we know it?
At first glance, these may seem like absurd questions. Aren’t the answers obvious?! Certainly, we can all agree on what’s true and how we know it’s true, then move on.
But that is the problem. We don’t agree. This isn’t a criticism of the inability of philosophers to come to a consensus. Rather, it is a sign that the correct answers aren’t as obvious as they may seem. In fact, these questions have been on the minds of our ancestors for as long as we have been human.
Do ghosts exist? Can we actually practice magic? How can we know what the surface of Mars is like? What are the most unethical political movements in history? Why should we have laws? What does it mean to live a good life? These questions and others of their kind are connected to what we each consider “true,” what we consider “untrue,” and why. In philosophy, these questions all relate to one’s epistemology.
For freethinkers of all kinds, the Free Thought Forum would like to present the following epistemology, proposed by our foundational philosophy, and represented by our symbol: The Truth-Seeker’s Compass.
(Included herein is a diagram outlining the significance of each section of this icon.)
NOTE: As with everything else produced by the Free Thought Initiative, this presentation is posed as a proposition and not as a prescription. It does not represent any kind of consensus among the participants at our events. It is also subject to change and improvement over time, spurred mostly by the feedback of our readers and forum members. If you find rough-edges that need smoothing-over, please take note and let us know!
The Truth is a Distant Goal
In a way, the Truth is something that exists outside of us and beyond us. The facts of nature existed before there were humans to explore them. Likewise, a show of affection or violence had real predictable consequences long before any of our ancestors developed a set of communicable family rules.
The Truth isn’t something that someone invents, has, owns, or can sell. It doesn’t only belong to a special class or a privileged group. It is not the sole property of a political party, a Yogi, or a math tutor. Rather, the Truth is a kind of ultimate standard, a distant goal, and a shining prize that every thinking being may pursue.
With this perspective, the Truth is much like a mountain summit just beyond the reach of humanity (its intrepid climbers). We can each get closer to it, further from it, or view it from a different vantage point. We will never, however, get quite close enough to reach it. This is because the Truth is an abstract concept like one of Plato’s “perfect forms.” It represents the correct and moral answers to every possible question and the complete sum of possible knowledge and wisdom.
The analogy of the mountain works in many ways. There is only one Truth, like a lone peak. However, there are infinitely more “wrong answers” that grow in number as we fall further away from the truth, much like the rocky mountain base.
Like so many philosophical concepts, this epistemology isn’t about the destination; it is about the journey. When we are on the path towards the Truth, we gain knowledge and wisdom, become better people, and realize more of our greatest individual potential. Moving in any other direction causes us to stagnate or regress.
In our journey up the mountain, we may find evidence-based facts, personal character growth, and other signs revealing we are going in the right direction. Sometimes we’ll find that we were heading the wrong way and must course-correct.
The higher we climb, the more difficult the climb becomes. Likewise, as we grow wiser, the more aware we are of our own ignorance. Striving to reach the truth takes a concerted effort, but it can be done with a joy-filled heart and a sincere love for the journey itself. Nevertheless, when fellow climbers claim to have been to the top and back, we appropriately respond with skepticism. Anyone who tries to convince you that they know the absolute or ultimate truth is either mistaken or willfully attempting to mislead. The more we learn and experience in life, the less we take people seriously when they claim to have all the answers. We have found first-hand that the climb is just not that easy.
That isn’t to say that we can’t hire a guide, or scale the mountain in a group. But I hope that we can agree that we are all on this journey together, each with only a vague idea of what lies at the top.
Even with a “guide,” we each still operate under a unique personal philosophy. Metaphorically, we are all on slightly different parts of the mountain while using different (but similar) equipment. However, that doesn’t mean we all want to go different directions. Some beliefs and behaviors bring us closer to the mountain’s peak, while others may lead us to slip and fall. Wherever we land, it is up to us to dust ourselves off, look up at our goal, and begin again.
Reality
What is your relationship with reality? Do you try to only believe in things that are real?
In part, The Truth is the most accurate conceptualization of the facts of reality. It is the “literal truth,” or the set of metaphysics that objectively match what is observed as closely as possible. It is the correct answer to “what is the nature of the universe?” This is all conveniently summarized by the term “Reality.”
This is probably what most people mean when they use the word “true,” something interchangeable with the words “factual,” “accurate,” “correct,” or “real.” As a result, this is probably the section of this presentation that is the most straight-forward.
If some unfortunate cataclysm swept all evidence for humanity from existence, the facts of reality will still remain, waiting to be rediscovered. A Hydrogen atom will still only have one proton and behave like Hydrogen. Gravity will still work on massive objects. E will still equal MC2. The so-called laws of Mother Nature would be left undisturbed.
On the other side of that coin, there are still facts of nature waiting to be discovered. Sometimes they will be easy to understand, and in other cases, they may be incomprehensible. As Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, “The Universe is under no obligation to make sense...”
One who follows the truth cares deeply about what is real. They act with respect to reality and are uncomfortable believing in or perpetuating something that is likely false. They only believe in something when they have good reasons to do so.
A poor writer will try to write a research paper before doing any research. Likewise, someone who does not respect reality will find themselves believing almost anything, offering a shrug of the shoulders when asked why.
A firm grip on reality leads to the development of an aversion to ignorant or dishonest positions, no matter their source. Fact becomes valued far more than opinion or conjecture.
In a way, reality is the simplest part of the Truth. Its raw facts can be learned by a mildly-sophisticated program. Reality is experienced and manipulated by even the simplest of creatures. It is what we see when we look carefully at nature as it is.
Science: The Key to Reality
What is humanity’s greatest tool for finding facts about the nature of reality? Thus far, it has been the methods of Modern Science!
In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Elijah openly challenged the prophets of Baal to an ultimate contest. The first god, when called upon, to send down fire from heaven would be deemed the one true god. In a similar way, we can call upon the proponents of humanity’s finest fact-finding methods to participate in the following ongoing competition: Who can produce a system with greater predictive power, reliability, accuracy, and explanative utility than modern science?
Our modern society is a testament to the fact-finding power of science. How different would our lives be without our electronics, the internet itself, our ability to feed billions, the unrivaled healing power of modern medicine, reliable flying machines, space exploration, knowledge of the universe smaller than the eye can see, or the comforts of innovations such as air conditioning or microwave ovens?
Science has increased the quality of our lives as well as the length of our average lifespan, not to mention our knowledge of the universe within and without. Science has taken us physically past the moon and conceptually to the edge of space and time itself.
By “the methods of science,” we mean the most generally accepted philosophy of science with its accompanying emphasis on careful observation, experiment, falsifiability, demonstrability, empiricism, coherentism, logic, deductive and inductive reasoning, rationalism, peer review, mathematical modeling, and so forth.
The challenge has been extended since the days of Galileo, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, and Einstein. What other disciplines can boast a greater breadth or depth of discovery? What other system has directly lead to greater technological innovation?
Fire from the heavens, in the form of radio waves, has been called down from the satellites science has launched. What our ancestors may have called divine light now spills into our smartphones, giving us news from around the world, and beyond.
Let the modern-day equivalents of the priests of Baal gather with their special cards, creams, crystals, oils, magic words, and vague promises. If a better key to reality exists, let it present and prove itself!
Morality
What is your relationship with morality? Do you find yourself wondering if something is right? Do you do what you know you should?
While the facts may inform our decisions, they don’t seem to tell us which decisions to make. Science may help you sleep better, but it can’t tell you why you should get out of bed. This all relates to a point of contention among philosophers, an argument made famous by David Hume: You can't get an OUGHT from an IS.
I had an experience as a Kindergarten teacher that made this problem clear to me. I had a few students who saw no problem with telling the occasional lie. To help point out how dishonesty can lead to unintended (and sometimes terrible) consequences, I told the story of the Boy who Cried Wolf.
The dramatic ending didn’t sit well with the kindergarteners, leading many to quiet and careful contemplation. Afterward, one of my students asked, “Is the story about the boy and the wolf true?”
What a question! The sentiment of it certainly is, the lesson or moral of it was “true,” or at least helpful in sharing the importance of the development of a certain virtue. But was it “literally true?” Was it a fact of history?
“What do you think?” was my answer. I wish my response was something more like, “It’s morally true.”
This demonstrates the need to recognize that truth has multiple parts. One’s epistemology should not only allow for the facts of reality. It must also allow for moral wisdom.
We can look at scientific fact like a sophisticated autopilot program. It can tell an airline pilot raw statistics about his altitude, fuel levels, and so forth. It may even give recommendations and warnings. But the pilot must make a decision about how to use that data. That calls to his sense of priorities, meaning, purpose, ethics, and other aspects of morality.
From whence does our morality come? Evolution has certainly gifted us with a proclivity for certain prosocial behaviors. Our societies have also influenced what we consider good choices or bad choices. We have already taken scientific facts into consideration, so we now turn to the world’s cultures, mythologies, and philosophies.
In part, The Truth is the best possible universally-applicable set of ethics informed by the greatest moral wisdom from across history, philosophy, mythology, and beyond. It is the “metaphorical truth.” It would be known by philosophers as the most sound value theory. It is the best answer to “How should one behave?” This is all summarized in our use of the term “Morality.”
In ages long past, something that was “true” only when it met some high standard or served a particular purpose. A “true axe” was sharp and cut well. An archer’s aim was “true” if their arrow reliably hit their intended target. Put another way, a true thing was fit for a particular purpose.
In the famous debates between Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson, Morality (as a distinct part of the Truth) tends to align with Peterson’s definition of “truth.” It the highest possible set of meta-ethics imaginable. It is what calls us to be better.
Like the archaic usage, our model of the Truth is also a means to an end. But to what end? For our purposes, following the Truth can be thought of as performing the set of actions and choices that leads an individual to become the greatest possible version of themselves. It is the path to self-actualization, the course one should take in order to realize one’s greatest possible potential.
Each action we take comes with a set of consequences. When we desire an ideal set of consequences, we can then move forward to align our behaviors with those that (as far as we can tell) set us up for those outcomes. We need not reinvent the wheel. The lessons of history, the wisdom of philosophy, and even mythological teachings may all be explored to help us better understand what set of consequences can be reasonably linked with which behaviors.
On the larger scales of families, communities, society, humanity, and beyond, the Truth points us all toward an ideal future in which the greatest possible number of individuals are each able to self-actualize. It calls for the implementation of the political systems (whatever they may be) that actually result in the maximization of every individual’s ability to reach their greatest possible potential.
With that vision of a future worth forging, a moral system can thus be conceivably created and promoted, flowing coherently from this epistemology.
What we call “good” or “moral” can then be thought of as those behaviors which reasonably lead to the realization both of the individual’s greatest possible potential as well as the development of the society in which the greatest number may also realize their greatest potential.
Put another way, something is only “good” if it is good for the individual and good for society. If a situation emerges in which society is helped at the expense of the individual’s potential, it is not moral. If an individual is benefited at the expense of society, the behavior in question is not moral. It is only when both are benefited that our model is satisfied.
It should also be noted that there is no room in this value theory for what Thomas Paine calls “pious fraud,” “white lies,” or the mindset that “the ends justify the means.” Morality isn’t helped by compromising one’s morality. That is like going further into debt to pay off some debt, or demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!
Proper morality makes you a better person and improves society (incrementally as well as on the largest of scales). When we try to force the improvement of society through short-cuts or immoral half-measures, it often leads to untoward results. For example, the truth of small indiscretions tends to get out, undermining the progress made and poisoning the well for any future related discussion.
Philosophical Discussion: The Key to Morality
Just as there is no “free energy” in physics and no “free lunch” in economics, there is also no “free moral wisdom.” Moral wisdom is hard-earned. We must be willing to be exposed to ideas that can shock or annoy us. We must be brutally honest with ourselves and examine the consequences of our actions. We must have both a critical and a grateful eye to the ethical systems of the past. We must be willing to look into the belief systems we reject in the search for moral gems. We must follow uncomfortable ideas to their logical conclusions. And among other things, we must be open to the fact that we may be wrong about previously held moral beliefs.
The greatest tool for developing a superior morality is the free, open, and unfettered study and discussion of philosophy. When there are no banned books, “sacred cows,” off-limits topics, blasphemy laws, punishment for “wrong think,” and no restriction to one’s freedom of speech, then pure philosophy may take place.
From a consequentialist perspective, our society has evolved in many positive ways with respect to our shared ethics. However, major leaps in the accepted ethics within a society tend to ruffle feathers. The wisdom of Socrates led to him being tried for impiety and corruption. The teachings of Jesus led to the cross. Spinoza was forever banished from his friends and family. Thomas Jefferson was technically guilty of treason and among those who recognized the need to legally protect one’s natural right to free speech (and freethought). We don’t really need this protection to talk about apple pie. We need this protection to say things that need to be said.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell
We are in a position to develop the best possible morality only when we can freely explore any and all ideas from all angles, out in the open, and voiced among others who share our devotion to do so.
Look at the works of history’s greatest philosophers. More often than not, they did not pull their punches. They were openly critical of the status quo in one regard or another. They called conventional wisdom unwise and common morality immoral. Many of them were only revered for their contributions years after their death.
This key to developing a superior morality, however, is not as efficient as science is at finding the facts of reality. Philosophical discussion is sloppy and does not reliably yield ideas that benefit the individual or the world. Yes, we may want to improve the world, but we can just as easily undo the progress made by previous generations! Any study of history can show how new and exciting ideas can lead to tragic results. If only those ideas were bantered between more freethinking philosophers in the form of thought-experiments and debates before they were spread to the public or implemented by political regimes! Maybe that would have reduced the suffering they caused or prevented their rise in popularity all together.
I argue, however, that our best moral systems did emerge from open philosophical discussion. I picture the American founding fathers arguing and debating for hours on end. I picture Socrates and Plato asking questions in their academy. Even in the evolution of religion, more kind and humane faiths have arguably formed from the ashes of public debates among those of the peasantry and priestly classes alike.
Moral wisdom must be examined, cross-examined, run through thought experiments, and battered by “what-if” scenarios. Trying them out in one’s life is near the end of that process. Open discussion is at the heart of the process.
If you have ideas (new or inspired by others) on how to live a good life or improve our society, your next step is to then create an environment in which people may freely talk about the idea. Talk about it openly with your friends, family, and forum members. Send it to people wiser than you. Send it to those with whom you generally disagree. Only after surviving this crucible of brutal honesty and diverse perspectives can you say that it is, indeed, a moral idea.
All this is part of the reason our organization hosts public forums and why you are reading this right now!
If a higher source for morality than the imagination of philosophers can be found, we should obviously use it instead. We must always be open to the possibility of the existence of a better system. However, all past claims to non-man-made moral systems have been examined, dissected, and immiserated by lowly humans using only their brains, their speech, and the printing press, leading us to an arguably more free and just society. If a source of morality is truly divine or super-human, how then could our feeble attempts to question its origin or moral status produce better systems? How could we hope to improve on them, let alone succeed?
Alas, we are stuck with a messy process of arguments, debates, conversations, and discussions among fellow humans. Let any moral idea swim in this atmosphere of friendly contention, and let us follow the best of them.
Mystery
What is your relationship with the unknown? Is it characterized mostly by fear, curiosity, or something else? Are you comfortable with admitting to your own ignorance?
When the best answer to a question is “I don’t know,” that question belongs in this section of the Truth-Seeker’s Compass.
If our model of “the Truth” was accurately divided into three representative fractions, more than 99.9% of it would represent the unknown. Of course, this is just a guess. We know some of what we don’t know, but we don’t know how much of what we don’t know that is.
The vast majority of the universe and the extent of humanity's moral potential remains shrouded in mystery. The nature of consciousness, dark energy, or the origin of life has, thus far, evaded the reach of science. Our philosophers have similarly been pestered by seemingly unanswerable paradoxes and problems in addition to our inability to imagine belief systems, moral frameworks, or political institutions functionally better than the flawed ones currently in vogue.
According to Egyptian mythology, the ocean of chaos was here long before mankind, representing endless cosmic mystery and danger. The chaos of the unknown surrounded our kingdoms and could only be held at bay by the gods.
The Dutch dealt with the threat of chaos differently. While many believe that it was God who created the earth, it was certainly the Dutch who created the Netherlands. Over its history, the Netherlands had to deal with constant flooding from an ocean all-too-eager to encroach on the coastal nation. What was there to be done? The Dutch built dikes and created polders “reclaiming” land from the sea. As it turns out, the best defense really is a good offense!
As we deal with the unknown in our own lives, we may be wise to follow the lead of the Dutch. We can learn to live with the ocean of mystery, but we can also strive to push it back, a little at a time, and reap the uncovered rewards. Like a hero venturing into the underworld, each step beyond what is known is a heroic adventure filled both with danger and the promise of treasure.
We should bravely face the unknown, head-on. We must allow ourselves to be curious, to ask questions, and to stretch our boundaries. However, a proper relationship with the unknown also calls for some humility. We must learn to coexist, mostly because we have no choice. The unknown will always be there, like an aloof pet cat, to occasionally haunt us, invite us, play with us, and ignore us.
We should always be comfortable to admit our ignorance on a particular topic. We should never claim to know something that we don’t actually know. Likewise, we should never pretend that the massive (factual or moral) unknowns of life don’t really exist.
Freethought: The Key to Mystery
What is the best way to approach the unknown?
We don’t know. At least, we don’t know for certain.
It is unclear which tools you’ll need in order to solve a problem you can’t yet describe. Therefore, the best tool is, arguably, the one that incorporates both the extremes of generous open-mindedness and rigid skepticism. I submit that these can both be found in the principle of “freethought.”
An example of the unknown can be found in the discussion of extraterrestrial life. Does it exist? Is this life hostile or friendly? Is it intellectually superior to us? Perhaps the only proper way to handle this interaction with the unknown is to be ready for all of these possibilities while also holding out judgment until some of the unknown becomes known. This also applies to the unknown of the possibility of a global utopia and other moral hypotheticals.
Freethought is unencumbered curiosity and open-mindedness paired with rationality and reasonable skepticism. It is the willingness to entertain any idea whilst avoiding belief in the ideas that encumber, ensnare, enslave, or otherwise limit our ability to think freely in the future.
Put another way, a freethinker is a person who is not picky about the number or variety, of the ideas they entertain. However, a freethinker is extremely picky about the ideas they chose to believe. This is mostly because a freethinker appreciates how much our beliefs alter the way we think, possibly leading us to foolishness or immoral behavior. This is much like how you are comfortable looking up many things online, but careful about what you download.
Can certain ideas really have the power to enslave or restrict our minds? Absolutely! Every belief you hold affects how you experience the world. Therefore, you should be careful with what you believe.
Belief is like the course we set while sailing on a boat. At first, we have a tremendous amount of freedom to traverse the waves and explore in all directions. Yet if we set a bad course, our ability to freely sail in the future may be dramatically diminished. A bad course can cause us to run aground, collide with another boat, or drift into rough waters. Likewise, when a freethinker espouses certain beliefs or belief systems, they may find it near impossible to break free enough to think freely again.
Freethinking is not only an amusing academic exercise. It is also a form of self-defense. When you are invited, convinced, or compelled not to think about something, that something is now in a position to take your money, time, devotion, health, and more. Spiritual systems that require belief without proof or evidence, false conspiracies, misleading advertising campaigns, arguments that use logical fallacies, and the panic-inducing messages from a scammer all benefit when we turn-off our critical thinking. They prefer that we use less brainpower, thus our ability to think clearly about other things is compromised.
The real goal of the freethinker is not to humor the ideas of a friend, to sound erudite among college students, or justify abnormal behavior. Freethought is simply a tool that takes us to the edge of the known and allows us to peer over the edge without harming ourselves or others. It is part of a life-long enterprise to “reclaim” just a little more territory from the ocean of chaos, one day at a time.
Our Highest Priority
Does the Truth matter most to you? How much do you think about believing in what is real, doing what is right, and living with the unknown on a day-to-day basis?
When we look into a mirror, what is it we wish to see?
When we look into a mirror, we intend to see our reflection, as it is, whatever it may be. When we see our actual reflection, we gain information and the power to alter or correct what we don’t like. If our hair is disheveled, we can now do something about it!
But this isn’t the relationship everyone has with the truth. Rather than wanting to see what is, what really is, they want to see what they want to see. This is like looking into the mirror and finding a flattering painting of yourself on the glass. What a lovely reality! While this can help us feel good, this approach carries the obvious flaw of blinding us to the truth as well as to the things that may be improved.
Why should following the Truth be our highest priority? Because this approach enlightens us on how we can improve. This approach empowers us and enables us to make those improvements, both on a personal and on a societal level. Finally, this approach enriches us with the philosophical and scientific concepts far more beautiful, amazing, and awe-inspiring than any home-brewed imaginings or self-delusion. Indeed, truth is stranger than fiction.
It used to be common for a TV-show character to say, “Give it to me straight doc!” This is because there used to be a time when a doctor was not necessarily obligated to tell a patient how bad it really is. Rather than tell the Truth, a doctor could tell something like a comforting half-truth. But that isn’t what we really want, is it?
We may not be an anxious patient awaiting a doctor, but we are all participating in this experience we call life. According to Gautama Buddha, life itself will always carry with it at least some suffering. Who can argue with that? Like the first Buddha, we need only step outside to see the worst kind of pain, void of meaning, purpose, or usefulness. Something should be done about this. Surely we can all agree that that something will not come from believing in falsehoods or doing something immoral. We need real solutions to real problems, and a deliberate focus on the Truth is how we get them.
The first proposal of the Foundational Philosophy is that “The Truth Matters Most.” This implies that we may have other priorities beyond following what’s true, right?
Yes. A number of things may easily dethrone the Truth at the top of one’s priorities. For some, life is all about the accumulation of wealth, property, and/or luxury. Facts that don’t support this goal are tossed aside, even if those facts would benefit society. Ethics that would stop them from making just a little more money are ignored. What about popularity or prestige? What about a rigid dogmatic belief system or cult that entices its members to sacrifice their own lives, if necessary? Many of us will stop at nothing to preserve a certain religious or political narrative. When facts conflict with how things “should be” we call them false, cover our ears, and shout that we aren’t listening. When our highest allegiance is to our ideological tribe, the pressures to conform overpower our conscience. When our internal moral compass is suppressed, we become capable of every definition of evil.
We sometimes prefer to prioritize comfort over confronting the Truth. What feels good takes precedence over what is good. The version of reality that fits the easiest into our worldview becomes the only version we care about. It is much like a sound sleeper, basking in the warmth of their bed, only to hear the wail of a smoke detector. Its batteries may be low. It may be malfunctioning. It may be detecting smoke or carbon monoxide. But don’t let that bother you, stay where you are comfortable, right? The Truth doesn’t go away because it is not as comfortable as untruth. Like the obnoxious smoke detector, things tend to get worse when the Truth is ignored.
Similarly, true justice cannot be served unless the (factual and moral) truth of the matter is of the highest priority. What IS and what SHOULD BE is what we need to really care about! Not what conforms to our ideologies, placates our fears or panders to our baser desires.
When almost anything else takes the place of The Truth (as described here) at the top of people’s priorities, it is easy to speculate the foolishness and unethical behaviors that logically follow.
We can’t fix problems that we don’t know exist. A patient isn’t able to make informed decisions if they are kept in the dark about their diagnosis. We want to see what is on the other side of the mirror. We want to find out and believe what is real as well as discuss and do what is right.
The Truth may be confusing, counter-intuitive, challenging, frightening, and unsettling. However, when we follow it, unflinchingly, we gain knowledge, and knowledge is power. We gain the power to solve real problems that demand real answers. We gain the power to become better people.
The Truth is more important than making exorbitant amounts of money, climbing social ladders, or winning popularity contests. The Truth matters more than what we want to be real or moral. It should be prioritized over what is easier, simpler, or otherwise more alluring.
Like a ship making a course for home, pointing in the right direction is everything. In any situation, asking “What is real?” and “What is right?” is the right question to ask, even when we don’t have the answers. It is the best direction to face. It is the noblest pursuit.
Even when we can’t hold claim to the truth itself, it still leads us to the best possible answers, so far. These answers are worth treasuring and there is nothing wrong with relying on them for as long as we can until something better (more accurate, more moral) comes along.
Someone who is trying to follow the Truth does not try to outsmart it, get around it, or hide it. Once they know what is real, what is right, and what still remains unknown, they act accordingly, incorporating the new information into how they view and interact with the world.
Defending the Truth
Much of life consists of us “playing games” or following rules. We play the game of following traffic laws when we drive; we follow the game of having good manners at a dinner party; et cetera. These are examples of games we elect to play because the results of those games match a dedication to reality and morality. However, when we are compelled to play games that conflict with what is real or right, (to say that 2+2=5, to act as if we are in love when we are not, to champion a cause with which we don’t align, or to profess belief in something we don’t actually believe) we have the right and obligation to refuse to participate. We should avoid “pretending” against our will, or acting contrary to our personal epistemology.
At some point in your life, you may be the only person in the room who is willing to stand up for the Truth. You may be the only person in the room who really cares if something is actually correct or ethical. When you know what to say, and that you should say it, say it! A dedication to the truth can be seen when people speak up for it, unhindered by a fear of offense or retribution.
Someone dedicated to the truth also keeps as few secrets about themselves as possible. Living a life with integrity becomes paramount. They try to have their internal self closely match their outward expression as much as possible in order to avoid duplicity and internal conflict.
Of course, it goes without saying that one’s dedication to what’s true can be limited by the state. When we don’t have access to scientific facts, or when we are unable to speak publically about controversial ideas, we are hindered in our ability to learn, understand, believe in what’s real, reach our potential, or improve our society.
Therefore, the natural rights of a citizen to speak freely, publically assemble with others, believe what they want, and other such “first-amendment rights” should be preserved by the state. It falls upon all of us, then, if we are serious about believing and living according to what is real and what is right, to do what we can to ensure that such rights are respected and legally protected, wherever we may be.
An Ongoing Process
When some leave fundamentalist religions or cult-like political echo-chambers, their shattered worldview may leave them epistemologically homeless. Our goal is to provide such a sturdy secular base on which to build their own personal philosophy. We call this sturdy structure our “Foundational Philosophy.
By design, this philosophy is never truly complete. Even in its earliest stages of development, we want to open it to you, our readers and forum members, for your consideration.
What do you think of our suggested epistemology, the Truth-Seeker’s Compass, or our conceptualization of the Truth having three parts?
As stated previously, this philosophical proposal is offered as a suggestion. Undoubtedly, there are members in every Free Thought Forum who will take issue with its claims or arguments, which is alright. It is in the conversation that these kinds of things are improved. Your feedback, suggestions, criticisms, and comments are invited.
If you would like to assist in the ambitious mission of developing and improving our secular Fundamental Philosophy, please send a message through our feedback page: freethoughtforum.org/feedback
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
I am pleased to announce that the first internet-based Free Thought Forum has been created! It is now in operation, meeting 100% online each week, giving freethinkers from around the world the chance to participate. The best part is that all of you listening right now (and in the future) are invited to join us!
It is 100% free and you may even have a chance to chat with me and other members of our Executive Board at the next meeting! But how can our in-person meetings translate to a purely digital space? What additional challenges can be expected? And how can you get involved? In this quick episode, I will answer all that, and more!
This program is brought to you by the contributing members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions each week.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to support this program through monthly donations, please visit freethoughtforum.org. While you’re there, be sure to check out our online store – now with freethought t-shirts, mugs, and other smart-looking swag!
Our new Online Group represents an experiment. But, to be honest, so does everything about the Free Thought Initiative. Can we really have meetings where people can say whatever they need to say without fear of judgment or being thrown out? Can we really bring strangers from every belief and background together and have a meaningful, civil, and productive conversation without it spinning into chaos?
At the time of this recording, our organization has about eight months of practical experience hosting over 50 public discussions, two festivals, and dozens of volunteer projects. Our programs and procedures have been well-tested and we have been prodded to tweak and improve them a great deal, thanks to the feedback from our guests, members, and listeners like you. What started out as a bold social test has now grown into a force for good in our communities and we are ready, once again, to expand.
Before I jump into more information about our online meetings, I wanted to say that it has been a busy month, but our recent work has certainly paid off! Major improvements have been made to our organization, our website, and our content. (Further details of these improvements can be found in our monthly newsletter so feel free to sign up for it if you haven’t already.)
I should also add as a side-note that our regular upload schedule (of about one episode per week) will continue to be disrupted a bit as the executive board focuses more of our time and resources on filing for our Nonprofit Status and Tax-exemption. We are seeking expert advice and doing what we can to get it all right the first time. Actually, if you happen to have experience with this kind of paperwork, we would love to hear your suggestions. After all that is completed, we will go back to our regular upload schedule. As a show of our gratitude for your patience and flexibility, we have some really great episodes coming in the near future!
And now back to the exciting news at hand. If you would like to give our first Online Group a try, all of the information about its upcoming meetings can be found on its official webpage:
(I’ll be sure to add a link to it in the description below.) You may also find this page by visiting our website and by clicking on the “Groups and Events” link at the top. This will bring you to a list of all of our local groups in operation, including one that may be meeting near you! Select the “Online Group” option to access its page, complete with an events calendar and instructions on how to participate. At the time of this recording, we are hosting these events on our Discord server for a couple of hours on Sunday evenings. However, any of those details may change in the future so keep an eye on that official page. (Ideally, each Free Thought Forum has between five and fifteen regular freethinkers. If our online membership grows beyond that, then we may split the group into multiple groups. Whatever the case, it will be plainly stated on that page.)
Once you’ve made it to our meeting, be sure to listen to its voice channel. While some of you may want to participate with your microphone, others may prefer to simply listen along as they type in the group’s text-based chat room. The Online Group will function much like our in-person groups. First-time visitors will be asked to fill out a Welcome Form (now a link to a digital form) and also be sent a link to a digital version of our guest pamphlet, summarizing our organization’s mission, the meeting’s schedule, rules, and so forth. A PDF file of the week’s discussion primer is shared much like how a printed copy would be shared. We will keep our opening and closing statements, the mid-way break, and so forth.
Our Online Group will also host digital service projects! Members may be asked to download certain service apps, write and send encouraging messages, fill out surveys for a scientific study, donate some of their computer’s processing power to SETI or similar causes, and more!
Pretty soon we will release an episode about our Harmony Festival, one of our four new secular annual celebrations centered on each of the four cardinal virtues of classical philosophy. Will such festivals also be celebrated online? Absolutely! Our board members and group leaders are a creative bunch, eager to translate everything awesome about our organization into their cyber equivalents. That eagerness, actually, is something they’ve had for some time.
Even back in March of 2019 when our first experimental Free Thought Forum first assembled, our members have asked us to consider forming an online-only group that would meet weekly for open and civil discussions on digital platforms like Skype, Discord, or WhatsApp. I have to admit that I was, at first, hesitant to the idea. After all, we have had so many positive experiences talking face-to-face with whoever visited our meetings in Springville or Draper, Utah. All kinds of people came to meet others, share ideas, network, engage with multiple points-of-view, develop their critical thinking skills, learn, find friends, build a community, and more.
Our venues of coffee shops and public parks were ideal for open discussion. Seeing friendly people face-to-face helped to ease the concerns of our first-time-visitors and allowed them to really open-up with their ideas. In addition, bringing food, snacks, and other items to share also helped to break-the-ice. Our in-person community service options are also abundant and it is satisfying to see the impact you’ve been able to make with your own hands.
So far so good, but many of you remained persistent, and continued to ask about the possibility of meeting online. Over time, I became aware of the following five strong arguments to host digital meetings. Are there others I’ve missed? If so, be sure to add them with your comments!
1. FUNCTIONAL SIMILARITY
Almost everything done in a physical meeting can be done in a virtual one. Therefore, and from what we have tested thus far, it is reasonable to conclude that many of our practices and procedures in place for our physical meetings can be carried over. From a cynical perspective, I could say that online anonymity may bring out the worst in people. It is certainly true that many of us may behave worse as an avatar then we would as a person in public. Should our online discussions be subject to the assault of the overtly disruptive, we already have procedures in place to re-route the situation. Many of these procedures stem from our (recently updated) Five Rules of Civil Discourse:
Be respectful of each other’s time by making your comments reasonably concise and by refraining from interruption.
Focus your comments on ideas, not people.
Recognize the authority of the appointed moderator.
Allow for amicable disagreement and a diversity of opinions. (Your aim should not be to debate, convince, convert, or “win” the discussion.)
Be prepared to explain the reasoning behind your ideas, if asked.
By participating at our events, all involved agree to abide by those rules. If you are not able or willing to follow these rules, then you are welcome to share your ideas outside of our meetings such as in the comment sections of our social media pages. Our moderators are trained in de-escalation techniques and in other relevant skills. Should all our precautions and procedures fail, in the worst-case scenario, it is far easier to remove a would-be saboteur from a digital space than it is to remove them from a coffee shop or park. But that is the nuclear option. We would much rather give someone a chance to rant. Even if what they say is extremely unpopular or offensive, they are still welcome to participate as long as they are following our five rules. But if that rant repeatedly impedes on another guest’s ability to say what they need to say, then that is a problem. The good news is that we already have a solution to it. But here is the deal, while we prepare for the worst, we still hope for the best. Our in-person discussions have been the epitome of civility. Once guests understand that we really want to hear what they have to say, it tends to bring out the best in them. I have found that it is only when we try to control the narrative that the rebellious side of people comes out.
This is all to say that I have no doubt that many of the challenges we have overcome in person can likewise be overcome in cyberspace. As our organization continually improves, we have every reason to believe that our meetings will continue to be the ideal places for these types of discussions, no matter how or where they are held.
2. ANONYMITY
Just as anonymity can be seen as an obstacle, it is also important to consider that people tend to feel more comfortable sharing their true thoughts and opinions online. When we say that we want open and unfettered discussions, we really mean it. Anonymity can also be a force for great good, especially when we find ourselves unable to say what we need to say in our day-to-day lives. For example, if you happen to be someone who belongs to a community that discourages or criminalizes freethinking, free speech, and free assembly, then participating in our online group under the protection of anonymity may be your best option.
Those who visit our in-person meetings are seen in public with others who may have dramatically different political, religious, and philosophical opinions. For some, such a bold action can be socially detrimental as one’s family life is disrupted, employment is threatened, or one’s standing with a church is called into question. If this describes you, I hope you are able to take a break from that situation in a healthy way. Furthermore, I hope that our online meetings can give you that place where you can really say what is on your mind.
3. ACCESSIBILITY
While many of us are physically able to stand, walk, drive, and get ourselves to a coffee shop or park, some of us can’t. Some of us are hindered by psychological conditions and anxieties that restrict us to our homes. Those with dire health conditions or advanced age should also be considered. Our meetings are for everyone. Literally everyone who is able and willing to follow our Five Rules for Civil Discourse is invited. If online meetings allow more people to join, then hosting them is already a major part of our mission!
4. OVERCOMING DISTANCE
Most of you listening are nowhere near a physical Free Thought Forum. Our first two groups are in Utah, and even though we are growing quickly, it may take a lifetime before a local group holds its first meeting in your neighborhood. Of course, if you would like to accelerate that process, why not volunteer to become a Group Leader? Everything you need to start and run your group is on our website, and the board is happy to help you with each step along the way. With that said, we still want to bring our discussions on science, healthy living, and moral philosophy to as many people as possible. If you are miles away from where we meet, or if you are traveling, feel free to join us online!
5. CONVENIENCE
The fact that I can invite all of you listening through iTunes, YouTube, Bitchute, our Blog, and elsewhere, to meet on an app at a certain time where our voices and text can be instantly made available to one another is a marvel of modern science and technology. To put this in context, when I was young, I would connect cans to the end of a string to chat with my friends because our family members were using the house phones. I wrote physical notes to my crush in Jr. High because there was no time in the day when we could chat in person. I even folded those notes in awesome ways that made them lock into themselves – it was a ton of fun. I sent my first text as an adult, so you bet that participating in online meetings blows my mind! This technology is convenient, awesome, and provides a great platform that connects us. If some of you simply prefer online conversations to face-to-face interaction, I can’t blame you at all. You are welcome to join us too!
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective.
A Special Shout-Out goes to Dale Thurber Ph.D., Shayne Wissler, Lance Freeman, and Brooke!
Your monthly support makes this all possible. To check out our awesome donor rewards starting at one dollar per month, please visit: freethoughtforum.org/donate.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
We are, each of us, bombarded every day by the nonsensical claims of advertisers, alternative-medicine gurus, the news media, conspiracy theorists, cult leaders, politicians, and so on. What can we do to sense nonsense before it gets past our defenses? Can we improve our individual powers of nonsense detection? In this episode, we will go over a few things you can do to tune, sharpen, and develop your personal nonsense detection kit, a set of critical thinking skills that allow you to better recognize fraud, woo-woo, BS, baloney, and pseudoscience for what they all really are.
This program is brought to you by the contributing members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions each week.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to support this program through monthly donations, please visit freethoughtforum.org. While you’re there, be sure to check out our online store – now with freethought t-shirts, mugs, and other smart-looking swag!
Open-mindedness is an important virtue for a Freethinker. If you are not open to new ideas, then you may be trapped by your own false presuppositions or foolish beliefs. A close-minded person may be unable to see the flaws in their current philosophy or accept better answers as they come along.
On the other hand, skepticism is also an important virtue for a Freethinker. If we carry a predominately credulous perspective and are all-too-eager to believe everything we hear, then we make ourselves fools and easy prey to those who would take advantage of our gullibility. We would soon find ourselves holding tightly to flawed ideas that betray our ignorance, stupidity, or illogic to the world.
The real trick is finding the proper balance between open-mindedness and skepticism. This is an ongoing quest for the Freethinker, Skeptic, Rationalist, or Truth-Seeker. The good news is that you have tools that can aid you in this quest. A legendary hero may be given a magic sword or special armor. Likewise, your inventory will hopefully house a number of tools such as a stack of good books, an understanding of logical fallacies, solid scientific literacy, a group of friends with whom you can freely discuss any and all important issues, and what I like to call a fully-functioning Personal Nonsense Detector.
A nonsense detector can be compared to an EMF meter or metal detector. If it is working, a metal detector will alert you to when something metallic is nearby, even when it is out-of-sight. If it is not working, then it may fail to alert you or alert you randomly and waste your time.
Everyone has a so-called “Nonsense Detector.” It is that line we have. When a claim crosses that line, something like an alarm sounds in our minds and we respond with doubt and distrust. The idea begins to “smell fishy.” It is the skill that allows us to sense when someone is likely lying or spreading an ignorant position. It saves us from falling for a scam and stops us from believing in something nonsensical. However, just because we all have one, doesn’t mean that it is calibrated correctly. In other words, our personal sense of skepticism may be engaged at incorrect times, blocking our minds from important information that is factually accurate and consistent with reality.
Therefore, reality should be the goal. Reality should be our baseline, the reset-point to which all detectors should be configured. A well-functioning nonsense detector will cause someone to raise suspicion when something is not realistic. A poorly-functioning nonsense detector will cause you to be suspicious in error, much like when your body develops an intense allergy to things that are perfectly harmless. Perhaps the first sign that your detector is faulty is that you have to constantly make excuses (and engage in special pleading) for why your beliefs don’t match experienced reality. At that moment when you feel like you have to be dishonest, pause, and ask yourself why you feel compelled to stretch the truth, cover, or compensate for someone or something else.
The following five suggestions on how to develop and improve your personal nonsense detector represent some general principals in science and in formal logic. This list is also inspired by similar ones proposed by Carl Sagan, Michael Shermer, Penn Jillette, and others. These suggestions can also be thought of as five tests, challenges, or gateways passable by only the best of ideas!
1. CONSIDER HOW BADLY YOU WANT THE IDEA TO BE TRUE
There is a critical natural flaw in human thinking. No matter what we are trying to learn, we always have at least a little hope that the truth will end up being exactly what we want it to be. We really want the doctor to tell us that we are perfectly healthy. We really want people to see us as successful, clever, or beautiful. We really want our plans to work, and we really want the last gallon in our car to last for a few more miles.
There is nothing wrong, per se, with strong desire. Sometimes it is a good thing like when we need the motivation to push ourselves or to take on challenges. However, when we are trying to find out what is real, our wants act like a wrench in the machine. It is like giving ourselves blinders or shooting ourselves in the foot. This is one way to understand the distracting and disruptive effects of “bias.”
Bias is a real problem. When we deeply want, hope for, or need one idea to be right, above all others, we are showing a form of cognitive bias. This can lead us to show favoritism to one idea, even in the face of evidence against it. Our deep wants and desires change the way we look at things and change the way we try to find answers. It corrupts our experiments and blurs our ability to see reality as it really is.
So here is a reality check: The act of wanting something to be true itself doesn’t affect how true the thing actually is. Just because you may really want the girl in your English class to have a crush on you, for example, that doesn’t mean that she does! Reality doesn’t care about what we want. You can wish something as hard as you like, but that does not make it true.
This kind of desire (to be right or to have one’s beliefs confirmed) represents a kind of “default factory setting,” in the human mind. It is something that we have to learn to put aside. We need to be comfortable with learning and believing in reality, as it is, warts and all. Now, this may lead to the acceptance of facts that are not pleasant, impressive, or intuitive, but that is ok. We can’t always get the kind of answers we like and we should be totally fine with that. A good scientist will accept the results of a properly structured experiment, even if the results are unpleasant, disappointing, boring, frustrating, or counter-intuitive.
So the next time you find yourself desperately wanting something to be true, recognize that as a sign to tread carefully. When you hear someone pandering to your passions, prejudices, or desires, that should also send up a mental red flag. Scammers will try to flatter you and trick you into thinking that they are on your side. That pandering sounds something like this: “Would you like to quit your job, spend more time with your kids, and make a million dollars from home?” “Are you tired of spending so much money and time on this or that?” “Welcome enlightened one! For you are one of the few people smart enough to have found our brotherhood who knows the real truth about the conspiracy!” “What do they know about it anyway? Don’t listen to the so-called experts. You know, you were right all along!”
Rather than let ourselves be led by comfortable-sounding falsehoods, we should try to be open to all possibilities, even those we don’t necessarily like or want, especially when they don’t support our present views.
2. WHAT ARE THE BEST ARGUMENTS AGAINST IT?
If you are convinced that an idea doesn’t only have merit because of your personal desires, then it is time to see how well it measures up to the most rigorous scrutiny. Has anyone tried to disprove the idea? If so, what was their strongest argument? We shouldn’t just turn to the weak caricatures of the counter-argument. We need to give sincere consideration to the best case presented by the opposition. One way to do this is to go to the source of the counter-argument, rather than relying on a second-hand or third-hand version.
Now that you have looked at all sides of the debate, it can also be telling to consider how the original claimant responded to the refutation. Were all naysayers smeared and branded as heretics, or was their rebuttal considered seriously? Whatever the case, it is a good sign if your idea comes from a source that allows for things like peer review, disagreement, debate, and open discussion.
To get to the true nature of reality, we must often rely on more than just one mind. Ideas should be sent out to be tested in an intellectual gladiatorial arena, stripped of all external protections. It must be allowed to rise or fall based on its own merits. You can think of it this way: Answers to important questions are like players on two dodgeball teams. They all must be submitted to the most brutal game of testing, of arguments and counter-arguments. The last idea standing, the one that outlasts its rivals, is then declared the winner until a more capable challenger comes along.
We can’t just ignore what the “other side” says. We shouldn’t only surround ourselves with yes-men, lest we find ourselves in the same place as the emperor with no clothes. We must be able to entertain more than one hypothesis, let each one be challenged, and be willing to drop good ideas for better ideas.
3. DOES THE IDEA SHOW SIGNS OF LOGICAL FALLACIES?
A good idea will be coherent and internally consistent. If there are several steps to an argument, each step must be valid, work on its own, or “support its own weight.” But here is the problem. At first, all ideas may look like they meet these high standards. They all have a claim to fame. So, much like the judges in a competitive talent show, we can ask each contestant to show us what makes them so special.
The great majority of ideas out there claim to be more reasonable and logical than they really are. But you can develop the skills needed to accurately spot and dismiss the pretenders. With practice, it can be like catching those participants in a talent show who did not actually dedicate enough time and effort in preparation for their performance. They are elevated and popularized mostly by pretense. These pretenses that make ideas sound more palatable, harmless, rational, scientific, reasonable, or more logical than they actually are called, “logical fallacies.”
If you have been listening to this podcast for a while, then you already know that we have a few episodes completely dedicated to common logical fallacies, explored one-by-one. They are some of our most popular podcasts, so if you haven’t yet given them a listen, I’d highly recommend it!
4. OCCAM'S RAZOR
Here is a general rule in logic and philosophy: If two explanations seem equally valid, then the simpler one is usually correct. Look for the explanation that has the fewest steps and makes the fewest assumptions. It is not a perfect or fool-proof rule, but it is a very good test through which you should send any important idea. It is known as Occam’s Razor, named after a Franciscan friar who said something like, “more things should not be used than are necessary.”
The concept that, with all things being equal, the one of two explanations that uses fewer steps is preferred, makes sense to me. When we lie, for example, we tend to add unnecessary steps and complications to what would otherwise be a straight-forward retelling of plain reality. Fraudsters usually claim that their ideas are exceptions to the norm that deserve special treatment. Anyone can make a convoluted word salad to make any idea sound impressive, but all it takes is a critical look below the surface to see the, often simpler, truth.
Did a man in a black hat really jump through the window, steal the cookie, and run off laughing? Or did your four-year-old simply make up a story after they stole from the cookie jar? Are you really being contacted by a Nigerian Prince, or did a scammer just send you some spam?
Connected to this preference for simplicity, in my mind, is a preference for normality. We would do well to ask, “does this idea fit with how the world usually works?” While surprising and rare things do happen, they are surprising and rare for a reason. We can be all-too-willing to accept something that is out-of-the-ordinary. While we may be easy to convince, hopefully, we all know others who generally skeptical and are hard to convince. Therefore, especially for young people, it helps to wonder, “well, what would my parents think?” or “What might my teacher say, if they were here?” before believing, doing, or buying something suspicious.
When faced with something that is not normal, or seems unnecessarily overcomplicated, I think that an appropriate response is to start asking questions. Even if they are dumb questions, or “kill the mood” ask them anyway until you are satisfied. Ask as many questions as you want. When a scam artist or fraud is trying to pull a fast one on you, forcing everyone to slow down and address your questions is a great way to protect yourself. Before you agree to anything, especially if it strikes you as odd or complicated, you owe it to yourself to demand that it is properly explained. You owe it to yourself to only go along with what you can understand.
5. DOES THE IDEA FOLLOW THE RULES OF SCIENCE?
With all this talk about developing your nonsense detection skills, we haven’t yet tried to look at how these important concepts are utilized on a larger scale. How can a community, country, or humanity itself be protected from bad ideas? Well, Humanity does actually have a powerful nonsense detector called MODERN SCIENCE! This is science at its best! This is one of its most important jobs.
When we think of science, we may think it is just a list of strict academic rules that people in a lab must follow. But scientific thinking is something you can implement in everyday life. It is a process that filters-out nonsense and falsehoods, leaving only the best answers behind. We can use this process to make wiser choices about how we handle our money, get a more accurate picture of the nature of our interpersonal relationships, see political arguments and advertisements in a more clear light, live healthier, and more.
Here are some questions you can use to think more like a scientist: Can the idea be quantified, tested, and proven wrong by anyone? How reliable are its sources? Does it actually follow where the preponderance of evidence actually points? Is it the best answer we have so far with the most explanatory and predictive power?
The more of these kinds of tests an idea can survive, the more likely it is to be true.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective.
A Special Shout-Out goes to Shayne Wissler, Lance Freeman, and Brooke!
Your monthly support makes this all possible. To check out our awesome donor rewards starting at one dollar per month, please visit: freethoughtforum.org/donate.
Developing and promoting freethought is one of life’s most important endeavors as it is a vital key in the liberation of the mind from the confines of echo-chambers, intellectual bubbles, dogmatic belief, and other mental traps in which we may find ourselves. Yet once we find our freedom, what is the next step? What should be our next goal? Join us as we take our first steps in the development of sound answers to this and other important life questions!
Welcome to the first installment in our new series exploring the Foundational Philosophy of the Free Thought Forum! In this article, we will explore the need for a robust personal philosophy, the problems with many philosophical frameworks in existence, and the solutions proposed by this organization.
Beliefs and Bicycles
Every single person operates under some kind of philosophical framework, whether they can articulate it or not. Living life day-to-day requires that we have passable answers to the profound (as well as mundane) questions that naturally arise from human existence.
Just as a bike has practical use (it gets us places), a functioning personal philosophy also serves clear purposes. Your philosophy houses your fundamental beliefs, values, and worldview. It encapsulates your priorities, attitudes, and approaches to all subjects including politics, business, sports, art, religion, history, family life, drug use, education, and more. Every decision you make, especially the big ones, is based on your philosophy.
Our personal philosophies come in all shapes and sizes, like the bicycles we may use to get to work. Some have the polish of famous philosophers like Plato or Spinoza. Others were picked up for a bargain, still covered in stickers of poetic platitudes. The bikes of others were gifted by grandparents, still covered in dust from the farm.
How can we know what is real? What does it mean to live a good life? How should one deal with birth, love, pain, aging, and death? What is the difference between right and wrong? Is starting a career more important than starting a family? Why should we even get out of bed in the morning? We all have answers to these questions, and those answers usually come from that personal philosophical framework, a kind of metaphysical scaffolding built from the ideas we accepted from our parents, caregivers, teachers, religious leaders, community, culture, best friends, and so forth.
But just like how some bikes are better than others for certain purposes, not all metaphysical models are created equal. We may all have answers to these big questions, but some of these answers can be unreliable, inadequate, or shockingly terrible!
When Philosophies Fail
A poorly-made bike will fail under the stresses that a better bike will endure. Sometimes, all it takes is one spectacular crash and your ride is reduced to rubbish. For many freethinkers, a similar theological crash is already a large part of life.
It is sobering to learn that your bike is just not good enough. Worse still is when you learn that it never was good enough. Like the cuts and broken bones of a crashed biker, many of us carry the psychological scars of having our metaphysics malfunction. The thing upon which we relied the most to make our decisions turned out to be fundamentally unreliable!
This experience, however, is not necessarily common, nor do we necessarily want it to be. For many people, their philosophical views have never been truly tested. Such people may go their whole lives contently using something that is one real trial away from ruin. Perhaps every attempt should be made to convince such people to upgrade, despite the lack of an apparent personal crisis that would make the necessity for such a switch obvious.
For all we know, we could each be operating under a philosophy that is extremely harmful to ourselves and others. But are we doomed to be ignorant of its failings before a crash? How can we know, prior to critical failure, if our answers are good, good enough, or even ideal?
Philosophical Red Flags
With the practical function of a personal philosophy in mind, it is not hard to picture what a failed or flimsy philosophy looks like. When we find ourselves stuck in bed (perfectly healthy, yet unable to rationalize our way out of it), when our beliefs don’t match or accurately predict experienced reality (within reason), when we are paralyzed by simple ethical questions, when we dramatically and continually fail to act according to how we believe we should, when we are easily fooled, or when we can justify behavior that is generally accepted as morally repugnant, then we may be detecting some of the warning signs of a failing philosophy.
Rough Times Ahead
While philosophical discussions can be interesting and academic, they also have a more serious function. Life can be extremely difficult and unforgiving. There is rough terrain ahead for all of us and we need to ask ourselves if our personal metaphysical model is sturdy enough to get us over the next bump, and the next, and the next after that.
A certain amount of unfairness, pain, and suffering is typical to human life. Financial challenges, depression, loneliness, rejection, and sickness are all par for the course. A wise person will expect all this as they travel down the road. So it is worthwhile to ask ourselves again, are our philosophical frameworks adequate to get us through the hard times to come?
A Problem with Fundamentalist Religions, Cults, and Other Dogmatic Groups
Dogmatic belief systems represent passing philosophies. These are bikes that are “good enough.” They get the job done, but are near impossible to fix or improve. For most riders, the awkward bends and sticking mechanics of the bike are passed off as charming features, not bugs.
Although it can be terribly convenient to have all of life’s questions answered by a fundamentalist religious group or dogmatic ideology, a philosophy built on these foundations soon shows its cracks. Despite their sincere adherence and devotion, many “believers” find themselves experiencing the red flags previously discussed. Whether we like it or not, many belief systems and worldviews simply do not meet the basic needs of their adherents. This is easily put on display when one listens to the stories of ex-believers or studies the statistics of our society’s current mass exodus from organized religion. Especially when life serves us extreme hardships and near impossible choices to make, metaphysics that are “good enough” are laid bare as nothing close to good enough.
Some of the blame for this failure can be placed on dogma itself. Unquestioning devotion is antithetical to freethought. Rigid systems are, by design, resistant to correction over time. Individual experiences, discoveries, and opinions are drowned out under the chorus’ call for obedience and conformity. It is often taught that these kinds of organizations and their teachings are flawless, forcing the adherents to point to themselves as the sources of any discovered flaws. In short, many philosophies contain at least this critical error: they do not encourage or incorporate free-thinking.
People who find themselves in the middle of a fundamentalist religion, a rigid political movement, an ideologically uniform workplace, and other belief systems of the like, often are required (or at least socially pressured) to adopt the philosophical answers of the group with no questions asked. What is popular or permitted becomes equivalent to what is right. So far so functional, but what about those who have chosen to leave these belief systems behind?
Metaphysical Homelessness
For a large portion of those of us who leave religion, in particular, we find ourselves with a large void in our lives where our faith once was. Rejecting the guiding certainty of faith we had in childhood can turn our world upside-down. The easy answers we used to have at hand no longer work. We may find ourselves becoming amateur philosophers, retiring to moments of deep contemplation about our own morality, mortality, and the reason to carry on in the face of suffering, temptation, injustice, and our profound ignorance. But how far can one person go alone? How can one even determine what the first step should be? For the newly irreligious, an acute awareness of one’s individual inadequacy typically sets in, with no obvious remedy in sight.
It is often the case that freethinkers, once free from strict and sub-par belief structures, set off to find some kind of “church-replacement.” To say that this kind of search tends to be difficult doesn’t do it justice. Many find themselves empty-handed, returning to the belief-system they had once rejected. Others drift into similarly rigid and flawed organizations that are near-indiscernible from the original.
Likewise, when your bike has been disfigured beyond repair, it may be sobering to find yourself back at the same bike shop, considering whether or not you will take a chance again on a similar model that you know can’t survive even a single crash.
What We Need
Rather than create yet another dogmatic system that replaces or limits one’s personal philosophy, we need a philosophical base that one may use as a starting-off point, a foundation that can be used to support individual belief, freethought, and unique (but stable) metaphysics.
When we have nowhere to stand epistemologically, no way to orient ourselves in the world, and no reason to remedy the situation, life can become a cold and empty experience. We all need a baseline of well-thought-out axioms to catch us when we fall, a default-mode to run on when our more elaborate systems fail. In moments of personal chaos, we all need something stable and sturdy under our feet.
Ideally, such a foundation will lend itself for use by freethinkers as an option, a freely available resource, a suggestion, and not as a compulsory set of rules that calls for conformity. It would be like a biker’s catalog, listing only the most rigorously tested and reliable parts that one may use to construct a truly superior machine, order upgrades, and replace parts as needed.
An ideal philosophical foundation would have the following characteristics:
The Utilization of Freethought: It would respect the individual’s right to belief and self-sovereignty. It will allow questioning, criticism, critique, deconstruction, and any and all levels of willful implementation.
An Accurate Epistemology: It would clearly lay out a path, a reliable system, to learn and understand reality, as it is. It would embrace objective facts and allow for new facts to be discovered and incorporated. In addition, it should protect us (as much as reasonably possible) from scams, frauds, tricks, poor logic, and false belief.
Compatibility with the Real World: A proper foundational philosophy must be applicable in day-to-day life. If it creates unnecessary conflict through its implementation, then that is a sign of faulty construction. It should present metaphysics that plug-in easily to what is actually experienced and observed without upsetting one’s regular life.
Universal Accessibility: Any person of any age from any part of the world should be able to put it to good use to the fullest possible degree.
Convincing Power: It must contain potent arguments and strong reasons to follow the better angels of our natures, rather than fall victim to our more self-destructive passions, addiction, criminality, and so forth.
Improving Influences on Self and Society: An ideal metaphysical model should promote, encourage, and facilitate what is best for the individual AND for society. Can a moral system that benefits only one or the other really be called a moral system?
Stability in Crisis: As discussed before, life is rife with painful experience. It should offer meaning, purpose, and perspectives that can soften the blow of destabilizing events, realizations, or concepts.
A Home for the Metaphysically Homeless: If one has left a terrible belief system, they are in need of an adequate replacement that keeps all that was good from their previous one but without all of its failings.
Positive Propositions to Act: Philosophies that are only reactive (or do nothing but call out the problems in others) are not, by nature, sufficient to motivate a proactive lifestyle (one that is, arguably, far healthier than those dominated by criticism). A great foundation will provide reasons to live well, act morally, and make a positive difference in the world.
Informative Utility: It would give you support and something like advice when you are making difficult life choices, allowing you to prioritize ideas and orient yourself in (what can be) a chaotic world.
Marks of Great Influences: A philosophy invented in a vacuum will carry many of the limitations of its creators. Therefore, a great foundation will incorporate the ideas from famous philosophers, wise teachings from around the world, and other ideas that do not conflict with the other properties listed here.
Utility over Time: An Ideal foundation can be handed down to children, grandchildren, and so on, over multiple generations.
Self-Correction Mechanisms: It should be able to be modified and improved without sacrificing any of its utility. This kind of modification should be built-in, ensuring the best possible system at any given time.
An Emphasis on Health: An ideal foundational philosophy will strive to appropriately meet the (physical, emotional, social, mental, etc.) needs of its users. Many of these basic needs are natural and are ignored at one’s peril.
A Path Away From Meaningless Suffering: It would steer us away from additional and excessive pain and help us better recognize the lessons from constructive suffering when possible.
Now under Construction
The Free Thought Forum exists, in part, to provide freethinkers with exactly this kind of secular, durable, practical, and satisfying alternative that incorporates all of the characteristics listed above and more. To get a general overview of how our FOUNDATIONAL PHILOSOPHY will be used within our organization, please take a look at our “mountain climber diagram” included in full-size near the beginning of this article.
The Foundational Philosophy is inspired by scientific facts and moral wisdom from around the world. It is a set of carefully collected and refined axioms and orienting ideas (including suggested values, moral direction, and purpose) offered to those in need of a sturdy epistemology, a robust metaphysical model, and a secular moral framework upon which they can build.
Freethought is at the core of our organization by design. By incorporating the ideas, feedback, experiences, and perspectives of many members (shared at our meetings and discussions), we are able to forge and improve this hearty philosophical framework week after week.
What do you think of the progress we have made thus far? What are some ideas you have that should make it into this model, now under consecution? Please let us know and keep an eye out for the future installments in this series in which our Philosophical Foundation will be unwrapped in detail!
We were all profoundly naive when we entered this world. Each of us relied entirely on others for everything, including the information we needed to orient ourselves in the world. As children in a playground, we saw many different types of people doing many different things. We learned that people are naturally different. Throughout our lives, we have experiences that can change us. Sometimes, these experiences unify us. Sometimes, they make us foreign to one another.
Often people get lost, resentful, angry, and even dangerous to themselves and others. We slip into despair and struggle to get out. Each of us has our own set of challenges, but also we have some in common.
So what can be done? How can we understand this situation, and how can we cope?
A Map With Directions
What if all of these challenges came with a set of rules? What if, instead of relying on your own trial-and-error, you could learn from others and gain a new perspective on how to change your situation?
A framework for life is not only a map but a map with directions. If it is constructed properly, it will be clear, useful, and accurate. It will consist of many choices, showing a likely (or almost certain) result for each choice. It will say "if this, then that."
Like a Mentor or Guide
A workable framework is one that guides its followers to the desired location. A GREAT framework guides its followers and also supplies them with honest information about what to expect on their journey. To understand the importance of frameworks, think of a student within a school. Would you have been able to learn algebra without a class schedule, a teacher, or a lesson plan? Most of us couldn't get close to grasping these concepts without them being made explicit.
Frameworks come in many forms. Schools, churches, programs, forums, and creative content can all demonstrate a path used by others to accomplish meaningful things. They can come in the form of personal heroes, examples and role models. We love our heroes when they succeed in a way we can translate. Is it any surprise that many of us feel like we need a female president or an openly atheist president? When we don't have these kinds of examples, we are forced to venture out into the unknown without a guide. We are all on a hero's journey, and venturing out alone makes this quest so much more difficult.
An Ideal Framework
All of this brings us to a question: What type of framework do we want for ourselves and our families? From my perspective, an ideal framework has not yet manifested. It's a dream of building processes that reinforce and aid the human condition. It would facilitate the processes of identification, definition, clarification, deconstruction, modification, and skepticism. All of these are tied together as separate pieces of a combined mosaic. I believe that if they are ordered correctly, you can seed the ground for fast-paced growth without leaving anyone in a worse place.
How far does your framework go in getting you where you want to be? Why isn't it getting you farther? This is an important question, well-worth your consideration. Such a question is nothing to fear. It aims for clarity and truth. If your framework isn't everything you need, how can you determine or find what's missing?
A Team Effort
Most frameworks possess a critical flaw: They lack passive self-correction. An ideal framework would come from an organization that would be open to complaints, criticism, and correction. It would seek to understand complaints and allow them to lead the creation of as many new ideas, paths, and options as possible.
Ultimately, frameworks are only as good as their creators and none of us are perfect. We need each other to identify, define and understand most things. The more we look to creating and improving our frameworks the better off we'll be. I think that the real paradigm shift will come when we focus on others and their complaints. Most people only need a little insight or help to get past their hang-ups but so few of us try to really help! When it comes to larger issues and complex problems, we obtain helpful data through listening. That data can then be used to define the problem plaguing those around us. That can then be used to solve the problem, not just for them, but for everyone else as well! This is the potential behind frameworks that lead individuals to impact the world in meaningful ways.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
This episode is the third part of the series I like to call: “50 Habits For Maximizing Personal Health and Wellbeing.” In this series, we get to the bottom of what the experts actually recommend for the average person to be well, free from the noise of trendy health gurus, alternative medicine peddlers, and your eccentric uncle.
Today, we are shifting focus from the body to the mind. Stay tuned as we consider 5 habits for a healthy mind – simple choices you can make to improve your cognition, brain function, memory, and overall mental health.
This program is brought to you by the contributing members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions each week.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to support this program through monthly donations, please visit freethoughtforum.org. While you’re there, be sure to check out our online store – now with freethought t-shirts, mugs, and other smart-looking swag!
In conversations about health, or any aspect of reality for that matter, it is important to remain as grounded and objective as possible. I will do my best to keep that in mind so that you can walk away with useful facts and not just a pile of opinions. My goals have been to start with a clean slate on any given subject, look into reputable sources, see what they say, and then build these lists from there. For every podcast released by the Free Thought Forum, a companion blog post is also created featuring a complete transcript of each episode. If you would like to take a look at my sources for the claims made here, you need only take a look at this episode’s corresponding blog post on our website.
Your mind is your most valuable tool and one that should be kept sharp! Most of the time, we don’t like to consider how common it is for our brains to deteriorate as we age or as we submit them to abuse. When it comes to the gray matter between our ears, I figure that it is always better to be safe than sorry, and that starts with a good idea of what it takes to maintain one’s mental health.
For our purposes, the general topic of “Mental Health” is divided into “Cognitive Health” (dealing with learning, memory, and general brain function) and “Emotional Health” (dealing with mood, stress, and so forth). I think this helps our conversation focus more on the brain and less on emotional disorders that deserve their own episodes.
Now that we are in the right headspace, the time has come to explore five things you can do to allow your brain to function at its best!
1. MAINTAIN YOUR PHYSICAL HEALTH THROUGH SUFFICIENT EXERCISE, SLEEP, & NUTRITION
Alright, I have a confession to make. After talking about physical health and hygiene so much in past episodes, I said that we would move on to the mind. But some 80% of the relevant literature I’ve found on the behaviors that promote good brain function and cognitive health circle back to those things we have been talking about all along like exercise, proper diet, and getting plenty of sleep!
The thing is, the separation between the mind and body is a completely arbitrary one. There really isn’t a place where your physical body ends and your brain begins. It is all connected, and that connection is something that seems to grow ever more significate as our research into neurology, psychology, and other related sciences continues to expand. In short, if you want to keep your brain well, you must also maintain your physical health.
Your mental health, at any age, is strongly influenced by your physical wellbeing. Avoiding a sedentary lifestyle, exercising at least 30 minutes a day, drinking a glass of water with each meal, ensuring that half of each meal is comprised of diversified vegetables, getting about eight hours of sleep each night, and other such habits (explored in greater detail in “Part 1” of this series) have all been shown to protect against dementia and improve brain function such as executive control function, processing speed, synaptic plasticity, learning, memory, and other attentional processes.
2. LEARN NEW SKILLS AND SOLVE CHALLENGING PUZZLES
Your brain is a lot like your muscles in that it tends to be only strong enough to solve the problems with which it is presented. If you don’t happen to find yourself solving intense cognitive problems on a near-daily basis, then you would do well to take some time on most days to learn a new skill such as a language, dance, sport, or creative hobby. It also helps to play challenging word games like crossword puzzles, math games like Sudoku, and even difficult video games!
Of course, not all games are created equal. The one you played for 5 hours last Friday probably didn’t weigh too heavily on your cognitive load. If a game is getting easy, you need to move onto a greater challenge. The novelty of the task at hand is a big part of its positive impact on your mind. So switch the difficulty setting to “Hard,” or give a new game a try with completely different core mechanics.
3. DAILY BOOK READING
If you know about my background teaching elementary students, you probably saw this coming from a mile away. This healthy habit is related to the last one, but the studies on how it affects your cognition really caught my attention and I feel that giving it its own place on this list is justified.
Leisurely daily book reading has been shown to improve one’s academic performance, brain interconnectivity, vocabulary, overall intelligence, and more. Among the elderly, daily reading has even been shown to increase one’s lifespan!
But there is a catch: Not all kinds of reading lead to the same benefits. When we read from computers, smartphones, tablets, or other screens, we typically engage less of our brains, show less focus, and remember less of what we read. Therefore, reading is best done with physical books. (In case you were wondering, fewer benefits have been found with magazines or newspapers.)
You may be thinking, “But what about listening to podcasts?” I suspect that listening to a podcast is better for your brain than listening to something less mentally engaging, like pop music. But maintaining a coherent narrative in your mind, doing the mental work to translate words from a page, the focus required to make sense out of abstraction, etc. all lead to a much better mental workout than simply listening to something like your favorite radio personality. But, to be fair, I can be totally wrong about that. We know at least that book reading really goes a long way, so until I find out otherwise, I am perfectly comfortable asserting that we would do well to stick with the printed page for at least a few minutes every day.
As a side note: If you are in need of something mentally stimulating to read that also happens to encourage freethought, feel free to visit the Recommended Reading List on our website! I’ve recently added a couple of volumes to it and I’m pretty proud of the collection we have so far.
4. ABSTAIN FROM OR REDUCE DRUG AND ALCOHOL USAGE
When teens or young adults are first convinced to try things like weed, vaping, smoking, or alcohol, they tend not to be aware of the real effects these things have on the brain. Now, do they cause holes to form in your brain like what I was told when I was a teenager? No, but the effect they have isn’t “zero” either. When talking about mental health, we need to be honest with ourselves and with the facts. If we end up sounding like your grandparents or like stoners, that shouldn’t matter. The truth is what matters most. So here is the truth: These substances are powerful, and that power should be respected.
So that we don’t get lost in the weeds of this massive topic, I will give some statistics and move on. If you would like me to wrestle in greater depth with the mental effects of specific or general drug and alcohol use in the future, let me know!
Compared to those who don’t use drugs or alcohol, long-term daily marijuana users have poorer learning, memory, and slower reaction times on some tasks later in life. Long-term tobacco users also have been shown to have overall worse mental health and a 20% increased risk for cognitive impairment later in life. Those who drink alcohol (at least weekly) have a 17% increased risk for cognitive impairment in late adulthood, a risk that rises sharply with additional alcohol consumption.
5. TAKE A DAY OFF
We would also do well to occasionally give our minds time to rest. Overworking and mental fatigue is directly linked to various mental and emotional disorders. Therefore, it is important to dedicate something like an entire day each week to less-mentally-taxing tasks.
With that said, I’m not sure that starring at the TV, computer, or phone is considered a good break for your brain. I’m also not talking about sleep in this case. But there are people who tax their minds past their limits and I’ve seen the kind of devastating crashes that come as a result. If you don’t take enough breaks, your body tends to force you to take breaks, and that is a hard thing to watch. Your mental faculties need some time, every so often, to recover. So what things can you do to give your brain some much-deserved time off? I imagine that simple tasks like doing the dishes, gardening, or going for a walk all fall in this category. Perhaps even giving yourself some silence can help.
I’ll wrap up this episode on that note. I suppose that I speak for many of us when I say that we may be addicted to distraction. Ask yourself, when was the last time you listened to silence, or the white noise of the wind or city around you? Intentional periodic disconnection from the endless deluge of information made possible by the internet could yield impressive results. Maybe getting some peace and quiet is also worth thinking about when were are thinking about cognitive health.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective.
A Special Shout-Out goes to Shayne Wissler, Lance Freeman, and Brooke!
Your monthly support makes this all possible. To check out our awesome donor rewards starting at one dollar per month, please visit: freethoughtforum.org/donate.
SOURCES
Vaynman, Shoshanna, and Fernando Gomez‐Pinilla. "Revenge of the “sit”: how lifestyle impacts neuronal and cognitive health through molecular systems that interface energy metabolism with neuronal plasticity." Journal of neuroscience research 84.4 (2006): 699-715.
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How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
When this episode was first recorded, we were just a couple of days away from the September Autumnal Equinox at my latitude. For members of a Free Thought Forum and others, this means that the time has come for the Wisdom Festival! Today, I’d like to take this special occasion to talk about this new tradition as well as the virtue of wisdom itself, one of the four cardinal virtues of classical philosophy, and, according to Plato, the most important characteristic of a philosopher-king.
This program is brought to you by the contributing members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions each week.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to support this program through monthly donations, please visit freethoughtforum.org. While you’re there, be sure to check out our online store – now with freethought t-shirts, mugs, and other smart-looking swag!
What does it mean to be wise? How can one develop wisdom? After we wrestle with those questions, I’d like to introduce you to the ideas and traditions behind the Wisdom Festivals hosted by this organization on the days before each September Equinox. This episode is divided into four parts. In order to get the most out of this podcast, please stick around for each one!
Part 1 – What is Wisdom?
Finding the best definition of wisdom, to me, is a captivating exercise. In a group of friends, it can spark a conversation that lasts hours. I will share some of my thoughts on it, but I’d also like to ask you for yours. To better conceptualize the virtue of wisdom, I’ve broken it down into four main ideas:
1. A MULTI-LAYERED AND ORGANIZED PERSPECTIVE.
One may see wisdom as the ability to recognize the harmony or conflict between many different perspectives at once and reliably prioritize and organize them in the most useful way. For example, a wise person is able to consider both the learned facts and moral sensibilities applicable in a given situation. This comes from a deep understanding not only of what is real but also what is right. Their actions and thoughts are not ruled by just one objective or presupposition. Rather, they carefully weigh multiple considerations with respect to things like complicating nuance, cultural norms, logical fallacies, long-term consequences, and so forth. Wisdom isn’t the stubborn reliance on one idea that cancels-out all others. Instead, wisdom is a developed skill that takes one’s experience into account with other factors and allows one to properly consider what one should do, what one shouldn’t do, and how to act as a result.
2. PROPERLY APPLIED KNOWLEDGE
When we are presented with neutral facts, what are we supposed to do with them? A wise person can give a good answer. Much like how engineering can be considered the application of science to innovate, invent, or solve real-world problems, wisdom can be considered the best possible application of knowledge, or knowledge put to good use. From this perspective, knowledge represents raw data, the facts, and plain information that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to any practical usage. A long list of memorized facts does not constitute wisdom. Yet when we take this raw data and consider how to best use it, we are exercising a modicum of wisdom. This is the process you go through when you solve a story problem in your math class. You may be told that a car has a 15-gallon tank, gets 30 miles per gallon, has only half a tank left, and is stopped at a gas station 10 miles away from the next gas station. Those are all just facts, words on a piece of paper. But then when you go to answer the question, “Can the driver reach the next gas station if they don’t fill their tank now?” that requires a little bit of wisdom. How wise a person is can be shown by how they use information. A wise person knows when to use specific tools of logic, when to estimate, when to through-out certain ideas, and when to highly value others. For example, if a child asked their parent, “Why do some berries taste bad,” a foolish parent may answer the question at face value, doing very little with the situation. A wise parent, on the other hand, may proceed to find out if the child has been endangering themselves by eating wild berries.
3. EXERCISED CAUTION WHEN IT COMES TO ACTION AND BELIEF
A wise person is also careful about what they believe. They are not easily fooled, nor are they overconfident. They recognize the value of learning and are quick to replace previously held concepts when they are shown to be false. The wise have discovered a healthy balance between skepticism and open-mindedness. They value what is taught by experts, but they do not blindly believe in any authority. Rather than accept the conventional wisdom of their time, a wise person is slow to make conclusions and quick to investigate, ask questions, and improve their understanding. This also carries over to their actions. They strive to always consider the short-term and long-term effects of their choices, and only do something if they have good reason to do it.
4. MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE
Calling something wise can be like calling something beautiful. Through a subjective lens, stated wisdom seems meaningful to its listener. It strikes us as profound, insightful, intelligent, and surprisingly useful. In contrast, foolish speech seems vacuous, hollow, and barren. This relates to what Plato said, that wise people speak only when they have something important to say, but fools speak because they always have to say something. When you add your two cents, I suppose that it is helpful to contemplate your motives behind it. A wise person genuinely believes they have something to add to the conversation supported by a deep comprehension of the subject matter and careful consideration of the situation. A fool simply wants to meet a deadline or fill an awkward silence with noise.
Part 2 – Developing Wisdom
If you would like to be a wiser person, here are some things to try-out:
1. THE WHY GAME
Think about one of your most important beliefs. Ask yourself why you believe it. Once you think of an answer, ask yourself why you believe that answer. Continue until you’ve reached a belief or an idea that you can’t explain and write it down. Now you’ve found something important to study and/or discuss with other freethinkers!
2. DETECTING YOUR BLIND SPOTS
Think of the last time you were not able to explain something to a child, were fooled, became angry during a debate, or when you dramatically changed your mind about something important. Consider how you felt and what you thought about that thing before and after your mind was changed. This may help you identify your personal “blind spots” or subjects that you would do well to think about more carefully in the future.
3. READ ABOUT SOMETHING SOMEONE LIKE YOU WOULDN’T READ
We can be picky about the kind of ideas we let into our minds. Without meaning to do so, we may find ourselves trapped in an echo-chamber of our own making, recycling the same ideas. A wise person actively tries to broaden their mind and deepen their well of knowledge. You can do this by choosing to read something you otherwise would never have read. Dive into it as far as you can! Even superficial knowledge of a topic previously foreign to you can one day prove useful in an unexpected way.
4. THE BEST COUNTERARGUMENTS
It can be extremely helpful to dispassionately contemplate strong arguments coming from the “other side” of a debate. Think of a position you hold on a given issue. Then try to find the best possible arguments coming from those who hold the opposite position. Even if you don’t end up changing your mind, this exercise may powerfully enrich your perspective.
Part 3 – Forging New Festivals
Now that we’ve given the concept of wisdom some time to swim in our thoughts, I want to better explain this weekend’s celebrations, and why this organization is hosting them in the first place.
In the early days of the Free Thought Initiative, one discussion among board members drifted into the importance of traditions and seasonal celebrations within a community. We wanted to come up with four of them, four special events that could interrupt our regularly scheduled discussions on science, health, and philosophy. More importantly, holidays and annual events can bring fun, distinction, and a sense of unity to a group of people. This kind of cultural unity is something our local groups can really use, especially when we consider how diverse our members are and tend to be.
Any Free Thought Forum may be comprised of members who are Atheists, Christians, Sikhs, Pantheists, Mystics, Hindus, Buddhists, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Anarchists, and so forth, in various ratios. If we are to come together to celebrate something, it has to be something that we all can value, no matter our backgrounds or beliefs. In the wider picture, it wouldn’t be prudent to base these traditions on local cultural norms. If a Free Thought Forum was created in Taiwan, for example, it would be silly for them to throw annual parties about a culturally-specific idea like American Football.
This line of thinking brought us to celebrations themed around moral virtues and common life goals related to those virtues. While many holidays and festivals call back to a person, historical event, region, product, or story, we set our sights to something more universal. The key was to select specific virtues that would apply to all people, from all regions, and across time.
Another thing to consider was the timing. When would these four celebrations take place? After all, many countries around the world don’t even use the same calendar as we do in the United States. To answer that question, we turned to another concept that breaks through the barriers between cultures: Science. Scientific fact beautifully and equally applies to all peoples of the world. To find special times throughout the year, why not look at the actual seasons and orbit of the earth itself? If we are to have four annual secular celebrations, then it is perfectly reasonable to space them equidistantly, and according to natural phenomena, such as the solstices and equinoxes of our planet. For convenience, we can then make the official celebration times fall on the weekends just before each solstice and equinox. Since all of our groups meet on Saturday or Sunday, then all they would need to do is replace their regular meetings with these themed parties when the time comes.
But what should we do at each of our annual festivals? That is completely up to you and our community! Feel free to be creative and inventive. Sharing your suggestions can help us all create a rich and meaningful experience each year. We have looked around the world for inspiration and have been pleased with what we have found thus far. Likewise, if you look near and far for great traditions and practices that match each theme, we would love to hear what you find.
To see our official updated traditions for each of our festivals as well as a list of all such upcoming celebrations, please visit freethoughtforum.org/festivals.
Part 4 – Wisdom Based Traditions
In addition to your other local, national, and cultural festivities, we hope that you will join us for this year’s Wisdom Festival, a celebration of prudence, intellectualism, logic, learning, knowledge, education, intelligence, expertise, reason, rationality, brilliance, sagacity, and other related virtues. Participants are encouraged to value learning and understanding for its own sake, and not just as a means to an end. We set personal goals for the coming year regarding our individual education and each guest may select new free book to read. Past academic achievement is celebrated and the senior members of our families are honored. Starting in September of 2019, the following traditions connected to this festival were set in place and modified according to the feedback of our members:
Looking Smart –Many participants will use the occasion to look smart, don dapper digs, and dress to the nines. Feel free to wear your best dress, your fanciest tie, or simply just come as you like.
Intelligent Treats and Mystery Sacks – Dig into an assortment of (surprisingly healthy) erudite edibles. This year, we will have fresh vegetables, banana-oat cookies, and rice-crackers. Be sure to also pick up a grab-bag of intellectual goodies such as top-of-the-line pens, bookmarks, and owl-shaped erasers before you leave!
Used Book Exchange – Bring one or more used books that you would like to donate or swap for one or more new reads from other freethinkers!
Honoring Academic Achievement – We’d like to shine the spotlight on the sacrifice and personal improvement of our scholars, no matter their age! Did you learn a language, sign-up for your first college classes, graduate with honors, win 2nd place in a spelling-bee, learn how to play an instrument, earn 100% on an exam, or something similar? Let’s share that with the audience followed by some much-deserved applause.
Party Games and Treasure Hunts – Be ready to test your knowledge and wit playing strategy and trivia games. Young guests can even go on a puzzle-based hunt for the chance to win some toy treasure!
Suggested Family Tradition: Senior Interviews – Guests are encouraged to take some time in the week following this event to visit an elderly family member or friend and invite them to share their stories, memories, and life-lessons-learned for an enriching and educational experience for all involved.
Additional Theming -- To ground the abstract concepts featured in this celebration, the following symbolism is utilized:
The Colors Orange, Yellow, and Gold - In Europe and in North America, orange is strongly associated with the autumn season and with warnings calls to be careful. In the historical European arts of heraldry and vexillology, these colors were associated with prosperity (like fields of wheat), wealth, sunlight (enlightenment), and excitement. In Sikhism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, yellow represents knowledge, learning, mental development, and a grounded lifestyle. Orange (saffron) is also a sacred color of spiritual purity.
The Owl - This was the symbol of Athens in the ancient world, a hub of the arts and scholarship. In classical mythology, the owl is a representation of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. In Hinduism, an owl is the vahana of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, fortune, and prosperity.
An Open Book - From the ancient halls of the Library of Alexandria to the ebook collection you have on your smart device, few of humanity’s tools over the years match the teaching power of books. Reading is one of the fastest and most efficient ways you may increase your knowledge, and knowledge is power!
Which traditions would you like us to attach to these events? What do you think of our plans so far? Your FEEDBACK is welcome.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective.
A Special Shout-Out goes to Shayne Wissler, Lance Freeman, and Brooke!
Your monthly support makes this all possible. To check out our awesome donor rewards starting at one dollar per month, please visit: freethoughtforum.org/donate.
Becoming a freethinker is a worthy goal, but that doesn’t make it easy. Life presents each of us with difficult choices, complicated problems, and profound mysteries. At times, we may feel particularly cavalier and jump into these challenges with both feet. Other times, we may freeze, overwhelmed by the endless avalanche of answers offered in our modern age. Many of us simply lack the time, energy, education, or temperament to wrangle with the philosophical questions intrinsic to the human experience.
It may be tempting to settle for answers that are “good enough.” Dogmatic certainty and superstition, after all, have been the preferred coping mechanisms for most of our ancestors. But for a Freethinker, these options can’t be the only sources of help. What else is there?
Limited Cognitive Capabilities
Understanding the problem is the first step in finding the solution. In this case, our greatest asset, the human mind, also represents our greatest liability. Our impressive, (albeit imperfect) brains are each a sanctuary with a glass ceiling.
Individually, our powers of critical thinking, discovery, problem-solving, and other similar operations is limited to the capabilities of the white and gray matter between our ears. When it comes to wrestling with big ideas, we each face very real limitations. For example, we are blind to many of our own biases, cognitive dissonance, and home-grown logical fallacies. One’s IQ, energy levels, time constraints, and current level of education all represent limits to the rate at which one may increase their understanding.
When our ideas only live in our own minds, they are like blueprints without a construction crew, a locked treasure box, or a scientific experiment, waiting to happen.
The Need for Thick Skin
A seemingly obvious way to overcome these obstacles would be to share the task of truth-seeking with other minds. See what the blueprints produce, open the box, and run the experiment! However, doing so opens one’s ideas up to possible criticism. Only when they are exposed can the failures of our preconceptions be laid bare. Our most profound discoveries may be deconstructed before our eyes, sending us back to square one. Our prized breakthroughs may not be treated with the respect we feel they deserve. As others open up, we may be exposed to ideas we don’t like or concepts that complicate the issue.
A dedicated Freethinker must have thick skin. To them, the Truth must matter more than the slings and arrows endured along the path to obtain it. Truth-Seekers and Freethinkers alike must be willing to abandon faulty beliefs, like broken tools, in favor of those ideas that get them closer to a better understanding of reality, morality, and more. This is a journey of personal growth and perseverance.
With all that considered, is it even worth it to expose others to ideas and expose ourselves to their ideas? Should it be said that the exploration of freethought is indeed improved through the shared consideration of multiple (and, at times, conflicting) opinions?
Stretching Our Minds
For many of us, open-mindedness represents a difficult challenge. How can we possibly entertain multiple perspectives on a given issue? We may think of ourselves like over-ambitious jugglers or an over-taxed internet router, plagued by inadequate bandwidth. If we share this important cognitive load with others, won’t we end up feeling stretched and bogged-down? Aren’t we all better off when we greedily guard our mental processing power, like a limited resource?
Going It Alone
As freethinkers, we tend to first approach life’s most important questions as lone wolves. (Of course, this isn’t always the case, but it is a trend made conspicuous as we later share with one another the stories of our individual lived experience.) In an attempt to distance ourselves from criticism, mental strain, and concepts antithetical to freethought such as dogma, coercion, or “group think,” it is understandable that we may prefer to forge our own path and produce our own answers.
Taking such a position is understandable. However, doing so returns us to that glass ceiling. Like Atlas, we find ourselves bearing an unbearable load without respite. Over time, as with many things in life, we become increasingly aware of our individual frailties and inadequacies. If we are to move beyond this cycle of lonely contemplation, we must be willing to add our voice to a forum, despite all of the reasons to hold back. It takes a little bit of bravery, a little bit of grit, and a thirst for discovery. It is the willingness to take a step into the dark, the deciding factor in a hero’s journey. When we are willing to endure criticism, mental exertion, and exposure to other ideas, we unlock a door to treasures beyond our comprehension!
Sharing the Burden
The good news is that this quest for answers need not be done alone! We live in an age where concepts such as logical thinking, rationality, and self-determination are becoming mainstream values! Chances are good that where you live, you are able to find freethinkers with whom you can meet in person. When we find others with similar goals, an opportunity to work together arises. Rather than bearing the weight of the world’s ambiguities alone, we finally have a chance to share the cognitive load!
Knowledge is power. Similarly, an assortment of sincere opinions, perspectives, and experiences laid before a listener enables them to form a better-informed view on the topic at hand. We are so much better served by carefully considering new points and counterpoints. The alternative is to live in a bubble, an echo-chamber, or a safe space in which our preconceptions may only be reinforced. How can people call themselves freethinkers if they only allow themselves to be exposed to a handful of comfortable opinions?
Freethinking and the search for facts and moral wisdom are, in fact, improved as they are shared. The fruits of this enterprise are more valuable because they have passed the inspection of a high number of critics. When multiple perspectives are taken into account, all involved are better for it.
This need not be a taxing or draining experience. Proper utilization of a forum allows each freethinker to act as an additional processor, increasing the computing power of the overall system. Many minds make for light work!
The Free Thought Initiative is an organization engineered to aid each member in their path to forge their own best-possible answers to life’s most important questions. Even when our individual backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives vary, we are unified under common goals.
We are here to help. With a forum of fellow freethinkers, one mind is complemented by the power of many more. The chore of sorting through and learning from history’s greatest ideas becomes a game. Each week, we are able to send our ideas to be tested in an open marketplace. Our views are refined and we help each other grow. Our personal limitations fade-away and our unique talents are put to good use!
Through weekly forums, we are improved. As a result, our communities are filled with more freethinkers, freely sharing their findings, and energized through the synergistic increase of our collective cognitive bandwidth.
On September 8th, 2019, the South Utah Valley Animal Shelter (SUVAS) held another public pet clinic and the Utah Valley Free Thought Forum was there! This brings our total man-hours donated to the shelter to 44, and we’re just getting started.
These clinics are usually housed in fire stations and parking lots where local pet owners can come and have their pets vaccinated and registered at a discounted price. Not only does this program improve the health of pets in the community, but it also provides important preventative work that frees up the shelter to help more animals.
Saturday’s clinic was in Payson, but our group has also helped in Mapleton and Springville. The representatives from the shelter are sincerely grateful and have even brought us water bottles and doughnuts! They really know how to train their volunteers and put them to work. At first glance, helping the public with their paperwork and pets may not sound as glamorous as other volunteer opportunities. Yet we’ve found that this is where we have been needed the most – and nothing beats that!
If you live in the area and would like to volunteer with us, check the Utah Valley group’s upcoming events or contact the South Utah Valley Animal Shelter directly (801-851-4080) and let them know that you’d like to help out at their next clinic. Thank you!
A Look into the Origins of the Free Thought Forum through the eyes of a Founding Board Member.
By Jacob Collier, Utah Valley Group
Hello Free Thought Forum! Before today, I hadn't put anything out there for our newsletter. As one of the founding board members of this organization, I figured it would be remiss of me not to explain my original motivations for starting this group with Nick and Lance…
Before I begin, it’s important to note my background. I come from a currently-active polygamist group. My distaste for Joseph Smith and his teachings still make it quite difficult for me to get along with my family who, for the most part, still belong to that group. Likewise, I really wasn't comfortable being a part of the predominant religious group in my area, the LDS church. I had also recently ended a long term relationship. The combination of all these factors left me feeling pretty much on my own. As such, I began visiting a local ex-Mormon Meetup group that met at a local coffee shop.
Unfortunately, this group didn't have consistently attending members. Anytime I went, I was equally likely to end up sitting there alone for an hour as I was to actually talk to anyone. Fortunately, when I was sitting in the coffee shop one day, wasting my time on my phone, Nick and his wife sat down and asked if I was part of the local ex-Mormon meetup group. We talked about a lot of the things that would end up becoming the core ideas of the Free Thought Forum. The rest is history.
See, as humans, we all need to belong somewhere. The lack of any kind of social group can leave one feeling vulnerable, alone, and depressed. As a young non-believer, it can be quite difficult to find a group that promotes things like skepticism, open-mindedness, and freethought, without also being infested with the kind of rampant anti-white, anti-western sentiments that I have found in some predominately atheistic groups.
It’s important to have a healthy social group to find a spouse, to raise your children, to connect with others who share your core principles, to have a more local financial safety net, etc. Throughout history, humans have always benefited from these kinds of groups. While the criticisms toward our institutions of belief have been rightly aimed, it has left a lot of people feeling as though there is nowhere to turn to for the previous social necessities, while still holding some modicum of love and gratitude for your culture and the ideas that helped to create it.
For all these reasons and more, the Free Thought Forum was founded in March of 2019. We sincerely hope to provide people with a life-long practical social “backbone” to meet their social needs and aid in their self and familial development.
Can we measure up to that promise in the long run? I believe that with the efforts of Nick, Lance, myself, and you, our members, we will make that important difference. I believe that this organization will continue to grow and help far more people with stories similar to mine.
Logical Fallacies (Part 3) and How to Avoid Them
Aug 25, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 29
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Welcome to Part 3 of our series on logical fallacies and how to avoid them! We have looked at many of these common fallacies thus far, but there are still plenty more besides. If you have missed either of our last two episodes, I’m sure you would enjoy giving them a listen as well.
Who doesn’t love a good card trick? No matter how closely we try to pay attention, all it takes is a clever sleight-of-hand or subtle misdirection on the magician’s part to bypass our powers of perception. In no time it all, we may find ourselves convinced that what we saw was magic.
Logical fallacies are used in similar ways. They sure-up our ideas and make our arguments sound stronger than they really are. On the surface, we can amuse and dazzle our audience. Our logic may sound stable and well-thought-out, but upon further inspection, it is all just a trick. Behind the curtain, these flimsy fallacies can be seen crumbling under their own weight. Join me as we unveil four more common logical fallacies.
This program is brought to you by the contributing members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal background, religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions each week.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to support this program through monthly donations, please visit freethoughtforum.org. While you’re there, be sure to check out our online store – now with freethought t-shirts, mugs, and other smart-looking swag!
13. COMPOSITION OR DIVISION
This is when someone assumes that one part of something has to be applied to all, or other, parts of it; or that the whole must apply to its parts. Often when something is true for the part it does also apply to the whole, or vice versa, but the crucial difference is whether there exists good evidence to show that this is, indeed, the case. Because we observe consistencies in things, our thinking can become biased so that we presume consistency to exist where it does not.
Daniel was a precocious child and had a liking for logic. He reasoned that atoms are invisible. Therefore, since he was made of atoms, he must be invisible as well. Unfortunately, despite this feat of logic, he lost the game of hide and seek.
I’ve met so many people in Texas who are bad drivers. Therefore, Texans are all bad drivers.
All joking aside, you may commit this fallacy more often than you think. It is hard not to make generalizations based on a small handful of examples. I see this a lot with people who break-up. They say things like “All men are so selfish” or “All women are crazy” without realizing that they may have just been unlucky enough to date someone who was especially selfish or crazy. We may admire a certain company and then be surprised when we meet one of its employees who doesn’t conform to our expectations. We may love the free sample, only to find that buying it in bulk was a bad idea.
A related common sign that a scientific study was poorly done is that it has a small sample size. True, they found that 9 out of 10 people loved the taste of super-wow toothpaste, but only 10 people were asked about it in the first place. That is a terrible representation of the population. What is true of 10 people isn’t necessarily true for everyone. Now if the number of people surveyed was 2,000, that study just got a lot better.
We also see this in politics. We assume that one member of a minority, for example, is some de facto representative of that minority, because those types of people must all act and think the same. Therefore, we can trust any one person to accurately speak for their social group, right? Wrong. I can’t speak for all aspiring free-thinkers. You can’t speak for all people who listen to podcasts. That line of thinking is just flawed.
To avoid making this fallacy, slow down. Don’t be in so much of a hurry to find simple rules that explain complex things. Avoid making broad-sweeping statements or hastily-made generalizations. Even if we want things to behave in a pattern, that doesn’t mean they do. As I brought up before, reality can be messy, surprising, and filled with nuance.
Instead, provide data, numbers, and actual relevant statistics, whenever possible. Scientific papers that have large sample-sizes, long-running experiments, and duplicated studies are all preferable to those without. Rely on reputable sources as long as you have a clear idea of how the data was collected. Rather than using vague generalizations and hoping that your audience agrees, let the experts, careful studies, and numbers speak.
14. ANECDOTAL
If you used a personal experience or an isolated example instead of a sound argument or compelling evidence, then you have presented anecdotal evidence. Which is easier? Understanding complex data and variation across a continuum, or believing in what someone said? Quantitative scientific measures are almost always more accurate than personal perceptions and experiences, but our inclination is to believe that which is tangible to us, and/or the word of someone we trust over a more 'abstract' statistical reality.
Jason said that that was all cool and everything, but his grandfather smoked, like, 30 cigarettes a day and lived until 97 - so don't believe everything you read about meta-analyses of methodologically sound studies showing proven causal relationships.
Even though the overwhelming majority of doctors and scientists assert that vaccines are safe, my little Kenny got a big cold after his first shot, so your child should never be vaccinated!
We’ve really hit the motherlode with this fallacy. If you are going to be logical or scientifically-minded, you must be willing to let personal experiences go. They are like counterfeit money or the promise of a Nigerian Prince in your inbox. When it comes to figuring out what is real, personal stories are worthless.
As a quick side note, on the moral, social, or emotional side of things, listening to someone’s story and experiences is really important. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter if something actually happened. The only thing that matters is that the person believes that it actually happened. If you are a teacher, a nurse, a counselor, or clergy member, then empathetic listening to someone’s personal experience is paramount. It is important to validate what a person is feeling, and offer them some open-mindedness.
But this episode isn’t about relationship-building or giving emotional support. It is about maintaining a strong grasp on reality. It is about building a resistance to nonsense. When it comes to the cold hard facts, personal stories and experiences do not register as valid evidence. But why is that the case? Here are a couple of reasons.
First off, our memories are not that reliable. We’re only human. When compared to video footage, data from sensors and other inanimate recordings, our most-detailed recollections come off as flawed, hazy, and highly corruptible. Every time we remember something, we taint that memory. If a question is worded a certain way, we will modify our memory to form what we think is a good answer. We tend to remember meaning, not facts. We interpret our experiences through subjective filters along continuums such as happy to sad, fair to unfair, or fun to boring. The formation of each memory is highly influenced by our stress-levels, our goals, our beliefs, and other factors in the moment (and after the fact).
Secondly, personal experiences are easy to fabricate. Some people are extremely good at lying with a straight face. There are plenty of reasons for someone to be dishonest in any given situation. People do it all the time and they start young. So if you are about to believe someone’s story, just because they told you a story, that goodwill is probably going to be used against you.
How can we avoid making this fallacy? Well, for starters, only use personal anecdotes for fun or for flavoring. By themselves, they shouldn’t be used to convince anyone of anything. Present Information that is objective or quantitative. Avoid arguments based on personal experience. A strong argument is not based on something so subjective or non-repeatable. Rather, use numbers, measurements, statistics, verifiable history, and other cold objective and quantitative facts. The truth should be something that is accessible to any seeker, not the unique experience of a privileged seer.
15. NO TRUE SCOTSMAN
If someone dismisses relevant criticisms or flaws to their argument by making an appeal to purity, then they have committed the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. In this form of faulty reasoning, one's belief is rendered unfalsifiable because no matter how compelling the evidence is, one simply shifts the goalposts so that it wouldn't apply to a supposedly 'true' example. This kind of post-rationalization is a way of avoiding valid criticisms of one's argument.
Angus declares that Scotsmen do not put sugar on their porridge, to which Lachlan points out that he is a Scotsman and puts sugar on his porridge. Furious, like a true Scot, Angus yells that no true Scotsman sugars his porridge.
Jordan said that if Matt was a real atheist, Matt would be a murderer. But Matt wasn’t a murder, so Jordan said he wasn’t really a TRUE atheist.
This is another case of special pleading. It is like when someone is teaching you the rules of a new board game. At first, you’re both having fun, but when you start to win, they tweak and change the rules in their favor. What a rotten cheater! Well, people do the same thing in arguments, debates, and discussions. Hopefully, by now, you have developed a sense for when someone starts to change the rules mid-game. Here are a few things you can do to make sure they don’t get away with it:
To start off, agree on definitions. Lockdown what you are talking about and what you mean when you both say certain words. After that, stick to them and never let them be altered. This is a pretty well-known fallacy, so if you pick up on it, call it out. “Are you saying that No True Scotsman would sugar his porridge?” You can also deconstruct the claim. If they say that Howard couldn’t be the thief because he is a good Christian, then throw the claim back at them. “So are you saying that it is impossible for a Christian to commit a crime?” In many cases, it is helpful to let a person’s social group, label, or status fade away. Treating people as individuals who act and think individually is far more practical. Lachlan is a Scotsman, but he also sugars his porridge, deal with it.
16. THE TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER
This is when someone cherry-picks a data cluster that suits their argument or finds a pattern to fit a presumption. This 'false cause' fallacy is coined after a marksman shooting randomly at barns and then painting bullseye targets around the spot where the most bullet holes appear, making it appear as if he's a really good shot. Clusters naturally appear by chance, but don't necessarily indicate that there is a causal relationship.
The makers of Sugarette Candy Drinks point to research showing that of the five countries where Sugarette drinks sell the most units, three of them are in the top ten healthiest countries on Earth, therefore Sugarette drinks are healthy.
The Texas Sharpshooter makes an argument based on certain information, then uses that same information to confirm it, often while dismissing whatever doesn't support it. He remembers the hits but forgets the misses. This is confirmation bias.
If statistics are unusually wordy, oddly specific, leave out large sections of the relevant data, or seem unnecessarily convoluted, that should be a red flag that confirmation bias is running amuck. You and I both know that any data set can be manipulated to sound dramatic, impressive, or shocking. Does that mean that we should throw out any static we hear? Of course not. What it means is that we shouldn’t believe any percentage, graph, or chart on face value alone. To resist the allure of this fallacy, we must use some brainpower. Read and think about the information. What is actually being said?
When I hear that less-than 1% of scientists seriously doubt evolution, I’m not impressed. So that is why that particular number is never brought up in creationist propaganda. Instead, only the credentials of the one or two scientists interviewed are mentioned.
We run into confirmation bias every day. The trick is to embrace the whole truth, not just the parts that we like. After Tracy told me to get lost 50 times, she finally agreed to go with me on a date! She must me in love with me! Omar knew he bought the winning lottery ticket because he had a good feeling! But what about all of the other times he got a good feeling before buying a losing ticket? Judith knows her prayers are answered because this morning she couldn’t find her keys, said a prayer, and then found them! Well, what about all of her other prayers that went unanswered? You should listen to Todd’s 12 steps to becoming a millionaire because he owns a successful business. That’s great, but what about his five other businesses that went bankrupt?
To get to the truth, we have to look at the whole picture. We need to count our misses, not just our hits. We have to remember the failures, not just the wins. All of the data is important, and it should be represented, even if it isn’t helpful. If you are making a claim, be upfront about the data that doesn’t match what you want. Talk about outliers, unexplainable oddities, and counterintuitive results. Sometimes, that is where new discoveries are waiting to be found.
Sometimes the truth is messy, unflattering, inconclusive, boring, unpredictable, ugly, or unsatisfying. If you are a rational person, then you are concerned about what is true, rather than what you want to be true.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
A Special Shout-Out goes out to Lance Freeman, Brooke, and Connie B. Your monthly support makes this all possible!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective!
Logical Fallacies (Part 2) and How to Avoid Them
Aug 20, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 28
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
I had a great time creating Part 1 of this series and it looks like you really enjoyed it too! We’re back with Part 2 in our three-part discussion about logical fallacies and how to avoid them.
I’m sure you’ve heard that a fool and his money are soon parted. This is an idea that scammers, con artists, modern-day snake oil salesmen, and cult leaders all understand well enough. Think of the billions of dollars collected from all of the good people who fall for just one of these subtle lies, cons, or tricks! Entire industries and economies are built atop the premise that it is easy to fool the average consumer, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Today, we are taking a look at four more tricks used by the dishonest, the mentally clumsy, and, yes, even us when we are not being careful.
This program is brought to you by the contributing members of the Free Thought Initiative.
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Why is it so remarkably easy for scammers to fool us? Why is it so common for people to fall for ridiculous ideas or be cheated out of their money? You could say that it is because we all have feeble minds, but I don’t think that’s it. I think many of us fall for these fallacies mainly for two reasons:
First, most of us simply lack any education on logical fallacies, common cons, or the tactics of scammers. So let’s spread a little education on this topic! When you have a clear understanding of logical fallacies, they are easier to detect. When you are being fed a lie, you are better able to pick up on its small red flags when the lie may otherwise fly under your radar. When you have a clear understanding of logical fallacies, deceptive advertisements, slanted news stories, and shady arguments will begin to “smell fishy.”
Second, many of us see skepticism or doubt as untoward characteristics. Many of us make a choice to be trusting, agreeable, faithful, or open-minded. We rely on the better angels of our nature and hope that others have our best interests in mind. After all, what is the alternative? Constant cynicism and distrust?
Here is an important thing to remember: Skepticism is not the same as cynicism or pessimism. If you are skeptical, that means that ideas have to meet a high standard before you believe them. You can be the most optimistic person in the world and still be a skeptic. In fact, that is probably the wisest option.
To me, it isn’t a matter of temperament. It is a matter of self-defense. You can have faith in humanity but still lock your doors. Trust, but verify. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Because, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good-natured and kind the victim of fraud is. They are still the victim of fraud.
Rather than looking only at the logical fallacies we or others may make, we will also consider what the better option would be in each case. For the most productive and intellectually honest discussions, these favorable behaviors should be followed as much as possible.
Many of the definitions and examples used in this podcast come from yourlogicalfallacyis.com, an amazing tool created by the School of Thought organization. Those guys totally deserve all of the donations that come their way!
9. APPEAL TO AUTHORITY
This is when someone says that because an authority figure thinks something, it must, therefore, be true. It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. However, it is entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong. Therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not.
Not able to defend his position that evolution 'isn't true' Bob says that he knows a scientist who also questions evolution (and presumably isn't a primate).
My math teacher has been teaching math for 15 years. Therefore, she can never make a mistake in front of the class.
“Nullius in Verba” is found on the coat of arms of the oldest science academy in the world, the Royal Society of London. Fellows of this society include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, and Alan Turing. The Latin phrase means “take nobody's word for it.” In other words, it doesn’t matter who said it. A bad idea is a bad idea. If something is real, there should be proof that it is real. “Because I said so” is never a valid argument. This principle is at the core of modern science. It doesn’t matter how famous or well-published you are. If you claim to have discovered or invented something new, your peers will still demand to see your evidence and paperwork.
The only thing that guarantees that an idea is true, is that the idea is, in fact, true. It helps if your findings are reproducible. If other people can do the same things you did and find the same results, then you are working with good science. It doesn’t matter who says it first or who promotes it. So why not let the Ideas speak for themselves? The idea must be able to compete based on its own merits. If it is a good or bad idea, that should come to light through inspection, examination, testing, and discussion. So the next time you are at an elaborate presentation where someone is making a big show of their history and credentials, take it all with a grain of salt. Ask yourself: If a complete nobody presented it, would the speaker’s content still be valid?
10. BLACK-OR-WHITE
When someone presents two alternative states as the only possibilities, when in fact more possibilities exist, then they have committed the black-or-white fallacy. Also known as the false dilemma, or false-dichotomy, this insidious tactic has the appearance of forming a logical argument, but under closer scrutiny, it becomes evident that there are more possibilities than the either/or choice that is presented. Binary, black-or-white thinking doesn't allow for the many different variables, conditions, and contexts in which there would exist more than just two possibilities. It frames the argument misleadingly and obscures rational, honest debate.
Whilst rallying support for his plan to fundamentally undermine citizens' rights, the Supreme Leader told the people they were either on his side, or they were on the side of the enemy.
This fallacy is terribly simple, powerful, and speedily made. People say things like, “well everything is either a creator or a creation.” This dichotomous argument leads to incredibly lazing thinking, easily co-opted by escalating emotion or public mania. It is hard to spot a riot or violent protest that wasn’t spurred by this particular fallacy.
We should always leave the door open for nuance and complex answers. Very few things in the real world are simple or plainly binary. If you tend to crowd out all possibilities for middle-ground, alternative explanations, unexpected variation, exceptions to the rule, or subtle gradations on a continuum, then you are not being reasonable. I have been in so many conversations where the way forward is to think of a third or fourth option. In a forum of free-thinkers, it may be tempting to tell someone “you’re wrong and I’m right,” but doing so runs the conversation into a brick wall. The other person loses face and you are both worse off. I like to think of discussions like many streams merging into a river. One stream doesn’t dominate the flow and force all other streams to match its direction. Rather, there is a convergence, in a new direction. Sometimes, that is the only way the truth is found. The answer isn’t just Einstein’s cosmological constant or the static universe model. The electron isn’t just a wave or a particle. Rome wasn’t simply an evil empire or a benevolent republic. Sometimes, we have to take the best parts of all previous arguments, combine them, and forge a new path forward.
11. BEGGING THE QUESTION
This is when someone presents a circular argument in which the conclusion was included in the premise. This logically incoherent argument often arises in situations where people have an assumption that is ingrained and taken in their minds as a “given.” Circular reasoning is the “smoking gun” of an illogical argument.
The word of Zorbo the Great is flawless and perfect. We know this because it says so in The Great and Infallible Book of Zorbo's Best and Most Truest Things that are Definitely True and Should Not Ever Be Questioned.
I see this a lot when skeptics debate fundamentalists. The fundamentalists believe that they already know the answer to a specific question. That is their starting point, so they try to make arguments that always point back to that belief. Even if you find holes, self-contradictions, or other problems with their proposal, they will still fall back on that fundamental belief, because it is, in their definition, always true, no matter what.
In a logical discussion, you should be able to ask plenty of questions about the foundation of the other’s argument. Complex ideas should be able to be broken into smaller and simpler parts. But circular arguments don’t behave in this way. When you look below the surface of such, you find yourself back where you started. If you are not satisfied with a claim, ask the other person to explain it. If that explanation sounds week, dig deeper. If you hear the same ideas over and over again, then you should point that out.
I have been approached by fellow church members, coworkers, and friends in the past who were working for multi-level-marketing companies. Asking Leading Questions was their bread and butter. What would you do if you had one million dollars right now? How would you like to quit you job? How would you like to work less and make more? Each question is carefully designed to lead you to answer a certain way. Likewise, when I showed some skepticism, I was met with circular logic. “What is the catch?” I would ask. “How could it be so easy?” I was told that there was no catch, and it was just that easy. There were never any down-sides, complications, or issues to consider. Each question I asked was just a dead-end, and met with a kind of auto-reply, leading me back to the first slide of the proposal. As you can imagine, I have gotten into the habit of turning down several of these so-called “once in a lifetime opportunities.”
Another major rule to remember is that you should always start with an observation, not a conclusion. Good science, as well as good logical thinking, does not assume any kind of conclusion. It is disingenuous to start any experiment or line of logic with a predetermined end-point. If you are making the case for something, it should follow a linear progression. This idea leads to that idea. This other idea is based on those ideas. If your ideas seem to have popped into existence with no roots or foundation, then it may be this (or a similar fallacy) rearing its ugly head. Ask yourself, what led you to believe what you believe. Go as far back as you can. If the ideas along the way still stand on their own merits (like the bricks of a pyramid), then that is a good sign. If, instead, you find that they rely on your conclusion (like a marionette hanging from strings), that’s a bad sign.
12. APPEAL TO NATURE
This is the argument that because something is 'natural' it is therefore valid, justified, inevitable, good, or ideal. Many 'natural' things are also considered 'good', and this can bias our thinking. But naturalness itself doesn't make something good or bad. For instance, murder could be seen as very natural, but that doesn't mean it's always good or justifiable.
The medicine man rolled into town on his bandwagon offering various natural remedies, such as very special plain water. He said that it was only natural that people should be wary of 'artificial' medicines such as antibiotics.
This is definitely another fallacy we see a lot in alternative-medicine. What is with all this hate with modernity? It seems that some people have nothing but contempt for modern science, cars, shoes, airplanes, computers, and the like. The truth is that the rise of civilization and technology has improved our lives in countless ways. We are healthier, we live longer, and we are surrounded by conveniences that allow us to get more done and have more fun. True, there can be a unique beauty and simplicity to nature. But nature has its dark side.
Rather than being stripped of all its natural goodness, this supplement is still covered in dirt! That means it has to be good for you, right? Wrong. We pasteurize milk for a reason. We refine aspirin from tree bark for a reason. Purified water is better for you than lake water. A multi-vitamin is better for you than a cup of pebbles. Fresh air, trees, butterflies, and flowers are all great and all, but do you know what else is natural? Flesh-eating bacteria, toxic volcano smoke, uranium, snake venom, and poison Ivy.
To be fair, I make this mistake a lot too. You will hear me say that something is human nature, or perfectly natural. By itself, however, this is a weak argument. Because if something is natural for humans to do, this doesn’t make it good or bad. Rather, it’s just natural, plain and simple. This should be seen as a neutral statement.
A far better practice is to come prepared to provide multiple forms of supporting evidence. To the rational thinker, a claim is only as good as its supporting evidence. The bolder your claims, the more evidence you should be prepared to provide in support of them. It is like what Carl Sagan said, “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence.” So the next time you hear someone make an argument that something is great because it’s natural, don’t be afraid to point out that that is an appeal to nature fallacy.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast. Thank you!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? What feedback or ideas do you have for this program or our organization? Feel free to share your perspective!
Freethinkers and Truth-Seekers assemble! Your local Free Thought Forum now shares a proud banner with every other local group under the Free Thought Initiative. So how does this flag look? Why is it important, and what does it represent? Keep reading to be among to first to learn about our organization’s new colorful icon!
Why Should We Have a Flag?
A flag is a meaningful symbol that can be used to unite and rally people behind a powerful idea. As more Free Thought Forums are created, each one may fly our colors to show pride in our organization, dedication to our cause, and unity among our various members and groups.
In the future, all meetings under the Free Thought Initiative, including weekly public discussions, will only be deemed official when and where our flag is displayed. This will also give people new to our organization a sign that they have found the correct group. Likewise, whenever our organization is found at festivals or city-wide celebrations, we will be accompanied by our flag.
A flag also gives us an instantly-recognizable, simple, and distinct symbol that can be used on mugs, shirts, lapel pins, and any other items we may wish to give away as promotional items, sell to raise funds, or present as thank-you gifts.
There is something inspiring about a good flag. It represents something deep in human consciousness, and allows us all to focus on the core concepts that make us who we are.
It is with great pride that the Executive Council of the Free Thought Initiative presents the new official flag for our organization:
The Official Flag of the Free Thought Initiative
Symbolism
The Color Orange
The “Terra Cotta Orange” in our flag represents the dawn and bright future of our organization as well as the passion and courage of our members. It is also symbolic of strong thinking, a stimulated mind, and calls back to the warm breakfast coffee (or juice) we enjoy at our preferred meeting locations.
The Color Blue
The dark and gray “Rhino Blue” symbolizes calmness, peaceful interaction, quiet contemplation, wisdom, sincerity, model citizenship, and the political freedoms we enjoy. Its juxtaposition to orange reflects a call to a life of healthy balance.
The Color White
Plain white denotes our promise as a nonprofit to transparency, integrity, and virtue.
Tricolor Background
The Three Stripes that constitute the background of the flag represent one’s dedication to our values both night and day, in public, and in private.
The “Free Thinker” Symbol
The “Truth Seeker’s Compass” Symbol
Truth Seeker’s Compass
Our organization’s main symbol of the “Freethinker” consists of a person with an “unlocked mind” speaking a word-cloud containing a key that can be used to unlock the minds of others. It reflects many things, including recovery from delusion, continual self-improvement, and self-actualization. Although it is not found on our flag, it is the direct inspiration for our “Truth Seeker’s Compass.”
Centered in the first third of our flag is our white “Truth Seeker’s Compass,” a symbol which is formed from three interlocking word clouds, created by three different people sharing their ideas. These word clouds represent free thinking, education, and open discussion from members and guests at our meetings.
When taken as one emblem, its round shape denotes our pursuit of moral ideas from around the world. The Blue World within the compass is in reference to our planet, the home of the entire human family. It also calls to our organization’s dedication to universal inclusivity, an invitation to all people, and the non-exclusive nature of our Foundational Philosophy (a common-ground code of ethics we offer to the world).
Animated flag flying simulation with added white trim
The Three Points of the compass represent the three parts of The Truth and our sincere pursuit of them:
What is Real — The objective facts of Reality and Science.
What is Right — Moral Stories and the sound Ethical Behaviors that will plausibly lead to the most cohesive society in which the highest number of people are enabled to realize their greatest individual potential.
What is Currently Unknown — Mystery and The acknowledgment that we must all be willing to learn and adjust as better information becomes available.
The Three Keys in the center of the compass spell the first letter in each word of our name, “Free Thought Forum.” They also represent the individual as well as societal desired fruits of our public discussions:
Enrichment
Enlightenment
Empowerment
Two Five-Pointed Stars
The number of points on each star stands for our Five Rules For Civil Discourse (the rules that regulate each public forum) and our five main services and programs:
Open Weekly Discussions
Group Leader Presentations
Semi-Monthly Volunteer Projects
First Week Freasts
Support Circle Meetings
The first star, the Inner Star, represents a member of the local majority. The second star, the Outer Star, represents a local minority. Paired together, these stars stand for our invitation to both religious and non-religious people, conservatives and liberals, young and old, men and women, and so forth. Both the member of the majority and the minority stand on equal footing and both share an equal position in our organization.
Simulation of the Reverse Side Flying in the Wind
Simulation of the Flag in Low-Speed Winds
Simulation of the Flag Hanging Without Wind
Simulation of the Flag in High-Speed Winds
Specifications
Our Flag’s ratio is 3:5, and may be created as an applique, digital print, or embroidery flag. The design is uniform throughout. Therefore, its reverse side is the mirror-image of its obverse side.
Colors
Terra Cotta Orange
Hex: #E37262
RGB: (227, 114, 98)
CMYK: 0, 0.50, 0.57, 0.11
White
Hex: #FFFFFF
RGB: (255, 255, 255)
CMYK: 0, 0, 0, 0
Rhino Blue
Hex: #424A54
RGB: (66, 74, 84)
CMYK: 0.21, 0.12, 0, 0.67
Stripe Ratios
The orange stripe covers the top 40% of the flag while the blue stripe covers the bottom 40%. The height of the white stripe is 20% of the overall height of the flag and is centered vertically.
Compass
The Truth-Seeker’s Compass symbol must be centered vertically (based on the overall shape, not the inner circle) and it’s center line must match the first 1/3 of the flag from the hoist edge. The full symbol is 2/3 the total height of the flag. The keys together are centered to the center point of the inner circle and are 2/3 the height of the circle. The tabs on the keys within the symbol should point back, to the fly of the flag.
Star Placement
Both five-pointed stars must be placed in-line with one another horizontally, pointing upwards. The height of each of the two stars is 1/10 the overall height of the flag. The center-point of each star is found in the intersection of edge lines found from the last horizontal third and sixth of the flag and the last fifth of the flag vertically.
It’s funny, when we are around certain people, we feel like we can talk all day! Yet in other situations, thinking of something to say is like pulling teeth.
In each Free Thought Forum, it is our goal to help all guests and members feel like they can speak freely and enjoy participating in the conversation. Yet creating and maintaining an engaging conversation takes a little skill and practice. Today, we will go over five things you can do so that when you are talking with friends, family, coworkers, and fellow free-thinkers, everyone will be able to get a lot more out of the experience:
1. Help Others Feel Welcome to Talk About Themselves and Their Ideas
When the stakes are high, we tend to keep quiet. After all, who can risk making a bad impression among people who are judgmental, overly-critical, or close-minded? But when surrounded by open-minded and friendly people, we are much more likely to open up.
We would all do well to better communicate to others that they are welcome to share what they have to say. Take a break from saying what’s on your mind and invite them to go on (and on) about themselves. By default, most of us can feel misunderstood, especially by strangers. Allowing someone the time to put their perspective into words allows them to feel more like you “get them,” and that they are free to be themselves.
Some first-time guests to a Free Thought Forum may have not had the chance to really speak their minds in the past. As a result, they have something of a back-log of ideas that have never been expressed! It is perfectly reasonable to expect a newcomer to finally give voice to months of pent-up thoughts. If we are doing our job in creating an inclusive and friendly atmosphere, then they will be able to do just that.
Another thing to keep in mind is that many people consider it impolite to share their opinions and ideas unless they’re asked. So ask! A good invitation to participate should be warm and casual, giving the other person the sense that they have all of the liberty in the world to respectfully decline.
2. Actively Listen
Once someone feels included and welcome to speak their mind, then it is our job to listen, and listen well.
A good listener doesn’t worry too much about sharing their own perspective. We should trust that our chance to speak will come, so we don’t let that distract us from what someone else has to say. We don’t think about what we will say next, and we don’t distract ourselves with internal commentary to the thoughts expressed.
Make eye contact, nod along, and let the other person know that you understand what they mean. All these little things show that you actually care about what they have to say.
3. Ask Genuine Questions
For a conversation to be truly engaging, there must be a real intercourse of ideas. After someone feels welcome to talk (and that you are listening), it is important to show interest in their chosen topic of conversation.
Adding questions to a discussion is like adding logs to a campfire. Without them, it will quickly fizzle-out. Avoid asking yes-or-no questions. Focus on questions that open up the topic, rather than close it off. Rephrasing what the other person has said by putting it into your words is incredibly effective, especially when you follow that up with something like, “… is that a fair way to put it?”
4. Keep Personal Stories Short
Once in a while, telling a story can add humor, relatability, and a personal touch to the overall exchange. But there can be too much of a good thing.
Short stories work very well in group settings. Yet, on the rare occasion, you may have a great memory you want to share! In that situation, your audience will probably request more details. Naturally, you would do well to indulge them. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that everyone probably has something to say. Therefore, keeping things short is a practical solution to the problem of limited time.
5. Show Gratitude
For some of us, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to say what we need to say, even if we look calm and collected on the outside.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do to facilitate an engaging conversation is to clearly and reliably thank the participants for sharing. Doing so can relieve their anxieties that they have said something wrong or that their comment was disliked. Even if you disagree with their position on the given topic, thank them for their input.
The truth is that a conversation can only take place if its participants actually participate. A date without discourse tends to go poorly, a teacher that prohibits questions may limit the learning of their students, and a forum of free-thinkers can only take off when everyone is able and willing to think out loud.
Logical Fallacies (Part 1) and How to Avoid Them
Aug 05, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 27
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
The Human Mind is astonishingly complex, an impressive product of natural selection, and humanity’s greatest asset as a species. But if our brains had a “default mode,” it would be a power-saving mode labeled “Lazy thinking.” We naturally tend to prefer logical short-cuts, easy answers, and Ideas that “feel true,” even when they are false. This is why we are so easily hood-winked by smiling news reporters, fast-talking salesmen, pandering preachers, and anyone else who is eager to take advantage of our sloppy thinking. When our thinking is lazy, we tend to miss, fall for, and make logical fallacies. But what is a logical fallacy?
Defined by the amazing website, Yourfallacyis.com: “A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. Don't be fooled!” In this episode, the first in a three-part series, we will look at the first eight of 24 common fallacies that can hinder an intellectually honest and productive conversation among truth-seekers and free-thinkers. After each fallacy, a more preferable option is suggested that we can all use in our next forums, conversations, and debates!
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations, please visit freethoughtforum.org.
Rene Descartes was a big fan of thinking. He said, in a sense, that we should question everything, and doubt even our strongest-held beliefs. He’s the guy behind the Cartesian plane you first saw in your algebra or geometry class. He was a major part of the Scientific Revolution and a founding father of modern philosophy. Descartes was an absolute genius and free-thinker (long before freethought was cool). Even at his level of mental prowess, I find it interesting that he still spent much of his time quietly reflecting, thinking, and meditating. He suggested that we would all be better off if we just gave ourselves time to think. I think he’s right. When I look at logical fallacies, I get the sense that these are all mistakes we make when we are in a hurry. As we look at eight of these fallacies today, I invite you to slow down and really give yourself time to think.
With a solid understanding of logical fallacies, you will be able to politely identify them when they are being used accidentally or intentionally. Doing so may allow a good-intentioned discussion to continue from the potential dead-ends caused by these examples of sloppy thinking.
Rather than looking only at the logical fallacies we or others may make, we will also consider what the better option would be in each case. For the most productive and intellectually honest discussions, these favorable behaviors should be followed as much as possible.
Many of the definitions and examples used in this podcast come from yourlogicalfallacyis.com, an amazing tool created by the School of Thought organization. Be sure to check their website out. If you like what you see, I strongly encourage you to send them a donation.
1. STRAWMAN
This is when someone’s argument is misrepresented to make it easier to attack. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's argument, it's much easier to present one’s own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate.
After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending.
To keep from committing the strawman fallacy, why not try “steelmaning” your opponent’s argument instead? If you find yourself disagreeing with someone, pause, and see if you can rephrase their argument in the most generous way possible. If you do that well enough, the other person will feel like you “get it.” This allows them to relax and open-up a little to what you have to say. But if you cut them off and immediately jump into the argument with both feet, then they will probably feel like you never understood what they had to say in the first place.
I think that the best way to steelman someone is by following Rapoport’s Rules. Daniel Dennett (an American Scientist and Philosopher) shares the following four rules that can help in his book “Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking.” These rules are summarized from those given originally by Russian-American mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport:
You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.
You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
If we could all get into the habit of steelmanning the ideas of those with whom we disagree, we will come off as much more reasonable, open-minded, and fair.
2. FALSE CAUSE
If someone presumes that a real or perceived relationship between things means that one is the cause of the other, they have committed the “false cause fallacy.” Many people confuse correlation (things that happen at around the same time) for causation (that one thing actually causes the other to happen). Sometimes correlation is coincidental, or it may be attributable to a common cause.
Pointing to a fancy chart, Roger shows how temperatures have been rising over the past few centuries, whilst at the same time the numbers of pirates have been decreasing; thus pirates cool the world and global warming is a hoax.
Remember that “Correlation is not Causation." Just because one thing seems like it causes another, that doesn’t mean it does. If more violent crimes take place when ice cream sales are high, does that mean that ice cream causes more violent crimes? If a group of people dance and a rainstorm takes place soon after, does that mean the rain dance worked? Of course not.
Even though these examples sound silly, they represent a real problem. We are so easily tricked by fancy advertisements that make these false connections. I especially see this fallacy made with alternative medicines and pseudoscientific claims. The next time you hear someone say that one thing MUST have caused the other, I hope that you maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. If something does indeed lead to another, it should be something that can be demonstrated, not just supposed. Demand to see the evidence. If there is no evidence, then you are probably dealing with yet another case of correlation, not causation.
3. SLIPPERY-SLOPE
This is when people say that if we allow A to happen, then Z will eventually happen too; therefore A should not happen. The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, this fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion fallacy by leveraging fear. In effect, the argument at hand is unfairly tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture.
Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we'll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars, and even monkeys.
How can we avoid making the slippery-slope fallacy? Try this: Only make a case if there is a precedent. Has this one thing led to another in the past? Did that lead to yet another thing? If so - bring it up! Be ready to give evidence or examples and establish that “this has happened before.” If it hasn’t happened before, then you should be open about that. Admit that your argument is only conjecture, or just keep it to yourself. It is intellectually dishonest to scare people into agreeing with you because you made-up an unrealistic chain of events.
4. AD HOMINEM
When a person attacks their opponent's character or personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument, then they have made this fallacy. Ad hominem attacks can take the form of overtly attacking somebody, or more subtly casting doubt on their character or personal attributes as a way to discredit their argument. The result of an “ad hom” attack can be to undermine someone's case without actually having to engage with it.
After Sally presents an eloquent and compelling case for a more equitable taxation system, Sam asks the audience whether we should believe anything from a woman who isn't married, was once arrested, and smells a bit weird.
In my opinion, Ad Hominem is one of the most cowardly and underhanded tricks people use to get out of having to really address the issues. It’s a distraction tactic. I see this all of the time on social media. So how can we avoid doing the same? Here is a great rule to live by: Only Attack Ideas, Not People. People have inherent worth and rights. Ideas do not. Don’t let the conversation get personal. Attacking a person is always off limits, but their IDEAS - their ideas are fair game. We should allow ourselves to criticize all claims and ideas, no matter who said them. Good ideas can take a beating. Bad ideas deserve to be beat!
5. SPECIAL PLEADING
This is when someone moves the goalposts or makes up an exception when their claim was shown to be false. Humans are funny creatures and have a foolish aversion to being wrong. Rather than appreciate the benefits of being able to change one's mind through better understanding, many will invent ways to cling to old beliefs. One of the most common ways that people do this is to post-rationalize a reason why what they thought to be true must remain to be true. It's usually very easy to find a reason to believe something that suits us, and it requires integrity and genuine honesty with oneself to examine one's own beliefs and motivations without falling into the trap of justifying our existing ways of seeing ourselves and the world around us.
Edward Johns claimed to be psychic, but when his 'abilities' were tested under proper scientific conditions, they magically disappeared. Edward explained this saying that one had to have faith in his abilities for them to work.
I see people moving the goal posts a lot when trying to believe in intelligent design. “Ha-ha,” they may say, “but there is no missing link between apes and humans.” Soon after, we find a fossil that comes from a creature that fits that description perfectly. But then the same intelligent design proponent says, “well where is the missing link between that fossil and humans?” You see, no matter how much evidence you throw at them, they will always demand more. This is “special pleading.”
Do you engage in special pleading? Here is how to avoid it. Be consistent, and admit personal error. If you can’t admit it when you’re wrong, then you are not reasonable, and people will be able to tell! Be consistent, and play by the same rules that you expect of all other participants. If you say things like, “No, you’re right, I’ve never looked at it that way” or “I wish I knew all those things before, in that case, I was definitely wrong about that,” then you will be well on your way to thinking more logically. As an added bonus, people will probably find it easier to be around you.
Another good rule is to agree on definitions before getting too deep in the conversation. If we can all agree on what we mean when we use words like “faith,” or “GMOs,” then we will be able to have a productive conversation. Otherwise, we may end up talking past one another, engaging in special pleading, or moving the goal posts.
6. LOADED QUESTION
This is when someone asks a question that has a presumption built into it so that it couldn't be answered without appearing guilty. Loaded questions are particularly effective at derailing rational debates because of their inflammatory nature. The recipient of the loaded question is compelled to defend themselves and may appear flustered or on the back foot.
Grace and Helen were both romantically interested in Brad. One day, with Brad sitting within earshot, Grace asked in an inquisitive tone whether Helen was still having problems with her drug habit.
The classic example is, “when did you stop beating your wife?” (This is where biased journalists show their hand.) If you are listening to news reporters and you pick up on one loaded question after another, you should probably reconsider tuning-in to that program.
You can avoid asking loaded questions by only asking genuine questions. First off, being genuine increases your likability, charisma, and relatability. Your audience will be better able to sympathize with your position. Secondly, it leads to a more personal connection with the person with whom you’re talking. Who knows, maybe their answer will surprise you or change your mind!
Here is another thing to keep in mind: Only ask a question if you really want to hear what the other person thinks. This is especially true when you do feel like your feathers are getting ruffled. Your questions shouldn’t be statements. You shouldn’t be playing to some audience. When you ask a question, it should be because the other person has an answer that you want to hear.
7. THE GAMBLER'S FALLACY
If you said that 'runs' occur to statistically independent phenomena such as roulette wheel spins, then you’ve made this mistake. This commonly believed fallacy can be said to have helped create an entire city in the desert of Nevada. Though the overall odds of a 'big run' happening may be low, each roll of the dice is, itself, entirely independent from the last. So whilst there may be a very small chance that heads will come up 20 times in a row if you flip a coin, the chances of heads coming up on each individual flip remain 50/50, and aren't influenced by what happened before.
Red had come up six times in a row on the roulette wheel, so Greg knew that it was close to certain that black would be next up. Suffering an economic form of natural selection with this thinking, he soon lost all of his savings.
Here is the deal, human beings like to see patterns in nature, even when they don’t really exist. To keep from committing the gambler’s fallacy, you need to keep the basic rules of math in mind. Your roulette wheel, dice, coin, or any other random number generator doesn’t “remember” what it did last. Every spin, roll, or flip should be treated as a fresh new randomized experience. Each time, you should expect random results from random chance.
8. BANDWAGON
This is an appeal to popularity or the fact that many people do something as an attempted form of validation. The flaw in this argument is that the popularity of an idea has absolutely no bearing on its validity. If it did, then the Earth would have made itself flat for most of history to accommodate that popular belief.
Shamus pointed a drunken finger at Sean and asked him to explain how so many people could believe in leprechauns if they're only a silly old superstition. Sean, however, had had a few too many Guinness himself and fell off his chair.
Can one person be wrong about something? Yes. So can groups of people be wrong about something? Yes. It’s like what your mom said, “If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?” A billion people can believe in something, and they can all be wrong. The universe doesn’t care what we believe. Reality doesn’t change because a group of people all have the same opinion. You would do well to ignore appeals to popularity. Sometimes, only one person on earth is right. In the cases of most scientific discoveries, they began with only one person on earth holding the most correct view. So the popularity of an idea really isn’t what is important. The truth of the idea itself (with consideration to things like evidence and plausibility) is what really matters.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Welcome to the 7th issue of our official newsletter! Use the button below to view the full PDF edition of this issue, complete with images and links. The raw information about our announcements this week is as follows:
Let’s say you find yourself in a conversation about science, politics, culture, or in another complicated intellectual topic. You have something you want to say, but don’t necessarily have special education or related experience with consideration to the subject at hand. What should you do? Whether it be in our weekly meetings, online, or in other interactions, we hope that you always have the courage to share your perspective.
There is a mountain of reasons that we can each use to shy away from participation. Of course, patiently and thoughtfully listening is always a wise option. But today, we are talking about those moments in which we have something to contribute, but fear that we are not properly qualified to do so. Engaging in the forum, even when treading outside of your comfort zone, can have meaningful benefits to all involved. Here are five reasons why your voice really does matter:
1. Your Perspective is Unique and thus Carries Intrinsic Value
There are ideas that have only ever existed in your mind. You have seen and experienced things no other human being may ever fully understand. Likewise, you have made connections and insights that the world may never know.
Why not share your unique thoughts? Even if you feel that adding your two-cents from the perspective of a mother, a farmer, a college student, a cancer patient, or a veteran isn’t that glamorous, helpful, or relevant, it still may add an additional dimension that enriches the conversation.
Your fellow freethinkers want to hear what you have to say because it is you who is saying it. A Free Thought Forum is the place where every kind of person can have their voice heard.
2. Thinking-Out-loud is an Important Part of the Learning Process
In order to enjoy a fine meal, you may need some time to let it cool, to chew, or to cut it up. When we are exposed to big ideas, we can likewise benefit from exploring them, deconstructing them, and volunteering alternative viewpoints and interpretations.
Engaging verbally with the other participants with the goal to “try out” or wrestle with a concept is a powerful mental exercise. Asking plenty of questions, rephrasing or summarizing an idea, agreeing on definitions, using the Socratic Method, and playing the role of “a devil’s advocate” are all techniques that can deepen the understanding of all involved.
3. Sometimes the Experts are Wrong
Can you imagine the kind of nerve it took for Edwin Hubble to publish his findings on the expanding universe, knowing that they would conflict with Einstein’s accepted idea of a cosmological constant?
History is filled with those brave enough to question the conventional wisdom of their day. The vast majority of “experts” of the past have been usurped by humanity’s march of progress, fueled by newly discovered facts. We are all better informed today as a direct result.
Admittedly, it is not realistic to expect armchair philosophers to crack the mysteries of the universe or solve the complex problems afflicting society. However, We can’t forget that blind obedience to the prevailing theories of the day is antithetical to the mission of a free-thinker.
If you don’t understand what the experts have to say, bring it up! Such an honest approach can help everyone better comprehend an important issue. If you disagree with what the experts say, be prepared to state your reasons. If your arguments are refuted, you are now better for it. If your arguments hold weight, then you have opened the door to even bigger and better questions.
A good rule of thumb is to seek first to understand an idea before attempting to replace it. With that said, we should never let a good answer keep us from finding a better one.
4. You May Say What Others are Too Shy to Say
Not all of us are comfortable speaking up in a public setting. If that is true of you, then you may be familiar with the relief that comes when a bold friend asks the same question that was on your mind.
Others may have their reasons to pause or remain silent. But wouldn’t it be a tragedy if a meaningful conversation was snuffed out because no one was willing to get it started in the first place? Since the goal of each conversation is to enrich, enlighten, and empower all involved, it is alright to risk being offensive, sound silly, or expose some personal flaw.
We are all in this together. Fear of judgment should be the last thing on the mind of a member of a Free Thought Forum. Therefore, if you think there is a comment or question going unsaid, why not say it? A quiet member of the crowd may be tremendously, albeit secretly, grateful.
5. It Allows your Ideas to be Challenged or Corrected
At a cruising speed of around 550 miles per hour, an airplane that is just one degree off from its true destination can quickly find itself dangerously off course.
There is no shame in discovering that you are mistaken. Freely submit your view for review in the minds of your listeners. The additional brainpower may detect errors, logical fallacies, or problems that you may not have been able to find on your own, allowing for quick and personalized course-correction.
Switching to a Monthly Newsletter
It is true, all good things must come to an end. Based on your feedback, our Executive Board has decided to adjust the frequency at which new issues of our newsletters are sent out to our subscribers and posted to our blog.
The eighth and final issue of “The Monday Memo” will be released on August 5th, 2019. On the following Monday, August 12th, our replacement newsletter will be introduced and distributed on a monthly basis. (There will be no need to unsubscribe to the Monday Memo or to subscribe to our new newsletter as all mailing lists and settings will be carried over to the new format.)
Our monthly publication will boast a more elaborate presentation, rich with multiple writers, articles, and reoccurring features. Switching to monthly distribution will also reduce the number of emails sent to our subscribers. We hope you are looking forward to it as much as we are!
Utah Valley Group CALENDAR
Aug 4 – Feast Sunday & Support Circle
Aug 10 – Volunteer Project: Springville Animal Shelter Clinic
Aug 11 – The Epic FIRST Meeting for a NEW Draper Group! (We will not meet in Springville on this date.)
Sep 22 – Wisdom Festival (Secular Autumnal Equinox Celebration)
Draper Utah Group CALENDAR
Aug 11 – The Epic FIRST Meeting for a NEW Draper Group! (We will vote on future meeting dates, times, and topics at our first meeting.)
Social Media Watch
How many people have we reached this week? Here is a quick update:
YouTube Subscribers: 61
Freethinkers on Meetup: 61 (Utah Valley) and 66 (Draper)
Pinterest Monthly Views: 534
Facebook Page: 21 (Likes) 23 (Follows)
Minds Page Subscribers: 27
Discord Server Members: 16
Instagram Followers: 9
Bitchute Subscribers: 5
Reddit Followers: 4
Twitter Followers: 5
Coming Soon to our Online Store
The official store for the Free Thought Initiative is now under development. Stay tuned for upcoming announcements about our hats, jackets, new-and-improved volunteer shirts, tote bags, lapel pins, mini-flags, and more! All proceeds will go to funding our activities as a nonprofit while you walk away with some smart looking swag!
Boötes, the Boötes Void, Arcus, and the first Werewolf
Jul 27, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 26
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
You’ve reached part four of our guided audio tour of the night sky! Tonight, you will be given the steps needed to locate the constellation Boötes, (properly pronounced “Boh-OH-tease”) otherwise known as “the herdsman.” Do these stars depict an ancient rancher, an inventor, a hunter, a king, a winemaker, or the grandson of a werewolf? We will see if we can find out by exploring several of the myths tied to these stars. We will then wrap this episode up by dipping our toes into one of the deepest cosmological mysteries of all time known as the “Boötes Void!”
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
The Boötes Void shouldn’t exist. Our current models of the big bang and the expansion of the universe work extremely well. They accurately explain almost everything we observe about the cosmos itself. The big bang theory has incredible predictive power, but only to a point. When we use that theory and its models to try to explain the Boötes Void, we end up with a giant question mark. It is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the night sky. But before we dive into that strange abyss, let’s see if we can spot Boötes himself.
Boötes is often described as the big ice-cream-cone-shaped constellation. It contains the third-brightest star in our sky and five of its stars have their own planets. It is easiest to spot in the spring and always follows just behind Ursa Major, the big bear. This is where we’ll start. To find Boötes, draw an imaginary curved line that begins with the three stars of the little dipper’s handle. Keep going past and behind the handle in that same arc. After you fly past a few dimmer stars, your nice wide arc will run directing into a really bright star. It is a star that has consumed all of its hydrogen and has swelled in size, shining with 133 times the luminosity of our sun. That star is Arcturus! To remember this trick, just think, “Follow the arc to Arcturus.”
The bright star that you are looking at now is at the bottom of the ice-cream-cone shape. Although, I’m sure, this is not at all what the ancients imagined, I like to think of Arcturus as the overlapping ankles of the herdsman, as he stands like a ballerina, with his long boots pointing out to his left and right. He probably isn’t a very good herdsman with those giant boots, but I digress.
The upper-body of Boötes leans toward the tail of the great bear as if he has a rope connecting him to Ursa Major, who is pulling him along. You’ll notice that he has a very narrow waist. If he is facing us, then the next star we find is on his right hip. “Izar” (meaning “loincloth”) is the name of that star, and it is 300 light-years away. Izar is actually a triple-star system containing a bright orange star orbiting a central point with two smaller blue and white stars.
Moving on to the herdsman’s right shoulder is the star, “Delta Bootis.” It is also called, “Princeps” meaning “Prince,” which I like better because it is with that arm that you can imagine him holding the crown that is Corona Borealis, the U-shaped constellation, to his right.
The next star marks the neck of the herdsman. I say it’s his neck because the name of the star is “Nekkar.” It means “cattle driver” or “rancher.” Nekkar is 215 light-years away and used to be a blue-white star. It is now a yellow flare star. It’s called that because it is a kind of star with unusual magnetic activity, causing it to irregularly produce bright flashes that each last only a few minutes.
The left shoulder of Boötes, the one closer to Ursa Major is Seginus, shining from 85 light-years away. It is a Delta Scuti type variable star, which means that, among other things, its brightness and size rapidly oscillates, making it useful to asteroseismologists who study the inner workings of stars. Some depictions of this constellation show Boötes holding his left arm up high, as if he is pulling back on the leashes of his dogs. If the night is clear, you may be able to trace up from his shoulder to find his elbow and hand.
Found at this rancher’s left hip, we see Rho Bootis, another orange star. I like to think that if Boötes has a belt, it is definitely an orange one, given the kind of stars that make it up. Rho Bootis is 160 light-years from us. It is 10 billion years old, and is moving toward us at a speed of about 30,000 miles per hour!
Let’s now jump down to the big boots we found before. The star at the herdsman’s left boot’s toe is Muphrid. It is one of the closest stars we’ve found at only 37 light-years away. It is also a close neighbor to Arcturus. Only 3.24 light-years separate the two stars. Unlike most stars which are made of mostly hydrogen and a little bit of helium, Muphrid is comprised of an impressive collection of heavier elements.
Finally, the star at Boötes’ right toes is Zeta Bootis. Zeta Bootis is another binary star system, found 180 light-years away. The cool thing is these two giants are the same size, rather than what is more usual, with one member of the binary being much larger than the other.
In our episode about Ursa Major, you may remember me talking about the mythological story of Zeus and his mistress, the nymph Callisto. Many storytellers over the ages pointed to the little dipper, Ursa Minor, and identified him as Arcas, the great hunter, and son Callisto, who nearly accidentally killed his mother when she was in the form of a bear. To save them both from this tragedy, Zeus turned the boy into a bear and spirited them both into the night sky as constellations. But just like with today’s comic books, non-cannon fanfictions, or conflicting religious texts, classical mythology is filled with imaginative alternate endings and “what-if” scenarios. What if Arcas never hunted his mother? What if he grew to adulthood, raised by his villainous maternal grandfather, king Lycaon? To many storytellers, this alternate ending of the story is where we get the constellation Boötes and the mythological origin of werewolves.
Lycaon’s people were barbaric and engaged in cannibalism and ritualistic human sacrifice. Once a devoted worshiper of Zeus, Lycaon grew to despise the king of the gods. Perhaps this had to do with Zeus’ treatment of his daughter, Callisto. Maybe he grew jealous that Zeus showed favor to his grandson. One day, Zeus joined the king at a dinner party. As a cruel trick, and to show his subjects that Zeus really wasn’t all-knowing, King Lycaon had his grandson Arcas sacrificed and secretly served in a meal to Zeus. (In some versions, it was one of Lycaon’s sons, such as Nyctimus, who was actually the one sacrificed.)
By the way, cannibalism shows up a few times in Greek mythology. We have even run into it before with the story of Cronos. I’m sure this trope has some meaningful archetypal message behind it, but to our modern sensibilities, these stories come off as bizarre, at best.
Of course, Zeus recognized what had happened immediately and threw the meal over the table in a fit of fury. Many things fueled his rage. He was mistreated as a guest by a king who should have been a gracious host. He was also the subject of a vile plot meant to humiliate him. His lightning cracked through the dining hall and he struck dead all of Lycaon’s supporters including his 50 sons. With another flash of light, he cursed Lycaon by turning him into a she-wolf. This is why the king’s name can be found in words like “lycanthrope” and “lycanthropy,” the supernatural transformation of a person into a werewolf.
As a demonstration of his true power, Zeus brought Arcas back to life, to reign in his grandfather’s place. Soon, Arcas learned that his mother had been cursed by a goddess (either Artemis or Hera), and doomed to wander the earth as a bear. He spent years looking for her, trusting his faithful hunting dogs to follow her scent. Eventually, he found her, and took care of her, ensuring that no harm would come to her. “Arcturus,” the name of this constellation's brightest star, comes from the Greek word meaning "guardian of the bear." Arcas would later go on to become a great king who reformed the kingdom. He taught his people how to weave and how to bake bread. After his reign, the land was renamed Arcadia, recognizing him as its noble founder.
Which ending of the story do you like better? Did Arcus become a celestial bear, or a great king, and grandson of the first werewolf? With Greek and Roman mythology, there often aren’t “official canonized versions” of these stories, so you are free to tell the version you like best.
Other myths are attached to this constellation as well. One simple story is that of an inventor. Boötes was the first person to create the plow. The agricultural goddess Ceres (as in the dwarf planet Ceres and the root for the word, “cereal”) was so impressed that she immortalized him in the stars. Today, he is still driving his plow with the help of several oxen. But maybe this constellation isn’t of Arcas or Boötes. Perhaps it depicts Icarius, a master wine-maker and prized student of the God of wine and theatre, Dionysus. When the ancient Chinese looked at these stars, they saw great weapons of war, a king’s throne, and a dragon’s horn. Some Native Americans saw these stars as a fish trap. Most interesting to me is how the Egyptians saw these stars. To them, it looked like the forelimb of an animal, like the paw of a dog, or the leg of an ox.
I can enjoy some mythology as much as the next guy, but the real story that comes from Boötes deals with the scientific mystery it conceals. The time has come to gaze into the abyss, one of the most massive, empty, dark, and spooky parts of the entire universe. Go back to Nekkar, the star we visualize as being in the center of the neck of the herdsman. Now take a moment to visualize the head of Boötes just above it. Imagine that Boötes’ head is turned in profile, facing the tail of Ursa Major. Ignore the last star of the bear’s tail and look at the line created by its other two stars, Alioth and Mizar. If you trace a straight line from the first two stars of the bear’s tail to where the eye of Boötes would be, you have crossed over the void. The center of the Boötes Void is actually about one-quarter of the way between his eye and the tail of the bear.
In 1981, American astronomer Robert Kirschner was studying the big bang, inflation, and the expansion of the universe. He was measuring the changing distances between galaxies when he came to this exact section of the sky. What he found sent chills down his back. You see, the big bang theory predicts that matter and energy should be spread out across the universe in pretty predictable ways. All the matter and energy was once equally spread out, and gravity and dark matter worked to clump everything into stars and galaxies here and there. Galaxies clumped together, and over time, the universe looked more and more like how we see it today. So, what should we do if we find a giant hole in the universe? When I say giant, I mean it. This void is roughly sphere-shaped and has a diameter of 250 million light-years. In that space, there should be about 10,000 galaxies. So far, we have only found about 60. Where did all the other galaxies go? How can the distribution of matter in this area be so unusual? Is it possible that voids can group together? Is this pocket of space-time home to something strange such as massive amounts of dark energy, quantum anomalies, or something even more bizarre? The answer is that we simply don’t know.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Welcome to the 6th issue of the official news source for those interested in free-thinking, truth-seeking, and keeping up-to-date with the Free Thought Initiative! Use the button below to view the full PDF edition of this issue, complete with images and links. The raw information about our announcements this week is as follows:
On the surface, your local Free Thought Forum may seem like just any other intellectual meetup or church-alternate group. But there are a handful of things that set us apart. Here are four unique things about our group that we are proud to share:
1. We Encourage a Diversity of Political and Religious Opinions
Sometimes, those of us who leave religion behind find ourselves going from one rigid worldview to another. Our organization is not necessarily anti-religious, atheistic or theistic. Likewise, we are not accurately described as politically left-leaning or right-leaning. We leave it to our members to think for themselves and decide where they fit on the political and theological spectra. Therefore, we will never exclude anyone for their religious, nonreligious, left, or right views. Put another way, we are attempting to be an “anti-echo-chamber.”
This approach is imperative if we all expect to live by what is actually real and morally right. We should always be open to new perspectives and ideas while maintaining a dedication to only live by the best information we’ve found thus far.
2. We Embrace Discussions on Important, Challenging, and Controversial Ideas
Your Free Thought Forum is not just a social group which plans camping trips and cocktail parties. Rather than focus only on fun and games, we ask all participants to stretch their minds as part of a quest for constant self-improvement.
We promote the idea that life is best lived when one has found a balance between skepticism and open-mindedness. In order to guarantee a genuinely open forum, we encourage our guests and members to share exactly what they need to say, something that can lead to discussing controversial ideas. Rather than suppress uncommon opinions, we allow them to be prodded and tested in the discussion itself. We would never want to censor a good idea, and we believe that bad ideas should be exposed. This follows the common saying that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
This approach also yields a refreshing liberation that comes only from being able to sincerely test your ideas out with others. We aren’t here to judge or label you. Instead, we recognize that every person is on a journey. An important part of that journey is the opportunity to truly think out loud, find support for great ideas, and be exposed to compelling reasons to leave bad ideas behind.
None of us have fully made up our minds on all topics, and none of us claim to know what is best in every possible case. We have no taboos or “sacred cows.” When you attend our meetings, you need not worry about sharing ideas that are too “off-topic” or unpopular.
3. We offer Dogma-Free Philosophical Suggestions
Although we seek to provide the most open-possible forum, we do have two main goals. The first goal is on the personal level. We support one another as we each strive to realize our own greatest individual potential. This is otherwise known as “Self-Actualization.” For many of us, we cannot become our greatest selves without various forms of support. Therefore, this community is being formed to fill those personal needs. Our second main goal is on the societal level. We seek to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Our personal lives and our societies face several ills and important issues which call for real solutions. Since many questions only have one correct answer, we can’t realistically be expected to serve our members by saying that all ideas are of equal value. Therefore, we prioritize the best arguments that are supported by evidence, experimentation, logic, reason, and so forth. We are unified by our sincere search for truth, wherever that search may lead.
This is all part of our “Foundational Philosophy,” a proto-world-view that we offer to those who find themselves in need of sound guiding personal metaphysics and epistemology. Many of us have experienced a lack of direction and purpose that comes from leaving a belief system behind. Our Foundational Philosophy is intentionally being designed to meet the needs of every kind of person from every kind of background. It draws from the best ideas from scientific, philosophic, and religious teachers from around the world.
With all that said, our psychological direction only comes in the form of a suggestion. To be intellectually honest, we cannot claim to both have all the answers while also still looking for better answers. The best we can do is offer a moral system that is continually undergoing minor adjustment and refinement.
Rather than tell people what to believe, we invite them to define and refine their beliefs over time with the clear goal to live by the best information on reality and morality at hand.
4. We Run Under a Simple and Reproducible Format
On the first weekend of each month, we meet for a pot-luck picnic where we all take turns talking about our progress on personal goals as all others volunteer suggestions on how they can help. On the other weekends, we casually meet for 15 minutes, enjoy a presentation from the Group Leader that lasts about 15 minutes, and then participate in an open forum for the remainder of the time. We also hold community volunteer projects once or twice a month.
Just about anyone can volunteer to be a Group Leader and create their own group. Anyone can be trained to be an Official Host and help the open discussions remain civil and productive. This is all by design, and with any luck, will lead to the creation of multiple Free Thought Forums around the world!
Utah Valley Group CALENDAR
July 28 – The Political Compass
Aug 4 – Feast Sunday & Support Circle
Aug 10 – Volunteer Project: Springville Animal Shelter Clinic
Aug 11 – The Epic FIRST Meeting for a NEW Draper Group! (We will not meet in Springville on this date.)
Aug 18 – How to Moderate Public Discussions
Aug 25 – Great Ideas From Sikhism
Sep 1 – Feast Sunday & Support Circle
Sep 8 – Human-Caused Climate Change
Sep 15 – The Ideas and Ethics of Baruch Spinoza
Sep 22 – Wisdom Festival (Celebrating the Autumnal Equinox)
Social Media Watch
How many people have we reached this week? Here is a quick update:
YouTube Subscribers: 61
Freethinkers on Meetup: 59 (Utah Valley) and 63 (Draper)
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
When you’ve been physically injured, quickly administered first-aid can make a dramatic difference in how quickly and fully your body may recover. As a society, we tend to take physical health seriously. As individuals, it is also easy to admit that we need help when we are afflicted with something like broken bones or severe cuts. But today, we will be talking about emotional health.
When you’ve suffered a devastating emotional injury, find yourself overwhelmed, lost, without a path forward, or when you feel completely closed off from the love and friendship of others, that should be taken seriously too. We all have had extremely bad days. We all have times in which we are overcome by feelings of depression, isolation, anxiety, and loneliness. If you find yourself in such a situation, don’t you also need first aid? In such a moment, wouldn’t it be nice to have within reach a list of ideas on how you can pull yourself out of a rut?
In this episode, we will look into several suggestions on what can be done. These suggestions have come from psychologists and from the participants of our past open discussions, like you. As you listen to this episode, I hope you have the chance to write down a few notes of things that you can do to give yourself some emotional first aid on your next bad day. Of course, if you get an idea of something other than what is mentioned here, be sure to add that to your personal list as well!
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
What really makes you happy? What almost always lifts your spirits? For you, what can turn a bad day into a good one? If you haven’t had time to think about this, it may be hard to come up with more than one or two things. When you are in the middle of an emotional crisis, it may feel as if it is impossible to come up with even one thing.
Feelings of deep sadness or hopelessness can sneak up on you, much like a bad cold. Just like a cold, such a low emotional state can also be contagious. When our energy, willpower, or patience has been drained completely, we can surprise ourselves with how nasty and unfairly we can treat those around us. If you don’t like dealing with your own emotional health, I’d like to suggest that you should, not just for your sake, but for the sake of those around you.
I think it is a great idea to keep a personal list of things you can do to treat yourself when your emotional health is compromised. It is something that should be done long in advance before such painful moments. When the moment of need arises and we have no ideas on how to manage it, it can be easy to turn to overeating, drug abuse, or other unhealthy indulgences. Much like saving money for a rainy day, some emotional first aid should be carefully considered and prepared.
We can all benefit from creating a list of things we can do to recover. Whether you use your list tomorrow or in ten years, you are always better off prepared. So grab a piece of paper and a pen, if you’d like. Write “Emotional First Aid” up at the top, and write down the ideas that you think would work best on you. All of our lists will be a little different because we are all different kinds of people. In most cases, you will be the best psychologist for you, so it is alright to trust your instincts when it comes to deciding what to add or not add to your list. Keep this list in a place you’ll remember, and modify it over time as needed. The following are 12 suggestions that may work as part of your emotional first aid:
1. WRITE DOWN EACH FEELING YOU FELT THAT LEAD TO THIS MOMENT
Sometimes, to find our way back home, we must retrace our steps. The first suggestion I have is to develop your ability to detect these kinds of feelings, and the feelings that lead to those feelings. You may have been betrayed, which led to disappointment, which led to feelings of painful isolation, which led to self-loathing. A skilled doctor can examine a patient, ask a few questions, run a few tests, and make an informed diagnosis. This should be your goal when it comes to your own emotional state. How good are you at detecting when you are being more emotional than usual? Can you recognize when you are about to get angry, frustrated, or deeply sad? The next time you feel terrible, turn back the clock in your mind. Ask yourself what you were feeling before, and how your mood changed. Write these things down. What lead to what? What did you feel first, second, and third? Identifying the steps you took beforehand to reach how you feel at this moment can be helpful. This is an important skill to develop. It is one that can help you gauge exactly how serious your current situation really is.
2. CALL A CRISIS LINE
I’m not a doctor, but I have been trained and certified in CPR and first aid. If I stood by you during a medical emergency, I would do my best to help. Sometimes, such help means calling 911. When you are in your lowest moments, is there a similar number you can call for immediate help? In an increasing number of countries and territories, there is. My second suggestion for you is that you save to your phone the number for your local suicide hotline. Go online and look up which number is dedicated to your area and write it down.
If you are in the middle of an emotional crisis, I hope you are comfortable with calling your suicide hotline. The suicide hotline is an amazing resource. It is totally free of charge, totally confidential, and staffed by volunteers who sincerely want to help. If needed, they can call 911, help you find medical help, help you connect with needed community resources, and so forth. But to me, the greatest value of this hotline rests in the fact that you can call them even if you are not suicidal. If you are having an extremely bad day and feel like you have no one with whom to talk, it is comforting to remember that they are always there, waiting for your call.
It is the simplest thing. You call the number and just tell them how you are feeling. You can rant for hours. You can call them several times. You can cry as hard as you need to and they will stay on the line. It is totally confidential. They don’t even need to know your name! Even if you say something like, “I am not thinking about hurting myself or anyone else, but I really need to get this off my chest,” they are still eager to help when they can.
3. SEEK PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL HELP
Another thing to add to your list is professional counseling or pharmacological solutions. We can sometimes be stubborn and say something like “anti-depressants or talking to a psychologist is for other people, but not for me.” The truth is that your emotional health is just as important as your physical health. If you needed an operation on your heart to save your life, I hope you wouldn’t hesitate for one moment to accept professional help. Likewise, you may need the miracle of modern medicine to save your life in an emotional crisis. To me, we are comparing apples to apples. Sometimes, formal treatment is the best option.
For the rest of the suggestions I have for you today, I am now going to shift to more self-help style treatments. There are many things we can do on our own that won’t cost us much money or time. There are times when you only feel a little down, and only need a small amount of emotional first aid to pull yourself back up.
4. TALK OPENLY WITH OTHERS ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THESE ISSUES
This is my self-treatment of choice. Sometimes all I need is a friend or family member to listen while I rant. This simple solution, just talking things out, is actually the basis of many psychological programs. Powerful emotional healing can take place as you put what you are feeling into words. Scientists aren’t 100% sure why this works so well, but they do know that it works. Call up someone you know. Ask them if they have a minute. I like to say something like, “I have really had a rough day at work, would you mind if I rant for a few minutes?” Talk it out. Explain what you think is making you so miserable, so anxious, or so angry. Talk until you run out of things to say. Talk about the things that are bothering you. This can lead to important discoveries. If your rant uncovers a small detail that is getting under your skin, then you now know the source of your problems. If you can determine what the problem is, then you are now on the road to discovering a solution to that problem.
Talking things out with a friend or family member can help you feel more brave and empowered to do what needs to be done. Sometimes you are lucky, and they end up giving you great advice. A conversation like this can calm the storm of emotion and let your logical mind take over. It can take a confusing mess and organize it into a clear path forward.
If you have a chance to come to a “Support Circle” meeting of your local Free Thought Forum, then that is a place where you can rant about the things bothering you to a group of people who want to help. Sometimes you just don’t have super patient friends or helpful family members. In those cases, I hope you can turn to our organization for some good listeners.
5. HEAD OUTDOORS FOR SOME SUN, FUN, EXERCISE, AND TIME WITH NATURE
Our distant ancestors lived their entire lives within the natural world. As any camping enthusiast will tell you, a reconnection with nature can have deep psychological benefits. There is a certain peace that comes from stepping out of the complexity of modern life. Get out of your house. Leave your phone behind. Let your toes touch the grass and sit under a tree.
Getting some sunlight on your skin has been shown to positively affect your mood. We all need some vitamin D, and the best way to get it is by soaking up a little bit of sun. If you can, get some fresh air. If you have been cooped up indoors or near the pollution of city streets, then it is understandable that your emotions have taken a hit. Your body and your mental state need to recover from being cooped up for too long. Take a drive to a park on the edge of town. Go for a mild jog. Visit a friend an hour away. Get some fresh air, and give yourself time to breathe deeply.
I’ve gone into details about physical exercise in our episode about healthy habits you can follow to be physically healthy. Without spending too much time on it here, I’d like to add that it is important to appreciate the connection between one’s body and one’s mind. I’ve noticed that when I have pushed my body, I tend to be more at peace, emotionally. But when my body is at peace, my emotions tend to be more chaotic and uneasy. Perhaps you have noticed something similar. Intense physical exercise can purge many negative feelings from you, just like how your sweat can remove toxins from your body.
Time outside can be spent doing many things you like. Walk around your block with a couple of friends, talking with them. Walk your dog. Walk to the store, rather than driving. Outdoor projects can also include hobbies like gardening, or chores like raking leaves or cleaning your car.
6. LIVE “IN THE MOMENT”
Rather than feeling miserable about the past or anxious about the future, give yourself a break, and focus on your sense of “now.” For those of you out there who are big fans of meditation, you know exactly what I mean. Many meditative exercises have you concentrate on your breath, on counting, on sensations, or on nothing at all. I think a great skill that can come out of meditation is the ability to zero-in on the present. But why is that so important?
Something I like to bring up a lot is how different our experience with stress can be when compared to other mammals. A gazelle, for example, on the African savannah, spends the great majority of its time feeling completely fine, content, and stress-free. How is that possible? How can these creatures have such low levels of stress hormones in their blood when they live with the constant threat of being hunted and consumed by lions and other fierce predators? Well, they don’t. They don’t live with the constant threat. They only live with a threat that is there one moment and gone the next. When a predator is spotted, their stress appropriately rises and they react with a fight-or-flight response. But once the threat is gone, they immediately calm down, as if nothing had happened.
I am over-simplifying a bit here but I feel like the lesson is there. Human beings have the power to imagine the future and examine the past. We can work ourselves into nervous knots even when we are perfectly safe and sound. It can be helpful to worry about the future or the past, but only some of the time. From time to time, each of us can use a break from worry. We can train ourselves to stop and smell the roses. Give yourself permission to let tomorrow worry about itself. Forgive yourself for the mistakes you made in the past, and enjoy the beauty of this precious moment.
7. BUILD AND STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS
I think we all have moments when we feel like we have been buried a hundred miles under the surface of the earth, completely isolated from the love and friendship of others. Isn’t it odd that in an age of the internet, we can still so often feel so alone?
One remedy to the feeling of being criminally unloved is to be the first to reach out. The best way to make a friend is to be a friend. For a romantic relationship to start, you may be the one that must start it. I’ve heard it said before that love is like a fire. If you try to isolate it and greedily keep it, it is snuffed out. But if you freely share it, it can spread, and you will always have enough love to go around.
This can be a long-term endeavor. Sometimes, you need to show many people a lot of kindness before you receive some back. But it is worth it. Do favors for other people without any thought of reward. Really help someone who can’t help themselves. Listen to someone for hours. Babysit someone else’s children. Drive your friend to work. All these small acts of kindness are worth more than gold when it comes to building and strengthening relationships. One fine day, when you can look around and see a handful of people who need you, and you need them, it will be easy to remember that you are never truly alone.
When I say build and strengthen relationships, I am not just talking about friends and family. Sometimes, you should be much-nicer-than-needed to coworkers. Show some kindness to a complete stranger. One thing that can really help is to adopt a new pet. My wife and I recently adopted a kitten, and it is amazing how much happier we both feel as a result. Pets can bring out the best in you. They can show you more love and devotion than you know with what to do. Even in the medical industry, pets are often recommended to patients who go on to experience a powerful positive change in their emotional wellbeing.
8. LIVE BY A SET SCHEDULE, GET PLENTY OF SLEEP, ADEQUATE NUTRITION, AND ACQUIRE OTHER HEALTHY HABITS
This suggestion is pretty straight-forward. Sometimes, we feel terrible because our life seems out-of-control. It is like a big pile of problems with no end in sight. A healthy way to solve the problem is to bring some order and routine to your life. This also makes sense from the perspective of neurology and cognitive science. Your sleeping schedule can dramatically affect your mood. Setting a schedule can regulate your sleep. Getting regular and adequate amounts of sleep each night can influence and regulate your diet. If your diet is under control then it is easier to adopt other healthy habits.
I like to start with ensuring that I get the proper amount of sleep. Determine how early you need to get to bed in order to get eight hours of sleep. Figure in 30 to 90 minutes of exercise each day. Fit three meals in there, travel time to work, and so forth. Once you have written up a simple schedule, try it for a week. Tweak it if needed, then try that for two weeks. Once your time is under your control, it is far easier to get other parts of your life under control as well.
9. ORGANIZE YOUR LIVING SPACE AND FILL IT WITH POSITIVE SIGHTS, SMELLS, AND SOUNDS
I think we can all agree that your physical health can strongly influence your mental health. But another thing to consider is that your immediate environment can make a difference too. When your surroundings are orderly and attractive, it is easier to bounce-back from an emotional rough patch.
Continuing on with the theme of making your life a little less chaotic, why not clean your room? Finishing a chore or two will help you feel like you have a better command over your surroundings and can give at least a small sense of accomplishment. After your living space is well maintained, it can help to add some beauty to your home. Hang up some fine art. Get your favorite picture printed out and frame it. House plants, vases, and other simple additions to your home can help you get into a positive mindset at the beginning and end of each day. Some people really like getting candles and similar items that can fill your space with attractive scents. When needed, turn on some of your favorite music. When your living space is just the way you like it, it can take a load off your shoulders that you may not have even noticed was there in the first place.
10. GIVE HELPFUL ADVICE TO OTHERS IN THE SAME BOAT
I talked before about letting out all of your frustrations and concerns. But doing the opposite can also recharge you and level out how you feel. Problems are in no short supply. Chances are good that you can find someone else dealing with some major issues. Ask them about their problems, and listen. Listen for a good long time. When you feel like you have some advice to give, give it. After you put your problems on the shelf for later and focus on someone else’s problems, you may be surprised with how much better you feel.
11. ADOPT SOME MORE RESPONSIBILITY
Sometimes, our depressed moments arise out of a life that is too busy and filled with too many things to do. But for some of you listening, your problem is that you don’t have anything meaningful to do. Sure, you could spend your time doing this or that, but in the end, it feels like it all makes no difference. If you have been there, then perhaps it is time to adopt some more responsibility.
Step up and put yourself in charge of a difficult project. Volunteer to fix a problem that your family has been putting off for some time. Consider what your biggest problem is, then make a plan of attack. If that isn’t enough, widen your sphere of influence. What is the biggest problem facing your family, community, or country? Eventually, you will run into a cause that needs a champion, or a complex issue that requires someone just like you to sort it all out. Willingly take on more responsibility, and that can enrich your life with greater meaning. When you feel like you are working toward a worthy goal, then feelings of aimlessness and worthlessness begin to fade away.
Make and pursue meaningful goals, and recognize your small gains along the way. Even when your triumphs and achievements are modest, find ways to reward yourself. If you have lost 10 pounds, take yourself to a movie. If you have paid off all of the debt on a credit card, go with some friends to get ice cream in the middle of the night. Take a moment to pat yourself on the back, and continue onward.
12. BECOME A MORE WELL-ROUNDED PERSON
Some of us have a small number of tools we use again and again to solve problems in life. Perhaps we can get pretty far through our politeness or charm. Maybe we have the job we have now because of our simple work ethic. Even a sense of humor can smooth out the awkwardness of meeting new people or approaching daunting challenges. But just like with a physical toolbox, you may soon encounter a problem requiring a tool you don’t have. Can you imagine trying to fix a broken pipe with nothing but a hammer and measuring tape?
Life can soon get even more complicated and messy. Sometimes, when we feel crushed under the weight of everyday life, it is because we just haven’t developed the skills needed to solve our current problems. This is why it is important to continually stretch ourselves, and develop skills outside of our usual repertoire. When you can master some new skill outside of your comfort zone, there is a tremendous natural high that you can feel as a result. If you are an introvert, join the cast of a community theatre group. If you like your house super neat and orderly, adopt a puppy. If you would rather play video games all day, join a community sports team. Think of something positive that people of your personality type would never do, and give it a try. As your personality grows more well-rounded, then you will have more tools in your hypothetical toolbox, and you will be better suited to solve the problems that the future has in store.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Welcome to the 5th issue of the official news source for those interested in free-thinking, truth-seeking, and keeping up-to-date with the Free Thought Initiative! Use the button below to view the full PDF edition of this issue, complete with images and links. The raw information about our announcements this week is as follows:
Trying out a new group that you found online can be a tricky experience. Going to a new place to introduce yourself to new people takes guts. Now take into consideration that this group also asks you to really share what is on your mind!
We have been impressed that so many of you, despite the awkwardness and unease that comes with meeting new people, have taken this leap! In our last three-or-so meetings, we have had the opportunity to get to know so many of you who have decided to give our organization a try. Some of you are going through a rough patch in life. Some of you are eager to share what you have discovered on your journey thus far. Your stories are fascinating, and your perspectives are rich with experience. We are sure that no matter your background and no matter what you bring to the table, this is where you can belong.
To every person who has joined our group in the last few weeks, welcome! We hope to see you again soon, and we are happy to receive your feedback on how we can make our organization even more welcoming to fellow free-thinkers and truth-seekers!
Social Media Watch
Have you subscribed to receive our podcast episodes or thought-provoking quotes? Sharing them allows more people to find us.
YouTube Subscribers: 60
Freethinkers on Meetup: 57 (Utah Valley) and 56 (Draper)
Pinterest Monthly Views: 285
Facebook Page: 19 (Likes) 23 (Follows)
Minds Page Subscribers: 22
Discord Server Members: 16
Instagram Followers: 11
Bitchute Subscribers: 5
Reddit Followers: 3
Twitter Followers: 1
Utah Valley CALENDAR
July 21 – Starting and Strengthening Relationships
July 28 – The Political Compass
Aug 4 – Feast Sunday & Support Circle
Aug 10 – Volunteer Project: Springville Animal Shelter Clinic
Aug 11 – The Epic FIRST Meeting for a NEW Draper Group! NOTE: There will be no meeting in Springville on this day, Instead, we will all drive up to support our new sister group to the north.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
The members of this organization enjoy discussing big ideas that cover hard science, important political issues, and healthy habits. But we are also building a community, one in which you can belong; one in which you can be proud of your membership. Few things strengthen a community more than shared meaningful symbolism. Today, I’d like to take a quick break from our regularly scheduled program to start a creative conversation with consideration to 10 rules of flag design shared by vexillology enthusiasts, experts in design, and historians.
These are the rules we will hope to follow as we design our own flag, an official banner for the Free Thought Initiative that can unite, inspire, and rally free thinkers and truth seekers to our cause. If you would like to volunteer a suggestion or two about how our flag should look, we would love to consider your ideas! In this episode, I would also like to give a shout-out to a group in Utah redesigning the Utah State Flag into one that better matches these guidelines.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
There is something about us humans and our flags. Flags represent something deep in our consciousness and lead us all to focus on the core concepts that make us who we are. They began as identifying markers that allowed sailors to differentiate between enemy and ally ships. They make it easy to identify a friendly trade partner. They allowed similar armies to sort out friend from foe, or classified sub-groups within an army. They denote ownership and a clear statement of leadership.
In some ways, our society may have moved beyond these primitive functions, but I find it interesting that each and every country on the earth today still conforms to this idea of a representative cloth bearing simplified designs. They must be reproducible and identifiable even when flying in a breeze or at a great distance. No matter the political or religious differences among our nations, they all happily agree to comply with a few simple rules of flag design and fly their colors side-by-side with those from other nations. Flags are important icons throughout the world. They symbolize a shared identity. They are flown in victory and are used in the crowning moment of achievement. You see them when Olympic medals are awarded, when planted on mountain tops, and on worlds beyond our own, as if to say, “This moment doesn’t just belong to me, it belongs to my people.”
If you also find flag design fascinating, then you probably already know that many states, provinces, territories, and cities also have their own flags. As with national flags, their patterns, colors, and shapes can be found on shirts, pins, toys, coffee mugs, main-street logos, and more. Great flags are instantly-recognizable, simple, and distinct symbols. They invoke powerful emotional responses and come from an art form that anyone can appreciate.
“That is all well and good,” you may say, “But why should my Free Thought Forum have a flag?”
I’m sure I speak for the other members of the executive board when I say that we want your local group to be a community to which you can always belong. No matter how unpopular your opinions, we believe that everyone should have the chance to join a circle of friends where you can freely share those opinions. With any luck, one day, such communities will be found throughout the United States, and beyond.
I think that such a bold cause deserves its own unique symbolism, a shared icon among all groups, something that generates momentum for our movement. In my opinion, a flag fits that need nicely.
A well-designed flag is timeless and is a meaningful symbol that can be used to unite and rally people behind a powerful idea. As more Free Thought Forums are created, each group may fly our colors to show pride in our organization, dedication to our cause, and unity among our various members and groups.
Perhaps, in the future, all meetings under the Free Thought Initiative, including weekly public discussions, may only be deemed official when and where our flag is displayed. To me, this would make a lot of sense, since our members may be found meeting in coffee shops, public parks, libraries, college campuses, business plazas, and in a number of different locations. This will also give people new to our organization a sign that they have found the correct group. Likewise, whenever our organization is found at festivals, city-wide celebrations, or other public events, we will be accompanied by our flag.
But we don’t want our groups flying just any flag. We want our flag to be well-designed. This has led me to look into flag design, which, thankfully, has entire organizations dedicated to promoting certain artistic principles that the best of flags follow. Perhaps you have heard of the pamphlet “Good Flag Bad Flag” created by the North American Vexillological Association (or “NAVA”). Its subtitle reads, “Use 5 basic principles to create an outstanding flag for your organization, city, tribe, company, family, neighborhood, or even country!” I will be happy to share their five principles. After, I also have five more rules to consider based on the common practices of heraldry and other ideas that are common in the flag-enthusiast community. Along the way, I’d like to bring up Utah’s flag, the flag of my home state, to see how it measures up.
1. KEEP IT SIMPLE
The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory . . .
One video I saw on the topic recommended that you should be able to draw a version of your flag that is one inch long. If you can still recognize it, then you’ve done a good job. Flags are not meant to be static stamps, but physical objects that droop, bend and warp. Therefore, simple designs are better than complex ones.
Simple flags are also less expensive. Many flags are made by cutting out pieces of cloth and sewing them together. Flags with shapes that have bizarre edges or flags that have too many pieces will make their cost of production rise. Now, with that said, flags can also be digitally printed, so this rule has some flexibility.
Too many symbols are also a problem. It is much like how you can’t have the name of a movie or book be a paragraph long. There is beauty in concise language, just as there is beauty in simple flag design. A flag can’t be all things to all people. Designing a flag by committee is usually a bad idea. No matter what you design, there will always be people who feel like their great ideas aren’t used. If good design is your goal, then you have to leave some ideas on the cutting room floor.
I think great examples of this include the flag of Japan. A red round circle in the center of a white field. That is Japan, and that is something any Japanese child can draw from memory.
How about the flag of Canada? One vertical red stripe on each side and a unique maple leaf in the center. France was one of the first flags that just had three colors in three equal columns, blue, white, and red. It is beautiful and it is simple.
For fun, I will bring up some examples of flags that I find too complex. Spain has a red stripe on the top and a red stripe on the bottom with a thick gold background. But near the hoist (or left edge of the flag) is a detailed coat of arms. You need a magnifying glass to see all of the lines and artwork. You have a crown with tiny pearls, a castle with individual bricks, and a mess of other elements. Moldova and Mexico have similar problems.
2. USE MEANINGFUL SYMBOLISM
The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes . . .
I think it is fair to say that everything on a flag should be there for a reason. The layout should be intentional. Why are you using vertical stripes and not horizontal ones? The colors shouldn’t just be there to “look nice.” If you have a star, why is it five-pointed and not seven-pointed? Why would you have an eagle instead of an owl? Many flags have one major symbol called the “charge,” and it should be something that calls back to your beliefs, history, landscape, people, and so forth. Good symbols are unique and easy to sketch.
One thing to remember is that maps don’t belong on flags. You shouldn’t stamp the map of the borders of your state or country on a flag. That is too detailed, too hard for a kid to draw, and too much of a problem when your flag is waving or seen from behind.
Another thing to consider is that many symbols carry a common meaning among many flags. If most flags use the color red to represent a bloody revolution or the brave sacrifice of your soldiers, then it may be in poor taste to add red to your flag without a similar reason. It is smart to look up the symbols you want to use to see what they mean on other flags.
I really like the symbolism found on the flag of the Marshall Islands. It is blue, symbolizing the blue Pacific Ocean around the island nation. It has diagonal stripes that call to other similar nations that have gained independence. These stripes are like sun rays that increase in width from the bottom left corner to the upper right. They are orange, symbolizing courage, and white, symbolizing peace. The stripes represent the equator, and above them is a star, showing the Marshall Islands’ physical location just above the equator. The star has 24 points, each point representing an electoral district within the nation.
3. USE 2—3 BASIC COLORS
Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set . .
These standard colors are red, blue, green, black, yellow, and white. Almost all flags on earth have at least red, white, or blue on them. White is the most common color.
An old rule from Heraldry is that you should never have metals touching metals or colors touching colors. “Colors” mean dark rich colors like red, blue, green, or black. “Metals” are yellow and white. A good flag will not have dark colors touching. Rather, the dark colors are separated by light colors. A great example of this is one of my favorite flags, the flag of Iceland. A red Nordic cross is on a blue background, but the cross has a thick white border, making a gorgeous flag.
A poor example is Bangladesh, which has a dark red sun on a dark green background. If you printed that flag out in greyscale, then it would look like a grey mess. Your flag should still look great and distinct, even in greyscale.
A flag with too many colors tends to look too busy and makes it harder and more expensive to reproduce. If you don’t enjoy looking at your flag for longer than a minute, then you need to go back to the drawing board.
Now a few flags use orange, brown, purple, or grey, so they are still on the table. The thing is, matching the shades of seldom used colors may be tricky during production. With that said, creating something like a purple flag, like Tokyo’s flag, can give you points for uniqueness.
Another thing to consider is that color combinations can say a lot about where your flag fits in the geopolitical landscape. Most Western European flags are red, white, and blue. The Pan-African colors are green, yellow, and red. Arab countries tend to use red, white, black, and green. Red and yellow are commonly found on the flags of communist countries. You can also expect a lot of yellow on the flags of tropical countries.
4. NO LETTERING OR SEALS
Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal . . .
The UK has one of the most gorgeous flags on earth, the Union Jack. Can you imagine how terrible it would look if “The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” was written in big black letters across the middle of that flag?
Letters and numbers on a flag are a bad idea for a few reasons: One, they can’t be read from far away or on a waving flag. Two, they add complexity to the flag design. Three, they are nonsensical and lose all meaning when seen on the reverse side. Four, they make your flag specific to one language. Five, they compromise the symbolism of the flag.
A flag is a symbol, and if the meaning of a symbol has to be spelled out, your symbol has failed. You shouldn’t have words like “New Jersey, “Honor” or “The Dinosaur State.” It would be far better to have the silhouette of a landmark, a color to represent an idea, or a stylized design. Words disappear when your flag is on a stamp or a pin. They are hard to sew-in. They constitute bad design, and a flag with bad design is one that no one wants to fly.
Many American state flags break this rule. They have small detailed state seals printed in the middle of a solid color background. Flag designers and flag enthusiasts call these “SOB’s” or “seals on bedsheets.” Here is a list of all of the state flags featuring their state seals:
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Dakota
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Dakota
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
And, my home state, Utah
Now, when I was a boy scout, I actually really liked the Utah state flag. Last redesigned in 2011, it has a dark navy-blue background with a yellow circle in its center. Inside the circle is the Utah coat of arms, a detailed bald eagle, a symbol of the United States protecting us, two United States flags, yes, flags within a flag, on either side, representing our commitment, devotion, and loyalty to the United States, our state flower representing peace, and a beehive, a Masonic symbol of industry in the center. In case you didn’t know that the beehive meant industry, the word, “Industry” is right above. The beehive can also be in reference to a story in the Book of Mormon about how people from the tower of Babel built submarines and brought bees to America, but I think that interpretation has fallen out of favor for some reason. In case you didn’t know that this was the seal of Utah, the word “Utah” is right below. Below that is the year my ancestors, the Mormons, first settled the area, but in bigger numbers under that is the year that Utah became an official state under the United States.
Now, the Mormons had a bad PR problem before our statehood, what with a cult-like following of a prophet, polygamy, shooting other settlers, the Utah War, and so on. I find it funny that we overcompensated to the point of putting several American symbols on our flag to represent that we really really want to play nice with the United States, we promise, making our own country called “Deseret” was just a phase, we promise.
But all joking aside, it is a beautiful seal, but a lousy flag. That is why I was glad to find The Organization for a New Utah Flag and their website: www.newutahflag.org. I want to give them a shout-out. They have spent years with teams of professional designers to see if they can come up with a better design for a Utah state flag, and I think they were successful.
Their proposed flag is a gorgeous one and represents an aptitude for flag-design that is sorely lacking in what we have now. This is a flag that inspires pride. This is a flag I would love to see everywhere, and this is a flag I would be happy to call my own.
Allow me to describe it. A yellow beehive is in the center on a white circle with a yellow double-edge. The background is divided into four quadrants creating an “X-shape.” The X represents Utah’s historical place as the “crossroads of the west” and promontory point, where the two ends of the transcontinental railroad met. The quadrant on the top is white, representing our mountains and the best snow on earth. The bottom quadrant is red, representing the red-rocks of many of our state parks to the south. To the left and right of the beehive are blue sections that represent our traditions and the Great Salt Lake. On these sections, the year 1847 is printed in honor of the Mormon Pioneers. Finally, a red star is placed under the Beehive to symbolize when Utah gained its statehood.
The star I think is a nice touch. Wouldn’t it be cool if all state flags contained just one star so that when you put them all together, they make up the fifty stars on the American Flag? Many already do have just one star, and I would be glad to see Utah on that list.
I think that The Organization for a New Utah Flag did a fine job and totally deserve our support. If you think so too, why not write to Salt Lake and let them know how you feel? I am inspired by these kinds of groups that take it upon themselves to replace bad flags. If you live in a different state with an SOB flag, see if you can find a local group that has designed an alternative. Sometimes the best way to help these groups is to simply spread the word about them.
5. BE DISTINCTIVE OR BE RELATED
Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections . . .
Now back to good flag design rules. I touched on this one a bit when we talked about colors. Symbols also fit into this category. Almost all of the Nordic countries use the Nordic cross. Almost all Muslim-majority countries use the crescent moon. But sometimes, this can go too far. Chad and Romania look almost exactly the same. Samoa and Taiwan only have tiny differences. A ton of countries just throw the Union Jack in their corner, and it is easy to see which countries are big fans of the United States.
If you don’t know where to begin with your flag, why not begin with flags that represent similar things to yours? Paying homage to those flags without copying them directly is a great way to come up with a unique, but related, design.
Before I wrap up this episode, I’d like to add a few more tips I’ve been able to pick up from my research.
6. CREATE THE ILLUSION OF MOVEMENT
You flag should fly, even when it is hanging still . . .
A static flag with boring shapes looks still and lifeless. A good design moves and encourages you to study it for a while. A good example is the flag of Kiribati. It’s blue and white wavy stripes in its lower half dances when you look at it. You can almost see the waves crashing against the beach. Kazakhstan has a flying eagle, with its wings outstretched, not just one that looks like it is pancaked against a brick wall. The rays from North Macedonia’s sun reaches out, and the symbol in the center of South Korea’s flag is spinning.
7. ANIMALS SHOULD LOOK TO THE HOIST
If your flag has a person or creature, they should face upwards and to the left . . .
This is another rule that flags inherited from heraldry. The idea behind this is that if you are marching in a parade or running into battle, you don’t want the animal or person on your flag facing the wrong direction. Sri Lanka’s lion faces the hoist, Dominica’s parrot faces the hoist, and Mexico’s eagle faces the hoist. Now, this isn’t an absolute rule. California’s bear faces down and Bhutan’s dragon is slithering up and to the right, but it is a good thing to keep in mind.
8. CONSIDER USING A COMMON RATIO
Design your flag to fit in a 2:3 ratio unless you have a reason not to . . .
The flag of Switzerland and the flag for Vatican City are both square flags, with a 1:1 ratio or proportion of width to length. A flag with a ratio of 5:8 matches the golden ratio, which is cool. About half of all national flags follow a 2:3 ratio, so most flag production companies will be happy to make your flag follow these dimensions for the most reasonable price. About one-fourth of all national flags are longer with a 1:2 ratio, and flags with a 3:5 ratio are most common among former Dutch or French colonies.
9. YOUR FLAG SHOULD LOOK GOOD WHILE WAVING
A flag is meant to flap in the wind . . .
If the most important elements of your flag are lost as it bends and whips outside, then you’ve failed. If your flag is ruined unless it lies flat against a wall, then you’ve failed. You may want to place the most important symbolism in the canton of the flag (the small rectangle in the top left quarter of it). This will allow it to maintain its distinctiveness when hanging limp on a flag pole. But to retain your most important symbol while the flag is whipped by the wind, then you should place it in the flag’s center, or left-of-center. Larger symbols or patterns will be seen in the curls of the flag better than smaller ones. One reason why the American Flag looks so great in the wind is that its long and skinny red and white stripes maximize even the slightest ripple running through the cloth.
To simulate your flag waving, you can upload it to one of a few websites. This really helps in the creative process. If your design doesn’t look good in the wind, then it isn’t a good design.
10. RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN
These Rules are more like Guidelines . . .
For every principle of good flag design, there is a great flag that breaks it. Just like with every other art form, straying a little off the path can yield impressive results. Many of these rules are practical, but if you have a big reason to break one or two, then go for it! Portugal’s flag is complicated but aesthetically pleasing. Ukraine’s flag is just two bars, blue and gold, but even those are dripping with meaning. They represent the clear skies, gold wheat fields and a rejection of the forces that once prohibited this design. South Africa’s flag has six colors, but is still one of the best ones in the world!
I hope this conversation has inspired you to look at your own state or national flags in a new light. For those of you who are interested in contributing to the design of the official flag for the Free Thought Initiative, we’d love to hear from you. Send us an email, or join us on Discord.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Welcome to the fourth issue of the official news source for those interested in free-thinking, truth-seeking, and keeping up-to-date with the Free Thought Initiative! Use the button below to view the full PDF edition of this issue, complete with images and links. The raw information about our announcements this week is as follows:
Recently, our Executive Board has been asking you for your opinion about moving the meeting location for our Utah Valley group further north. Since our inception, we have met in Springville, but should we move our meetings to Provo or Orem? Doing so may better accommodate those who are interested in participating but live further north. You have responded, and the results are in! Based on your input from our social media pages, our polls, and in-person, the Utah Valley Group Leadership has decided to keep meeting primarily at Art City Coffee in Springville! That location, as well as our meeting place at The Clever Bean Coffee House for the Draper Group, both constitute our official hubs of activity.
Social Media Watch
It’s time for another update on our total subscribers, followers, and reach across our social media accounts!
YouTube Subscribers: 59
Freethinkers on Meetup: 52 (Utah Valley) and 50 (Draper)
Pinterest Viewers: 106
Facebook Page Likes: 19
Discord Server Members: 14
Instagram Followers: 11
Reddit Followers: 3
Twitter Followers: 1
CALENDAR
Our first Local Membership Council meeting was held on July 7th! Based on the feedback from our supporters, we are happy to announce the following presentation topics for our upcoming weekly meetings and other events:
July 14 - Emotional First Aid
July 21 - Starting and Strengthening Relationships
July 28 - The Political Compass Test
Aug 10 - Volunteer Project: Springville Animal Shelter Clinic
Aug 11 - The Epic FIRST Meeting for a NEW Draper Group! NOTE: There will be no meeting in Springville on this day, Instead, we will all drive up to support our new sister group to the north.
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Happy Independence Day to all of our viewers in the United States. I hope all of you in the states enjoy some time with your family with barbeques, fun at the park, and maybe a few fireworks as you wave the stars and stripes.
But am I wrong to hope that? There are plenty of people who say that celebrations like this are part of the problem. We live in a world filled with ethnocentrism, racism, tribalism, jingoism, extreme nationalism, and supremacism. Given the current political climate and the issues caused by overt national pride, is it really ok to be patriotic?
In this episode, we will do our best to look at this question honestly, not only for Americans but with regard to every kind of national heritage across the globe.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
For those of you who haven’t yet signed up for our newsletter, I have a few quick announcements. Our podcast upload schedule has changed in order for us to dedicate more of our resources toward “Operation Lift Off” and starting and managing new local groups. I am pleased to say that that work is already beginning to pay off! Our first meeting in Draper, Utah will take place in about a month! Because of the great response, we have received thus far, we may also be splitting the Draper group to create our third Free Thought Forum. If you live near the Salt Lake Valley or Utah Valley, come and give us a visit! More information about this epic meeting can be found on our website. For those of you outside of Utah, I look forward to sharing the news with you soon about even more groups starting in Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, Washington, and beyond! If you would like to start a new group where you live, send us an email!
According to our new podcast episode schedule, you can expect to see new uploads about once or twice a week. We appreciate your patience, flexibility, and support.
If you would like to see some thought-provoking quotes in your feed, we are also happy to announce that our creative team will now be producing memes across all of our social media platforms, including our new accounts on Twitter and Instagram! Follow us @freethoughtfora (all one word, “Fora” being the Latin pluralization of “forum”) for a little bit of inspiration and mental stimulation several times a week!
Those are the big announcements I have today. We will be moving most of our announcements to the newsletter, so the best way to keep up to date with our news, policy updates, new programs, and so forth, moving forward, is by signing up for our official newsletter, “The Monday Memo.” You can do so by entering your email into a field found at the bottom of any page of our website and then by clicking the “subscribe” button.
One idea I continue to share addresses the question of identity. Many of us base our individual identity completely on our race, our social-economic-status, or by some other exclusive social group. I think that is a terrible idea. Doing so immediately creates an “us” and a “them.” When we see ourselves as competing social groups, we lose a great deal of our humanity. This often devolves into groups of “oppressors” and “the oppressed.” With that viewpoint, we more easily believe in the lies of demigods, tyrants, and fascists. An oppressed group identity often breeds resentment, hatred, and civil unrest.
I propose that the most important element of your identity is the one based on your place in the human family. We all belong to one tribe, one clan, and one species. Genetically and historically, this is literally the case. It is a fact and one that I believe we would do well to remember. As we see every other human being as our relative, an equal, above all else, first and foremost, I believe that this can help inform other aspects of our political and moral reality. This puts us in the trenches with the least fortunate members of society. We are their family, and they are ours. When properly understood, this perspective can lead us to treat others with common decency and with respect to their rights and worth as individuals.
I have another episode titled, “What are you worth?” that dives deeper into these themes. But today, we are looking into the question of patriotism. Can we hold the sincere view that we all belong to humanity, while also maintaining a sense of pride in our country? I believe we can, and I believe we should.
National identity, I argue, is a superficial characteristic, or something you happen to inherit. Like your skin color or accent, it is alright to celebrate all of the things that make you, you. I think that is only healthy. But there is a big difference between celebrating something and making something the most important part of your identity. When we take those superficial characteristics and put those above our place in the human family, I believe we’ve made a mistake. It splits humanity into in-groups and outgroups. It is wrong to look at people and see only something like their race, sex, age, nationality, height, or hair color. It is wrong for us to judge groups of people based on these superficial characteristics. It is wrong to think that they all deserve to pay for some injustice committed by a different member of their social group. It is wrong to think that they all act and think alike. It is wrong to think that one of them can speak for all of them. Looking at people this way most often leads to bigotry and prejudice. When all things are considered, and when we are being the most honest, the most fair, and the most just, we should see every other human being both as an individual and as a fellow member of the one social group that matters most, the entire human family. We all belong to one human family but are also individuals who think, speak, act, and behave, with accountability only for our own actions.
From this viewpoint, it is ok to be proud of your family name, heritage, country, and even your ethnic group, so long as you keep the healthy perspective that all these are small things compared to the similarities that unite all people. So, yes, from this perspective, it is ok to be patriotic. But our conversation today isn’t only about identity. It also touches on moral responsibility. If your country happens to be one with a shameful past, would it be wrong to show pride in that country? I think that is a fair question.
My wife and I have had the opportunity to live in different parts of the country. We were raised in conservative communities but also spent years living in liberal communities. I think this has allowed us a certain perspective, one that is difficult to gain. I’ve taken social justice classes where my professors introduced me to “white privilege,” and I’ve also had economy and history professors tell me that this country peaked with Ronald Reagan, only to spiral downward since. Over time, all this has created mixed feelings in me with regard to my country. I’m sure many of you listening can relate, especially now, in the increasingly radicalized and polarized political climate in which we find ourselves.
This leads us back to an important question. Is it ok to be patriotic? Should I proudly wave the American flag, or should I reconsider my support of my nation, given its role in the world and in history? What if I am extremely disappointed in how my country is run? For those of you who already have a gut reaction to this question, I ask that you join me on this line of thought and hopefully by the end, we will all be better for it.
Let’s begin with the argument against patriotism. I will mainly focus on this from an American’s perspective, but I think the argument can still be applied to those from any other country. When you look at the Statue of Liberty, the American flag, Mount Rushmore, or any other icons of your country, you can make the argument that you are seeing symbols that reflect its culture, political realities, and complete history. Hopefully, by now, we all understand that this history isn’t just about liberation, military victories, and admirable policies. Our history is also mired with terrible choices, immoral legislation, and a North American brand of evil. Manifest Destiny, Fraudulent Treaties with the Natives, Transatlantic Slave Trade, The Trail of Tears, Asian Immigrant Internment Camps, Jim Crow Laws, McCarthyism and The House Un-American Activities Committee, the destabilizing of foreign governments, and the Iraq war (initiated under false pretenses to find weapons of mass destruction) all represent just a small list of crimes the United States has committed against Humanity. Depending on your political leanings, these may bother you a little or a lot. But no matter your beliefs, these are the facts of history.
If reflecting on the atrocities committed by your country is a gut-punch to your national pride, should you then feel too guilty to sing the national anthem or watch a 4th of July parade? For many Americans, the answer is “yes.” For many Americans, it is hard to see our flag wave without immediately thinking about these past atrocities done in the cause of freedom, democracy, or whatever other ideals were used as justification at the time. According to a Gallup poll published on July 2nd, 2019, American patriotism is at an 18 year low, showing percentages lower than at any other time in recent history. According to the pole, this drop in self-expressed patriotism was most dramatic among liberals, women, and young adults. Perhaps these individuals are convinced by the argument that national shame is more important than national pride.
Allow me to make a counter-argument.
Imagine that you are settling into your college dorm. Soon enough, you meet your new roommate, an immigrant from Eastern Asia. They are very polite and friendly, but you notice them putting up the red flag of the People’s Republic of China on the wall. To you, this flag represents communism, tyranny, sweatshops, corruption, evil dictators, starvation, and harsh oppression. So do you say anything? Is this person wrong to show pride in their nation of birth? When they refer to China as “my country,” is this a problem?
Recently, I watched a video of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, in which she was handed a German Flag during a press conference. She quickly rolled it up and discarded it on a shelf nearby. I am reminded of a French national symbol, the Notre Dame cathedral, recently burning to the ground. A large part of the discussion that followed involved the construction of a multi-faith, multinational shrine erected in its place. A related topic is the open-borders policy of many members of the European Union, often championed with a palpable hatred toward traditional national identity.
I bring up these cases because they strike me as odd. They seem to reflect a special kind of self-hatred. If we wanted to, we can come up with other lists of shameful atrocities committed by China, Germany, France, and other nations. But to what end?
I think it is time that we acknowledge that all current human societies have evolved from morally degenerate ones. We all are descended from ruthless tyrants, cultists who practiced human-sacrifice, slave owners, war criminals, and worse. Every single nation on earth has shameful histories or was created from the remnants of previous nations with shameful histories. If we go back far enough, we all came from ape-like ancestors who literally tore apart their rivals and their rival’s children.
Here is another point to consider. What about your own history? Have you made mistakes, done terrible things, or hurt others? Of course you have. We all have. If we are honest with ourselves, we all have to admit to some degree of wrongdoing in the past. We have all harmed those around us, intentionally, unintentionally, and even with the best of intentions. Now, what is the healthiest way to deal with that? Should we always hide our faces in shame whenever we come close to the mirror? Should we despise our names and think of ourselves only in terms of our mistakes? Of course not. That is completely unfair, unrealistic, and unhealthy.
We are, each of us, a work-in-progress. We are still in the process of personal refinement. We are unfinished works of art. We are each on a hero’s journey, a story, in the middle of its telling. In my opinion, it is wrong to let our mistakes hang over us as our defining characteristics. This would be just as immoral as shaming an infant for falling down as they are learning to walk. We must be willing to admit and recognize our faults, learn from them, and move on. We can’t live in the past. We should always be forward thinking.
I recommend that we look to our national histories with a similar amount of grace. We must look into the facts of the past, unflinchingly, learn from our past, and allow ourselves to move on. We can move our statues of hate-filled leaders to museums, we can keep corrupting manifestoes in our libraries, and we can, and should, keep the darkest parts of our histories in our history books. But that doesn’t mean, for one moment, that we should define ourselves by our mistakes and misdeeds. It is simply the wrong path to take, a defeatist attitude that only leads to resentment, anger, and despair.
With that said, we will all still carry the scars of the past. We must be honest about the dark parts of our histories, teach them, learn them, and learn from them. But we cannot let our shame hold the future hostage.
If you want to hate your country, I am sure it will be easy to find good evidence and reasons to support that viewpoint. If you want to love your country, I am sure it will also be easy to find good evidence and reasons to support that viewpoint. So it really comes down to the question of what your country really means to you.
My home country, the United States, holds a special place in geopolitical history. It preserves the freedom of speech, a right that is completely ignored, even today, by many nations of the world. It was not created as an ethnostate or homeland for one race or group. Rather, it was founded on ideas, on the recognition of natural rights that were denied to the colonists by a tyrant. We were the first ones who ended slavery. We ended the Second World War. We have protected tiny democracies from complete obliteration such as Taiwan and Israel. We have done more than any other country to impede the spread of Communism. Most importantly, we have created a society that people from every other nation see as a an ideal place to come, work, and live.
But in all honesty, it isn’t the political history or military might of the United States that moves me. It is our many contributions to the progress of all mankind. Americans are well represented in the field of science. We have added rows of newly discovered elements to the periodic table. We have launched rovers, probes, and telescopes into space! We have cracked the codes of nature, discovering the secrets of the atom, the nature of space-time, and the existence of other galaxies and worlds like ours. We eradicate diseases and send our vaccines across the globe. We lead the world in new technologies, engineering, and computer science. We invented the Internet. We were the first ones to walk on the moon! We discovered and mapped Pluto. We have New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, and Phoenix. We have the Smithsonian, an impressive fossil record, Silicon Valley, National Forests, and NASA! We invented comic books and superheroes! We give the world the best music and we make the best movies. We have Broadway, Hollywood, and the original Disneyland. No one donates to charities or worthy causes as much as we do. We feed the world and lead the world in many fields.
I say “we,” because even though I didn’t personally belong to any of the teams behind these accomplishments, I do belong to and support the society that gave rise to them. That is one beautiful thing about patriotism. When you see an artist, an athlete, an Olympian, a scientist, a humanitarian, or an officer from your country accomplish something impressive, you are allowed to share in that celebration.
If you want, you can show your American patriotism for all of these reasons and more. But for me, the most beautiful thing about the United States is that it is my home. It is my home, and it is where I belong. No matter where you live, be it Bhutan or Bangladesh, Iceland or Ecuador, Canada or the Congo, it is alright to be proud of where you live and where you’re from. It is like looking at a modest home and being happy to call it your own. Sure, your door may not hang straight. There may be a crack in your window, but it is your home. National Pride can be much like accepting yourself for who you are, warts and all. Should you hate your skin color or body shape? No. All that is a part of you, and it is wonderful - because it is yours.
Whether it be your own skin, your house, or the borders of your home country, it is alright to love your home. It is healthy to have pride in where you belong, and it is ok to be patriotic.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Welcome to the third issue of the official news source for those interested in free-thinking, truth-seeking, and keeping up-to-date with the Free Thought Initiative! Use the button below to view the full PDF edition of this issue, complete with images and links. The raw information about our announcements this week is as follows:
You’ve asked for some memes based on our thought-provoking-quote collection. You’ve asked if we had an Instagram or Twitter account. You have wanted us to reach out to people from all across the political spectrum. We listened and your patience has paid off! We are proud to announce that our content creator(s) will begin the production of new thought-provoking memes and quotes as part of our drive to reach those who are searching for inclusive and supportive communities, in-person opportunities in which everyone is able to share what is on their mind, and more. Of course, we will post our memes and continue to post episodes of our podcast across all of our social media accounts. If you like the message behind one of our memes or pictures, please share it with other open-minded people. Doing so will really help us spread the word! Our new memes will be uploaded on a pretty frequent basis, so be sure to follow or subscribe to our new accounts for a bit of regular inspiration, education, and mental stimulation!
Even with over a month to go, more than 20 people have let us know of their plans to attend our Draper Group’s first meeting! Thank you to everyone who has spread the word about this important event so far. As we continue to promote Draper’s first meeting, even more potential free-thinkers may attend. If we find ourselves a bit crowded, then we may see the surprise creation of yet another group based somewhere nearby! For more information, please visit: https://www.freethoughtforum.org/draper-utah/
Stargazing (Part 3) Ursa Minor, Polaris, and Finding the North Star
Jun 26, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 22
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Welcome to part 3 of our series on Stargazing. In this episode, we will find the stars of Ursa Minor, the Small bear, also known as the little dipper, enjoy an alternative mythological origin of this constellation from the one shared in part 2, and learn how explorers, mariners, and pioneers have been able to use this constellation to find North for thousands of years. So download this episode, step outside, and listen along as we turn to the most northern constellation in the northern night sky!
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
Whenever I picture the little bear in the sky, I like to imagine him as a polar bear cub who likes to swim. The white fur and newborn features I think represent the special place this constellation has in science and in history. First, let’s find Ursa Minor. After that, we will take a look at each of the bright stars that constitute his shape. Finally, we will wrap this episode with a few stories about him and about our earth’s North Pole.
By now, you can hopefully find the big dipper pretty easily, making up the back and tail of the great bear. Once you’ve spotted the big dipper, see if you can locate the two stars at the front of the bowl. Depending on the time of year, they may be pretty low or high in the sky, so it may take a moment.
Now that you spotted to two front stars of the bowl of the big dipper, you can use them to point the way! Trace a straight imaginary line from the bottom star (Merak) up through the top one (Dubhe), and shoot off, out of the bowl, in that straight line, until you hit the next bright star you see. That is how you find Polaris, the North Star!
Since the high middle ages, travelers and explorers from Europe and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere have been using the exact same trick you just used to find north. It is a simple trick, but one that has made the difference between a safe return home and the tragedy of being lost at sea. If you don’t have a compass, map, phone, or GPS, you will still always be able to find north as long as you can spot Merak and Dubhe and trace them to Polaris.
The little dipper is remarkably similar to the big dipper, and once you’ve found the North Star, you’ve found the tip of the little dipper’s handle. From here, it should be easy to spot the next star of the handle, a third, and the four stars of the little dipper’s bowl. Just like that, you have found Ursa Minor, the small bear. The stars of the small bear are pretty dim, so unless you are under a dark sky, you may only be able to find Polaris. Once you’ve had a moment to look over its shape, you may notice that the tail of the small bear is curved differently from the tail of the great bear. While the big dipper has a handle that is easy to hold, the little dipper’s handle is curved the wrong way. It is fun to imagine why. Perhaps a small child got their hands on the little dipper, only to bend it in a terrific feat of strength! I suppose their mother was not impressed.
These constellations may look like they are motionless now, but throughout the night and throughout the seasons, the big bear is always circling around her cub. Although the mother may get tired and hang low in the horizon in the fall and winter, her cub is filled with energy and loves playing up in the sky. The big dipper and the little dipper have a yin-yang kind of positioning with respect to one another. They are never side-by-side, but rather look like one is pouring water into the other. Which one is higher for you? The big dipper, or the little one?
In a moment, we will talk more about Polaris, but let’s quickly explore the other stars of the small bear. The next star in the bear’s tail after Polaris is Yildun. Yildun is 172 light years away and is actually moving toward us. It is a white star resembling a squashed sphere in shape. It is spinning so fast that it bulges along its equator. It is 327 million years old and is accompanied by a tiny companion star. Its name is Turkish meaning “star.”
After Yildun, the next star in Ursa Minor’s tail is Epsilon Ursae Minoris, which is approximately 347 light years away. It is another one of those pairs of stars that orbit a point in space between them. We just call them “Epsilon Ursae Minoris A” and “Epsilon Ursae Minoris B.” Throwing these letters after the original name is a pretty common way to name these pairs when we find them.
The first star of the body of the bear, or the star that forms the back of the bear is Zeta Ursae Minoris. This star is a dwarf, is 380 light years away, and is getting warmer. It is right on the cusp of expanding into a giant star.
Continuing on that line, we find the nose of the bear! This is Kochab, the second brightest star in the constellation. Starting at about 4,500 years ago, many ancients including the Egyptians, Chinese, and Arabs saw this as their North Star, or as one of the north stars. I think it is a great name for the nose of the bear because it kind of sounds like a sneeze. Kochab is a giant star. It is 130 times brighter than our sun and is 130.9 light years away!
The next star down from the nose of the bear, or its front paws, is Pherkad. Pherkad is 487 light years away and is a supergiant, 1,100 times more luminous than the sun. The last star at the bear’s back paws is Eta Ursae Minoris. It is pretty dim, has about the same amount of mass as our sun, is about a billion years old, and is only 97 light years away.
In our last episode in this series, we talked about the nymph Callisto, a follower of Artemis, and her son, Arcus, the son of Zeus. But this isn’t the only Greek legend associated with this pair of constellations. An alternative story takes us back to the birth of Zeus, the Greek god of the sky. His father, the Titan Cronus, was afraid that his own children would dethrone him, just like how he overthrew his father, Uranus. To prevent this, he would swallow his children whole right after their birth. Rhea, Zeus’ mother, in order to save Zeus, wrapped a stone in baby’s clothes just before Cronus snatched it up and swallowed it. Rhea was worried that Cronus would discover her trick so she thought of a cunning scheme to protect Zeus. She met Oread nymphs named Amalthea and Cynosura (also called Ida and Adrasteia in other versions) who both agreed to protect the baby. Rhea told them how to keep him away from Cronus’ gaze. The nymphs tied a rope to him and dangled him from a tree. Since Cronus ruled over the sky and the land, this kept Zeus from being seen. They hid him in a cave of Mount Ida and hired Korybantes to dance, sing, and crash their spears against their shields to conceal the sounds of the crying baby. They retreated to hide on the island of Crete. The nymphs did all they could to nurture and nurse the baby including turning into dogs, goats, and transforming into their favorite disguise, two bears.
Later, when Zeus was grown, he returned to Cronus, freed his siblings from the titan’s belly, imprisoned Cronus in the depths of Tartarus, and took his place as the king of the gods on Mount Olympus. But he didn’t forget the nymphs who had nursed him and continued to wander the earth as bears. He decided to repay them with immortality. So he took their tails in each hand and swung them up into the sky, allowing them to live forever among the stars. This is why we still see the bears in the sky today, both with long tails that were stretched by the force of Zeus’s mighty swing.
Most historians agree that the Phoenicians were the first to see a pattern in the stars we call the “little dipper.” They called it “the wagon,” a small box, perhaps with wheels and a long handle. Even in ancient times, this wagon was used by sailors to find north. Back then, Polaris wasn’t the North Star, but this wagon was in about the right place in the sky. Thales of Miletus, a predecessor to Plato, one of the world’s first scientists, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece, famously called this constellation “The Phoenician Wagon.” Later on, the Greeks would more commonly call it a dog or “The Phoenician Bear.” The Romans saw this constellation as seven oxen, perhaps being herded by Boötes, the kite-shaped herdsman constellation that we’ll talk about later. In fact, the Latin word for “North” was named after this constellation: “septentrio” meaning “seven oxen.”
Polaris is the brightest of these seven stars, but it actually only ranks 48th among our sky’s brightest stars. It is 434 light years away, which means that when you gaze at its light, you are seeing how it looked 434 years into the past. Polaris is six times larger than our sun and it isn’t alone. Two tiny stars rotate around it. These were first discovered by William Hershel, the scientist and astronomer who would later go on to discover a new planet, Uranus, named after the father of the Titans, who fathered the gods in Greek Mythology. Hershel also cataloged many cloudy objects called nebulae. It would be about 100 years before scientists realized that these clouds weren’t just clouds.
If you are near the equator of the earth, Polaris may rise just above the horizon. If you are on the North Pole, then you will see this star straight above you. Most of us live about halfway between the North Pole and the equator, so we will see Polaris about half way between the horizon and directly overhead. Since the star has a different location in the sky depending on your latitude, mariners were able to use it to also gauge their distance from the North Pole or the equator.
Now, when I was younger, I understood that the stars at night looked like they slowly revolved around us as the earth rotated on its axis. But then I was told that the North Star, Polaris, was always in the north. How could that be possible? Well, as it turns out, if you extend the imaginary axis of the earth’s rotation from the South Pole, straight through our planet, through the North Pole, and then continue onward, you would nearly run straight into Polaris. It is 434 light years directly above our north pole and is only off by seven-tenths of a degree. From our perspective in the northern hemisphere, all of the other northern constellations circle Polaris. It doesn’t “rise” and “set” like the other stars.
Polaris is pretty close to our Celestial North Pole, but that has not always been the case. The earth spins like a top, and it wobbles like a top too. Before the middle ages, our North Pole pointed to a different star or pair of stars in the little dipper. Polaris will get even closer to our Celestial North Pole until the year 2100. After that, it will drift away. By the 41st century, it will come near Gamma Cephei in the Cepheus constellation.
Many astronomers over the ages knew Polaris by its more ancient names, Stella Maris (or the “sea star”), Phoenice, the “needle,” and my personal favorite, the Lodestar. I wonder if this is related to the earliest names for magnets “lodestones.” The ancients found that some strange rocks would stick together with an odd invisible force. When separated and individually placed in a bowl of water, their shards would always spin and point in one direction. These were the earliest compasses, and they pointed to the Lodestar. Today, we understand this phenomenon well. Small magnets, when suspended in a medium, align with the flow of the Earth’s magnetic field. This flow now bends around the planet and meets back near our north pole, but that will not always be the case.
Here is a fun side note. When a new rock is being formed from lava or magma, it often has small metal shards in it. These shards act just like compass needles, and also line up with the earth’s magnetic field. So when the rock cools, hardens, and solidifies, these tiny metallic “needles” freeze in place. They remain still, even when the earth’s magnetic field flips and moves over time. Looking at the direction of the metallic pieces inside rocks is a technique that scientists use to know how old rocks are. This helps in the process of knowing exactly how old a fossil like a dinosaur bone really is.
Polaris is a Cepheid variable, a variable star having a regular cycle of brightness with a frequency related to its luminosity. This property allows scientists to determine its distance from the earth with extreme accuracy. Stars like these allowed Edwin Hubble to discover the chilling fact that the universe is expanding. By the way, it was also Hubble who looked closely at the nebulae once explored by William Hershel, and through the use of Cepheid variables, discovered that these weren’t just dust clouds. They were completely different galaxies, far away.
The time has come for tonight’s challenge!
Rather than finding a deep sky object, your challenge is to spot a meteor shower that returns every year. It begins on December 17th and reaches its height on the 24th or 25th. These meteors are known as the Ursids and appear close to the nose of the bear, Kochab. So if you are not busy with Christmas celebrations, why not step out into the snow, and see if you can spot the Ursids fly past the nose of the polar bear cub, Ursa Minor?
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
First Draper Meeting Announcement and Business Networking
Jun 24, 2019
Volume 01 Issue 002
Hello Free Thinkers!
The second issue of our weekly newsletter is here! Click on the button below to access the PDF file for the full version of this issue of our newsletter, complete with images and links. The raw information about our announcements this week can be found below…
The time has come to form the second chapter of the Free Thought Initiative! We have heard you loud and clear, and are excited to announce that a new weekly forum will now take place in Draper, Utah.
This, the first meeting of the Draper group, will allow our executive board to gauge the interest and demand for free thought discussions in this area, so spreading the word about this event can make a dramatic difference!
We have found fellow advocates for open-mindedness, continual self-improvement, and entrepreneurship in The Clever Bean, a coffee shop in Draper, whose managers have agreed to host our weekly meetings.
Event Details:
WHO: Anyone interested in being a part of our new Draper group!
WHAT: You are invited to our first Draper meeting and open forum discussion on Free Thinking.
WHEN: Sunday, August 11th - 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM
WHERE: The Clever Bean Coffee House - 656 E 11400 S Suite J, Draper, UT 84020
There is no guest limit or cost to attend. In the event that this group grows much larger than expected, we will be happy to continue to create other charters just to the south or north of Draper, depending on the needs of those in attendance.
We can't wait to meet all of you a few miles north of our first group in Springville! Thank you for sharing this event and for letting us know about the need in Draper in the first place.
Join and Connect with Other Free-Thinkers in Draper:
We were able to contact an impressive amount of great people at the Fire and Ice event in Spanish Fork! In total, we more than doubled our subscribers to this newsletter, handed out 182 fliers, some 50 business cards, and donated 36 Volunteer hours to spreading free thought to the community. The most common questions directed toward us this time were about where and when we met. Thank you to everyone who helped make this tabling endeavor so successful.
New Podcast Upload Schedule
In order to free up our manpower and direct it to best meet the needs of our members, the executive council has agreed that we should limit our production of social media content. This includes a reduction in our number of weekly podcast episodes.
Moving forward, we will be happy to produce one to two episodes per week, rather than one every two days as was done previously.
We appreciate the patience and flexibility of our listeners and hope that this change will help to guarantee the continued production of high-quality episodes.
Business Cards and Networking at Forum Meetings
The first part of all weekly free thought forum meetings is referred to as the “Warm Welcome.” This is roughly the first 20 minutes of the meeting and takes place before the group leader’s presentation. In it, guests and members are encouraged to participate in friendly social conversation and get to know one another informally.
When promoting our organization in recent festivals, the Utah Valley group’s leaders were asked about the role business networking may have at our meetings. After some thought, we believe we have an answer!
The “Warm Welcome” portion of a meeting is a perfect platform to serve the professional networking needs of our members.
If you would like to give a one-to-five-minute presentation about your business, please contact your group leader and reserve a date in which you can make such a presentation.
In addition, each Free Thought Forum invites local business, organizations, and entrepreneurs to house a display of our business cards at their establishments. In exchange, we are happy to present a stack of their business cards to our guests and members at our meetings as well.
We are happy to do what we can to promote a healthy level of business networking at our meetings and hope these guidelines will help to ensure that such marketing does not get out of hand or distract from our main objectives and purpose.
Social Media Watch
How are we doing across social media? Here are a few statistics that provide a quick snap-shot of our group’s emerging online presence and promotion:
The first edition of our weekly newsletter is here! Click on the button below to access the PDF file for the full edition of this issue of our newsletter, complete with images and links. The raw information about our announcements this week can be found below…
Several of you in the Salt Lake Valley have expressed interest in starting a new Free Thought Forum in Draper, and the time is fast approaching when we can announce the first official Draper Utah Group meeting! More information will soon be available on our social media pages and our podcast.
If you happen to know anyone near the southern Salt Lake Valley, directing them to sign up for our newsletter on our website will help them stay in the loop!
Find Us At Fire and Ice
We have been invited to the Icelandic Heritage Festival known as “Fire and Ice” in Spanish Fork at 49 South Main Street beginning on Friday (June 21) at 4:00 PM and lasting through Saturday.
Come find our booth where we will be spreading the word about the Free Thought Initiative! Be sure to enter our raffle to win one of the books donated to us on science, philosophy, and health and bring an appetite and cash to support the other local vendors.
Operation “LIFT OFF”
All groups under the Free Thought Initiative and our podcast team have begun our first fundraising initiative in order to raise our first $1000! This is to help us get off the ground as an official Nonprofit (the legal paperwork costs $750) while also being able to reserve a booth at local tabling events ($200), get our Draper Group started ($50) and to spread the word online!
To see our current progress and to contribute to our cause, visit:
Our marketing efforts are starting to pay off. We now have our business cards on display in five Utah Valley businesses, and our social media presence grows! We have 45 subscribers to our YouTube Channel and 47 “Free-Thinkers” on our Utah Valley Group Meetup Page, helped by the opening of our new BitChute Channel this week. Thank you to all of you who have been sharing our podcast episodes and letting others in on the Free Thought Initiative.
Stargazing (Part 2) Ursa Major & Pinwheel Galaxy
Jun 17, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 20
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
If you haven’t yet listened to part 1 in this series, then what are you waiting for? It gives some great advice on how to plan and prepare for a good night of stargazing:
If you are up to speed, then it’s time to jump into part 2! To get the most out of this episode, download it onto your phone, step outside, hold your phone up to your ear, and follow along as we find and learn about the Big Dipper, the Big Bear (Ursa Major), Bode’s Galaxy, and the Pinwheel Galaxy. If you are listening indoors, then I hope you enjoy this dive into mythology and astronomy.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
I hope you did your homework from the last episode because it is time for a pop quiz! Go ahead and locate the Big Dipper.
If you are having a hard time, face north. It may be a little to the northeast or northwest, or it may even seem like it is straight above you. It’s a pretty large, bright, and popular group of stars, so if you haven’t found it yet, someone else in your party probably has. Four stars make the bowel, and it looks like three stars make the curved handle. Americans on the frontier looked at this group of stars and saw a drinking gourd, large spoon, or ladle. They saw something with which you would serve up water, or a hearty stew after a long day of pioneering, homesteading, trapping beavers, or whatever they did in those days. When Europeans see these stars, they see Odin’s wagon, a butcher’s cleaver, an old medieval plough, and a number of other things. Some Native Americans saw the bowl as a bear, chased by three hunters. In autumn, these hunters injure the bear, whose blood turns the leaves red.
In classical mythology, this bear wasn’t a bear at all, but actually the beautiful nymph Callisto, a follower of Artemis (the goddess of wild animals, the moon, and virginity). Zeus decided that Callisto would be his next mistress, but knew that she was sworn to a life of celibacy. To get around this, Zeus transformed himself into a woman who looked exactly like Artemis. They had a romantic encounter. Later Callisto was pregnant and gave birth to a son, which must have confused her and infuriated Zeus’ wife, Hera. Hera was so angry, that she turned this beauty into a bear. Years later, as Callisto was living in the woods, her own son, Arcus, found her! But he didn’t recognize her. He was a great hunter and chased her until she could run no further. Just as he was about to spear her with his javelin, Zeus intervened and spirited her up, into the sky. That is how Callisto became the constellation of the great bear. Her son was also transformed into a bear and became the constellation Ursa Minor, the small bear, or the “little dipper,” a constellation we will cover in the next part of this series. In some versions of the story, the constellation of Boötes, the herdsmen, is actually the boy hunter, Arcus.
The asterism of the Big Dipper has different names all around the world, but it belongs to a larger official constellation known as “Ursa Major” or “the Big Bear.” The Big Dipper is the bear’s lower back and tail. There you will find its brightest stars. The other stars of this constellation are much dimmer. If you start from the base of the tail and connect the top star of the dipper’s bowl, and then continue to hit the next two stars in that line, then you find the eye and nose of the bear. It is a fairly skinny bear that looks like she hasn’t eaten in a while. Below her eye is where her front limbs begin. Can you find her front legs? It looks to me like she is digging. The bear’s back legs are much larger. Start with the bottom of the bowl of the dipper. The back star, closer to the tail, is the back hip. Ursa Major’s back legs are spread wide like she’s taking a stand to protect her cubs. Find the next star down just below the hip and slightly back toward the tail. This is the top of the back legs. The left leg follows the curve of the front legs, and the right leg is straight down from the hip.
Once you find the eye, nose, and limbs of the bear, this constellation gets pretty big! In fact, it is the third largest constellation in the sky. Ursa Major doesn’t just look like a bear, it behaves like one. In the spring and summer, she is high in the sky and active. But when fall and winter come along, she hibernates low, along the horizon.
The brightest star here is Alioth. You can find it by looking at the three stars of the tail. It is the first one, closest to the rump of the bear. When you look at Alioth, you are looking at a star that is 81 light years away. The second brightest star is Dubhe and is found at the top front of the bowl of the big dipper, in the middle of the bear’s back. Dubhe is an orange giant, 123 light years away. It has a tiny yellow-white main sequence star next to it and they orbit one another as a binary. In the belly of the bear is the star Merak, which is just a cool sounding name. The last star at the tip of the tail is Alkaid. Alkaid is one of the hottest burning stars you can see without a telescope. It is a blue star, about 100 light years away, and is six times larger than our sun.
Now take a look at the middle star of the tail, the one that makes a kink in the tail. If you have really sharp eyes, or if you take a look at it with binoculars, then you have probably noticed something odd going on there. This is the star Mizar, but if you look close enough, Mizar is actually two stars. The second star is Alcor. This is another binary star system, where two stars orbit a point in space between them, like two partners in a dance. Can you see them both?
As we continue our exploration of our first constellation, go ahead and get your binoculars out if you have them. Better yet, if you have a telescope, get that ready. A telescope would make these deep space objects much easier to find.
It is time to spot two of the galaxies hiding in the darkness around the great bear. The first subject of our search will be M81, Bode's Galaxy. To find Bode’s Galaxy, we need to zero in on two stars in the big dipper. Look at the bottom of the bowl of the dipper, to the back star closer to the handle. That star is “Phad” with a “Ph.” Now find the diagonal star from it, forming the upper front edge of the bowl. That is our friend Dubhe again, the orange giant. Now if you connect those two stars and follow the line they create, you will run into M81, one of the easiest galaxies to see. The distance from the big dipper to the galaxy is about the same as the distance between Phad and Dubhe. Double the length of that diagonal line, and you’ll find it, a bright smudge in the darkness.
Bode’s Galaxy is about 12 Million Light Years away. Compared to other galaxies, that isn’t that far, making it easier to see in comparison. It belongs to our “Local Group” so, in cosmological terms, it is just down the street from the Milky Way. It’s about half the size of our galaxy and has 250 billion stars, but the black hole in its center is 15 times larger than the black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Just like Ursa Major, it is easiest to see in the spring.
To wrap up this part of the sky, I have a challenge for you. In these episodes, I think it would be fun to see if you can find some of the more difficult objects to see. Your challenge tonight is to spot the Pinwheel Galaxy!
The Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) is one of the most popular spiral galaxies in our sky. Finding it can be pretty tricky at first, and will probably take you a few tries. Through your binoculars, it will be a blurry patch. Through your telescope, you will be able to spot its bright center.
Find the last two stars in the bear’s tail, Mizar and Alkaid. These form the two bottom corners of an equilateral triangle (or a triangle with all three of its sides being the same length). The top point of this triangle is invisible, but if you look with strong binoculars or a telescope, it appears. The Pinwheel Galaxy is just about where the tip of this imaginary triangle would be. You can think of it as a fly, pestering the tail of the great bear.
The Pinwheel Galaxy is about 20 million light years from Earth, and it hosts many young bright stars. It is asymmetrical. This is probably because it crashed into another galaxy and absorbed it in the distant past. It is 70% larger than our home galaxy, is found beyond our Local Group, but is still in our neighborhood. It is a member of the Virgo Supercluster, along with our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. For all of you who can find tonight’s challenge, be sure to let us know in the comments!
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Very few historical figures have influenced modern society more than Plato, the prized pupil of Socrates, and champion of reason, education, and good citizenship.
In this presentation, we travel to classical Greece in search for Plato’s dialogues, myths, and teachings as part of our ongoing quest to find gems of moral philosophy from around the world. We found ten such gems that, we think, can reasonably inform our ethics in the modern age. Although this is by no means a comprehensive list, it represents a sincere look into wisdom that has driven philosophical discussion for about 1,400 years!
Below is a link to the presentation first used by the Utah Valley group on June 16th, 2019:
Stargazing (Part 1) How to Plan Your First Star Party
Jun 15, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 19
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
The summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is drawing near, so why not take a break, go outside, and see if you can find a few constellations in the summer night sky? In this series of episodes, you will be given a guided tour of the cosmos, filled with tips and tricks you’ll need to find stars, clusters, and constellations, as well as deep sky objects such as other galaxies. Along the way, it will also be my pleasure to sprinkle in some anecdotes about Greek and Roman mythology, pop culture, and science!
So before you go out camping with your family, stay up late with a date, host a star party, or spend some time alone under the stars, feel free to download the raw audio files of this series onto your phone from our website! After you step outside, hold your phone up to your ear, look up, and follow these directions to discover some of the greatest treasures of the night sky!
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
Tonight’s brief primer episode will help you get started with good stargazing techniques. You will learn when and where it is best to explore the stars. After that, it will be a piece of cake to use the next episodes in this series to find dozens of constellations, planets, galaxies, and more!
Before calling your friends up or marking your calendar, here are six things you need to do in order to prepare for some good stargazing:
1. MEMORIZE THE SHAPE OF THE “BIG DIPPER”
Look up a picture of the asterism known as “The Big Dipper.” You absolutely need to memorize this group of stars! Memorize the shape they make. Finding your way around the sky in future episodes will depend on your ability to quickly find the Big Dipper. Sometimes, this group of stars will be turned on its end. Sometimes it will be upside-down. Other times, only half of these stars will be visible on the horizon or blocked by clouds. So in order to prepare for any situation, and before you schedule your next star party, you will need to personally commit the shape and stars of the Big Dipper to memory. For those watching this on YouTube or BitChute, I’ll add a diagram or picture of the Big Dipper to the background image of the video.
2. DRESS WARM AND BRING SNACKS
It may be in the middle of the summer, but it gets cold at night. A cold breeze can quickly ruin any star party as your guests retreat back into the car or cabin. Wear a sweater, pack a coat, and be sure to bring extra blankets. While you’re at it, throw in a picnic blanket or lawn chairs if you think you’ll need them. If you plan on stellar scavenger-hunting for a few hours, then bringing a few snacks will help you and your guests stay awake.
3. GET AWAY FROM LIGHT POLLUTION
To get the most out of amateur astronomy and star gazing, you will want to do your best to get as far away from light pollution as you can. Light Pollution is basically what the sun does during the day. When there is too much light being bounced around in our atmosphere, it is harder to see through it. City lights can make all but a handful of stars visible to your eyes, so the further away you can get from civilization, the better. Take a hike in a national forest, drive a few minutes away from a small town, or travel to a large field, lake, or park on the edge of the city.
A second source of light pollution to consider is the moon. A full moon will generally make it hard to see the rest of the sky, but it isn’t a deal breaker. If you have time to plan ahead, look up which phase the moon will be in on the nights ahead. Remember, the moon cycles through its phases about once per month. Planning to stargaze just before, during, or after a new moon will give you the best results.
4. WAIT UNTIL MIDNIGHT
My favorite time to hunt for stars and galaxies is around midnight. If you do all of your stargazing just after sunset, then the bluish light pollution from the sun still blotches out much of the sky. Plan to start your search deep into the night so that it is dark enough for you to see what the galaxy really has to offer. Now, this is just a general rule. Stargazing much later at night is also a great idea, and there are some things you can only find around sunrise and sunset. But for starters, and for your convenience, plan on beginning your star party at around midnight.
5. GIVE YOUR EYES TIME TO ADJUST
Here is the first rule of stargazing: Put your phones away. Turn them off, tuck them away. The same rule applies to any other light sources. If you are using a constellation map, star chart, or planisphere, don’t use your phone or flashlight to read it. That will ruin your night vision. If you need to use some light, pack a red-filtered flashlight with you, but use it sparingly.
Your night-vision needs time to adjust, at least 30 minutes. If you really want to give yourself the best viewing experience, then you will need to allow yourself about an hour for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. Allowing your eyes to become more sensitive to starlight will make a huge difference in your ability to enjoy stargazing.
That is actually the best way to get started. Let your guests know that the star hunt will take place in a half-hour or so, in order to allow all of your eyes to adjust. In that time, it will look like an increasing number of stars are “coming out.” Hold your date close, sip some hot chocolate, and just look up. Let your eyes slowly pick up on more and more of those subtle stellar lights.
6. DON’T SWEAT ABOUT TELESCOPES OR BINOCULARS
For millions of years, our ancestors studied the stars, traced the constellations with their fingers, and experienced souring spiritual experiences when peering deep into the universe. All they had was their eyesight. The night sky is a treasure trove of sites and stories. You can fill dozens of nights with your friends star gazing before you ever need to pick up a pair of binoculars or a telescope. I think the best way to get started is with the naked eye.
To be sure, in each of the episodes ahead, I will give you a few deep sky objects to find with binoculars and telescopes. I’ll be happy to talk about getting the best inexpensive astronomy equipment at a later time. But we are just getting started! So if you don’t have the fanciest telescope right now, it’s not a big deal at all. The sky still has plenty to offer.
In our next episode, we will start with the Big Dipper and explore the stars, galaxies, and mythology surrounding the most well-known constellation of our night sky.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Evolution (Part 2) Are Dinosaur Fossils From Alien Worlds?
Jun 13, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 18
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
In this episode, we continue our examination of the evidence behind the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. If you have missed part 1 of this series titled, “Evolution (1) Intelligent Design and Darwinism,” be sure to pause this episode and give it a listen:
There is a popular idea that many fundamentalists and young earth creationists share. This is the idea that all of the evidence of ancient life on this planet, including all of the fossils older than 6,000 years (or so), don’t actually come from this planet. You see, many people believe that the story of Adam and Eve literally happened. They believe that Adam and Eve literally lived in the Garden of Eden some 6,000 years ago, and it was their “fall” that introduced death into the world. Adam acts in Christianity like an opposite to Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve bring death into the world and Jesus Christ brings everlasting life into the world. It is a poetic idea, but it leads to a massive problem: fundamentalists Christians don’t believe that anything could have died before Adam and Eve, even when we have mountains around us filled with fossils!
Rather than admit that their idea of the history of the earth is flawed, several creationists double down and insist that all of the apparent death in the fossil record could not have possibly come from a pre-human earth. They are left with no choice than to claim that all dinosaurs are aliens. What does the fossil evidence actually show? Can there be any truth to extraterrestrial dinosaurs? Today, we will go over all of that, and more!
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
My wife’s family and I returned recently from a week-long camping trip to Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, Utah, and the Colorado border. A museum there called the “Quarry Exhibit Hall” was built around a massive face of a mountain that has been partially excavated. About 1,500 dinosaur bone fossils have been left half-exposed in the rock face, allowing visitors to see an impressive example of where dinosaur bone fossils are found, how they can be naturally arranged, and what it takes to get them out of the ground.
We walked up to the rock face, felt the fossils with our own hands, and marveled at the jumbled collection of fossilized bones belonging to Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplodocus, and, my personal favorite dinosaur, Stegosaurus. Most astonishing to me is how the rock perfectly preserves the spongy shape of the tissue inside of the bones and the organic fractures on the outside of the bone. Only rock has been left behind, but the shape of it is truly amazing.
We hiked on desert trails around the museum where the sharp-eyed-dinosaur-hunter can spot even more fossils still lodged in the rocks around the park.
This was the second time my wife and I admired this particular exhibit, but our fascination with fossils, or evidence of ancient life, has taken us all over our home state. There is a great museum in Saint George, Utah, built over an ancient lake bed called “The Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm.” There is an amazing collection of trace fossils. These fossils aren’t bones. The majority of them are actually made from the body impressions, footprints, scratch marks, tail marks, and other impressions left by ancient animals on the muddy ground over 65 million years ago.
For those looking for an even more raw experience with fossils, one of our favorite vacations took us to “Fossil Point” near the city of Green River, Utah. There, you can see the reddish sauropod fossils still embedded in the tan and white Jurassic rocks out in the middle of the desert. Even as a child, I personally excavated dozens of trilobite fossils near Topaz, Utah.
I bring all of this up because I have encountered many people in my life, adults, family members, fellow college students, and coworkers, who don’t believe in the fossil record. They simply don’t believe that all of these bone structures or traces exist in nature, or that they came from prehistoric earth life. I remember one recent debate on the subject in which a coworker of mine said, “Well no one has ever seen dinosaur bones in the rock, have they?” I happily raised my hand and answered, “I have.”
Not long ago I was teaching at a charter school. One day, during lunch, one of my fellow instructors had finally had it with all my talk about evolution and fossils. She said that she was sure that dinosaurs were completely made up. She proudly believed in angels, aliens, and ghosts, but dinosaurs were a bit too much for her. “Come on,” she argued, “giant lizards with sharp teeth that would fight all day, it sounds like a movie!” After some conversational prodding, I was able to get to the bottom of why she felt this way. She brought up a common article of faith shared by many members of the Mormon Church. “Well, God made the earth out of leftovers from other planets. So dinosaur bones are really just the bones of aliens.”
I know right? It may sound ludicrous to you, but I have heard this explanation ever since I was a child. When someone who fundamentally believes in the literal interpretations of scripture, they often find themselves backed into ideological corners. Sometimes, the only way they can justify their crazy beliefs is by believing in even more crazy beliefs. It is like paying off all of your debt by getting further into debt. It is a logical fallacy called “special pleading.” If you want to get to the bottom of what is real and what is right, making an absurd claim that is only supported by more absurd claims is the wrong path to take.
This isn’t just a problem within rural Utah. There are many religious communities around the world sitting on a gold mine of scientific information and treasures of natural history. You may notice that talk about dinosaurs in those communities tends to be regulated to children’s stories or kindergarten activities. If you are an adult who is passionate about learning about ancient life, you may quickly find yourself in the minority.
As you may have guessed, the idea that all fossils come from alien life has several flaws. In this episode, I will give you 5 quick counter-arguments that demonstrate the absurdity of this proposal. I only had time to bring up two of these counter-arguments off the top of my head in the teacher’s break room before my coworker bluntly changed the subject.
In this episode, I won’t be touching on Panspermia, hitchhiking microbes, or the legitimate search that comes from astrobiologists. Our present conversation is not dealing with the origin of life. Rather, it is a response to a specific claim regarding dinosaur fossils. If an organism is born, hatched, or otherwise originates on earth, then we should be comfortable calling it "earth life."
Here is something strange I’ve noticed. When it comes to the theory of Evolution, its only critics tend to be those who are religiously motivated. That is pretty odd. If I’m wrong about that, please send me a link to a purely secular or scientific rebuttal of the theory and then I’ll happily add a comment negating this claim. But as far as I can tell, creationists seem to be the only ones that have a problem with Evolution.
Imagine if the whole world accepted that electricity is really just the flow of electrons, except for one fringe group: Pokémon card collectors. We are all fine with this explanation of electricity, we teach it to our kids, we can support it with evidence and experimentation, but then the Pokémon Card Collectors start making anti-electron-flow videos and before you know it, half of Americans no longer believe in electrons. For someone like me, that is how bizarre this whole “Evolution vs. Creationism” debate really is.
Now, full disclosure, if creationism actually turns out to be correct, then I hope we all figure it out and get with the program. I sincerely mean that. Whatever is the fact of the matter is what I sincerely want to believe. The problem is that the raw evidence from nature points to natural processes like evolution. We live in a time in which the vast majority of natural phenomenon can be explained without a superhuman pulling the strings, or a heavenly magician operating backstage.
With that said, let’s jump into five counter-arguments you can make if you ever find yourself up against someone making the argument that all dinosaurs are aliens:
1. THE REASON WHY DINOSAUR FOSSILS ARE NOT DESCRIBED IN ANCIENT SCRIPTURES ISN’T THAT THEY AREN’T OF THIS EARTH. IT IS BECAUSE THE ANCIENT PEOPLES DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THEM OR UNDERSTAND THEM.
In classical and medieval Europe, it was common for people to find strangely shaped rocks on the ground. They resembled something like petrified snake or dragon tongues! Pliny the Elder taught his fellow Romans that these fell from the sky during lunar eclipses. One Irish tradition states that these were all that were left of the snakes that were banished by Saint Patrick through the power of God.
It wasn’t until after an Italian Scientist came along named Fabio Colonna that we started to understand what these weird rocks actually were. At around the year 1616 AD, Colonna proposed that these were actually shark teeth, not tongues or lunar creations. Modern science has been able to validate Colonna’s claims.
There is good evidence that fossils have been found all throughout human history. However, fossils don’t come with labels, so the ancients had to do their best at understanding exactly what these were. Sometimes they were thought to be animals petrified by magic or divine power. Other times they were thought to be man-made carvings. Sometimes they were written off as the remains of great sea creatures or dragons. Other times, they were imagined to be the evidence of long-ago ages of mythological heroes, monsters, gods, or titans.
It makes total sense to me that faith traditions around the world emerged and unified early hunter-gatherer communities, long before dinosaur bone fossils were discovered or understood. Early humans had to constantly deal with hunger, disease, war, infighting, childcare, and mortality. We needed explanations, and we needed them fast. Our ancestors didn’t have a lot of time to carefully dig through layers of solid rock and discover the traces of prehistoric life. The spirits and personalities we gave animals and objects eventually became pantheons of gods, some more powerful than others. These beliefs led to the first monotheistic religions.
Let’s jump forward several hundred years. The United States is now on the map, but humanity has progressed very little in our understanding of Mesozoic monsters like Tyrannosaurus Rex or Triceratops. Dinosaurs were far from the public discussion. More interesting at the time was Protestantism and the emergence of several new churches.
Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormon Church in the year 1830. The Baptist preacher William Miller predicted that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ would occur at some point between 1843 and 1844. Most of his followers would later become the Seventh-Day Adventists. Around this same time, the Holiness Movement was picking up steam, leading to more people taking a look at the teachings of John Wesley like Phoebe Palmer, one of the first leaders of Methodist Christianity.
When many of today’s churches were getting started, there was not a person on Earth who knew what an Allosaurus or a Diplodocus was. They wrote about the Bible, about America, about all sorts of things, but their religious teachings didn’t touch at all on the billions of years of life that took place on their own planet. There was a lot of preaching and stomping and singing, but not a word about the billions of years of history below their feet.
Now fast forward to the Civil War Era of the United States. Early naturalist fossil collectors such as Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh were sent by their respective academies and universities to see what they can find in the badlands of the South-western United States. Their competition is legendary, and it may be fun to dedicate an episode to it. It would be these two fossil hunters that would discover and popularize many of the species of dinosaurs that your first-grader can name today.
Dinosaurs were discovered and understood AFTER almost all of the holy books and teachings of the world’s religions were established. (As a side note, this is exactly what you would expect from manmade religions, and not from peoples led by an omniscient being.) If you are a fundamentalist Christian from a religion that was jump-started any time before the Civil War, then your church is at a historical disadvantage. Most of what we know about the Mesozoic or any pre-human life for that matter, has been discovered fairly recently. Your holy teachings don’t have dinosaurs in them because people didn’t know about dinosaurs, nor did they understand the true nature of fossils. It is just that simple.
2. ALL FOSSILS ARE BURIED IN THE CORRECT ORDER, FROM THE OLDEST TO THE NEWEST.
This is a pretty simple concept. If you have a hamper of dirty laundry, the clothing on the bottom was put there before the clothing on the top. Layers of rock further down are older than layers of rock at the surface. Now let’s take this a step further. Fossils found on surface-level rock layers are newer than fossils found in rock layers below them. So far so good?
Here is the truth about the fossil record. Every undisturbed fossil ever found has been found in the correct rock layer as predicted by Evolution. You will never find a trilobite in the same layer as a tyrannosaur. You will never find a Pachycephalosaurus in the same rock layer as a saber-tooth tiger. There is an order, oldest to newest, that all fossils should match, and they all match this ordering perfectly. Evolution predicts that older fossils should contain animals with simpler body plans and less variety. Evolution predicts that newer fossils should contain animals with more complex body plans and more variety. If Evolution was correct, then we would expect to find the vast majority of species extinct, while other species would pass on their most useful genes leading to completely different animals further down the evolutionary line with similar body structures.
All of these predictions are confirmed in the fossil record, every last one of them. But it is the order in which they are found that means the most to me. You see, if a god really took a bunch of rocks floating in space and mashed them together to create the earth, then wouldn’t the alien fossils in that rock be all mixed up and non-sequential. Why would god painstakingly put only bacteria fossils down first, then the simple animals, then the strange sea creatures, then the dinosaurs, then the giant sloths and mammoths, and then human fossils on top? Why would he make it look like evolution was real, all over the earth, and in every rock layer? Why would he go to such great lengths to make the fossil record consistent?
My answer to that paradox is simple: “He didn’t.”
3. HOW COULD ALIEN FOSSILS SURVIVE THE FORMATION OF THE EARTH?
This is a simple question of physics. When rocks get hot enough, they glow red, orange, and yellow and become a viscous liquid magma. When a new planet is formed, it starts out as a molten mess of rock, ice, and heavy elements, all melting, sublimating and fusing together until the surface solidifies. In fact, a large amount of the heat found in the earth’s core today is left over from when our planet formed in the first place! Our planet was once a hellish landscape in the Hadean Eon, only cooling over time enough to form the first layers of its crust.
If God brought the pieces of other planets together to form the earth, how could the fossils in that rock survive this extremely hot and molten formation of the earth about 4.5 Billion years ago? Making a new planet must have generated a tremendous amount of heat, melting all of the alien fossils and rocks in the first place. If the earth didn’t start out as a molten mass, then how would you explain the massive amount of heat still present in earth’s core today? Pressure, tidal forces, and nuclear decay can only get you so far. We even have examples in our own solar system with so-called “dead” planets of solidified rock, so go ahead, how do you explain the excessive amount of heat at the core of the earth?
4. ALL FOSSILS FIT THEIR EARTHLY ENVIRONMENT.
One beautiful discovery of science is that geologists have been able to model past formations of our planet’s tectonic plates. More impressive still is that climate scientists have been able to draw from fossil evidence as well as these tectonic arrangements to predict the various climates, environments, and ecosystems of the past 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history to increasingly higher degrees of specificity. The shape, lifestyles, and abundance of ancient animals allow them to perfectly fit niches in the ancient world, conforming perfectly to how natural selection works. The history of the world is like a giant puzzle. Sometimes, we have a ton of information about one thing, but less of another. The more we learn, the clearer our picture of history becomes.
Here is the kicker. We have discovered enough to understand the continuity to the ebb and flow of life on earth. There is continuity to the earth’s climate. An Ice age will be followed by rising sea levels, a massive volcanic eruption will lead to the extinction of many large land animals. It is all connected.
That is why, when scientists and people who are well educated hear the claim that dinosaurs must be aliens, we are often not even sure where to start with our rebuttal. Dinosaur fossils fit the niches of their environments, environments that lead directly to the Earth we see today. There is absolutely no evidence that these creatures lived anywhere else but here.
5. NO EXPERTS OR LEADERS TAKE THIS IDEA SERIOUSLY.
And now to address the 24,000-pound mastodon in the room…
Religious doctrine is not based on evidence or science. That just isn’t how spirituality or faith works. Most often, belief comes after reading or hearing a religious authority such as an expert on scripture, or a church leader.
When was the last time you heard a church leader proudly stand before a congregation and say that ALIENS are the answer to all of the fossils that formed before Adam and Eve? In which holy book or Manuel is this written? What official talk or sermon contains this astonishing doctrine?
Look for it all you want. The truth is that the seminary teachers and theologians who spread this idea are most often doing so under the radar. They tend not to be very confident about it. When I was taught about alien dinosaurs as a child, my Sunday school teachers would shrug their shoulders and hand-wave away any questions we had. This was one of those “great mysteries” that we can expect from such a mysterious god. Later in life, when I brought up the problems with this idea to Mormon Missionaries, they just looked at one another and told me that they couldn’t give me an answer.
I think religious leaders throw their followers under the bus in this case. Thousands of devotees and followers will swear that evidence for aliens can be found in the rock layers all over the earth, but their leaders will never publicly support them or back up this claim. No prominent church authority takes this idea seriously. No scientist takes this idea seriously, and no public school teacher should take this idea seriously.
Dinosaur fossils, just like all other fossils, carry the distinct mark of earth life. The anatomy of these creatures fits perfectly in a long chain of evolution. Their chemistry matches the chemistry of our earth. Their sizes and structures all match the conditions of this earth. Dinosaurs aren’t aliens who (for example) magically look like the perfect missing link between reptiles and birds. The fact is that dinosaurs belong to this planet just as much as we do. They were hatched here, lived here, ate here, and died here. We still can learn much from them about life, history, and our world. Our planet is covered with stone-cold evidence of this, and it is real, no matter which creation myth you choose to believe.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Evolution (Part 1) Intelligent Design and Darwinism
Jun 08, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 15
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
I can remember when I was first taught about evolution as a teenager. In my Salt Lake City High school Biology class, my science teacher was openly religious and was dismissive of Charles Darwin’s revolutionary idea. He presented a flaccid depiction of the evidence for the theory, and was quick to mention that there are alternative theories such as “Intelligent Design.” The all too common “But you should study all the ideas out and then decide what you believe” came up a few times. This was in 2004, and soon, the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial would take place across the country. Is Intelligent Design just as valid a theory as Evolution? Is Evolution just “Darwinism,” a cult-like belief in one man’s ideas? Is Evolution, in fact, just an anti-God theory or an atheistic conspiracy? In this episode, we will answer those questions in Part 1 of our new series: “Misconceptions about Evolution.”
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
I was 23 years old when I first really learned about evolution, and it was actually an emotional experience for me. My whole life, I had thought that Evolution was a flimsy, weak, and unsubstantiated guess that very few scientists took seriously. Thanks to the internet, documentaries, library books, and college education, I finally realized that I had been dismissive of what is perhaps the most groundbreaking and powerful idea of all time. But only about half of Americans take this scientific theory seriously and believe that it accurately describes the history of life on Earth. When reality itself is so criminally misrepresented by educators and so casually dismissed by the masses, it takes everyday people like us to make things right. Join me, as we look at three common misconceptions about the theory of Evolution:
1. IS EVOLUTION IS AN ANTI-GOD THEORY OR AN ATHEISTIC CONSPIRACY?
No, it isn’t, and it never was. I hear this argument against evolution all the time and it is a deeply disingenuous one. Pedaled by fear-mongers, it is meant to fill religiously indoctrinated children with doubt and distrust when it comes to modern science. People who poison a child’s ability to learn well-established facts later in life are, in my opinion, committing a heinous and immoral act. Conspiratory thinking can rob our trust in experts and in society itself, so it is important that we turn to the facts. What do we know about the actual people behind the origins of this theory?
The first scientist who proposed Evolution through Natural Selection was Charles Darwin. Darwin - who happened to be born on the same day, in the same month, and in the same year as Abraham Lincoln, by the way - was a theist, not an atheist. His wife Emma was also religious. His childhood family was Unitarian, and he was baptized into the Church of England. He wrote about his belief in the Bible and even went to school to become an Anglican Clergymen. Darwin’s early studies of naturalism were attached to this religious pursuit. Much later in life, he began to doubt that the Bible was an accurate historical account of creation, but he continued to believe that God was still the ultimate source of all morality. In 1879 he wrote, "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.”
Another early evolutionary scientist was Alfred Russel Wallace, who once said, “I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions.” He wasn’t a Christian, but he was spiritual and believed in spiritualism and the afterlife.
Obviously, these men and other geologists and biologists at the time were not atheists. Atheism, as we understand it today, is actually a relatively modern movement. Around the time of the American Civil war and prior, non-believers in conventional Christianity were more likely to be “deists,” or people who believed that there was a god who set everything in motion, but that god remained largely absent. This is in stark contrast to the personal prayer-answering God in which most theists believe, but it is far from atheism.
Evolution is obviously not an anti-God theory or an atheistic conspiracy. In fact, a plurality of evolutionary scientists, biologists, geologists, paleontologists, microbiologists, embryologists, and other scientists today are indeed, religious, and believers in a personal god. If this really was a sham designed to sow doubt or disbelief in god, then it has failed miserably, and can’t be seriously considered to be a threat by any theist today.
Moreover, several mainstream churches such as the Catholic Church accept the science of evolution, saying (for example) that it was the “soul” of man that is divinely created, rather than his body. Other spiritual traditions claim that it was God who started the processes that got evolution started in the first place. When many religious leaders are asked about the conflict between science and religion, it has become common for them to reply something like, “What conflict? I don’t really see a conflict at all.”
Evolution is real and valid science, based on the rock-solid foundation of empirical evidence that survives the strictest of scientific scrutiny. It is a scientific fact, born of curiosity, and is the best explanation we have for the complexity and variety of life so far. It is most certainly not a crafty atheist’s invention.
2. ISN’T EVOLUTION JUST “DARWINISM,” A CULT-LIKE FOLLOWING OF ONE MAN’S IDEAS?
No, Evolution is not a belief system. It is not a religion, and it is not a cult. If you watch a lot of anti-evolution, creationist, or intelligent design vides, you may be surprised how often you hear the word, “Darwinism.” "Darwinism" isn’t a thing. Scientists don’t use this term at all. The term is a shady back-handed attempt to paint the multiple sciences that study evolution as all one silly group of people obsessed with one crazy man’s idea. But let’s go a little deeper. Is evolution only based on Charles Darwin?
No, it’s not. Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” was published in 1859, some 160 years ago! Do you think that science has not adjusted or improved on this theory in 160 years? Here is a better question, why don’t you think that in 160 years, no human being on earth has been able to disprove or discredit this theory? Is it because no one has tried? That is nonsense, scientists are trying to disprove established science every single day. That is exactly how you earn a Nobel Prize, by the way. Why has an entire planet of experts failed to replace this theory with a better one? I have an answer: because it’s true. Evolution is a scientific fact.
Evolution has moved far beyond Charles Darwin’s original discoveries and ideas. Think about this - Charles Darwin didn’t even know about DNA. When the structure and purpose of DNA were discovered, how easy would it have been to dethrone Evolution? Well, surprise - surprise, everything we know about DNA only reinforces, supports, and expands the Theory of Evolution. Thousands and millions of researchers study evolution around the world every single day. Are all of them beholden to a civil-war era British naturalist? Of course not!
In fact, not to guild the lily too much, modern science has proven many of Darwin’s initial ideas wrong. One of his early ideas is that the different races of humanity all must have evolved from different species of apes. Well, he was wrong about that, and every biologist on earth is comfortable in saying that. Human beings of all races, in fact, all belong the same species. All of us, no matter our shape or skin color, came from the same ape-like ancestor. Charles Darwin was wrong about a lot of things, and that is ok. That is how science works. We don’t follow charismatic leaders with blind faith. We don’t hold scientific writings as sacred. The opposite is true. Science history is filled with competitive researchers slandering one another, trying to discredit one another, and ruthlessly taking apart each other’s publications, claim by claim.
We don’t call gravity “Newtonism” or germ theory “Pasteurism.” We don’t call the heliocentric model of the solar system “Copernicusism,” so why in the world would we ever call evolution “Darwinism?” “Darwinism” is not a thing, and the next time you hear someone use the phrase, you will hopefully now better understand that they are coming from a place of ignorance concerning how science actually works.
3. ISN’T INTELLIGENT DESIGN JUST AS VALID A THEORY AS EVOLUTION?
Absolutely not. The idea that Intelligent Design is scientific at all is completely untrue. “Intelligent Design” as promoted by the Discovery Institute and other similar religious organizations is not a valid scientific theory. It is a thinly-veiled theological argument that has been demonstrated in the court of law to be a religiously-motivated pseudoscience!
Yes, you heard me right. Intelligent Design was developed by the Discovery Institute. The same organization that produced the creationist textbook “Of Pandas and People.” This is the same organization responsible for the Creationist Museum in which people can see animatronic dinosaurs in a theme-park version of the garden of Eden. The Discovery Institute is the same group behind the “Ark Encounter.” You heard me right. The same group of religious leadership that teaches children about Adam and Eve, and Noah and his Ark, is claiming to author a scientific theory as viable as Evolution.
Intelligent Design is a fraud, and its dishonest tactics, shady motivations, and unscientific basis was laid out in unflattering detail before a Pennsylvania District Court Judge in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case in 2005. In that court case, a school district, which tried to teach Intelligent Design in public schools, was being sued by parents who saw this as a violation of their children’s first amendment rights. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” It is your legal right as an American to live in a free country in which your government will not promote or require any religion. And every single time a public school teacher in a classroom expresses their personal religious views, in front of a room of children who trust them to tell them the truth, they are violating that right. In my years of teaching elementary school children, I saw this sort of underhanded preaching all of the time, and it’s wrong. It shouldn’t happen, but that is a discussion for a different day.
In the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, every so-called “expert” on Intelligent Design was called to testify and make their case before a judge that their proposal was, in fact, a scientific theory. Yet day after day, they failed to do so. The reporters were not impressed. The public was not impressed. The judge, who is a conservative Christian, had no choice but to side with the real science presented by the experts on evolution in that courtroom!
Intelligent Design has failed in the eyes of the scientific community. Intelligent Design has failed in the court of law. This idea should have been buried a long time ago. The fact that we still hear about it from time to time, even after it has been so thoroughly debunked, shows just how unscientific it really is. However, no matter how badly it is battered by reason, logic, evidence, and the facts, it will live on as a belief in the hearts of many.
Because that is all it is, a belief. But the problem is that most people don’t know that. Its premises have been debunked so many times. But in the quest to follow the facts, wherever they may lead, and defend the actual and objective truth, I am not about to let Intelligent Design continue to slip under our radar. In future episodes, I will continue to debunk common misconceptions about Evolution, and I hope you will join me.
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Today, we are talking about nothing! Absolutely nothing. Did the Universe Really Come From Nothing? A few episodes ago, we asked the question, “What Happened before the Big Bang?” If you haven’t yet listened to that podcast, be sure to do so! I stuck mostly with Stephen Hawking’s take on space-time and focused on the emergence of time itself. But the time has come to go deeper. We are getting our hands messy today with quantum physics. We are going to see if we can figure out why some scientists say that everything did indeed, come from nothing.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
When I run into religious arguments against mainstream science, I often hear a line that goes something like this: “And what about the Big Bang? Now scientists would have us believe that something came from nothing. How absurd! Something is something and nothing is nothing and to think otherwise is nonsense! Besides, we never ever see something come out of nothing do we?”
Do we? Here is this common misconception in a nutshell: “The universe couldn’t have possibly popped into existence out of nothing.”
Quantum Physics is, in a way, the new kid on the block. While the fundamentals of the Big Bang theory represent well established and well tested science, Quantum Physics is lagging behind. Like all new sciences, it isn’t as widely accepted or well understood. Does that mean that it is necessarily “less true” than more established science? Not at all. It is actually one of the most robust and productive tools we have in the field of physics.
Most of the time, when we talk about the big bang, we are talking about a microscopic singularity that expanded into the universe we live in today. Yet scientists are not content with resting on what is well tested or understood. They are perplexed by the unknown, the promise of the prize of new knowledge just beyond our horizon.
Therefore, in recent years, scientists such as Laurence Krouss, Michio Kaku, and Brian Green have seen what quantum mechanics can tell us about the origins of the universe. The math behind quantum physics has been astonishingly accurate so far, and has made things like our cell phones and your internet access possible today. So when we turn this powerful mathematical model to the biggest questions of the universe, what is revealed? What have these scientists and cosmologists like them discovered? Through mathematics and indirect observation of quantum fluctuations, scientists can now make the case that our universe did indeed come into existence out of what people call, “nothing.”
Now most people’s problem with this astonishing discovery comes from the use of this word, “nothing.” In everyday language, when we say nothing, we mean the opposite of something. We mean absolute emptiness, an unambiguous void. This pure, theoretical, and definition-based abstract doesn’t really exist. This idea isn’t exactly what cosmologists and quantum physicists mean. The “nothing” they are talking about is what is left over when we take outer space, and remove all of its ingredients, or at least all of the ingredients with which we are most familiar. If we take away stars, galaxies, dust clouds, planets, rocks, ice, molecules, atoms, all baryonic matter, dark matter, and energy... What is left over?
The quote-unquote “Nothing” that is left over, is actually a rolling boil of quantum fluctuations, sub atomic energy that flows in and out of existence according to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. How cool is that? When everything is stripped away, we have this bizarre energy that can’t make up its mind. It phases in and out of our universe, like swarms of bees flying in and out of a busy hive. An impressive fact about quantum fluctuations, is that they represent a massive amount of energy on larger scales. The truth is, some 70% of the energy in the universe comes from this humble rumbling below space itself. This wiggling soup of ingredients that bounce between “is” and “isn’t” really exists, and is that “something” that quantum physicists mean when they say “nothing.”
I hope that helps, but I should add that even with everything I just said, mathematically, the quantum fluctuations can still be completely accurately described as “nothing.”
But if everything came from nothing, how can this agree with what we understand about the conservation of matter or the conservation of energy? Haven’t we heard that matter and energy can’t be created or destroyed, but they can only be changed into other forms?
If that is what you were thinking, then you are on the right track. The next thing to remember is that energy and matter are basically the same thing. Do you remember Einstein’s most famous equation: E=MC2 and what it represents? Basically, matter can turn into energy (think of an atomic bomb) and energy can turn into matter. We are talking about two sides of the same coin.
We live in what cosmologists call a “flat universe.” Put another way, if we mathematically account for all of the matter, all of the dark matter, and all of the gravity, all virtual particles, and all of the positive and negative energy of the universe and add it together, how much energy would that total? Well, this isn’t just a hypothetical question. Scientists have actually done the calculation. So how much energy does it total?
The answer is zero: zero joules, zero electronvolts, zero calories. The laws of conservation are completely satisfied. Here is an oversimplified equation that I think would help. 0 = -1000 + 1000. This statement is still true when we read it backwards: 1000 - 1000 = 0. Now imagine that the equals sign is the big bang. Before the universe expanded, we had zero. Now that we have a full and complex universe, all of its laws, matter, and energy can be represented by positive 1000 and negative 1000. If we add all the positive and negative matter and energy together, we are back to zero.
This is an over-simplified explanation of how nothing can create something, and something can equal nothing. I hope it helps, and I hope that the next time you hear someone say, “The universe couldn’t have popped into existence out of nothing” you will now be able to say something, rather than nothing.
But before I wrap up this episode, there is one more point I’d like to make in this whole discussion about nothing. This is me just thinking out loud, but I can’t help it. New and challenging ideas, at the edge of my understanding, only make sense to me if I can think out loud.
Do you remember Edwin Hubble’s observations? He was the first to discover that the fabric of space itself is stretching between the galaxies. Our universe is expanding. In fact, it is even accelerating in its expansion. This is often attributed to enigmatic dark energy, a phenomenon that scientists are still trying to tackle and define. I have been perplexed by the idea of dark energy since my childhood. I even wrote a report on it as a sixth grader. There must be massive amounts of it to push against all gravity and the forces of nature and push the universe to expand even faster than it already is! Where has all that energy been all this time? Where is it coming from?
Many scientists believe that the evidence points to quantum fluctuations giving rise to the singularity that expanded into our universe. In the absolute emptiness of non-existence, quantum fluctuations produced all existence. And it started out small, a little bit of space-time that eventually expanded into a massive cosmos.
But it didn’t end there, did it? The universe is still expanding and even accelerating in its expansion based upon what we can measure. The Big Bang isn’t something that happened, it is something that is still happening, and we are seeing it happen from the inside!
If the seemingly empty space between these galaxies is filled with humming and jostling quantum fluctuations, the same kind of fluctuations that created the fabric of space-time in the first place, could it be that they are still busy at work, creating even more space-time?
What if the same quantum mechanisms that started our cosmos are responsible for making more cosmos between the galaxies, causing the universe to expand? Could the mystery of dark energy one day be solved completely through quantum mechanics? Could this explain where the universe is getting all of this extra energy?
Well, I don’t know. Like I said, we have reached the edge of my understanding of this topic. Nevertheless, I look forward to the day when we all can better understand this bizarre universe of quantum mechanics, dark energy, and the unintuitive potential of “nothing.”
If you have enjoyed this conversation or have learned something from it, please leave a like, subscribe, and share it with other open-minded people. All of those small things really do make a big difference and help others find our group and our podcast.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Hard Evidence That Supports the Big Bang
May 29, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 11
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
In this episode, we will look at five strong reasons that scientists have to accept the big bang as the most accurate model to explain the shape, expansion, and composition of our universe. What does the evidence actually show? Is the big bang really the best explanation for what we observe? We will get right to it, in just a moment.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
The word “theory” in science doesn’t mean “guess” or “hypothesis.” A Scientific Theory is a rigorously-tested model, system, or idea that can explain several observed phenomena at once. It is the highest form of Scientific Certainty, the best explanation in its field so far. A theory explains the facts, which are based on the best possible evidence.
The Big Bang, for me, is one of the most bizarre of the most prominent Scientific Theories. It seems too strange to be science-fiction, but also too outlandish to be scientific fact. Things like evolution by natural selection, thermodynamics, germ theory, and Newton’s laws of motion, once understood well enough, mesh very well with our every-day experience. But this is a moot point, isn’t it? The universe really doesn’t care about making things easy for us. It doesn’t have to be at-all intuitive. Science isn’t about what can be comfortably understood. Rather, it seeks to uncover the facts of nature, whatever they may be.
Many of its opponents describe the big bang theory as a type of conspiracy, drawn up by atheists to contest against a belief in a god. This is ironic to me because many fundamentalist creationists have claimed the prospect of a big bang as a “win” for their argument that the universe had a beginning, and was not merely eternally present. At the time of its conception, as is still the case for many theologians today, the big bang was seen as the smoking gun of creation, leaving egg on the face of all of the scientists who were more content with a static universe model.
But as I said, the universe itself really doesn’t care about our theological, epistemological, or philosophical debates. Real science has never been about scoring points for your ideological team. Real science happens when we take our beliefs, presumptions, and prejudices and stuff them in the sock drawer. Only then are we ready to see things as they really are. Of course, this is easier said than done. Even Albert Einstein, whose theory of general relativity predicted an unstable universe with a beginning, personally favored the static and eternal model for the universe. However, true to form, the scientific community has been confronted with strong empirical data and evidence and has shifted its position, now declaring the big bang theory to be the most accurate representation of the past and present state of the universe.
What pieces of evidence could possibly have swayed an entire world of cosmological experts? How could such a bizarre theory become so mainstream? Well, I’m glad you asked. Here are five examples of strong evidence that support the big bang:
1. THE HUBBLE–LEMAÎTRE LAW AND RED-SHIFTED GALAXIES
Let’s turn back to the early 1920s. The United States was becoming a world power, flappers danced the lindy-hop, and every astronomer understood that we were surrounded by stars and smudgy nebulae, bright clouds of space dust, found all over most of the universe, a universe that was generally understood to be filled, mostly, by the galaxy, the Milky Way.
In 1924, in an observatory in California, Edwin Hubble made two groundbreaking discoveries that would change our view of the cosmos forever.
First – He observed that those blotches and smudges in the night sky weren’t just dust clouds. You see, an astronomer and computing genius named Henrietta Leavitt had discovered that certain stars (known as Cepheid variable stars or “standard candles”) had a known absolute magnitude, allowing astronomers to calculate their distance. Hubble was able to find these stars in the blotchy nebulae around us, and found that they actually belonged to entirely different galaxies, millions of light-years away at the very least! Hubble had solid proof that ours was only one of many galaxies in the universe.
Second – Hubble noticed something strange when calculating the distance between us and other galaxies. They were all moving away from us. The light from these galaxies was all slightly red-shifted. In fact, the further away they were, the faster they were moving. These observations must have been puzzling. Luckily, a Belgian Catholic priest and physicist named Georges Lemaître (a man who is usually credited as the first proponent of the big bang) could explain what Hubble observed.
Lemaître was a fan of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. On that foundation, he was able to calculate that in the past, the universe must have been much smaller, only to have expanded. This would explain why Hubble and every single astronomer after him (with sufficiently powerful hardware) can detect that the galaxies are, in fact, still moving away from one another.
Today, we understand that what I just said is actually a little off. You see, the galaxies are not moving away from each other on their own. In fact, it is the space between them that is stretching out, like water currents moving two floating leaves away from one another. Perhaps the best metaphor for this comes from a simple demonstration you can perform at home. Take a new balloon and, with a marker, create dots all over it. They will appear to be close together. Now, when you slowly blow-up the balloon, take note on how each dot seems to fly away from its neighbors. This is a 2D surface that behaves similar to how the fabric of space-time is indeed stretching and warping between the galaxies of the universe.
But what is all this talk about red-shifting? The reason why this is such a big deal is because red-shifting is exactly what we would expect the light from distant stars to do if they were traveling through space-time that is indeed stretching. If you stretch-out light, it becomes red-shifted. If the universe was collapsing, like a deflating-balloon, then all of the light from distant galaxies would be blue-shifted.
The red-shifting of light waves is similar to the collapsing or stretching of soundwaves. We can hear this happen when a noisy ambulance flies past us.
(Siren Noise)
You may remember talking about this “Doppler Effect” in science class. The pitch of the sound is warped based on our position relative to the ambulance, its speed, and its direction. Light behaves in a similar way.
Put simply, the first big form of evidence for the big bang is the red-shifting of galaxies, all of which are observably moving away from us. It then logically follows, that if we could look back in time, we would find that all of the stars and galaxies of the universe were closer together. The further back we go, the closer together they would be.
2. THE RATIO OF THE ELEMENTS FOUND IN THE UNIVERSE
Sir. Fred Hoyle coined the term “Big Bang” as a derogatory term for Lemaître’s theory. They were rivals to one another. However, his theories and observations would later prove to support the Big Bang Theory! One major part of his argument comes from the periodic table you see in your chemistry textbooks. If you thought that every element on that table shows up in nature in roughly the same amounts, then you would be wrong. Oddly enough, the smaller elements vastly outnumber the elements further down the table. The drop-off is pretty dramatic. About 75% of all of the baryonic matter in the universe is just Hydrogen. About 23% is Helium. 2% is all that is left for the rest of the periodic table, but the pattern still continues. The lighter and smaller elements tend to outnumber the heavier ones in that same asymptote-like trend.
This pattern is exactly what would be expected for Stellar Nucleosynthesis, a process that is central to the Big Bang theory and inflation.
3. THE STRUCTURE OF THE COSMOS ITSELF
The Hubble telescope was named after the astronomer, Edwin Hubble, and it was a break-through in humanity’s ability to see the universe. It orbits our planet, past the interference of our atmosphere, and could, therefore, give us the clearest pictures of the farthest objects we could see at the time. Its first pictures, sent to us in the early 1990s, could have torn the Big Bang Theory to pieces. After all, Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, as well as the Big Bang Theory, made some testable predictions about the shape, size, and distribution of matter throughout the cosmos. The space between galaxies, the size of galaxies, the spaces between stars in galaxies, the conditions surrounding the birth and death of distance stars, as well as the distribution of things like quasars and black holes, all needed to fit within the predictions of the Big Bang for it to survive.
Did they? They did in the 90s, and they still do today. Every observation made of the universe so far, from every telescope to every computer model, has not refuted or discredited the big bang theory. Granted, the theory has been adjusted as we have received more data. The addition of the dark-energy dominated era comes to mind, but we are a long way from being able to replace it.
4. THE DISCOVERY OF THE HIGGS FIELD AND FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s most powerful particle collider. Underground, near Geneva, Switzerland, lies this massive tunnel system built for one purpose: to smash! If I were a Marvel Comics writer, this is where I would have Bruce Banner work! But the things we find there, I think, are far more astonishing than the misadventures of the Incredible Hulk. When it comes to particle physics, reality really is stranger than fiction.
In particle colliders such as the LHC, our understanding of particle physics, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang singularity itself, are constantly tested. You see, this is how scientists can claim to know anything about the first seconds of our universe. The possible conditions of the early universe are simulated and small bits of matter are accelerated to near the speed of light, only to be obliterated when smashing into one another. It is like we are smashing a clock or a treasure-chest open in order to see what is inside. From these experiments, subatomic matter, anti-matter, and hitherto unknown particles have been observed. Particles such as positrons, neutrinos, and the Higgs-boson were just ideas until they were actually seen in this lab or in other similar labs. When we break down the complex parts of the universe, its simpler ingredients are revealed. We can then speculate about what the conditions the early universe had to have been in order to produce what is observed today.
This is all to say that if literally ripping the pieces of the cosmos apart hasn’t yet disproved the Big Bang, I am not sure what will.
5. THE COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND RADIATION
I wanted to save what, in my opinion, is the most powerful form of evidence for the Big Bang for the end of my list. But let’s take a step back. If you were highly skeptical of this theory, you may make the argument that scientists are making a “self-fulfilled prophesy” when it comes to the CMBR. From one point of view, scientists predicted that the cosmic microwave background radiation should exist, and then they claim to have found it. Isn’t that what is going on here?
Such an argument would hold some water if it weren’t for a few of the details about how it was discovered. Also important to consider, is how it is still being found and researched by many teams all over the world, building upon decades of discovery.
The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation was first predicted in 1948 by cosmologists Ralph Alpher, Robert Herman, and independently by Robert Dicke. They basically predicted that there would be a time in the early universe when it cooled down enough for stable atoms to form for the first time. This would make the universe transparent for the first time while also letting free a great deal of energy in the form of light. If that indeed happened, some of that light should still be traveling out in the distance, right? For about 15 years, this was all academic. Different teams from different schools were trying to scoop each other, each trying to be the first to find evidence for this ancient light. So who won? Well, a team of engineers working for a phone company, that’s who.
In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson were trying to solve a problem for AT&T. Before, their company had no problem converting sound waves to electrical signals. That is how conversations were transmitted over telephone lines for decades. But AT&T wanted to take things a step further. They wanted to take sound waves into a receiver, convert them into electrical signals through wire connected to a radio dish, convert the signals into radio waves, and then reverse the process to receive them again.
This was a great idea, except that it had one annoying problem. No matter how hard they tried, Penzias and Wilson could not account for a constant hissing and buzzing of extra static and noise that was being picked up by their state-of-the-art radio signal detection hardware. Was it coming from a far-away galaxy? Was it resonating from the core of the earth? Was it the result of military testing across the ocean? No matter where they pointed their radio dishes, this background interference cold be detected everywhere! They even spent years fine-tuning and cleaning off their equipment just to make sure that it wasn’t their hardware that was causing the problem. A weak background signal in the form of radio waves that came from every direction? Who could explain it!
Well, Ralph Alpher, Robert Herman, and Robert Dicke could explain it. Penzias and Wilson had just accidentally discovered the CMBR! Years later, this radiation was explored in greater detail and first mapped by the COBE and WMAP satellites. The images that these satellites produced gave us something like a shadow of the early universe. You may have seen a render of this information, looking like a blurry pink and blue oval. The data shows us a universe with all of its matter and energy spread-out evenly, except for slight clumps here and there that would become the first stars.
In fact, even today, every time you drift between the stations and channels in an old radio or television set, about 1% of the static you hear belongs to that background radiation.
(Static)
This changed everything. This was literally a baby picture of our universe. It fit all of the other evidence we had perfectly, like the piece in the center of a puzzle. The Cosmic Background Radiation is predicted by the kind of fundamental particle interactions demonstrated by the Large Hadron Collider, it shows the expected structure of the early universe, giving us a “transitional fossil” from the big bang to today. It supports Stellar Nucleosynthesis and what we would predict of the elements present after the big bang. And it is in the form of radio-waves, red-shifted over time and the stretching of the cosmos, similar to what was observed by Hubble, decades ago.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
5 Rules for Civil Discourse: EXPLAINED
May 27, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 10
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
In today’s episode, it will be my pleasure to explain our five rules of civil discourse! You may ask, “How can we have strong-willed people from the political right and the political left, the religious, spiritual, atheists, and all kinds of people participate in meaningful open discussions?” These rules certainly help, and I’d go so far as to say that they are also pretty useful in online and other in-person conversation.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
I can’t take credit for our Five Rules for Civil Discourse. They were developed by all of our founding members and took a little trial and error to get right. Before I jump into them, it is important to point out why our organization’s public discussions are held in the first place.
Each member of a freethought forum participates with an underlying goal, and that is for all participants to get closer to the actual truth, whatever it may be. Sometimes this is done through something like the Socratic Method, in which a participant may play devil’s advocate, and ask thought-provoking questions in order to see what responses the others might give. Sometimes this is done by throwing out an idea and seeing how quickly it is shot-down by a sound counter-argument. If needed, we may pause to contemplate a particularly difficult concept that has been proposed.
In these discussions, each person must be fearless. There can be no untouchable ideas. It takes thick skin to enter the unknown, but treasure awaits. No one may be “disqualified” by offering an odd comment. Even though we may be tempted, we never ban a sincere member or guest from the conversation. In a world in which fewer and fewer of us can find a place to talk about what is most important to us, this forum has been designed as a solution. In addition, if you want to step out of the bubble or echo-chamber in which you have lived, this is how it’s done. It isn’t comfortable, but it’s rewarding.
Each Free Thought Forum exists to promote healthy civil discussion and celebrate the free-exchange of ideas. We assert that one’s ability to voice their ideas and have them supported, contested, tested, and reviewed among peers (and in-person) is an indispensable tool in one’s honest search for the correct answers to life’s most important questions.
To ensure that all participants in a free thought forum have the opportunity to share their ideas while being treated respectfully, the following rules for civil discourse have been tested and developed. By participating in a weekly open discussion, all guests, members, and hosts agree to abide by the following:
1. BE RESPECTFUL OF EACH OTHER’S TIME
If a designated host senses that you have taken more than 5 minutes to make a point, he/she will insist that someone else is given an opportunity to talk. Do not to interrupt or talk over someone else.
Believe it or not, this first rule actually covers most problems found in open discussions. When we are prodded to be aware of how much time we take to make a point, we think more about how we phrase our ideas and arguments. Simple and concise language emerges as a result. And don’t worry. Five minutes doesn’t seem like a long time, but when you are speaking with a large group, it can feel like an eternity. Most often, participants will add one or two sentences, and then allow others to have their say.
2. CRITICIZE IDEAS, NOT PEOPLE
No one comes to an open discussion to be personally attacked. If you believe that an idea deserves criticism, it is essential that you address the claims or opinions themselves. This also applies to groups of people. There is nothing wrong with criticizing what a group of people profess, as long as the people themselves are treated with respect. Phrases such as “I disagree,” “what makes you say that?” or “what do you think of the counter-argument?” are all useful in keeping the conversation positive and inclusive.
If there was ever a general rule for life, it’s this one. In our view, everyone ought to be valued first for their humanity, and everything else follows. If you are a human being, then you ought to be treated right, no matter what your ideology or stance is on various issues. Since your beliefs and convictions may change over time, we don’t consider ideas as permanent parts of your core identity. Therefore, beliefs and ideas are free game. Good ideas can take a beating. Bad ideas deserve to be beat. Criticize my ideas, I’ll criticize yours, and at the end of the day, we are both better for it.
3. AVOID FALLACIOUS ARGUMENT OR UNSUBSTANTIATED DECLARATIONS
Committing a logical fallacy or making bold claims without explaining the reasoning behind why you believe as you do can hinder productive thought and meaningful discussion.
We tried our best not to make this rule too wordy or confusing and I’m not convinced we are quite there. However, the core of the idea is what is important. Logical fallacies are ways that people can cheat and shortcut past rational thinking, and turns any good discussion into a dead end. A good example is the strawman fallacy. If two members are in a forum meeting and one says, “I think if an idea is a good one, it doesn’t matter who said it.” The other member would be committing the strawman fallacy if they said something like, “Well if you listen to psychopaths to find great ideas, then I can’t help you!” Basically, if you misrepresent someone’s argument to make it easier to attack, you are commenting a strawman fallacy.
Other common fallacies include “ad hominem,” “special pleading,” “appealing to emotion,” and the “slippery slope.” I’ll have to make a podcast episode about them some time.
Another common thing that hurts a discussion is when people make unsubstantiated declarations. Carl Sagan is famous for saying “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” In that vein, if you are going to come into a discussion and claim to be the voice of God, was born in Atlantis, or that you have discovered cold fusion in your basement, you should expect the other forum members to ask you to substantiate the claim. In other words, you will be asked to provide some kind of evidence or cohesive argument for your position. It isn’t that we don’t believe you, we just want everyone to follow the same rules for the sake of a productive meeting.
4. BE OPEN TO SCRUTINY AND A DIVERSITY OF OPINION
The objective of each meeting is not for someone to “win” or to “convert” anyone else. A discussion is not a debate. Rather, it is to allow each participant’s idea to compete in an open marketplace of ideas under to its own merits.
People come to these meetings to have their ideas tested. As long as we all understand that, we’ll be fine. Almost all of my ideas sound brilliant in my mind – but that doesn’t me they are. A good friend is one who will let you know when a concept needs more time to cook. Put another way, if the other members of your forum didn’t care about you or the truth, then they would be indifferent to what you have to say. When someone contests an idea, it shows they care enough to say something about what you said. However, there are no “winners” or “losers” here. It isn’t the goal of the meeting to come to an agreement or for everyone to reach some conclusion. If everyone disagrees about some issue, that is totally fine. A diversity of opinion is a healthy thing, especially on issues in which the truth is not clear.
5. RECOGNIZE THE AUTHORITY OF THE HOST AS MODERATOR
Your host (a trained volunteer) is much like a sports referee or a judge in a courtroom. In order to maintain civility and to promote productive dialogue, all participants agree to respectfully follow their Host’s facilitation and moderation.
The host is the person who will interrupt you to let you know that you have gone over your time. He/She is in charge of pointing out wrongful personal criticisms and directing the conversation away from individuals and back to ideas. They will point out fallacious argument or unsubstantiated declarations and ask the speaker to try to rephrase their point in a different way. If someone is not tolerating the opinions of another, the host is the one to step in and remind everyone why they are there.
It is important that this host servers as a moderator. In other words, it is important that they behave as if they are personally indifferent to the topic for as long as they are a host. As a neutral participant, their concern is only for the fair treatment of all involved, and that these five rules are followed.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
24 Logical Fallacies
May 26, 2019
“A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. Don't be fooled!”
Based upon the amazingly useful website: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ — This presentation outlines 24 fallacies that can hinder an intellectually honest and productive conversation among truth-seekers and free-thinkers. After each fallacy, a more preferable option is suggested that we can all use in our next forums, conversations, and debates!
Below is a link to the presentation first used by the Utah Valley group on May 26th, 2019:
Time Travel (Part 2) Back Through 13 Billion Years
May 24, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 9
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Did you get a chance to listen to our last episode about our journey back through 4 Billion years of earth’s history? If not, pause this episode and go check it out. I’ll be sure to leave a link below.
This episode is the second part in a series where we will be looking back through the past, a few billion years at a time. If you invented a time machine and began to travel backwards, what would you see? How far back could you go? In this episode, we will try to wrap our minds around some planetary science, astrophysics, and cosmology, as we rewind time at one billion years per minute, with the help of a little imagination.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
(Crunching Noises)
Mmmhmm, now that was a good lunch! I noticed you were looking out the window. Are you hoping to see something swimming out there? It’s unlikely, we have already traveled over 4 billion years into the past. As far as we know, our planet is now completely barren. True, there are organic molecules all over the earth, but they’re not quite yet alive.
Did you hear that? It could be an earthquake or volcano. Most likely, the earth has been hit. You see, this far back in time, the space between the planets of the solar system wasn’t quite as empty like it is in our time. There is an awful lot of space junk up there being collected by gravity into anything big close by, like us.
Our time machine is about to surface, and then we can continue our trip back to the beginning of time. To tell you the truth, we aren’t even half way there! Are you ready? Alright, I’ll re-set our speed to travel at about one billion years per minute, or at about 16 million years per second. Our computer will also let us know when we reach each billion-year milestone. Go ahead and pull that lever back!
Our vehicle glows and twists space-time, hurdling us back into the past. We are in the Hadean Eon, looking down, as much of our oceans boil and rumble into clouds of steam. The clouds are reabsorbed into balls of rocky ice, comets, which fly off in all directions, leaving massive craters in the hellish landscape of our infant planet.
We pass through the late heavy bombardment in which the Earth and moon is pelted, non-stop, by asteroids, meteorites, and all kinds of space debris. The moon flies past us, dangerously close to the surface of the earth, spiraling in until it dissolves into countless rocks and globs of earth. For a few seconds, our lava planet has no moon, but has at least a partial set of rings.
At 30 seconds into our journey, the planet shakes and is almost broken in half! Its rings and vaporized-rock atmosphere re-form into its surface and a protoplanet, about the size of mars, which struck the earth! This protoplanet, named “Theia,” flies back into space, re-assuming its doomed spiral toward us.
More evaporated water is pulled back onto the infant world, a red-hot ember of molten rock and radioactive elements. From here, you can almost see the light rocky elements of the crust falling and the heavy metal elements rising, mixing the world up into a liquefied mess as rocks from space continued to bombard it.
We pull back to keep our distance in just enough time to see our world spin faster and faster, flinging its rock, metal, and water out into space. In no time at all, it’s gone. The earth is nothing but a massive cloud of light elements, a dust pile around a new star.
I was so focused on our planet that I missed the formation of Mercury, Venus, Mars, or Jupiter. All the planets, moons, and objects in our solar system have now dissolved into a scattered and dusty gas cloud.
Once we pass 40 seconds back, the light goes out. 99% of the mass of our solar system is no longer condensed by gravity enough for nuclear fusion. The matter around us is no longer compact enough to form a star. In a few more seconds, we drift in the darkness of space, unable to tell that we were once in a system of majestic planets.
If you look down there, you can see the constellation Libra. Below that you can see the stars of the Southern Cross. Between those two is the Centaurus constellation. Do you see the brightest star in the centaur? That is where you can find the Alpha Centauri system of three stars and a planet. Proxima Centauri is the closest star to us, but at about 50 seconds we see it fly further away from us, and then shrink back into its own stellar nursery of gas clouds.
Surrounded mostly by invisible hydrogen and helium in a molecular cloud, we see the stellar siblings of our sun grow closer to us, only to also be snuffed out in the rewinding of time.
5 BILLION YEARS AGO
At this speed you can see some of the constellations slowly contort and become unrecognizable. Some stars in other constellations go out while other remain unchanged. The expansion of the universe is stretching the space between the galaxies, but we are seeing this in reverse. In fact, distant stars and galaxies seem to be rushing closer. Don’t worry, we have plenty of time before they collide with us. They appear to be moving quickly now because we are in the Dark Energy Dominated Era. Pretty soon, the mysterious dark energy that accelerated this expansion will, for some reason, have a weaker effect.
6 BILLION YEARS AGO
From here, you can see the bright center of our galaxy. There is an ancient black hole there, and it usually takes our sun about 225 million years to circle it. At our speed of one-billion-years per minute, we will rotate around the center of the galaxy about every 14 seconds. Our Milky Way has about 100 billion stars, and there are about 125 billion galaxies in the universe, but that number is slowly dropping as we fly through history.
As far as we know, we are the only living things that can see this view out the window. What is so special about the stars and galaxies out there? To be fair, it still looks a lot like something you’d see from the Hubble telescope. Well, we’ve made it half way. We have traveled through half of the age of the universe. In other words, we are half way to the Big Bang!
7 BILLION YEARS AGO
After seven minutes of travel, our milky way is starting to change its size and shape. Many of its stars, including our sun, have gone out, but long dead stars have reignited. Smaller galaxies slowly pull away from it and the Milky Way has begun to shrink. Some parts of our home galaxy house some of the oldest stars in the universe, so we shouldn’t expect it to vanish any time soon.
8 BILLION YEARS AGO
Superclusters begin to break apart into clusters, clusters into groups, and groups into lone galaxies. Neighboring galaxies in our local group are spinning and dissolving into smaller clusters of stars. For the next 6 minutes, you are going to see a lot of that. The universe is expanding in reverse for us, so as it slowly closes in, it is getting easier to spot other galaxies shrinking, splitting apart, and growing dimmer as fewer stars set them apart from the inky black cosmos.
9 BILLION YEARS AGO
The universe is only 4.8 billion years old now, and many of the elemental clouds that would give birth to future stars are collapsing into supernovae, blinding explosions that flash for the briefest instant, only to swell back into super massive stars where most of the heavy elements of the cosmos are cooked.
10 BILLION YEARS AGO
The edges of the universe have again begun to speed up toward us. The universe is only 3.8 billion years old now, and it is getting warmer. Gravity hasn’t had much time to clump all of the galaxies together, so the stars we see are far more spread out compared to what we are used to seeing. To us, our own Milky Way has become unrecognizable, but I am sure there are some experts that could point out some notable features even this far back.
11 BILLION YEARS AGO
Wait, have you been touching any of the controls to the time machine? I haven’t. It seems like we are getting faster. Does time itself warp more dramatically, the closer we get to the big bang? I don’t know, but it is a fascinating thing to consider.
12 BILLION YEARS AGO
It is really dark out there! There are a few stars near us, and there must be countless other stars, but most of them are just too far away for us to see. It was nice when there were bright galaxies, but I can’t even see any of them anymore.
There are plenty of black holes out there. The truth is we could fall into one of the smaller ones at any moment, and we would never see it coming.
Look! Even the oldest stars, quasars, and dwarf galaxies are going out! In a few seconds, we won’t see a thing…
I don’t think I have ever seen anything so dark.
13 BILLION YEARS AGO
Our sensors are picking up a great deal of ultraviolet light. The space around us is quickly heating up into a kind of plasma. Blasts of light come from blinding hyper novae, the death of the very first stars. They were super massive Hydrogen giants. Now that they have reformed we have crossed into a universe ruled by energy, not matter.
The Hydrogen giants weren’t formed by gravity collecting hydrogen gas alone. No, most of the stuff out our window is dark matter, as has always been the case, accelerating the collection of molecules together.
At 13 minutes and 50 seconds into our voyage, even the first black holes are evaporating back into their stellar forms. Matter is spread fairly evenly across the cosmos. We are plunged in darkness yet again. This is fitting, because we have crossed into the Cosmic Dark Age.
At our current speed, it’s not going to stay dark for long.
White light floods our windows, like a searchlight, right into our eyes! No, that isn’t some explosion or star. That is a wave of photons released from the Recombination & Decoupling stage of our universe. The first neutral atoms had just formed, allowing tremendous amounts of energy to fly free in the now transparent cosmos. We can even see this energy back in our own time, as the cosmic microwave background radiation! Just as suddenly as the light arrived, it vanishes.
This is the end of the line for us. I know we wanted to go further, but I have to insist. The universe is only 47,000 years old, but this is as far as we can go. It is getting so hot outside our time machine that atoms are no longer able to hold onto their electrons. In other words, our time machine will soon dissolve into a plasma itself! The universe is now dark and opaque, a dense foggy soup of plasma, like the inside of a star. If we travel much further, we will be ripped apart by antimatter and crushed by the pressure of the universe closing in around us.
There is no time for a debate! Our craft can’t take this heat! Push that button to reverse our course – hurry!
…
Now that was an adventure.
Now that we are safe back home, I really can’t wait to get my feet back on the ground. I hope you aren’t too disappointed that we couldn’t see the big bang. I suppose that no time-machine, probe, robot, or space craft can really go much further back in time than we did. However, if you would like to perform a thought experiment to see if we can go back to the big bang, and even before it, I do have an episode of this podcast called, “What Happened before the Big Bang?” Why don’t you give it a listen? I bet you’d get a kick out of it.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Time Travel (Part 1) Back Through 4 Billion Years
May 22, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 8
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
When you were young, were you a fan of the magic school bus or Carl Sagan’s ship of the imagination? I’m still a fan, and today, we will be taking a journey on our own makeshift craft to explore the amazing discoveries of science.
This episode is the first part in a series where we will be looking back through the past a few billion years at a time. If you invented a time machine and began to travel backwards, what would you see? How far back could you go? In this episode, we will try to wrap our minds around some paleontology, biology, and geology as we rewind time at one billion years per minute, with the help of a little imagination.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
Picture, if you will, our time machine. It has taken years to design and construct with cutting-edge technology. If we sat inside and began to work the controls, what might we see?
I hope you packed a lunch because we may be gone for a while. I’m powering up the machine now. Many physicists such as Stephen Hawking have deduced that backward time-travel is impossible, given how easy it is to create paradoxes that would prevent your travel in the first place, but we will table a discussion on the physics, mechanisms, and logistics of time travel for some other day. Today, we are going back in time!
That is what you wanted to do today right? Go back as far as we can, maybe to the beginning of the universe? Let’s make it a quick ride, traveling at about 1 billion years a minute, or about 16 million years a second… I’ll program the computer to tell us once we hit each billion-year milestone. You know, at that speed, the techonomic plates below our feet will be moving at about 2,000 miles per hour. Usually, they only move at about 5 cm per year, but like I said, we are trying to make this trip quick. But to be on the safe side, let’s launch into the air to prevent whiplash. Alright, pull the lever to take us backwards. That one, there!
With a stunning spiral of sparks and light, we are flung into history. Quickly, look out the window! We are travelling so fast through time that we can’t distinguish between day and night.
If you blinked, then you just missed literally all of human history. I’m not just talking about World War II, the European Middle Ages, or even the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Nope, in just one second we have gone back to before humans wrote anything down, before we settled down into farming villages, and even before our ancestors were walking on two legs.
Trees quickly dominate where farms and cities once stood. In just one second into our journey, all humanity has been reduced to a tree-dwelling ancestor in Africa. The Homo genus has not even branched off yet from the tree of life.
Lakes freeze back into massive glaciers and we careen past multiple ice-ages. We pass through the Neogene Period and the world is dominated by long-extinct mammals such as the early ancestors of woolly mammoths, giant sloths, and saber-tooth cats. Grassy fields disappear as the world grows more arid, mountainous, and desert-like.
Two seconds into our journey lands us in the middle of the Paleogene Period. Dense and hot jungles cover the land. The large mammals we saw are shrinking in size, back to their shrew-like ancestors, ruled over by large crocodiles and snakes, and then by large flightless birds. The dominant sharks and whales in the oceans are replaced by unrecognizable monsters.
Four seconds back and the earth is rocked by the K-T meteorite that killed the dinosaurs. For the next 11 seconds, we witness flowering plants vanish, and great herds of triceratops chased by the ancestors of modern birds, the theropods such as Tyrannosaurs, Allosaurus, and raptors. Duck-billed Hadrosaurs and the long-necked Sauropods take-over as the Earth’s continents continue to shift. The dinosaurs shrink in size, back into their reptilian ancestors and the continents of the world clump together into one landmass: Pangea.
About 15 seconds into our journey and the air becomes thick with coal smoke from Siberian volcanic eruptions during what scientists call “The Great Dying.” Less than 5% of all life on earth survived this, including our reptilian-like synapsid ancestor that descended from the lumbering Dimetrodon, with the sail on its back.
20 Seconds have passed and we are in the Carboniferous Period where the earth is a hot swamp planet with high levels of oxygen and massive insects! Dragon-flies the size of eagles and millipedes the size of alligators lurk below.
22 seconds and we can see that fish-like creatures are starting to live on land, such as Tiktaalik! In the Devonian and Silurian Periods, the real party is in the ocean as the massive varieties of fish and arthropods like scorpions coagulate back into just a handful of ancestral species. We see the first land plants and fungi recede.
Earth’s 2nd most devastating extinction event can be seen at 27 seconds, in which the earth enters a deep freeze. Before it, in the Ordovician Period, we see the first fish and cephalopods like squids evolve. We are now far enough back that Trilobites ruled the world!
One half minute into our journey back in time plants us in the Cambrian period, in which the oceans saw an explosion of the first large animals in astonishing variety, each looking more alien than the next! For another second, sponges, mollusks, choral, worms, sea snails, arthropods, all devolve back into simpler colonies of cells.
33 seconds back takes us into the Precambrian Neoproterozoic Era of the earth. Ediacarans are the first animals, swimming in a cooling and less oxygenated ocean as ice sheets spread over the earth. They were soft-bodied, and look more to me like a liver than an animal. The next few seconds take us to even earlier forms of life, but these have left almost no traces in our fossil record.
1 BILLION YEARS AGO
In just over a minute and we have covered more than 100 million years of earth history! We have reached the Mesoproterozoic Era, a time in which our oldest rock layers formed that still exist today. Life is almost entirely single-celled organisms, now playing with something that gives them a new evolutionary advantage: sexual reproduction.
Now at 1 minute and 40 seconds, life has resorted back to asexual reproduction. In other words, if single-celled organisms want to reproduce, they just split and half to make two sister cells.
We now slip into the longest geological age of the earth: The Paleoproterozoic Era. The earliest forms of our planet’s continents stabilize. The days are only 20 hours long, and the first Eukaryotic Cells have emerged. These microbes are your direct ancestors. Can you see the family resemblance? They may be humble, but these cells are survivors.
2 BILLION YEARS AGO
A massive increase in oxygen has killed off almost all life on earth. Only the single-celled organisms that can survive in this newly toxic atmosphere will be able to reproduce. Rolling time back allows us to see where all this oxygen came from. It was a byproduct of mostly cyanobacteria, capitalizing on a new invention: photosynthesis.
3 BILLION YEARS AGO
Our journey has brought us to the Archean Eon. The earth begins to get warmer, and the rock of the earth’s surface is destabilizing into lava and magma. The entire planet was three times warmer than it is today, but many rock formations from this age have actually survived to present times.
At about three minutes and 45 seconds, we run into a humble cell floating in the ocean. She is something special compared to all of her doomed peers. We call her “LUCA” because she is the Last Universal Common Ancestor of all life on earth. You, your dog, the bacteria, bees, and flowers outside, all carry with them an evolved form of LUCA’s fortuitous collection of some 355 genes.
4 BILLION YEARS AGO
It is a good thing we are in a time machine, because you can’t breathe out there. Almost no oxygen exists in earth’s atmosphere. It is a red and black wasteland of volcanoes, lightning storms, and oceans. We are now at about four minutes into our trip. We’ll pause here.
It’s time to take a closer look under that murky ocean. As we take a trip down into the archaic depths, we quickly find underwater volcanoes, spewing chemical rich gasses into the icy-cold depths. Our scanners are picking up something that just sent shivers down my back. Chemistry, just became biochemistry. The first forms of RNA have replicated themselves, which means that the electromagnetic interactions between atoms and molecules just handed the running of life over to the forces of natural selection.
In other words, life as we know it has been on the earth for about four billion years!
Deep in this dark ocean, this seems like a good place to take a break! Did you have a chance to grab a lunch? We’ll stop here between the Hadean Eon and the Archean Eon. In our next episode, we’ll see if we can go back a few more billion years, back to get beginning of the universe itself!
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Are We a Church or a Religious Group?
May 21, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 7
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
We just got back from the 1000 Lights Water Lantern Festival and were perplexed by one question that came up a few times. “Are you a church?” In this episode, I will answer that question so that all of you out there may have a better idea of the place the Free Thought Forum has in our society.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
There is nothing like meeting people and answering questions at fairs and festivals. I was impressed, at this last event, with how many people really get it! They instantly understood how important our group was and the kind of positive impact we could have. At first, they’d casually ask who we were, and when we explained that we were a group that invites religious people, non-religious people, conservatives, liberals, college educated people, non-college educated people, and so forth, to talk about big ideas, their eyes lit up! They get it!
We value every single person’s perspective and want to hear what they have to say. Our organization exists to give you the opportunity to really speak your mind.
More than once, someone would ask whether or not our organization was a church.
No, we are not a church.
We are not a church, or any other kind of faith-based group, religion, or religious institution. We do strive to be a non-profit that can meet many social needs such as funeral and wedding officiation and the need for a supportive community. Yes, we do host community events and volunteer projects. It’s true that our groups meet once a week and that we can talk about philosophical things, morality, history, and even religion itself. But that is where our similarities with religious organizations begin to break down.
Here is one way to think about it. For people with a faith-based religious group, our organization is supplemental to that group. For people who don’t have a faith-based religious group, our organization can stand in as a replacement for such a group. We are more of a “church alternative.” In many ways, we can even be considered to be the opposite of a church group.
There is no real historical or academic definition of what is and is not a religion. In many ways, multi-level marketing groups, political parties, and even fan conferences and conventions can share many traits that we would usually call “religious.” But we strive to set ourselves apart from those organizational models because we feel that we can do more good if we fit a different niche in society. Here are five things that I hope will make that distinction more clear:
1. WE DON’T CLAIM ANY DIVINE OR SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY
I find it funny when religious leaders say things like “Well, I think you should be free to believe what you want, but I think God cares a lot more about that decision.” If you think that you have to make a choice between heaven and hell, then you don’t really have a choice, do you?
What makes a preacher, bishop, imam, priest, guru, shaman, witch-doctor, or prophet different from any other person? Not much. But to many, their title denotes a certain authority. When a regular Joe stands up and says what he think people should do, that is just his opinion. But when religious leaders do the same, many people believe they represent something greater than a person’s perspective. Sometimes these leaders claim some hidden knowledge, that they better understand the will of god, or the gods, or that they are scholars of some holy scripture, and are poised to help others better understand the text. They present themselves as experts in things that no one can know for sure. Often, they assert that they were chosen or compelled by a greater power, and you will just have to take their word for it.
The Free Thought Forum claims no such authority. Our leaders are regular people. Some of us are college educated, some are not. Some of us have professional titles, some do not. We do, however, strive to be open to see which arguments are better than others. We can read scientific journals and studies, but so can almost anyone else. In short, we don’t pretend to have any special training, talents, or insider knowledge. Rather, we offer our programs to our members and guests who we consider equals in the sincere search for truth.
With that said, we do value logic, reason, science, and rationality as extremely valuable tools in this search. Their value is apparent given how reliable science is, and how fundamental it is to every part of our modern civilization. (In fact, I invite anyone to debate me on the validity of science if you think I’m wrong to give it such a distinction.) Wherever possible, we will ask our members to back up any claims they have to spiritual knowledge with logic, reason, evidence, experiment, and so forth.
More to the point, we do not ask any of our members or guests to believe in any supernatural thing, whatsoever. That fact alone pulls us apart from most religious organizations.
2. WE DON’T TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY SHOULD OR SHOULDN’T BELIEVE
Once when I was teaching 6th graders, I was asked “Do you believe in evolution?” I considered the tremendous impact of what my answer can have on the child. His parents were religious and would probably complain to the school if my answer was, “yes.” If I said “no,” then I could dramatically injure this child’s trust in science. I answered, “That is a good question, but what I believe doesn’t really matter. What matters is what is true. What matters is where the evidence leads.”
There is an underlying problem with dogma. Put simply, dogma represents unjustified ideas that are established as something that must be believed, no matter what. Dogma is a cornerstone to most religious institutions. In them, you are asked to “just believe” or have faith. You are told that something is true, and that you are not supposed to question it.
That approach is in stark contrast with our own. We encourage you to question, contemplate, test, and pick-apart the most important things you believe. If they are indeed accurate, then they will hold up to any kind of scrutiny or test, and will prove worthy of your belief. If they do not hold up, then you are now free to abandon false beliefs.
What is true? For me, that is a question that deserves a lifetime of dedicated and sincere study, exploration, and a certain willingness to modify your findings in light of better information. In my opinion, it cheapens the truth if we try to stamp an easy answer on top of it. This organization does not claim to know the truth. Rather, we are here to walk by your side as we look for it together.
Our group treats belief as a deeply personal matter. If you believe in god, gods, spirits, angels, demons, past lives, spiritual abilities, chi, the afterlife, and so on, then you are welcome to continue believing in those things. That is your personal choice, and we don’t see that it is our business to tell you want you can and can’t believe.
Even when it comes to secular things such as scientific fact or history, we don’t require anyone to agree with any idea or argument. Rather, we encourage our members and guests to take an academic approach and at least be willing to consider the various ethical and scientific claims made in our presentations.
Our focus is not on the conclusions, but rather, in the process. We want to discuss what is real, and how we can know it. We want to discuss what is moral, and how we can know that. The discussion is what is key. All in attendance are welcome to draw their own conclusions, week after week.
3. WE DON’T DEMAND EXCLUSIVE DEVOTION, MEMBERSHIP, OR WORSHIP
Many religious or political groups will discourage you from considering the other side of the argument. You may be seen as an outcast for trying out other groups. They may even call considering what other faiths have to say as a sin or shameful. They claim to know the one and only truth, and will do what they can to limit the exposure to every other approach.
We encourage our members to be open minded and willing to see things from multiple angles. So if you would like to visit a forum and then visit your spiritual leader the next day, that poses no problem to us. If you are an atheist who belongs to ours and several other atheistic groups, then those groups are all the better to have you. We sincerely do hope to see all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds at our meetings, and invite you to come as often as you like. There is no cost to attend, and there is no penalty for leaving our groups. Put another way, if you visit three parties before ours, we don’t mind at all. We are just happy that you could make it to our party.
The Free Thought Forum is a place where anyone can belong, and we mean it when we say “anyone.”
4. THERE ARE NO OFF-LIMIT TOPICS, TABOO SUBJECTS, OR UNWELCOMED IDEAS.
If you have ever been banned from a group, ex-communicated from a church, blocked on social media, or unjustly kicked-out of an organization, you know full well how painful it can be when you are not allowed to be yourself. Of course, in certain circles, it makes sense that your ability to express yourself is limited. For example, if you volunteer at a children’s hospital, it is completely reasonable that you refrain from expressing your opinions on abortion with the parents of sick children.
But, as silly as that example might be, some of us find ourselves in a similar situation, no matter where we go. So what are we to do? Just not talk about important issues? Should we just keep our ideas to ourselves, indefinitely?
No. The Free Thought Forum is here to give you that place where you can talk about literally anything without the fear of being silenced or kicked out. There are precious few opportunities where people can discuss complicated, serious, or important topics without fear of offending others or of severe judgement. We want to give you such an opportunity.
We are not based on left-leaning politics or right-leaning politics. We are not anti-religious, anti-spirituality, or anti-atheist. As much as possible, we try not to be ideologically-tied to a “team” that limits our exploration of philosophy, history, science, health, or current events.
Another major difference between our groups and religious or political groups, is that we have no “sacred cows.” We have no rules against “blasphemy” or “wrong think.” In other words, we are not offended if someone wants to share a perspective that is in conflict with the opinions of the majority of the group. Your perspective is valued. Plain and simple.
You can, of course, be 100% wrong about something, but how would you know if you are never able to express the idea in the first place? This is part of why our group is both inclusive and supportive. Disagreement is encouraged, and if you are mistaken about something, it is your idea that is criticized, not you.
As long as all participants in an open discussion follow our “Five Rules for Civil Discourse,” any question or comment is “fair game.” This approach is at the core of who we are and what we do. Do you disagree with what the group leader presents? Are you unconvinced that science really is the best tool for discovering the facts of reality? Do you disagree with us when it comes to first amendment rights or model citizenship? Speak your mind, and be ready to explain why you have that opinion.
At the end of the day, as long as the shared goal is to follow what is actually real and what is actually right, no matter what, then any group of people can have a civil discussion on important ideas.
5. WE ARE FREE TO ADMIT THAT WE ARE MISTAKEN ABOUT SOMETHING, AND ADJUST AS NEEDED.
One major problem with religious and political groups is that they are often forced to conform to a certain narrative. Their “side” must always be right in the eyes of their own history. After all, if your group is being led by heaven, how can you justify getting something like fundamental physics wrong in your holy books? I hope I don’t have to explain that this can lead to all sorts of problems of bias, doctoring the facts, cover-ups, corrupting historical evidence, scandal, and so forth.
The Free Thought Forum exists to help our members become better people while also improving our society. Our services are centered on public discussions. Our members and guests are not required to meet any kind of consensus or conclusion. It is the journey, not the destination, which matters most to us.
Having been organized with those priorities, we are completely free to announce that we were wrong about some scientific fact, or feel that a certain moral principle we promoted in the past should be revised. We claim no special authority, so it follows that we accept our inevitable fallibility. This is part of the reason that we don’t feel compelled to demand that our proposed systems of healthy living or philosophy be followed with any kind of enforced fidelity.
We are a philosophical discussion group, a volunteer group, a science advocacy group, and a friendly community. We may be many things, but the one thing we are not, is a church.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
5 Habits for Health and Hygiene
May 21, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 6
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
This episode is the second installment in series we call: “50 Habits for Maximizing Personal Health and Wellbeing.” In this series, we will get to the bottom of what experts actually recommend when it comes to those small-yet-impactful health choices we make, day to day. If you haven’t’ yet listened to our first podcast in this series, be sure to check it out! It includes an introduction to the 50-Healthy-Habits program as well as advice about sleeping habits, diet, and exercise! Today, we will continue discussing physical health with five more habits you’d do well to adopt.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
Let’s continue right for where we left off! Again, if you would like an updated version of this list, or to dig even deeper into our referenced sources to the studies and articles on which this advice is based, visit: freethoughtforum.org/blog/50-habits.
6. BRUSH YOUR TEETH TWICE A DAY AND FLOSS ONCE A DAY
Oral hygiene is a significant contributor to one’s overall physical health. According to well-established studies, all adults should engage in tooth-brushing twice daily (soon after rising from bed or breakfast and soon after dinner) with fluoridated toothpaste. A toothbrush is the most effective tool in removing plaque from teeth, but that does not mean that flossing should be ignored. Daily brushing and flossing combat some major health conditions such as gingivitis, periodontal tissue attachment loss, and carious lesion development, even more than direct treatment of these conditions after the fact.
7. BATHE ABOUT ONCE A DAY
Your skin is your largest organ, and regular bathing is an essential part of skin care, infection prevention, waste removal, preventing the spread of pathogens, and overall societal standards of cleanliness and professionalism. However, it is possible to shower too often or too intensely. Excessive bathing can lead to rough, dry, and irritated skin. It can also compromise the naturally protective oils in the skin provide such as housing beneficial bacteria and providing a barrier against harmful chemicals. One’s natural scent can also be neutralized by excessive bathing, often noticeable by one’s intimate partner.
Therefore, based upon your own activity levels, as well as your body’s chemistry, you should plan on showering about once per day (at least twice every three days and shortly after vigorous exercise). Remember to not use water that is too hot. Avoid showering for more than 30 minutes at a time. In order to prevent rough or dry skin, lotion and moisturizers can be used shortly after bathing.
8. WASH HANDS AFTER RESTROOM USE, PRIOR TO PREPARING FOOD, EATING, AND AS NEEDED
Hand washing is the single best way to stop the spread of pathogens and disease. Hand washing is even preferable to anti-bacterial alcohol-based disinfectant gels and similar products! It is a practice that is paramount to personal, interpersonal, and societal wellbeing. No other medical practice or hygienic act is as important and thus requires our constant adherence.
Good handwashing practice includes hand soap, hot (but not scalding) water, and rubbing your hands together for several seconds. It is strongly recommended after any restroom use, before preparing food, before eating, after eating, and after touching objects that often come in contact with pathogens such as steering wheels, door knobs, used dishes, pets, and shoes. When asked about how often people wash their hands, they tend to exaggerate and assume that they are doing much better than they actually are. In reality, only about 40% of people wash their hands as recommended.
9. USE MEDICATIONS ONLY AS PRESCRIBED
Prescription drug abuse and over-the-counter drug abuse has risen dramatically in the United States in recent years, leading to a rise in addiction and a swarm of other health and societal issues. For example, deaths from opioid overdoses quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, exceeding deaths from cocaine and heroin combined. For teens especially, the abuse of over-the-counter drugs has reached epidemic levels.
Parents are strongly encouraged to be aware of the drugs being purchased and used by their adolescent children. Even innocuous drugs such as cold and cough medicines may be abused.
To prevent such addiction or abuse, it is reasonable to ask your doctor about non-drug treatments whenever possible. When drug treatment is prescribed, it is important to follow one’s medical prescription exactly as it is written. Likewise, when using an over-the-counter drug, the instructions for usage on a bottle’s label should be followed with strict fidelity. Be sure to ask questions about your medication until you fully understand how and how often it should be taken. Communicate any problems you are having with your medications with your doctor before adjusting your medication use in any way. If you suspect that the recommended dosage on the side of an over-the-counter drug will not meet your needs, communicate this with a pharmacist so that you can be sure to purchase the most effective drug for your condition.
10. KEEP A HEALTH JOURNAL
Medical professionals could use as much information about your health history as possible when making an appropriate diagnosis. Although there are efforts to record this information on a database that can be accessed by medical professionals from different organizations, the endeavor has been plagued by multiple logistical, political, and practical issues. While technical and elaborate answers may be more widely available in the future, simply keeping a written “personal health journal” can be a useful tool for this and other purposes.
The Free Thought Initiative strongly recommends that each member keeps such a journal up to date and readily accessible at a moment’s notice. (To help keep your medical information private, it is recommended that you do not record this information digitally.) A personal health journal can be kept in a common notebook or sketchbook dedicated to this purpose. Even if the written information isn’t used for decades, the accumulated data can be indispensable in the future.
What should be written in a health journal? You should update it with the date, time, and details of any change to your physical, cognitive, or emotional health such as:
Whenever you dramatically change your diet, sleep patterns, or exercise routine
Whenever your diet and sleep patterns change inexplicably
Whenever you lose or gain a large amount of weight
Whenever you experience any head trauma or bodily injury
When you feel new pains or aches
When you notice new bruising, burns, bites or other new marks on your skin
When you feel dramatic changes in your mood or experience dramatic emotional events
When you notice unusual things in the process or products of defecation or urination
Whenever you drink more alcohol than usual
Whenever you take prescribed or over-the-counter medication. (This can help to prevent accidental overdose.) It is also useful to describe in a small note the dosage taken, the effects that you feel from the medication, and how long it takes to feel the effects
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
What Happened Before the Big Bang?
May 17, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 5
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
In this episode, we will go back in time, as far as physically possible, and perhaps, even further. What happened before the big bang, before the first moment of our universe as we know it? Strap in for a thought experiment built of cosmology, mind-bending physics, and imagination.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org.
We are surrounded by stuff. Look around you. Consider for a moment that your books, car, the trees outside. Everything is mostly made of empty space. Everything around us, (at least everything that belongs to the same family of matter as we do) is made of atoms. There is mostly empty space between those atoms. Inside the atom is no different. If an atom was enlarged to the size of a football stadium, its electrons would be wiggling and buzzing around the top row of bleachers, while the nucleus would be about the size of a small marble on the 50-yard line.
Now that is a lot of empty space! I like to imagine what the universe would be like without all that. What if you could take all the “empty space” out from between all objects and between all molecules in the universe? What if you continued on to remove the voids between the nuclei of atoms and their electrons? What would the ending result be if you took all the matter and energy left and collected it down into a single place?
I think you already know the answer to that question. The answer lies in one of the most wild and counterintuitive theories in science: THE BIG BANG!
13.8 billion years ago, EVERYTHING (All kinds of matter, all kinds of energy, all of the laws of nature) was once condensed into a single point smaller than an atom. This is known as the “Initial Singularity.” As far as we know, there was nothing outside it and nothing beside it.
This is where we start.
13.8 BILLION years ago, our universe began. But can we tick the seconds back even further to catch a glimpse of what started it all?
Do you know the answer?
There is fascinating research going into ideas like the multi-verse, multi-dimensional membranes, or of quantum fluctuations that could have spawned something out of what we call “nothing,” but these are hypotheses and theories outside of the big bang theory itself. People far smarter than me will have to tell you about all of those kinds of things.
What happened at or before the big bang?
The truth is that no one really knows. Our current theories, models, and even our current understanding of the laws of nature break down at this point. In fact, the term “Big Bang” is more of a placeholder for what happened before the INFLATION of the universe.
Nevertheless, I will do my best to give an accurate answer based on the most well-established and widely accepted aspects of the big bang theory. Doing so will, with any luck, allow us to conceptualize this hypothetical time before time.
For our purposes today, I am referring to the big bang as the initial instance when time equaled zero (T=0), or when, as far as we can tell, no time had yet passed.
All of our best information of this snap-shot of history lives only in the minds of theoretical physicists. Yet what happened a split second AFTER this moment is actually pretty well understood. Physicists of many kinds can give us hard scientific answers based on empirical evidence and testing (some of which is done in the large hadron collider in Switzerland). They have a pretty good idea of what happened at 10-6 seconds after the big bang. In other words, if you want to know what happened 0.00001 seconds after the big bang – scientists can give you good answers!
But for many science enthusiasts, what humanity knows is great, but it is nothing compared to what is just beyond that knowledge. When we reverse time back from when our universe was only 10-6 seconds old, theoretical physicists and cosmologists predict that so many weird things begin to happen.
Things get insanely hot, particles lose their mass, the forces of nature such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces all fuse together into some kind of super force. The universe shrinks to 10-78 TIMES its size leaving it only about the size of a soccer ball, to the size of an atom, to something even smaller still.
And then, we stop.
We are a microscopic singularity of intense heat, but it is dark. It is so dense that photons simply cannot escape from the insanely hot and dense contents of that singularity.
When T=0, or at the exact moment when no time yet has passed, we hit a brick wall.
As far as scientists can tell, time itself began to flow in tandem with the birth of our universe. In other words, there is no such thing as time before our universe. It is like flipping a book back to the cover, or rewinding a VHS tape until it stops. As far as we can tell, time didn’t even exist before the big bang!
It isn’t like we can step outside of the universe to take a look at that small point that started it all. Our universe is everything, and you can’t step outside of everything. Thanks to Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, we now understand that time is a dimension in space. As “space-time,” the fabric of the cosmos existed at the big bang, but not necessarily before. Time emerged at that point, flowing in one direction: to the future.
I would like to say that time for the universe started ticking at one second per second. But it doesn’t work that way. Massive objects that warp space, such as stars, black holes, and planets – also warp time. You may recall that time is relative, so even back at the beginning, we can’t say that it was flowing at some steady rate like how we experience it in day-to-day life.
Based on what we know from the big bang theory, any attempt to discover a cause or catalyst for the birth of the universe is a nonsensical question, much like asking, “What is further North than the North Pole?” or “How long can a fish hold its breath?”
What happened before the big bang? The answer, is that there was no “before the big bang.” Notwithstanding, it is sometimes fun to ask nonsensical questions. If, for no other reason, than to stretch our minds a little, and visit realms of thought far beyond what we otherwise would.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
Meet us at these Festivals Spring 2019
May 14, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 4
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
Today, I have some news and announcements about the upload schedule for this podcast as well as some exciting events coming up for our Utah Valley group where you can meet us in person!
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org
Our first announcement covers our updated upload schedule.
Rather than uploading one episode per day, we will, starting tomorrow, bring you one episode of the Fresh Perspective Podcast every-other day, or 3-4 times a week, for the foreseeable future. We wanted to take some of our production time and dedicate more of it to research. Hopefully that will ensure that the information in our episodes can continue to meet a high standard.
At this stage, our podcast, social media pages, and even our tabling at city festivals are all intended to let people know about our organization. Hopefully, soon, this will lead to our flagship group growing so large that it can split into other groups across the state of Utah. Wouldn’t it be awesome one day, to find a Free Thought forum in Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, and beyond? That is our long-term goal, and if you are listening to this podcast, you too are playing a role in that ambitious vision.
Moving onto other news, I am excited to announce that our podcast is now on Apple News!
For those who like getting awesome information on their iPhones, iPads, or other apple products, be sure to pay a visit to our news channel: the fresh perspective. A link to our apple news page can be found on our website. Simply visit freethoughtforum.org then click on the “blog” link at the top.
For all of you who live in the Provo, Utah area, I have some exciting news from our Utah Valley group.
The 1000 Lights Water Lantern Festival is coming to the shores of Utah Lake, and the Free Thought Forum will be there to invite the public to learn about our new group! Come pay our executive board a visit, enter to win thought-provoking-prizes, bring some cash for some of the other local vendors, and set your lantern adrift as part of a tradition from half a world away!
The Water Festival will take place on Saturday, May 18th at 5:30 pm at the Lindon Marina in Vineyard Utah, near Orem. The official website for the event is www.1000lights.com/utahcounty, and here is a quote from there about what to expect:
“At 1000 Lights Lantern Festival, we are about producing lasting memories and times for families, friends, and communities to connect. Bring your favorite lounging items, games, whatever you like! We will provide food trucks, live entertainment, games, and best of all, a magical array of sparkling lights.”
Personally, I think setting hundreds of lanterns adrift can be an awesome spectacle and calls back to several traditions I know of in Hinduism and Buddhism. Except, this event seems to be completely secular, so that anyone can participate. And that is something I can really get behind.
We have applied also to have a booth at Springville’s Art City Day’s festival in early June. If they approve our application, then we will definitely add more information about that event on the website.
The Utah Valley Free Thought Forum has been invited to the Fire and Ice Festival at the Iceland Days event on June 21st and 22nd at the Spanish Fork City Park on Center Street and Main Street! Bring an appetite and some cash to support local vendors. We will still have plenty of prizes to give away, and will be happy to answer any questions you have about our vision, groups, plans for the future, and so forth.
Here is information about the Fire and Ice Festival from their official Facebook event:
“We are excited for Iceland Days 2019! It just gets bigger every year! Come learn about and celebrate Iceland and honor the Icelanders who settled in Spanish Fork, the oldest Icelandic settlement in North America. Whether you have Icelandic ancestry or are simply curious about the beautiful country of Iceland, this event is for you!”
Those are all the announcements I have for you today. The best way to keep up to date on each group’s events is by checking their specific group page on our website. I hope we can see many of you at these festivals, and for those who are outside the Utah Valley area, I hope you will be seeing other Free Thought Forum group leaders with a booth at your festivals some day soon.
5 Healthy Habits for Better Physical Health
May 13, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 3
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
This episode is the first in series we call: “50 Habits For Maximizing Personal Health and Wellbeing.” In this series, we will get to the bottom of what experts actually recommend when it comes to those small-yet-impactful health choices we make, day to day. This advice will be for the average person, so those who want to become athletes or have serious health conditions will need to adjust their application of this list accordingly. Today, we will discuss the first five habits you can adopt for better physical health.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative.
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science, to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal religious belief, political leanings, etc.) to participate (in-person) in these open and civil discussions.
To find a Free Thought Forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit freethoughtforum.org
Why not start off with an introduction to the 50-Healthy-Habits program itself?
Whether your goal is to become a better person, improve the world, or do something in between, a sound first step is to get your own personal health in order. Adopting healthy habits to improve your own personal wellbeing not only helps you avoid several forms of pain and suffering in the short term and in the long term, but it also frees you up to be a force for good in the lives of others.
The real question is, where do we begin?
We live in an age flooded with both good and bad advice. Sometimes, online health advice is sound, but it is not targeted toward the average person. Whether this advice comes from social media shares, self-appointed health gurus (peddling their own so-called “remedies,” to the gullible), or even articles with reputable sources, it is no wonder that the average person can feel a bit disoriented and overwhelmed. When considering the various health issues that plague our society, how can we afford this much confusion? How can someone sort the good advice from the bad?
“Healthy Living” is one of the key values held and promoted by the Free Thought Initiative. It is a topic that deserves serious consideration, given that it addresses three of the six social issues each Free Thought Forum exists to combat: “Isolation & Depression,” “Misinformation & Anti-Intellectualism,” and “Overindulgence & Addiction.” To this end, the “50 Healthy Habits Program” was first launched in April of 2019. The objective of this program is to list simple and universally applicable personal habits that have been tested and supported by scientific evidence. These habits will be made available on our website (freethoughtforum.org) one section at a time and will be regularly updated as new and better information is brought to the attention of our executive board.
As this program is developed, your feedback, suggestions, and links to relevant research articles all play an indispensable role. Thank you for your consideration of the following, and for your participation in this ambitious undertaking!
If you would like an updated version of this list, or to dig even deeper into our referenced sources to the studies and articles on which this advice is based, visit: freethoughtforum.org/blog/50-habits
And now, onto the first five habits!
1. GET ABOUT 8 FULL HOURS OF SLEEP EACH NIGHT
Eight hours of sleep each night is what is generally recommended for adults. However, everyone has slightly different needs depending on one’s age, body size, activity levels, diet, and so forth. Therefore, it is important to remember that your mind and body requires a certain amount of sleep, an amount that must be met regularly. Getting enough sleep has been shown to improve (among other things) one’s immune system, brain function, memory, mood, eating habits, and overall life expectancy. In fact, losing just a half hour of what is personally needed on a regular basis can have dramatic consequences. For those struggling to regularly get a full night’s sleep, here are a few suggestions that may help:
Leave a fan on in your bedroom while you sleep. (This can promote air flow, cool the body, and produce calming white noise.)
Ensure that all light sources are turned-off or covered.
Refrain from looking at a phone, computer, or other bright screens before sleeping.
Deeply stretch your muscles before climbing into bed.
Set and strive to keep a regular sleeping schedule.
Engage in meditative exercises in bed, such as counting your breaths.
Allow your body about four hours to digest your last meal before sleeping.
Make a to-do list of things to think about in the morning, allowing yourself to relax afterward.
Ensure that your blankets, pillowcases, and sheets are laundered on at least a weekly basis.
Consider bathing at the end of the day and allow time for your hair to dry before retiring for the night.
Consider increasing your physical activity and/or reducing caloric intake in order to prevent surplus energy at the end of the day.
2. DRINK ONE GLASS OF CLEAR WATER WITH EVERY MEAL
To maintain healthy body function, the average adult needs to drink a minimum of about 6 cups of clear water directly, in addition to the water gained through food consumption. Recent studies suggest that a large portion of our population may be chronically dehydrated. To combat this, it is recommended that every adult should consume at least two cups (one glass) of plain drinking water three times a day. For those who drink coffee or alcohol, engage in vigorous physical activity, are exposed to sunlight, or are affected by other similar factors, increased water consumption is essential. In addition, replacing sweet drinks, sodas, juices, and other beverages with clear, clean, and unflavored drinking water has been proven to make a significant difference in overall caloric consumption. Therefore, filling one’s stomach in part with water (in place of other drinks) can be a powerful tool in fighting obesity.
3. FILL ½ OF EACH MEAL WITH A VARIETY OF VEGETABLES
Vegetables are some of the most nutrient-dense low-calorie foods we consume. In addition to the dietary fiber they provide (critical for our indispensable gut bacteria), vegetables have also been shown to reduce the risk for heart disease, stroke, and even several types of cancer! When replacing more energy-dense foods, vegetables can also positively influence healthy body weight. (In part, this is because we often feel “full” or satiated based upon the volume in our stomachs, rather than the energy levels of our food.)
Despite all this, less than 14% of Americans include the recommended amount of vegetables in their diet! Federal Recommended vegetable consumption is about four cups per day, which can easily fill half of the volume of three average adult-sized meals. In fact, the National Institute of Health flat out recommends that “Half of your plate should contain green vegetables.”
Given these governmental recommendations, the various nutrient benefits from vegetables, and their capacity to help us feel “full,” the Free Thought Initiative encourages all members to scale their meals according to their needs while also ensuring that 50% of their meals’ food consists of a variety of vegetables, especially raw vegetables, allium vegetables, carrots, green vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, and tomatoes.
4. AVOID FOODS WITH ADDED SALT, SUGAR, AND/OR FAT
Four of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States are associated with diets that are too high in sodium, calories, cholesterol, fat, and saturated fat. Eating these types of foods can lead to coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, osteoporosis and a number of other disorders and conditions. As a general rule, the less-processed a food is, the better. This is not to say that raw food is preferable to food with minimal cleaning and processing. Rather, it is important to remember that heavily processed foods tend to lose much of their nutrients and are often packaged with added salt, sugar, and/or fat. Therefore, it is recommended that one’s diet consists largely of minimally-processed foods, while the consumption of foods high in salt, sugar, and/or fat content is dramatically reduced or completely avoided.
5. VIGOROUSLY EXERCISE FOR AT LEAST 30 MIN. DAILY
Studies have shown that even a few minutes of exercise a day yield intense health benefits in men, women, children, and even in those with a high risk of cardiovascular disease. Those who engage in vigorous leisure-time exercise (such as jogging, weight-lifting, or playing high-intensity sports) for at least 30 minutes, six days a week, (or at least 180 minutes of total exercise a week) have been shown to have an 18% reduced risk of all-cause mortality and had a 3 year longer life expectancy than those who do not engage in any such exercise. Despite the clear health advantages to regular intense physical activity, less than 10% of Americans meet the minimum recommended amount of exercise.
The recommended 30 minutes a day does not include any warm-up, stretching, or cool-down time. Such additional activity is conventionally recommended, however scientific studies on the short-term benefits of warm-ups and cool-downs are inconclusive.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I mistaken about some detail? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
What are you Worth?
May 12, 2019
The Fresh Perspective Podcast - Episode 2
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast.
For today’s episode, I want to talk about an idea that I suspect will be an essential aspect to any universal secular moral philosophy. It has to do with how we regard any other person. Does a human being have inherent worth? If so, What Is the worth of a Human Being? We will explore those questions, in just a moment.
This program is brought to you by the members of the Free Thought Initiative
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community by hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science to improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society.
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of personal Religious belief, political leanings, age, or sex) to participate in-person in these open and civil discussions.
To find a free thought forum meeting near you, to start your own local group, or to become a member and support this program through monthly donations – please visit free thought forum .org
What is the worth of a Human Being?
When confronted by this question, I suppose the most common response is to flounder for a moment. After all, we haven’t been given much information. How can we judge the worth of someone without knowing their past choices, background, beliefs, attractiveness, wealth, popularity, intelligence, and so forth? In order to go about life, aren’t we are required - to some degree - to make small moment-to-moment judgements, based on as much information as we can?
But the conversation today isn’t about seeing how any particular person ranks. Rather, I mean to explore worth in the broadest of terms. What is the worth of any Human Being, regardless of age, race, sex, or any other distinguishing feature? Put a different way, do each of us have an innate underlying value based solely on our humanity?
If we look to our world’s religions for the answer to this question, we find both embellishing and disparaging answers. This should not be a surprise to us, given the diversity of belief. Is the person in question a member of the chosen people of the local deity? Then they are considered to be of great worth, perhaps obeying without hesitation the commandment to slaughter their neighbors who believe differently. It may be taught that another has infinite worth because they are merely a manifestation of the divine reality. Are they believed to have been reincarnated into a lowly caste? Then perhaps they are worth less because of their presumably poor choices in a previous life. If a neighbor was also made in the image of God, how much should that factor into our treatment of them?
Ideally, we could all agree that a human being is of great worth. To perpetuate the opposite has obvious distasteful results. When a creature, a vehicle, or a book is considered to be of little worth or value, how kindly can the average person be expected to treat it? We judge tools and resources by their utility, and are happy to discard them when that utility dips below an acceptable level. Can it be considered anything but immoral to likewise judge people by their usefulness? Worse still is when some sum of money is believed to be of greater value than a human being. For most of human history, it was even commonplace to sell and trade people, as commodities, as property. How could this answer be acceptable when it offends our modern sensibilities so egregiously? Indeed if anything can be considered immoral, it is the devaluing of human life and human wellbeing.
So is there anything beyond faith, social convention, or political theory that can justify an elevated esteem of a human being? Can we logically view others as more than potential allies, providers, buyers, mates, or simply as means to an end? I propose that there are five sound elements found in every person that can inform our honest proclamation of their inherent worth:
1. THE RARENESS OF ONE’S UNIQUE CONSCIOUSNESS, PERSPECTIVE, AND IMAGINATION.
Often, the value of something can be extrapolated from the apparent rareness of that thing. The chemical element rhenium, for example, is something like three times more valuable than gold, because of its scarcity. In an observable universe of some two-trillion galaxies, each with about 200 billion stars, how many planetary systems do we know of in which life can be found with self-awareness, consciousness, and the ability to contemplate this cosmic vastness? One. More incredible still, we each use our minds differently. We each experience consciousness in slightly different ways. No two people share the same imagination. Therefore, each thought process and perspective - each person - is inherently valuable.
2. ONE’S MEMBERSHIP IN THE HUMAN FAMILY.
Human beings are a social species with natural instincts that drive us to promote the overall wellbeing of our family group members. Our species did not survive on the grasslands of prehistory as lone wolves, but as clans. Natural selection has favored this group-oriented behavior. It seems most apparent when we consider child rearing. How else can we survive such a comparatively long infancy, necessary for our brain development outside of the womb? Even as adults, it is apparent that our mental and physical health is maximized only through sufficient social support. In other words, nature itself has established that we should be concerned with the wellbeing of our family members.
This begs the question - who then, should be considered our family members? I’m reminded of the Lawyer’s question in the Christian parable of the good Samaritan: "Who is my neighbor?"
Who belongs to our family? From what scientists have learned from the human genome, the answer is wide-sweeping. With a scientific perspective, we can apply these instincts to every single member of the human race. Whether through the evolutionary processes revealed through our biology, or a belief in divine creation, we can accurately state that every human being is a member of the same family. We are all related to every other person who has ever lived. That makes any other human being our literal relative, a member of our clan, a clan that encompasses the world itself.
3. THE FACT THAT EACH PERSON IS A WORK IN PROGRESS, WITH UNTAPPED POTENTIAL TO IMPROVE THE SELF AND THE LIVES OF OTHERS.
When we think of a person, we tend to think of them as a history of their previous appearances and their behaviors. But we are, quite literally, not who we were yesterday. Even in the field of neuroscience, it has been observed that the human brain is constantly re-arranging itself, changing what one understands and how one thinks. Thanks to each of our brains’ “plasticity” it is far more accurate to think of a person as a process, a work in progress, with tremendous potential.
It is impossible to tell exactly how much of a positive impact a child will have on the future. The greatest scientists, leaders, explorers, philosophers, and inventors all started out as helpless infants. Each individual is budding with potential, potential that can be expanded through education, skill development, character building, and so forth. Even in the last moments of one’s life, the potential for impactful good remains. Of course, there exists the other side of that coin. Every person possesses the potential for untold horrors, something to be understood and respected just as seriously as their capacity for good.
4. ONE’S CAPACITY FOR EMPATHY AND SYMPATHY.
Today, an AI assistant can help us find a pre-programmed source of valuable information, but can it feel our pain? A tool may prove its utility in one task, but can we ask it to share in joyous celebration? A special characteristic in all human beings (admittedly, to various degrees) is their ability to sincerely visualize the thoughts, experiences, and feelings of someone else. In a way, we can step into the minds of another and imagine the world through their eyes. Doing so allows us to share the burdens of problem-solving, coping with extreme emotion, and even containing exuberant ecstasy. On even a selfish level, the innate capacity of another person to share our joys and pains is of great worth in its possible synergistic application.
5. CURIOSITY, AND THE ADOPTION OF CAUSES GREATER THAN SURVIVAL.
Is there a greater cause than one’s survival or the survival of one’s family or species? For most living things, 100% of their behaviors have evolved to perpetuate their existence. This is true for whales, eagles, angler fish, and bacteria. The average animal spends their days concerned with eating, avoiding being eaten, and reproducing. But we are different, aren’t we?
A phenomenon found in even the earliest humans is the propensity to live for causes beyond such. This can be considered our “spark of divinity.” We imagine a higher form of living in which we serve ideas greater than ourselves. Consider the fact that all human beings believe that we are either the creations of gods, that we are gods, or that we have created gods. Think of the religious relics found in the archeological digs of ancient human civilizations. The search for truth, meaning, and higher purpose is one of the most human things about us. Where else can we find beings earnestly searching for truth for truth’s sake? Whether it manifest in the search for mathematical equations that help us predict the nature of dark matter or the philosophical debate on moral realism, human beings possess this valuable and magnificent characteristic.
This is my argument. This is my answer to this fascinating question. What is the worth of a human being? Although it may not be quantifiable it should be apparent that the worth of any human being is inherent and great. In this respect, it doesn’t matter if you are a clergyman or criminal. Whether you are wealthy or homeless, these five elements, at least, set you apart as something truly special in our universe:
The Rareness of your unique Consciousness, Perspective, and Imagination.
Your membership in the Human Family.
The fact that you are a Work in Progress, with untapped Potential to improve your life and the lives of others.
Your capacity for Empathy and Sympathy.
Your Curiosity, and the Adoption of Causes greater than Survival.
That is all I have for you today, but the conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Am I in need of correction? How can I better elaborate on this topic in the future? Feel free to share your perspective!
25 Common Misconceptions about Evolution
May 12, 2019
The Theory of evolution is a well-established, highly-tested, and reliable scientific fact. However, only about half of Americans believe that it is a viable scientific theory! In this presentation, we explore 25 common arguments and mistakes people make with regards to this, the bedrock of modern biology. Do anti-evolution activists have a point? Is this theory really as robust and well established as scientists claim? Dig deep into the evidence to find out!
Below is a link to the presentation first used by the Utah Valley group on May 12th, 2019:
How’s it going everyone? I’m Nick and you are listening to the Fresh Perspective Podcast!
In this, our first episode, I want to take a moment to explain who we are, what we do, and why you should subscribe to future episodes!
This program is brought to you by the Free Thought Initiative
We help those in need of an inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking community
By hosting public discussions on moral philosophy, healthy living, and science
To improve the cohesion, health, and scientific literacy of our society
Everyone is welcome, (regardless of Religious belief, political leanings, age, or sex) to participate in weekly open and civil discussions!
To find a free thought forum meeting near you, start your own local group, or become a supporting member through monthly contributions – please visit free thought forum .org
This podcast has been created to spread the word about the free thought initiative, a not-for-profit program. I’m a member of the executive board of the free thought initiative and it will be my pleasure to bring you daily episodes, each filled with a thought-provoking message.
These messages are meant to stimulate healthy conversations about important topics such as moral philosophy, religion, free-thinking, logic, reason, scientific literacy, current events, healthy habits, and practical life skills.
This kind of conversation is central to our local in-person groups, each called a “free thought forum.” It is the kind of conversation that I think is desperately needed in our society. Being able to talk about important things allows you to deeply think about important things. Likewise, if we find that we can’t talk about something, this diminishes our ability to think deeply about it.
With the advent of college safe-spaces and social media echo-chambers – our modern culture has evolved into one in which we can all get by without EVER being seriously challenged on anything we believe.
And that is a problem.
Challenge, criticism, critique, these are important tools everyone should use to test the mettle of their ideas, opinions, and beliefs.
An intellectually honest and truth-seeking person welcomes this revelation. If they can be shown to be wrong about something, then they strive to course correct. Isn’t that the kind of person we should all strive to be?
It seems to me that human nature pulls us in the opposite direction. When our ideas are challenged, we tend to react defensively, childishly, dig in our heals, and wave our ideological team’s flag ever more vigorously. It has become all too common that the conversation is silenced as we each try to erase the uncomfortable confrontation from our memory.
I believe we can be better.
Rather than fighting to defend our teams, our religions, political parties, or racial groups – we would do much better to be dedicated to what is true.
This organization is not necessarily conservative or liberal. It isn’t necessarily religious or atheistic. Rather, our organization looks for the objective reality of each individual issue as much as possible.
If you have stumbled onto this podcast hoping that all of your beliefs will be justified, then you may be disappointed. If you have stumbled onto this podcast in search for intellectual stimulation – then I hope you will be satisfied.
Our organization has the ambitious vision to heal many of our society’s problems while also improving the character and lives of our individual members. We believe that this is best done by providing inclusive, supportive, and free-thinking local groups that promote a universal secular moral philosophy. At the core of this philosophy is devotion to what is real and what is right.
In these videos, we will not shy away from discussing controversial issues. This isn’t because we are a podcast that enjoys provocation or controversy. Rather, it is because we believe that understanding the truth of each topic is important. What is true is what matters most.
Therefore, I hope it goes without saying that if anything said in these videos is done so in error, we ask that you please let us know in each video’s comments or by using the contact page on our website. Doing so will allow us to reexamine our content and make improvements and corrections where necessary.
A dedication to what is true should be one without presupposition. That is why literally everyone is welcome to analyze, discuss, criticize, test, and improve our philosophy. Believers from all faiths can engage in this undertaking side-by-side with atheists and agnostics. Left-wing and right-wing political activists can likewise both bring their passion to the discussion. We need all schools of thought and as many perspectives as possible.
If you are listening to this, then I hope you have caught a glimpse of that vision. Please subscribe and share this video so that even more of us can enjoy a FRESH PERSPECTIVE…
The conversation continues across social media and in the comment sections below. Do you agree with today’s message? Are we in need of correction? How could we better elaborate on this topic in the future? Thank you for sharing your perspective, and letting us know!
50 Habits For Maximizing Personal Health and Wellbeing
Apr 27, 2019
Contents
CURRENT VERSION: 1.0 (28 April 2019)
Introduction
Physical Health
Additional Sections are Coming Soon!
Introduction to the 50-Healthy-Habits Program
Whether your goal is to become a better person, improve the world, or do something in between, a sound first step is to get your own personal health in order. Adopting healthy habits to improve your own personal wellbeing not only helps you avoid several forms of pain and suffering in the short and long term, but it also frees you up to be a force for good in the lives of others.
We live in an age flooded with both good and bad advice. Sometimes, online health advice is sound, but it is not targeted toward the average person. Whether this advice comes from social media shares, self-appointed health gurus (peddling their own so-called “remedies,” to the gullible), or articles with reputable sources, it is no wonder that the average person can feel a bit disoriented and overwhelmed. When considering the various health issues that plague our society, how can we afford this much confusion? How can someone sort the good advice from the bad?
“Healthy Living” is one of the key values held and promoted by the Free Thought Initiative. It is a topic that deserves serious consideration, given that it addresses three of the six social issues each Free Thought Forum exists to combat: “Isolation & Depression,” “Misinformation & Anti-Intellectualism,” and “Overindulgence & Addiction.” To this end, the “50 Healthy Habits Program” was first launched in April of 2019. The objective of this program is to list simple and universally applicable personal habits that have been tested and supported by scientific evidence. These habits will be made available on our website (freethoughtforum.org) one section at a time and will be regularly updated as new and better information is brought to the attention of the executive board.
As this program is developed, your feedback, suggestions, and links to relevant research articles all play an indispensable role. Thank you for your consideration of the following, and for your participation in this ambitious undertaking!
Eight hours of sleep each night is what is generally recommended for adults. However, everyone has slightly different needs depending on one’s age, body size, activity levels, diet, and so forth. Therefore, it is important to remember that your mind and body requires a certain amount of sleep, an amount that must be met regularly. Getting enough sleep has been shown to improve one’s immune system, brain function, memory, mood, eating habits, and overall life expectancy. In fact, losing just a half hour of what is personally needed on a regular basis can have dramatic consequences. For those struggling to regularly get a full night’s sleep, here are a few suggestions that may help:
1. Leave a fan on in your bedroom while you sleep. (This can promote air flow, cool the body, and produce calming white noise.)
2. Ensure that all light sources are turned-off or covered.
3. Refrain from looking at a phone, computer, or other bright screens before sleeping.
4. Deeply stretch your muscles before climbing into bed.
5. Set and strive to keep a regular sleeping schedule.
6. Engage in meditative exercises in bed, such as counting your breaths.
7. Allow your body about four hours to digest your last meal before sleeping.
8. Make a to-do list of things to think about in the morning, allowing yourself to relax afterward.
9. Ensure that your blankets, pillowcases, and sheets are laundered on at least a weekly basis.
10. Consider bathing at the end of the day and allow time for your hair to dry before retiring for the night.
11. Consider increasing your physical activity or reducing caloric intake in order to prevent surplus energy at the end of the day.
Sources:
Hirshkowitz, Max, et al. "National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary." Sleep health 1.1 (2015): 40-43.
Walker, Matthew P. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. Scribner, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2018.
“Big Brains at BAM | StarTalk Live! with Neil DeGrasse Tyson | Full Episode.” Featuring Dr. Mayim Bialik and Dr. Heather Berlin, et al., YouTube, Star Talk Radio, 25 Apr. 2019, youtu.be/CHjVz6nHh7Y.
Brunborg, Geir Scott, et al. "The relationship between media use in the bedroom, sleep habits and symptoms of insomnia." Journal of sleep research 20.4 (2011): 569-575.
② Drink One Glass of Clear Water with Every Meal
To maintain healthy body function, the average adult needs to drink a minimum of about 6 cups of clear water directly, in addition to the water gained through food consumption. Recent studies suggest that a large portion of our population may be chronically dehydrated. To combat this, it is recommended that every adult consumes at least two cups (one glass) of plain drinking water three times a day. For those who drink coffee or alcohol, engage in vigorous physical activity, are exposed to sunlight, or are affected by other similar factors, increased water consumption is essential. In addition, replacing sweet drinks, sodas, juices, and other beverages with clear, clean, and unflavored drinking water has been proven to make a significant difference in overall caloric consumption. Therefore, filling one’s stomach in part with water (in place of other drinks) can be a powerful tool in fighting obesity
Sources:
Stookey, J. D., Constant, F. , Gardner, C. D. and Popkin, B. M. (2007), Replacing Sweetened Caloric Beverages with Drinking Water Is Associated with Lower Energy Intake. Obesity, 15: 3013-3022. doi:10.1038/oby.2007.359
Kleiner, Susan M. "Water: an essential but overlooked nutrient." Journal of the American Dietetic Association 99.2 (1999): 200-206.
③ Fill ½ of each meal with a variety of vegetables
Vegetables are some of the most nutrient-dense low-calorie foods we consume. In addition to the dietary fiber they provide (critical for our indispensable gut bacteria), vegetables have also been shown to reduce the risk for heart disease, stroke, and even several types of cancer! When replacing more energy-dense foods, vegetables can also positively influence healthy body weight. (In part, this is because we often feel “full” or satiated based upon the volume in our stomachs, rather than the energy levels of our food.)
Despite all this, less than 14% of Americans include the recommended amount of vegetables in their diet! Federal Recommended vegetable consumption is about four cups per day, which can easily fill half of the volume of three average adult-sized meals. In fact, the National Institute of Health flat out recommends that “Half of your plate should contain green vegetables.”
Given these governmental recommendations, the various nutrient benefits from vegetables, and their capacity to help us feel “full,” the Free Thought Initiative encourages all members to scale their meals according to their needs while also ensuring that 50% of their meals’ food consists of a variety of vegetables, especially raw vegetables, allium vegetables, carrots, green vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, and tomatoes.
Sources:
Moore, Latetia V, and Frances E Thompson. “Adults Meeting Fruit and Vegetable Intake Recommendations - United States, 2013.” MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report vol. 64,26 (2015): 709-13.
B J Rolls, V H Castellanos, J C Halford, A Kilara, D Panyam, C L Pelkman, G P Smith, M L Thorwart, Volume of food consumed affects satiety in men, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 1998, Pages 1170–1177, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/67.6.1170
Wax, Emily, and David Zieve. “Portion Size: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia.” Edited by Brenda Conaway, MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2018, medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000337.htm.
Steinmetz, Kristi A., and John D. Potter. "Vegetables, fruit, and cancer prevention: a review." Journal of the american dietetic association 96.10 (1996): 1027-1039.
④ Avoid Foods with Added Salt, Sugar, and/or Fat
Four of the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States are associated with diets that are too high in sodium, calories, cholesterol, fat, and saturated fat. Eating these types of foods can lead to coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, osteoporosis and a number of other disorders and conditions. As a general rule, the less-processed a food is, the better. This is not to say that raw food is preferable to food with minimal cleaning and processing. Rather, it is important to remember that heavily processed foods tend to lose much of their nutrients and are often packaged with added salt, sugar, and/or fat. Therefore, it is recommended that one’s diet consists largely of minimally-processed food, while the consumption of foods high in salt, sugar, and/or fat content is dramatically reduced or completely avoided.
Sources:
Moss, Michael. Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. WH Allen, 2014.
Frazao, Elizabeth. "The American diet: a costly health problem." Food Review: The Magazine of Food Economics 19.1482-2016-121385 (1996): 2.
Monteiro, Carlos A. “Nutrition and Health. The Issue Is Not Food, nor Nutrients, so Much as Processing.” Public Health Nutrition, vol. 12, no. 5, 2009, pp. 729–731., doi:10.1017/S1368980009005291.
⑤ Vigorously Exercise for at Least 30 min. Daily
Studies have shown that even a few minutes of exercise a day yield intense health benefits in men, women, children, and even in those with a high risk of cardiovascular disease. Those who engage in vigorous leisure-time exercise (such as jogging, weight-lifting, or playing high-intensity sports) for at least 30 minutes, six days a week, (or at least 180 minutes of total exercise a week) have been shown to have an 18% reduced risk of all-cause mortality and had a 3 year longer life expectancy than those who do not engage in any such exercise. Despite the clear health advantages to regular intense physical activity, less than 10% of Americans meet the minimum recommended amount of exercise.
The recommended 30 minutes a day does not include any warm-up, stretching, or cool-down time. Such additional activity is conventionally recommended, however scientific studies on the short-term benefits of warm-ups and cool-downs are inconclusive.
Sources:
Wen, Chi Pang, et al. "Minimum amount of physical activity for reduced mortality and extended life expectancy: a prospective cohort study." The Lancet 378.9798 (2011): 1244-1253.
Tucker, Jared M., Gregory J. Welk, and Nicholas K. Beyler. "Physical activity in US adults: compliance with the physical activity guidelines for Americans." American journal of preventive medicine 40.4 (2011): 454-461.
Van Mechelen, Willem, et al. "Prevention of running injuries by warm-up, cool-down, and stretching exercises." The American Journal of Sports Medicine 21.5 (1993): 711-719.
Rodenburg, J. B., et al. "Warm-up, stretching and massage diminish harmful effects of eccentric exercise." International Journal of sports medicine 15.07 (1994): 414-419.
⑥ Brush Your Teeth Twice a Day and Floss Once a Day
Oral hygiene is a significant contributor to one’s overall physical health. According to well-established studies, all adults should engage in tooth-brushing twice daily (soon after rising from bed or breakfast and soon after dinner) with fluoridated toothpaste. A toothbrush is the most effective tool in removing plaque from teeth, but that does not mean that flossing should be ignored. Daily brushing and flossing combat some major health conditions such as gingivitis, periodontal tissue attachment loss, and carious lesion development, even more than direct treatment of these conditions after the fact.
Sources:
Axelsson, P. and Lindhe, J. (1978), Effect of controlled oral hygiene procedures on caries and periodontal disease in adults. Journal of Clinical Periodontology, 5: 133-151. doi:10.1111/j.1600-051X.1978.tb01914.x
Schmid, M. O., Balmelli, O. P. and Saxer, U. P. (1976), Plaque‐removing effect of a toothbrush, dental floss, and a toothpick. Journal of Clinical Periodontology, 3: 157-165. doi:10.1111/j.1600-051X.1976.tb01863.x
Brothwell DJ, Jutai DK, Hawkins RJ. An update of mechanical oral hygiene practices: evidence-based recommendations for disease prevention. J Can Dent Assoc. 1998 Apr;64(4) 295-306. PMID: 9594467.
⑦ Bathe about once a day
Your skin is your largest organ, and regular bathing is an essential part of skin care, infection prevention, waste removal, preventing the spread of pathogens, and overall societal standards of cleanliness and professionalism. However, it is possible to shower too often or too intensely. Excessive bathing can lead to rough, dry, and irritated skin. It can also compromise the naturally protective oils in the skin provide such as housing beneficial bacteria and providing a barrier against harmful chemicals. One’s natural scent can also be neutralized by excessive bathing, often noticeable by one’s intimate partner.
Therefore, based upon your own activity levels, as well as your body’s chemistry, you should plan on showering about once per day (at least twice every three days and shortly after vigorous exercise). Remember to not use water that is too hot. Avoid showering for more than 30 minutes at a time. In order to prevent rough or dry skin, lotion and moisturizers can be used shortly after bathing.
Sources:
Leffell, David J. Total Skin: the Definitive Guide to Whole Skin Care for Life. Hyperion, 2000.
Cleton, F. J., Y. S. Van Der Mark, and M. J. Van Toorn. "Effect of shower-bathing on dispersal of recently acquired transient skin flora." Effect of shower-bathing on dispersal of recently acquired transient skin flora. (1968).
Carnegie, Dale. How To Win Friends And Influence People. Harpercollins Canada, 2018.
⑧ Wash Hands after Restroom Use, Prior to Preparing Food, Eating, and as Needed
Hand washing is the single best way to stop the spread of pathogens and disease. Hand washing is even preferable to anti-bacterial alcohol-based disinfectant gels and similar products! It is a practice that is paramount to personal, interpersonal, and societal wellbeing. No other medical practice or hygienic act is as important and thus requires our constant adherence.
Good handwashing practice includes hand soap, hot (but not scalding) water, and rubbing your hands together for several seconds. It is strongly recommended after any restroom use, before preparing food, before eating, after eating, and after touching objects that often come in contact with pathogens such as steering wheels, door knobs, used dishes, pets, and shoes. When asked about how often people wash their hands, they tend to exaggerate and assume that they are doing much better than they actually are. In reality, only about 40% of people wash their hands as recommended.
Sprunt, Katherine, Winifred Redman, and Grace Leidy. "Antibacterial effectiveness of routine hand washing." Pediatrics 52.2 (1973): 264-271.
Voss, A., & Widmer, A. (1997). No Time for Handwashing!? Handwashing Versus Alcoholic Rub Can We Afford 100% Compliance? Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 18(3), 205-208. doi:10.2307/30141985
Mokhtari, Amirhossein, and Lee-Ann Jaykus. "Quantitative exposure model for the transmission of norovirus in retail food preparation." International journal of food microbiology 133.1-2 (2009): 38-47.
⑨ Use Medications Only as Prescribed
Prescription drug abuse and over-the-counter drug abuse has risen dramatically in the United States in recent years, leading to a rise in addiction and a swarm of other health and societal issues. For example, deaths from opioid overdoses quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, exceeding deaths from cocaine and heroin combined. For teens especially, the abuse of over-the-counter drugs has reached epidemic levels.
Parents are strongly encouraged to be aware of the drugs being purchased and used by their adolescent children. Even innocuous drugs such as cold and cough medicines may be abused.
To prevent such addiction or abuse, it is reasonable to ask your doctor about non-drug treatments whenever possible. When drug treatment is prescribed, it is important to follow one’s medical prescription exactly as it is written. Likewise, when using an over-the-counter drug, the instructions for usage on a bottle’s label should be followed with strict fidelity. Be sure to ask questions about your medication until you fully understand how and how often it should be taken. Communicate any problems you are having with your medications with your doctor before adjusting your medication use in any way. If you suspect that the recommended dosage on the side of an over-the-counter drug will not meet your needs, communicate this with a pharmacist so that you can be sure to purchase the most effective drug for your condition.
Sources:
Lessenger, James E., and Steven D. Feinberg. “Abuse of Prescription and Over-the-Counter Medications.” American Board of Family Medicine, 1 Jan. 2008, www.jabfm.org/content/21/1/45.
Volkow, Nora D., et al. "Medication-assisted therapies—tackling the opioid-overdose epidemic." New England Journal of Medicine 370.22 (2014): 2063-2066.
Levine, Deborah A. "‘Pharming’: The abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs in teens." Current opinion in pediatrics 19.3 (2007): 270-274.
Blenkinsopp, Alison, and Colin Bradley. "Over the Counter Drugs: Patients, society, and the increase in self medication." Bmj 312.7031 (1996): 629-632.
⑩ Keep a Health Journal
Medical professionals could use as much information about your health history as possible when making an appropriate diagnosis. Although there are efforts to record this information on a database that can be accessed by medical professionals from different organizations, the endeavor has been plagued by multiple logistical, political, and practical issues. While technical and elaborate answers may be more widely available in the future, simply keeping a written “personal health journal” can be a useful tool for this and other purposes.
The Free Thought Initiative strongly recommends that each member keeps such a journal up to date and readily accessible at a moment’s notice. (To help keep your medical information private, it is recommended that you do not record this information digitally.) A personal health journal can be kept in a common notebook or sketchbook dedicated to this purpose. Even if the written information isn’t used for decades, the accumulated data can be indispensable in the future.
What should be written in a health journal? You should update it with the date, time, and details of any change to your physical, cognitive, or emotional health such as:
• Whenever you dramatically change your diet, sleep patterns, or exercise routine
• Whenever your diet and sleep patterns change inexplicably
• Whenever you lose or gain a large amount of weight
• Whenever you experience any head trauma or bodily injury
• When you feel new pains or aches
• When you notice new bruising, burns, bites or other new marks on your skin
• When you feel dramatic changes in your mood or experience dramatic emotional events
• When you notice unusual things in the process or products of defecation or urination
• Whenever you drink more alcohol than usual
• Whenever you take prescribed or over-the-counter medication. (This can help to prevent accidental overdose.) It is also useful to describe in a small note the dosage taken, the effects that you feel from the medication, and how long it takes to feel the effects
Sources:
Lessenger, James E., and Steven D. Feinberg. "Abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications." J Am Board Fam Med 21.1 (2008): 45-54.
Kahn, James S., Veenu Aulakh, and Adam Bosworth. "What it takes: characteristics of the ideal personal health record." Health affairs 28.2 (2009): 369-376.
Verbrugge, Lois M. "Health diaries." Medical care 18.1 (1980): 73-95.
Freer, Charles Bernard. "Self-care: a health diary study." Medical Care (1980): 853-861.
Breakwell, Glynis M. "Using self-recording: Diary and narrative methods." Research methods in psychology 3 (2006): 254-272.
Each Free Thought Forum exists to promote healthy civil discussion and celebrate the free-exchange of ideas. We assert that one’s ability to voice their ideas and have them supported, contested, tested, and reviewed among peers (and in-person) is an indispensable tool in one’s honest search for the correct answers to life’s most important questions.
To ensure that all participants in a free thought forum have the opportunity to share their ideas while being treated respectfully, the following rules for civil discourse have been tested and developed by the board of directors. By participating in a weekly open discussion, all guests, members, and hosts agree to abide by the following:
1. Be Respectful of Each Other’s Time
If a designated host senses that you have taken more than 5 minutes to make a point, he/she will insist that someone else is given an opportunity to talk. Do not to interrupt or talk over someone else.
2. Criticize Ideas, not People
No one comes to an open discussion to be personally attacked. If you believe that an idea deserves criticism, it is essential that you address the claims or opinions themselves. This also applies to groups of people. There is nothing wrong with criticizing what a group of people profess, as long as the people themselves are treated with respect. Phrases such as “I disagree,” “what makes you say that?” or “what do you think of the counter-argument?” are all useful in keeping the conversation positive and inclusive.
3. Avoid Fallacious Argument or Unsubstantiated Declarations
Committing a logical fallacy or making bold claims without explaining the reasoning behind why you believe as you do can hinder productive thought and meaningful discussion.
4. Be Open to Scrutiny and a Diversity of Opinion
The objective of each meeting is not for someone to “win” or to “convert” anyone else. A discussion is not a debate. Rather, it is to allow each participant’s idea to compete in an open marketplace of ideas under to its own merits.
5. Recognize the Authority of the Host as Moderator
Your host (a trained volunteer) is much like a sports referee or a judge in a courtroom. In order to maintain civility and to promote productive dialogue, all participants agree to respectfully follow their Host’s facilitation and moderation.
Common Respect: The Key to a Universal Moral Philosophy
Mar 31, 2019
Introduction
How should you treat another person? How should you expect to be treated by them? What is the difference between what is right (moral behavior) and what is wrong (immoral behavior)? How should we teach our children to behave, and why? Your answers to these questions reveal your personal moral philosophy. Each one of our personal moral philosophies may look slightly different. Even members of the same fundamentalist church will give slightly different answers to specific questions about ideal behavior. Even among those who belong to the same political party, opinions and priorities may vary wildly when it comes to personal ethics. In short, we each (religious or not) make up our minds about the rules by which we live.
This essay relates to the search for a Universal Moral Philosophy. Such a philosophy would be a framework, a foundation, a starting point, for individuals (religious or not) that they can then voluntarily tailor to their own needs, hopefully with minimal distortion. The tantalizing prize is not just a complimentary ethic to the countless varieties already in use, but a truly universal philosophy, one that can be equally applicable to all people at all times. The concept of “Common Respect” can be one vital piece to such an endeavor.
Common Respect is a framework by which we can conceivably improve interpersonal interaction, regardless of the subjects involved. It takes into account the intrinsic worth of any individual, the inevitable injustices suffered by them, and the perspective granted thereby.
What is the Worth of a Human Being?
If we look to our world’s religions for the answer to this question, we find both embellishing and disparaging answers. This should not be of any surprise to us, given the diversity of belief. Is the person in question a member of the chosen people of the local deity? Then they are considered to be of great worth, perhaps obeying without hesitation the commandment to slaughter their neighbors who believe differently. It may be taught that another has infinite worth because they are merely a manifestation of the divine reality. Are they believed to have been reincarnated into a lowly caste? Then perhaps they are of less value because of their poor choices in a previous life. If a neighbor was also made in the image of God, how much should that factor into our treatment of them?
Ideally, we could all agree that a human being is of great worth. To perpetuate the opposite has obvious distasteful results. When a creature, a vehicle, or a book is considered to be of little worth or value, how kindly can the average person be expected to treat it? Worse still is when some sum of money is believed to be of greater value than a human being. For most of human history, it was commonplace to sell and trade people. In fact, this is still the case in many parts of the world. How could this answer be correct when it offends our modern sensibilities so egregiously? Indeed if anything can be considered immoral, it is the devaluing of human life and human wellbeing.
So is there anything beyond social convention or political theory that can justify an elevated esteem of a human being? Can we logically view others as more than potential allies, buyers, mates, or as simple means to an end? I propose that there are five sound elements found in every person that can inform our honest proclamation of their inherent worth:
1. The Rareness of One’s unique Consciousness, Perspective, and Imagination. Often, the value of something can be extrapolated from the apparent rareness of that thing. The chemical element rhenium, for example, is three times more valuable than gold simply because of its scarcity. In an observable universe of some two-trillion galaxies, each with about 200 billion stars, how many planetary systems do we know of in which life can be found with self-awareness, consciousness, and the ability to contemplate this cosmic vastness? One. More incredible still, we each use our minds differently. Each of our experiences of consciousness is slightly different. No two people share the same imagination. Therefore, each thought process and perspective is of the highest value.
2. One’s membership in the Human Family. Human beings belong to a social species with natural instincts that drive us to promote the overall wellbeing of our family group members. With a scientific perspective, we can apply these instincts to every single member of the human race. Whether through the evolutionary processes revealed through our biology, or a belief in divine creation, we can accurately state that every human being is a member of the same family. We are all related to every other person who has ever lived.
3. The fact that each person is a Work in Progress, with untapped Potential to Improve the Self and the lives of others. When we think of a person, we tend to think of them as a history of their previous appearances and their behaviors. But we are, quite literally, not who we were yesterday. Even in the field of neuroscience, it is apparent that your brain is constantly re-arranging itself, changing what you understand and how you think. Thanks to each of our brains’ “plasticity” it is far more accurate to think of a person as a work in progress, with tremendous potential.
It is impossible to tell exactly how much of a positive impact a child will have on the future. The greatest scientists, leaders, explorers, philosophers, and inventors all started out as helpless infants. Each individual is budding with potential, potential that can be expanded through education, skill development, character building, and so forth. Even in the last moments of one’s life, the potential for impactful good remains. Of course, there exists the other side of that coin. Every person possesses the potential for untold horrors, something to be understood and respected just as seriously as their capacity for good.
4. One’s capacity for Empathy and Sympathy. Today, an AI assistant can help us find a pre-programmed source of valuable information, but can it feel our pain? A tool may prove its utility in one task, but can we ask it to share in joyous celebration? A special characteristic in all human beings (admittedly, to various degrees) is their ability to sincerely visualize the thoughts, experiences, and feelings of someone else. In a way, we can step into the minds of another and imagine the world through their eyes. Doing so allows us to share the burdens of problem-solving, coping with extreme emotion, and even containing exuberant ecstasy. On even a selfish level, the innate capacity of another person to share our joys and pains is of great worth in its possible synergistic application.
5. Curiosity, and the Adoption of Causes greater than Survival. Is there a greater cause than one’s survival or the survival of one’s family or species? For most living things, 100% of their behaviors have evolved to perpetuate their existence. The average animal spends their days concerned with eating, avoiding being eaten, and reproducing. But we are different, aren’t we? A phenomenon found in even the earliest humans is the propensity to live for causes beyond such. This can be considered our “spark of divinity.” We imagine a higher form of living in which we serve ideas greater than ourselves. Consider the fact that we all believe that we are either the creations of gods, that we are gods, or that we have created gods. Where else can we find beings earnestly searching for truth for truth’s sake? Whether it manifest in the search for mathematical equations that help us predict the nature of dark matter or the philosophical debate on moral realism, human beings possess this valuable and magnificent characteristic.
Are these Five Elements Unique to Human Beings?
No, but as far as we can tell, they apply in the highest degree to humans. This informs our treatment of other creatures. A dog, for example, may have a unique behavior but will fail several tests of self-awareness. We are (as apparent in our DNA) distantly related to dogs. A dog can also be trained to behave in a way that is beneficial to others. A dog can change their behavior and apparent mood with sensitivity to the mood of others. However, in these dimensions, a dog simply has demonstratively less capacity than a human being.
All creatures can thus be ordered from the ones that rank higher on this list (dolphins, great apes, cephalopods, etc.) to those that rank lower (worms, fungi, bacteria, etc.). In a legal or political sense, this classification can inform the “rights” that human beings should preserve in other living beings, even those who did not evolve from this planet or who possess an artificial mind. I argue that the more universal a moral philosophy, the better.
What is the experience of Beings of Great Worth?
When considering the glorious worth of a person, with respect to the five elements above, we may expect the life of the average person to be filled with meaning, fulfillment, and even happiness. One may argue that the opposite is true. Despite everything addressed thus far, what is the existence most of us know?
Just as there are elements of inherent worth we all share, there are also bleak tragedies of existence we all endure. Consider the following:
We all experience meaningless pain and suffering. This is not the kind of pain that helps us grow muscle, gain perspective, or develop character. This is the pointless suffering that only leads to more pointless suffering. Accidents happen. Some of us are born with cancer. Some of us devote our lives to raising children who grow up to disown us. Emergency rescue teams die in natural disasters. Whether it be sickness, the pains of growing old, or the unjust treatment from another, we all can add to this list.
We all imagine terrifying realities, much worse than the real one. This fact is not limited to nightmares, hallucinations, or superstitions. This fact has little to do with horror movies or jump-scares in video games. Our amazing minds allow us to predict the future, empathize, and imagine better versions of ourselves. However, these same tools, often without our intention or permission, are constantly jumping from unsettling possibility to unsettling possibility. An elk does not find itself constantly stressed about the possibilities of a wolf in the trees. A human, on the other hand, can be plagued with the constant threat of being evicted from their apartment. We can’t help but worry if a friend is being dishonest with us, if an employer can’t stand us, or if a loved one is disappointed in us. As we age and develop, we may grow more skilled at suppressing or ignoring these wandering anxieties, but we never silence them entirely.
We all deal with unresolved injustice. This concept is straight-forward enough. We will never receive compensation for our stolen bike. We will never feel loved by our childhood crush. We will never get the praise we deserve for coming up with a great idea at work. We will never be able to tell our grandfather how sorry we are. There are many parts of life that are simply unfair, and we have no evidence that that will ever be corrected.
Death is a permanent part of life. As far as we know, everything we love will be lost. Everyone we know will one day be gone. We, ourselves, will one day no longer be able to move, think, or feel. However unsettling this is to a social species such as us, no degree of denial will change that fact.
What is Common Respect?
Many people believe that “respect” is earned. It is something you show to someone who has impressed you in some way or acts in a way that you support. Under this logic, no stranger is inherently deserving of respect, and each individual may compose their unique list of requirements (however lofty) that must be met before they feel obligated to treat another human being in any way other than with apathy, contempt, or disgust.
Common Respect is different from that kind of respect. Common Respect is common. It is one helpful aspect in a universal moral philosophy based on scientific fact. It is what we ought to show every other person. It is how we should treat everyone else we meet, regardless of their past, their age, race, sex, nationality, belief, political leanings, or lifestyle. It manifests in an underlying acknowledgment of the supreme worth of an individual paired with an understanding that this individual has, or will, deal with all the tragedies of existence listed above, and many more aside.
Should this perspective apply only to those with whom we interact? Of course not. With our current line of thinking, is not the memory of those long gone deserving of consideration? Shouldn’t we look to those born in the distant future with such a state of mind? Of course! And let us not forget, “everyone” includes yourself. Seeing others in a moral light is important, but equally as important is understanding your own worth, and your own endurance through pain thus far.
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