Once upon a time we enjoyed regular writing from members of our community. That has dropped off, but we'd like to keep their work available for future readers. Enjoy.
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We'll be electing a new president at the January membership meeting, as well as working out a basic board of directors. We've found that some decisions are difficult to make in a timely manner without this type of structure. If you only make one meeting in 2011, try to be there for that. Your vote is welcome.
Read more: January elections for president and a board of directors
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This is a continuation of District 742 Religion Policy Task Force, Part 1.
During our second session, we examined policies from several other Minnesota districts. My small group breakout session looked at St. Paul's fairly brief religion section, which can be found here. It also includes the word "tolerance", which we had agreed in the first session was a fairly negative term, and one so vague as to be rather useless. It became a goal to create a document that enabled learning rather than merely insisting that students and faculty not be hostile toward those of other faith structures.
There was more discussion at this session about what it means to accommodate the prayer and food requirements of the various religions in District 742. Unfortunately I am not writing this while the meeting was fresh in my mind, and I can't share much detail.
Near the end of the meeting, I had an interesting conversation with a very nice Christian woman. She and I were discussing beliefs and values. She seemed to think that sometimes belief can support particular values. As an atheist and a humanist with what I consider strong moral values, I suggested that maybe a value that needs support from superstition isn't much of a value. I asked her to try to think of an example of a value that gains support from belief, or of a value that would be invalidated if the belief was shown to be false. Though we've had a third meeting since then, I haven't heard back. We'll see.
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Jon Stewart does a great job of emphasizing how petty and absurd the "ginned up outrage" over minor, well-intentioned changes to various holiday events really is.
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Minnesota Atheists produce a weekly talk show. Listen live online at http://www.am950ktnf.com/listen.