Secular Zoom Community

Today is Christmas, or the pagan winter solstice celebration that was stolen by Christians as the pretended birth of their mythical hero. We had a very fun Humanlight celebration five days back complete with free presents and loads of wonderful food. We are getting many unexpected gifts in the form of failures for Trump and a steady increase in the howls of outrage around the world.

The Supreme Court decided he cannot send the National Guard into Chicago. Indiana decided to not go along with demands for a heavy handed redistricting. Significant GOP congresspeople are unhappy with the violations of international law (murders on the high seas), threatened military action against Venezuela, and Epstein file release fiascoes. Margery Taylor Green and other GOP women have firmly come out in support of Epstein victims. Europe is outraged over repeated demands that Greenland become an American territory, a new National Security Strategy suggesting “civilizational erasure” and other insults, and new demands that Europe not impose regulations on US social media companies. Trump is complaining about European censorship while not citing Russian censorship and demanding that many 60 Minute staff people be fired for their support of segment that he sees as critical of him. His address to the nation on the economy was seen as a hurried, shouting, presentation way out of contact with the plummeting measures of consumer confidence and declining support for him on the economy.

Trump’s hosting of the Kennedy Center Honors was down 35% in viewers (Nielsen preliminary rating of 2.65 million viewers compared to 4.1m in 2024). The Washington Post refuses to call it the Trump Kennedy Center because they have no legal right to change the name. The National Opera is breaking with the Kennedy Center because they cannot sell enough tickets. Many other acts and organizations of performers have canceled or announced their refusal to perform there.

A Politico poll has over one third (38%) of his voters now saying that they are no longer MAGA. The stark divide is shown by the 85% Trump support from MAGA voters and only 55% from non-MAGA. Trump’s health is obviously failing as is his ability to stay awake during public meetings. That is creating a humorous spin to his “anti-woke” rhetoric. Our December meeting had three people actively discussing their desire to leave this country. Perhaps they will not need to do so. Support for Trump’s right-wing Christian nationalism is crashing and the courage of Congress, the Supreme Court, other nations and the public to push back is becoming stronger. Democracy might actually survive.

Let us not to forget to have fun in spite of the chaos. Our community is here to both acknowledge reality and somehow remain sane in spite of the insanity. We can connect and share our thoughts on how to remain positive.

For all new people – Only vetted secular people will receive the meeting links with a separate email. Please see the instructions at the end of this post. Our meetings are much more pleasurable without Christian trolls zoom booming our discussions. The vetting is worth the effort.
Please see directions below for new members who would like to receive the zoom link to attend.

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Our meetings have become a target for organized zoom bombing. Our major topic of discussion has been Christian nationalism and its hideous impacts across America. They have good reason to try to force us to stop our meetings. This requires us to work to preclude militant religious extremists from wrecking our meetings.

We will not post the zoom link for our meeting. The zoom link information will be delivered by email or direct personal messaging to trusted attendees only. I am now comfortable that this procedure works well enough so that a zoom waiting room will not be required.
I have a Google Voice phone number, (202) 643-4366. I do not answer calls to that number. But it does an excellent job of transcribing messages. People can use this number to verbally describe items requested in a possible email below.

I use the email: don1wharton (at) outlook (dot) com for social media, including Meetup. Please email the following:

Name:
Zoom ID if different than name:
your email to receive zoom info:
Specify that you are RSVPing for this meeting only if you
do not want to receive future zoom invites.

--People can UNSUBSCRIBE by replying to a future zoom invite with UNSUB in the subject line.
If you are a first time attendee, please share prior secular activities or cite your prior secular meetup attendance (making sure it is visible for us to confirm it) or arrange for a brief phone or zoom interview at a time of your convenience. This should insure enjoyable meetings.
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