DC Atheists Meetup

Secular Zoom Community

Thu, Aug 13 · 7:00 PM EDT

·

Online

Online

To all new people, our group is against Christian nationalism. Christian zoom bombers invaded our meetings until we were required to vet everyone who attends. Directions about how to get vetted are included after our meeting details below.

Free Inquiry is a magazine that used to be a reasonable resource for secular humanists. It has recently taken a regrettable move toward “conservative” thought. The most notable aspect of this has been its move to being highly critical of trans rights. We can add to that support for the religious dogma that Jesus was a real historical figure. I had an article published in Free Inquiry systematically proving that there is no possibility of reliable historical information being derived about Jesus from the existing base of information. Ron Lindsay, the Editor of Free Inquiry, published his highly critical misreading of everything I said in my article. He allowed me to publish a one page reply to him in the most recent issue. A quote from that reply, “The odds against a historical Jesus could easily be 1,000 to one against. But the point of my article is not that. I am claiming that there are no knowable facts about that history that could be accepted as reliable by an informed non-Christian jury. That relegates Jesus historicism to the level of other pure fictions such as flat earth geography and phrenology.” Unfortunately the rest is behind their paywall. However, in that reply I promised that I would include more in a post to the WASH blog, Secular Perspectives. Read that supplement to my reply here. I was delighted to see that our blog now has nearly tripled its views since I last checked.

I like a recent meme that for any sane human, the current times in America feels like being in a family on a car trip with the father totally sloshed behind the wheel. The mother knows this is not good, but is far too terrified to say anything about it. This trip is not a car ride. We are living in America with the single most massive aggregate of world economic, political and military power now in one person’s hands. Mom is the Republican Party. She is pandering to a narcissistic lunatic who thinks he can command the entire world order to bend to his will. He will turn on anyone voicing concerns about what prior commitments, norms, economic relationships, alliances, or ecosystems are being destroyed. He leads a cult that worships him and will viscerally confirm just about any delusion that he decides to advance. He functions on his his toxic gut feelings within a low-information bubble populated with sycophants who are required to constantly tell him how wonderful he is. This continues with increasingly obvious mania episodes marked with the furious postings of his simmering stew of malice, grievance, division, and fantastical visions of current and future successes. This will not end well. There is already a trail of destruction that may take generations to repair.

All of this is politically supported by Christian nationalism, laced with racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-science denialism, and preposterous conspiracy theories. The “green new scam” is excoriated while over 300,000 have recently been ordered to evacuate their homes under wildfire threats in France and Spain, and over 850 fires were recently simultaneously raging in Canada. The current Measles case spike (2318 cases) already exceeds the 2025 total and will set a new 35 year record. Thank you, vaccine denialism.

Trump claimed that negotiations with Iran were going well. Iran declared that there were no negotiations. They then executed a “surprise” attack on a US base in Jordan, proving their lack of commitment to diplomacy. Iranian militia elements from within Iraq and somewhere around Egypt have entered the game. Iraqi militia forces fired drones into Saudi petroleum plants. Two ships were hit in Egyptian waters near the Suez Canal. Military experts are increasingly declaring that very little further can be gained by bombing to free up shipping through the Straits of Hormuz. Houthi claims to cutoff shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the south end of the Red Sea complete a regional war threat to 20% of world commerce. The supply of crude may also be limited by Ukraine drones shutting down the export of oil from the Russian port at Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea.

The long end of the bond market just hit a 19 year high in interest rates and new mortgages increased to 6.66%. A new wave of inflation is now feared and the market is giving our Federal Reserve Board no credence as a force to contain it.

Our Kleptocrat-in-Chief is planning to revive his $1,776 billion “settlement” with the Justice Department next year. Yes, they have been saying that it is dead. They lie. Two Republican Senators wanted to see it removed as a possibility in writing in order to confirm Todd Blanche. Instead of giving them what they want, Trump is now planning to withdraw the current request and resubmit his name next year. This will allow them to resurrect the plan along with his immunity from all American tax law. The DOJ is writing checks, one for $1 million, to people who have been “wronged” by Biden’s prosecution of attackers in the January 6, 2021 attempted insurrection.

There are actually a number of positive things happening that may give many of us hope for the future.

Will democracy and science and reason survive? We will see. We will cherish and support each other as we cope with these never ending tidal waves of madness. Let’s connect and share our thoughts on how to find our joy and nurture it in others until sanity returns.

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.

**************************************************************

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.
*************************************************************