Example: “Happy Birthday”
o Written by a school teacher in 1800s
o Now rights are owned by Time Warner until 2020
Should ideas become property? What might be the motivations?
o Jealousy, greed
o Profit
o Societal benefit
o Distribution
Is creating a work of art purely for profit something that can be considered manipulative?
o In this case, should they be given the right to intellectual property for so long if its being created for profit as these creations tend to be?
Copyrighting – When created, a copyright is automatically associated with the creative work.

Patenting
o Patents expire much sooner than intellectual property rights
o Human genome has been widely patented
o Drugs that can impact survival are patented – generics must wait until patent has expired to provide for much less money
Should organisms be patented?
o Drugs – penicillin is a common, useful organism
o Is right over that life automatically bad? Ex: organism used to break down crude oil has been patented.
What about differences in country laws?
o Child pornography – viewable in one country, but not another? In Soviet Russia CP watches you.
o Should an international standard be reached to prevent such discrepancies?

Topic: Burqas in France

Sarkozy announced in June that burqas were “not welcome” in France.

What are the possible benefits of banning dress and symbols such as the burqa?

• Women are not oppressed, treated like property
• Many women are forced to wear the burqa by family
• Reduce abuse in religious community due to visibility

What are the drawbacks?

• Revocation of the option to wear the burqa removes a right women previously had
• When you make something taboo, people cling to it – create an alternative, attractive culture
• Infringing upon the personal, non-offensive wear of the religious

Is the state justified in taking such action against personal religious symbols?

• Separation of church and state has benefitted the religious as well as the non-religious
• One must determine the infringement upon personal rights
• Is the law motivated by nationalism/overbearing secularism taking away personal right to religious expression?
• The secular members of society expect freedom from oppression – applying this same oppression to the way of life for the religious can be seen as hypocritical and counter-productive
• In a blanket ban on the burqa, you eliminate the choice of women who are not being forced to wear it
• Many women see the burqa for its original purpose – modesty to avoid being objectified

Why might France seek to outlaw the wearing of the burqa?

• Oppressive of women
• Hides identity of wearer – possible hidden threat
• Religious symbols are already banned in French schools – children cannot wear crucifixes or any other type of outward religious symbolism

We had a short ice breaker just for people to introduce themselves.  It was great idea as it gave the members a chance to interact a bit and learn about the new faces in the group. One of the best things about all these freethinker groups is the amount of diversity in the group. We have people coming from the Hasidic Jewish community, from the South and quite a few other interesting backgrounds. The new members seemed to have really liked it and the older members seem to be excited about the prospect of engaging in discussions with new people.

From the impression that I received, it seems very likely that SBU Freethinkers has doubled in size. Hopefully the interest stays high for the entire year and SBU Freethinkers can really establish itself as a visible force on campus.

DAY 1, Thursday June 25th 2009

The conference began on Thursday, June 25th. I took an overnight greyhound bus in, as it only set me back one US dollar. The bus surprisingly had Wifi, which came in handy since half way in, a fellow came in and took up a lot of my leg room, thus sleep was no longer an option. Once I arrived in the Buffalo airport, I met up with four other student leaders, Roy Natian, Michael Garret Amini, Jon Adams and Jamie Moore. We took the awesome CFI van to the CFI Head Quarters, and arrived about 10:00AM or so. I got the chance to get a very early building tour. The most amazing aspect of the entire tour was the library. It contains more than 60,000+ books, as well as many rare books such as a First Edition copy of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. This library is actually the largest skeptical and secular library in the word. I suppose, if there were ever a heaven, this would be it. If I am ever able, I would love to spend hours upon hours, or even days upon days in this library just devouring all the knowledge I possible can. Eventually many more student leaders began to arrive, such as the very awesome Sarah Kaiser who has done an amazing job in Indiana (especially with the Atheist Bus Campaign). The first day was not as action packed as the other days, and I spent most of it just interacting with the other student leaders and participating in small group conversations. As the day went on, many more students arrived and we attended a couple interesting sessions.

DAY 2, Friday June 26th 2009

This day was filled with sessions, it began with Coffee (yuck) and Breakfast at 8am and ended with disgustingly bad Buffalo Wings in a Buffalo restaurant around 3am on Saturday. A few informational sessions from D.J. Grothe (of the Point of Inquiry Podcast) Debbi Goddard (of CFI On Campus Outreach), Adam Isaak (Intern at CFI On Campus Outreach), Jefferson Seaver (CFI Michigan), and one very awesome session led by Roy Natian (UCLA) on using the internet as a tool to effectively market your group and keep it growing. Roy’s session actually inspired me to finally begin working on the SBU Freethinkers website again. I have started to build a few new pages (Executive Page), reconstruct the Footer, and begin using the blog again. We left for lunch (sandwiches ftw) and had quite a few more very informational sessions one of them being the Student Panel which consisted of Barry Greenstein, Adrienne Asselmeier, Eric Mathison, Michael Garret Amini, and Joel Guttormson. The student panel was probably one of my favorites as it gave me quite a few ideas to take back home and begin working on. The day wrapped up with a toast and a very nice lecture by John Shook. Hopefully the SBU Freethinkers can have the honor of hosting Mr. Shook at some point in the future for an event on campus. We went back to the dorms around 8 or 9 pm hung out for awhile talking about the future of SBU FT and other nubbyy business. After a late night run to some poorly run food establishment (as I imagine most are in Buffalo… at least compared to NYC and Long Island) we finally packed it in around 3am.

DAY 3, Saturday June 27th 2009

This was perhaps the best day there. It began with most of SBU FT’s executive board, including yours truly waking up rather late and missing most of the first session. We finally got our act together and attended the rest of the sessions. Saturday for us began with a talk from John Shook and Debbi Goddard about the new “Campaign for Free Expression” (more about that soon) followed by a few sessions from Whitney Kemp and Debbi Goddard. After these sessions we all went outside for a group photo. Thankfully the weather had cleared up and so the picture came out lovely.

After lunch, my personal favorite session of the entire weekend was held. It was Massimo Pigliucci (the former Faculty Adviser for SBU Freethinkers, and all around amazing intellectual. His lecture was as always, informative, funny, and thought provoking. I got to chat with him for a bit afterward about a debate I am planning for this fall between him and Carl Safina and a few other related matters. If you are interested in reading Massimo’s material, feel free to check out rationallyspeaking.org as it is by far the best blogs on the internet. After a couple other workshops in which the students were able to interact and participate in discussions it was time for the amazing Eddie Tabash. He is always a treat as his ability to put forth a reasoned argument against god (or any other topic) is simply unmatched. After his talk, it was time for a debate between Ron N. Atas of the Church of Near Universal Damnation (Ron Lindsey, CEO of CFI in character) and Eddie Tabash. This was a rather amusing event, as Mr. Atas put forth the common arguments (at some points in a more articulate and intelligent way than most religious folk would) and Eddie Tabash smashed each one. Hopefully at some point we can bring Mr. Tabash back for a debate instead of a lecture. Then it was onto one of the best parts of the entire weekend, the ice cream social! So many toppings, which to choose? It certainly was not an easy decision. After a little socializing, the SBU FT e-board went out to Friendly’s for a nice dinner… we weren’t going to take any chances with local food this time around.

DAY 4, Sunday June 28th 2009

This was the last day at CFI, and I certainly was not looking forward to it ending, but I suppose like all good things, it had to end at some point. The morning began with awards handed out to some of the campus leaders/groups, hopefully we can win one of those next year as they looked awfully spiffy. Another session by D.J. Grothe on the Future of CFI, and then some more round table like discussion between the students. These sessions are always great as interacting with other people who share many of the same values is always fun. The next session was with Joe Nickell on “Investigating the Paranormal” which is always a fun thing to do. After Mr. Nickell, there were two more sessions which essentially were about the future goals of CFI and general future direction of CFI. After lunch, 2/3s of the SBU FT left for Rochester and I stuck around socializing with some of the remaining students. I got some contact information and by 3pm, it was time to head for the airport. The van to the airport was fun and even met someone who reads this blog! Overall the experience was amazing. I would really like to thank all those involved in planning and execution of the event. I would also like to thank the students who attended for being great company.

Sustainability

An RA has alluded to being unhappy that we are using so much paper, and all I can do is apologize, and promise that we are trying to be as efficient as possible. We have promoted the group though every non-paper method available. Facebook group and ads, google groups, aim, email, face-to-face, and this website. We choose to use paper as well because we want to make sure the less internet-savvy freethinkers are able to participate as well. We will try to reduce and conserve once we are established.

EDIT: We have now published a page on our efforts to operate a sustainable organization. http://sbufree.com/sustainability

Freethought

Some have also commented on a contradiction or hypocrisy in our name. They say that to be a “Freethinker” you must accept all kinds of beliefs. They say that by excluding theists, we are just as closed-minded as them. I explain that we aren’t the first ones to use the word in this context, and that in fact to use it to refer to an open minded theist would actually be a contradiction of the definition of the word.

Freethinker: A person who has formed their opinions using reason and rational enquiry; somebody who has rejected dogma, especially with regard to religion.

Then I go on to explain why we reject religion, and why it is in one’s best interest to do so. I use part of the argument brought up by Moiz Khan. Religion asks you to be a slave, a sheep, and it asks you to submit yourself to a supernatural. It asks you to give up reasoning, to give up thoughts, to give up judgment, and to consider yourself unworthy. I cannot see how I could characterize any person who lives by this as a freethinker, or even someone who thinks freely (to avoid the definition of freethinker).

But let’s suppose there is a theist who, a most theists do, pick and choose what they follow and believe; an a la carte theist, or a “Cafeteria Catholic” as many intellectual Catholics refer to themselves. This theist claims that he does not obey any higher power, and has drawn his own conclusions about God and the universe. Firstly, I wouldn’t believe it, because where did they get these beliefs from in the first place? This alone would be enough proof to show they are not freethinkers, but if we can get past that, then why did they (likely) choose the Judeo-Christian Yahweh over any of the other gods through time?  Did they consider polytheism when they came to this realization? We welcome deists to become members, and we invite our theistic brothers and sisters to discuss their beliefs with us, but we will not consider theists to be freethinkers.

Free Speech

Finally there are the people who are offended by the posters’ content. I will not give the least bit of sympathy to such people.

• You are on a college campus that fosters open discussion and higher thought.
• You are in a country that guarantees our right to free speech. I firmly believe that we must talk about these issues in order to make progress. Nothing is sacred.
• You are in a universe that has never come up with evidence for a supernatural, so the least you can allow us to do is point these three things out with a few simple posters.

On top of that, we are not here to offend anyone, and for all that we could plaster the campus with, we have kept our posters very tame and neutral. Most of them just ask a simple personal question: Not sure about religion?… No God? No Problem… Feeling Skeptical?… We are here to portray a positive image of atheists, and we hope you can respect us for that, the same way we respect you.

At home, you’ll find our lovely description of freethought, and our goals. At the bottom, in the footer you will see somewhat of a sitemap with my validation logos, and a full site search box. This is the only search box on every page that will search the whole site, the other search boxes are for more specific purposes. On the side of the page, a recognizable feature throughout the website, is the latest news and a call-to-action. Join Us!

If you look to the right of this post you are reading, you’ll find a search box just for the blog, recent blog entries, tag cloud and blogroll, but I want to point out the recent forum entries. I have created a forum that is integrated with the blog so that you only need one account to post to either. And yes, we are hoping that everyone will join us on the forum and write a blog entry occasionally. Between the 40+ of us, we should be able to run at least a weekly blog.

We reiterate who we are and what freethought is on the about page, and we throw in a few more details. The executive board (as it stands now), affiliations, documents. If you aren’t on facebook, then this will be the place to look for meeting dates and times. You can also check for upcoming events here, but we will probably email you for those. The last item on the sidebar is “Documents”. That is still a little vague at this point, but includes our constitution and minutes. Although we haven’t finished the constitution and don’t have any minutes yet, you can click on Minutes and find a little hidden page for that.

Last, but certainly not least, the links page, which I just finished up tonight. I am still hoping to add more to the extended blogroll, but the page is plenty full for now. Since there were so many on the old site, I split them up into categories, and I still couldn’t use all of them. These are just the ones I felt were most important. If you have any comments or suggestions for the links page, drop it off below.

SBU Freethinkers are now all over the internet. We’ve even been around long enough for Google to have indexed us. I asked ChaCha if there was an atheist group that I could join at SBU and they were able to find us! Not only do we already have a reputation, but I purchased a few more domains to make the website a little easier to reach. http://sbuft.com, http://sbufree.com, http://sbufreethinkers.com and http://sbufreethinkers.org