SBU Freethinkers » free thinkers

Monday October 19 2009

alicia — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:14:23 +0000

Topic: Atheist Ad Campaigns
Positive or Negative?
Based on area, they can be either.
•   $25,000 (donation) spent on subway campaign in NYC
•   Campaign in Indiana – Similar message
How might that money be better spent?
•   Youth programs
•   Education
What do these achieve?
•   In a major metropolitan area, these may not serve much purpose other than awareness.
•   In smaller areas, these may bring people out of the woodwork.
•   Is it worth the cost to bring these people out into the open? A small minority is still a sizable group – can assist in political means, social activism, etc.
•   In the US, where religion almost seems inherent, it can help to raise awareness of our existence and our political weight.
•   Do these campaigns help to enhance the sense of group identity?

Monday September 21 2009

alicia — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:40:13 +0000

Topic: Intellectual Property Rights

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?

First Meeting

Moiz Khan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:35:37 +0000

It is considered conventional wisdom that groups should probably wait a few days or even a week before really getting started with meetings. Today however, SBU Freethinkers proved that notion completely wrong. We started on the first day of classes and the outcome was incredible. Here are a couple pictures from the meeting: (click here for the entire set)

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.