Our bi-weekly discussion was held on January 29th and revolved around the book "Good Without God", by Greg Epstein.  In this book, Epstein encourages humanists to work with religious organizations rather than always seeing them as enemies.  He claims that some of the more liberal churches should be considered our allies.  This claim lead to some very interesting conversation as not everybody in our group necessarily agrees with this particular sentiment.  Note that this idea isn't necessarily the overall theme of the book, it was just the portion that sparked the most discussion among us.

Agree or disagree, we had a wonderful meeting and I enjoyed the chance to sit down once again with everybody and enjoy some lively discussion.  Again, anybody is welcome to present information or lead a discussion at a future meeting, just contact me with your idea.  Remember to keep checking meetup for updates on future meetings.

Results From The Discussion Held On January 15, 2013

Our new website is finally published!

We had several new faces yesterday at what turned out to be a pretty productive meeting.  Our topic of discussion was to get ideas for what the group should do in 2013 and we had some pretty interesting ones.  We are currently looking to branch out and make ourselves known in the community while hopefully making a positive difference.  Right now we are looking for members to get involved in several different ways: 

• Leading a discussion or presenting some information to the group at a meeting:  This could involve doing a book review or researching a topic of significance.

• Writing letters to the editor in local newspapers:  This could involve writing a letter and submitting it to the group for approval or simply bringing an article of interest to our attention so that another member could respond.  We would love to have the Peoria Secular Humanist Society represented to our community in this way.

• Attending local public meetings:  We would like to start having members attend local government or school board meetings.  If you know the time and place of a meeting that you feel some of our members should attend, please send the info to us.

If you are interested in helping out in one of the above mentioned ways, please send an email to our new address:  peoriasecularhumanists@gmail.com.  Also, if you were unable to attend yesterday's meeting but would like to make a suggestion, please email as well.  I look forward to the exciting activities that are to come this year!

Nick