Turns out Saskatoon has a Freethinkers group. It’s affiliated with the Centre of Inquiry and are hoping to promote atheism and the secular humanist approach to life in this city and beyond.
I’ll put more in here as I learn more about what all they do, and what all I can do to help spread the word.
For now, have a look at our (I can say that now!) Youtube channel but there’s not much in it yet beyond Blasphemy Day celebrations.
October 18/09
We’re also in the middle of our own atheist bus campaign. So far there are four small ads running in four buses in the city, but they’ll be looking at getting two placed on the bus butts so people have something interesting to look at while they wait at stop lights. Other options of advertising are being considered. They’ve already got shirts with their bus slogan which I’ll buy next time we meet up, I think.
After our meeting, we did the Stand Against Poverty Pledge, and got counted. We also heard from one of the council members who got to attend the recent International Atheist Conference in California and reminded us that next year it’s being held in Montreal. Something to consider for holidays next year, methinks.
November 15/09
Today we had a meeting to discuss how to deal with death and dying. We heard from a woman who is in the memorial business. She explained how small a role religion plays when choosing a way to immortalize a life for a tombstone or memory plaque. People do prefer to pick ways that celebrate the life rather than the doctrine regarding what might happen after. Another woman got up to discuss the parenting aspect of it, in terms of talking to kids about loss and helping them understand it without belittling their feelings or thinking they need to be sheltered from the experience. Then we broke off for smaller discussions.
The woman next to me had recently lost a loved one, so she didn’t feel like talking about how to deal while she was trying to do it, so the two of us talked about life and jobs and movies and anything else we could think of to pass the time until the end of discussion. All I wound up sharing from our discussion was a story regarding my mother and her sister who had died. Dad’s sister e-mailed me to tell me that if that aunt had been taking X herbal medical mumbo jumbo, she might not have died. She wanted me to pass that along to my mother for some reason. I deleted the missive without ever telling Mom what she said. The audacity of the claim blew my mind.
