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Originally Posted by elphenor
atheist community organizations are goofy
trade one groupthink for another
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SGR
This is pretty much how I view it.
I do think much of it is due to what is perhaps the innately human desire to organize and 'belong' to something.
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To that, I would defend CFI, whose national headquarters is in my fair city.
All of their events are centered around the promotion of critical thinking, rational skepticism, awareness of the logical fallacies and cognitive biases like the Dunning–Kruger Effect, and other aspects of rational thought.
For one example, our monthly Drinking Skeptically event is hosted by a professor who earned his PhD in philosophy for his dissertation:
Appeal to Conspiracy: An Analysis of the Philosophical Problem of Conspiracy Theories and Theorizing. He's written articles for the UK Skeptic society and the
Skeptical Inquirer. For each meetup, he puts together a topical launching statement to get the discussion going. (And there's beer.)
And I mentioned in the
Your Day thread recently that,
Quote:
I was tapped by the Outreach Coordinator who spoke about a new event series he's launching for roundtable in-depth discussions. He was impressed with my ideas and asked if I would like to create and host some of their first events.
My chosen topic would be the theme for four consecutive bi-weekly forums. He said he expects around 10-15 people per event. The four discussions would be followed by a book club event with a book I would select for everyone to read based on the central theme, and then a fifth and final event would be a lecture by a prominent national figure and subject expert that the organization would pay to fly to our city to give a talk and answer questions. That final event would hopefully have 40-50 persons in attendance.
I'm an introvert so this is a real challenge for me, but I love compiling research on subjects for which I am passionate. I'm putting together a survey of relevant news, media related to the subject to launch the discussions, literature, and potential experts to deliver a talk.
This project will give me something positive to do while I'm unemployed and battling ruminating thoughts. And it will be an opportunity for me to take on an important role in the organization I love and support. Perhaps it will opens doors for me down the line. I just have to overcome my anxieties about hosting and leading all of these events. They would take place this summer.
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And one of our core volunteers who generously hosts all the local Cafe Inquiry and Secular Sunday events always endeavors to put us in check when a member of the group makes a statement which is unscientific, fallacious, or cognitively-biased.
So I'd say that CFI does a good job of steering clear of groupthink. We're not infallible, but we do our best. Just my two cents.