Sunday, September 16, 2018

Papaveraceae: Where freedom for "Free Nontheist Friends" might further emerge online, GABA - "Re: Sending 10th grade student to Germany - any advice?," WUaS Accreditation ahead, NtF Quaker Meeting virtually with parallels to soaking in the Harbin warm pool virtually (in bath tubs) - ... so centering down, and, inner releasing actions' 'meditations' ~ and socially ... where freedom and "Free Quakers" (and free hippies, too) happen re centering down (or easing meditation) ... Searched on 'Richard Dawkins twitter problems with religion,' NtFs seem at the same time to benefit from non-theism re some of these Tweets, "NtF Free Meeting Quakers" - and re Friends' Hospital in Philadelphia


Greetings, KayR, and NtFs,

Where freedom for "Free Nontheist Friends" might further emerge online in these regards is an interesting question (for me), in that "Free Quakers" seem to emerge in writings that include historical contexts, and in sociocultural anthropological "milieus" (discourses or sub-cultures). What further aspects of "Free Nontheist Quakers" might you be interested in? It seems like we on this NtF email list could hold online "NtF Meetings" (in the manner of Quakers) - but also as a kind of free meditation opportunity for nontheist friends - if people are interested, with the opportunity to talk further face-to-face at the rise of Meeting about contemporary "Free Quakers," for example.

For me with inklings toward freedom and f/Friendliness, I find a kind of freedom in soaking in the Harbin Hot Springs warm pool, with many parallels with sitting in Quaker Meeting with the accordant centering down which occurs. Thinking out of the box, I'm curious how too anyone interested - Quakers/Friends are welcome - might soak virtually and socially in the Harbin warm pool, with its many parallels to going to Friends' Meeting, and re conversing further about contemporary "Free Quakers," as well. (I'm an anthropologist who studies the actual and the virtual, the physical and the digital. And here's another anthropologist, Nick Seaver, thinking along related lines - https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1039895239127789568 - in a fascinating, FLOURISHING online talk, if interested).

Friendly regards, Scott
~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg (here's the Harbin gate in Google Street
View - where you can "walk" down the road '4 miles' to Middletown and 'amble' around
the streets there, if inclined)
~ https://twitter.com/HarbinBook
~ http://bit.ly/HarbinBook  ~



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Hi JohnM and Nontheist Friends (NtFs),

How to create flourishing fellowship or community (or connectedness) online is an interesting and great question that NtFs (and Quakers) in particular might be able to contribute to - and ethically too (which ethics' questions Quakers have contributed to in uniquely Friendly ways historically). (There have been many many rigorous social science studies about ways in which technologies, and in particular, the internet, potentially shape or 'co-constitute' a kind of alienation among people ... many from a Marxian perspective, but some from a Weberian angle too, among many theoretical approaches - e.g. political science, economics, sociology, anthropologically, etc. ... but also many studies which suggest that sociality increases greatly with distributed information technologies and social media for communicating, thus the opposite of alienation is occurring due to technologies' influences on people). Much much has been written in these regards.

Online NTQuaker Meeting with a focus on fellowship could be very beneficial. (Here again, by way of example, is an online NtF Meeting I held - https://youtu.be/-HjY4PBOLT8 - in 2015, with another 2nd Silent Meeting here - https://www.youtube.com/Helianth - to give you an idea of how they could work in group video).

How might we NtFs not only hold Free Online NTQuaker Meeting, in the manner of Friends, but also explore creating flourishing fellowship or community?

Sincerely, Scott

p.s. JohnM, if you reply to nontheist-friends@googlegroups.com then your email goes to all people on this NtF email list - per thread.




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[GABA-STAMMTISCH] Sending 10th grade student to Germany - any advice?
(email thread - gaba-stammtisch@yahoogroups.com)

Hi Michaela,

I spent my 'junior year' in Munich through a Reed College (in Portland, Oregon) program, taking classes at both LMU and through this program in Olympiazentrum, while living in Studentenstadt (and later for a short time in Garching). The credits from this year in Germany on my Reed transcript in the US surprisingly didn't transfer easily.

(Please keep in mind online World University and School, which is CC-4 MIT OCW-centric, and seeks to offer online Bachelor degrees first in English, but eventually even in German - as well as eventually Ph.D., Law, M.D. - defining medicine online anew - and I.B. high school degrees as well - and in all ~200 countries' official languages with time. Here's the beginnings of The College at WUaS - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/The_College_at_World_University_and_School. WUaS is currently anticipating beginning accrediting with the state of California in late October 2018, with final applications due in February 2019, and then concurrently with WASC senior (Both Stanford and UC Berkeley, for example, are accredited by WASC senior). Students, for planning purposes, will be taking some of the ~2,400 MIT OCW courses in English, and in group video conferencing with instructors; because of the CC-4 licensing of MIT OCW, WUaS degrees will be free-to-students, where WUaS will seek reimbursement from governments' ministries of education per student per year - and per a MIT executive director of OCW too ).

Cheers, Scott
- worlduniversityandschool.org
- https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch
- https://twitter.com/WUaSPress?lang=en (planned in all 7097 living languages with machine translation)

P.S. I was living with a Quaker family in Garching, near Munich, for 2 1/2 months here.


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KayR, Amanda and NtFs, 

Brainstorming-wise, and in terms of "freedom" - and "Freeing Quakers" I think it would be interesting, re exploring growing an online NtF Quaker Meeting, to do so a little like we share on this email list, and a little like soaking in the Harbin warm pool which is open 24/7 (with its parallels to Quaker Meeting). So, for example,- and thinking out of the box -  instead of picking a specific day and time of the week to meet for "Non-theist Friends' Meeting" in group video (like going to Quaker Meeting in a particular locale or Friends' Meeting House) we could create both a virtual realistic NtF Meeting House or space or similar, as well as a Harbin warm pool, and could go in to these from our home computers whenever. NtFs could be there in video in this realistic virtual earth/Meeting House on Sundays potentially, but so would avatar bots (like avatars in many video games these days) now realistic. Some avatar bots would be real people, other avatar bots would be virtual (like characters in movies, but newly interactive), so this space would have sociality, but in new ways mediated by avatar bots some actual people / some virtual people.  

So all of this - given that it's easy to access - would facilitate Free NtF Meeting, with centering down, with sociality with other NtFs, but also potentially 24/7 - facilitating more freedom.  

And anyone who is interested in sharing Meeting together in group video Hangouts can request this on this list, and some of us could Meet in video together. How to facilitate and grow from a flourishing actual Quaker Meeting - is a question I'm thinking about further? 

Friendly cheers, Scott

PS there is precedent for this: I google searched on "quaker meeting on sea turtle island in second life" and found, for example -http://scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissFriends.htm - with a link to the no longer working Sea Turtle Island Meeting Room in SL, and I have some blog entries from past years (e.g. http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2015/03/banyan-tree-loving-bliss-harbin-warm.html) about this too.



PPS I blogged too about this thread today here - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2018/09/papaveraceae-where-freedom-for-free.html ...


... so centering down, and, inner releasing actions' 'meditations' ~ and socially ... where freedom and "Free Quakers" (and free hippies, too) happen re centering down (or easing meditation) ...



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Papaveraceae: Where freedom for "free NtF friends" might further emerge online, GABA Re: Sending 10th grade student to Germany, WUaS Accreditation ahead, Parallels to soaking in Harbin warm pool virtually, so centering down 'meditations' ~ hippies too https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2018/09/papaveraceae-where-freedom-for-free.html ~



https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1041466311262388224

https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch/status/1041465540861022208


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As a further thought re this "Free Quakers?" thread, I searched on "Richard Dawkins twitter problems with religion" and found the following Tweets by him, all of which speak to me a bit about the freedom of atheist Quakerism. I appreciate the tradition of Quakers in another way re the potential for Non-theist Friends / NtFs to contribute to Quakerism via Friends General Conference / FGC for example, with the accordant benefits that Friends/Quakers have shared with, taught and learned from many peoples over time. NtFs seem at the same time to benefit from non-theism re some of these Tweets too:

Richard Dawkins twitter problems with religion
https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/986033489333145600?lang=en …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/896502206144401409?lang=en …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/992052680821497857?lang=en …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/1033382870088278017?lang=en …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/897103026103570432?lang=en …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/406072496593453057?lang=en …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/897067391309541376?lang=en …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/688960883154898952 …
-https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/495828357645606912?lang=en …
@WorldUnivAndSch~



https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1041357520109887489





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Tuesday, September 18, 2018
(leaving verbatim)

[NTF-talk] Free Quakers?
(continuing on with this email thread in this blog post) 

 I am in the Central time zone and if others on here are interested in an online Meeting I would certainly give it a try. This Sunday I am trying a virtual one out from somewhere, I think California at some sorta of retreat center. They have it seems one every morning but Sunday ids going to be the best time for me so I'll wait. Would have replied sooner and more but over the weekend I was stung by yellow jackets and was either in pain or hitching too much to think and I just now got back from the hospital because my mom thought a mini stroke was over due. It's the 5th straight week I have had family end up at the hospital so she is laughing about it because it's getting too ridiculous. Anyhoo, needless to say my brain is pretty much not operating and so please forgive for not responding to more comments. Thanks for the replies, though. And if a non-theist Meeting happens then I think I will be in. Maybe I can find a corner in the ER waiting room. :)

 KR



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Wednesday, September 19, 2018 

Hi KayR, NtF Free Meeting Quakers and Friends,

Great ... looking forward to meeting you and potentially other NtFs one of these upcoming Sundays in a NtF Quaker Meeting online in group video, if this works out. It's taken some courage, and independent & innovative thinking, for NtFs to grow and develop together as non-theist Friends or atheist Quakers over a few decades now ... and to remain connected with Quakers via Friends General Conference (FGC) in the process,- but as a 'home' for f/Friendly atheists or non-theists. And an exploratory NtF Meeting online via the Internet (in the manner of unprogrammed Quakers, but invented newly) could be a further great expression of this.

Re hewing a separate path, and John Woolman following his Christian leadings, and with regards to NtFs and Friendly history, I'm an appreciator of John Woolman's abolitionism re the slave trade ... expecially when Meetings were probably extraordinarily divided over the morality of these questions re a commercial industry around trading human lives (in the beginning of the industrial revolution in America too, where slavery was very remunerative probably, and for Friends too - tragically, as I see this). And slavery was a legal institution, so Woolman may have been breaking the law in the early USA, based on his conscience, and Friendly leadings. Conscientious objection and Quakers re breaking the law historically has been based on a kind of morality (discerning - to use a Quaker word for thinking - right from wrong) which seeks to create a better world, and has also involved seeking to change the law especially when it harms people (as in slavery - re its creation of victims) by witnessing to the law's inequity. I appreciate that NtFs have sought to join with FGC - and its probable respect for just laws (in all 50 US states), in these regards as well.

Re NtFs hewing a separate Quakerly path, I'm also an appreciator of Quakers re socially conscious investing. From early on, Quakers eschewed investing in industries such as the slave trade, but also especially in the war industry, on the basis of their independent Friendly leadings - conscience. While I don't think there's any slavery these days in the US, Quakers continue to lead the way with socially conscious investing re the war industry - with, for example, A) Meetings choice of investments, B) "Friends' Fiduciary," C) Quakers being active in socially responsible mutual fund developments in the '60s and '70s and before, and D) in quite a few other ways as well. And laws have changed because of protests (including by Quakers) against their inequity.

Re your email Kay, and "Maybe I can find a corner in the ER waiting room. :)" I'm sorry to hear about your recent travails in the hospital, with yellow jacket stings, and in the Emergency Room. Am also curious re potentially holding NtF Free Meeting online in group video - possibly in Google group video Hangouts and here's Google's new head, Sundar Pichai - https://youtu.be/ogfYd705cRs - talking about recent innovations there - in how Google as a platform could eventually develop into online hospitals from our smart phones, in ways significantly re-defining modern medicine even. I'm thinking Project ECHO with Google Project Baseline here too, but also Friends Hospital in the Philadelphia area, which is one of the oldest hospitals in the US, I think (and is "the first private mental hospital in the nation, and is the oldest such institution with a continuous history of operation") - founded in 1813 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_Hospital). I write in this blog post - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2018/09/eomecon-music-making-sharing-my-caring.html - among quite a few, about the potential for online psychiatry, psychotherapy and especially online psychoanalysis.

But perhaps there are ways (such as being able to go to NtF Meeting while attending virtual Harbin Hot Springs concurrently, see, too - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2018/09/phytoplankton-how-best-to-hike.html) that a video conference platform can further deepen NtF Free Meeting (in the manner of Quakers), vis-a-vis the Meeting Room of a "formal Meeting" (as its own technologies). So exploring a NtF Meeting on a Sunday online in Google group video Hangouts (or Zoom or Skype or Jitsi or ... ) could develop in these directions as well.

Re your upcoming virtual Quaker Meeting re a retreat center in California, and if NtFs had further questions about how best to grow an exploratory NtF Quaker Meeting in group video, I wonder if Mary Klein, who's the editor of Western Friend Magazine (which is the periodical for Western Quakers), and a friend (and who went to Stanford as undergrad) and who's home Meeting is Palo Alto Friends, and who has hosted virtual Quaker Meetings in Zoom on behalf of WF, could possibly share some helpful ideas, if we asked. Creating a flourishing "NtF Meeting" re sociality (in the manner of unprogrammed Quakers) that remains both Free, as well as one which might explore even developing 'Meeting Room I.T.' for further centering-down-flourishing could have much merit.

Warm regards, Scott
- https://twitter.com/scottmacleod




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Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Hi KayR and NtFs,

In searching on Friends' Hospital re my previous email, I just found this interesting video from Friends' Hospital (1813) -

http://www.fox29.com/good-day/355005577-video - on its front page - https://friendshospital.com/ - entitled "How to prepare your kids for life on their own ahead of college" -by Dr. Karriem Salaam, Medical Director at Friends Hospital in Philadelphia discussing importance of building Resiliency in college kids as they head to school, and which I reTweeted here -


https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1042498264870772736.

I'd like to bring to your attention again NtFs to the #NontheistFriends hashtag - https://twitter.com/hashtag/NontheistFriends?src=hash - as well.

Friendly cheers, Scott
- https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/The_College_at_World_University_and_School
- https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2018/09/papaveraceae-where-freedom-for-free.html






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