The Ethical Society

[YankeyMCC]

So I went to my first Ethical Society Sunday platform today.

I've been looking (not hard but keeping my eyes and ears open) for an organization that might help me provide a sense of community and tradition based on secular ethics for my son. I've checked out the UU church in my town, lots of nice people but although they do make people feel welcome most of the congregation is theist and the children activities are to much geared towards xian lessons.

So I checked out the Ethical Society (http://aeu.org/) and it sounded much more like what I was looking for...although I hesitated over the 'religion' label, still they had an interesting speaker (http://www.nwei.org/NWEI/Voluntary_Simplicity.html) today and I thought they deserved a look.

It was a nice program, an opening statement, some music from Mozart and Beethoven from two talented musicians, one on clarinet and one on violin, the Voluntary Simplicity talk in which the speaker didn't just give a laundry list of how to reduce your carbon footprint but talked about her experiences, what led her to environmental activism, how she's seen communities and support groups spring up around efforts to live lower impact lives and other environmental activities.

Lots of nice people that I felt very comfortable around and I'm likely to go back, at least when they have interesting topics, but I was among the youngest people there - and I'm no spring chicken :) and I asked about children oriented activities and there just isn't any children in this community. There was one young couple and the wife said she had been raised in the Ethical Society (in NY area I think she said) which was encouraging but they had no children and part of what I was looking for is a place to bring my son and help get him involved.

There are other community activities we can get involved with of course but I was hoping to find an organization that did have ethics and generalized community involvement (as opposed to one specific aspect like spots, politics, environment) from an explicitly rationalistic and secular point of view as its foundation. The Ethical Society seems to met that except for the lack of children and very few young people (at least in the Boston chapter).

I was just curious if anyone else here is a regular member or attends platforms or events sponsored by the Ethical Society.

[trotsky]

1. Interesting. Never even knew they existed.

No chapter here in Minnesota, otherwise I would probably check them out.

[Warpy]

2. I cringe when I hear "voluntary simplicity"

because for me, for far too many decades, it was involuntary. My carbon footprint is ridiculously small simply because I couldn't afford the lifestyle of a normal healthy person who could work full time and get health insurance.

I guess it's voluntary simplicity now, though, since I got so damn good at being poor that I see no reason to change.

I'm glad you found a good group. For those of us who live in less enlightened areas, groups like vegetarian societies and the like are also generally involved in leaving small footprints on a fragile earth.

[Zoigal]

3. Hope you've found an Ethical Society

group by now. Used to attend in St. Louis. There's one here in
LA, and also Seattle and other areas. Have you checked for locations on line?
Good luck. z

[YankeyMCC]

4. I have found one...

and attended the meeting, it was very nice but no children which is a bit of a concern for me. As I said, I may still attend more but not sure about becoming a member since it doesn't seem like it will met one of my goals for searching out such an organization...providing a community connection for my son.