tcpip | Software Freedom Day, Bold Claims, Scepticism, Secularism and Unitarian News

Software Freedom Day was held on September 17, which I took the mantle of organising with just over a month to spare. Some 70 people turn up to the event (about twice as many as expected), which included a "Free as in lunch BBQ with open sauce". It was always planned to have a much smaller event than last year's award winning event at the State Library which had a couple of hundred visitors, a Senator as the keynote and a budget in the thousands. This year's gathering had a budget of about $100, and more emphasis on the developer community and small, face-to-face workshops planning events for the upcoming year. Kathy Reid gives an excellent summary of the day.

Completed a review of To Be Or To Become, a book by a person who thinks they've discovered a "a new and unifying theory of our world that goes beyond present-day science and religion". A rather bold claim that doesn't quite make the high requirements of proof necessary. The author took some umbrage at my review and responded making all sorts of claims on my biographical details along with some comments on the text. The former I dealt with in email (for example he claimed that "Wikipedia editors" had placed the Totally-disputed tag on my user entry).

On a related topic, went to see Michael Shermer speak at the University of Melbourne yesterday. His presentation was pretty much pitched at a general audience so it didn't really do much for me; it outlined that humans (along with some other apes) have a pattern-seeking mind and that we're prone to belief because (a) false positives are less dangerous than false negatives in a survival sense and (b) we get a goood dopamine hit when we find ourselves in agreement with others. I am interested in his background as a fundamentalist Christian and how he became a skeptic from that background and also the so-called God Helmet, which did feature in his presentation.

Also on Saturday chaired the incorporation meeting of the Victorian Secular Lobby, which has a good turnout with a wide variety of people, including members of the Atheist Meetup groups, some ALP activists (who certainly have their work cut out), members of the Unitarians and of course members of the Isocracy Network which initiated the Victorian Secular Lobby a year ago. Our main interest is to lobby and resource politicians, councillors etc on the importance of the separation of church and state and in abolition of various special benefits that religious organisations receive in this state that other non-profits do not receive.

Apropos, I have nominated for Deputy Chairperson of the Melbourne Unitarian Church with elections due this Sunday. It has been a very good year for the church with a increase of some twenty members and recent interest in establishing an eastern suburbs congregation. My 'election statement' follows pretty much from the material I produced last year and in particular on a service I gave on the future of UU in Victoria. Unfortunately many of those members have not been involved for the requisite six months and thus are precluded from voting. Nevertheless, I suspect that the election will be very close.