Conditions for Membership

These are necessary conditions for attending our meetings.

Anonymity – This is an anonymous group.  Ideas from this meeting can be shared, but please do not use any person’s name in discussion about what happens here.

Questioning Our Beliefs – We discuss challenging issues and ideas here.  Be prepared to think about all of your beliefs, your place in the world, and how society operates.  However, if you feel like you are too triggered or need to take a break please do so.

Creating a Safe Space – No one is entitled to be in this space with us.  While we would like to include everyone here, we will prioritize creating a safe environment for people from marginalized groups and / or people who are doing the work to grow. 

Addressing Harm – We will address harm done to others.  We may ask anyone to leave if their presence is causing too much harm or interfering with our mission.  We reject the platitudes and thought - terminating clichés that we ought to make safe spaces for oppressive people, organizations, or ideas.  This is a direct threat to our aims because of the paradox of tolerance.  Taken from Wikipedia, “the paradox of tolerance states that if a society's practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them.”  We can disagree over opinions of little consequence like about who is the best musical artist, but not opinions of dire consequence like human rights.

No Tone Policing – We do not tone police and we do not prioritize civility over addressing people causing harm.  People cause harm and perpetuate oppression and bigotry in an expensive suit using a kind and gentle voice.  People also uphold justice and empathy for marginalized people with harsh, loud, and “vulgar” language.  At this group, we focus on the impact of what is being said and whom it affects, not how it is said.  Society too often dismisses victims because they did not respond politely or kindly to their aggressor.  Not here.  If a person who is harmed reacts harshly, we do not use their harsh reaction as a reason to dismiss their concerns.  It is incredibly easy to be civil from a place of privilege and in discussions about laws, beliefs, or movements that do not directly affect us or those we care about.  We do not rationalize, minimize, or dismiss the suffering and lived experience of those who are marginalized by tone policing.

Outside Organizations and Belief Systems – While we welcome any relevant information pertaining to our mission, the facilitator and group may push back on literature, ideas, or practices from other organizations or belief systems that we find harmful or counterproductive. We do not wish to limit sharing what may help members outside this room, but we have found that not every group shares our same values here.  In fact, this group was created because we feel that other groups and societal structures actively do not prioritize what we find most important.  We will not compromise or water down our organization to make space for problematic ideas and people.  We encourage members that feel censored by our facilitating of discussions to explore any other organizations, experts, and support groups for their well-being.  However, we also ask these members to ask themselves why these expectations feel uncomfortable for them.  Often the cognitive dissonance people feel in this group is due to privilege, a new awareness of their own harmful beliefs and actions or inactions, and the fact that in this group they are now in an equitable position with others.

This Group Is Secular – We welcome any person of faith who would like to make the world a better place.  We have found that many people in organized religion come by their beliefs honestly and with good intentions.  This group does not exclude people of faith, and it would be impossible with the world as it is to affect enough positive change without people of faith in our coalition.  However, we have also found that religion (as well as many other societal structures and groups) can be rife with double standards, fallacious reasoning, abuse, greed, authoritarianism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and more.  To ignore the history, patterns, and current practices of any organizations that wield power and influence would be in direct opposition of our desire for an equitable practice of accountability for all systems and people.  While this may be triggering or upsetting for people who would otherwise like to join, we will not “special plead” and allow members to opt out of examining all their beliefs.  The reason for this is that we have found that many religions and people of faith hold contradictory, false, or abusive views that subjugate and marginalize others.  Because these are beliefs of “dire consequence” (views that infringe on others’ rights and how they ought to live), there is a higher standard of evidence needed to justify why we ought to adopt or tolerate them.  We do welcome debates and for people to defend their beliefs (at appropriate times, only in “good faith,” and not merely to satiate the cognitive dissonance members of faith may experience when being asked to think critically about their beliefs), but this group is secular and does not make space for faith-based beliefs simply because it is what humanity has done for centuries.  This is an is-ought fallacy; just because this is how we have existed, this is not justification for why we ought to continue to do so.  We do not prioritize comfort over the truth.  We wish to make the world better by establishing what we ought to believe through logic, reasoning, empathy, equity, and hard and necessary conversations.  If you attend and you share about religious-based beliefs (or any beliefs) be prepared for the group to question you about them, ask you to stop speaking about them, or even ask you to leave if you cannot or will not respect the boundaries of the group.

Accessibility – If you have any requests for how we can make attending this group more accessible, safe, and comfortable for you, please talk to the facilitator or group member about how we can try to help.  However, we only accommodate in certain ways, we do not accommodate protecting people from feeling cognitive dissonance around their harmful ideas or actions.