The April Edition of Bangalore Freethinkers Meet was held at the National Gallery of Modern Arts at 11:00 am on 26th of April. I reached the venue around half an hour late. The group that had gathered was much smaller than usual. None of them were new faces for me as well. There was a casual round of introduction, which somehow seamlessly transformed into a discussion about marriage, monogamy, polygyny. The role of religion in marriage. Whether religion predated societal morals in promoting monogamy? Attitudes about monogamy in various religions and societies.
picture courtesy: NGMA
We reached an agreement that the topic that we stumbled on was more interesting to discuss rather than the topic that was designated for the day. Which was Net neutrality. Though it was a very relevant issue, it was unlikely to draw a lot of disagreements as we would unanimously support it. The discussion on marriage was continued. The discussion moved on to violence in religions and how reform is needed in religions for them to achieve peace. The recent trend of moving towards a right wing philosophy was also among the concerns raised.
The discussion hovered around the caste system for a while too. Ambedkar’s view on the caste system and his explanation on why it would be hard to eliminate the caste system, as long as people keep taking pride in their caste and look down on those belonging to lower castes.
Towards the end of the discussion we agreed to decide on a topic of discussion for the next month in advance. We came up with two. The topic of discussion for the Meeting in May (To be held on May 31st) would be “How to deal with insults in non-safe spaces”
The meeting in June would discuss the topic of “Cognitive Bias in Superstitions”.
There was also a call for better co-ordination with other rational and like minded groups in order to achieve common objectives on the ground. If you were present at the meeting and you feel I have missed something please bring it to my notice. Also please feel free to share links or resources that were discussed in the meeting or relevant to the topic. I’m sharing two links below. The first one is about a matriarchal society in China. The second one is about a form of polygamy practiced in India.
http://www.mosuoproject.org/walking.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/open-magazine/the-water-wives_b_7041320.html
Everyday Conspirators 