MDC is the original WASH chapter with members or other interested people in the greater Washington area including Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland.

Our members cover the spectrum labeled freethinkers, skeptics, secular humanists, non-theists, atheists, agnostics and the recent Nones or “not sure”.

Like other WASH chapters we participate in a range of activities with other groups of like interests.

April 2018 MDC Meeting

Discussing Street Epistomology

I’m hosting a meeting to discuss a conversational method of belief checking called “Street Epistemology” (SE) on Th. April 26th (7:30-9:30) to broadly discuss the practice of and issues with Street Epistemology.
This will be at my house in Potomac.A preliminary agenda for the session and will include a 10-15′ intro to some of the Street Epistemology ideas and practices, which are usually applied to religious, faith-based beliefs.

In preparation it might be useful for people to look at this 1 minute intro to Street Epistemology.

What is Street Epistemology? | One Minute Intro (with narration)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moApG7z2pkY&index=13&list=PLh10RgQgGuM-Jy4ADVLUjJZfCnaO9ILBR

There are a number of other videos, 5 minutes or so that show people struggling with the Q of what they believe when asked “how do you believe that” and “why so high a confidence?” We could also look at one of these although there is a slightly longer one

based on social media exchanges that is a bit more interesting in some ways and more representative of the types of conversations we have and how SE might be used.

It could provide a richer base for discussion, since we live in a time of such alt-fact and ideologically based, rigid beliefs I think it would be interesting to discuss and explore other areas in which these techniques of asking “how do you know?” that might be applied.

It may be that SE or perhaps a modified version would be applicable to a wider range of topics (such as other moral issues, economics or even politics) and settings.

Any thoughts and opinions on this welcome to improve the session.

I don’t expect that we will exceed my living room space, where we have had discussion events for up 20 people, but I will try to keep track of the numbers on the MeetUp page and email responses.

For Meetup Info See https://www.meetup.com/humanism-218/events/248445913/

For general information and if there are any questions you may contact the chapter coordinator:

Gary Berg-Cross via email at gbergcross@wash.org.

For general information about the MDC chapter, contact Gary Berg-Cross via email (gary@wash.org) or via phone (240-426-0770).

P.O. Box 15319 Washington, DC 20003

General info on WASH MDC mdc@wash.org

Phone: 240-426-0770

Please remember that WASH is a volunteer organization. Contributions of your time and money are the core of WASH’s ability to serve you, our membership. If you’re not already a member, please consider joining for $35, or at least becoming a friend of WASH for $10. If you have the means to provide financial support for WASH beyond the membership dues, your contributions help WASH engage in projects such as the following:

Printing of the Ingersoll Walk booklet (estimated cost: $300)
Upgrades for the next Ingersoll Oratory Contest to include rental of a tent, an improved PA system, and upgraded prizes for contestants (estimated cost: $2,000).
A project to make WASH generated videos available on YouTube (estimated cost: $500)
Support for student groups (estimated cost: $500)
Support for a fee-based speaker, such as professional interpreters of Jefferson (Steve Edenbo) or Madison, book authors, or others at a WASH event (estimated cost: $3,000)
Advertising campaigns such as billboards (estimated cost: $5,000)

Thank you!