Bible Study Group for non-believers

[Steve]

Sid Hall and I have discussed sponsoring a bible study group for those
non-believers who are interested in improving their understanding of
what the Judeo-Christian bible says and what it means -- particularly
with respect to what the various authors were trying to accomplish.

I want to know who would be interested in participating in such a
course -- it would last 4-6 weeks -- the details are still pending.

Let me know if you could commit to this and when would be a good day
of the week. I am thinking Saturday mornings, but that is still quite
flexible.

Steve B

[Clare Wuellner]

Definitely interested. Weekends are better for me.

[mettachic]

I'm interested depending on the start date. Weekends are best,
especially if there's some kind of child care option involved (TUMC
has that great little playscape it shares with AHB).

Angel

[Jo Zarb]

I'm definitely interested, but I'll be away from Austin from August
15th through September 10th.

If that doesn't disqualify me, Saturday morning would be a good time
for me, or any weekday morning other than Tuesday.

Jo

[Anastasia]

I am definitely interested! Saturday mornings would be great for me!
Thanks!

On Jul 22, 7:20 pm, Steve <sbratt...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Dave B.]

Love the idea. And yes, Saturday mornings are best for me (but not
too early!)

Dave

On Jul 22, 7:20 pm, Steve <sbratt...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Craig Leach]

I'd be interested too.

[Shelley Roberts]

Saturdays?
It is appealing to understand what these myth slaves pretend to know,
but I am open to any other day of the week, evenings.
Where would it be at?

Shelley

[Patrick Draper]

On 07/23/2011 07:16 AM, Shelley Roberts wrote:
> Saturdays?
> It is appealing to understand what these myth slaves pretend to know,
> but I am open to any other day of the week, evenings.
> Where would it be at?
>
> Shelley

I'm interested as well.

If it works out well, can we go on to other texts from other religions?

[Shelley Roberts]

You mean Koran, Analects of Confucius, Bhagavad Gītā; stuff like that?

Shelley

[David Burrows]

I don't know what he means, Shelly, but I for one like the idea of reading such texts.  I find comparative religion--and ancient texts of any kind, really--highly interesting.  I have already read the Qur'an, the Tao Te Ching, and several Buddhist scriptures.  I'd love to explore a bit more if anyone else wanted that too.

Dave

[Shelley Roberts]

Awesome. Let's do this. Giggles and all.

Shelley

[Patrick Draper]

On 07/23/2011 09:17 AM, Shelley Roberts wrote:
> You mean Koran, Analects of Confucius, Bhagavad Gītā; stuff like that?

Exactly. I know little of those texts, but quite a lot more of the Bible.

[Shelley Roberts]

So, who is going to lay out the lesson plan? Or shall we just take it as
each week unfolds.

Shelley

[Steve]

I expect that Sid would be the primary designer of the course. The
other texts would be good subjects for a different class. We would
have to locate someone with equivalent expertise on those -- or take
turns becoming experts and sharing with the class.

Right now, however, I am just working on the Jewish and Christian
stories, and I think Sid would be great for that. This was a feeler to
see if there was enough interest to continue planning for the course,
which would almost certainly be held at Trinity UMC.

Subsequent classes dealing with other mythologies might also be held
there, but that is not an issue now.

My next step is to let Sid know that we seem to have an interested
core and to start developing an outline of how the course would go --
subject to change based on feedback from participants. Once this is
done I will post this info. in this Google group.

Steve

[mettachic]

If there's a substantial number of people who want childcare while the
bible study group meets at TUMC, I'm happy to see if the gals who are
providing care during the Parenting Beyond Belief Workshop would be
interested in doing the same during the bible study class. They're
both former guides at Primavera. I don't know if TUMC has a regular
pool of care providers they use. If they don't, at least there may be
options.

And the former Primavera guides wouldn't be available on Saturday,
October 15th, for obvious reasons. :)

Angel

[Steve Bratteng]

As I recall when Sid and I discussed the course, he felt setting up childcare would be a fairly simple thing. I will check on this among the other planning items to deal with.

-- 

Steve

[der Brat]

 

[Rachel Harger]

I would like to participate in this Bible study. Right now I work on
Saturdays until 3pm. That will change after the summer

[Steve Bratteng]

Sid has been out of town and we have not made any arrangements, yet. It almost certainly will not be before the end of summer.

[Shelley Roberts]

rats.

Shelley

[Steve Bratteng]

Are you looking for a class on rodents?

[John Kingman]

The way things are looking, summer is here to stay! :-(

John

[Steve Bratteng]

You one of them commie climate change creeps?

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 10:43 PM, John Kingman <jaki...@gmail.com> wrote:

The way things are looking, summer is here to stay! :-(

John

--

Steve

[der Brat]

 

[Steve]

Update on bible class. Sid Hall is still on vacation, and so we have
not made any specific plans for the course.

In case you are interested there is also an online course on the real
roots of Christianity: http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=15164.0

[Steve]

I was hoping to have the bible study class on the weekends, but that
was not a reasonable option. So, we will have 4 classes on Wednesday
evenings in September.

Among the things we hope to do is allow participants to pick some
specific areas they would like to explore in some depth. Of course, it
will not be possible to cover the entire Old Testament thoroughly, but
I think we can have an interesting and informative series of
discussions. If there is interest we could spin off some discussions
on topics that come up during the class.