Lake Superior Freethinkers

Questioning Religion? You’ve got friends here.

August Newsletter is online now
Help wanted at Pride & Harvest Fest – Upcoming Sunday Program

LSF @ Pride and Harvest Fest

HELP NEEDED – table for LSF and have fun getting the word out.

Lake Superior Freethinkers is looking for a few good free thinkers to staff our booths at two events in September: The Duluth Pride Festival and the Lake Superior Sustainable Farmer’s Association’s 2026 Harvest Fest. Both are at Bayfront Festival Park.

Pride is Saturday, Sep. 5th (10AM-7PM) and Harvest Fest is on Saturday Sep. 12th (10AM-4PM) Please sign up for a an hour or two to help out and to have a good time.

These family-friendly events are a lot of fun with good food and other exhibitors to enjoy. There is free parking for exhibitors and vendors. We have our own tent for Pride and for Harvest Fest our booth is in their “big tent” so if there is rain there is a bit of shelter.

Last year we had many great conversations with visitors. Mostly what we do at these events is just listen to people. Visitors to our booth are generally not shy about revealing their liberal/atheist/agnostic inclinations and can be very vocal about Christian nationalism, religion in general and politics.

Don’t feel like you need to be an expert debater or a polished speaker for these events. Your authenticity is more important than knowledge or skill. It is never confrontational, always friendly. Actually, the less we say the better. Let folks talk and be themselves. You’ll be surprised and gratified at what you hear.

For Pride, contact Mike Johnson 715-319-1428, dewnorth@hotmail.com

For Harvest Fest, contact David Bellert, 218-499-5422 or dabell23@icloud.com

Why Resist Generative AI?

Sunday September 6, at 10:00 at One Roof’s Central Hillside Community Center at 12 East 4th Street in Duluth (coffee / chat at 9:30). Zoom link

Professor at University of Minnesota Duluth, Elizabethada A. Wright has two co-edited books, one book in press on public memory, and has published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, College English, Rhetoric Review, College English Association Critic, Studies in the Literary Imagination, as well as in a number of other journals and books.

Why Resist Generative AI?

While many educators are aware of how AI is hindering student learning and thinking, many

may not have considered AI’s far-reaching ethical issues. This presentation will outline the argument made by scholars regarding the ethics and why economics tell us AI is not inevitable.

Epistemology

Sunday October 4, at 10:00 at One Roof’s Central Hillside Community Center at 12 East 4th Street in Duluth (coffee / chat at 9:30). Zoom link

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called the theory of knowledge, it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony. — Wikipedia
(the presentation will be given by a group of LSF members, not Wikipedia)

The Big One: Pandemics

Sunday Nov. 1. at 10:00 at One Roof’s Central Hillside Community Center at 12 East 4th Street in Duluth (coffee / chat at 9:30). Zoom link
(This speaker is rescheduled from March)

Dr. Osterholm is Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Heath, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, a professor in the Technological Leadership Institute, College of Science and Engineering, and an adjunct professor in the Medical School, all at the University of Minnesota. He is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and the Council of Foreign Relations. In June 2005 Dr. Osterholm was appointed by Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
to the newly established National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity. In July 2008, he was named to the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center, Aos Academy of Excellence in Health Research. In October 2008, he was appointed to the World Economic Forum Working Group on Pandemics.

Trending on the Hard Right

Sunday December 6, at 10:00 at One Roof’s Central Hillside Community Center at 12 East 4th Street in Duluth (coffee / chat at 9:30). Zoom link

Travis McAdam will discuss the hard-right trends observed by the Southern Poverty Law Center through its monitoring and discuss some of the hate and anti-government groups active in Minnesota.

Travis McAdam serves as a Manger of Research and Analysis for the Southern Poverty Law Center where he oversees a team monitoring anti-government groups across the country. Before coming to SPLC, he worked at a statewide organization in Montana doing similar work. For more than 25 years, he has researched, written about, and helped communities respond to white nationalists, militias, and other hard-right extremists. In recognition of his efforts, the Gonzaga University Center for the Study of Hate presented him with its 2022 Eva Lassman “Take Action Against Hate” award.