OBJ: New Secular Individualism List

From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Fri Sep 22 2000 - 20:33:08 MDT


From: Jeanie Kennedy jeaniekennedy@hotmail.com
To: forum@wetheliving.com
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2000 9:57 AM
Subject: WTL: New Secular Individualism List

Hello everyone,

I am very excited to announce a new discussion list, The Secular
Individualism
List or SIL. It is the result of a collaboration between
noted libertarian writer George Smith (author of _Atheism: The Case Against
God_
and _Atheism, Ayn Rand, and other Heresies_, and of the forthcoming _Why
Atheism?_), Epicurus.net webmaster Vincent Cook, and myself, San Francisco
Free
Exchange Director Jeanie Kennedy.

Secular individualism is not a single philosophy or ideology, but rather a
family of related belief-systems that stress the value of personal autonomy,
rationality, and feelings against the claims made on behalf of various
collectives or on behalf of alleged superhuman personalities.

SIL is open to anyone who wishes to discuss intellectual issues related to
secular individualism, including topics drawn from such fields as
philosophy, history, culture, religion, psychology, and social theory. Our
intention is to provide a forum where all the different strands of secular
individualist thought can be explored. (Please read the guidelines below.)

SIL fully respects member privacy and member control over message content,
and uses the versatile majordomo mailing list manager software to automate
most of the administrative tasks.

SIL - THE SECULAR INDIVIDUALISM LIST
(posting) individualism@transbay.net
(subscribing) majordomo@transbay.net
(homepage) http://www.transbay.net/~vcook/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
List Guidelines

Message Content

SIL is unmoderated, which means that the list owner does not exercise any
prior restraint over the content of posts. To keep the discussion focused on
the purposes of the list, list members are expected to observe one basic
rule: the content of their messages should be relevant to topics related to
some aspect of secular individualism. This rule implies a number of
corollaries, including:

Offer reasoned arguments - If you are going to make a provocative statement,
try to back it up with a rational argument. Arbitrary assertions and
unfounded or self-refuting doubts do not count as being relevant
contributions to the list.

Stay on the subject - While the topics covered by this list are very broad,
they are not unlimited - try to keep your points related to secular
individualism. Also, trim unnecessary material (including repetition of
points made previously) from your messages; when replying to others, quote
only that which is needed to establish the context of your own remarks.

No personal attacks - Avoid the temptation to resort to insults as a
substitute for rational arguments. Discussion of a list member's conduct,
character, or intelligence should be avoided; gossip about various political
or philosophical factions is also strongly discouraged.

While the interpretation of these rules is likely to be fairly liberal, the
list owner reserves the right at his own discretion to admonish, suspend
posting privileges, or expel list members who violate them.

Message Format

To make this list as accessible and secure as possible for all list members,
SIL may implement filters that will reject messages formatted in ways that
might cause problems for other list members. Messages should be in plaintext
with a line-width of no more than 80 characters. Do not send HTML-encoded
messages or attachments of any kind to the list.

Use of Messages

All messages transmitted via SIL are intended for the private use of list
members only; SIL messages may not be reproduced or redistributed in any
manner outside the list without the consent of the original author of the
message and the consent of authors of any quoted passages in the message.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
SIL How-To
Using Majordomo
Subscribing

To subscribe to SIL, send a message to majordomo@transbay.net with the
one-line message in the body:

subscribe individualism

If you are using a hotmail account:

subscribe individualism
end

You will then be asked to mail a confirmation message back to majordomo.

Unsubscribing
To unsubscribe from SIL, send a message to majordomo@transbay.net with the
one-line message in the body:

unsubscribe individualism
Other Majordomo Commands
To find out about other majordomo commands, send a message to
majordomo@transbay.net with the one-line message in the body:
help

Posting to the List

To send a message to the list, you must be subscribed as a member of the
list. Address your messages to individualism@transbay.net, observing the
guidelines above.

Contacting the List Owner

The human counterpart to majordomo is the owner of the list, Vincent Cook.
If you are having any problems with the list, write to Vince at
vcook@epicurus.net.



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