I’m sorry Mr. DuBois but you are not guaranteeing my right as a citizen to practice “no religion at all” when you require me to use currency that says “In God We Trust” on it in order to keep a roof over my head and to feed my family.
Also, to President Obama, although “not every mention of God in the public is a breach to the wall of separation,” including the word “under God” in the United States Pledge of Allegiance surely does by requiring them to pledge allegiance to a deity in witch they do not believe in if they wish to pledge allegiance to a country in which they do believe in.
Groups Drop Lawsuit After Shelter Agrees to Change Operations and D.C. Government Abandons Plan to Pay Shelter Public Funds
October 19, 2011
A federal court today struck down a new plan by officials in South Bend, Ind., to transfer public land to a religious school, a development welcomed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. U.S. District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. said the city’s plan to sell the Family Dollar property for $345,000 violates the constitutional separation of church and state. The city paid $1.2 million for the property.
Said Americans United Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan, “The judge clearly saw that the city was attempting an end run around the court’s earlier decision. The decision makes clear that the city cannot give preferential treatment to St. Joseph’s over other potential bidders.
“This is an important victory for the taxpayers of South Bend. Public funds should never be spent to support churches or church schools,” she continued. “I hope this makes the council realize that it’s time to respect the separation of church and state.”
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been criticized for lacking focus — but its main slogan seems to be resonating. That slogan, “We are the 99 percent,” highlights the issue of income disparity. It’s something economist Jeffrey Sachs has been tracking for a long time.
The top 1 percent of U.S. households now take about a quarter of all income, according to Sachs. And wages for the average American male peaked in 1973, he says. “It means that for the typical young person right now who is a high school graduate — but on average will not get a bachelor’s degree — life is extremely challenging to find a foothold,” Sachs tells NPR’s Steve Inskeep, “with a stable job, with an opportunity to have a reliable income, health and other benefits and a chance to have the kind of middle-class life that we once took for granted.
Sachs explores the result of the widening income gap in his new book, The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity. The book’s title was inspired by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who once said, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”
I haven’t read this book yet but it’s on my list. Learn more about it by listening to the NPR interview with the author linked above.
Damn! Eddie took the stage diving phenomenon to a whole new level.
In this excerpt from Cameron Crowe’s Pearl Jam Twenty, the band reflects on Eddie Vedder’s penchant for taking stage diving to new heights, plus a montage of some his greatest and highest concert dives, including the 1992 Pinkpop Festival, Landgraaf, Netherlands. American Masters Pearl Jam Twenty premieres nationwide Friday, October 21, 2011 as part of the first PBS Arts Fall Festival.
Lawrence O’Donnel breaks down the government’s position on getting high:
Senators, Members of Congress, Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Supreme Court Justices are going to continue to get high (many of them every day and every night). Many of them will do it publicly, and loudly, and legally at restaurants and campaign fundraisers and at state dinners. They will raise their glasses and get high, and they will continue to put people in jail for using a harmless, non-liquid way of getting high like Marijuana.
…Such hypocrisy carries and even stronger stench than the alcohol drenched breath of those politicians and judges and prosecutors and DEA officials. I really don’t know how they can sleep at night….without the booze.
For the past twenty years of Pearl Jam’s tours, a collection of artists including The Ames Bros and Brad Klausen have designed highly stylized posters that celebrated their tours in around the world. Throughout this body of work one thing remains consistent – the constant merging of ideas and personalities between the designers and the band to create an image. This exhibit presents twelve designs and discusses the motivations and inspirations that created the imagery to accompany Pearl Jam’s music.
Even more, what if you woke up one morning and all intelligent animals were five times smarter than they are now?
I recently finished listing to an engaging narration of one of Poul Anderson’s early novels, Brain Wave from audible.com, which speculates about the outcome of such an event.
If you’re not a member of audible yet and decide to become one, please mention my user name (docholywood) if asked how you heard about their service.
I just ran across this new film essay in the Washington Post that examines the hijacking of science education by religious fundamentalists, threatening the separation of church and state and dangerously undermining scientific literacy. It sounds like a great project. I hope it gets widely disseminated and is watched by those who need to watch it the most.
The documentary weaves together two strands: an examination of the problem posed by creationists who earn science education degrees only to advocate anti-scientific beliefs in the classroom; and a visually stunning raft trip down the Grand Canyon, led by Dr. Eugenie Scott, that debunks creationist explanations for its formation. These two strands expose the fallacies in the “debate,” manufactured by anti-science forces, that creationism is a valid scientific alternative to evolution.
Emmy Award-winning director (Before Stonewall, Paris Was a Woman) and science educator Greta Schiller uses her own experience — with a graduate school biology professor who refused to teach evolution — to expose the insidious effect that so-called “creationist science” has had on science education. No Dinosaurs in Heaven intelligently argues that public education must steadfastly resist the encroachment of religion in the form of anti-evolution creationism, and that science literacy is crucial to a healthy democracy.
Frances Farmer, a Seattle, Washington native who won a creative writing contest with her essay, "God Dies,” as a high school junior at age 16, is truly one of the unsung heroines of American freethought in the Twentieth Century. This essay, reproduced below, earned her $100 ($1,400 in today’s money) and resulted in a national wire story: "Seattle girl denies God and wins prize." In the conclusion of this brief essay about becoming an atheist, Frances wrote: "I felt rather proud to think that I had found the truth myself, without help from anyone. It puzzled me that other people hadn't found out, too."
Here is her essay, as published in The Scholastic on May 2, 1931.
"God Dies"
No one ever came to me and said, "You're a fool. There isn't such a thing as God. Somebody's been stuffing you." It wasn't a murder. I think God just died of old age. And when I realized that he wasn't any more, it didn't shock me. It seemed natural and right.
Maybe it was because I was never properly impressed with a religion. I went to Sunday school and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them. The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.
Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something real, something I could feel. But there were only certain times when I could feel it. I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I'd had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God. "I am clean, now. I've never been as clean. I'll never be cleaner." And somehow, it was God. I wasn't sure that it was … just something cool and dark and clean.
That wasn't religion, though. There was too much of the physical about it. I couldn't get that same feeling during the day, with my hands in dirty dish water and the hard sun showing up the dirtiness on the roof-tops. And after a time, even at night, the feeling of God didn't last. I began to wonder what the minister meant when he said, "God, the father, sees even the smallest sparrow fall. He watches over all his children." That jumbled it all up for me. But I was sure of one thing. If God were a father, with children, that cleanliness I had been feeling wasn't God. So at night, when I went to bed, I would think, "I am clean. I am sleepy." And then I went to sleep. It didn't keep me from enjoying the cleanness any less. I just knew that God wasn't there. He was a man on a throne in Heaven, so he was easy to forget.
Sometimes I found he was useful to remember; especially when I lost things that were important. After slamming through the house, panicky and breathless from searching, I could stop in the middle of a room and shut my eyes. "Please God, let me find my red hat with the blue trimmings." It usually worked. God became a super-father that couldn't spank me. But if I wanted a thing badly enough, he arranged it.
That satisfied me until I began to figure that if God loved all his children equally, why did he bother about my red hat and let other people lose their fathers and mothers for always? I began to see that he didn't have much to do about hats, people dying or anything. They happened whether he wanted them to or not, and he stayed in heaven and pretended not to notice. I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was…nothingness.
I felt rather proud to think that I had found the truth myself, without help from any one. It puzzled me that other people hadn't found out, too. God was gone. We were younger. We had reached past him. Why couldn’t they see it? It still puzzles me.
Farmer later became a Hollywood starlet after spending four years as drama student at the University of Washington. She appeared in over a dozen movies and several Broadway plays before her career was ruined by a sequence of unjust commitments to mental institutions.
In spite of her undeserved ignominy, Frances’ life story has inspired many young feminists over the years as well as musicians, authors, actresses and filmmakers.
I encourage you to visit the links below to learn much more about this freethought heroine.
A fellow Wiregrass citizen wrote the letter above in today’s Dothan Eagle railing against atheists and liberals for opposing Alabama’s new immigration laws. This is my response.
Although I am an atheist and a liberal, one doesn’t have to be an atheist or a liberal to oppose the Governors legislation. In fact many Christian organizations and individuals are against these laws. Also, one does not have to be for illegal immigration to oppose this legislation.
This law obliges police to arrest anyone that looks like an illegal immigrant if they’re stopped for any other reason, requires public schools to determine students’ immigration status and also makes it a crime to transport an illegal immigrant for any reason. This is why several secular human rights and civil rights organizations have joined forces with religious groups to strike down this legislation.
Since you appear to consider yourself a Christian Mr. DeJournett, I put forth the following question you.
Under this legislation, what would happen to Jesus if he were caught feeding, sheltering or helping an illegal in Alabama, in any way?
The parable told by the character Jesus in the Gospel of Luke 10-:25-37, which tells the story of the Good Samaritan, is probably one of the most admirable stories in the Christian Bible and is very agreeable to atheists, agnostics and humanists. In fact, it is a key tenet of secular humanism which is why I am so fond of it.
It is a story that champions love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness and tolerance over intolerance.
Of course the ethics of this parable do not originate with the tales of Jesus or exemplify the overall moral principles taught by the Gospels but it does appeal to the more caring sensibilities of liberal believers.
As for many who call themselves Christian, right wing Christians like Governor Robert Bentley, the Gospel teachings of Matthew 5:17-19, 10:21, 10:34, 11:20, 15:4-7, 19:29, Mark 7:9 and Luke 12:47 may be more appealing.
Which Jesus do you prefer Mr. DeJournett?
Note: In recent months, many of my fellow SEAFA members and I have been expressing our opinions in the area’s top news paper. Sometimes we get rants like this directed at us as a response but we’ve also gotten some positive feedback and gained a few new members as a result. If you have a fledgling freethought group in your area, encourage your members to do the same. The theists, right wingers and haters only maintain their social power and sense of superiority by our silence.
If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament he would be a criminal. If he would strictly follow the teachings of the New, he would be insane.
With soap, baptism is a good thing.
In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences.
Yes; if a man really believes that God once upheld slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion’s sake; that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the effect in my judgment will be bad. It always has been bad. This belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition. This belief made the Puritan murder the Quaker.
If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: “It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest”—if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution.
The old doctrine that God . . . rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.
Fear believes—courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays—courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats—courage advances. Fear is barbarism—courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion, courage is science.
The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray.
The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called “faith.”
Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest, noble work.
Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in God. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed.
I cannot see why we should expect an infinite God to do better in another world than he does in this.
I have little confidence in any enterprise or business or investment that promises dividends only after the death of the stockholders.
Below is a response that will be submitted to the paper.
Keep in mind that we are limited to 300 words in providing a response so not all the errors, false conclusions and misrepresentations directed at us could be addressed.
Note: Revision suggestions and copy editing assistance on the spelling and grammar are still welcome but providing there are no objections from the SEAFA board, the following response will be submitted by the end of the day.
With all due respect to the author of the letter titled “Founders and Christianity,” anyone who claims that the United States is a Christian nation is gravely mistaken. As the President has affirmed, America is not a Christian nation but a nation of Non-believers, Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus among other faiths.
The laws of this country are based on the U.S. Constitution which makes no mention of ‘God’ and clearly states that our rights come from no power higher than “We the People.” Moreover, the often repeated reference to Jefferson’s use of “Creator” in the Declaration to support the myth that this nation was founded on the Judeo-Christian principles of the Bible is dubious since the principle author of this document was a Deist who did not believe in the personal deity of the Bible.
In addition, the George Washington quote mentioned in said letter is a spurious and utterly discredited fabrication created to bolster the claims of those who wish to undermine the Constitutional principle of Separation of Church and State.
It should also be noted that the Treaty of Tripoli—which was signed by both Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and President John Adams, as well as passing unanimously in the Senate—states that “the Government of the United States…is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion,” thus reaffirming what the founders intended. President Adams went on to proclaim that “all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens…[must] observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.”
In conclusion, we here at SEAFA reject the claim that United States is a Christian nation in light of its inaccuracy and discriminatory nature towards approximately 30 percent of the U.S. population.
Alright folks, how many errors, false conclusions or misrepresentations can you find in the following letter that was published in the Dothan Eagle today in response to our local freethought group's piece titled Non-religious 'real' Americans?
We will be putting together a response as a group and or individually in the next day or two so if you have any suggestions, please feel share them here.
This is the first in a series of rare or obscure Carl Sagan videos, including interviews, biographies, and presentations; augmented with related facts and new information discovered since the segment aired.
In this video, originally aired August 25, 1981, Carl Sagan guides ABC News viewers through the discoveries made by Voyager II in its recent encounter with Saturn.
In this third video Michael Shermer, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, and Carl Sagan’s Biographers, William Poundstone and Keay Davidson, discuss the life and death of Carl Sagan. Included is a very interesting account of Sagan’s marijuana use. This video is a must-see for all Sagan fans!
Recently a letter titled God bless America was published in lower Alabama's most prominent news paper, the Dothan Eagle. This letter, just one of the weekly letters from local citizens and columnists like Ann Varnum, which regularly expresses discriminatory viewpoints against non-Christians, spurred the following response from the area's local freethought group.
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