Gulf Coast Humanists

Read the latest announcements about The Gulf Coast Humanist Association and news tidbits we find on the web and elsewhere..

Information about our meetings and activities will be found on the calendar.

Here is an column by Jen Hancock that appears regularly in the Bradenton Herald.  http://tinyurl.com/jenhancock2

Here is an article from HNN about the Blasphemy Battles at the UN plus other articles from the issue.

From the HNN again, and article about how religion is hardwired and another concerning Healthcare in Canada

Another article from Humanist Network News about how most religions contain Humanistic principals.

Here is an article from the Humanist Network News regarding the Pope and sexuality

Johns Hopkins has completed another estimate of the number of Iraqi civilians killed during our occupation.  It now tops 600,000.  Click on the name for the full story.

Secular Holidays - a new web site that lists our alternatives.

Ben Stein "Expelled" by Humanists

For Immediate Release - Contact Fred Edwords at (202) 238-9088

fedwords@americanhumanist.org - www.americanhumanist.org

"Anti-atheist propaganda for pseudoscience" is what the American Humanist

Association today called Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled: No Intelligence

Allowed." Former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein is most widely recognized for

his role in the 1986 film "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off."

Released nationwide in select theaters on April 18, "Expelled" is self-described

as a "satirical documentary." In response to this, Fred Edwords, director of

communications for the American Humanist Association and former board

member of the National Center for Science Education, said today: "It's unclear

what is being satirized. It seems more a satire of bad documentaries than of the

scientific community, which is the target of its invective. Every criticism of modern

science is punctuated by black and white footage from strident mid-twentieth

century documentaries and propaganda films as well as old Hollywood movies.

Can Ben Stein be serious? Sadly, he is!"  

The film's essential claim is that the scientific community has erected a

"Berlin Wall" of sorts between Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and a

supposedly scientific rival notion of "Intelligent Design." Scientists are

doing this, the film contends, because there is secret disagreement in the

scientific community over the validity of evolution--and because an

atheistic elite wants to suppress that disagreement and rule out

any alternatives to evolutionary theory. The film also claims that

scientists and journalists who deviate from the party line are ostracized or

lose their jobs. And it concludes that the theory of evolution is

responsible for the Holocaust and leads to a devaluation of human life.

"The claim that a conspiracy of atheists has highjacked science, education,

and the media is not only ludicrous, it is offensive," declared American

Humanist Association executive director Roy Speckhardt. "Scapegoating

atheists is as bad as scapegoating any other group. Racial and religious

minorities have suffered this in the past. It's about time we learned to

stop repeating the formula."

Edwords added, "This film not only makes false claims against atheists, it

does so using a bag of dirty tricks. For example, in one scene Richard

Dawkins is shown being made up for his interview with Ben Stein. But Stein

is presented as suddenly showing up for the interview fresh off the street

and without pretense. In the credits, however, we learn that Stein had a

personal makeup artist. This is just one of the subtle techniques the film

uses, combined with a plethora of out-of-context interview footage, to put

those who Stein opposes in the worst light and those he favors in the best."

The American Humanist Association named Dawkins its 1996 Humanist of the

Year. Earlier, in 1977, the AHA issued a special document on

evolution and the teaching of creationism in public school science classes.

(See http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/affirming-evolution.html .) In

doing so it became one of the first national organizations to go public in

challenging creationism. Today's "Intelligent Design" is often recognized as

a sanitized version of that same creationism. This latter point was

understood by Judge John E. Jones III of Pennsylvania who ruled the teaching

of "intelligent design" unconstitutional in public schools in the case

called Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. Jones will receive the

Humanist Religious Liberty Award from the American Humanist Association

at its national conference in early June.  

Edwords concluded: "Rather than being a critique of either the scientific

community or the public schools, the statement 'No Intelligence Allowed' in

the film's title seems a better description of what Ben Stein demands of his

audience. But I don't think he can find many people willing to leave

their brains at the door. So I'm skeptical that this film could persuade

anyone not already convinced--and it probably insults the intelligence of

most of those." 

Arthur C. Clark dies at 90.  Famed SF writer and Humanist died in Sri Lanka.  See the full story here.  http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=340&article=1

Below is an article from the Sunday, 9/18/07 Sun Herald.

Nonbelievers growing more vocal since 9/11

By Mary Jordan

  BURGESS HILL, England – Every morning on his walk school teacher Graham Wright recited a favorite Anglican prayer and asked God for strength in the day Ahead. Then two years, ago he just stopped.

Wright, 59, said he was over whelmed by a feeling that religion had become a negative influence in his life and the world. Although he once considered becoming an Anglican vicar, he suddenly found that religion represented nothing he believed in,  from Muslim extremists blowing themselves up in God's name to Christians condemning gays, contraception and stem cell research.

"I stopped praying because I lost my faith," said Wright, 59, a thoughtful man with graying hair and clear blue eyes. "Now I truly loathe any sight or sound of religion. I blush at what I used to believe."

Wright is now an avowed atheist and part of a growing number of vocal nonbelievers in Europe and the United States. On both sides of the Atlantic, membership in once quiet groups of nonbelievers is rising, and books attempting to debunk religion have been surprise best sellers, including "The God Delusion," by Oxford University professor Richard Dawkins.

New groups of nonbelievers are sprouting on college campuses, anti-religious blogs are expanding across the Internet and in general, more people are publicly saying they have no religious faith

More than three out of four people in the world consider themselves religious, and those with no faith are a distinct minority. But, especially in richer nations, and nowhere more than in Europe, growing numbers of people are saying they do not believe is a heaven or a hell or anything other than this life.

Many analysts trace the rise of what some are calling the “Nonreligious Movement” to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The sight of re3lligious fanatics killing 3,000  people caused many to begin questioning - and rejecting - all religion.

"This is overwhelmingly the topic of the moment," said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society of Britain. "Religion in this country was very quiet until September 11, and now it is at the center of everything."

Many Europeans are angry at demands to use taxpayer money to accommodate Islam, Europe's fastest-growing religion, which now has as many as 20 million followers on the continent. Along with calls for prayer rooms in police stations, foot baths in public places and funding for Islamic schools and mosques, expensive legal battles have broken out over the niqab, the Muslim veil that covers all but the eyes, which some devout women seek to wear in classrooms and court.

Christian fundamentalist groups who want to halt certain science research, reverse abortion and gay rights, and teach creationism rather than evolution in schools are also angering people; according Sanderson and others.

"There is a feeling that religion is being forced on an un-willing public, and now people are beginning to speak out against what they see as rising Islamic and Christian militancy," Sanderson said.

One group of nonbelievers in particular is attracting attention in Europe: the Council of Ex-Muslims founded this year  in Germany, the group now has a few hundred members and expanding number of chapters across the continent.  “You can’t tell us religion is peaceful – look around at the misery it is causing,” said Maryam Namazie, leader of the group’s British chapter.

Below is a link to “A Brief History of Disbelief” that was broadcast by the BBC and has appeared on some US Public TV stations.  You will find all 3 parts in the lower right hand side of the page.

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v290167nBNFCMmq

The God Debate also from Newsweek

At the Summit: On a cloudy California day, the atheist Sam Harris sat down with the Christian pastor Rick Warren to hash out Life's Biggest Question—Is God real? A NEWSWEEK exclusive.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17889148/site/newsweek/

Is God Real - an article from Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17889147/site/newsweek/

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