KENTUCKY ATHEISTS NEWS & NOTES Date: February 08, 2008

Kentucky Atheists, P.O. Box 48, Union, KY 41091; Email: ekagin@atheists.org

Phone: (859) 384-7000; Fax: (859) 384-7324; Web: http://www.atheists.org/ky/

Editor’s personal web site: www.edwinkagin.com

Editor’s personal blog: http://edwinkagin.blogspot.com

Edited by:

Edwin Kagin, Kentucky State Director, American Atheists, Inc.

I WAS BORN AN ATHEIST JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

To Unidentified Recipients:

AMERICAN ATHEISTS SPEAKERS BUREAU

http://www.atheists.org/speakers

KAGIN TO SPEAK ON “AMERICAN RELIGIOUS CIVIL WAR,” SECULAR HUMANISTS OF THE LOW COUNTRY MEETING ~ SUNDAY, FEB. 17, 2008

“The ARCW has already been started by the superstitious. They call it a ‘civil war of values.’ The shooting has already started. They call that ‘protecting innocent life.’ The purpose of the war is to overthrow science and constitutional democracy and replace them with the Bronze Age myths and laws of ancient Iraq that became preserved in a collection of writings known, in translation, as ‘The Holy Bible.’ They regard this undertaking as ‘bringing America back to God.’ Loyal Americans should regard it as treason…”

— Edwin Kagin at the

Godless Americans March on Washington

EDWIN KAGIN, National Legal Director for American Atheists will be the guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Secular Humanists of the Low Country (Charleston, SC) on Sunday, February 17, 2008.

Mr. Kagin will speak on “The American Religious Civil War (ARCW),” the confrontation between secular, Enlightenment-era democracy and authoritarian theocratic “Bible-based” government. He has been writing and speaking on this important topic since 1995 when he first proposed the paradigm of a cultural “civil war” coming to America.

Along with wife Helen, Edwin Kagin was a founding director of Camp Quest, a summer retreat for non-believing youngsters. In addition to his post as Legal Director for American Atheists, he serves on the board of the Secular Student Alliance. He ran prominently, albeit unsuccessfully, for the Kentucky Supreme Court (1998) and the Kentucky State Senate (2000). Much of his current legal work focuses on civil liberties, Atheist civil rights and the separation of church and state. Mr. and Mrs. Kagin also host the popular new internet radio program “Answers in Atheism” (http://www.answersinatheism.net).

The meeting will take place on Sunday, February 17, 2008 at 4:00 PM at Gage Hall, 4 Archdale St. in Charleston, S.C. For further information, visit the SHLC web site at http://lowcountry.humanists.net/default.php or contact smoskow@knology.net (Sam Moskow, President) or kasmansc@comcast.net (Alex Kasman, Newsletter).

WHO & WHAT: Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director for American Atheists speaking on “The American Religious Civil War” at Secular Humanists of the Low Country monthly meeting.

WHEN: Sunday, February 17, 2008, 4:00 PM.

WHERE: Gage Hall, 4 Archdale St., Charleston, SC.

MORE INFO: http://lowcountry.humanists.net/default.php or contact smoskow@knology.net (Sam Moskow, President) or kasmansc@comcast.net (Alex Kasman, Newsletter). Also, http://www.edwin kagin.com .

(AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.)

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“Answers in Atheism,” the soon to be award winning Internet radio call-in talk show that is family friendly and clothing optional, is pleased to announce that…..

Our guest for our “Darwin Day Show,” Thursday, February 14^th, 2008 (drum roll please) will be Charles Darwin.

Richard Milner is an anthropologist / songwriter / performer. He performs his show “Charles Darwin Live in Concert” as Charles Darwin. Our producers, John and Fran Welte, have excitedly reported that Richard will be doing our show on Feb. 14. We will interview Richard as himself first. We can ask about his books and his performances. Then, when we ask a pointed question about evolution, he may well say, “Why don’t you ask Mr. Darwin? He just came in.” He just might then do the rest of the show as Darwin.

You can find out more about Richard Milner on his website. http://www.darwinlive.com/

And yes, we do know that Darwin’s birthday is February 12^th, so save your corrective rant. We also know that February 12^th is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, and of Bruno, our English Mastiff and retired Mascot of Camp Quest. And yes, we know that February 14^th is Valentine’s Day (don’t tell my Helen—she doesn’t read these things—but I am getting her a burka).

You can access the show at www.answersinatheism.net

Oh, yes, earlier shows are (should be—this is not a precise science) archived for your listening pleasure at www.answersinatheism.net

See you on the radio.

Edwin.

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Creationists Seek Foothold in Europe

By GREGORY KATZ, AP

LONDON (Feb. 9) – After the Sunday service in Westminster Chapel, where worshippers were exhorted to wage “the culture war” in the World War II spirit of Sir Winston Churchill, cabbie James McLean delivered his verdict on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“Evolution is a lie, and it’s being taught in schools as fact, and it’s leading our kids in the wrong direction,” said McLean, chatting outside the chapel. “But now people like Ken Ham are tearing evolution to pieces.”

Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a Kentucky-based organization that is part of an ambitious effort to bring creationist theory to Britain and the rest of Europe. McLean is one of a growing number of evangelicals embracing that message – that the true history of the Earth is told in the Bible, not Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”

Europeans have long viewed the conflict between evolutionists and creationists as primarily an American phenomenon, but it has recently jumped the Atlantic Ocean with skirmishes in Italy, Germany, Poland and, notably, Britain, where Darwin was born and where he published his 1859 classic.

Darwin’s defenders are fighting back. In October, the 47-nation Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, condemned all attempts to bring creationism into Europe’s schools. Bible-based theories and “religious dogma” threaten to undercut sound educational practices, it charged.

Schools are increasingly a focal point in this battle for hearts and minds. A British branch of Answers in Genesis, which shares a Web site with its American counterpart, has managed to introduce its creationist point of view into science classes at a number of state-supported schools in Britain, said Monty White, the group’s chief executive.

“We do go into the schools about 10 to 20 times a year and we do get the students to question what they’re being taught about evolution,” said White, who founded the British branch seven years ago. “And we leave them a box of books for the library.”

Creationism is still a marginal issue here compared with its impact on cultural and political debate in the United States. But the budding fervor is part of a growing embrace of evangelical worship throughout much of Europe. Evangelicals say their ranks are swelling as attendance at traditional churches declines because of revulsion with the hedonism and materialism of modern society.

“People are looking for spirituality,” White said in an interview at his office in Leicester, 90 miles north of London. “I think they are fed up with not finding true happiness. They find having a bigger car doesn’t make them happy. They get drunk and the next morning they have a hangover. They take drugs but the drugs wear off. But what they find with Christianity is lasting.”

Other British organizations have joined the crusade. A group called Truth in Science has sent thousands of unsolicited DVDs to every high school in Britain arguing that mankind is the result of “intelligent design,” not Darwinian evolution.

In addition, the AH Trust, a charity, has announced plans to raise money for construction of a Christian theme park in northwest England with a 5,000-seat television studio that would be used for the production of Christian-oriented films. And several TV stations are devoted full-time to Christian themes.

All this activity has lifted spirits at the Westminster Chapel, a 165-year-old evangelical church that is not affiliated with nearby Westminster Abbey, where Darwin is buried.

In the chapel, Rev. Greg Haslam tells the 150 believers that they are in a conflict with secularism that can only be won if they heed Churchill’s exhortation and never, ever give up.

“The first thing you have to do is realize we are in a war, and identify the enemy, and learn how to defeat the enemy,” he said.

There is a sense inside the chapel that Christian evangelicals are successfully resisting a trend toward a completely secular Britain.

“People have walked away from God; it’s not fashionable,” said congregant Chris Mullins, a civil servant. “But the evangelical church does seem to be growing and I’m very encouraged by that. In what is a very secular society, there are people returning to God.”

School curricula generally hold that Darwin’s theory has been backed up by so many scientific discoveries that it can now be regarded as fact. But Mullins believes creationism also deserves a hearing in the classroom.

“Looking at the evidence, creationism at the least seems a theory worthy of examination,” he said. “Personally I think it is true and I think the truth will win out eventually. It’s a question of how long it takes.”

Terry Sanderson, president of Britain’s National Secular Society, a prominent group founded in 1866 to limit the influence of religious leaders, fears the groups advocating a literal interpretation of the Bible are making headway.

“Creationism is creeping into the schools,” he said. “There is a constant pressure to get these ideas into the schools.”

The trend goes beyond evangelical Christianity. Sanderson said the British government is taking over funding of about 100 Islamic schools even though they teach the Quranic version of creationism. He said the government fear imposing evolution theory on the curriculum lest it be branded as anti-Islamic.

The Council of Europe spoke up last fall after Harun Yahya, a prominent Muslim creationist in Turkey, tried to place his lavishly produced 600-page book, “The Atlas of Creation,” in public schools in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain.

“These trends are very dangerous,” said Anne Brasseur, author of the Council of Europe report, in an interview.

Brasseur said recent skirmishes in Italy and Germany illustrate the creationists’ tactics. She said Italian schools were ordered to stop teaching evolution when Silvio Berlusconi was prime minister, although the edict seems to have had little impact in practice. In Germany, she said, a state education minister briefly allowed creationism to be taught in biology class.

The rupture between theology and evolution in Europe is relatively recent. For many years people who held evangelical views also endorsed mainstream scientific theory, said Simon Barrow, co-director of Ekklesia, a British-based, Christian-oriented research group. He said the split was imported from the United States in the last decade.

“There is a lot of American influence, and there are a lot of moral and political and financial resources flowing from the United States to here,” he said. “Now you have more extreme religious groups trying to get a foothold.”

In some cases, the schools have become the battlegrounds. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford university biologist and author of last year’s international best-seller “The God Delusion, “frequently lectures students about the marvels of evolution only to find that the students’ views have already been shaped by the creationist lobby.

“I think it’s so sad that children should be fobbed off with these second-rate myths,” he said.

“The theory of evolution is one of the most powerful pieces of scientific thinking ever produced and the evidence for it is overwhelming. I think creationism is pernicious because if you don’t know much it sounds kind of plausible and it’s easy to come into schools and subvert children.”

White, the director of the British Answers in Genesis, is well aware that the group’s school program is contentious. The group has removed information about it from its Web site to avoid antagonizing people.

The group operates a warehouse with $150,000 worth of DVDs, books and comics promoting creationism, but he says he only sends speakers and materials into schools that invite Answers in Genesis to make a presentation.

White, 63, said he was raised as an atheist, and after earning a doctorate in chemistry, embraced evangelical Christianity in 1964.

He says that when he is asked to speak to science classes, he challenges the accuracy of radioactive dating which shows the world to be thousands of millions of years old and says that the Bible is a more accurate description of how mankind began. He personally believes the Earth is between 6,000 and 12,000 years old.

“Usually I find the discussion goes on science, science, and science and then when the lesson is finished one or two students say, ‘Can we talk about other things?’ and I sit down with them and usually they want to talk about Christianity,” he said. “They want to know, why do you believe in God? Why do you believe in the Bible? How can you be sure it’s the word of God?”

Dawkins feels the effect. He said he is discouraged when he visits schools and gets questions from students who have obviously been influenced by material from Answers in Genesis. “I continually get the same rather stupid points straight from their pamphlets,” he said.

White is getting ready for a visit by Ken Ham, who will preach at Westminster Chapel this spring. Meanwhile he is pleased that small groups of creation science advocates now meet regularly in Oxford, Edinburgh, Northampton and other British cities.

“The creation movement is certainly growing,” he said. “There are more groups than there were five years ago. There are more people like me going out speaking about it, and there’s more interest. You have these little groups forming all over the place.”

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

2008-02-09 19:37:25

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/creationists-seek-foothold-in-europe/20080209193709990001

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Review

Creation Museum founder’s book says Darwinism fuels racism

By Dylan T. Lovan
The Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 02/09/2008 07:25:05 AM MST

http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_8210102

What Darwinian evolution did, I would say, is provide what people thought was a scientific justification for separation of races.
KEN HAM, founder of Creation Museum

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The founder of a popular Kentucky Christian museum that rejects evolution says in a new book that Darwin’s theory fuels racism and genocide.
Ken Ham, who opened the Creation Museum last year, and co-author Charles Ware, president of Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis, have written Darwin’s Plantation: Evolution’s Racist Roots, arguing that the theory inspired the Nazi belief in racial superiority and the murderous policies of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
”What Darwinian evolution did, I would say, is provide what people thought was a scientific justification for separation of races,” Ham said in an interview.
Ham is not the first to try to tie Darwin with racism. The charge has been made for years.
It came up last month in arguments over science curriculum at a South Carolina state school board meeting. In 2001, Louisiana’s legislature considered a bill that said Darwin supported racist ideologies.
David L. Schultz, associate professor of biology at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, said Darwin was egalitarian and had a history of speaking out against slavery.
”Darwin was not a racist,” he said.
Ham runs the Christian group Answers in Genesis and has already made an impact with his $27 million high-tech museum in Petersburg, south of Cincinnati.
The complex has attracted more than 300,000 visitors with exhibits that treat the Bible’s creation story as natural history and contend that evolution theory is wrong because it contradicts the Old Testament. The Creation Museum asserts that the Earth is just a few thousand years old, dinosaurs coexisted with man and Adam and Eve were the first humans.
In the new book, Ham says that Darwin’s theory – that natural selection caused gradual biological changes over time – puts some races ”higher on the evolutionary scale” and others ”closer to the apes.”
”Although racism did not begin with Darwinism, Darwin did more than any person to popularize it,” Ham writes. He further contends that the theory fanned the flames of ”ethnic superiority.”
”Stalin, Hitler and Mao were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions – and it can be shown they did this because of the influence of Darwinian naturalism,” Ham writes.
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, a California group that defends teaching evolution in public schools, said Hitler rarely mentioned evolution.
”Darwinian evolution is based on natural selection, which means that any population can adapt to its environment,” Scott said. ”The ironic thing for the creationists is that Hitler grounded Aryan superiority as a God-given quality.”
Ham said he came to the topic because he was upset by the unfair treatment of aboriginal tribes in his native Australia and the racism he saw in the United States when he arrived here in the 1970s. He said he experienced a backlash from some church groups after he wrote an article critical of biblical-based arguments against interracial marriage, which made him even more determined to tackle the issue.
”I got more what I would call hate mail from people, supposedly Christians in the church, than for any other article I’ve ever written,” Ham said. ”So to me I just had a real burden that I wanted to educate the church on this matter.”
But Schultz called the argument ”a ploy to get evolution out of the curriculum.”
”Of course everybody’s against teaching children racism, so if you call it racist, you can have it removed,” said Schultz. He testified before a Louisiana legislative panel that took up the bill that would have tied evolution with racism. The measure was eventually stripped of any reference to Darwin.
Ham said Answers in Genesis does not advocate teaching creationism in public schools.
In South Carolina, that state’s board of education approved a biology textbook that references evolution. One board member had argued that the scientific theory was used by Nazi Germany as an excuse to kill millions of people.

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From reader Frank:

Subject: Re: Prayer [“moment of silence”] in schools bill

Can’t we find a state legislator with the cojones to introduce
a bill requiring in our public schools a vastly more needed
moment of science instead of a moment of silence???

— Frank

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From reader Fred:

Edwin,

As a gun-toting atheist, you will find this story of great interest–if you haven’t seen it already.

— Fred

Subject: Minnesota Court Says Concealed-Carry Law Cannot Be Enforced Against Churches

Not covered by RLUIPA; churches can prevent cowboys from packing heat in churches / Bob

http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2008/02/minnesota-court-says-concealed-carry.html

Minnesota Court Says Concealed-Carry Law Cannot Be Enforced Against Churches

Yesterday in Edina Community Lutheran Church v. State of Minnesota, (MN Ct. App., Feb. 5, 2008), a Minnesota state appellate court upheld the objections of two churches to enforcement against them of the Minnesota Citizens’ Personal Protection Act of 2005. The law requires that before a church can refuse entry to someone carrying a firearm, it must post a specific sign at each entrance or personally inform each person that guns are prohibited. The law also prevents churches from banning guns in their parking lots and from prohibiting tenants from carrying guns on church property. The churches argued that the law’s requirements interfere with the churches’ belief in welcoming visitors, and prevent churches from limiting tenants’ use to those consistent with the churches’ commitment to nonviolence.

Invoking the state constitution’s freedom of conscience clause, the court held broadly that these requirements burden a church’s exercise of religious belief. It concluded that the state failed to show a compelling interest in enforcing the provisions against churches. It also held that the trial court’s grant of an injunction against enforcement of the law did not violate the Establishment Clause of the state and federal constitutions. Finally the court concluded that the state’s carry-concealed law is not a “land use regulation” covered by RLUIPA. Yesterday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune reports on the decision. (See prior related posting.)

Posted by Howard Friedman –PermaLink: 7:45 AM

http://www.startribune.com/local/west/15314881.html

Churches win another round on ’05 gun law exemptions

A court ruling says firearms can be banned from church-owned property, and signs don’t have to comply with language mandated by the state.

By ROCHELLE OLSON, Star Tribune

Last update: February 5, 2008 – 8:51 PM

Forcing churches to allow guns in their parking lots and use state-mandated language for signs forbidding firearms is an unconstitutional infringement on religious freedom, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

The decision, which upheld a Hennepin County District Court ruling, means the Edina Community Lutheran Church can continue to legally ban guns with signs saying: “Blessed are the peacemakers. Firearms are prohibited in this place of sanctuary.” Other churches may choose their own wording.

Parking lots, day-care centers and other charitable, educational and nonprofit facilities owned by churches also may continue to ban firearms under the ruling.

The Minnesota law permitting people to carry concealed firearms was passed in 2003 and amended in 2005. It required that any organization, business or institution wanting to ban guns use specific language stating that the building operator “bans guns in these premises.”

It also didn’t allow most property owners to ban guns from parking areas and space rented to other groups or businesses.

Tuesday’s ruling doesn’t change most of the law’s provisions, including the requirement that sheriffs issue permits to carry handguns to applicants 21 and older who receive prescribed training and pass a background check.

Ben Wogsland, a spokesman for Attorney General Lori Swanson, said lawyers are reviewing the case and can’t yet make a decision on an appeal.

Church leaders pleased

The Rev. Erik Strand of Edina Community Lutheran Church said he was pleased with the decision as did Marshall Tanick, the lawyer for Unity Church in St. Paul, which had also challenged the law.

“We’re especially thankful that the court recognized and protected our congregation’s witness to peacemaking and nonviolence in all relationships,” Strand said in a written statement.

Tanick said the Court of Appeals ruled “on the broadest possible grounds. … It underscores the importance of freedom of religion in Minnesota,” he said.

In their suit, the Edina church’s leaders argued that entrances to Lutheran churches are reserved for “important religious messages that can be traced to Martin Luther’s act of nailing the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.”

That argument was cited in the unanimous 32-page decision written by Judge David Minge and signed by Judges Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks and Terri Stoneburner.

“The uncontroverted affidavits before us establish that the sign provision does compel churches that wish to exclude firearms to act in a manner that is inconsistent with their religious beliefs by requiring that they place specific, conspicuous signs at every entrance to the church,” Minge wrote.

Hamline University School of Law Prof. Joe Olson, a supporter of the law, said the decision is so insignificant that it’s hardly worth talking about. “If they’re going to be charging someone with trespass, they still have to give them notice that they’re violating the policy,” Olson said. “In order to effectively give notice, they’re going to wind up posting signs and they can’t hide them behind a potted palm.”

Rochelle Olson • 612-673-1747

“Answers in Atheism”

Thursday, February 7^th, 2008 CE

7:00 pm Eastern Time.

Peter Lloyd will be the guest on the February 7 edition of “Answers in Atheism,” the new Internet radio call-in talk show sensation.

The topic will be on Peter’s new book, The Lion’s Way.

The Lion’s Way is a book that imagines the world without the crucifixion of Jesus and where the Roman Empire never collapsed.

Peter Lloyd promotes creative thinking at GoCreate.com, where you can also learn his Right Brain Aerobics and hear his original songs. The website is packed with creative ideas and ways to learn creativity. Peter is a member of the Free Inquiry Group of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky (FIG).

His co-author is Marco Marsan, innovation expert, author, nationally renowned motivational speaker, self-proclaimed corporate anarchist, and founder of Marco Polo Explorers. His website is Marcomarsan.com.

Together they have created an exciting, action drama of passion, honor, dissent, and the struggle to right society’s wrongs.

For more information on this exciting program, for archived shows, and for contact information, see:

www.answersinatheism.net

Y’all call in y’hear.

See you on the radio.

Edwin.

KENTUCKY ATHEISTS NEWS & NOTES Date: January 29, 2008

Kentucky Atheists, P.O. Box 48, Union, KY 41091; Email: ekagin@atheists.org

Phone: (859) 384-7000; Fax: (859) 384-7324; Web: http://www.atheists.org/ky/

Editor’s personal web site: www.edwinkagin.com

Editor’s personal blog: http://edwinkagin.blogspot.com

Edited by:

Edwin Kagin, Kentucky State Director, American Atheists, Inc.

I WAS BORN AN ATHEIST JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

To Unidentified Recipients:

AMERICAN ATHEISTS

http://www.atheists.org

RICHARD DAWKINS LEADS SPEAKER

LINE-UP AT AMERICAN ATHEISTS CONFERENCE

March 21-23, 2008 ~~ Minneapolis, MN.

RICHARD DAWKINS, author and scientist, will speak at the 34th National Conference of American Atheists slated for March 21-23, 2008 in Minneapolis, MN.

The venue is the magnificent Minneapolis Marriott City Center Hotel in the heart of downtown. This year’s conference will feature three exciting days of speakers, social events, panels, workshops and other events. You can register on-line using our secure transaction server at http://www.atheists.org/conference .

Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. Born in British colonial Africa, he was educated in England, where he now lives. He did his doctorate at Oxford under the Nobel Prize winning zoologist Niko Tinbergen, then was briefly an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1967 to 1969, after which he returned to Oxford, first as a Lecturer in Zoology, then Reader, before being elected to his present professorship.

He is the author of nine books: The Selfish Gene (1976, 2nd Ed 1989), The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil’s Chaplain (2003), The Ancestor’s Tale (2004) and The God Delusion (2006). The God Delusion has sold more than a million copies in English, and is being published in 30 other languages. Dawkins is now editing an anthology of scientific writing for Oxford University Press, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. In 2006, to promote the values of education, science, and critical thinking skills, he established The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) which is now a registered charity in both the UK and USA.

Richard Dawkins has Honorary Doctorates of Literature as well as Science, and
is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He has been awarded the Silver Medal of the Zoological Society of London, the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the Nakayama Prize, the Cosmos International Prize, the Kistler Prize, the Shakespeare Prize and the Lewis Thomas Prize.

WHO & WHAT: Richard Dawkins speaking at the 34th annual National Conference of American Atheists.

WHEN: March 21-23, 2008

WHERE: Minneapolis, MN. Minneapolis Marriott City Center Hotel

MORE INFO & REGISTRATION: http://www.atheists.org/ conference

(AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.)

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Don’t miss Answers in Atheism, the soon to be award winning live Internet radio call-in talk show.

Next show, January 31, 2008, at 7:00 pm. Eastern Time.

See: www.answersinatheism.net for details.

We are still working out technical matters. If you have not been able to access the show, do not despair for the shows are (should be—this is not precise science) archived on the website for your later enjoyment.

See you on the radio.

Edwin.

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Traditional Family Values Department (from reader Jan):

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/25/national/main3753682.shtml

“Clean” Movie Maven Arrested For Teen Sex OREM, Utah, Jan. 25, 2008

Utah Man Who Sold R-Rated Films Shorn Of Skin Arrested For Sex With 14-Year-Old Girls

(CBS) A Utah retailer of family-friendly tapes and DVDs – Hollywood films with the “dirty parts”

cut out of them – has been arrested for trading sex with two 14-year-old girls.

Orem police say Flix Club owner Daniel Dean Thompson, 31, and Issac Lifferth, 24, were booked into the Utah County jail on charges of sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old.

CBS Station KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that the shocking discovery came when a mother found a $20 bill in her daughter’s room last week and questioned her about where the money came from.

The girl confessed that she and a friend had been paid for sexual favors by an older male.

Lifferth was additionally charged with patronizing a prostitute and was also in possession of a prescription drug medication without a prescription.

Thompson’s Flix Club was one of several Utah-based video outlets that traded in edited versions of

R- and PG-13-rated films, catering to clientele who wanted to watch hit movies without nudity, sex, language or graphic violence.

Such video editing operations came under the gun of Hollywood studios and the Directors Guild of America.

In a case brought by the DGA, a federal judge ruled in 2006 that editing out material (such as Kate Winslet’s bare breasts in “Titanic”) violated copyright laws. The decision was against a Utah company called Clean Flicks.

Thompson, who was a franchise operator for Clean Flicks, opened Flix Club last year, similarly trading in edited videos but claiming that such editing was for “educational use.”

Threats of lawsuits from the Hollywood studios forced him to agree to shut down on December 31.

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From reader Frank:

Edwin,

I am troubled by where (in your email below to J. Stamper at the Herald-Leader newspaper) you wrote:

“Naturally, they will say that this, if true, is not an attempt to unconstitutionally ‘establish a religion.’“

Yes, I agree that that is what “they” will likely say. What troubles me is the including of the indefinite article “a” in front of “religion.” The Establishment Clause of Amendment I of the Constitution of the United States of America omits the article “a” and simply says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” (as in, of ANY religion, not just of one particular religion over others), which seems to me to be a much stronger, broader statement than proscribing against the establishment of a religion (as in, of one particular religion over others). I do not think it likely that the authors of the 1st Amendment omitted the indefinite article “a” inadvertently, nor that the ratifiers of the 1st Amendment inadvertently overlooked that the article “a” was omitted or casually dismissed the implication of its omission..

I am always troubled (in fact, I downright cringe) when I hear folks like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity include the article “a” in front of “religion” whenever they make reference to the 1st Amendment, because including it subtly but vitally weakens the expressed mandate of the Establishment Clause. If what you predict will be said in defense of the state Senate launching its new work year by listening to a rendition of “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” come to pass, we should not let the defenders get away with (purposely or carelessly) smuggling the article “a” into their reference to the Establishment Clause; we should take advantage of every opportunity to remind such defenders and the public-at-large that — by thoughtfully omitting the indefinite article “a” in front of “religion” — the authors of the 1st Amendment rendered the Establishment Clause to be a much stronger, broader mandate than it is often popularly mis-characterized to be.

That said, clearly the song “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” is a song of the Christian religion and is not representative of all religions but rather of Christianity over other religions, and so even including the uncodified article “a” in front of “religion” in references to the Establishment Clause, a plea that beginning the state Senate’s working year by group-listening to the song “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” is not an attempt to unconstitutionally “establish a religion” is prima facie a failed defense. Nonetheless, I still strongly think we (all of us) should take every opportunity to publicly make the point that by omitting the indefinite article “a” in front of “religion” the authors of the 1st Amendment rendered it to be a stronger, broader mandate than it is often popularly mis-characterized to be.

Just a thought, humbly submitted. — Frank Lovell, Louisville, KY

——————————

Frank,

You are of course correct, and I apologize for the error.

It just seemed that they are in fact attempting to establish a particular religion.

But the omission of the indefinite article was, as you observe, intentional and full of meaning.

Edwin.

With your permission, I would like to publish this correspondence.

Edwin.

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From reader Natty:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2008/01/24/planet_death/

I’m a brilliant scientist and I fear for the world’s fate

“I wish I could have faith — at least for my daughter’s sake if not for mine.”

By Cary Tennis

Jan. 24, 2008

Hello, Cary,

I have mastered many advanced scientific and engineering fields and can mostly understand just about every advanced scientific theory or engineering device currently in existence or previously in existence — like how to build an atomic bomb or an IC (integrated circuit) device from basic raw materials, or create a digital camera array, program a computer, build a complete scientific instrument from basic components, interface a computer and other devices.

Or knowing the physics of how the sun works, or how to make any glass act just like a plastic metal (my thesis), or why the entropy of the universe requires that black holes, contrary to theory, are not really a one-way sink for the universe.

To better teach myself quantum mechanics, I wrote my own text (which the quantum professor at the university reproduced and gave his later classes). I have also studied a great deal of mathematics, philosophy, economics and history. I devour current events and have done many strange jobs: flown jets, worked in intelligence, and done cutting-edge research at a number of R&D laboratories both private and governmental.

However, I do not understand faith, nor how it is even possible to hold such a strange idea in the mind. I do miss this mind drug and how it would provide a childlike answer about “after” death. But such a lie is just a pointless waste of my time. (Yes, I have read the Bible in detail, and studied all the other great religions.)

Yet, more to the point, I am baffled by how I can deal with “knowing” the real future — we in America are fucked — at least in our way of life: We cannot control the economic slice of the world pie that we have grown accustomed to, and as is all too clear, our future will be hard and poor.

Worse, we are fast approaching peak oil, and our way of life will soon take an even bigger hit. To see the truth of this, look at the cost of food: It is climbing. The cost of oil has rippled through our economy, caused in part by our stupidity in creating ethanol from corn, but that is just the sign of doom — peak oil is our real doom and the world’s, too.

We do not and will not for many years have any way to handle peak oil; I know the technology and there is no answer we can hope for in under 10 years (if we get started now, that is) — my life, yours, that of all middle-class people are doomed to spiral down.

Again, this is only one more piece in the disaster looming over us; environmental degradation, overpopulation, world hunger, war and large sections of third-world states falling into chaos are going to threaten us in the next 10 years. I know this and I know that all this could be avoided if —

1) People gave up faith,
2) Stopped feigning the truth and
3) Stopped listening to the right-wing Republican thugs and their loony mouthpieces that are raping the middle class and poor for the rich elite (themselves).

I know there is zero chance of this happening. So, how can I look my daughter, who is the light of my life, in the eye, smile and continue to follow through with the same things I always do, knowing the truth of the terrible world she will soon live within, which will try to crush her future?

How can I stop caring, turn off my brain, and just enjoy the time we have left in the sun? In other words, give up truth and be like everyone else and live with blinders? Drugs would help, but then I’d miss out on the fun that we have left.

The real truth is that, “in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man” is … an unhappy, depressed man who everyone else thinks is just a troubled, opinionated know-it-all.
One-Eyed Man

Dear One-Eyed Man,

Faith is not the problem. Death is the problem. You are troubled by a vision of planetary death, which stems from fear of personal death. This fear also makes you ache for your daughter, whom you envision being left alone in a dying world. It is not a technical problem. It is a spiritual problem. You seem to find it hard to accept that. Perhaps you can accept this, though:

You need a vacation.

You must go to the ocean and jump in. You must go to the ocean, take your shoes off and walk in the sand. Sit in the sand and look out at the ocean and think of Odysseus. Think of Priam and his ships.

Think of Lear and his madness. Think of Cleopatra, a swarm of locusts, the wisdom of ancient Egypt, Jews wandering 40 years in the wilderness. Think of the spice wars, cholera epidemics, the Great Fire of London, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the rise of Islam, the Nazi phenomenon and the coming Super Bowl contest. Think of George W. Bush sauntering through the capitals of the Mideast like a chastened frat boy on his final field trip.

Think of evolution, our origins in the sea, our miraculous plankton brotherhood, our kinship with kelp that waves serenely in ancient seas. Think of the sand and how old it is; think of our cells and think of our options, how we could be plankton if need be, how we could be gas or liquid, how we could transubstantiate at a moment’s notice if only the right force came along. Think of the mutability of atomic structure, how easily matter becomes energy, how we each might fissure into energy at the time of death. Think how many mysteries remain for us and how little we know about the silent, mocking plankton. Think of bombs and timers and the vaporizing flesh of a martyr in his millisecond of victory and doom. Think of mountains, their patient climb of eons to the sky. Contemplate the aurora borealis and the southern lights, simultaneous sunsets down the longitudes of our slow, inherited spinning. Think of a beard growing on your father. Think of the egg that became you. Think of solar cells and leaps of efficiency. Think of Edison and Einstein: Are we fresh out of amazement?

Have we finished finding things out? What preposterous presumption is that? We are finding things out faster than ever. We are about to know our own genes, the true bible of our being. So if we are finding things out more quickly than ever and things have looked much worse in the past and we got over them, where is the justification for your gloom? Why do our little problems seem insurmountable? Where is your faith in science? Where is your wonder? Where is your readiness for the surprise of new knowledge?

I think you’re just tired. You’re too smart to be talking like this. They must be overworking you in the lab. You need a vacation, man.

I myself am taking a couple of days off. I am visiting my father, an ex-Navy man. I am trying to understand his lifelong interest in UFOs. We are sitting in the kitchen and he toddles in, wearing his tweed jacket and red sweater, his hair tousled and gray, his posture bent with old age and Parkinson’s. He carries stacks of books on UFOs, crop circles and the like. He piles them on the table: Would you like to look at some of these books? It is the same old story, his strange superstition, my skepticism.

But among the books is “Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies,” by Carl Jung. Is this an instance of synchronicity? Is it just a coincidence that your dire fears of planetary collapse come to me as I am reading Jung’s meditations on the symbolic meaning of flying saucer reports? Writing to a friend in 1951 he said, “At a time when the world is divided by an iron curtain — a fact unheard-of in human history — we might expect all sorts of funny things, since when such a thing happens in an individual it means complete dissociation, which is instantly compensated by symbols of wholeness and unity. The phenomenon of the saucers might even be both, rumor as well as fact. In this case it would be what I call a synchronicity.”

You are dying to protect your daughter from the end of the world but you cannot. Nor can you protect her from your own death. Nor can you prevent your own psyche from struggling to provide you with lifesaving symbols of renewal. Scoff if you must. But take a vacation and your psyche will renew itself in spite of you.

Indeed, “but this is wondrous strange,” says Horatio.

“And therefore as a stranger give it welcome,” says Hamlet. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

-- 

Rachel Corrie lives.
Pass it on.

KENTUCKY ATHEISTS NEWS & NOTES Date: January 12, 2008

Kentucky Atheists, P.O. Box 48, Union, KY 41091; Email: ekagin@atheists.org

Phone: (859) 384-7000; Fax: (859) 384-7324; Web: http://www.atheists.org/ky/

Editor’s personal web site: www.edwinkagin.com

Editor’s personal blog: http://edwinkagin.blogspot.com

Edited by:

Edwin Kagin, Kentucky State Director, American Atheists, Inc.

I WAS BORN AN ATHEIST JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

To Unidentified Recipients:

Just couldn’t believe it, so I wrote to the reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader thus:

From: Edwin Kagin [mailto:edwinkagin@fuse.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 8:01 AM
To: ‘JSTAMPER@HERALD-LEADER.COM’

Subject: Turn your what upon who?

Howdy.

Could you please verify?

First line of today’s story about the start of the 2008 Senate < http://www.kentucky.com/454/story/280739.html > :

“The political squabbles started less than an hour after the state Senate kicked off its work year listening to a rendition of ‘Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.'”

Naturally, they will say that this, if true, is not an attempt to unconstitutionally “establish a religion.”

Are these the words?

”O soul are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Saviour,
And life more abundant and free:

[Chorus:]
Turn you eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
Over us sin no more hath dominion
For more than conqu’rors we are!

[Chorus]

His word shall not fail you He promised;
Believe Him and all will be well.
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

[Chorus]”

If that is not religious, one wonders just how it might look if they were religious.

We are a nation of laws, not a nation of sins.

Thank you.

Edwin.

Edwin Kagin,
National Legal Director
American Atheists, Inc.
ekagin@atheists.org
Phone: 859-384-7000

Toll Free: 877-814-9287
Fax: 859-384-7324

(AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.)

—————————————————–

Well, it was true.

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And if that is not enough of a dose of constitutional awareness for Kentucky, consider this:

Bill in the works for public school prayer

BY PATRICK CROWLEY | PCROWLEY@NKY.COM

FRANKFORT — A Northern Kentucky lawmaker is working on legislation designed to allow public school students to openly pray in school.

Rep. Royce Adams, D-Dry Ridge, said he is working on the bill at the request of a Grant County church that claims to have collected more than 25,000 signatures on petitions supporting the effort.

Adams said the bill is not yet drafted and he would not divulge further details.

• Should the Ky. Legislature worry about prayer in schools?

“It’s a work in progress as we speak,” Adams said Tuesday morning about an hour before the Kentucky General Assembly opened its 2008 legislative session.

Adams acknowledged the bill is apt to raise constitutional concerns.

“That’s what we’re looking into,” he said while walking through the tunnel that connects the Capitol Parking Garage with the Capitol Annex. “Hopefully we’ll have something that will meet the needs (of the supporters.) I really believe that part of the problem is we’ve already got some things on the books that most people don’t realize are there. So we are trying to take all that into consideration before we draft a bill.”

Adams would not expound on his comment that there may be an existing law or provision in a state statute that would allow open prayer in school.

“I’m not ready to give a lot of information, because like I said, it’s a work in progress.”

“But I think I have to come up with some type of legislation because I’ve got quite a few (people) in my district that are interested in this,” Adams said.

He said the Lawrenceville Baptist Church in Corinth in southern Grant County initiated the petition drive. In a statement issued by the Rev. Jay Holt, pastor, the church said it had “collected more than 25,000 signatures … to put prayer back in Kentucky schools.”

“Through door-to-door signature drives, booths at local events and letters to hundreds of churches all over the state, the congregation of Lawrenceville has caught the attention of legislators in Frankfort,” according to the statement.

“People want this,” Adams said. “I’ve been working on this for a couple of months. We’ll have something on this down the road.”

Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, who often clashes with conservative lawmakers over religious-oriented legislation, said Adams is “pandering” with the bill and said the General Assembly should be focused on other issues.

“We’re facing a $400 million hole in the budget,” Stein said in an interview.

“We have more than likely cuts in (public education) we are going to have to make.

“We are not properly funding our universities, yet (Adams) wants to get us all in a tizzy about prayer in school.

“Children can pray in school right now so long as they aren’t disruptive to the class,” said Stein, a lawyer.

“This is just – the word pandering comes to mind.”

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And while that scoff law behavior is going on:

Kentucky makes the New York Times, with “In Kentucky’s Teeth, Toll of Poverty and Neglect”:

See: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/us/24kentucky.html

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“Answers in Atheism,” the Internet radio call-in talk show.

KAGIN’S COLUMN

Time like an ever-flowing stream   

Bears all its sons away;

They fly forgotten as a dream

Dies at the break of day. (Isaac Watts, 1719)

Here is the article on Answers in Atheism that appeared this week in Louisville, Kentucky’s independent newspaper LEO.

Eight Years after the Rapture, by Edwin Kagin

AMERICAN ATHEISTS