Subscribe to and Contact Us

Get Email Updates

Categories

Atheist Associations

Tell your Senator to Stop the Federal Funding of Religious Schools

Last night Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) filed a D.C. voucher amendment to the second jobs bill under consideration by the Senate.  The D.C. voucher program uses taxpayer funds to pay for parents to send their children to private religious schools. The program is called the “D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program,” but a 2007 government report found that these vouchers do not give D.C. students seeking a private school education sufficient secular choices, forcing them to attend religious schools or remain in the failing public school system.

By design, voucher programs aid struggling Christian schools. A July 2009 report by Rutgers University on the D.C. voucher program concluded that the way the voucher program is structured “essentially push[es] students into Christian Association and Catholic schools, pricing out independent (non-religious) schools and Hebrew schools.”

By continuing this program, those of us who do not wish to subsidize someone else’s church will…

Haitian Earthquake Relief Through CFI

The Center for Inquiry is accepting disaster-relief donations through its S.H.A.R.E. program to support those providing care to the survivors of the 7.0 earthquake that struck Jan. 12 near the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

All donations—100 percent with no operating costs retained—will be sent directly to the secular aid group Doctors Without Borders , which suffered the loss of all three of its medical facilities and is working against difficulties to provide the basics of first-aid care and stabilization.

The needs of those who’ve lost their family members, their homes, and their livelihoods will be very great. Your assistance will make a huge difference for the victims of this tragic disaster. Please join us and other humanists and skeptics as we help those in need in this time of crisis.

A contribution of any amount would be greatly appreciated by everyone at the Center for Inquiry. Thank you…

Happy National Secular Service Day!

A Rescue MissionSunday, October 18, 2009 marks the first ever National Secular Service Day. Today, nonreligious organizations all over America will unite in performing acts of community service.

One of our missions as Morgantown Atheists is to help others and offer public service, and we are looking forward to participating next year. Unfortunately we found out about it a bit too late this year to organize anything for today.

The NSSD offers suggestions for Service Ideas:

  • Volunteer at a homeless shelter.
  • Work in a local soup kitchen.
  • Bake cookies for a firehouse
  • Help build houses in weather damaged areas.
  • Help with construction at a local park or other public area.
  • Clean up a park or other part of the community.
  • Start or participate in a mentoring program (i.e. Big Brother, Big Sister)
  • Pick up trash on a highway.
  • Restore trails or habitats in a National, State,

Teaming Up, Doing Good

thinking outside the boxHello Everyone!

The billboard is up and making the news! You can see all the press we’ve gotten so far here: http://morgantown.unitedcor.org/press . Some of the comments at the different articles are fun and interesting. The Charleston Gazette has 100 comments, the most popular story at the moment. It appears that there are about 3 or 4 positive to each negative comment! Here is the link: http://wvgazette.com/News/200909290601

Rachel has done a great job as our spokesperson. She even got on TV: http://wboy.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=67641 Watch the video too!

So, MorgantownCoR comprises the Morgantown Atheists, the Morgantown Brights, the Freethinkers Morgantown Book Club and the Morgantown Thomas Paine Society. One thing we all want to do is make a positive difference in our community. Through our actions, we can show the traditionally religious people in our area that we are good, moral…

West Virginia Gets An F In Science

PZ Myers talked about science education in America the other day. It was based on a scientific review of the country regarding evolution and the science curriculum standards of each state. Here is a handy map from the review:

Science Curriculum Grades of the US.

As you can see, West Virginia got an F. There was a review in 2000 by another group (see the review for links) where we also got an F. So over 9 years, we have made barely any improvements in science standards regarding evolution. Apparently there is no mention of human evolution at all, but a reference to some biological evolution. Unfortunately the F grade means there is either creationist jargon included and/or disclaimers.

Unfortunately the information on West Virginia in this review is sparse. But in their appendix, is a table that shows the grade for various aspects of evolution in state science standards. Here is…

“In God We Trust” Engraving To Be Added To Capitol Visitor Center

This wasteful and egregious threat to the First Amendment has popped up in several places recently. Over at Heaving Dead Cats, there is a good post explaining what Congressman Dan Lungren is proposing in a resolution, along with links for the full text of the bill and a history of the slogan in question, among others.

This also came to my attention through the West Virginia Atheists group, which copied a press release from American Atheists. Apparently, according to American Atheists, A House committee has already approved the religious slogans!

Govtrack has the status of the resolution, along with lots of information as well.

Back at Heaving Dead Cats, there is a link to Take Action Now that you can follow, which is from the Secular Coalition for America. There you can edit and send a letter to your Representatives telling them to vote…