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Atheist Associations

Monthly Meeting March 7

We met at 5pm at the Blue Moose on Sunday, March 7.

Our topic was:

Who We Admire in Science, Philosophy or Atheism and Why.

Update:

Over the next day or so I will post everyone’s choices.

Ivy: Victor Frankl

Daniel: Thomas Jefferson

Tim: John Shelby Spong

Brent: August Weisman, Leondard Hayflick and Aubrey DeGrey

David: Richard and Mary Leaky, the author of African Genesis and Paul Monette

Neece: Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins

Butch: Frank Zappa and George Carlin

Gerald: Martin Gardner and James Randi

Chad: Neil deGrasse Tyson

Joe: Pearl S. Buck and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF)

A Wild Ride With Robert Sapolsky

Brent sent me a link to a page on the web. It’s a conversation with Robert Sapolsky, a quiet, funny, apparently brilliant professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and of neurology at Stanford’s School of Medicine. Professor Sapolsky has written several books such as:

The link Brent sent me was called TOXO and he suggested it to me, to share with you, because we’re reading The God Virus: How religion infects our lives and culture, by Daniel W Ray. Now the video on that page was Robert Sapolsky talking about a most interesting parasite called Toxoplasma. This is what pregnant…

Donation Drive For Thanksgiving

funny-pictures-mouse-is-in-a-room-full-of-cheeseHello fellow Nonbelievers!

Update: A huge Thank You to everyone who made our first Secular Service Event a great success! Matt at the Bartlett House was amazed at how much stuff we brought in, and commented on the name of the Morgantown Coalition of Reason when he filled out our receipt for their records.  :-D

~

One of the goals of Morgantown Atheists is to help others in our community. As the holidays approach, now is a great time to launch our first Secular Service Event.

We have opened this event to all of Morgantown Coalition of Reason so Brights, Freethinkers, UU’s and Thomas Paine lovers join in and help out! :)

Between now and Saturday, November 21, please collect any of the following items to donate to the Bartlett House and the Salvation Army in Morgantown.

We will donate…

Morgantown Atheists Join American Atheists

American AtheistsHello Morgantown Atheists!

Last Wednesday, October 21, we became an affiliate of American Atheists!

We’re listed on the affiliates page. Just click on the icon in WV.

Here is what AA said:

American Atheists is honored to welcome Morgantown Atheists to the growing list of Affiliates across the United States. A good synonym for Affiliation is friendship and that is exactly what we look forward to with Morgantown Atheists.

Morgantown Atheists can now begin taking advantage of the many benefits that come with being an Affiliate of American Atheists, including:

  • Free listing on the American Atheists’ Web Page
  • Assistance in arranging programs and setting up new local organization.
  • Free subscription to the American Atheist Magazine.
  • 20% discount at the American Atheists store for purchases over $50.00 (use promo code aff2009).
  • Reduced convention fees for members of Morgantown Atheists and a free Affiliate meeting

The Demography of Unbelief

“Who Are These Doubters, Anyway? The Demography of Unbelief”

Tom-Flynn-09presented by Tom Flynn, Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism and Editor of Free Inquiry magazine

Thursday, October 29, 7:00 p.m.
Carnegie Science Center
1 Allegheny Avenue, Pittsburgh

You’ve seen the various religion polls and the reported percentages of unbelievers – and the polls vary widely.  How do you know which polls are more reliable?  Join Tom Flynn as he explores how sociologists and pollsters measure religious belief and unbelief.  He will also cover the controversies and scandals in the polling field, and what the polling data on religion really mean (for example, how many of those “no religious preference” people are really atheists?).

Tom Flynn is Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism and the Editor of Free Inquiry magazine.  A journalist, novelist, entertainer, and folklorist, Flynn is the author of numerous…

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…

Godless WV Groups Organize around Morgantown Billboard

Don't Believe In God? You're Not Alone In Morgantown, West Virginia!(Morgantown, WV, September 29, 2009.) Atheists and agnostics in Morgantown, West Virginia, have organized around an electronic billboard on Mileground Road. The billboard reads, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” These words are superimposed over an image of blue sky and clouds.

Four groups of freethinkers and humanists have pooled their efforts to launch the new Morgantown Coalition of Reason, sponsor of the billboard. Their aim is to educate the public about their worldview and what their groups do. The billboard invites like-minded people to visit the coalition’s website at www.MorgantownCoR.org. Motorists traveling west on Mileground Road into Morgantown will see it.

Under the co-sponsorship of the United Coalition of Reason, a national coordinating body, this billboard is part of a larger nationwide campaign aimed at raising the public profile of nontheists and organizing nontheistic groups in major cities. The United Coalition of Reason plans to fund…

Book Club July 26: Atheist Universe 2

We talked about Atheist Universe by David Mills

Chapters 5-7 (page 105-170)

A few notes from the meeting:

  • Anything that can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Christopher Hitchens
  • We talked about the shared symbology of the Fertile Crescent civilizations and how other cultures farther away do not share that symbology, such as Nordic, Asian or Australian cultures. Shared contact = shared symbology.
  • This is an interesting idea: Does enslavement/oppression of a people encourage and promote religiosity? Do oppressed and enslaved people have less desire/need for reality? Is it less important to them? Are they forced to be more ignorant and without hope? Have any studies been done on this?
  • Does stress link to religiosity? I wrote about a study that showed that it does: Superstitious? It Could Be Your Lack of Control: This new study shows that when you lack control, you are

A Field Trip to the Creation Museum With PZ Myers

This is somewhat late notice, but there is still plenty of time. Some members of Freethinkers Morgantown are planning a field trip to the creation museum (I think it’s outside of Cincinnati). Here is the notice that I received from Michael Pipkin on Monday (they will be going with PZ Myers):

Claire and I are thinking about attending the Creation Museum field trip with the Secular Student Alliance on August 7th. The event is on a Friday, so it would require taking a day off of work. I want to see if anyone else might be interested in going so we could carpool and share expenses.

PZ Myers will be acting as a “guide” and there will even be a special presentation that day, with one of the AIG “researchers” (I use that term very loosely) giving a lecture in which he will present the “Ultimate Proof of

Rediscovering Secular America

Written by Katrina Vanden Heuvel for The Nation:

This Fourth of July, those who identify themselves as non-believers, or humanists, or atheists — or a whole host of other names which signify a nontheistic worldview — have much cause for celebration. After eight years in the Bush wilderness — and an even longer period of ostracism by the Washington political establishment — a rising demographic of like-minded Americans and a new president are guiding us back to our roots as a secular nation.

“We have generally been a pariah group in America,” says Woody Kaplan, Advisory Board Chair of the Secular Coalition for America. “Pretty much unrecognized by the political establishment. Yet there’s almost no religious group in America as large as us…. We were that third rail that politicians failed to touch.”

Indeed when the Obama Administration invited the Coalition to the White House for

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