Monthly Meeting July 11: Separation of Church and State

This entry is part 15 of 16 in the series Monthly Meetings

We met at 5pm at the Blue Moose on Sunday, July 11 for our Morgantown Atheists’ monthly meeting.

~Update: We talked about church and state separation this evening.

Hari brought in a book from the original Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He also mentioned several websites:

Dave educated us on how the Catholic Church views church and state, and subsequently, separation of the two. This was lengthy but he gave me his notes. If you want to learn more let me know and I’ll find a way to share them with the class. This was very interesting.

Gerald talked about creationists/IDers and where they are coming from.  If you look into the writings and statements of these groups and their top members, you find their true mission. I have more information from Gerald if you’re interested. Let me know.

I quoted the Founding Fathers on religion. I also mentioned an article I wrote about how Separation of Church and State Benefits Everyone. And while I am thinking about it, here’s a great article by a friend of mine on the Treaty of Tripoli. Read the rest of this entry »

July 4, 2010 | Neece | Categories: Church and State Separation Monthly Meeting | Tags: , , | 13 Comments »

Monthly Meeting June 6: Founding Fathers and Great Scientists

This entry is part 14 of 16 in the series Monthly Meetings

We met at 5pm at the Blue Moose on Sunday, June 6 for Morgantown Atheists’ monthly meeting.

~Update: We had a rather small meeting since several members were galavanting about the globe. :) It was an interesting discussion, though, and the Lavender Cafe was delicious as usual.

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Topic of the evening is honoring and remembering great leaders in our country – our Founding Fathers – and in science. Bring along someone you admire from science, history, politics, skepticism or any other field to share with us.

May 25, 2010 | Neece | Categories: Monthly Meeting Monthly Topic | Tags: , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Monthly Meeting April 11: Earth Day and Open Topic

This entry is part 12 of 16 in the series Monthly Meetings

We met Sunday April 11 at 4:30-ish pm at the Daniel and Ivy’s House.

Update: We had a great time at Daniel and Ivy’s. Daniel is a great BBQer and Ivy puts on a fantastic spread. Everything was delicious, the company was awesome, the conversation was interesting, and overall I think it was just wonderful. The weather was perfect too!

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Update: The Morgantown CoR is gearing up for our worthwhile cause, the West Virginia Botanic Garden. On April 11 from 2-4pm, the WVBG is having a Volunteer Orientation. See the post for details. We’ll meet at 2pm at the park and then go directly to Daniel and Ivy’s afterward for a bit of an early meeting and BBQ! :D

For the Topic of the Evening, the floor is yours! We are having an Open Topic, which means you get a few minutes to talk about anything that interests you. Suggestions for your topics:

  • freethought
  • atheism
  • philosophy
  • science
  • skepticism
  • history

Read the rest of this entry »

April 11, 2010 | Neece | Categories: Fun Monthly Meeting | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

From the Early Days of Morgantown Atheists

Brent sent me a brochure from last year about Darwin-fest, for his 200th anniversary. This was when Morgantown Atheists was just forming and a lot of the members of that time went to a lot of these events. So this is a cyber-souvenir from 2009.

West Virginia University is celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin with DarwinFest, a series of talks and presentations examining the naturalist’s work – from his travels to his influential theory on evolution.

“Darwin: Evolutionary Science and Its Impacts on Society”; an interdisciplinary celebration involving colleges and schools across the University – will be held from February through early April. The events, which are free and open to the public, will feature leading scholars and scientists from around the world.

Darwin, who was born Feb. 12, 1809, is known as the father of evolution for his theory that all life develops through a process he called natural selection. 2009 also marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of “On the Origin of Species,” Darwin’s seminal work on the subject.

“These speakers and presenters will explain Darwin’s complex work in terms the average person will understand,” interim Provost E. Jane Martin said. “They will also show Darwin’s influence on modern life, from science and medicine to human relationships and religion.” Read the rest of this entry »

February 23, 2010 | Neece | Categories: Article Reminder | Tags: , , | No Comments »

Darwin’s Ventriloquists by Jonathan Marks, Ph.D.

This entry is part 7 of 12 in the series Other Events

Professor-Jonathan-Marks

Monday, October 12, 2009 at 7:30 pm in the Mountainlair Blue Ballroom.

You are invited to the 2009 Eberly College Distinguished Lecture, sponsored by the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, in association with the Division of Sociology and Anthropology, on Monday, October 12, 2009. Dr. Jonathan Marks, professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, will be delivering a presentation entitled Darwin’s Ventriloquists, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mountainlair Blue Ballroom. There will be a reception held afterwards in the Gold Ballroom.

This event is intended as a counterpoint to last spring’s lecture by J. Philippe Rushton.

Human evolution expert Jonathan Marks, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, believes today’s training of modern scientists commonly shields them from the history and politics of their work, forcing generations of evolutionary geneticists to rediscover the intimate connection between science and culture.

“What we learn from the social study of evolutionary theory is that the natural and the cultural invariably co-produce the scientific,” said Marks. “Scientific claims, however, are made with a voice of cultural authority about human diversity that are especially sensitive to cultural influences.”

He argues the biggest challenge to contemporary evolutionary theory comes not from creationists, but from biologists themselves, and thinks that evolutionary biology cannot afford to tolerate scientific racism, which is the act of justifying social inequalities between presumptively natural groups of people by recourse to science.

He is author of “Human Biodiversity” (Aldine/Transaction, 1995), and “What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee” (University of California Press, 2002), which received the W.W. Howells Prize in Biological Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association and the J.I. Staley Prize from the School of Advanced Research. His new book, “Why I Am Not a Scientist,” was recently published by the University of California Press.

More information available in the press release.

October 6, 2009 | Neece | Categories: Other Events | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Codex Sinaiticus: The Oldest Bible Holds Surprises

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series History

Codex_Sinaiticus_open200The Codex Sinaiticus, which means ‘the Sinai Book’ holds a special place in history. And now the whole world has access to it for free. Here, let the website explain. This is from their about page:

Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript of the Christian Bible written in the middle of the fourth century, contains the earliest complete copy of the Christian New Testament. The hand-written text is in Greek. The New Testament appears in the original vernacular language (koine) and the Old Testament in the version, known as the Septuagint, that was adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians. In the Codex, the text of both the Septuagint and the New Testament has been heavily annotated by a series of early correctors.

The significance of Codex Sinaiticus for the reconstruction of the Christian Bible’s original text, the history of the Bible and the history of Western book-making is immense.

First, the many corrections are quite telling, spanning the centuries. Letters, words and whole sentences are added or removed. The books are in a different order, and there are some books in there that have since been removed. The codex is dated to the middle of the 4th century. This is one of the earliest manuscripts. The only other is at the vatican, so therefore out of the reach of the public.

What is contained in the codex as described by the Codex Sinaiticus website:

As it survives today, Codex Sinaiticus comprises just over 400 large leaves of prepared animal skin, each of which measures 380mm high by 345mm wide. On these parchment leaves is written around half of the Old Testament and Apocrypha (the Septuagint), the whole of the New Testament, and two early Christian texts not found in modern Bibles. Most of the first part of the manuscript (containing most of the so-called historical books, from Genesis to 1 Chronicles) is now missing and presumed to be lost.

The Septuagint includes books which many Protestant Christian denominations place in the Apocrypha. Those present in the surviving part of the Septuagint in Codex Sinaiticus are 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach.

The number of the books in the New Testament in Codex Sinaiticus is the same as that in modern Bibles in the West, but the order is different. The Letter to the Hebrews is placed after Paul’s Second Letter to the Thessalonians, and the Acts of the Apostles between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles.

The two other early Christian texts are an Epistle by an unknown writer claiming to be the Apostle Barnabas, and ‘The Shepherd’, written by the early second-century Roman writer, Hermas.

I think this will prove extremely useful to the debate of the legitimacy of christianity. With this online resource, you can see the original manuscript and the transcription in one of several languages. For the first time, we are all able to access this historical work for ourselves. It’s amazing and awesome.

If you spend some time with the codex and find anything interesting, please feel free to share it with us.

(cross-posted from Heaving Dead Cats)

July 12, 2009 | Neece | Categories: History bible study | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »
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