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:

Ivy: Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search For Meaning. His Logotherapy was about searching for a new and increased awareness in the present and enabling a new freedom and responsibility to act. The patient can then accept they they are not special and that their existence is simply coincidental, without destiny or fate. By accepting this, they can overcome their anxieties, and instead view life as moments, in which they are fundamentally free.

Daniel: Thomas Jefferson, the third president and a founding father. A freethinker and a great leader, he worked very hard to give America the separation of church and state. He was also opposed to a central bank, he was very insightful, and wanted to keep the power of the federal government in check.

Tim: John Shelby Spong is a retired bishop of the Episcopal church. He wrote Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality and followed the principle of the Episcopal seminary’s adage, “Seek the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will.” He revolutionized the Episcopal church.

Brent: August Weismann, Leonard Hayflick and Aubrey de Grey are three men in different biology fields who worked or work in life extension.

David: Richard and Mary Leaky who were doing great things in 1968, a book called African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man which helped David to seek a scientific basis to life, and Paul Monette who wrote Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story.

Neece: Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins. Both great men who taught and teach critical thinking, skepticism, and make science attainable for anyone willing to look at how awesome the universe really is naturally. Sagan wrote quite a few books and so has Dawkins.

Butch: Frank Zappa and George Carlin, both men who were proponents of free speech and not letting yourself get crushed under the boot heel of religion or the government. Zappa was a part of the PMRC trials in the 80′s and Carlin was an outspoken critic of the church back in the 60′s before it was fashionable.

Gerald: Martin Gardner and James Randi. Gardner started the ball rolling in the 50′s with speaking out against creationism. He was a secular humanist. He wrote Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Discourses on Reflexology, Numerology, Urine Therapy, and Other Dubious Subjects and Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. James Randi is a big part of the skeptical movement, a part of CFI and the founder of the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation). He has written many books.

Chad: Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist who brings passion to science and scientific literacy. This video of a talk by Tyson from 2006 is about 38 minutes long. He talks about the god of the gaps throughout scientific history, intelligent design and then about Stupid Design. Highly recommended watching. Tyson has written several books.

Joe: Pearl S. Buck and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Pearl S. Buck took Joe out of his Ozzie and Harriet life and showed him other ways of life and different ways of thinking. Buck wrote many books. Here’s a quote from her about religion: “I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. Like Confucius of old, I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.” The FFRF is a group that fights for the separation of church and state.