Thursday, November 17, 2011, 7:00 PM

Free Library of Philadelphia

1901 Vine St, Philadelphia, PA (map)

Skyline Room, 4th floor (use elevator)

The November 2011 meeting of Delaware Valley Americans United chapter’s Philadelphia Committee will take place on Thursday November 17th at 7pm in the Skyline Room on the 4th floor of the Parkway Central Library in Philadelphia PA, at 1901 Vine Street (between 19th and 20th Streets on the Parkway).

Please welcome DVAU’s new Treasurer and Secretary Dean Miller, who will discuss his book, “Public Enemy #1: The Faith-Based War on the Public Sector.”  In Dean’s 2nd welcome talk to the chapter, he will talk about Religious Right attacks on the public sector and attempts to replace the government with private and religious institutions.  Dean first gave this talk to a receptive crowd at the DVAU/Bucks County meeting on June 14, 2011. This November 17 meeting is rescheduled from our September 8th meeting, which was cancelled due to rain and flooding in Philadelphia.

Historically, United States society has generally consisted of two types of organizations: public and private, which have coexisted for centuries with few conflicts. Recently, however, religious/political conservatives have demonstrated a surprisingly bitter animosity toward the public sector as a whole. Public schools, public libraries, public television and more are subjects of their vitriol.

Religious/political conservatives seek to create a private ruling class that is not accountable to the general public. The goal is privatization of government itself, isolating government from public scrutiny. A facade of religious moral values surrounding the religious/political conservatives tends to disarm suspicions and discredit alarmists.

As always, this DVAU meeting is free and open to the public. Location: Philadelphia Free Library, Parkway Central Branch Skyline Room (4th Floor) 1901 Vine Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (between 19th and 20th Streets on the Parkway) There is a pay-to-park lot on Callowhill Street behind the library, and this location is accessible via SEPTA.

Also on our site! http://dvau.org/?p=677

DFS Meeting canceled due to multiple scheduling conflicts. Meetings will cease until we agree on a time we can all meet. We are using Doodle to form a new meeting time. If you are not invited already and wish to be, please contact me with an email and you will be invited straight away!

As you may have already heard, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved a resolution reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the national motto.  The non-binding measure, H. Con. Res. 13, also promotes the display of “In God We Trust” in public schools and other public buildings. It passed 396-9, with 2 abstentions.

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) strongly condemns this resolution as a hollow, divisive, and unnecessary gesture toward monotheistic faith.  It is irresponsible and shameful for lawmakers to use faith as a political tool to divide the nation along religious lines, especially at a time when America is confronted with multiple pressing national issues.

Congress only adopted “In God We Trust” as the national motto in 1956, when American leaders sought to distinguish the United States from the communist Soviet Union.  Yet the motto ignores and reinforces the outsider status of the nation’s many nonbelievers, as well as members of minority religions that do not recognize a monotheistic god (including, for example, Buddhists and Hindus).  Polls show that 16 percent of Americans have no religious identity, while over 40 million Americans do not identify with a monotheistic God.

A far better motto for the nation is the Latin motto adopted in 1782 as part of the national seal: “E Pluribus Unum,” or “Out of many, one.”  America’s original motto accurately describes the nation as a unity comprising people from many religious and nonreligious perspectives.

H. Con. Res. 13 now moves to the U.S. Senate. CFI will track its progress and lobby against its passage.

Hello fellow Free Thinkers,

There is much to do in our little club, but first things first:

—

David G. McDevitt

Drexel Free-Thought Society, President

president@drexelfreethought.org

(267) 702-0729

*please excuse the lack of elegance of the post, I’m still learning how to do it correctly -laughs-

For general information about online classes,
visit the CFI Institute Online main page

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SCI 250-1111: “Science and Religion in Islam”
November 1 – November 30, 2011

Instructors: Taner Edis, PhD, physicist author, Truman State University
John Shook, PhD, CFI director of education

This one-month, four-module course investigates the vexed relationship between modern science and traditional religion as it is played out in the context of Islam today.

Click here to register now!

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Many of the areas of conflict and the attempts to achieve harmony will be familiar from Christianity. For example, perhaps the strongest resistance to Darwinian evolution today comes from Muslim populations. However, there are also important differences between the Christian and Muslim responses to the naturalistic tendencies of science, often due to the fact that for Muslims, modern science has usually been an import rather than an indigenous heresy.

Course Topics:

• Week 1: To Seek Knowledge in China / A Usable Past
• Week 2: Finding Science in the Quran
• Week 3: Created Nature
• Week 4: Redeeming the Human Sciences / A Liberal Faith?

Readings: Students will purchase their own copies of the following book: An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam by Taner Edis (also available in Kindle).

Your instructors for SCI 250-1111:

Taner Edis, PhD, was born in Istanbul, 1967, to Turkish and American parents. After completing his undergraduate work at Boğaziçi University, he received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1994, in theoretical and computational condensed matter physics. Working in diverse areas, from atmospheric modeling with collaborators at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to the philosophy of machine intelligence, he is currently associate professor of physics at Truman State University, Kirksville, MO. He is the author of The Ghost in the Universe, Why Intelligent Design Fails, Science and Nonbelief, and An Illusion of Harmony.

John Shook, PhD, is director of education and senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, and is also visiting assistant professor of science education at the University at Buffalo, teaching for its Science and the Public online program. From 2000 to 2006 he was professor of philosophy at Oklahoma State University. Shook publishes on philosophical topics regarding science, the mind, humanist ethics, democracy, secularism, and religion, and has debated the existence of God with leading theologians, including William Lane Craig. His most recent book is The God Debates.

About CFI Institute Online courses:

CFI 200-level courses are taught at an intellectual level equivalent to an introductory college course. We expect students to participate in the class discussion at their own chosen pace, and there are no other writing requirements and no grading. These classes are entirely online — everything for the course except the book is provided on a CFI website. You will read the course lectures, follow links to other webpages, ask your questions, and participate in class discussion with the instructors and other students on our website.

There is no specific time that you must be online. There is no “live” part to these courses, and you cannot miss anything even if you can only get online at 6am or 11pm — you can log in and participate anytime, day or night, 24/7. A certificate of course completion is available to students who do participate online (as opposed to only lurking and reading, which is also an unobjectionable option for some students). Completion of eight courses at the Expertise 200-level is rewarded with the Institute’s Certificate of Expertise.

This course can also be taken for college credit through the University at Buffalo; contact Dr. John Shook for details.

Course Fees: $60 for general registration; $50 for Friends of the Center; and $10 for college students

Ready to sign up? Register online here.

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Explore our other educational opportunities at the CFI Education page
Questions? Email a CFI Institute representative
or phone (716) 636-4869 ext. 408.

Hello Free-Thinkers, my name is David McDevitt and with the help of many of you I’ve brought the Drexel Free-Thought Society out of the dark and back into the public square! We are now heavy in the member drive. If you know anyone, feel free to tell them we exist again. I have big plans for this club; events, debates, discussions, and more than anything community involvement. Soon I’ll have the new constitution posted for review, and meetings can start as soon as next week if we are able to get everything together in time. Please message me any questions and get ready for a fantastic new DFS!