Religious News/Quotes of the Day

[Dardedar]

From the mailbag:

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Hi, I'm Jeanette Norman. I organize DAFT (Denver Atheists & Freethinkers). I'm also on the planning committee for the 2012 Atheist Alliance of America convention, which will be here in Denver, Colorado over the Labor Day weekend.
I hope you will share info about our convention with your members. (And I would be glad to reciprocate whenever you have a national atheist gathering.)
Our theme this year is “The Ascent of Atheism.” The convention starts on Friday, August 31, and ends with a family-friendly picnic in the mountains at nearby Genesee Park on Monday, September 2. Aside from the picnic, the convention will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Denver, where luxury rooms are available to convention guests at the very special rate of $85 a night.
The convention is specifically designed to include the whole family, and there will be many activities to choose from, including a super kid adventure sponsored by Camp Quest, the Freethought Shorts Marathon movie event, music, and more!
People can see more details and register at the AAA website, at atheistallianceamerica.org.
Those who can't make it out this year are invited to “like” our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/AtheistAlliance ... Convention

Thank you for your time,
Jeanette M. Norman
***

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A useful blog post which addresses:

20 Questions : Richard Carrier

Are there “20 Questions Atheists Struggle to Answer” ? I was asked how I respond to Peter Saunders’ claim that there are, and how I would respond to those questions. According to God’s Advocate, Saunders thinks “there have not been any decent responses to [these twenty questions] in the past 40yrs,” but evidently he isn’t bothering to read any of the best answers available or even to find out what they are. The questions themselves are pretty much boiler plate, and consist mostly of fallacious loaded questions that ignore the established science behind nearly every one. I noticed that my work over the years has answered every one, except a few that are so lame I really can’t believe he thinks they need a better answer than science has already provided (at least with respect to whether atheism is true–I think science can always know or learn more about anything, but at a certain point you know enough to know God is not involved in whatever it is).

So here are my answers to his twenty questions… HERE

(1) • What caused the universe to exist?

(2) • What explains the fine tuning of the universe?

(3) • Why is the universe rational?

(4) • How did DNA and amino acids arise?

(5) • Where did the genetic code come from?

...etc...

[Doug]

So here are my answers to his twenty questions…

DOUG writes:
His answer to the ethics question is ridiculous. He claims that moral truths exist necessarily and that science could find these truths. His view is so foolish it is embarrassing.

Most of his answers are written in a convoluted style. I wouldn't want to show all of these answers to a theist. Some of them are passable, though.

[Dardedar]

I had forgotten that Wells is a Moonie. Moonie creationist Jonathon Wells on his battle with evolution:

"In 1976, Jonathan Wells a student in Moon's seminary, answered his leader's call. Wells writes, "Father's [Moon's] words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me to enter a PhD program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle." LINK or LINK

Well's has a new book: "The Myth of Junk DNA." Read here a beautiful spanking of it in this Amazon review.

[Doug]

When TheWrap asked [Morgan Freeman] the man with the magnificent voice about one of the coming episodes, titled "Did we invent God?," the distinguished actor didn't hold back.

Yes [...] Well, here's a scientific question: Has anybody ever seen hard evidence? What we get is theories from our earlier prophets. Now, people who think that God invented us think that the Earth can't be more than 6,000 years old. So I guess it's a question of belief. My belief system doesn't support a creator as such, as we can call God, who created us in His/Her/Its image.

Freeman said answering whether he was an atheist or agnostic was "hard" because the actor thinks "we invented God."

"So if I believe in God, and I do, it's because I think I'm God," he said.

[Savonarola]

"So if I believe in God, and I do, it's because I think I'm God," he said.

Tomorrow's headline: Evangelists quote mine the above; demand boycott, apology

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The Religious Right Turns 33: What Have We Learned?

"As we look back on more than a quarter century of political engagement by the religious right, two things now appear obvious.

First, partisan religion is killing American Christianity. The American church is declining by nearly every data point. Christians are exerting less influence over the culture than even a few years ago, organized religion no longer garners the respect of the masses, and two in three young non-Christians claim they perceive the Christian church as "too political." Church attendance is declining, and the percentage of Americans claiming no religious affiliation is rising.

As sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell argue, the church's partisan political alignment is at least partly to blame. In a recent article in Foreign Affairs they write, "In effect, Americans (especially young Americans) who might otherwise attend religious services are saying, 'Well, if religion is just about conservative politics, then I'm outta here.'"

The Atlantic

[Dardedar]

From the mailbag:

***
Hello:

Fayetteville Freethinkers will be interested in my latest book: Inventing Jesus: The New Testament Narrative as Fiction (2012). It's a thoroughly researched and professionally written account of the author of the Gospel of Mark's much-too-creative genius. Bottom line: A historical Jesus never walked the earth.

The importance of this book as a contribution to atheist scholarship is that it moves beyond the view that Jesus was a great moral teacher, though entirely human, and advances to the realization that he was a merely fictional character.

ISBN-10: 061548803X.
Check it out at: http://inventingjesus.com/
You can also find it on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Jesus-T ... 658&sr=8-1

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Saw them on skeptic money:

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"We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief."
--Ronald Reagan, Speech to Temple Hillel and Community Leaders in Valley Stream (October 26, 1984), Link

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Church pastors become atheists
Houston-area pastor one of first to make decision public

HOUSTON -
"More than 200 church leaders across the country now say they no longer believe in God, including a Houston-area pastor who was one of the first to publicly announce his decision.

Mike Aus, who was pastor at Theophilus church in Katy, made that announcement during an appearance on a Sunday morning show on MSNBC.

"Hardly anyone reads the Bible," said Aus on the "Up with Chris Hayes" program. "If they did, the whole thing would be in trouble."

...Aus was a long-time Lutheran pastor at churches in the Houston area, but now he said he no longer believes in the message he had been preaching for almost 20 years. Aus declined Local 2's request for an interview. He said his statements on MSNBC explained his loss of faith.

"As I started to jettison the beliefs, I came to realize fairly recently there wasn't a whole lot left," Aus said.

The effect was immediate on his church with about 80 members. Weeks after his announcement, the church dissolved. Members did not want to talk with Local 2 on camera, but they said their pastor's complete change in faith was devastating.

"When a pastor comes forward and says, 'I don't believe anymore,' it rocks their world," said Dr. Keith Jenkins, a Methodist pastor and former president of the Houston Graduate School of Theology. "Members see pastors as spiritual super heroes."

Jenkins said many church leaders question and then lose their faith, but never before has it been a public phenomenon. "It's almost gone viral," said Jenkins.

The website http://www.clergyproject.com has become a confidential gathering group for pastors, ministers and other church leaders who no longer believe in God. The group said it has more than 240 members. Some like Aus have gone public. Most other church leaders in that group have kept their new lack of belief hidden from others, including their congregations. They are secret atheists still serving churches and ministering to members even though they don't believe in what they preach anymore.

"I'm sure there are many pastors actively serving in churches who are going through a faith crisis and have lost their faith, but they haven't left because it's their livelihood," said Jenkins. "But they need to move on. They don't need to stay with a church and use their position as a pastor with sacred trust to try and take others with them."

LINK

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Parade of Privilege

Fourteen examples of how religion receives preferential treatment in society.

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I was sitting in a Dairy Queen in Salmon Arm BC in 1982 when someone told me this. I even remember which booth. It was that profound.