Asher Brewing Fundraiser

We are having a fundraiser at the Asher Brewery this Saturday from 6PM to 9PM. Tickets are $25 for general admission, $20 for students, $15 for under 21 and free for Under 10 (you will, however, still need to get a ticket for children under 10). Tickets can be purchased at the SSaSS table tomorrow (Wednesday), in the UMC room 330, or online at http://rdf-ticketing.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/fundraising-dinner. Proceeds go to funding SSaSS, Boulder Atheists, and Camp Quest. The "About SSaSS" tab above does a good job of outlining who we are and what we do, but to sum up, SSaSS is a Secular Student Alliance affiliated group that is dedicated to creating a forum for reasonable discussion here at CU on topics ranging from religion to pseudo-science.

Boulder Atheists is a secular community group in Boulder that serves as both a social group for local atheists and a platform for activism and community service. We have attended several events with the Boulder Atheists, including the Military Religious Freedom Foundation's protest at the Airforce Academy, and they were kind enough to include us in their plans for this fundraiser.

Camp Quest is the first summer camp for children of nonreligious families. Their mission statement states that they are "dedicated to improving the human condition through rational inquiry, critical and creative thinking, scientific method, self-respect, ethics, competency, democracy, free speech, and the separation of religion and government guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States" Camp Quest also provides a secular alternative for families who want to send their child to a summer camp free of religious dogma, regardless of their own beliefs.

Asher Brewing Company is located at 4699 Nautilus Court, Suite 104, Boulder Colorado, and attending is a great way to help these three great causes.

Sincere Answers to Questions About the Flying Spaghetti Monster

On October 6th, 2012, SSaSS held its second annual Flying Spaghetti Monster charity fundraiser dinner  for Kiva, a website that gives micro loans to starting businesses in 3rd world countries. Sounds like a good time right? Well, it was. We advertised by street preaching like pirates the week of, had a local reggae band, Policulture, provide music, and lots of delicious spaghetti and breadsticks from Fazzolis. We chose the Flying Spaghetti Monster as the particular deity for this because we all know in the cockles of our hearts that if any invisible, immaterial designer of the universe were to exist, surely it would be a benevolent and sentient wad of spaghetti. It just makes sense. We put up spiffy looking posters with the phrase "He boiled for your sins" on it, but one particular anonymous Christian of an unknown organization or denomination (I'll call him Stephen), took issue with this.

The posters looked shockingly like this.

He had obviously been under the impression that his demigod, Jesus of Nazareth, the main character of the best selling book "The Holy Bible", was the actual savior of the human race. Naturally, this is wrong. He had several questions for us; however, due to a prior engagement (possibly a yoga class) he did not have the time to stick around to physically ask us about his concerns. But Stephen, ever thoughtful person that he was, left a list of questions for us to answer and eventually tell him whenever he found it within the means of his busy schedule to visit one of our events again. Here is a picture. If you can't read it, don't worry, I will rewrite each question for you. As an officially ordained minister of Pastafarianism by no particular organization at all, I feel well qualified to address these concerns.

The ripped off part was found in a trash can outside the room. We didn't do that.

1) Is there any evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster ever existed?

Already, Steve comes out with the hard hitting questions. There's no pulling the wool over his eyes, I can see. The evidence for the FSM is all around you. Its in the blueness of the sky, a kitten's purr, the majesty of a mountain range, or even the twinkle in the eye of a homeless man. These may seem like metaphorical analogies to you, because they are. My point is that the evidence for the FSM is the world, and you being in it. More specifically, the fact that you are on it and not suffocating in the vacuum of space. You see, the FSM didn't just exist in the past, he exists now, every day. We know this because we are walking on the ground, not the abyss. He holds each of us down with his noodly appendages, keeping us solidly placed on the earth, rather than floating into space where there is no air. What you would call gravity is actually the work of the FSM, and the most visible example of his existence.

2) Is there any evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster was boiled?
This is quite obvious. Through his wisdom, he has allowed us to see the process of his boiling whenever we make a batch of spaghetti, his chosen food. It stands to reason that even an eternal ageless being was at one point a child. As a young Flying Spaghetti Monsterette, he was obviously very rigid and stiff. We know this because spaghetti that comes out of the package is also rigid and stiff. Yet, when we boil that spaghetti, it becomes all loosey-goosey. Obviously, it would be very difficult to create a universe with rigid noodles. Try keeping your body perfectly straight and doing your day to day activities. It will be hard, if not impossible. The same goes for the FSM. Once he boiled himself, and became able to move his appendages freely and easily, he was able to make the universe by placing each and every subatomic particle in its proper place.

3) If he boiled for our sins, did he define "sins"? Are "sins" the same as "mistakes?" Or are sins so heinous that it would be necessary that he die for my sins?
Pastafarians don't believe in Original Sin. Instead, we understand the nature of the human condition, and that we make mistakes and do bad things, or to use the technical definition: dick moves. He did not make them up, just noticed that certain things we do hurt others, or at the least annoy them. He created the 8 I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts to advise us against doing these things. We find them reasonable, and there's no need for anyone to die. Why would he die? That seems silly.

4) Why was he boiled for our sins?
See 2 and 3

5) Was it voluntary on his part to be boiled?
Yep.

6) After he was boiled, did he rise from the dead?
The FSM never died. Spaghetti doesn't die when it's boiled, it just becomes floppy. He was, however, put through a strainer to get all the excess water off.

7) If he rose from the dead, did the SSaSS officers witness his resurrection? Are they willing to die for claiming that the Flying Spaghetti Monster rose from the dead?
Whoa, Esteban, what's with this obsession with dying? The SSaSS officers did not witness this, though again, as I responded in 2, we have good evidence that this happened. We'd really rather they not die for this.

8) Can he raise me from the dead?
Why would you want that? You know what zombies look like, right? When you die, if the FSM religion is true rather than any of the millions of religions that have existed over the course of all human history, each having claim to their own version of an afterlife which varies from culture to culture and reflects the ideals of what was really good depending on that society's time, or the possibility that this is your one life and you should live it to the fullest and die happy knowing that it was well lived, you will be rewarded with a beer volcano and stripper factory. That's a pretty sweet deal to me.

9) Will he judge Hitler/me?
Well Stefan, I certainly hope you're not comparing yourself to Hitler. He was a pretty bad guy, and you? You're okay in my book. Remember that one time we did that one thing somewhere with the Brazilian circus troupe? Good times. But he does judge us, based on how much of a dick we were in life. If you were a dick, like Hitler, you will go to FSM hell, where the beer is stale, and the strippers are ugly and full of venereal diseases, much like Reno, Nevada. If you were an okay guy, you get to go to heaven.

10) Is he personal? Does he love me?
Well duh. He is taking time out of his precious eternity to keep you solidly placed on earth. I mean, if you made a cake, put all that time into making the dough, waiting for the oven to heat up, watching "The Wire" while it bakes, then putting all that delicious frosting on it, would you then take it and throw it on the ground? No. That'd be stupid. Almost as stupid as creating a perfect world then leaving one easily accessible thing that could screw it all up within the reach of a creature that has no concept of consequences! But no deity would be that vapid, especially not the FSM.

11) Has he spoken to us? If so, how? What might motivate me to believe his revelation?
Why yes he has! In the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, available at fine bookstores everywhere, he has bestowed on us all his wisdom. A critical eye might observe that this could have easily been written by one or more people in an attempt to spread their own ideologies and biases into the world, but we don't. Instead, we read and accept its word based on no other outside evidence to support its claims. We ask that you do the same.

12) Is it true that humans are not made in the image of the Spaghetti Monster?
Yes.  Duh.

13) If I eat/internalize him will he motivate me to not lust after other women/men?
Steven, the FSM is not a prude, and does not expect you to be. C'mon dude, live a little! He's okay with you pursuing your sexual desires, be they heterosexual, homosexual, or other, as long as it is with a (or more, you sly dog) consenting adult, and does not harm another person (unless that's what they're into). Also, children and animals are no-no's.

14) Can I wash his tentacles, so that I can obligate him to be my friend? Or can I be his friend by his sheer grace alone?
I mean, you can... I guess... if that's what you're into. I know some people have tentacle fetishes. I don't personally, but if that's what you're into, I mean, have at it? Pretty sure he'll be your friend without that though. I'm not sure you should be trying to "obligate" people to be your friend anyway. You know, you guys could go play paintball or see a movie or something. Man, Stevie, you're a character all right.

15) Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster worthy of my worship?
Oh, you know, whatever. As long as you're a decent human being he's okay with not being worshiped. He's not vain or anything, just likes having us around. If you want to worship him you can, but he'd rather you spend your time in other ways, like writing a book, or building a bridge, or writing a book about a bridge. Just live your life and don't be a dick.

I recently read on a t-shirt "Is that all you've got?" i.e. Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster the best the "Secular Students and Skeptics Society" has to offer?
Well, no. In fact, SSaSS doesn't advocate for the belief in any deity, made up or also made up. If there is one philosophical view that we as a group hold dear, it's that this world is amazing. Carl Sagan said it best in his Pale Blue Dot. We are a speck in the universe that sees itself as important. Yet this rock could vanish and the universe would remain intact, floating around about its business. But we are here, and we are special, as possibly (but unlikely) the only form of life in the cosmos. This life is precious, and every day we live it should not be for the glory of something that has no empirical basis whatsoever, but for us and our loved ones. When we take care of each other, we take care of ourselves too. It's not selfish or vain, it's just reality. So no, Stephen, the FSM isn't the best we have to offer. The best we can offer you is you, your life, and the hope that you'll live it out every day and not look back to say it was wasted.

[Cut Off] Jesus is infinitely better than the Flying Spaghetti Monster!

Richard Dawkins - The Magic Of Reality

All the information is out now, so I can tell you.  Hooray!

The talk will be at 

7:30 p.m. on Monday, October 15 at

Macky Auditorium

Evolutionary biology icon Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) has spent his career elucidating the wonders of science for adult readers. Now, he brings his message to a younger audience. In The Magic of Reality, richly illustrated by Dave McKean, Dawkins navigates between mythology and evidence-based understanding of the natural world to answer such questions as, “What is reality?” “Why do bad things happen?” “How and why did everything begin?” “Are we alone?” As Dawkins says, “In an age of wizards and vampires, children need to rediscover the wonder of the real world.”

R. Elisabeth Cornwell and Sean Faircloth will also be speaking. Book signings will follow the talks and books can be purchased at the event.

Here's a video of Dawkins talking about the book:



And here's the link to buy tickets.  If you're a CU Boulder student, you can buy tickets from the Secular Students and Skeptics Society table for $5 until we run out, at which point the remaining tickets will be $6 for students and $12 for the public.  Military personnel can get tickets at no cost, courtesy of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, while supplies last.

Christianity Isn't Immoral, It's Amoral

Part of what makes the creation story of the Bible unique is that God created everything.  He set the boundary conditions for every situation, and everything was made as he intended.  That’s why Gen 1:31 says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”  Additionally, God is omniscient, so he must have known every possible permutation of future events that could have occurred following his creation of all things.  We can therefore trace responsibility for everything that has ever happened back to the conditions that God originally created.

Including this.

Now of course, among the things he created was humankind, and he gave us free will.  The generally accepted thought seems to be that he gave us free will so that we could choose to believe or not, but I’ll get to that later.  The point is that using our free will, we disobeyed God, and thereby sinned, for the first time in Genesis 3:6.  To quote the King James Bible, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”  We were ejected from the garden and forced to live apart from God.  All future humans are regarded as inherently sinful from birth.

Fast forward a few dozen generations and we come to the life of Moses. The example set by the Ten Commandments and continued throughout the rest of the Old Testament is a law-based system.   Deuteronomy 7:9 says, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments,” and that tradition — the idea that all you have to do is follow the 613 specific rules laid out in the Pentateuch to be in God’s good graces — remains for the rest of the Old Testament.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, "BEHOLD!  In the future,
people will think there are only ten of these, for no apparent reason."

The upshot of the Old Testament’s commandment-based system is that malfeasances have immediate, real-world consequences.  Leviticus and Deuteronomy are riddled with references to cutting individuals off from their people, putting people to death, stonings, burnings, purging the evil from Israel, and so on.  Exodus and Deuteronomy have an elaborate system of fines instated for when a crime doesn’t quite deserve death. These provide tangible and immediate disincentives for breaking the law in the first place.  I’m not saying that the system laid out in the Pentateuch is a good system, but it does deal with the interactions between human beings on this world and in this life.

Then we come to the arrival of Jesus, and suddenly obedience to the law isn’t enough.  Suddenly you need faith in Jesus as God.  Galatians 2:16 says, “A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.”  Galatians 3:11-12 says, “The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith.”  And perhaps most concise is John 14:6, in which Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  That didn’t sit well with a lot of people, it must be admitted.  Faith in the New Testament isn’t just an addendum; it is the make or break issue.  Jesus himself says in Matthew 12:31-32, “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

I want to go back to the idea of choosing to believe.  Belief — true belief — is not a choice.  Obviously you can choose what you profess to believe, but do you think you could choose to believe in Santa Claus again?  No.  You know it’s not true, and not because you suddenly decided to stop believing.  It’s because you were convinced, and you eventually found that the Santa Claus myth was no longer plausible.  It’s the same with religious faith; we can’t decide what to believe, we have to be convinced with evidence.

I don't really see the problem.  Just think this instead.

An idea that’s often trotted out when atheists ask for concrete evidence of God’s existence is that if he gave us concrete proof, we wouldn’t be able to make an independent decision.  Such an explanation is preposterous.  Imagine an earthly analog: a lawyer who has evidence that will conclusively vindicate his client, but won’t show it to the jury because that would unfairly sway their verdict.  Giving people a reason to believe something does not diminish the strength or validity of that belief.  If anything, it enhances it.  We could fake it and say that we believe whatever is asked of us to believe, but God’s omniscient, remember?  Faking it obviously won’t work on him.

So let’s return to the “only faith matters” idea.  If murder, genocide, and slavery can be wiped clean by genuine penitence and regret for what you’ve done, reopening the door to heaven — and they can, clearly — the law is no longer relevant.  In fact, Jesus himself broke the law when he refused to punish an adulteress (or her strangely absent partner-in-crime) in the gospel of John, chapter 8.  The law is unequivocal: adulterers must be stoned.  God said so.  But Jesus violated that mandate.  Furthermore, the phrase “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” implies that only the sinless can punish the sinful, and no human being can be sinless.  Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”  Couple that with Jesus’ charge in Matt 5:38, “Do not resist one who is evil,” and you have a framework for removing human law altogether.  We’re no longer allowed to tell other people what’s right and wrong, and if they do wrong, we’re not allowed to stop them.  We as humans have been effectively forbidden from exacting justice on our fellow human beings in any form.

Furthermore, there is nothing at all you can do — or fail to do — to hurt your chances of getting into heaven.  Deathbed baptisms were eagerly performed by the Church throughout the Middle Ages, sending thousands of sinners into the company of God.  And any person who lives a superficially perfect life, helping the poor and sick and hungry, but still doesn’t believe?  They’re doomed.

Morality is probably the most contentious point over which believers and non-believers argue.  Believers generally argue that without God, moral laws cannot be enforced because they are the arbitrary creation of the species trying to enforce them.  Non-believers argue that morality can and does exist without God, whether by some form of culturally tuned sense of evolutionary altruism or by intrinsic neurological structures.  Non-believers will often point out that there are hundreds of examples in the Bible of acts that most humans find repulsive now — slavery, rape, child abuse, infanticide, genocide, incest, and so on — and that Christianity’s holy book has therefore set a terrible example for moral behavior and should be disregarded.

What both sides fail to see is that both arguments are irrelevant.  The fact is that Christianity cannot impart moral lessons.  Let me reiterate: the problem with Christianity is not that its moral rules are wrong or outdated.  The problem with Christianity is that it provides no incentive whatsoever for following its own moral rules.

Yes, fine, whatever.  Go away.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that the teachings of Jesus contained a directive never to raise a hand in anger against a child.  They don’t — as a matter of fact, there is no instruction in the entire Bible to be kind to children — but imagine that such were the case.  You, in a moment of weakness or just because you’re a terrible person, hit a child.  What’s your punishment?  Nothing at all.  You may be evil, but we’re not supposed to punish “one who is evil,” so we can’t punish you here on earth during your terrestrial life.  And as long as you are genuinely penitent for what you’ve done and genuinely faithful to Jesus, you’ll be eternally rewarded after your death despite hitting that child.

Let’s take the hypothetical the other direction and imagine that Jesus is evil and, being evil, gives you a set of appalling instructions.  Rape any woman who won’t sleep with you voluntarily.  Kill anyone who disagrees with you.  Hit children who disobey you.  Steal what others won’t give you.  Kick puppies.  Let’s imagine that you, as a rational person, find those instructions horrifying and repulsive.  You disobey all those laws.  You treat women with kindness, you respect differences of opinion, and you scratch puppies behind the ears.  You’ve behaved in a way that most modern people would find commendable, but in doing so have spit in the face of Evil Jesus and his reprehensible commandments.

For which the puppy thanks you.

It still doesn’t matter.  As long as, before you die, you pray to Evil Jesus and say that you’re sorry for not raping and killing, that you do truly believe in Evil Jesus and his commandments, that in your heart of hearts you regret every moment you spent disobeying him, you’ll still get into heaven.

Do you see what I’m saying?  I’ve belabored the point because it needs belaboring, but it is in reality quite simple.  Christianity contains a set of moral rules and laws, some set by example and some explicitly stated.  But it also contains a condition that no matter whether you follow the rules or not, your faith in Jesus is all that matters.  It is literally and unconditionally the ONLY criterion by which your entry to heaven will be accepted or denied by God.  And since that’s the ultimate goal — not the legacy you leave on earth or the way you treat other people or the accomplishments you have in your own life, because those things are fleeting and eternity is eternal — God’s criteria are the only relevant ones.  Or, to distill the last 1700 words into a mere 15:

It doesn’t matter what the rules are 

because you don’t have to follow the rules.

So this is the situation in which we find ourselves.  God created us, in his image, with the ability to ruin everything.  We did, almost immediately.  He punished us for doing what he knew we would do from the beginning.  Then he sent his only son to tell us to "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect," (Matthew 5:48) knowing full well that we could not.  Since we cannot be perfect, we must have faith in the grace of Jesus, and hope for the sake of our eternal souls that he will allow us into heaven despite our flaws, flaws that he as God gave us.  We are created sick and commanded to be well.  We are created with an irreparable flaw and told that we must repair it, or face eternal torment as penalty for the shortcomings that we have no choice but to possess.  We are given a set of criteria, created by the same entity that rendered us fundamentally incapable of meeting them, and told that we must meet them nevertheless.

This may seem cruel and unfair, but then we’re given a loophole.  We don’t actually have to meet them because as long as we believe in Jesus’ divinity, we'll be fine.  Simple, right?  Except we can’t just “choose” to believe in something we don’t actually believe in, we have to be persuaded by tangible reasons.  God himself made our minds work like that.  Of course, God won’t give us any tangible reason to believe because that would be too easy, so a lot of us are stuck making the only mistake that we’re really not allowed to make, and it doesn’t matter what else we do.  We’re not allowed to fake believing either, because God would pick up on that.

All the while, we are given free rein to behave as horribly as we want to our fellow inhabitants of this Earth, providing we remember to beg forgiveness after we do so.

It's a hell of a system.

Sexual Selection: Birds of Paradise

Red Bird of Paradise (Paradisaea rubra)    © Tim Lama

Sexual Selection: 

Birds of Paradise 

Sarah Danser - Secular Students and Skeptics Society

---

Most birds of paradise are found in New Guinea, where each species has evolved to be unique. The males have bright, colorful plumage which they use to perform intricate mating displays. 

We're all familiar with the process of natural selection: only the most fit (strongest, best- adapted)  individuals will survive to reproduce. Those who are well adapted to the environment will survive. Because advantageous qualities are passed from parent to offspring, the species will evolve over time to best adapt to its environment.

Sexual selection is another evolutionary force which can lead species, such as birds of paradise, to evolve. Sexual selection functions in the same way as natural selection, in that only the most fit individuals will reproduce and pass on their genes. Unlike natural selection however, in which the environment determines fitness, sexual selection is in the hands (paws, claws, talons) of the species itself.

Male birds of paradise have evolved to be extravagant as a means of passing on their genes. Female birds of paradise, which are usually brown and do not display their feathers, choose males with the most impressive, most colorful, largest, or loudest displays (the handicap principle explains this preference). As an example, peacocks have very large, long tail feathers which are used for sexual display. Females selectively mate with the males with the longest tail feathers. Because of this, the next generation of peacocks will have longer feathers, on average, than did the previous generation. This process can lead, as you might expect, to the evolution of some very intricate physical features. 

Sexual selection is easily observed in many bird species, but is also observable in other animals including insects, reptiles, and even mammals. Many evolutionary biologists argue that the human species is in the process of evolution by sexual selection. From an evolutionary perspective, many human behaviors and cultural traits can be explained through sexual selection.

Conveniently, there in an easy example of human sexual selection which also takes place in Papua New Guinea, where both birds of paradise and humans use feathers to attract females. Tribesmen hunt birds and collect their feathers for headdresses which are worn to impress the women. Men with big, fancy feathers will attract the most (or the best) women.

Of course, most cultures do not exhibit this behavior and instead offer different sexually-advantageous traits, some genetic, others behavioral. People choose partners which they deem to be most fit in the given time and environment (culture). Fitness in humans may be indicated by social status, wealth, body type, etc. It has even been argued that the evolution of intelligence is more directly a result of sexual selection than natural selection: intelligent individuals were reproductively favored, and thus passed on the genetic quality of intelligence.


While of course this is only theory, it's a lot of fun to think about! Here's a question: In most species, the sexual selectors are female. Is this true for humans? Why/why not?
   - - - Sarah Danser; Sat May 19, 2012

What's with this guy?? He looks like a mushroom!

An Evening with Mikey Weinstein at CU Boulder

$10 General Admission. Students FREE!
Get your tickets online here!

Michael (Mikey) Weinstien, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, will be speaking at CU Boulder on March 2nd in Math 100! The event will begin with a book signing from 6:30 to 7:20. The doors will open for seating at 6:30, with the talk starting at 7:30p. After the talk, from 9:00-10:00, there will be one more opportunity to get a book signed. Copies of his newest book, No Snowflake in an Avalanche, will be sold at the event. He will be talking about the "extremely critical consequences of the destruction of the constitutionally mandated wall separating church and state and the technologically most lethal organization ever created by humankind that is the US military".

Mikey is a 1977 Honor Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. A registered Republican, he also spent over three years in the West Wing of the Reagan Administration as legal counsel in the White House. In his final position there, Mikey was named the Committee Management Officer of the much-publicized Iran-Contra Investigation in his capacity as Assistant General Counsel of The White House Office of Administration, Executive Office of the President of the United States. Mikey has held numerous positions in corporate America as a senior executive businessman and attorney. Mikey has appeared innumerable times on all of the major cable and terrestrial TV news networks and is a frequent guest on national radio networks as well. His constitutional activism has been covered and profiled extensively in the print media including the Associated Press, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, the Denver Post, The Guardian and many other national and international newspapers and periodicals including Time magazine. After stints at prominent law firms in both New York City and Washington D.C., Mikey served as the first General Counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation. He left Mr. Perot's employ in 2006 to focus his fulltime attention on the nonprofit charitable foundation he founded to directly battle the far-right militant radical evangelical religious fundamentalists: The Military Religious Freedom Foundation

St. Martins Press in New York released Mikey’s book, “With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military” in October 2006. The paperback version was released in February 2008 with the Foreword being written by Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV. The book is an expose on the systemic problem of religious intolerance throughout the United States armed forces. 

 

Reviled by the militant radical evangelical fundamentalist Christian far-right, Mikey has been given many names by his enemies including Satan, Satan's lawyer, the Antichrist, That Godless, Secular Leftist, The Antagonizer of All Christians, The Most Dangerous Man in America and, most recently and perhaps most colorfully, The Field General of the Godless Armies of Satan. One such example of hate mail he receives is:

"Christians are sweet, loving, gentle, caring, spirit-filled spreaders of the light of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and, thus are blessd with eternal life.
Mikey Whinstein the jew-lawyer and his evil MRFF demons are sour, hateful, brutal, callous, satan-filled sewers of the darkness of the Devil and, thus are condemned to eternity in the fires of hell." - Email withheld.

 

Mikey was named one of the 50 most influential Jews in America by the Forward, one of the nation’s preeminent Jewish publications. He also has received a nomination for the JFK’s Profile in Courage Award and received the Buzzflash Wings of Justice Award. In addition Mikey was honored by a distinguished civil rights organization Jews for Racial and Economic Justice with the Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Award, for those who have taken extraordinary risks in the pursuit of justice.

On October 15, 2009, the MRFF was officially nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Shortly thereafter, another anonymous Qualified Nominator submitted a second official nomination for MRFF for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.  On October 13, 2010, for the second consecutive year, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation was officially nominated again for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

You can Like and Share the event on Facebook here
Check out the Boulder Atheists Meetup for the event here

Darwin Day and the Rest of the Week

Darwin Day - 10:00a on Feb 18th at CU Museum of Natural History

 Come celebrate Darwin Day with SSaSS! This year we are hosting a full day of lectures by some of CU's finest professors. The event will be in the museums dinosaur room all day with the exception of the movie, which will be in Hellems 199. The event is FREE and open to the public, so invite your friends! Our speakers include:

10a - Carol Cleland "Scientific Theories of the Origin of Life: Puzzles and controversies"
11a - Vic Stenger "Is the Universe Designed for Us?"
12p - Phillip Gilley "The Evolution of Language"
1p - Lunch and Kids Activities
2p - Matt Young "How Morality Evolved"
3p - Herbert Covert "What the Fossil Record Reveals about Human Evolution"
4p - Doug Duncan "Life on Other Planets"
5p-7p Movie in Hellems 199

We are attempting to better educate the public and CU students about evolution and the science that has developed from it. We hope to bring in a crowd of people who accept evolutionary theory already, but are aiming it even more to people who either outright do not believe in it or drastically misunderstand it. The topics have been tailored to answer the most basic objections presented at evolution, such as how humans evolved and where morals come from an evolutionary standpoint. We've also included lectures that address objections that are not directly related to evolution but are still affiliated with it, such as how life, the universe and everything could have been created naturally. We will be showing "Darwins Dangerous Idea" from the "Evolution" documentary series by PBS from 2001.

Shambhala Meditation Center Site Visit - 1:00p on Feb 12th at Shambala Mediation Center
This is the first official site visit for SSaSS! This Sunday, Kelly MacLean of the Boulder Shambhala Meditation Center will be guiding us on a Q&A tour of the meditation center. She will be answering questions about Buddhism, and giving us an introduction to the spirituality and practice of meditation.

1:00 - 1:30 : Introduction to Buddhism and Spirituality
1:30 - 2:00 : Q&A
2:00 - 3:00 : Center Tour + Meditation instruction and practice

All members of SSaSS are expected to uphold a manner of respect. We are visitors, there to learn about the world from a different perspective. Intolerance will not be tolerated.

An Evening with Neil deGrasse Tyson - 7:30p on Feb 15th at Macky Auditorium
The CU Distinguished Speakers Board is proud to announce that renowned astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson will be speaking at the University of Colorado's Macky Concert Hall Auditorium on February 15th, 2012. Dr. Tyson will be speaking on the collective expectations of humanity's progress in space exploration and the geopolitical, cultural, and economic obstacles that must be overcome to achieve them. The talk will be followed by a half hour question and answer session with members of the audience. Doors are scheduled to open at 6:45pm, and the speech will begin at 7:30pm. Tickets are $2 for CU students with valid student ID and $15 dollars for community members. Community tickets can be purchased at macky.colorado.edu.

A Reason to Believe - 6:30p on Feb 16th at Eaton Humanities 250
Come watch our own Angus Bohanon and Connor Dozois debate Jordan Ballard and Chad Ellison on the existence of the Judeo-Christian god. The debate will go on for a bit more than an hour, with Q&A for the debaters to follow.

Happy Hour - 5:00 on Feb 17th at Connor O'Neil
Every week SSaSS hosts a Happy Hour at Connor O'Neils. Come hang out with your fellow skeptics in a more casual environment.

קֹהֶלֶת

The book of Ecclesiastes, also known as Qoheleth, is the sixteenth book of the Protestant Old Testament, and one of the shorter books of the Bible.  The second verse of the fifth chapter of that book says, in part, “let your words be few,” and though that is not an option that has been left open to me, I will at least attempt to take the advice of an Indian yogi of legend and consider whether my words are an improvement upon silence.  First, I must profess that I love certain aspects of the book of Ecclesiastes.  The poetry and beauty of the words is a welcome break from the unfortunate drudgery of much of the Old Testament, and it tries to examine deep philosophical questions in a way that most of the rest of the tome seems unwilling to address.   It must be freely admitted, though, part of the reason I love it is that it seems startlingly unreligious for a religious text, and it is that very quality of it that has made Ecclesiastes one of the most debated books of the Bible in scholarly circles.  For centuries, people have wondered why it’s included in the Bible, where it came from, what it means, and why it sounds so different from its Old Testament companions.  In the next few pages, I hope to address those questions.

SSaSS This Week (1/22-1/28)

Our first event of the semester, Between a Man and His God, happens this Thursday, the 26th, at 7:00p in Wolf Law 205. SSaSS, in conjunction with the ACLU of Boulder County, is hosting an educational panel on the separation of church and state. Gordon Gamm, Boulder attorney, will discuss the history of the philosophy of keeping religion out of government and visa versa from the Enlightenment to date. Judd Golden, attorney and Chair of the Boulder County ACLU, will talk about how the ACLU defends First Amendment religious rights and liberties. Marvin Strauss of the Colorado Coalition of Reason (COCORE) will talk about some cases that formed church/state separation as we know it today. Walter Plywaski of the Boulder Atheists will discuss his case of being denied US citizenship because he was an atheist. After the panelists speak, there will be a Q&A for the audience. Refreshments will be served at 6:30p. The event is free and open to the public.

 

SSaSS will also host it's weekly Heathens Happy Hour at Connor O'Neil's this Friday, the 27th, at 5:00p. If you are underage, don't worry! You can still come and hang out, you just won't be able to order alcohol. Don't miss this opportunity to meet fellow skeptics!

Atheist blogger Greta Christina will be giving a talk at Colorado State University's West Ballroom about Atheism and Sexuality this Friday, the 27th, at 4:00p. Greta has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is on the speaker's bureaus of the Secular Student Alliance and the Center for Inquiry. You can see more information about the event here.

Office Hours

As you may or may not know, we now have an office in UMC 330. The office will be manned a fair bit during the week, but only officers have access to it, so if you want to check out books or come use it for homework or whatever, you have to come up during office hours or make a special arrangement. Office hours will be posted on the calendar.

Carry on.