Chapters (15)
June 16, 2013 - Shawn Young, Christian Agnostic
We often hear testimony of individuals who have left Evangelical Christianity or Roman Catholicism to become atheists. But rarely do we get to hear the story of those who have retained a share of their faith, yet moved it to a more "progressive" view. Dr. Young, who describes himself as a Christian agnostic, brings us one such story. His journey involves an evolving view of scripture and a general distrust of human language as an effective communication tool, especially when the language is centuries old, and/or is considered only in a logocentric approach (ignoring phonocentric considerations).
Dr. Shawn Young is Director of Music Management Studies at Clayton State University, Morrow, Georgia.
Schedule:
11 am social hour
12 noon potluck lunch
1 pm program
May 19, 2013 - Lecia Brooks, Outreach Director, Southern Poverty Law Center
The praise (and applause) following Ms. Brooks's talk at the 2011 AFA Annual 4th of July Freethought Advance seemed unending. We are very pleased that she is willing to come back to Lake Hypatia and speak at our May 2013 meeting.
Schedule:
11 am social hour
12 noon potluck lunch
1 pm program
April 21, 2013 - "Secular Student Alliance at University of Alabama at Birmingham " with Jon Paolone
Jon Paolone is the advisor for the Secular Student Alliance at UAB.
The organization's website describes it as follows:
"The Secular Student Alliance at UAB is a sanctuary for people who, while they may not have religion or currently believe in any religion, consider themselves lucky enough to be living, breathing human beings with consciences and a personal state of mind."
Mr. Paolone hopes to have some students from the Alliance available to speak and answer questions.
Schedule:
11 am social hour
12 noon potluck lunch
1 pm program
Greater Sacramento Chapter of Freedom From Religion Foundation
An affiliate of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
Our goals: To educate the public on non-theism and protect the First Amendment - Separation of Religion from Government.
The Greater Sacramento Chapter of FFRF is a local chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. We are a non-religious community of local people committed to living our lives free from religion, superstition, dogma and mysticism. We are freethinkers - people who form opinions about religion and spirituality independent of tradition, authority or established belief, in favor of rational inquiry.
Our members are composed of Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists, Skeptics, Deists, and secular-minded people still searching for answers who come from all walks of life. The common thread we all share is that we uphold the US and California Constitutional principles of separation between government & religion.
Living in the current "Christian Frenzy" era, that has been gaining popularity by leaps and bounds since the mid-1950s, accelerated by 9/11, we must be ever more vigilant about especially Christian Fundamentalism working hard to dominate the political arena at all levels. Thus we educate the public with letters to the editors, news releases, legally savvy communication with our local government agencies, and one-on-one encounters, as appropriate, by our members, legally taking appropriate action to preserve our rights when necessary.
Sacramento is wonderfully supplied with many freethinking organizations which all provide many social opportunities for the local freethinkers, such as potlucks, game nights, book clubs, skeptic gatherings, movies, historical discussions, notable speakers, activist opportunities, and other events. So, this Chapter of FFRF does not feel the need to organize more of these events. Members are, instead, asked to join other local groups doing those things. Many of our members belong to multiple local groups. For a comprehensive local events calendar, please see http://sacramentocor.org.
Instead, and the reason we formed, is to support eyes and ears on the ground, at the small, local level, to simply monitor separation issues. We began as a response to one atheist in a small outlying town standing up by herself against seeing religious infiltration of their official town holiday celebration. Before this Chapter was even officially announced, another infraction was caught and stopped by another local city wanting to support an evangelical fund-raiser. It's all around us. Our members are called Monitors, all of them, whether they monitor weekly city council agenda and minutes and school board agenda and minutes, or if they simply want to support other local friends, neighbors and members who are more actively pursuing this cause.
If you are a freethinker who is supportive of the separation of church and state, please feel free to email us with any questions you have. To join our local Chapter, first join the national FFRF organization at http://ffrf.org, then send us an email letting us know you've done that. The Greater Sacramento Chapter does not charge any fees - we just need your email address. We will call you a Monitor. You will receive regular supportive updates telling you everything happening at our local level, plus tips on how to watch for problems. All reported potential violations are of course always pursued anonymously. Or, you can help this wonderful cause from the background. Thanks for your important support. For more information, send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
March 17, 2013 - "It's Only a Theory" with Bob Truett
The month of March brings another familiar face to the Alabama Freethought Association. Bob Truett has spoken many times at AFA and other freethought organizations in the southeast. Bob is a regular attendee at AFA monthly meetings. Bob is retired Director of the Birmingham Zoo.
Bob encourages parents to bring children six years and older. He promises that the talk will be unorthodox, surprising, and will involve considerable audience participation. Expect to learn something!
Schedule:
11 am social hour
12 noon potluck lunch
1 pm program
February 17, 2013 - "In Freedom We Trust" with Dr. Ed Buckner
Ed Buckner and his wife Diane are old friends of the Alabama Freethought Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Many of our members know Ed from our annual 4th of July Freethought Advance, in which he has graciously served as emcee on many occasions. Ed is also a former president of American Atheists and Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism.
Ed and his son Michael have recently published their well-researched book In Freedom We Trust: An Atheist Guide to Religious Liberty with Prometheus Books. This book contains a wealth of well-supported arguments to refute the often-heard myths such as the United States "is a Christian nation" and "it is not possible to be moral without a god". Those of us who have heard Ed's eloquent speaking style will be happy to know that he and Michael have taken that same entertaining approach to the pages of In Freedom We Trust. Still, the book is packed with fascinating facts about our founding fathers and other Americans who have worked to ensure that our government stays neutral toward religion.
Schedule:
11 am social hour
12 noon potluck lunch
1 pm program
November 18, 2012 - "Say it Loud: Why I am Black, Atheist and Proud" with Dr. annalise fonza
Dr. annalise fonza holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. During her time as a Methodist minister, she pastored six congregations. An alumna the Clergy Project, Dr. fonza has appeared on Freethought Radio and contributed to Black Skeptics on FreethoughtBlogs.com. Her professional interests lie in city and urban planning, particularly as they have affected black and female population components.
Dr. fonza brings us her insight into the intersection of freethought and race as she addresses common questions. Why do black atheists tend to be invisible, and, why have they created their own atheist organizations? In this talk, Dr. fonza will discuss how various racial, social and even political dynamics have converged to inform the development of openly black and atheist and free-thought communities. During this talk she will also explain why she is personally and politically willing to self-identify as an atheist, despite the tremendous impact that it has upon her racially, socially and economically.
SCHEDULE
11 a.m. social hour
Noon potluck lunch
1 p.m. program
An e-column by Massimo Pigliucci.
N. 54, October 2004
I have often remarked in this column that philosophy gets an unfair bad wrap on the ground that it doesn't solve problems. Indeed, the point of philosophy is more to clarify concepts, ideas, and their consequences, then to solve practical issues. However, it would seem that clarifying things isn't much of a goal if in turn it doesn't help us make some progress. So, let us consider one particularly sensitive debate -- the one about the very idea of abortion -- where philosophy, by claryfying our thoughts, can help reasonable people come to a compromise (philosophy can do nothing for unreasonable people, so if you are among those who scream "murder!" at the thought of someone masturbating, get a life, and while you're at it, make a point of watching Monty Python's Meaning of Life).
Much of the debate on abortion hinges upon what seems to be a scientific question: when does a fertilized egg become a human being? Of course, the answer cannot be entirely scientific, since it depends in part on objective facts about the biology of human development, and in part on what we mean by "human being." Which is where philosophy comes into play. Does a foetus become a human being when the heart starts beating? When there is a recognizable central nervous system? When it can react to external stimuli? When it can feel pain? Any of those answers would put the boundary between unacceptable and acceptable abortion practices at different times during pregnancy, but it seems rather arbitrary to pick one of these developmental milestones and use it as a universal yardstick for moral decisions. After all, many other animals have a nervous system, a heartbit, respond to external stimuli, and can feel pain, but most of us (vegetarians excluded -- but most abortion opponents included) don't seem to have too many qualms about killing such animals.
No, the crucial point must focus on something else that characterizes human beings. Plenty of philosophers, for example Julian Baggini (in his excellent collection Making Sense: Philosophy Behind the Headlines) have suggested that the important facts in the debate on abortion (and the parallel one on euthanasia) are not found in the biology of humans, but rather in our (philosophical) concept of personhood. In other words, some of us think a foetus should be protected because it is becoming a person, i.e. an entity that can eventually feel not just pain, but suffering; that can have not just the urge to have sex and reproduce, but may fall in love; a being that could one day write a sonnet, a song, or a philosophical essay.
If the problem is actual or potential personhood, not the developmental biology of our particular species of primates, then we have moved from biology to philosophy, a much more tricky terrain to navigate. Being a person is tightly linked to having the ability to lay down and recover memories (which make up our "identity" as a person), as well as to experience emotions (like love and suffering) and not just feelings (like sexual urge and pain). These characteristics are in turn dependent on being a member of a society, interacting with others, communicating one's thoughts and receiving and understanding information about other people's thoughts and emotions. Yes, all of this is also a matter of biology (after all, these things are made possible only by the presence of certain biological essentials, like a functional body, and especially a complex brain), but taken together they mean that personhood is most of all a question of psychology and sociology.
The problem is that there are plenty of circumstances in which a human being is not, in fact, a person. Foetuses are not persons, and neither are people who survive in a vegetative state induced by a coma. Other cases are more difficult to determine, but one can make a reasonable argument that very young children are only on their way to become persons, while patients affected by advanced stages of some mental diseases like Alzheimer are well on their way out of full personhood. So, while there is very little question that by performing an abortion we are in fact killing a biological being that belongs to the human species, it is an entirely different -- and much more difficult to defend -- proposition to say that we are killing a person.
Abortion opponents may shrug all of this philosophical quibbling as irrelevant on the ground that the procedure -- at whatever stage it is practiced -- kills a potential person. But this is a rather odd argument, with far reaching consequences that should be seriously considered by whoever proposes it. For example, the mass of cells in question will become a person only if many conditions other than biological development are fulfilled, including being raised in a proper physical, psychological and social environment. It is ironic, therefore, that we spend so much energy debating abortion while most of us are much less passionate about more apparently mundane issues such as, say, health care and education for all those non-aborted foetuses.
Even more radically, if a fertilized egg is a potential person, so is every single unfertilized one, and every sperm as well. After all, the egg or sperm only needs a gamete of the opposite type to begin the developmental process that will lead to the generation of another person. I suppose that is why the most rabid religious fundamentalists (including the current Pope) are against masturbation or sex that doesn't have the goal of reproduction. But it is hard to see what these people could do to avoid the natural "waste" of unutilized human eggs. Should we explant them from every woman and fertilize them artificially? If your intuitive answer was "no," and yet you are against all types of abortion, you may want to consider the consistency of your philosophy.
Do I have a better and clearer solution to offer that can help us settle the abortion debate once and for all? No, as I acknowledged at the beginning, that isn't the point of a philosophical discussion. Quite the opposite, I hope that people reading this column will feel a bit less sure of their own positions because they have understood that the issue is much more complex and difficult to settle than a simple slogan, or even an introductory course on human developmental biology, allow. And please do check out that Monty Python movie I mentioned in the beginn ing.
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FFRF Chapters
FFRF Chapters
FFRF chapters are created for the purpose of providing local activities for area FFRF members, as well as to further FFRF's purposes of educating about nontheism and protecting the separation between church and state at the local level. Under FFRF bylaws, all members of FFRF chapters must be members of the national Freedom From Religion Foundation. FFRF rebates dues to chapters, so your national membership supports local chapter work. If you are not already a member of the national Foundation, join or request info.
• Alabama Freethought Association
Pat Cleveland
PO Box 571
Talladega AL 35161
• Freedom From Religion — Albuquerque
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Albuquerque NM
• Central Florida Freethought Community
David Williamson
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Oviedo, FL 32762
941-302-1808
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Gary King
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Tom Cara, President
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Bob Speeter, President
PO Box 72
Petoskey MI 49770
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Meetings: Second Sunday of each month at 1:00 p.m.
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• Greater Sacramento Chapter of FFRF
Judy Saint, President
PO Box 2883
Rocklin CA 95677-8464
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Dave DeGroote, Chuck Berry
PO Box 1313
State College, PA 16804-1313
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• Northern Ohio Freethought Society (Cleveland)
Marni Huebner-Tiborsky, President
P.O. Box 16671
Rocky River, OH 44116
216-978-5819
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http://www.meetup.com/northern-ohio-freethought-society
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Harry Shaughnessy, President
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P.O. Box 4491
Cary, NC 27519
www.trianglefreethoughtsociety.org/
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Anne Mardick, President
PO Box 4401
Scottsdale, AZ 85261-4401
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