BITS & PIECES UPDATES FROM WNC ATHEISTS



WNCAtheists Activities

Tuesday December 20, 2011 at
7:00 PM

WNC Atheists Meet-up

ASHEVILLE

Asheville Pizza and Brewing Co
77 Coxe Avenue
Asheville, NC

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WNC Atheists
Book/Movie Club
Meeting

**Meeting Postponed until January**

Book Night
DateTuesday **January 3rd**
Time7:00 pm


Book
:   Breaking the Spell
by Daniel C. Dennett


Location
:  Kim and Russell's house

***Please RSVP Russell to let him know if you will be attending.
Just in case you don't have Russell's e-mail address, it is rprmando@yahoo.com

Directions:

**Contact for Dirrections** _________________________________________________

Other Local Events

The Asheville Skeptics Meet-up Group

Check the meet-up website for details


http://www.meetup.com/Asheville-Skeptics/

Click on the link above to go to the Meet-up web-site and join this group
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Ethical Culture Society of Asheville

Sunday January 15, 2012
2:00-3:30

YMI Cultural Center,
39 South Market Street

in the Old Drugstore at the corner of Eagle and Market Streets

ASHEVILLE

Winter Festival

Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday “Peace and Violence, Two Perspectives into Action – MLK, Jr. and Johann Galtung” will be presented by John Spitzberg at the Sunday, January 15th meeting of the Ethical Society of Asheville, 2:00-3:30 PM, held at the YMI Cultural Center, 39 South Market Street in the Ray Auditorium. Spitzberg is a retired special education teacher, social worker, paramedic and currently is a service provider and volunteer with the homeless population in Asheville, president of the local chapter of Veterans for Peace and a member and former Ethical Action Chair of the Ethical Society of Asheville.  Tying in his work and belief system to that of MLK, Jr. Spitzberg will introduceJohann Galtung, a Norwegian man in his 80s who is also known for his work for peace and non-violence. 
There will be a discussion period following the presentation Following the meeting, there will be time for informal conversation.  All are welcome!

This is a humanistic, educational, non-theistic alternative to traditional religions inspired by the ideal that the supreme aim of human life is working to create a more humane society.

www.aeu.org

asheville@aeu.org




December 2011

Group News

We're still discussing venues for our regular twice monthly meetings.  While AP&B on Coxe is suiting us for the time being, we are looking at trying other venues.  Next moth's meetings have yet to be nailed down, however talk at our last meeting indicated that we may try the food court at the Asheville Mall.   Other suggestins of late have included the Hi-Fi Cafe, who have offered use of their spaces after closing if sufficient number of members would be there ordering food stuffs.  Also, one of our members has suggested that we might try the DeSoto Lounge downtown.  If anyone else has suggestions for places to meet that are publicly accessable, please feel free to suggest them.  you may contact me at:
Darrell@wncatheists.com
Or contact Kevin or James through Facebook .http://www.facebook.com/groups/WNC.Atheist/

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News Stories of Interest

News items are available at the WNCAtheists Forum

Items may be read, posted and comments added on the Forum.


Christopher Hitchens Dead: Legendary Writer Dies At 62

Christopher Hitchens died Thursday [12/15/2011] in Houston. He was 62. The legendary writer was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2010.

His death was announced by Vanity Fair.

Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England in 1949. His father, Ernest, a commander in the British Royal Navy, and his mother, Yvonne, a bookkeeper, scrimped and saved so that he could attend the independent Leys School in Cambridge, and later Balliol College, Oxford. They were determined that he would receive a top-notch education and join the upper class, The Guardian reported.

During his time at university, Hitchens studied philosophy, politics and economics, but the more he learned, the angrier he became. Hitchens' disgust with racism and opposition to the Vietnam War led him to the political left. He would eventually join the International Socialists, a faction of the anti-Stalinist left, and participate in political protests against the war...

Study says atheist academics taking their children to church 

A new study published in the December issue of Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion says a higher than expected number of atheist academics are taking their children to church even though they profess no personal religious beliefs of their own.
American Family News Network reports the study conducted by Elaine Howard Ecklund of the Rice University, with others at the University of Buffalo, says 17 percent of U.S. scientists who are atheists attended religious service with their children more than once in the past year.
The researchers, according to UPI.com, say the scientists attend church services mostly for social and personal reasons. Some attend church only to please their spouses, others for the purpose of socializing and many simply want their children to become familiar with religion so they can make informed decisions on their own about their spiritual lives as adults...


Ex-pastor says search for truth led to atheism

...“In our culture, the word atheist has become such a curse word, especially in our part of the world, our little Southern end of the Bible Belt,” DeWitt said.

But Dewitt, 42, said he would consider himself as more of a secular humanist or even an agnostic.

“If someone would ask, ‘Are you an atheist?’ I’m going to say that I am. But it’s not the first word I chose to describe myself,” he said.

For most of his life, DeWitt considered himself an “old-line Pentecostal,” including the speaking in tongues. He joined the ministry at 17, did extensive evangelism and eventually pastored two churches in DeRidder and DeQuincy.

In the last five years, however, DeWitt said truth started to be revealed.

“I was the guy who kept studying and studying and studying, trying to find that secret verse, trying to find that secret key within the Scripture in order to try to understand what nobody else seemed to understand … To me, what that did was make me aware of some inconsistencies, some contradictions, some fallacies. … It opened my eyes to more than what I had intended to see,” he said.

DeWitt left his church two years ago but continued preaching. That became more challenging, he said...


Secularism gains interest as field of study 

For some students at Georgetown University, news that the school had assigned them to an intensive seminar in secularism elicited more than a little unease.

To Jeff Caso, a conservative Catholic from Long Island, N.Y., the word meant unreligious — not what the freshman was expecting from a Jesuit school. Taylor Griffith, a churchgoing evangelical from Albuquerque, feared the same thing. “I was worried about being in a class that was against my religion,” she said

Then they met professor Jacques Berlinerblau.

A hyperactive beanpole with two doctorates, he runs his class like a stand-up act — if there were a standup act about Thomas Jefferson or Supreme Court religion rulings. The punchline would be about the Jewish atheist who teaches secularism at a Catholic school.

That would be Berlinerblau.

The apparent contradictions in Berlinerblau’s bio fit a nascent field still trying to define itself. His class is one of a small cluster across the country that are being called “secular studies,” programs that don’t fit cleanly into any one discipline. Even the professors disagree about the tenets and truths of the field...







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http://www.ncsecular.org/

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Darrell@wncatheists.com

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