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
____________________________
WNC
Atheists
Book/Movie Club
Meeting
**Meeting
Postponed until January**
Book
Night
Date: Tuesday
**January 3rd**
Time: 7:00 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
_________________________________________________
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
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December 2011
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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:
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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...
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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Have
something to include in the next Updates - ideas for group activities,
other
events or news, send it to:
Darrell@wncatheists.com
Visit
our
web-site:
http://www.wncatheists.com
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