Programs to look forward to this month: an evening get-together for drinks and blasphemy, on July 21st at the Redline in Harvard Square, and an Atheist Brunch on the 27th at the White Horse in Brighton. BA member Sarah Tractenberg is hard at work organizing our first film festival, which should go up next month. She's made use of your suggestions to develop a program, has secured screening permissions, and is now pulling together a good location. When details have been finalized, I'll send invitations out to this mailing list, and will also be advertising the event in hopes of having members of the public join us for movies, food, and conversation.
PROTESTING WOO-WOO IN ALASKA
I'm writing to you from Anchorage, Alaska, where the moose ply the glacier-fed streams, the noble salmon roams the forests, and men hawk six-foot lengths of whale baleen on street corners (really). I spent a few pleasant hours wandering among the booths of a weekly weekend merchant fair downtown. Vendors were selling elk and caribou burgers, all variety of trinkets and carvings made from fossilized mammoth ivory or walrus tusks, and the usual hodge-podge of trade goods: knives, scarves, handbags, and baseball hats. I would have liked to bring back a polished oosik, but they are more expensive than you might expect. Would you believe, that there was, on the day I was walking through downtown, a protest against Scientology in Anchorage? I do now know whether the Guy Fawkes-mask-wearing protesters are directly affiliated with the group Anonymous which has been organizing protests in Boston but if not they certainly are adopting their model. The protest isn't just an expression of distaste for the Scientology brand of crazy; in the past few years, Scientologists have been peddling their wonky detox system, called Narcanon, among addiction-ravished population of poor Alaskans. It's good to want to provide support services to people struggling with addiction. It's bad to want to replace medical therapies with a system that is as medically fantastical, psychologically damaging, and autonomy destroying as Narcanon. As I drove past the Alaska protesters, I honked my support. - Zachary Bos, Director of Boston Atheists
ATHEIST DAYS 2008
The members of the Beltway Atheists group – for secular-minded citizens near Washington, D.C. – are organizing a first-ever "Atheist Days" festival. Visitors are invited to travel down to Half Moon Beach in Virginia, pitch a tent at the campgrounds there, and enjoy music and entertainment all weekend long. The event takes place from August 15th through August 17th, and it is highly recommended that you get a ticket now if you intend to attend.
WHAT, BIAS? IN THE HERALD?
In her column titled "The Star(bucks) Stop Here," Boston Herald writer Margery Eagan reveals that she, too, subscribes to a common prejudice: that atheists are latte-swilling urban foot soldiers in the assault on good ole American salt-of-the-earth Christians whose caffeine of choice comes, one assumes, from Dunkin Donuts only. Eagan asks, "Do you want to sit next to totally pretentious secular humanists, agnostic/atheist effete pseudo-elites (Starbucks)?" God no, who would. The article is now available for reading online only with a Herald subscriber code; however, the comments section is worth reading for the range of responses -- outrage, bemusement, confusion.
THE DEFAULT POSITION
David Nicholls, the president of the Atheist Foundation of Australia, has penned an eloquent op-ed explaining his view that atheism quite as unconventional as some folks might have it.
AN OBJECTIST CRITIQUE OF ATHEISM
BA member Dan Caless has sent in a link to the blog of Diana Hsieh, in which the "overworked graduate philosophy student" author argues that the "New Atheism" that has been prominent in the news in the past few years, via the activities of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris, fails to meet the challenge put to it by the religious apologetics of Dinesh D'Souza and other commentators – the challenge of understanding the source of values and morality. Hsieh constructs a straw-man version of atheists, however, in order to evaluate atheism (as if it were a homogenous philosophy?) as being less objective and rational than Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Hsieh's blog post is interesting if for no other reason than for being a succinct example of the most common kind of wrong-headed objection to atheism – namely, that atheists are relativists or nihilists.
A NEW ATHEIST BOOK
San Francisco Bay-area Atheist and prolific letter-to-the-editor writer David Mandell has written and published his first book, "Atheist Acrimonious." In David's own words: "This book is for the religious and the non-religious. Atheist acrimonious means an angry atheist; and why should I be angry? For one, I was brainwashed as a child into the Jewish religion and suffered because of it for over 35 years. Now that I am an atheist, I am still suffering but for different reasons. Atheists throughout history have been killed, hated, discriminated against, abused and tortured by religionists. And today it is still going on! It is time for all this to stop! I am the winner of the 2002 American Atheists "Letters to the Editor" contest. In my book there are over 70 published anti-religious "Letters to the editor", exposing my anger. Also included are many dedicated atheists with articles, essays, poems, quotes, songs, stories, and dialog. This is a one of a kind book because of its unusual contents. It is straightforward in the explanations and honest in its contents. It is a book of knowledge and should be read in the schools. It is dedicated to atheism in the hope that atheists come out of the closet."
SCIENTISTS' SUPERSTITION IN INDIA
BA member Raja Bhattacharyya has brought to our attention an interesting survey from the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (ISSSC) about the worldviews and opinions of scientists from India. Here are some highlights:
49% scientists of a country as important as India in today's world believe in prayer as efficacious traditional, alternative curative and diagnostic techniques? Homeopathy being the other; 50% Indian scientists believe in thisRaja writes: "A stunning survey! Although surveys are not always reflection of reality, but this one is fascinating, and very depressing to me in particular. The matter is more depressing, because this is a survey of 'scientists.'"
44% India's scientists approve a degree course in Vedic Astrology
41% scientists approve the rituals of Indian's space scientists going to a Temple called Tirupati to seek the blessing of Lord Venkateswara before launching the rocket and satellite.
Many thanks to Raja for passing this along, and to Debasis Bhattacharyya, who works with the Rationalist Society of India out of Calcutta, for bringing it to his attention originally. James Randi, in his weekly "Swift" newsletter, has often praised the incredulity and integrity of Indian skeptics and rationalists whose willingness to challenge the superstition and fundamentalism common in Indian culture puts them at great professional risk. I think this survey is uplifting news – not because we should be gladded by the high proportion of Indian scientists who reportedly believe in a lot of woo-woo, but because such surveys are being conducted at all. "Sunshine is the best disinfectant," I agree – the mystical attitudes which congregate like condensation in the dark spaces of culture quickly evaporate when exposed to skeptical inquiry. At a time when religious leaders – Christian, Muslim, and Hindu – in India are mobilizing against education officials and modern textbooks for promoting "atheism" and "secularism" (as opposed to superstition and false history?), such dissent is even more dangerous, and more necessary. A little Googling will quickly alert you to the conflict between modernity and myth in Indian classrooms, e.g. the current fracas in Kerala.
ATHEISTS IN LOWELL NEED AN ORGANIZER
The Atheist Meetup of Greater Lowell is still in need of an Organizer. If you'd like to coordinate monthly meetings and additional activities as the occasion calls for it, let me know so I can put you in touch with members of the group and acquaint you more fully with the responsibilities involved.
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