Date: Sat Aug 28 12:42:06 1999 From: Gofreemind@aol.com Subject: The Texas Atheist # 32 To: Gofreemind@aol.com
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THE TEXAS ATHEIST
August 28, 1999 # 32 Copyright © 1999 by Howard Thompson
=========[ An independent, free e-mail newsletter ]=========
IN THIS ISSUE
1. Texas Events 2. Newcomer information available 3. The Texas football prayer war 4. Student-led prayer gimmick revealed 5. Freethinker rock still stands after one year 6. County Judge responds on Freethinker rock 7. San Antonio convention plans for FFRF 8. News/Science Briefs 9. FACT Joins Atheist Alliance FACT launches website Editor promotes atheist views in the media Help Search for Extra-Terrestrials On-Line zine examines fundamentalist schools 10. Letters: "kick ass article man ..." "get into a lot of trouble" 11. Commentary: Growing slowly, but growing
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TEXAS EVENTS
November 5-7, San Antonio - Freedom From Religion Foundation Convention, St. Anthony Hotel. Contact FFRF, 608-256-8900, PO Box 750, Madison, WI 53701.
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NEWCOMER INFORMATION AVAILABLE
The Texas Atheist reaches a variety of non-theists and new subscribers. This variety makes it difficult for a small newsletter to provide appropriate information to all.
I have begun to reformat unpublished articles that address topics more completely than can be achieved in a newsletter. Anyone may post these on their website so long as Howard Thompson is cited as author, copyright owner, and, my e-mail address <gofreemind@aol.com> appears with each article. The following list of publications will be sent as a text file to any subscriber on request.
ATHEIST COMMONALITY: A description of significant atheist commonalities beyond the negative Christiandefinition of atheism as nothing more than no belief in Gods. Atheism is a beginning basis for a complete philosophy and culture. (4 pages)
BELIEF MATTERS: Why what we believe about reality matters, with a discussion of what atheism is, and 12 principles of atheism proposed. (4 pages)
THE UNLIT BONFIRE: A rallying call for atheists to let atheism have meaning in their lives so it can become a hope for freeing human minds from supernaturalism. Not for the timid. (4 pages)
DON'T SCAPEGOAT ATHEISTS: A newspaper commentary about how fundamentalists mistakenly scapegoat atheists for getting official prayers banned from public schools. (2 pages)
DEBUNKING THE MYTH OF A CHRISTIAN UNITED STATES: A handy cheat-sheet of facts that refute Christian nationalism. Our nation was founded on Freethinking principles from the Enlightenment that rejected Christian principles of government. (5 pages)
CHRISTIAN AMERICA - NOT!: A newspaper digest commentary of the above "Debunking ..." article, also in some Texas newspapers. (2 pages)
ORGANIZING MANUAL FOR REALIST SMALL GROUPS: A step-by-step "how-to" guide for those who want to meet other non-theists but have no local group. (9 pages)
WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN: Six reasons why I reject Christianity as an inaccurate idea of reality. A handy starting point for your own thinking. (8 pages)
WHO SPEAKS FOR ATHEISM: Describes problems with American Atheists, Inc. Info on how current leaders assumed power, Madayn myths, and missing funds. (7 pages)
AMERICAN ATHEISTS: MEMBER RIGHTS: Brief excerpts from Texas law with explanations that describe the right to see and copy documents and membership lists. (3 pages)
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THE TEXAS FOOTBALL PRAYER WAR
Texas and eight other states are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that bans student-led prayers at high school football games. Governor George Bush added his name to the appeal.
This new appeal cites court decisions that have allowed student-d prayers at graduation ceremonies. An earlier Sante Fe, Texas case resulted in a decision by the 5th Circuit Court that allowed prayers at school events if a majority of students so voted. This allows majority imposed religious rituals at government sponsored events.
The new 5th Circuit Court's decision confirms the legality of student led prayers, but prohibits them at events that are not properly solemn, such as football games. This gives courts the power to prohibit prayers at school events if such events are not up to a "solemnity" standard that properly respects God.
Any official religious activities at government sponsored events violates the First Amendment principle of state-church separation. The 5th Circuit Court has now asserted its authority as a branch of civil government to authorize and regulate the nature and extent of religious activities at government sponsored events.
The difficulty for protecting state-churh separation is that federal and state courts are being packed with conservative Christian judges. This is why the Republican U.S. Congress has delayed many Clinton appointments to a growing number of court vacancies.
Christian judges frequently misinterpret the First Amendment in favor of government sponsored worship and involvement with religious organizations. This trend will continue so long as conservative Christian political power continues to grow. [From nes reports sent in by gviscious@hotmail.com and court decisions.]
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STUDENT-LED PRAYER GIMMICK REVEALED
The legal theory that a student majority vote can justify religious messages at school events has been successfully used by Christian legal groups. In at least one instance, however, student-led prayer is revealed as nothing more than a gimmick that religious adults use to force prayers onto audiences at public school events.
A phone interview with Santa Fe ISD Superintendent Richard Ownby revealed that only a small proportion of students voted for a student message before football games. Only 59 out of 1,208 eligible students (4.9%) voted in the election, with 58 for and 1 against a student delivered message at football games.
Santa Fe ISD had been allowing the high school Student Council to conduct a vote on whether students wanted an invocation, a message, or nothing announced by a student before school events. The Student ouncil conducted these elections before and after classes with ballots put into a box on a table. The names of those voting were marked off of a student roster provided by the Santa Fe ISD.
Due to the court's decision against football prayers, this year's vote was limited to whether or not a student "message" would be delivered before football games. A later vote selected one student to announce the message.
The August 27th Austin American-Statesman reported that the student elected to deliver Santa Fe High School's football game messages has resigned. She resigned because the school district, in accordance with the court decision, prohibited her from delivering a message with religious content.
Santa Fe High School has been the center of a controversy about prayer in schools. Earlier this year, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals banned invocations before Santa Fe High School football games because they were not a properly solemn event for God worship. The decision upheld te legality of majority voted student prayers. School events, however, must now meet some sort of "solemnity" standard that properly respects God before they qualify for student-led prayers.
Santa Fe ISD officials have outspokenly supported student led prayers. Yet, less than 5% of the students thought it worth their time to vote on the issue.
It seems odd for Santa Fe ISD to continue expensive court cases when 95% of students don't care about religious messages enough to participate in a vote. It leaves you wondering why Santa Fe ISD went to court in the first place.
A reasonable conclusion is that Santa Fe ISD officials only care about student responses when students want to pray at school events. If they were really concerned with what students wanted, they would heed the 95% who don't care and drop the prayer issue.
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FREETHINKER ROCK STILL STANDS AFTER ONE YEAR
The Freethinker Cenotaph rock still stands in the Comfort town park. I has become the center of a controversy about honoring the German Hill Country Freethinkers. It was planned to have an official Texas Historical Commission plaque.
Last August, local Christians got 700 signatures on a petition against "A monument to Atheism." They bullied the Comfort Heritage Foundation out of supporting the project. They also bullied the Comfort Chamber of Commerce into reversing their prior approval of the Freethinker Cenotaph. The Kendall County Historical Society ha continued to support the project.
Those opposed to the Freethinker Cenotaph have lobbied county officials, state officials and the Texas Historical Commission. They want to remove the rock, to change the historical plaque so that it ignores Freethinker irreligiousness, and to kill the project entirely
The Comfort Chamber of Commerce has asked the Commissioners to remove the rock as "abandoned." It appears, however, that area freethinkers may have been successful in persuading the Kendall County Commissioners Court to not take action to remove the rock. Your editor was among those contacting the Kendall County Commissioners and urging them to take no action to remove the rock.
So far, the Chamber of Commerce still refuses to negotiate a settlement of the controversy with those who donated $4,400 for the project.
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COUNTY JUDGE RESPONDS ON FREETHINKER ROCK
On July 28th, Kendall County Judge James W. Gooden responded to a letter urging that the Kendall County Commissioners Court take no action to remove the Freethinker rock from the Comfort town park. The letter went to Judge Gooden because Texas County Judges preside over County Commissioner meetings.
Judge Gooden's response stated in part, "The present rock ... does not conform to the original submission," without addressing the fact that the offer was made to shape the rock to the appear like the original drawing.
Gooden states, "There was no engineer's design or specifications request submitted to the County or Lessee, to my knowledge." Gooden does not address the issue of whether or not such specifications were a requirement of the Comfort Chamber of Commerce's original approval of the Freethinker Cenotaph. A source tell TTA that the Chamber of Commerce's lease of the park land from the county is "loosely" worded with no engineering specifications required. There may be other county ordinances that apply to structures erected in Kendall county.
Gooden also says, "Neither you, as a donor, nor I, as an elected official, can act in this situation." While I disagree with the Judge that donors have no cause of action to protect their interests, this seems to indicate that Judge Gooden may not urge the Kendall County Commissioners to take direct action to remove the rock from the park.
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SAN ANTONIO CONVENTION PLANS FOR FFRF
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has announced some speakers for their 1999 annual convention November 5-7 in San Antonio. FFRF is a non-profit organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. It is openly atheistic and active in state-church separation issues. With about 4,000 members, FFRF is the largest national atheist group.
The convention will be in downtown San Antonio at the St. Anthony Hotel, a modernized turn of the century hotel that has received the AAA Four-Diamond award for 14 consecutive years. Speakers include:
Barbara Ehrenreich is an atheist and former columnist for Time magazine. Ms., Esquire, The Nation and Atlantic Monthly have published her articles. Her latest book is "Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War," 1997. Richard P. Sloan will talk about the Lancet article he co-authored, "Religion, Spirituality, and Medicine." It was a rebuttal of medical studies about treating illnesses with prayer. Steve Benson will speak about his decision to leave the Mormon church. He is a nationally syndicated political cartoonist for the Arizona Republic. Philip Appleman's topic will be "An Evening with Darwin." Appleman is a poet and Darwin researcher who has just completed his second edition of the Norton Critical Edition of "Darwin." The FFRF Convention date happens to coincide with the 140th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species."
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NEWS/SCIENCE BRIEFS [Send items of interest to gofreemind@aol.com.]
FACT JOINS THE ATHEIST ALLIANCE
The Freethinkers Association of Central Texas has joined the Atheist Alliance. The Atheist Alliance is a national federation of independent local groups that have democratically elected leadership. This is more evidence of that Texas groups are getting better organized with more willingness to participate in national activities. It is also an indication that FACT's recent relocation to the Café Latino, with weekly instead of monthly gatherings, is attracting more people and giving the group new vior. Hats of to new FACT President Don Lawrence and Vice President Sally Chizek for moving things forward.
FACT LAUNCHES WEBSITE
http://atheistalliance.org/fact The Freethinkers Association of Texas (FACT) has launched a website. The new website was designed by Jayne Denham with the help of Lee Denham. The new website is hosted on the Atheist Alliance website address given above. The new site carries basic info about FACT and Texas Hill Country Freethinkers events plus news items of interest. Note that this is different than the temporary address published in the recent San Antonio/Hill Country special edition of The Texas Atheist.
EDITOR PROMOTES ATHEIST VIEWS IN THE MEDIA
I have been having some success in getting media exposure for atheist viewpoints. The Austin paper ran my commentary on Charitable Choice. "Don't Scapegoat Atheists" ran in San Antonio, Amarillo and Galveston. "Facing Up to Christianity's Disturbing Truths" ran in the San Antonio Current. The Beaumont paper will run "Christian America - Not!" I also got an hour as guest debater on a San Antonio Christian talk-radio show. While there isn't much in the media to counter the constant barrage of Christian propaganda, it is possible for atheists to get occasional media exposure. It takes a constant effort before the media even notices you, but it pays off. When they're looking for something to fill a page or hour, the fact that you've kept sending them stuff helps make you a candidate. So, don't give up your letter writing, calling in to radio shows and writing columns for newspapers. You'll get ignored far more than used, but you can get the atheist viewpoint into the media if you persist. HT
HELP SEARCH FOR EXTRA TERRESTRIALS
[From Tom Ebacher <ebachert@runestone.net.] The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Project has a new project called Setihome. Setihome is a small computer program that can be downloaded from the internet and installed on your home computer. This program allows you to assist in the evaluation of deep space radio signal data from the Aricebo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico. "After evaluation, and after reconnecting to the internet, the program reports the results back to Berkeley University and downloads another chunk of raw data for evaluation. This program harnesses the unused computing power of home users to further the goal of finding extraterrestrial intelligence. The extra help has added almost 50,000 years of computation time to the project." You can join the search for ET <http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu> .
ON-LINE ZINE EXAMINES FUNDAMENTALIST SCHOOLS
[From Dwayne Walker <wilsie@ix.netcom.com>] "I just wanted to bring to your attention a new on-line zine I am creating regarding the fundamentalist Christian school movement. It is called "Christian School Confidential" and will showcase articles, videoclips, and comics concerning Christian school scandals." See it at <http://www.walkertown.com>.
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GROUPS & TELEVISION
Agnostic & Atheist Student Group of Texas A&M. Wednesdays 8:00 PM. Check http://atheist.tamu.edu/~aasg/ for changing room locations. American Humanist Association. Houston, Dallas. <frankprahl@earthlink.net>. Atheist Community of Austin. Weekly meetings, monthly speaker, TV show. <kellenvh@earthink.net> www.atheist-community.org. Corpus Christi Atheists & Agnostics. Contact Brian Meyer <bmmagic@earthlink.net>. Ethical Culture Fellowship of Austin. 10:00 AM, 1st & 3rd Sunday, Austin Senior Activity Center near 28th and Lamar. 512-306-1111 <ecfa@usa.net> http://www.main.org/ec. Freethinkers Assoc. of Central Texas. Weekly meetings. http://atheistalliance.org/fact Don Lawrence <lawdon99@earthlink.net> or Julie Fisher <txfreethinker@oocities.com>. Freethinkers Union - U of Houston. New unbeliever student group. Stacy Irwin <stirwin@Jetson.uh.edu>. http://get.to/freethinkers. Houstonians for Seculr Humanism. Monthly meetings, <dts2000@flash.net>. Humanist of Ft. Worth. 1st Wed monthly, 7:00 PM, Russell Elleven <R.elleven@tcu.edu>, http://webalias.com/humanism. North Texas Church of Freethought. First Sunday, 10:30 AM at Wilson World Hotel, Irving. Singles group & social events. <church@freethought.org> http://church.freethought.org. Oklahoma Atheists. Monthly & online meetings. Kim Schultz- Kimmysai@aol.com, www.oocities.org/~ok_atheist.html, http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/oklahomaatheists. San Antonio College. New group. Don Lawrence <lawdon99@earthlink.net>. Texas Hill Country Freethinkers. Monthly luncheons and dinners. Julie Fisher at 210-354-3311 <txfreethinker@oocities.com>. University Skeptics Society. UT Austin. <www.utexas.edu/students/skeptics>.
The Atheist Experience: 9:00 AM call-in show. Sunday on Austin public access TV. Freethought Forum: 6:30 PM Thursday on San Antonio public access TV.
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LETTERS
[From: MsJudas666@aol.com] Kick ass article man!.... [Six harms of Christianity] I agree on so much of what was said... and to all the christians who are offended, now they know what life in their shitty christian dominant society life feels like.... keep on writing man. Urmmm how do you spell God's name again? I M A G I N A T I O N? ohhh ok
[From: Name and town with held at author's request] You can say whatever about freedom of religion blah blah blah but the truth of it is, you probably could get into a lot of trouble if you said those things in (small Oklahoma town). I go to church on Wednesdays not because I really want to but because it something everybody does. It is kinda expected of you to do that. Plus in (small Oklahoma town), it is all about reputation. To be a good person you have to be a good christian. Thats how it is now and that is how it'll always be. And believe me I have lived here like 4 years and it majorly sucks.
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COMMENTARY: Growing slowly, but growing
In 1995, most of the few humanist organizations were dying out and the atheist groups Madalyn O'Hair had tried to disband were weak or failing. Since then, the Texas non-theistic movement has been growing slowly but steadily.
At least eight new groups have formed, including atheists, freethinkers, humanists and ethical culturalists. Most groups are vigorous and growing, such as the North Texas Church of Freethought, the Atheist Community of Austin, and the Freethinker groups in and near San Antonio. The Texas Atheist has also seen circulation rise from an initial 250 to over 1,800 in 27 months.
As each few months roll by, we have more leaders, more people participating, and more people speaking out. Best of all, it is grass-roots organizing by individuals that want to establish strong local groups. This is not the kind of movement that exists only because people are joining a national level effort. We grow on our own.
It is also clear that our most effective Texas activists are open atheists. We are drawing strength and commitment from those who are willing to say they don't believe in gods. This is significant, because it indicates that whatever name a groups selects for itself, atheism is often the key ingredient that motivates effective members.
Our Texas movement will continue to grow so long as we maintain our focus on organizing local groups that meets local needs. This is the way new activists learn how to organize and lead. This is what encourages members to participate in and become part of our tiny, brand new, non-theistic culture.
For the first time in a long time, non-theistic Texans can look ahead with hope.