Dr. Eugenie Scott & Sunday M.A.S.S.

The UM Chapter of Sigma Xi is hosting another Science Café, this time with the Director of the National Center for Science Education, Dr. Eugenie C. Scott.

Dr. Scott is recognized nationally as an expert on the controversy of teaching creationism in public classrooms. and served as a science and education consultant in the federal "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District" case in 2005.

For those who defend the teaching of the science of Biological Evolution in science classrooms and oppose the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism as if it were science, Dr. Scott is nothing short of a national celebrity.

If you have any interest in this topic, you will most certainly want to cancel whatever plans you had for Monday night, get a baby sitter if necessary, and get yourself to the Press Box upstairs seating area (not just the back room) well before the 6:30 start time to get a good seat.

Please spread the word and invite all of your friends to this important event.

Note: The UM Chapter of Sigma Xi is entirely responsible for organizing and hosting this event.


Also, don't forget that Sunday M.A.S.S. is this weekend, May 1st, at 10am at the Stone of Accord on North Reserve in the Meeting Room. If you're not sure where to go, just tell the hostess you're with the group in the meeting room and she'll show you the way.

B.S. on Saturday, Brunch on Sunday

Brother Sam Singleton, Atheist Evangelist is coming back through Missoula.

Brother Sam (B.S.) has been busy traveling all over the country spreading the good word (so to speak), and at long last he's making another pass through Missoula.

He'll be performing his new show "If the Ocean was Whiskey and God was a Duck" at the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center ( 519 South Higgins Avenue ) on Saturday, April 2nd at 7pm. Tickets are $10 at www.samsingleton.com, or $15 at the door. Students get a $5 discount. Seating is very limited, so get your ticket's early.

Bring some extra cash to the show for B.S. paraphernalia, such as Exbaptism Soap and "Rational Household" door signs, and of course, M.A.S.S. T-Shirts, and to make a donation to the M.A.S.S. Billboard Fund.

After the show, there will likely be a trip with B.S. to a nearby tavern for the purpose of consuming beverages and friendly conversation. But don't stay out too late, because...

Sunday M.A.S.S. Brunch comes again on April 3rd at 10AM at The Stone of Accord, in the meeting room. If you're not sure where to go, just tell the hostess you're with the group in the meeting room and she'll get you there lickity-split.

M.A.S.S. Movie Date: The God Who Wasn't There

The Missoula Area Secular Society is proud to present a free public screening of the critically acclaimed documentary, The God Who Wasn't There.

From exposing the hidden history of Christianity to lampooning the bloody excesses of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (which caused Gibson to attempt legal action against the documentary), The God Who Wasn't There pulls no punches.

Directed by award-winning filmmaker (and former Christian) Brian Flemming, The God Who Wasn't There includes stimulating interviews with:

• Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation
  
  
• Alan Dundes, Professor of Folklore at the University of California at Berkeley
  
  
• Richard Carrier, historian and author of Sense and Goodness Without God
  
  
• Barbara & David P. Mikkelson, authors of the Urban Legends Reference Pages at snopes.com

Join us for this free public screening at the Missoula Public Library on Saturday, June 19th at 3:30pm in the Large Meeting Room (downstairs). After the film, you are invited to join us for dinner & drinks to discuss the film at a downtown restaurant (location TBA at the screening).

Christian Law Students Group Claims Discrimination

There's an article in yesterday's Missoulian about a "Christian Students" group and the UM Law School that's claiming they're being discriminated against by the school for not recognizing them as an official group. Why are they not recognized as an official group? Because they discriminate. These are law students who apparently don't understand the definition of the words irony or hipocrisy.

A group of Christian law students seeking to exclude homosexuals from its ranks at the University of Montana is appealing a federal judge's ruling that upholds UM's decision not to recognize the group as a registered student organization.

The First Amendment case was brought in December 2007 when the local chapter of the Christian Legal Society sued the law school, arguing that UM violated its rights to free speech when the Student Bar Association refused to fund the society.

The Student Bar Association says it refused funding because the group's mission is at odds with a non-discrimination policy requiring student groups to be “open to all members of the school of law.” The Christian Legal Society, a national faith-based organization, requires members of its individual chapters to sign a “statement of faith” pledging to uphold “sexual morality standards.” Those standards ban homosexuality, adultery and extramarital sex.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Missoula, the lawsuit names UM Law Dean Edwin Eck, Student Affairs Director Margaret Tonon and the executive board of UM's Student Bar Association as defendants.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull ruled that UM's Law School did not violate the rights of the Christian Legal Society when it refused to recognize the group as an official student organization.

All students enrolled in the School of Law automatically become members of the Student Bar Association and pay mandatory student activity fees. The Student Bar Association then determines funding to student law groups.

Last Friday, the Christian Legal Society filed notice that it would appeal Cebull's decision with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Briefs in support of the appeal must be filed by July 28.

According to the suit, the Christian Legal Society encourages Christian law students to grow in their faith as they learn the law. To protect the Christian message, the organization says it requires all voting members and leaders to agree with the statement of faith.

“Christian student groups shouldn't be discriminated against for their beliefs. All student groups have the right to associate with people of like mind and interest,” CLS attorney Casey Mattox said in a statement. “For example, the Environmental Law Group at UM seeks to promote certain views of global warming. Should it be forced to accept members and officers who hold to views that undermine the group's purpose? Similarly, religious groups should be allowed to select officers and voting members from those who share their views to ensure that their message and whole reason for being is not lost.”

Prose and Pabulum

Once again, the Missoula Area Secular Society (M.A.S.S.) is getting together for a little evening sustenance and small talk.

When: Saturday, May30th, 5:30pm
Where: The Montana Club on North Reserve (NOT the one on Brooks).

After the meal we'll figure out where in the building Sam Singleton (Atheist Evangelist) will be doing his show "Patriarchs and Penises". Shouldn't be too hard to find.

If you haven't gotten your ticket to Sam's show yet, do so now! (<- click that link... do it!). If you'd prefer to just go to the show and skip M.A.S.S., by all means do (our hurt feelings will recover). The show starts promptly at 7:00pm.

If you're coming to dinner and not sure who to look for, Jon will be wearing his Sam Singleton t-shirt (black with red lettering on the front). If Jon notices you trying to read his shirt, expect a big friendly smile. We'll also be sure to twitter important details of where we're sitting, so setup your phone to automatically get our tweets.

Happy National Day of Reason Everyone!

Many who value the separation of religion and government have sought an appropriate response to the federally-supported National Day of Prayer, an annual abuse of the constitution. Nontheistic Americans (including freethinkers, humanists, atheists, agnostics, and deists), along with many traditionally religious allies, view such government-sanctioned sectarianism as unduly exclusionary.

A consortium of leaders from within the community of reason endorsed the idea of a National Day of Reason. This observance is held in parallel with the National Day of Prayer, on the first Thursday in May each year (May 7th in 2009). The goal of this effort is to celebrate reason—a concept all Americans can support—and to raise public awareness about the persistent threat to religious liberty posed by government intrusion into the private sphere of worship.

The Day of Reason also exists to inspire the secular community to be visible and active on this day to set the right example for how to effect positive change. Local organizations might use "Day of Reason" to label their events, or they might choose labels such as Day of Action, Day of Service, or Rational Day of Care. The important message is to provide a positive, useful, constitutional alternative to the exclusionary National Day of Prayer.

Continued on the National Day of Reason website

Scamming The Credulous

I had to laugh when I got this email today. Obviously, it was broadcast out to many thousands of email addresses, but I was still amused to see it in my inbox, considering.... you know. In fact, the way it started out I thought it was a real email from a real person, and I was thinking "Oh boy, here we go...", but I quickly got suspicious about the time the "only surviving lawyer" died midway through the first sentence.

Dear Friend

Greetings in the name of God, Please let this not sound strange to you for my only surviving lawyer who would have done this died early this year. I prayed and got your email id from your countries Christian guestbook which i have been with my late husband and liked to visit once more if God will in his infinite mercies.

I am Mrs. Joy Hoffman from Kuwait, I am 68 years old, I am deaf and suffering from a long time cancer of the breast which also affected my brain, from all indication my conditions is really deteriorating and it is quite obvious that, according to my doctors they have advised me that I may not live for the next two months, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage. I was brought up from a motherless babies home was married to
my late husband for twenty years without a child, my husband died in a fatal motor accident Before his death we were true Christians.

Since his death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and deposited all the sum of US$5.6Million dollars with a Security Firm. Presently, this money is still with them and the management just wrote me as the true owner to come forward to receive the money for keeping it so long or rather issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf since I can not come over because of my illness or they get it confisticated.

Presently, I'm with my laptop in a hospital here in Mauella Hospital Germany where I have been undergoing treatment for cancer of the lungs. My doctors have told me that I have only a few months to live. It is my last wish to see that this money is invested to any organization of your choice and distributed each year among the charity organization, the poor and the motherless babies' home.

I want you as God fearing person, to also use this money to fund churches, orphanages and widows, I took this decision, before i rest in peace because my time will so on be up.

As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Security Firm. I will also issue you a letter of authority that will prove you as the new beneficiary of my fund. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein.

Please reply me through this my private email address: DELETED@aim.com

Hoping to hear from you soon,Waiting for your reply

Yours in Sincerely,


Mrs. Joy Hoffman

It's pretty obvious who the scam's targets (aka "marks") are. I guess these scams have gotten enough publicity by now that most people aren't fooled anymore forcing the scammers to start scraping the bottom of the credulity barrel.

Tonight on NOVA: The Bible's Buried Secrets

Tonight at 7:00 on Montana PBS...

A visually stunning two-hour special edition of "Nova" examines decades of archaeological studies that contradict much of what is in the Bible. The entire Exodus story is debunked, as is the idea that the Israelites were monotheistic following the contract made between God and Abraham. It turns out idol worship was common through the reign of King David and right up to the Babylonian exile.

UM Free Lecture: Religion and Violence

On Tuesday, September 9th, there will be two free & public events at the University of Montana that might be of interest to some M.A.S.S. members.

Richard Rubenstein is an expert on religious conflict, terrorism, American foreign policy and methods of resolving serious international and domestic disputes, and is the Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason University in Arlington, Va.

He will be hosting a seminar from 3:40 to 5:00pm entitled "Why Americans Fight: Our National Religion as a Cause of War" in the Gallagher Business Building Room 123.

Then, at 8 p.m. in the University Theatre, he'll give a lecture entitled "Religion and Violence in the 21st Century."

Both the seminar and the lecture are free and open to the public.

I would love to go to the lecture, but unfortunately am out of town on business, damn it. Maybe another M.A.S.S. member with a video camera would be willing to go and record it for me? Anybody?

God vs. Modern Medicine

Kudos to Jeff over at the Missoula Skeptics Blog for spotting an AP story in today's Missoulian about a study that found 57% of Americans still believe that "God’s intervention could save a family member even if physicians declared treatment would be futile." I would have completely missed this story if Jeff hadn't blogged about it.

Jeff sounds pretty discouraged by the results of the study, but I actually found it encouraging (I guess you could call me a "glass 43% full" kinda guy). The news for me here is that 43% of Americans do not believe that god's intervention could save a family member. Regardless of whether or not god would intervene, these people apparently don't think she's capable of changing the outcome.

That's a significant proportion of Americans who are at least starting to think about these kind of things rationally. Most of them would probably still say that they "believe in god", but they're starting to recognize that she's irrelevant. If they don't believe that she's going to do anything about a suffering loved one, then she probably doesn't have any influence on the more mundane moments in their lives, either.

"Left in the West" ~ Catholic League Approved

Here's an amusing tidbit. Missoula blogger Jay Stevens over at "Left in the West" posted last night about his surprise that the Catholic League has apparently reviewed and approved that blog... and then Jay promptly attempts to correct the embarrassing situation.

"Acts of Violence" threatened against author/former Missoulian

There's an article in the Missoulian today about Sherry Jones, a former citizen of The Garden City, who is back in Missoula for the time being because it's "where I feel safe and comfortable."

It seems she was in the process of having her first book published by Random House about A'isha, the youngest of Muhammad's 12 wives. The publisher canceled the contract, however, at the last hour because they received warnings that the book “could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” Random House justified the decision by stating that the book "might be offensive to some in the Muslim community.”

So what? Who doesn't get offended now and then by someone else's words? I know that I do. There's no point in declaring "freedom of speech" if nobody ever says anything that someone else disagrees with. Nobody, not you or I or anyone else, has the right to never be offended, or to threaten violence against others simply for saying something we don't like.

Check out the Missoulian article, and then when Jones' book, "Jewel of Medina," is eventually published (by someone with more courage than Random House to defend freedom of speech), buy several copies as gifts for all your friends, even if it sucks. Always work to ensure that threats of violence to suppress freedom of speech consistently backfire and draw exponentially more attention to the very speech that was supposed to be suppressed.

Update (09/03/08): The book apparently has a new publisher, yet to be named. The English version now due to be released in October.

"Left in the West" comments on UC court case.

Jay Stevens, a Missoula blogger for Left in the West and 4&20 Blackbirds posted some short commentary on a recent court ruling regarding the University of California and their right to reject some high school credit from private religious schools that don't meet UC's standards for acceptance. In case any readers here missed Jay's post, I thought I'd send them on over to read it.

We're in ur office... proselytizing ur minions.

Several months ago I endured a period wherein every two or three weeks, the Jehovah's Witnesses would show up and leave stuff at my door. Apparently, I wasn't the only one they were having trouble reaching, because today.... they showed up at my office.

A lady came in shortly after 1pm asking to leave some pamphlets for us. She was steered toward our Executive Director who politely took the pamphlet, and when she left, promptly put it in the garbage. I asked to see what she left (I think it's good to know what superstitious mumbo-jumbo people are spreading), so she fished it out of the garbage for me.

This sparked a short friendly conversation about the Jehovah's Witnesses between her and I, and then just a little later a much longer and extremely interesting group conversation with most of the rest of the office (it's a small office) on religion in general. Thankfully, nobody in the office is too hard core about their personal beliefs, so it was a very congenial conversation with each person in turn sharing their own personal world views.

I even got to ask the one Catholic about her beliefs regarding the eucharist in reference to The Ongoing Cracker Kerfuffle. Her position was that she has trouble getting her head around the idea that the cracker literally turns into the body of christ (in fact, the idea kinda grosses her out), and that she thinks most of today's younger catholics probably feel the same. It's the older Catholics, in her opinion, that really buy into it.

Oddly, it was the Taoist (one of those interesting facts that the conversation revealed) in the group that seemed the most opposed to someone taking the cracker without eating it. The consensus between the Taoist and the Catholic seemed to be that, if you're going to voluntarily walk into a church during services, then you should respect their traditions and rituals. I didn't really have a good rebuttal to that. But they also seemed to agree that the responses from the church involved in The Cracker Kerfuffle, the Catholic League's Response, and the responses from multitudes of good xians, was also an overreaction.

Anyway, it was a fascinating workplace conversation, inadvertently instigated by the Jehovah's Witnesses, so I guess they're inadvertently good for something. For those keeping score... 1 Catholic, 1 Taoist, 2 "Not even a little smidgen" Nonbelievers, and 1 abstention.

Expect a Miracle (Final Report)

[ This is the final update on my visit to a good old fashioned Tent Revival and Faith Healing here in Missoula, MT. Be sure to see the original post and the update before proceeding. ]

Well, that was truly a worthwhile experience, and not precisely what I was expecting. My goal was to simply be a respectful observer. I wasn't there to heckle, or otherwise be disruptive, but simply to witness what I could and document as much as possible. In that regard... Mission Accomplished. It appeared that this event was associated with "The Potter's House", a nearby "Christian Fellowship Church", but many of the attendees had traveled in from all over. Roger (see below) for instance is from Coeur D'Alene, and the main attraction preacher was from New Mexico. Several others claimed to be from "Springfield", the nearest of which I can find is south of Idaho Falls.

I was somewhat surprised that at no point did anybody ask anybody else for money. There were no hats passed around or anything. In fact, they were even giving away hot dogs and soda (although I didn't think it would be fair to take any of that, considering my motives for being there, so I politely declined when offered).

I was also surprised at how much they let me take pictures and video. I was fully expecting that at some point they would ask me to stop (especially once they discovered that I wasn't "one of them"), but on the contrary, many people made a distinct point of not walking in front of the camera. Unfortunately, the really interesting parts were the conversations I had with people when the camera was off.

Several times, whomever had the microphone at the moment would ask everyone to bow their heads. I just couldn't bring myself to do that, and it didn't take long for Roger to notice. I gathered that Roger was one of the organizers/insiders of the event. Upon noticing my anti-conformist behavior, he walked right up and started talking to me, which I thought was somewhat disrespectful of the guy on the stage trying to lead whatever prayer they were on.

Anyway, Roger and I got to chatting there in the back of the tent. He claimed that he himself had had an ulcer and a broken ankle healed by god (as opposed to modern science based medicine), and witnessed similar healings of other people. I replied that I wasn't going to believe anything like that without some solid evidence and challenged him to show me some medical records to prove it. He accused me of not walking around everywhere carrying my medical records to show to people. I retorted that I wasn't making extraordinary claims of miracle healings. He conceded that point to me, and took down my mailing address so that he could mail me his records. I won't be holding my breath on that one. (And before anybody asks... I gave him my P.O.Box, not my home address. What kind of moron do you think I am?)

At some point in the conversation, he brought up war and famine, and how some people see things like that as proof that god does not exist, but that he thinks they're proof god does exist. Then, he proceeded to make his point by talking about something that had nothing to do with war or famine. When I finally pointed out that he still hadn't explained how war and famine are proof of gods existence, he said "Oh, oops, I pulled a Democrat... Oh, sorry, I hope you're not a Democrat... or maybe you are." I let him sweat a moment, then replied that, "I'm an Independent, I think for myself" which he seemed relieved by. In the end, he never did explain how war and famine prove god exists. I don't think he really knew.

I also talked very briefly with a guy named John (I'm assuming the 'h'), another of the organizers/insiders. He also claimed to have witnessed all kinds of healings, and claimed that we don't hear about these things in the news because the media doesn't like to report on certain things. He also seemed to think that I was being unreasonable by suggesting I would need to see some good evidence to back up these extraordinary claims. So, the media doesn't want to report a story about some crackpot "faith healers" who think providing scientific evidence of their claims is unreasonable. Go figure.

Oddly, Jesus and his healers were only doing lower back aches and sore feet tonight. I guess they're saving the androgenic alopecia and amputees for Saturday. Unfortunately, I have bowling plans with the rest of M.A.S.S. for Saturday, and so won't be able to witness those miracles. Darn it. I would have liked to get in on that for my receding hairline.

In the end, I reached the conclusion that they were all (at least the ones I talked to) very nice people who really, truly, believe that they're doing good. I only wish they could step outside themselves and listen to the crazy things they say with fresh ears. Honestly. If I tell you that I don't believe in god, what's telling me that "god still loves you" supposed to do? Am I supposed to say, "Oh, well in that case, I guess god does exist." (sigh)

When it was over, I shook Roger's hand and he asked if I was taking off. I replied, "Yah, I think I'm going to go slaughter some baby kittens, or something... I don't know." He laughed, obviously recognizing how ridiculous that sounds... "baby kittens" beings redundant and all.