Dearest Beloved of Our Family in Christ,

There have been many changes this year for our family. Our beloved 17 year old daughter suffered blindness and paralysis after being struck by a drunk driver on her way home from Wednesday night church services. Aunt Polly died of liver cancer, following a long and painful illness. The family cat was smashed by a UPS truck. Mabel’s M.S. is getting worse and she can hardly do anything much anymore. Father had to have a triple bypass operation, and now uses a breathing tube. The house was burned down by sparks from the burning of Harry Potter books in our yard. Little Marvin got a chicken bone stuck in his throat at a church picnic and was rushed to the hospital where doctors had to remove his voice box, so he can never talk again, but God miraculously saved him. Miranda is now being home schooled after she left eighth grade to become a single mother. An abortion was out of the question, and we know God has given us a hydrocephalic grandchild for his own good and perfect reasons. Our oldest son had his left foot blown off in an ambush in Iraq while helping to bring Christ and Democracy to those poor heathens. We rejoice in the wisdom of our God, in His gifts, and in His plan for our lives. We bear grateful witness to all that our great and merciful God has done for us in the past year, and we praise the works of His hand. Oh, almost forgot. The dog died.

In His Holy Name,

The Fundangelical Family

© Edwin Kagin. December, 2006. Permission to reproduce without profit is given. If you make money on it, I want some of it. Edwin)

If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on
his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried
with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!
Uncle Ebenezer Scrooge (not to be confused with Uncle Scrooge McDuck)

I can’t prove that no ungulate unit of reindeer persuasion can fly, any more than you can prove I don’t have two invisible unicorns that frolic in benign innocence at
Camp Quest. I can’t prove there are no living dinosaurs (as the arkonuts challenge the skeptical to do) anymore than the arkonuts can prove the English text of
Genesis they rely on is identical to the original version they hold was dictated, or inspired, by god. But if one says that all crows are black, there is no need to check
every crow to falsify that assertion. All that is needed is to find one white crow, or any crow of a different color. Similarly, Santa skepticism can be soundly silenced
by the production of one flying reindeer. Yet Christmasterians insist doubters disprove Santa, sleigh, and such, or keep silent, lest they destroy a child’s simple
(mindless) faith. This method of proof proves useful later, as children, programmed to believe fantasy is truth, grow to adultery and unquestioningly follow the
fantastic follies of faith of their fathers (and mothers–political correctness must not be permitted to fall down a personhole).

To be sure, Plato (not to be confused with Mickey Mouse’s dog) argued that, to conceive of something that is real, one must somehow get the perfect idea of that
something from the place it really exits, to wit, the world of forms–a place somewhere that no one has ever seen. Reality alone wouldn’t do. Thus, everyone but
philosophers know what a horse looks like, and kids know all about Santa without having to survive Philosophy 101.

Can we imagine, or even believe in, something that doesn’t exist? Sure we can. Just talk with those who have been abducted by aliens. If some unseen thing is
believed by many, e.g., angels, it is called faith. If a thing is believed by only one, and is wildly outside the gates of common sense and experience, then the belief,
e.g., suddenly realizing that one’s guardian angel is made of grape jelly and having him (there are no female angels–check your bible, you can win bets on this) on
toast, it is called psychosis. The problem is that the invisible and the non-existence look much the same. Christmas beliefs fall somewhere between the province of
priest and psychiatrist.

Christmas combines two contradictory images of godlike characters: Jesus, the Christ, who taught that to be saved one should sell all of their property and give it to
the poor (the church later declared belief in this teaching a heresy), and Claus, the Santa, to whom children are taught to write letters requesting property–believed
to be given by Santa, in one night, to those children of the world found worthy–in direct challenge to the counsel of the Christ. One should note, before teaching the
latter belief system, that an anagram of Santa is Satan.

The day itself, meaning Christ’s Mass, is the same day the Romans used to honor their sun god with gift giving and feasting. Christmas is quite pagan. Its secular
celebration involves rituals specifically forbidden by holy writ, like hewing down a tree, bringing it inside the house, decorating it, and praising it. This is as clear a
violation of divine decree as public prayer, or celebrating the Sabbath on the first day of the week instead of on the seventh day as ordered (Commandment IV). No
wonder we are in such trouble these days with crime, inflation, and teenage pregnancies.

Unfortunate cultural consequences flow from the forced frivolity and jejune joy Christmas creates and requires. People get depressed when they don’t feel happy as
they should, when they do not have their artificial expectations fulfilled, and when they cannot meet the unreasonable artificial sessional needs of others–like their
mercenary relatives, and their materialistic, greedy, spoiled children–and get even deeper in debt by trying to behave as expected. Thanks to Tom Flynn, and his
wonderful heresy The Trouble With Christmas, I chucked the whole thing a few years ago, and lived. Try it. You will feel better for it.

Should I be granted a Christmas wish, it would be that the holiday be cancelled, and that the whole show appertaining to this business of Christmas not be done at all.
Please understand that I do not care if others celebrate Christmas if they wish, nor would I suggest that they be prevented from doing so. I just don’t want the
holiday to be compulsory for me or anyone else–any more than I want other people’s prayers, that they have an absolute right to pray, to be forced upon me by
public officials or upon children by public schools. One who would rather decline gets somewhat tired of listening to those who absolutely and uncritically assume all
good people celebrate Christmas, and that something is horribly wrong with anyone who ignores the invitation to attend their compulsory party. Failing the unlikely
event of Christmas being made optional, I would alternatively wish, in seasonal answer to Virginia’s famous question, that we might see something in the public press,
for innocent children, like:

Dear Virginia,

No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. It is a myth that has been cruelly used to deceive children for the pleasure of adults who unwittingly destroy
children’s sense of basic trust by teaching them that the world is something other than it really is.

I know this news must be a shock to you, and I am truly sorry for your discomfort. But it is not my fault. The person who tells you the truth should never
be blamed for the hurt that comes from learning that others have lied.

You should not believe in Santa Claus any more than you should believe in fairies, or in demons waiting around to pull you under the earth, or in angels
lurking about to transport you above it. People do not need to believe foolish things to have love and compassion and caring, any more than they need a
special season or holiday to be nice to one another.

If things believed prove false, does that mean peace, and sharing, and kindness must dissolve like mist along with the untrue things? Of course not! We
don’t need magic to have happiness, and wonder, and joy. Our beautiful world is full of these things, and they are very real, and our real world holds
more interesting and wonderful people and things than any fairyland anyone could ever even imagine.

Some adults are afraid of things they don’t understand, and they teach children to believe in magic. But the truth is really far more exciting. Wouldn’t you
rather learn what is on real planets, that are millions of miles away, than believe reindeer can fly? Have you ever seen the northern lights? I have, and I
can tell you they are more beautiful, more mysterious, and more wonderful than any pretend story anyone could ever invent about elves that have
workshops at the North Pole.

Is it okay to pretend and to believe things we know are not true? Of course it is! And it can be a lot of fun. Intelligent people love to play. Any time you
watch a movie or a play or go to a costume party you are playing and pretending something is so that is not.

We know those aren’t real people in the TV–only images of them–but we know we are pretending, and this is fun and much different from believing a
falsehood. Would it be wrong to tell a friend of yours, who firmly believed there were really small people inside the television set, that his or her belief was
not true? Would it be right for you to be condemned for destroying that friend’s childlike faith? What if several of your best friends thought they could fly,
and set off for a bridge over a 600 foot deep gorge to prove it? Would it be wrong for you to politely try to convince them that they just might be
mistaken, no matter how firmly they believe they are right? Would you be destroying their childhood or saving their future?

Follow the truth, no matter where it may take you. And don’t pay any attention to those who think comforting falsehoods are better than understanding
the world as it is. If you ever have children, teach them trust by telling them the truth. By the way, just in case you didn’t know, the stork didn’t bring you.
You are here because your parents had sex.

Keep questioning, Virginia, and don’t feel it is the least bit wrong to demand correct answers.

Asking questions is what makes us human.

Your friend,

Uncle Edwin

Copyright © 1999 by Edwin F. Kagin

Helen and Edwin were married on Veterans Day, November 11, 1984, and that means that today, Veterans Day, November 11, 2009 is our 25th Wedding Anniversary. I went to school when math was still taught.

This means that 98.376 percent of our critics have been wrong for 24 ½ years. Many of them are dead. Many not yet dead are divorced. We know people who have gotten married and divorced several times during our period of coverture. We have been married as long as John Keats was alive.

The most frequently asked question of my Helen, now as then, is still “How do you put up with him?”

My Helen is a direct descent of one of the witches of Salem. This explains much.

For our 25th Anniversary, I have constructed a wonderfully romantic adventure. I have booked the very same room in the very same luxury hotel in which we spent our wedding night, 25 years ago this very day. No Motel 6 for us this night. The staff of the hotel were all a giggle at the outrageous romance of the idea. The very same room, by dog!

I decline to here reveal the hotel or the room number. For once, we would like this evening to be free of supplicants seeking healings and such.

Oh, how do I happen to remember the exact room number? I wrote it down in the Gideon Bible I stole from the room on our wedding night, that’s how. In this family bible is notated the date and the event and the hotel and the room number. This may make it worth 35 cents more on e-bay in 375 years.

Tonight I plan to steal another such bible from the same hotel room, and to annotate it as well, to add to my growing collection of stolen and annotated Gideon Bibles. Assuming, that is, that the bible has been replaced sometime in the intervening quarter century.

Thus as it is written, thus let it therefore also be done. And remember, it is a naive man who thinks his daughter has religion when she comes home with a Gideon Bible in her suitcase.

Edwin

Today, October 23rd, is a very important birthday. Maybe the most important birthday of all.

Because, you see, according to Bishop James Ussher, god started the creation of the Earth, and all that in it is, on October 23, 4004 B.C. Yeah, that’s right. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

This incredible fallacy of thought forms the basis of the Fundangelicals’ world view, including the absurdity known as Creation Science, and leads them to cute little conclusions like, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

To which one might reply,

“And Cain and Abel, if your brain is not stable.”

Or “The Fruit on the Tree is stupidity.”

Or “Eve got the blame, she was framed, what a shame.”

Help hold back the darkness.

Join American Atheists. It is only $20 and you can then be a card carrying Atheist.

See: www.atheists.org.

Tell them Edwin sent you.

BECOME A CARD CARRYING ATHEIST
It’s easy
Join American Atheists
You send us $20
And we will send you the card
www.atheists.org

The reason insurance companies lie
And profit as sick people die
Is that their bonuses and wealth
Are more important than our health.

by Edwin Kagin
September 25, 2009

KENTUCKY ATHEISTS NEWS & NOTES Date: September 6, 2009, 2009

Kentucky Atheists, P.O. Box 666, Union, KY 41091; Email: [email protected]

Phone: (859) 384-7000; Fax: (859) 384-7324; Web: http://www.atheists.org/ky/

Editor’s personal web site: www.edwinkagin.com

Editor’s personal blog: http://edwinkagin.blogspot.com

Edited by:

Edwin Kagin, Kentucky State Director, American Atheists, Inc.

(AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.)

What Is An ATHEIST?

“ANOTHER THINKING HUMAN ENGAGED IN SEEKING TRUTH”
(Edwin Kagin, 2008)

To Unidentified Recipients:

“Answers in Atheism,” the Internet radio sensation, will (should be—this is not a precise science) be on today, Sunday, September 06, 2009, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time. Topics discussed will (should) include Camp Quest reports, and the lawsuit filed by American Atheists that resulted in a declaration of unconstitutionality of the part of the Kentucky Homeland Security law that required a belief in god. For details see: www.answersinatheism.net

JOIN AMERICAN ATHEISTS.
THE FEE HAS BEEN REDUCED TO ONLY $20.
THAT IS BECAUSE WE NEED TO COUNT YOU MORE THAN WE NEED TO COLLECT FROM YOU.
YOU CAN STILL BE A MEMBER OF ANY OTHER GROUPS OR ORGANIZATIONS.
SEE: www.atheists.org

Edwin.

=========================================================================================================================

From:

A M E R I C A N A T H E I S T S
A A N E W S
#1274 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 09/05/09
http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org
http://www.atheistviewpoint.tv

KENTUCKY TO APPEAL RULING AGAINST HOMELAND SECURITY
GOD PROMOTION PLAQUE, PROGRAMS
KAGIN: “REGRETTABLE” WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY
, Ready For Supreme Court If Necessary

The State of Kentucky announced Friday that it would appeal
a court ruling that struck down legislation requiring the
Commonwealth’s Homeland Security Office to display a religious
plaque and incorporate “dependence on God” in its training
programs.

Two statutes, passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001
faith-based terrorist attacks, were challenged by American Atheists
and a cohort of plaintiffs who maintained that they violated
key portions of both the U.S. Constitution and the Kentucky
Constitution’s prohibition about establishing religion.

The hastily passed bills mandated that the new department “publicize
the findings of the General Assembly stressing the dependence on
Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth.”
Another statute called upon the Director of the new office to
promote the religious message, and prominently display the plaque
“at the entrance to the state’s Emergency Operations Center…”
The text of the statue declared:

(1) No government by itself can guarantee perfect security from
acts of war or terrorism.

(2) The security and well-being of the public depend not just on
government, but rest in large measure upon individual citizens
of the Commonwealth and their level of understanding, preparation
and vigilance.

(3) The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved
apart from reliance on Almighty God as set forth in the public
speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including Abraham
Lincoln’s historic March 30, 1863 Proclamation urging Americans to
pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours of American
history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy’s November 22,
1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written
long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but
in vain.’ “

Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director for American Atheists took
the issue to court. The Kentucky Attorney General promptly
filed for a motion to dismiss, and disingenuously argued that the
statutes honored god and had little or nothing to do with religion.
On August 26, however Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate denied
the Commonwealth’s request, and made a summary judgment in favor of
the plaintiffs. Wingate opined that the statutes clearly established
religion, and said that while the legislature had broad authority, in
the case of the two statutes, “the secular purpose has to be genuine,
not a sham and not merely secondary to a religious objective.”

Despite the 17-page rebuke of the Commonwealth’s arguments,
though, the Attorney General’s office decided to appeal at public
expense. Mr. Kagin called the move “regrettable,” and told reporters:
“I would not be at all uncomfortable taking the facts of this case
before the U.S. Supreme Court. I think the statue is so blatantly
unconstitutional that any court would find it unconstitutional.”

Shelly Johnson of the state’s Attorney General office declared:
“We believe there is a clear distinction in the law between
acknowledgement of religion, which has been permitted for years,
and the establishment of religion, which is prohibited by the
Constitution. The statute in question merely acknowledges religion
and should have been upheld by the court.”

Associated Press writer Roger Alford noted the importance of the
case. “States in the Bible Belt such as Kentucky, cannot afford to
concede this court battle, even when legal grounds are shaky…”

Western Kentucky University political science professor Scott Lasley
concurred, noting the partisan electoral aspects of the case.
He observed that Attorney General Jack Conway is seeking the
Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in the 2010 race.
“The reality of the situation is that for most attorneys general
that (not challenging the court ruling) would be the end of their
political careers. It’s just the reality of the situation, given
the political environment you’re operating in.”

**
====================================================================================================================================
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090906/focus/focus3.html

The rise of militant atheism

Published: Sunday | September 6, 2009

Is religion good for society? Is the Bible really a good book let alone ‘The Good Book’? And does God really exist? Can we prove it? A group of militant atheists have been giving a resounding and vehement “No!” to all these questions, much to the consternation of Christians.
In the last few years, Christians have experienced their own Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There is no mystery to them, as they have made no attempt to disguise their identities or agenda. They are named Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. They have written some profoundly disturbing books in the last four years: The God Delusion (Richard Dawkins); The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation (Sam Harris); Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (Daniel Dennett); and god is not Great (Christopher Hitchens). Hitchens and Dawkins are the most dreaded of these four “beasts” in Christian fundamentalist demonology.
Unknown to most Jamaican Christians, including many pastors and theologians, there has been an intense, fierce and furious intellectual battle taking place over God in North America and Britain particularly, in the last four years. A new, militant atheism has arisen. The New Atheists, as they have been dubbed, have been carrying out their work with evangelistic and evangelical zeal. It’s about time, they say, as for too long thinking, rational people have allowed Christians to dominate the public space, influencing public policy to great societal damage, with their myths and dogmas.
Struggle
Christians, for example, have been at the forefront of the struggle against the right of gay people to live without stigma and prejudice; the right to have a “loving and legal marriage”; the “right” to adopt and rear children. Christians have stoutly opposed women’s sovereignty over their own bodies, tyrannising public policy on abortion, as the atheists would see it. Christians have opposed stem cell research which would benefit people undergoing intense suffering. They are said to be responsible for untold suffering in places like Africa where AIDS has been rampant, because of the teaching of Christianity’s largest denomination (Catholicism) against the use of condoms. Catholic teaching forbidding policy on artificial birth control has both swelled and harmed populations in Latin America where Catholicism has been strong.
Christians, charge the New Atheists, have been responsible for supporting or giving justification to some of the most obnoxious social evils which mankind has known. Christopher Hitchens sees religion as child abuse and devotes a whole chapter in his book, “god is not Great, defending that thesis.
“Violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry; invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry; contemptuous of women and coercive toward children, organised religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience,” Hitchens spews in his highly polemical and angry book. (He sees it as justified outrage; the sort rational persons should exhibit to the kind of atrocities religion fosters, in his view).
Atrocious behaviour
And it is not only that Christians, as fallible human beings, have not been able to live out the ideal of the Bible and, therefore, they engage in atrocious behaviour. No, say people like Dawkins and Hitchens. That is how the Christians’ God behaves. Explains Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, blood-thirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticide, genocidal, filicidal pestilential, megalomanical, sadomasochistic, capriciously bully.”
Some Christians might even condemn me for quoting this “blasphemous” passage from the Gospelof Dawkins; a passage which would, under previous era, land him in jail. But people would be shocked to know that long before Hitchens wrote that, the revered American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson said, “The Christian God is a being of terrific character – cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust”. But now the New Atheists are popularising their ideas through the big American media, of which they have become darlings. Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens’ books have been best-sellers on the New York Times lists (Dennett is more sober and restrained, hence less of a pull for media.)
The New Atheists have been helped considerably by a growing group of Christians, including scholars and pastors, who have become atheists and who are now openly confessing their atheism. From the 19th century particularly, with the rise of Biblical criticism, a huge percentage of Biblical scholars have rejected conservative views that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Many Biblical scholars see the Bible as a human book, limited by culture and history and not by any means immune from error.
One prominent Biblical scholar who has become an atheist and who is a celebrity in the big American media is Professor Bart Ehrman who over the last few years has produced a stream of books devastating to Christianity and the Bible: Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind who Changed the Bible and Why; The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture; Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths we Never Knew; Lost Scriptures: Books That Did not Make It Into the New Testament; God’s problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer our Most Important Question – Why we Suffer and his most recent; Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t know About Them).
Ehrman was a Bible-believer, Gospel-toting Fundamentalist Christian schooled in the most conservative Evangelical seminaries in America – Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton. But he later went to Princeton where he gained a PhD in New Testament studies. In his book God’s problem he tells how he lost his faith after becoming a pastor and preaching every Sunday and holding prayer group and Bible studies.
“I realised that I could no longer reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of life. I could no longer explain how there can be a good and all-powerful God actively involved with this world given the state of things. For many people inhabiting this planet, life is a cesspool of misery and suffering. I came to the point where I could not believe that there is a good and kindly disposed Ruler who is in charge of it.”
I could no longer believe
Unlike what almost every Christian might believe, Ehrman did not leave willingly, but tried to hang on to his faith until he simply could not anymore, his faith bursting under the weight of contrary evidence, as he would see it. “I did not go easily. On the contrary, I left kicking and screaming, wanting desperately to hold on to the faith I had known from my childhood. But I came to the point where I could no longer believe”.
In the view of the New Atheists like Harris, Dennett, Dawkins and Hitchens, only the tiniest minority have the courage to leave an unthinking faith, which is what all religious faith is ultimately. Besides, the vast majority are simply not bright enough to realise they what they believe is an illusion, a myth, a fable like those from Greek legends. In fact, Dawkins has angered Christians for years by saying he cannot see how any educated person can believe in God. He says the evidence for evolution is too overwhelming and coercive for any person who claims to be educated to deny that evidence and say he does not believe in evolution.
He says atheists should be simply called Brights for those who are not atheists are not bright. (Dawkins , from the prestigious Oxford University, is considered the most arrogant of all the new atheists, followed closely by Hitchens). Hitchens says in his book, god is not Great: “Religion comes from a period of human pre-history where nobody had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from bawling and a fearful infancy of our species and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion.”
The growth of Islamic fanaticism and terrorism; the danger of militant Islam to democracy and peace and the 9/11 experience have served to reinforce the view that religion is bad for society. In addition, the New Atheists are buttressed by scientific evidence which seems to prove that religion is harmful to sociological and psychological health.
The facts
An international survey of 23,000 persons in 17 democracies shows that “in general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with high rates of homicide, juvenile and early mortality STD-infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies”. (See Gregory Paul’s article in Vol. 7, 2005 issue of The Journal of Religion and Health).
Secular Europe scores higher on a number of indices of social health than the more religious United States. Japan, which is a highly secularised society, is far more peaceful and sociologically healthy than religious America.
Says Gregory in his Journal of Religion and Society essay: “The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the democracies, sometimes spectacularly so. No democracy is known to have combined strong religiosity and popular denial of evolution with high rates of societal health. The US is the least efficient Western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health”. And a religion is a major factor say the militant atheists.
Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].

AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.
http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org

For more information, please contact:
Ed Buckner, President 908-499-9200 (cell) or 770-803-5353 (office/fax) Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director 859-384-7000

ATHEISTS WIN IN KENTUCKY CHALLENGE TO HOMELAND SECURITY PLAQUE CALLING ON GOD

A Kentucky Circuit Court ruled today that the state Office of Homeland Security violated the separation of church and state when it erected a plaque calling upon”Almighty God” to protect citizens from “acts of war or terrorism.”

In response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Kentucky legislature created the state office, and ordered the placement of the display. It also required that the theme of dependence on a deity be included in “agency training and educational materials.”

American Atheists and other plaintiffs filed suit. Today, Judge Thomas D. Wingate ruled that the purpose of the legislature’s action “was to declare publicly that the position of the Commonwealth of Kentucky that an Almighty God exists and that the function of that God is to protect us from our enemies.” The Judge found that the legislation violated both the Constitution of the United States and Constitution of Kentucky.”

Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists, hailed the ruling.
“Kentucky lawmakers tried to exploit the threat of terrorism to promote religion, and ignored the many citizens of the Commonwealth who are Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists and other nonbelievers. We are pleased to see that the court saw through this charade.”

Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director for American Atheists and the attorney who argued the case for the plaintiffs issued the following
statement:

“The plaintiffs, and all citizens of Kentucky, are more safe as a result of this thoughtful ruling by Judge Wingate. Threats to our security from within are even more frightening than threats from without. Those who seek to attack our freedoms by imposing their religion upon us have been pushed back a bit by this ruling. The Wall of Separation between government and religion continues to hold. I think Thomas Jefferson would have been pleased.”

AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for Atheists; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

American Atheists, Inc.
PO BOX 158
Cranford, NJ 07016
Tel.: (908) 276-7300
Fax: (908) 276-7402

OmniMyth of Kentucky Theme Park Proposal

Answers in Genesis has led the way with its brand new, soon to be opened, multimillion dollar extravaganza in Kentucky, called the “Creation Museum.” This delightful diversion into fantasy could be but the first in a major undertaking to expand the area into a world class amusement theme park complex in rural Kentucky. Permit me to propose that this pooling of the preposterous be known collectively as “OmniMyth of Kentucky.”

This suggested grouping of sites, featuring magical explanations for everything, is an idea whose time has come. OmniMyth could provide genuine creative comedy relief in a world all too weary with the mess created by failed attempts to solve real problems with make believe. The theme parks could also make their owners a decent profit.

The possible recreational facilities that could be constructed are limited only by the creative imagination of potential designers. The Creation Museum, after all, posits the proposition, which no educated person would hold as true, that the Earth is only a few thousand years old and that it and all life on it were created by magic. The lushly exhibited creationist fantasy rejects, as its central premise, the fact that humans developed from less complex life forms in the process of change over time known as evolution. Instead, the visitor is treated to the myth, presented as true, that humans were magically made from dirt. One can be transported to a time before computers, space stations, and wireless telephones when people wrote on rocks, set broken bones without x-rays, and answered tough questions, like where did people come from, by saying a god did it.

Similar delightful ideas could be represented by similar theme parks grouped in OmniMyth of Kentucky, making the attraction truly international in scope. The diversity of the project might contribute to a lessening of tensions among the world’s peoples, who could come to visit and to see and to laugh at our commonality of recognition that we all share primitive pasts in which our ancestors created make believe stories to explain things not understood. Ancient Greek stories of gods living on a mountain and hurling thunderbolts of lightening. Egyptian stories of preparing the dead for an afterlife by removing the brain. Indian stories of a god who was crucified and arose from the dead. Eskimo stories of a raven who made the sun, moon, stars, the earth, people, and animals.

OmniMyth of Kentucky can put Disney to shame. Thanks to Answers in Genesis, without which this project would not have been birthed, for such creative leadership in education.

Here is a possible advertisement:

“Antidotes to thought. Magical reasons for everything. Fantasy is made real and Myths become true. Pretend it is so and it will be so. See models of humans and dinosaurs together—and you can believe they lived at the same time. See a model of a god pulling the sun across the sky in a chariot—and you can believe it is true. Forget reality for a few hours at OmniMyth of Kentucky where Reality is Fantasy and Fantasy is Reality.”

Edwin Kagin
January 6, 2005

KENTUCKY ATHEISTS NEWS & NOTES Date: July 18, 2009

Kentucky Atheists, P.O. Box 666, Union, KY 41091; Email: [email protected]

Phone: (859) 384-7000; Fax: (859) 384-7324; Web: http://www.atheists.org/ky/

Editor’s personal web site: www.edwinkagin.com

Editor’s personal blog: http://edwinkagin.blogspot.com

Edited by:

Edwin Kagin, Kentucky State Director, American Atheists, Inc.

(AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.)

What Is An ATHEIST?

“ANOTHER THINKING HUMAN ENGAGED IN SEEKING TRUTH”
(Edwin Kagin, 2008)

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To Unidentified Recipients:

“Answers in Atheism,” the sensational Internet live radio talk show that is heard regularly on www.answersinatheism.net at 8:00 pm Eastern Time, except when it isn’t, will be on again Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 8:00 pm. Check the website for details. We wish we could have this on every week as we want to do, but if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. Our unpaid and overworked production and engineering staff have other things to do, like trying to stay alive, and decline to starve to death on an empty stomach. So, we do it when we can and as often as we can (the radio show that is). Hopefully, such doing will be more rather than less, but hope is not the best way to run a interesting robust life or a live Internet radio show.

Next week, your beloved Editor goes to England to help open the first ever Camp Quest U.K. Many thanks to Samantha Stein and her volunteer staff for getting this together. Enrollment is completely filled up, and applications are being taken for next year. You can find out about this worthy effort here: http://www.camp-quest.org.uk .

Camp Quest Michigan still has a few bunks left we are told. And moreover, there may well be Camperships available for the campers willing to make the effort to apply for such. You can learn all about CQM and its programs and Camperships here: http://michigan.camp-quest.org/main.html .

P.Z. Myers, the professor with the unlikely name, will be visiting Kentucky on a pilgrimage to the museum of nonsense in Northern Kentucky, laughingly named the “Creation Museum,” and run by our friends and neighbors, the purveyors of superstition and medieval science known by the even more laughable name of “Answers in Genesis.”

And P.Z. is taking some students on the tour with him, at reduced group rates.

Do not miss this opportunity to see this adventure in money spent on miracles and madness. I strongly endorse everyone going to see it. Never mind that the fee gives money to people who would abuse children with ignorance and commit terror on our free land by vending anti-scientific ways of viewing the world. It is important that you see this place. And that is because it is worse than you think it is. Really. It really is.

So, y’all come on down y’hear and see humans and dinosaurs (missionary lizards, say the arkonuts) living in harmony with one another 6,000 years or so ago. It is the dog dangest thing you ever seen in your life. They even have a statute of a barefoot and pregnant Eve.

Information on where and how is findable below.

You can still get in on the reduced rate, or so thinks

Edwin.

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http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/07/important_information_about_th.php

Important information about the Creation “Museum” trip!
Category: Creationism
Posted on: July 8, 2009 12:04 PM, by PZ Myers
I’m going to be speaking at the Secular Student Alliance conference on 8 August, and before that, you may recall, I announced that we were going on a little field trip to Ken Ham’s bunco joint in Kentucky, on Friday, 7 August. We’re trying to organize a bit, so SSA sent me the notice below. Preregister and get a big discount on the entry fee, and SSA is also looking for more people to help with coordinating travel.

Register to get the $10 entry fee athttps://secularstudents.wufoo.com/forms/creation-museum-with-pz-myers-registration/. You have to pay in advance but you get the $10 entrance rate, rather than the $22 that you’d have to pay at the door. People have to register by 7/23 to get this rate.

We’re arranging carpools through www.rideshare.us using lookup code PZ2Creation. Anyone coming to the Museum and/or heading up to Columbus afterwards for the conference is strongly encouraged to post their rides if they’d be willing to take a student along with them. Students can also post ads for rides if they need to get from one place to the other.
We also have some (free!) housing available in Columbus for Thurs night for any students from out of town who need a place to crash before heading down to the museum. Interested parties should contact Jon the Intern In Charge of Housing at [email protected].

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From reader Conrad:

Americans favor science, but less than before
AP Science Writer
Published Thursday, Jul. 09, 2009

WASHINGTON — The share of Americans who see science as the nation’s greatest achievement is down sharply, even as the public continues to hold scientists in high regard. A new Pew Research Center poll indicates that 27 percent of Americans say the nation’s greatest achievements are in science, medicine and technology, more than any category other than don’t know.
But that’s down from 47 percent in a similar study a decade ago, the center reported Thursday.
The decline comes even as technology reaches out to connect people worldwide via the Internet.
But the era of “Big Science,” like the moon landings, has receded into history, while one-time wonders such as organ transplants seem increasingly routine and the battle against cancer drags on.
Probably reflecting last fall’s historic election of Barack Obama as president, the poll found that people rating equal rights as the nation’s top achievement jumped to 17 percent, compared with just 5 percent 10 years earlier.
Most Americans – 64 percent – see this country’s science as “above average,” but with advances by other countries getting increasing attention, just 17 percent say it’s the best in the world. Indeed, the European Union currently published more scientific papers than the United States.
There is the danger, over time, that the United States could lose its pre-eminence in science and efforts to interest more young people in research are under way, said Alan I. Leshner, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Overall, the new study found that science remains well thought of by Americans, with 84 percent of respondents saying it has a mostly positive effect on society. Only 6 percent rated science as largely negative for society.
There was no exact earlier comparison for those numbers, but Scott Keeter, director of the survey, said other studies over the years have shown consistently positive views of science and medicine.
“The U.S. public recognizes research and development, perhaps especially to drive medical advances, as an investment in the future. Yet, researchers and the public too often are separated by a communications gap,” said Leshner. He said his group is conducting seminars teaching scientists how to better communicate with the public.
Even when they disagreed with some findings, people showed an overall positive outlook for science.
For example, 63 percent of respondents who believe in creationism and 64 percent of those contending there is no evidence of global warming still said science does much to contribute to the well-being of society.
The new report is based on a series of three polls. The first was a telephone survey of 2,001 members of the general public April 28-May 12, asking their opinions of science. The second, testing the public’s scientific knowledge, was a sample of 1,005 adults June 18-21. For comparison, the Pew researchers also conducted an online random sample of 2,533 members of the AAAS from May 1 to June 14. AAAS is an international organization of scientists and those interested in science. The error margin for the polls ranged from 2.5 percentage points to 3.5 percentage points.
Among the findings:
– About 91 percent of the general public knew that aspirin is recommended to prevent heart attacks, 82 percent knew that global positioning systems rely on satellites and 65 percent correctly linked carbon dioxide gas to rising temperatures.
-On the other hand, just 54 percent understood that antibiotics do not kill viruses and fewer than half – 46 percent – knew that electrons are smaller than atoms.
-Men have a more favorable outlook about science than women, 86 percent saying it has a mostly positive effect, compared with 81 percent.
-Science got an 87 percent favorable rating from whites, compared with 76 percent among blacks and 75 percent for Hispanics.
-The public and the science association members did not always see eye-to-eye. For example 87 percent of AAAS scientists believed that humans and other living things evolved naturally, compared with 32 percent of the general public. And while 84 percent of the association members say the Earth is getting warmer because of human activities, just 49 percent of the public agreed.
-A majority of the public – 58 percent – favor federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, but that is well short of the 93 percent of scientists who feel that way.
– And 69 percent of Americans say all parents should be required to vaccinate their children, compared with 82 percent of scientists.

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Fan Mail Department:
If folks are going to gratuitously write us about how awful we are, they can expect to get published, together with their email, so that their potential victims can respond.
Here is one such, followed by the response of American Atheist’s President Ed Buckner (NOTE: we do not answer all emails. But some we do).
Name: Mr. Bynum

Edwin.

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Email: [email protected]
Re: Why God is real and why you are a fool

Hello,
My name is Mr. Bynum. In no way is this message threatening, or filled with anger and hate. If you wish to try and prosecute me on false charges of hate/threatening mail, I just want you to know you will end up fighting a losing battle, for my God is not invisible, but very, very real.
The subject of my message is this: atheism is a pearl in the necklace of wrong ideas.
And there is a God, in a real place called Heaven, and there is a real place called Hell, where those who reject God will spend eternity.
You claim that you have given reasonable evidence against religion, and yet people won’t turn from their religion. You wonder why this has occurred. Well it’s because your alleged ‘evidence’ is actually nothing but washed up ideas that that have been proven worthless for decades.
The declaration ‘There is no God, god, gods, is an absolute statement. For an absolute statement to be true, you must have absolute knowledge, of all things. You would have to know every detail of History, how many atoms there are in all the rocks, know how many hairs are on the head of every human, and the thought of every mind.
So do you have complete and absolute all knowledge of everything? If not, to be reasonable and logical, then you would have to state ‘Using the limited knowledge that I have, I believe that there is no God, god, gods.’
Let me in turn ask you a question: if you were to send me a list of any and all questions you have regarding God’s existence and other religious questions, and I answered them to your full satisfaction, would YOU then turn to God and be saved?
Here are some other questions for you to seriously consider:
How can morality exist in a world, without a complete and totally moral God?
How can there be an intelligent design (the universe, especially the Earth) without an intelligent designer (God)? Think of a soda can- do you think it is logical or intelligent to say that a soda can has no designer or creator?
Did you know that the eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings, the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells? The idea that the eye could have formed in such a way from evolution or natural selection seems undoubtedly absurd to the highest degree. So why do you think it’s logical or even intelligent to believe that the world formed from a big explosion or any other form, other than a creator?
I invite you to come and veiw this website:
http://www.gotquestions.org/argument-existence-God.html
If you have any answers to my questions, feel free to contact me at [email protected]. The following statement is not a threat but a simple statement to whomever reads this message-Rest assured, I will always have a counterargument to anything you try to use to try and prove my God does not exist.
May God bless you,
S. G. Bynum
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Ed Buckner Response:

Mr. S. G. Bynum,

Your message may indeed be characterized, plausibly, as not filled with anger and hate–but surely you realize that calling someone a fool in a subject line isn’t likely to begin a meaningful dialogue? (And yes, I know your Bible calls me that as well in two nearly identical verses–but I don’t see any good reasons to accept your Bible as an authority.)

Despite your apparent rudeness, I read your assertions and claims. They are neither as persuasive nor as original as you seem to think they are. If you really think this is an interesting set of arguments and want to pursue discussion of them, please first read Richard Dawkins, Keith Parsons, David Eller, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and the many essays on our web-site–and get back to me then.

Regards,

Ed B.
Ed Buckner
President
American Atheists
www.atheists.org
[email protected]
Something To Do Department:
Read this from the President of American Atheists and then send your letter to the magazine.
Edwin.

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From: Ed Buckner, President [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 4:05 PM
Subject: Amazing–and distressing–article in August Harper’s

All,

In this month’s (August 2009) Harper’s Magazine there is an article, “Like I was Jesus: How to Bring a Nine-Year-Old to Jesus,” by Rachel Aviv, that stirs real anger in me and reminds me of Richard Dawkins’s comments in The God Delusion about child abuse and religious identification, Edwin Kagin and Camp Quest (and the gross distortion in the press recently regarding Dawkins and CQ), the Jesus Camp tape of a few years back, and much else.

This article describes, in chilling detail (sometimes humorous, but overall frightening as hell) efforts in Connecticut to bring unwary children in public schools and public housing projects to Christian salvation. Aviv makes its abundantly clear that efforts such as the ones she describes so well are not mere academic questions, but are instead a real danger, to these children (including the young people, most of them little more than children themselves, who’re doing the proselytizing) and to a secular, rational culture.

It’s worth your going to the library or newsstand and buying the issue if you’re not a subscriber. (An online link is below–but it only links to a teaser, nit to the whole article.)

Regards to all,

Ed B.

Ed Buckner
President
American Atheists
www.atheists.org
[email protected]

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/08/0082606