Secular Coalition for Arizona

Invocation for Opening of AZ House of Representatives Session

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads. I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you to take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people in our state.

This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration. But this is also a room where, as my Secular Humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love…

Carl Sagan once wrote, “For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” There is, in the political process, much to bear. In this room, let us cherish and celebrate our shared humanness, our shared capacity for reason and compassion, our shared love for the people of our state, for our Constitution, for our democracy–and let us root our policymaking process in these values that are relevant to all Arizonans regardless of religious belief or nonbelief. In gratitude and in love, in reason and in compassion, let us work together for a better Arizona.

Juan Mendez, serves in the State House of Representatives and represents District 26 which includes north Tempe, northwest Mesa, and a large portion of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. Yesterday during his inclusive opening “prayer,” he appealed to the legislature to represent ALL the people of Arizona regardless of religious belief and base their decisions on reason and compassion. According to Jonathan Turely, “Arizona had an extraordinary moment.” He’s right of course. The moment was “extraordinary.” It made national news and the dust hasn’t settled yet. The echoes of the last word of this secular invocation hadn’t died out before the story was picked up by USA Today, The Huffington Post, The Raw Story, azcentral.com, and of course Jonathan Turley. There are probably others covering this news item. This should not be news worthy. It should not be an “extraordinary event” when someone comes out and appeals to a legislature to represent ALL of the people it represents. Recent polls show that one in five Americans do not affiliate with a religion. If one looks at only the young people under 30, fully one third of them are unaffiliated—one in 3! Of course, that’s a nationwide survey. NPR did a story back in January about the growth of the nones. In the article they state that religion still rules in America. There is only one openly “none” in the current Congress and that is Kyrsten Sinema who is also from Arizona. Statistics state that the average American is slightly more religious than the average Iranian. Really? Wow!

Evidently, the CAP (Center for Arizona Policy) hasn’t noticed what occurred yesterday. It will and it’ll start lining up candidates to run against Mr. Mendez. However, the CAP could be a little distracted by the fact that a bill it sponsored making abortions illegal after 20 weeks was struck down by Judges in Ninth Circuit Court. CAP may be too busy trying to figure out how to spin the murder conviction of the Pennsylvania abortionist to its advantage or counting the money it made on the $250 per plate CAP Family Dinner with Ben Carson held earlier in the month. Or perhaps CAP is busy playing ghost writer for legislative bills and resolution such as the resolution to maintain the Boy Scout’s “Don’t ask don’t tell” policy.

The Secular Coalition for Arizona is the only group in the state that can seriously impact the CAP and its legislatively imposed policies but we are seriously out gunned. Currently, we only have one professional lobbyist while the CAP maintains a constant presence at the state legislature. Even so, this year we’ve moved from a strictly defensive posture to one that is actively trying to reverse the damage caused by the CAP and 114 bills that have been signed into law since they formed in 1995.

The Secular Coalition for Arizona (www.secularaz.org) is a 501(c)(4) lobbying organization that represents 17 organizations in the Arizona nontheistic community — a vibrant and growing community of Arizonans who self-identify as Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, Freethinkers, and other labels of personal choosing to elected officials in and from Arizona.

Psst…The Secular Coalition for Arizona does accept donations…

Every once in a while someone relatively new to the “Atheist movement” will bump up against Sam Harris and his negative feeling toward the word “Atheist”. At the AAI 2007 Convention in Washington D.C., he presented his case against using Atheist and any other label. Sam Harris is well known and important to Atheism. He wrote The End of Faith and his Letters to a Christian Nation is an excellent read—short and to the point. However, he has the idea that we should “go under the radar” and simply think about things rationally as a winning strategy. He starts his talk by saying how strange it is that a meeting of Atheists is even necessary. Then he argues that the use of the word Atheism is a mistake and we shouldn’t be using it. In his talk, he states that the label prevents us from being effective in our criticism of religion. He believes while under the radar, we should be destroying bad ideas where we see them. He says that there are so many bad ideas that we’ll be spending a great deal of time discussing religion. He is wrong.

Not using an identifying label—Atheist, Secular Humanist, Freethinker, Secularist, etc.—might work if winning an intellectual argument is all that is considered but people need more than that. They need community. How do people of a community find each other if not through labels? Look at the Meetup.com site. There you’ll find Tucson Atheists and Skeptics of Tucson. You’ll also find many other groups. A similar search through FaceBook will also result in pages dedicated the Secular Students, Atheists, and Recovering from Religion groups, national and locally.

Dr. Harris spends a great deal of time criticizing religion and he’s good at it. However, we are not all like him. And while we do criticize religion on occasion, any group that spends all of its time criticizing other groups is not mature and supportive of its own membership. Religions often criticize Atheists but it is not all that they do. They provide complete community service. They don’t meet once a week just to compare clothes. They have youth programs, and social events, and often pitch in together to help a member that has fallen on to hard times. Religions also have power through their large numbers and organizations such as the Center for Arizona Policy that act on their behalf and push Christian values on to the society in general. We need to do that and more.

In fact, we are starting to build and Tucson’s Atheist community is doing well. In the Barna Group’s rating of The Most Post-Christian Cities in America we rank #12. Here in Tucson we have multiple groups carrying the labels of “Atheists,” “Skeptics,” and “FreeThought.” We have our own increasingly effective legislature lobbying group The Secular Coalition for Arizona. This would not be possible without the use of identifying labels. In the past several years while the community was expanding, I often heard, “I’m glad I’ve found you. I thought I was the only one!”

The word Atheist has had negative connotations and many would rather not use it but any other term we use to describe ourselves would soon be saddled with the same baggage once it is clear that the term refers to those that don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Have you ever heard someone say “Secular Humanist” in such a way as to be dripping with venom and dismissal? The better strategy is to come out as an Atheist, if you can, and take back the word. Erase the evil, negative connotations through positive example in all that you do.

Last night at Caffeinated Godlessness, we discussed the reasons why someone that came from a church might return. What would it take? Is it even possible? Rarely folks that say that they tried Atheism return to their Christian beliefs. It was pointed out that there is a tendency to paint these “re-converts” as not ever being Atheists. It is tempting and natural to pull out the “No True Scotsman” arguments in these cases. Most Atheists that have had a religious upbringing find that their Atheism won out after a struggle that could have taken years to resolve and most of the Atheists at the Fronimos Greek Café last night agreed that the evidence persuasive enough to force a return to religious belief would be hard to come by and it is improbable that the potentially persuasive evidence would be believed at first. It could only be believed after ALL natural explanations have been researched.

Some of people admitted that they can’t imagine what it would take while others were very inventive and very specific. For example, one individual said God would have to appear as a burning bush at a Karaoke bar and sing “I’m Blue.” By the way, he also said other people would have to witness it too so that he’d know that he wasn’t hallucinating.

There was some discussion of what an Atheist might be missing that the church normally provides the believer. For example, some remember the almost indescribable feeling of ecstasy that sometimes accompanies religious devotion. Others appreciated the religious rituals and consistency of regular experiences. The Catholic Church has seven sacraments that are designed to give a human life a structure and makes them dependent on the Church. They are baptized, receive communion (the first one is a REALLY big deal), confess sins to the priest, get confirmed, get married, some get ordained, and may receive last rights (Extreme Unction) just before their last breath. A religious person can be comfortable in the knowledge that ALL things have been answered. There are no unsolvable mysteries and death, the biggest mystery of them all, is no big deal. It’s just the next phase of their eternal existence. Religious people often have a strong community.

But religions are not derived from reason or from the logic of human philosophy. Many of the pat answers have no basis in science. Religious dogma, while providing a strong often safe foundation, limits the human experience, and it has prevented or at least delayed advancements that are beneficial to all mankind. Also remember that while every religion on earth tends to call itself peaceful, Lilliputian differences have led to incalculable human suffering and death.

Steve Martin says Atheists Don’t Have No Songs but I won’t be going back soon. I enjoy having Sunday’s free, having Rock ‘n’ Roll, and watching football in my underpants. Most of all I like believing things that are demonstratively true in a world where our knowledge freely advances unfettered by religious dogma. In an Atheist world, there is no “chosen people” and human rights are derived from secular societal norms, not poorly translated dictums from Bronze Age writings. Finally, Tucson Atheists have a strong community too. Feel free to join us at The Shanty this Sunday at 7 PM.

A couple of days ago a Massachusetts Senate Candidate allegedly called the Boston bombings a “godless act.” He has since come out and said that he actually said “gutless” not “godless.” Perhaps he did actually say gutless even though he was quoted in at least one news report saying:

“I don’t have any doubt in my mind that they are going to identify the person or people responsible for this horrific, cowardly and godless act. I think there is going to be so much evidence available to the investigators that they will be able to put the pieces together.”

He made his clarification statement very quickly, and it doesn’t matter what he said originally. It’s good that he recognized that a big portion of his constituency is in fact “godless” and it wouldn’t pay for him to be insulting them in such an off-hand manner.

A recent survey from the Pew Forum shows that one in five U.S. Citizens has no religious preference and the number of “nones” is steadily growing. In fact, we now have a “none” in Congress from Arizona. Dave Muscato the Communications Director of the American Atheists is asking for assistance in getting the word out that Atheists object to politicians that describe heinous events like the Boston Marathon bombings as “godless.” “Godless” citizens such as Atheists don’t appreciate being excluded and shut out of the community by such slurs.

He asks that we assist by writing a short paragraph that includes the following three things:

1) Who you are and whom you represent or speak on behalf of (e.g. Matt Dillahunty is President of Atheist Community of Austin)

2) Why you’re hurt by the exclusion from the memorial and/or use of “godless” as a pejorative

3) What you would like to see happen as a solution.

He’s like us to send our replies to BostonResponse@gmail.com.

Here is mine:

My name is Donald Lacey. I’m the Arizona State Director for American Atheists, the Organizer of Tucson Atheists, a Board Member of FreeThought Arizona, the Secretary of the Secular Coalition for Arizona, the Editor of the Tucson Citizen FreeThought Blog, and Podcaster on Desert Air Podcast. I represent the freethinking community in Tucson, Arizona and, more generally, the Atheists of Arizona.

I object to the use of “godless” as a pejorative. Godless Americans are as moral as those with belief in God or gods. There are godless Atheists living good lives without the threat of eternal punishment and doing good things for people daily without the promise of heavenly rewards. Having morals and living an ethical life are not dependent on belief in God or gods. Imagine how marginalized Atheists felt just five years ago when Elizabeth Dole launched her “giant killer” attack on opponent by associating her with an Atheist group only to see the opponent, Kay Hagen, treat the implied godlessness as so offensive that it justified bringing a lawsuit. Both candidates displayed bigotry. Hopefully, we’re in a better place now but we still have a ways to go.

I’d like to see more people respond to the off-hand insults and let the politicians know that they are distancing themselves from a large portion of their constituencies. I’d like to see a growing “freethinking” community that must be considered when someone pursues political office due to the fact that the community is ready and able to respond quickly and publically to such insults with clear reasoned logic. Finally, I’d like to stop politicians from using Atheist and “godless” as insults.

Don Lacey

The Tucson Atheists discussed the history of Atheism on April 15^th—tax day—this year at our monthly meeting at Denny’s. The meeting was only two hours long and there was no way to completely cover the topic and while it’s important to get to the facts and figures, the group thrives on discussion and personal feelings. Talking about the facts of history is not difficult. Ideally, the facts and events are simply pinned to a timeline. Sometimes however what those facts and events mean and meant at the time they occurred is unknowable with any certainty and depend on the source of the information and the attitude of the receiver of the information. The sources of the information that was presented to kick off the discussion included Jonathan Miller’s A Brief History of Disbelief and other sources.

The history of Atheism begins thousands of years ago with the Greeks and Romans even though the name wasn’t officially created until the 16^th century in France. The Greek philosopher Aristophanes who lived between 446 and 386 BCE said, “Surely you don’t believe in the gods. What’s your argument? Where’s your proof?” A Greek contemporary, Democritus who was partially responsible for the theory that all matter was composed of atoms said that the greatest good is happiness and contentment. All matter existed forever; therefore, there is no creation. Aristotle born in 348 BCE believed that Tyrants must have gods on their sides. Cicero born in 106 BCE asked, “Do gods exist or do they not?” Seneca born around 4 BCE famously said that “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” Finally, Epicurus born in 341 BCE pointed out the illogic of an omnipresent, omniscient, benevolent god when he said:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

Lucretius born in 99 BCE wrote an ode to Epicurus and contributed his own skepticism of the existence of supernatural beings when he said, “Fear is the mother of all gods. Nature does all things spontaneously by herself without their meddling.”

Religion comes very natural to us and Atheism requires a level of reason and rationality that allows us to overcome it. Atheism as an idea has had its ups and downs and it is by shear serendipity that our country was formed in the period of time called “The Age of Enlightenment.” It was during this time that the world discovered Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), John Lock (1632-1704), Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), Isaac Newton (1643-1727), and Voltaire (1984-1778). These men laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment and pushed the ideas of rationalism, social liberalism, religious toleration, science, the scientific method, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and the separation of church and state. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution particularly the Bill of Rights came out of the Age of Enlightenment and remains the backbone of our Democratic Republic. However, the popularity of reason and intellect has since been challenged by the influences of Romanticism where policy is often dictated by human emotions such as apprehension, horror, terror, and awe along with extreme patriotism. The Zeitgeist or “spirit of the time” which appeals to human emotions has allowed a resurgence of religious fervor. Fear of “godless” Communism has been codified into our lives by well-meaning politicians when they added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, added “In God We Trust” as a national motto to be inscribed on our money.

Slowly our country is moving back to an “Age of Reason.” Religion is losing its hold on the populace as we see the disappearance of “Blue Laws,” the acceptance of alternate lifestyles, and the growth of the number of people identifying as “non-religious.” Not everyone is on board but the trend is undeniable especially considering the polling data that indicates that people under the age of 30 are twice as likely to profess “no religious belief” as those older.

There was also discussion of the “growing pains” in the current movement towards reason. The internet is a two edged sword in that it allows a free exchange of ideas but also anonymous modern day Vandals, trolls, that tend to make small points of contention overblown and damaging. To keep the movement going, we must ignore those that thrive on getting attention at all costs and remember that we’re in agreement 99% of the time. You can catch a very interesting discussion involving Dave Silverman, Hermant Mehta, and Chris Mooney HERE.

By Philip Spacemuseum MacDuff

As an atheist, I’m often asked “Where do you get your morals from?” The implicit attack here is that morals can only come from religion and that, therefore either I have no morals or the morals I do have were instilled in my religious upbringing. I do not intend to write about where I get my morals, beyond simply and quickly saying that my morals stem from a desire to make the world a better place. Instead, I intend to write about where most modern Christians get their morals – and it is most definitely not the Bible. This topic is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, as it has come up over and over in the debate on gay marriage.

Leviticus Chapter 20 Verse 13 has come up repeatedly. It reads as follows (as obtained from BibleGateway.com, the New International Version)

“If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

Two verses later, in Leviticus 20:15, a similar admonition against sexual relations with animals is delivered:

“If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.”

These verses are similar to those of Leviticus 18:22-23, but the punishments for these sins are given in the above quoted verses. However, as of this writing, gay marriage is legal in 9 states, and bestiality is legal in 20 (according to www.animallaw.info). Why are there no large-scale protests about bestiality? Why are not more Christians sermonizing on bestiality and how wicked it is, how it leads to the downfall of nations? Should not both biblical statutes carry the same weight in our laws and morals?

More common sins are listed in the previous chapter. Leviticus 19:19 says (quotation marks as in original)

“‘Keep my decrees.

“‘Do not mate different kinds of animals.

“‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.

“‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

Leviticus 19:26 commands:

“‘Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.

Leviticus 19:27 and 28 continue:

“‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

“‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.

These six commands, and more listed throughout the book of Leviticus, are daily violated by good, upstanding Christians without protest. How is it that these commands can be disregarded so easily, but the single command on gay marriage must be not only upheld, but written into our national legislation? Christian morality is full of hypocrisy. The argument is often made that some verses are to be interpreted literally, while others are merely figurative. How then does one determine which are which? The Bible itself cannot be a guide; it gives no direction on how to evaluate its contents beyond such pithy directives as “Keep my decrees”. Some other source must be obtained to make this decision. The lay people of a church rely on the guidance of their pastors, priests, ministers and deacons, but where do these leaders turn for their answers? There must be some source which is not the Bible for making these decisions of morality.

The act of deciding that some commands in the Bible can be safely ignored while others must be upheld literally, and in some cases, violently, can only be rationalized by two possible courses. Either the decision is made to consciously violate God’s sacred commands, thereby intentionally earning a place in the fires of hell, or the Christian has employed a set of morals independent of and superior to the biblical commands. In either case, the Christian can no longer point to the Bible as the ultimate source of their morals. It may provide a starting point, but as we no longer stone women for failing to be virgins on the day they are married to some lecherous old man who bought them, we clearly have evolved our sense of morality since the Bronze Age.

Jim Wilson has some thoughts on calling others Fascists…

Fascism is defined as: a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. And b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.

The collusion, between government, military and business interest that we often have in this country is of great concern as well as the associated waste and corruption. For example, the $39.5 Billion Dick Cheney’s company Halliburton made from government contracts in Iraq. However, the casual use of the “fascist” label is not particularly helpful or conducive to constructive discourse.

Aside from government and business collusion, “fascism” usually means much more, including an absolutist dictatorship, dissent being outlawed, a system where all but one political party is outlawed, no independence between branches and levels of government, a lack of elections or any form of government account ability, an official state sponsored personality cult around the dictator, etc. If there are self-identified fascists out there, they wouldn’t point to our current system as an example of what they advocate or consider any of our major political leaders part of their movement. In short, the mere presence of collusion or corruption hardly makes the fascist label justified and such use is not consistent with what the term means to most people.

Of course, one could argue that our two party system often acts like a one party system. Supporters of some of our presidents/candidates have created huge personality cults around them and the people within the different branches and levels of government have so much shared ideology that choices between any two of them often may not be particularly meaningful.  Concede all these things and it is still difficult to equate our current political environment with Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. Attempting to do so is not constructive and a bit dismissive of those who survived such regimes.  Furthermore, overuse tends to water down the meaning of terms like fascism, which represents one of the darkest chapters in human history.

Many of us habitually like to equate conditions or people we dislike with the ultimate evil and invoking “fascism” is very handy for doing just this.  Unions, bosses, vegetarians, cat lovers, Christians, Atheists,  and Muslims are all guilty of using the F-word, in various contexts, especially on the Internet.  A closely related phenomenon was well described in 1990 by American Author, attorney, and staff council for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mike Godwin. He observed, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1…  ”

This became known as Godwin’s law and the related concepts of “fascism and fascist” just as easily apply.  Note that Godwin was not making any claims about the validity of such comparisons, just the likelihood of their occurrence.  Despite this many people wrongly use the term “Godwin’s law” to end discussions and claim undeserved victory in their debates.

Godwin’s observation often holds true.  People throw out the words “NAZI”, “Hitler,” and “fascist” around with an amazing ease.    Unsurprisingly, this is often done fallaciously and there are few known fallacies related to claims of fascism, Nazism, etc.

There is also the practice of denouncing any idea as evil, fascist etc. for having some, often tenuous, connection to Nazism.  It’s a form of guilt by association fallacy that’s referred to as the Argumentum ad Nazium, Reductio ad Hitlerum or “playing the Hitler card”.  If the Nazis or Hitler did it, it must be bad.  For example, people argue against vegetarianism by pointing out that Hitler was a vegetarian and against Atheism by claiming Hitler was an Atheist (a claim that is contradicted by Hitler’s declaring himself a Christian).  Many more examples of this fallacy can be found here.

Recently Bill O’Reilly calls the American Atheist President, David Silverman, a fascist for apparently wanting government to get out of the holiday/religion business.  Whether you agree or disagree with him, it hardly seems appropriate to call someone a fascist for wanting to limit the role of government in promoting a religion, philosophy, or whatever.

Labels like “fascist” are way over used, and often should be reserved for the most unambiguous of tyrants; otherwise they do not promote a productive conversation.

Cathi Herrod of the very religious political lobbying group, CAP (The Center for Arizona Policy), just sent out another letter to motivate her followers. She is watching the recent political discourse about marriage and wondering why anyone following the debate would “support the true definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” Based on her email, she seems to believe that the conversation leaves out the meaning and purpose of marriage. She then points out that “the reality is that marriage is the engine that drives our country.” She believes that marriage creates the ideal environment for personal independence, wealth creation, and the nurturing of future generations. She then goes on and uses the 41 year marriage of “Joe and Sarah” to demonstrate her point. Joe and Sarah stayed married a long time and raised two kids. One of their kids decided to adopt and isn’t this a wonderful result? Of course it is, Cathi and no one is arguing that marriage is a bad thing. In fact, most are arguing that it is such a wonderful thing that everyone should be allowed to participate. Going back to Cathi’s story, how will allowing a same sex couple to marry prevent future Joes and Sarahs from having future storybook marriages with great kids and adopted grand kids?

So far, Cathi and the marriage equality folks are on the same page—both believe marriage is a fine institution. Cathi wants to limit it to only one man and one woman but doesn’t make a convincing case for that position. There is more in the email.

She quotes statistics from a study performed at Princeton University that says kids raised in an intact house do better in school and generally have better lives. Lest we forget, Cathi likes kids with the possible exception of kids that turn out to be gay. Last year, she killed an anti-bullying bill on the off chance that it would protect gay kids from harassment. Here’s the VIDEO. In the reporting of Cathi’s action on the anti-bullying bill, they call her a “heavy weight lobbyist.”

She’s calling for prayers. She wants her people to join her at the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal District Court Houses to meet for a prayer vigil. Go for it! Because praying works SO well and by all means let’s do it in public in accordance with the Bible (Matthew 6:5) “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.”

The freethinking community of Tucson is not a homogeneous organization. It contains at least as many opinions as there are members. Some leaders within the community refer to their job as “herding cats” but others say it’s more like “herding butterflies.” Cats are limited to two dimensions, after all. However, there does appear to be a bias toward one end of the political spectrum.

Jim Wilson ponders the question, “Why do Freethinkers tend to be so liberal?”

Nonbelievers, Skeptics, Atheists and Secular Humanists tend to hang out at the left side of American politics and many unabashedly identify as liberals, progressives, or support the Left. Other political philosophies can be found, however.  There are Free-Marketers, Ayn Rand fans, and Libertarians along with the occasional self-identified conservative. Some gravitate toward philosophies that fall outside the conventional political spectrum which indicates that it is not necessary to be left-leaning to be an Atheist or Skeptic. Apparently, Atheists, Agnostics, and Skeptics from all over the political spectrum are less visible than their left leaning compatriots. Still, many Atheists are liberals and progressives; why is that?

Perhaps the conservative movement has declared Freethinkers to be an enemy.  The Right Wing conservative media outlets and think tanks have painted Atheists, Secularists, Secular Humanists, Evolutionists, and Intellectuals as the bad guys.  They believe Freethinkers are communists and un-American. Some go as far as blaming Freethinkers for the attacks on September 11^th.  Many conservatives believe Freethinkers are responsible for many of America’s problems and they long for the times when Freethinkers were less visible and less vocal.  They align themselves with ideologues such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Rick Santorum. The Right Wing has become the home for those who want: religious monuments in government buildings, teacher led prayers in public schools, and science classes that teach the Biblical creation myth instead of science. They are antagonistic to church and state separation, and favor using government to promote religious values.  Above all, the Right Wing is most likely to affiliate itself with the type of moral guardians who vocally oppose birth control, reproductive choice, and marriage equality.

Maybe it’s within the personality of the Freethinker. We live in a very religious society and people who reject religious views tend to be the sort who question other mainstream values such as those associated with marriage, family life, sexuality, artistic expression, etc.  Reactionary elements within the Right Wing demonize and alienate this personality type while the Left embraces it.   Our politics are dominated by two catch-all political parties and Freethinkers such as Atheist, Agnostics, Skeptics, and Scientists are not welcomed by the Right Wing and by necessity identify with the Left.

While the conservative and liberal political philosophies are not ideal, Freethinkers and non-believers tend to be more sympathetic to the liberal side of the so-called “culture war.” Political issues outside the social arena such as the economy or military intervention are areas where Freethinkers and non-believers often disagree and result in interesting discussions at many of our gatherings.

FreeThought Arizona has members and guest speakers from all over the political spectrum.  Many guest speakers identify themselves as liberal or progressive but some prominent ones do not. All that is necessary is that they support science, reason, and the separation of church and state.

This weekend is going to be great, in spite of the weather. The Tucson Festival of Books will be on the University of Arizona Campus, Roy Zimmerman will be performing in town, and the Skeptics of Tucson meetings return to the regular Denny’s restaurant on Speedway. There is plenty to look forward to this weekend.

This year FreeThought Arizona will be at the book fair. Thanks to the dedicated work of the members, we’ll have booths 351 and 352 right in front of the library. The bestselling author Chris Mooney will join with our own local celebrities to sign books. We have freebies to hand out and plenty of literature that visitors can take away. Books, magazines, and pamphlets will be at the booth. Members of FreeThought Arizona will be there to answer questions and engage in conversation and there will be information on the FreeThought Arizona, Tucson Atheists, Skeptics of Tucson, The Secular Student Alliance at the U of A, and American Atheists—all part of the Tucson FreeThinking Community.

On Sunday at 7 PM after the book fair, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson along with the Tucson FreeThinking community is sponsoring a concert by Roy Zimmerman. Tickets, which can be purchased at the door, are $15 for general admission and only $10 for students. He’s calling his tour the Wake Up Call and is sure to appeal to progressive thinkers with folk style songs in the same vein as Joni Mitchell and Tom Lehrer. In fact, Joni Mitchel says, “Roy’s lyrics move beyond poetry and achieve perfection” and Tom Lehrer himself says, “I congratulate Roy Zimmerman on reintroducing literacy to comedy songs. And the rhymes actually rhyme; they don’t just ‘rhyne.’” Progressive comedy and satire available here in Tucson without a two drink minimum, how can you miss that?

Finally, on Monday, the Skeptics of Tucson Meetup Group returns its meetings to the Denny’s on Speedway just west of Alvernon. This month we’ll have discussion on articles posted on the Doubtful News webpage. The meeting begins at 7 PM and ends at 9 but people show up early for light conversation prior to the meeting.

Here is a summary of the important links contained in this blog entry:

FreeThought Arizona (associated Meetup Group)

Roy Zimmerman

Skeptics of Tucson Meetup Group