Are you scared yet?  If not you should read this new piece from the Guardian.

With blatant disregard for the first amendment, Republicans’ intolerance of US secularism means things are turning ugly

Dan Kennedy expresses his concerns over the direction of the US Republican party.  The current front runners for the GOP presidential nominee – Nuts.  Here is a sample on Tim Pawlenty the governor of Minnesota.

 Pawlenty trashed anyone who attended “Ivy League schools” or who go to “chablis-drinking, brie-eating parties in San Francisco”. (You can watch Pawlenty’s address at CSPAN.org, starting at the 1:38:30 mark.) It sounded like a parody of Pat Buchanan’s famous 1992 “culture war” speech. Except that Pawlenty is one of the Republicans’ two most plausible candidates for president in 2012.

The sad news continues with Mitt Romney.  You may remember when he tried to throw off the yoke of mormonism.  He called for tolerance between all faiths and threw secular Americans under his campaign bus.

Romney called for tolerance only among believers, explicitly omitting non-believers. “Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me,” Romney said. “And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion – rather, we welcome our nation’s symphony of faith.”

Dan Kennedy claims that these may be the least of the worst and talks about Sarah’s request to gOd for a gas pipeline and Huckabee desire to create a nation for christ.

 If you have not seen Sarah Palin asking God to build a natural-gas pipeline in Alaska, well, do yourself a favour right now (see also her recent speech at the Tea Party convention). Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, personifies the Christian right in its purest form. “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ,” Huckabee said in 1998. There is no reason to think he’s changed his mind.

Mr. Kennedy closes with this thought.

“we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe, the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to them whose minds have not yielded to the evidence which has convinced us,” wrote James Madison.

Mr. Deity and the baptist

(tip to Elyse)

Skepchicamp is March 6th, 2010.   Sponsors include SurlyRamics and Skeptical Inquirer.

This is a combination of Skepchicks and Skepticamp. 

SkeptiCamps are informal, community-organized conferences borne from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Everyone from casual skeptics to the experienced participate, give talks and get to know each other.

This is the first Skepticamp in Illinois.  It is even better because several of the Skepchicks will be there.   Here are the event details.  Oh – they were so desperate for speakers that they are even going to let me talk about investment scams.  The real problem is that I am only allowed 15 minutes. 

(The section below is lifted from Elyse’s post - why fix genius)

The catch is that you have to help out to attend. Pick from any or all of the jobs below:

• Slave. Easiest job around! Just show up at noon and let us use you where we need you. You’ll help us set up the room and take care of any last minute errands or duties.
• Media Mogul. You have access to and want to put us on MTV, CNN, MSNBC, CLTV or Cable 10 Aurora, Illinois, Community Access Channel.
• Profit-Free Non-Profitatrix. Also available as a job for men! We need a lawyer or a 501(c)(3) organization to help us obtain our own 501(c)(3) status.
• Benefactor. Financial contributions are always appreciated. Donations can be made when you reserve your ticket or by donating through PayPal to funds[at]skephicamp[dot]com.

Once you’ve picked your job, go to Eventbrite to register!

Brief video about a major study that shows that the more religion a country has the more crime it has.  A book is in the works.

Story about Roger Ebert in Esquire Magazine.  I guess was sleeping.  I did not know he had so many medical problems.  I know I will not write as well as he does – I just hope I can be as strong as he is.  He writes about death and what it means.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear, he writes in a journal entry titled “Go Gently into That Good Night.” I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

There has been no death-row conversion. He has not found God. He has been beaten in some ways. But his other senses have picked up since he lost his sense of taste. He has tuned better into life. Some things aren’t as important as they once were; some things are more important than ever. He has built for himself a new kind of universe. Roger Ebert is no mystic, but he knows things we don’t know.

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

More great news from Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.   Young adults from age 18 to 29 are less religious than any other group. (see chart below)  From my experience with current college students (age 18-21) the rate of not religious may be as high as 35%. 

If this trend continues not only will the next generation be about 33%- 40% non religious, the entire US population will trend to a higher percentage as the population ages.  However, it looks like people are fairly stable by the age of 30.  We need to make sure we continue to make efforts to educate the young.  Churches have learned this a long time ago.  This is why they spend so much time and effort indoctrinating little kids.

I love that groups like the Secular Student Alliance (SSA) are growing fast.  The SSA had 49 affiliates in 2005 and they have around 200 today.  Current growth rate is about 1 new group each week!

I think that this growth can be broken down into 3 stages.

Stage 1. Information

The Largest driving force behind this stage is the Internet.  I remember when I was 12 and had questions about religion.  I was sent to have a talk with our minister.  After an hour with him – you did not want to ask any more questions.  Today, if you have questions, you ask Google.  The answers are no longer given by a person whose income is dependent on you keeping the faith.  This stage is still growing.  There are more and more web sites and blogs devoted to Freethough, Atheism and Skepticism every day.

Stage 2.  Networking

I think we are now starting phase 2 and the growth is very rapid.  This stage is all about people getting together.  10 years ago, you may have decided there is no gOd but how do you find others that share your views?  Now we have Facebook, Meetup, blogs, Atheist Nexus etc…  It is one thing to know that you don’t believe in gOd but how do you meet others?  Groups are popping up everywhere.  Four years ago there were n0 non religious groups in central IL.  Now there are at least 6!  Look for the links on the right side bar.

Stage 3.  Buildings

This may take a while but I expect that every town in America with more than 50,000 people will have some place to meet.  They will start small and simple and grow over time.  These organized groups will also start to provide more and more of the aid needed by local residents. 

It is only a matter of time before the US is primarily a non-religious nation.

You may recall a few months ago this story of a man trapped in a coma.   For 23 years trapped in his body without the ability to talk to friends and family.  They found a way for him to communicate.  Dr. Steven Laureys has used new medical advances to help him.  Regular doctors scoffed at the idea but now Rom Houben (the man thought to be in a coma) has a new life.  He is able to type out messages with a little help from an assistant.  Here are some of the things he has said.

I screamed, but there was nothing to hear

I dreamed myself away

All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt

His family always knew he was in there.  What a beautiful story.

There is only one small problem… IT IS ALL SHIT!  They used a process called facilitated communication.  A helper or assistant simply supports the hand or arm of the person that can’t communicate and Viola – they can point and even type.  The sad part is that it does not work.  All it takes is a simple test.  Just ask the person that needs help some questions, with the assistant out of the room.  Let the assistant back in and see what happens.  After many weeks of thinking that the facilitated communication was working they finally did a simple test. 

Now this is a very sad story.  It is so easy for humans to allow ourselves to be tricked.