HumanLight is our community's celebration of the winter season. This year we will celebrate on DECEMBER 19, 2009. Beginning with our traditional POT LUCK HOLIDAY MEAL, so bring something wonderful to share and maybe a bottle of wine or sparkling cider for the kiddies and non drinkers. If your food dish is really really wonderful you might want to bring the recipe - just in case.

We are asking that you BRING a food item and/or unwrapped toy for the less fortunate, we will have donation boxes.

While religions offer many things, perhaps the most attractive (and apparently least likely) thing they offer is eternal life.

No one wants to die - yet everyone does.

What is Intelligent Design?

The phrase “Intelligent Design” in its broadest sense refers to a non-scientific teleological argument for the existence of god. A simplistic example is the argument that the universe, or a part within it, appears to be too complex, ordered or purposeful to have occurred without having been designed by god. ID is nothing more than an argument from ignorance in which god is invoked to fill in the gaps of scientific knowledge. As science has increased our understanding of the natural world, the role left for god has become exceedingly smaller, if not totally unnecessary.

Lying for Jesus? The Intelligent Design Movement

Introduction

On October 30, 31 2009, Shepherd Project Ministries and Focus on the Family will be sponsoring “The Legacy of Darwin Intelligent Design Conference: Intelligent Design vs. Naturalistic Evolution 150 years after The Origin of Species.”¹ Their presenters include Dr. Stephen Meyer and Dr. David West from the Discovery Institute, an organization whose goal is to replace modern science with “a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.”² Critics of the Discovery Institute (DI) call it the “Dishonesty Institute” for what they say are its disingenuous and overt misrepresentations of evolution, and for its censorship. Although the DI claims to promote free speech, multiple sources reveal that they attempted to censor videos on YouTube that were critical of them.³ Another presenter at “The Legacy of Darwin” is Dr. Michael Behe, a professor of biological science from Lehigh University. Dr. Behe incorrectly believes that “irreducibly complex” biochemical systems are evidence for ID (god). Furthermore, Dr. Behe's claim that ID is science is officially rejected by Lehigh University.⁴

Shepherd Project Ministries' goal is to educate people about ID vs. Evolution. In keeping with that goal, I will be writing a series of blog articles regarding this issue. These blogs will likely include:

What is Intelligent Design?

What are the objectives and tactics of the Intelligent Design Movement?

Why does the U.S. have “The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?”

Logical fallacies of the IDM.

Does Darwin matter?

If you think you are alone due to your nonbeliever status, perhaps you will find the Spirituality Poll (http://www.parade.com/news/2009/10/04-spirituality-poll-results.html) of 1,051 adults "ages 18 and over" conducted by Insight Express for Parade Magazine between May 6 and 12, 2009 interesting.

Consider the responses to the question...

2. "Which best describes your current religious practice?"

...the People The people who are able - in apparent violation of the law - to steer large blocks of "donations" and/or votes from the pulpit/the office of the CEO etc. into political campaigns or on "election" day.

Sometimes, their actions are completely inscrutable - like the Democratic "super majority" being unable to advance public health care (tried and true in 100% of other industrialized nations) - and instead funding a proven failure, "abstinence only" sex "education."

Thomas Jefferson was a great man. Both liberal and conservative historians rank him as one of the top five Presidents of the United States. He was the principle author of the Declaration of Independence, and became the third President of the United States in 1801. His effigy has been immortalized on Mount Rushmore, the U.S. Nickel, and at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.. Despite his notoriety and success in nineteenth century America, his views of government and religion are in sharp contrast with those of twenty-first century evangelical Christian Americans.

While most Americans know the aforementioned achievements of Jefferson, far fewer remember him as the author of the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom in which it states:

“...our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right. ...”

Religious Freedom in America was no minor concern to Jefferson, for Jefferson was not a Christian. He wrote in a letter, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." Indeed, Jefferson's independent spirit led him to an commit act that, in too many modern countries, would result in his execution – for he committed blasphemy by desecrating a holy symbol, the Word of God. His act of shredding his bible with scissors was not done out of malice, for Jefferson was a religious man, but was done in the pursuit of truth. A truth that did not accept biblical miracles, prophecy, angels, the divinity or resurrection of Jesus.

The number of people unaffiliated with any particular faith has grown more rapidly than any other religious group in recent years. According to a 2007 Pew study, 16 percent of American adults say they don’t belong to any religion, compared to 7 percent who were raised unaffiliated.

The idea for the group came from Darrel Ray, an organizational psychologist and author of “The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture.” He was raised in a fundamentalist Christian church and attended seminary. But by the time he graduated, he had abandoned the notion of becoming a minister.

Tonight (September 9, 2009) in an address before a joint session of the United States Congress, President Barack Obama stated that “...strong majorities of Americans still favor a public insurance option...,” which begs the question: do those “strong majorities” of Americans truly support public “insurance” – or do they favor true publicly funded (and highly successful) "single payer" health care as is available in every other industrialized nation on earth?

Recently, Johann Hari published a disturbing op-ed in the UK Independent entitled, "Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason." http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-republicans-religion-and-the-triumph-of-unreason-1773994.html

Lately it appears that if you watch TV, listen to the radio, read newspapers, attend college related events or even talk to the people whose computer skills are limited to turning on their Mac and struggling to launch an application, the word “Twitter” will come up before the end of the second paragraph.  Twitter and tweet seemed to become thoroughly ingrained in communication so quickly and so thoroughly that it almost had to be a fad.  After all, how much information content let alone value can there be in a 140 character (0.546875 byte) message anyway?

Another politician having an “affair?” 

Who cares?!

Again - I ask.

WHAT is so terribly wrong with taxpayer-funded health care?

What on earth is so terrible about single payer health care?

In a society where seemingly ”everyone” appears to believe in (and in many cases even “worship”) alleged supernatural beings (whom for some reason remain completely and reliably undetectable), those of us who do not share these beliefs may begin to feel alone and isolated. However, it is easy to forget that almost everyone is at least 99% atheist, not believing in (let alone worshipping) the supernatural beings: