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Monthly
Meetings
SASH
currently meets at 2PM on the 3rd Saturday of each month at the Samuels Public Library,
538 Villa Avenue, Front Royal, Virginia 22630 except as noted.
SASH will hold its July meting on Saturday the 19th at 2pm.
Subject : We will view a video of Christopher Hitchens presentation at the 2007 American Atheist Conference. Hitchens discusses his latest book in which he makes the ultimate case against religion and for a more secular approach to life.
A message from our coordinator.
Statement of Principles from Free Inquiry.
Notable Quotes for Humanists...
Kenneth Phifer — UU minister:
Humanism teaches us that it is immoral to wait for God to act for us. We must act to halt the wars and the crimes and the brutality of this and future ages. We have powers of a remarkable kind. We have a high degree of freedom in choosing what we will do. Humanism tells us that whatever our philosophy of the universe may be, ultimately the responsibility for the kind of world we live in is up to us.
From the preface to Satin Verses, by R. Leland Waldrip:
Religonists can believe whatever they wish. For me, rational answers are preferable to mystic ones on many levels. I believe history shows that progress in developing models of the universe that accurately explain and predict events only comes from rational minds, while impediments to that progress invariably come in support of mystic activities of what might otherwise be rational minds.
No credible evidence exists that a god actively interferes in the day-to-day executions of universal order, as approximately expressed by the known laws of physics, despite the gargantuan amount of wishful thinking to the contrary. The evidence is overwhelming that a proactive God exists, but only in the mind of man. (“If God did not exist, man would have to invent Him.” I believe man did that, to explain the existence of the world, just as he invented morality as a cultural device to allow societies to survive the anomalies of individual behavior.) Each of us was born atheist and remained with that position until local member(s) of society influenced us to become theist. They did that through cultural immersion and some extraordinary claims that, due to youth and inexperience, most of us were not equipped to evaluate. But to be valid, extraordinary claims must be backed by extraordinary proof, and extraordinary proof has never been given. Secular law protects non-adults from making contracts. Intellectual integrity would be better served if this age restriction applied to religion as well. Secular culture is well equipped to instill necessary morals—no belief in a supernatural is required. When I began to think for myself I eventually recognized the difference between faith in ignorance and faith in reasoned knowledge—and the power differential under which I had been proselytized. Consequently, I reverted to my former state of atheism. Should God’s existence ever become a more rationally plausible explanation of the universe than scientifically established explanations, undoubtedly I would revert to theism. My mind is open and intellectual integrity would compel me to do so.
More Quotes
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