Evolution

Tenrecs are an incredibly diverse group of mammals that are native to Madagascar. Their members resemble shrews, hedgehogs and even otters. However, recent phylogenetic evidence has shown that tenrecs are only distantly related to the animals they resemble.
Interestingly, the evidence shows that they are more closely related to elephants, hyraxes and manatees.

Read all about them: http://bbc.in/dQCSJr

Image source: http://bit.ly/12RXsFs

Henri Matisse

December 31

---

On this date in 1869, artist Henri Matisse was born in Le Cateau, Picardy, France. Although he had studied for the law, Matisse discovered his passion for painting while convalescing from a serious illness at age 21. Matisse studied the work of Cezanne, Monet and Seurat, and worked with Paul Signac and Andre Derain. In 1905 he was dubbed King of the Fauvists ("Wild Beasts"), despite his gentlemanly habits. Fauvism was characterized by intense color and a faux-primitive style that shocked the art world. In 1906, Matisse unveiled his most famous work, "The Joy of Life." Gertrude Stein was an early collector. From 1917 on, Matisse lived in Nice. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1925. In 1941, he was diagnosed with duodenal cancer and was confined the rest of his life to a wheelchair, but never gave up his art. Biographer Henry Spurling, in The Unknown Matisse (1998), called Matisse "a staunch atheist." D. 1954.

“Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance.”

Sarah Vowell

December 27

---

On this date in 1969, Sarah Jane Vowell was born in Muskogee, Okla. She majored in Modern Languages and Literatures at Montana State University, where she received her B.A. in 1993, and went on to receive an M.A. in Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Vowell is the author of several books as well as an essayist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Esquire and McSweeney’s among many newspapers and magazines. Vowell has been a frequent contributor to public radio’s “This American Life” since 1996, the show’s first year. Vowell voiced the character Violet in the film “The Incredibles” (2004).

Many of Vowell’s books examine not only American history but the history of religion in America, through a combination of road-trip memoir and insightful historical content. Assassination Vacation (2005), which is about presidential assassinations, also covers much ground in 19th-century American history, including cults and quasi-religious themes. The Wordy Shipmates (2008) tells the story of the Puritan settlement of Massachusetts, and touches on the true origins of the idea of religious freedom in America—not the Pilgrims’ or Puritans’ idea, but rather that of Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, who was exiled from Massachusetts Bay for his refusal to adhere to church doctrine. More recently, 2011’s Unfamiliar Fishes tells the story of the loss of the traditional Hawaiian religion and the islands’ conversion to Christianity by missionaries from New England, as well as the story of the short-lived Hawaiian monarchy and the eventual U.S. conquest (instigated by the first missionaries’ descendents) in 1895. In her works that deal with religion, Vowell is fascinated by the figures involved, who she often finds sympathetic yet misguided.

“I can relate [to Spanish King Charles II’s belief that the corpse of St. Francis of Assissi would cure his various illnesses]. . . . I crave my relics for the same reason Señor Bewitched bunked with the late saint. We’re religious. I used to share the king’s faith. And while I gave up God a long time ago, I never shook the habit of wanting to believe in something bigger and better than myself. So I replaced my creed of everlasting life with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ‘I believe in America,’ chants the first verse of one of my sacred texts, The Godfather.'”

—Sarah Vowell, Assassination Vacation, 2005

Compiled by Eleanor Wroblewski - www.ffrf.org

Marlene Dietrich

December 27

---

On this date in 1901, entertainer and actress Marlene Dietrich, nee Maria Magdalena Dietrich, was born in Schoneberg, Germany, near Berlin. She became a cabaret singer in the 1920s, worked in silent films, then was typecast as a cabaret singer in the memorable "Blue Angel" (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg. She was invited to Hollywood, where her first role was opposite Gary Cooper in "Morocco" (1930). She played a prostitute in "Shanghai Express" (1932). For a time, she was Hollywood's most highly-paid actress, although unhappy over the casting. After several failed films, she returned to Europe to work. Dietrich became a U.S. citizen in 1937. Her comeback came in "Destry Rides Again" (1939) with Jimmy Stewart. A noted critic of Nazism, she toured in arduous conditions with the Allies during WWII and was awarded the U.S. War Department's Medal of Honor in 1947. She worked in nightclubs and Las Vegas, and periodically appeared in films, notably "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961). D. 1992.

“I lost my faith during the war and can't believe they are all up there, flying around or sitting at tables, all those I've lost.”

"

—Marlene Dietrich, cited in Marlene Dietrich Life & Legendby Steven Bach

Jerry Coyne

December 30

---

On this date in 1949, Jerry Allen Coyne was born. He received his B.S. in biology from the College of William and Mary in 1971, and earned his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Harvard University in 1978. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California-Davis, then became an assistant professor at the University of Maryland. Since 1996, he has been a member of the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he is now a professor in the department of evolution & ecology.

Coyne teaches classes on evolution, including the evidence for it. He told American Scientist that he explains to his students, “In physics we don't start off with how we know that atoms exist. In chemistry we don't start off with the evidence for chemical bonds. But evolution is different, because the evidence is so cool and not a lot of people know it, but also because I want you to go out into the world knowing that it's important that this is a fact, it's a true fact about where we came from.” Coyne has had a long and prolific scientific career in the field of evolution, authoring over 100 scholarly papers and a scholarly book, Speciation (with H. Allen Orr). Coyne also writes for a popular audience. His 2009 book, Why Evolution is True, is widely praised as a clear, concise and convincing explanation of the scientific theory of evolution. Coyne also regularly writes for popular periodicals, including The New Republic. His blog, http://whyevolutionistrue.com, is frequently updated with posts on science, daily life and freethought issues. In 2011, FFRF awarded Jerry Coyne the Emperor Has No Clothes award for plain speaking on religion.

“As the years went on I gradually transmogrified from being an evolutionary biologist to an evolutionary biologist atheist and now I'm more of an atheist than an evolutionary biologist. I realized that creationism, the opposition to evolution, is the least of our worries that religion promulgates, compared to someone throwing acid in the face of a schoolgirl in Afghanistan.”

—Jerry Coyne

Compiled by Eleanor Wroblewski - www.ffrf.org

Marilla M. Ricker (Quote)

December 30

---

“Creeds are not guide-boards; they are tombstones. On every creed can be read three words: 'Here lies'--and such lies!”

"

—Attorney and freethought author

Wendy Kaminer

December 28

---

On this date c. 1950, Wendy Kaminer was born. She earned her undergraduate degree from Smith College in 1971 and went on to graduate from Boston University Law School in 1975. Kaminer worked as a criminal defense attorney for the New York Legal Aid Society (1977–1978), a staff attorney for the New York City Mayor’s Office, and a professor at Tufts University (1988–1990). In 1991, Kaminer switched her focus from law to journalism when she began working as a contributing editor for The Atlantic, although she often writes about legal issues. She is also a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, beginning in 1999, and the author of eight books including Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: The Rise of Irrationalism and Perils of Piety (1999) and Free For All: Defending Liberty in America Today (2002). Kaminer was awarded the Extraordinary Merit Media Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1993 and a Guggenheim fellowship in 1993.
Kaminer is an outspoken agnostic who uses her journalism platform to speak up about atheism and state/church issues. Many of her articles discuss the harm of religion’s influence on politics, civil liberties, psychology and the law. In “The Last Taboo: Why America Needs Atheism,” published in The New Republic in 1996, Kaminer wrote about the stigma facing atheists: “Atheists generate about as much sympathy as pedophiles. But, while pedophilia may at least be characterized as a disease, atheism is a choice, a willful rejection of beliefs to which vast majorities of people cling.” She continued: “The magical thinking encouraged by any belief in the supernatural, combined with the vilification of rationality and skepticism, is more conducive to conspiracy theories than it is to productive political debate.” Kaminer was awarded FFRF’s 2000 Freethought Heroine Award.

“I don’t care if religious people consider me amoral because I lack their beliefs in God. I do, however, care deeply about efforts to turn religious beliefs into law, and those efforts benefit greatly from the conviction that individually and collectively, we cannot be good without God.”

—Wendy Kaminer, “No Atheists Need Apply,” The Atlantic, Jan. 13, 2010.

Compiled by Sabrina Gaylor - www.ffrf.org

Maarten Schmidt

December 28

---

On this date in 1929, Maarten Schmidt was born in Groningen, the Netherlands. Schmidt became interested in astronomy at the age of 12, when he began building telescopes with help from an uncle, and he has maintained his passion for astronomy throughout his life. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Groningen University in 1949 and graduated from Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands with his Ph.D. in 1956. After graduation, he began working as an associate professor of astronomy at the California Institute of Technology until his retirement in 1996. Schmidt’s most influential achievement was discovering the first known quasar, a type of extremely massive and distant black hole, in 1963. Quasars, which harbor clues to early conditions of the universe, provided strong evidence to support the then-controversial big-bang theory of the origin of the universe. Schmidt continued researching quasars, along with x-ray and gamma ray astronomy, during his time at the California Institute of Technology. Schmidt has also worked as an administrator at the California Institute of Technology (1972–1979) and the director of the Hale Observatories (1978–1980). His numerous awards include the Rumford prize in 1968, the Bruce medal in 1992 and the first ever Kavli Prize in astrophysics in 2008, shared with six other scientists. Schmidt served as president of the American Astronomical Society (1984–1986). He and his wife, Corrie, were married in 1955 and they have two daughters.
Schmidt is a nonbeliever who grew up in a fairly nonreligious family and never attended church as a child, according to an Oct. 24, 1977 interview with Dr. Spencer Weart.

When asked if he believed in God: “I don’t. No, no, no. And I imagine at our table [of California Institute of Technology faculty], the minority would.”

—Maarten Schmidt, Los Angeles Times (May 31, 2008).

Compiled by Sabrina Gaylor - www.ffrf.org

Linus Torvalds

December 28

---

On this date in 1969, Linus Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland. He started using computers when he was about 10 year old, and soon began designing simple computer programs. Torvalds earned his M.S. in computer science from the University of Helsinki in 1996, where he was introduced to the Unix operating system. In 1991, Torvalds began creating the innovative Linux, an operating system similar to Unix. Later in the year, he released Linux for free as an open source operating system, allowing anyone to edit its source code with Torvalds’ permission. Linux’s open source nature has contributed to its popularity and reliability, since it is regularly updated and improved by dedicated users. For his work with Linux, Torvalds received the 2008 Computer History Fellow Award and the 2005 Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology. The asteroid 9793 Torvalds was named after him.
After developing Linux, Torvalds worked for Transmeta Corporation from 1997 to 2003. He appeared in the 2001 documentary “Revolution OS,” and authored an autobiography titled Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary (2001). He is married to Tove Torvalds, who also attended the University of Helsinki for Computer Science. They live in the U.S. and have three daughters, Patricia, born in 1996, Daniela, born in 1998, and Celeste, born in 2000.
In a Nov. 1, 1999 interview with Linux Journal, Torvalds described himself as “completely a-religious” and “atheist.” He explained his reasons for being an atheist: “I find it kind of distasteful having religions that tell you what you can do and what you can’t do.” He also believes in the separation of church and state, telling Linux Journal, “In practice, religion has absolutely nothing to do with everyday life.”

“I find that people seem to think religion brings morals and appreciation of nature. I actually think it detracts from both . . . I think we can have morals without getting religion into it, and a lot of bad things have come from organized religion in particular. I actually fear organized religion because it usually leads to misuses of power.”

—Linus Torvalds, Linux Journal, Nov. 1, 1999.

Compiled by Sabrina Gaylor - www.ffrf.org

Susan B. Anthony (Quote)

December 28

---

“The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.”

Paula Poundstone

December 29

---

On this day in 1959, Paula Poundstone was born in Huntsville, Ala. She dropped out of high school at 17 and began her career as a stand-up comedian when she was 19, when she began traveling the country and performing in comedy clubs. Poundstone entered the public eye after she began appearing on shows such as “The Tonight Show,” “Late Night with David Letterman” and “Saturday Night Live.” She was awarded the 1989 American Comedy Award for Best Female Standup and became the first woman to be awarded the Cable ACE Award for best stand-up comedy special for her first HBO performance, “Cats, Cops, and Stuff” (1990). She gained a second Cable ACE Award for her talk show, “The Paula Poundstone Show” (1993). Poundstone wrote a monthly column for Mother Jones (1993–1998), published the book There’s Nothing In This Book That I Meant To Say (2006), and has been a panelist for quiz program “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me” on NPR. Poundstone has three children: Toshia, Allison and Thomas E.
“There is no God. At least, I'm practically certain there isn't. I don't believe there's a heaven or a hell either,” Poundstone, a self-described atheist, wrote in an article for the May/June 1994 issue of Mother Jones.

“I’m an atheist. The good news about atheists is that we have no mandate to convert anyone. So you’ll never find me on your doorstep on a Saturday morning with a big smile, saying, ‘Just stopped by to tell you there is no word. I brought along this little blank book I was hoping you could take a look at.’ ”

—Paula Poundstone, There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say, 2006.

Compiled by Sabrina Gaylor - www.ffrf.org

Ferdinand Magellan (Quote)

December 29

---

 

“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.”

—As attributed to Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521), Portuguese navigator, by Robert G. Ingersoll. Source: The Great Quotations edited by George Seldes.

Peter Higgs criticises Richard Dawkins over anti-religious 'fundamentalism' | Science | The Guardian

Peter Higgs criticises Richard Dawkins over anti-religious 'fundamentalism' | Science | The Guardian

Peter Higgs criticises Richard Dawkins over anti-religious 'fundamentalism' | Science | The Guardian

Peter Higgs criticises Richard Dawkins over anti-religious 'fundamentalism' | Science | The Guardian

Evolution

Residents of Breezy Point, NY are currently waiting with bated breath to see if the tide that brought in an endangered Finback Whale will raise enough to return the whale to the sea. The whale was first spotted on Wednesday morning. As of this posting, the whale is alive but the prognosis is not good.

The Finback (Balaenoptera physalus) is the second largest whale, weighing in at up to 64 metric tons and growing up to 21 meters. Interestingly, the closest known living relative to whales is the hippopotamus! Hippos and whales evolved from a common ancestor, however, despite being large and aquatic, hippos maintained their hind limbs while whales lost theirs around 43 MYA.

Finback whales belong to the family Balaenopteridae. As a filter feeder, the Finback has baleen in its mouth made of bony structures that capture krill and other small fish as it glides through the water with its mouth open. Although it is a large whale, it is capable of short bursts of speed and can reach up to 12 knots (roughly 6.17 m/s). Despite living in all of the oceans of the world, this whale is on the endangered species list due to overhunting. Only around 7,000 are estimated to be alive today, down from the estimated 30,000 - 40,000 of the pre-hunting days.

During the fall, these whales migrate to equatorial waters and fast throughout the winter. It is unknown what brought this stranded whale north to the waters of the coast of New York.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/beached-whale-at-breezy-point/?smid=tw-share

http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/9366.html

http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/9366.html

Photo source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03

Evolution

Yes. This bird is wearing headphones.

Confused? A recent study promises to shed light on the matter. The research was conducted by scientists from Emory University and the University of California, San Francisco. It has resulted in a mathematical model that might explain why some things, like language, are easier to learn at a certain age.

The research used Bengalese Finches as a model. The scientists investigated how their brain slowly learns to rectify mistakes in their songs. Infant Bengalese Finches attempt to imitate the adult birdsong within a few days of hatching. However, much like how human babies babble, it is highly disorganized and has many mistakes. But the baby birds keep practicing the song, slowly rectifying the errors, until they can sing properly.

Younger birds (and humans) make loads of mistakes. But as they age, the variability of these mistakes decreases. The theory is that the mature brain ignores large mistakes and focuses on fixing the small mistakes. This is because the brain relies on the senses, which are inaccurate, to detect these errors. The brain may perceive some of the larger mistakes as a mishearing and will ignore them. This may explain why language is easier to learn as a youth than as an adult.

So the researchers aimed to find out the mathematical relationship between the size of the error in the song and the probability of the brain recognizing it as an error. This was where the headphones came in. The adult Bengalese Finches were equipped with mini-headphones. They would sing their song into a microphone. The researchers made adjustments to the pitch of the songs and played it back to the birds to trick them into thinking that they were singing wrong. When the pitch shifts were small, the birds were quick to learn and adjust. But as the pitch shifts became bigger, the birds learned less well. The trend continued until at a certain pitch, the birds stopped learning altogether.

The data was used to develop a statistical model to define a relationship between the size of an error in song and the probability of the bird recognizing the mistake. More experiments are being developed to improve the model. The researchers hope that the model can “help in the development of human behavioral therapies for vocal rehabilitation, as well as increase our general understanding of how the brain learns.”

Read all about it: http://bit.ly/ULCmCM

Image Source: http://bit.ly/RfWIGx

Singularities Happen: Alan Watts explains the Singularity

Singularities Happen: Alan Watts explains the Singularity

Steve Allen

December 26

---

On this date in 1921, entertainer, author, songwriter and musician Steve Allen was born into a Catholic family in New York. He dropped out of Arizona State Teachers College during his sophomore year to go into radio, then served during World War II before returning to ad-lib and radio work. Allen became a household name as the original host of the NBC "Tonight Show." He portrayed Benny Goodman in the movie, "The Benny Goodman Story," recorded 40 albums as a jazz pianist, composed 7,900 songs, wrote 54 books and created 4 seasons of the memorable PBS series, "Meeting of Minds." Great minds from the past met on the groundbreaking show, which featured at least its share of freethinkers. Allen was also a lyricist whose songs include "This Could Be the Start of Something Big." He was married for 46 years to actress Jayne Meadows, his second wife. When a son joined a cult in the 1970s, Allen wrote Beloved Son: A Story of the Jesus Cults (1982). Allen became aware of the distressing nature of the bible while reading Gideon Bibles left in hotel rooms. In Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion & Morality (1990), he mused: "I believe it is the imposition of a dictatorship that increasing numbers on the Christian Right now wish to construct in the United States. . . .. They believe that Christianity should be the official religion of the United States and that American laws should be specifically Christian." D. 2000.

“It was only when I finally undertook to read the Bible through from beginning to end that I perceived that its depiction of the Lord God--whom I had always viewed as the very embodiment of perfection--was actually that of a monstrous, vengeful tyrant, far exceeding in bloodthirstiness and insane savagery the depredations of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Attila the Hun, or any other mass murderer of ancient or modern history.”

—Steve Allen, Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion & Morality, 1990

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

Coconut Octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus)

medium-sized cephalopod belonging to the genus Amphioctopus. It is found in tropical waters of the western Pacific Ocean. It commonly preys upon shrimp, crabs, and clams, and displays unusual behaviour, including bipedal walking and gathering and using coconut shells and seashells for shelter.

Hawking pens kids' cosmology book | COSMOS magazine

Hawking pens kids' cosmology book | COSMOS magazine

Rod Serling

December 25

---

On this date in 1924, Rodman Serling was born in Syracuse, N.Y. Serling enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, but was discharged in 1945 after being badly wounded, an experience which influenced his later screenplays. He went on to graduate from Antioch College in 1950 with a B.A. in English literature and drama, where he began writing scripts for radio programs. Serling soon became a television writer whose first television drama, “Patterns” (1955), won him an Emmy in 1955. His later work was equally successful: Serling was awarded two more Emmys in 1956 and 1959, for “Requiem for a Heavyweight” (1956), which was adapted into a film in 1962, and “The Comedian” (1957), both episodes of the show “Playhouse 90.” However, Serling is most famous for hosting the classic television show “The Twilight Zone” (1959–1964), as well as writing 92 of its 156 scripts. Serling was passionate about social issues, opposing racism and capital punishment, and he often addressed these controversial topics in scripts for “The Twilight Zone.” Serling won two more Emmy Awards in 1960 and 1961 for outstanding writing in drama for his work on “The Twilight Zone,” as well as a 1963 Golden Globe Award for best television producer. His other work includes writing the script for the films “Planet of the Apes” (1968) and “The Yellow Canary” (1963).
According to the biography In The Zone: The Twilight World of Rod Serling (1997), Serling was raised Jewish, but later joined a Unitarian Universalist church. He married Carolyn Kramer, also a Unitarian Universalist, in 1948, and had two children, Jody and Nan. D. 1975

“Theologically speaking, Rod was what we call a naturalistic humanist, and that was the underlying philosophy of my pulpit. Racial issues, class, power—you find all of these in his writings, and he found reinforcements for his viewpoints in his congregation.”

—Rev. Ernest Pipes of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica, California, which Serling attended (quoted in a Nov. 1, 2007 article on www.uuworld.org).

Compiled by Sabrina Gaylor - www.ffrf.org

Clara Barton

December 25

---

On this date in 1821, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton was born in North Oxford, Mass., the youngest of 5 children. Her parents were members of the Oxford Universalist Church. Barton was deistic and remained a creedless Universalist throughout her life. She was reading by the time she entered school at age 4, and became a teacher by age 17. At 29, Barton entered the Liberal Institute in Clinton, N.Y., to hone her teaching skills. By the time the Civil War broke out, she was working in the U.S. Patent Office in D.C., where she first organized a relief program for soldiers. When she learned that soldiers were dying not from injuries but from lack of medical supplies after the battle at First Bull Run, she organized a successful relief drive. The U.S. Surgeon General granted her a pass to travel with the Army ambulances, which she did for the next three years. After encountering the Red Cross in Europe, she came back to the United States, lobbied for ratification of the Treaty of Geneva, then founded the American Red Cross in 1881. She resigned as its director in 1904. She was a supporter of woman's suffrage and other liberal reforms. D. 1912.

Quentin Crisp

December 25

---

On this date in 1908, writer and critic Quentin Crisp was born in suburban London. He attended a school in Derbyshire in his teens, which he later described as a cross between a monastery and a prison. He worked as an illustrator and designer of book covers, writing books such as Lettering for Brush and Pen (1936) and Colour in Display (1938). He happened onto his 35-year stint of posing an an art school model, then wrote The Naked Civil Servant (1968) about his career. An award-winning film version, starring John Hurt, brought Crisp to public attention. "An Evening with Quentin Crisp" debuted off-Broadway in 1978 and played off and on for two decades. His later books include How to Have a Life-Style (1976), Love Made Easy (1977), The Wit and Wisdom of Quentin Crisp (1998), and Quentin Crisp's Book of Quotations (1989). Openly gay and famed for his aphorisms, he was sometimes called a "20th century Oscar Wilde." Once asked if he were a "practicing homosexual," Crisp replied: "I didn't practice. I was already perfect." D. 1999.

“When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?' ”

—Quentin Crisp

Leo Pfeffer

December 25

---

On this date in 1910, Leo Pfeffer, the 20th century's leading legal proponent of the separation of church and state, was born in Hungary, and came to the United States at age two. He was raised a Conservative Jew and remained a synagogue-goer, yet quipped that "the Orthodox consider me to be the worst enemy they've had since Haman in the Purim story!" (speech before FFRF, see quote below.) His masterpiece, Church State and Freedom, first published by Beacon Press in 1953, is the ultimate sourcebook for the history of the evolution of the all-American principle of the separation of church and state. His eight books include The Liberties of an American: The Supreme Court Speaks (1956), Religious Freedom (1977), and Religion, State & the Burger Court (1985). Pfeffer called himself a "strict separationist in contrast to what is called 'accommodationist.' " Pfeffer pleaded "partly guilty" to inadvertently perpetuating the myth that "secular humanism" is a religion. In defending nontheist Roy Torcaso before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Torcaso's case challenging a religious test in Maryland to become a notary public, Pfeffer wrote that "there are religions which are not based on the existence of a personal deity." His examples: ethical culturists, Buddhists and Confucians. "My good friend Justice Black thought that wasn't good enough. He put in the secular humanists. Who told him secular humanism? I didn't have it in my brief! I couldn't sue, because you can't sue a justice of the Supreme Court. But since then I rued the day" (Freethought Today, Jan/Feb 1986). Pfeffer worked as associate general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, wrote many briefs submitted before the U.S. Supreme Court in civil liberties cases, and was the Establishment Clause's best friend. D. 1993.

“I believe that complete separation of church and state is one of those miraculous things which can be best for religion and best for the state, and the best for those who are religious and those who are not religious.

I believe that the history of the First Amendment and also the Constitution itself, which forbids religious tests for public office, have testified to the healthful endurance of a principle which is the greatest treasure the United States has given the world: the principle of complete separation of church and state. I'm here to tell you that that principle is endangered today. ”

—Leo Pfeffer, speech on Sept. 29, 1985, before the 8th national convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Reprinted in Freethought Today, Jan/Feb 1986.

The Moral Animal - NYTimes.com

The Moral Animal - NYTimes.com

Tennessee pastor: Mass shootings because schools teach evolution and ‘how to be a homo’ | The Raw Story

Tennessee pastor: Mass shootings because schools teach evolution and ‘how to be a homo’ | The Raw Story

Hack List No. 7: The Huffington Post - Salon.com

Hack List No. 7: The Huffington Post - Salon.com

Christopher Buckley December 24 On this date in 1952, political satirist Christopher Buckley was born in New York City to conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr. and Patricia Buckley. The son of Roman Catholics, young Buckley attended Catholic grammar schools and then a secondary school run by Benedictine monks. After high school, Buckley worked briefly on a Norwegian freighter and then graduated with an English degree from Yale University in 1975. Buckley began his career at Esquire magazine, in various editorial positions, which led to his appointment as managing editor at the age of 25. He left the magazine in 1979 to once again work at sea, this time as a merchant marine on a tramp freighter. This experience, which included being suspected by some fellow marines as an undercover police officer and a member of the CIA, inspired his first book, Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter (1982), which Detroit News called "thoroughly enjoyable" and the Washington Post lauded as "a funny, high-spirited and immensely enjoyable book." Buckley served as chief speechwriter to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush from 1981-1983. Buckley's well-received first novel, White House Mess (1986), satirized both politics and the writing of memoirs. Buckley continued to write successful satirical books such as Wet Work (1991), Thank You For Smoking (1994), which was also made into a popular film, God Is My Broker: A Monk-Tycoon Reveals the 7-1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth (1998) and No Way to Treat a First Lady (2002). Buckley has also written on more serious subjects, such as his sometimes contentious relationship with his parents (Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, 2009), and especially about his father, who founded the conservative National Review, and was considered to be the father of the modern conservative movement. The younger Buckley ditched his own conservativism during the 2008 election by publicly supporting Barack Obama, which lost him his unpaid gig writing for his father's magazine. He defended his reasoning in an online article titled, "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama" (Daily Beast, Oct. 2008). He wrote, "having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren't going to get us out of this pit we've dug ourselves." Buckley wrote: "Our choice, last fall, was between an angry 73 year old with a legislative record far from consistently conservative, who nominated as his running mate a know-nothing religious extremist" (Forbes, March 2009). In a Time magazine interview with Joel Stein, Buckley said, "I was raising (my kids) agnostic, then the Hale-Bopp thing happened, and I thought, 'What if in their 20s, they decide they need some spiritual connection and they turn to some idiot like that cult leader?' " (April 5, 1999). Buckley says he grew tired of fighting with his Roman Catholic father over religion, and that his "agnosticism, once defiant, had gone underground. I no longer had the desire to nail my theses to his church door. By now I knew we didn’t have much time left, and I didn’t want to spend it locking theological horns," ("Growing Up Buckley," The New York Times Magazine, April 26, 2009, p. 23). The young Buckley recalled in Losing Mum and Pup, that as a defiant agnostic, father and son "waged their 'own Hundred Years' War over the matter of faith' and exchanged, by Christopher's count, over 3,000 contentious letters and e-mails" on the subject (James Rosen, "The Final Buckley Bon Mot," Washington Post, May 2009). "I'm no longer a believer, but I haven't quite reached the point of reading aloud from Christopher Hitchens' 'God Is Not Great' at deathbeds of loved ones" (Christopher Buckley, "Growing Up Buckley," The New York Times Magazine, April 26, 2009). “As an only child, did you find one of your parents easier to talk to than the other? My mother. She got it. He often didn’t get it. What didn’t he get? Religion. He was a practicing Catholic. What are you? I am post-Catholic. As opposed to a lapsed Catholic? I am probably more of a collapsed Catholic. Do you believe in the afterlife? Alas, no.” Compiled by Bonnie Gutsch  -  www.ffrf.org

John Morley

December 24

---

On this date in 1838, author and statesman John Morley was born in England. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Oxford. His father wanted him to become a clergyman and withdrew his financial support when Morley demurred. His plans to take the bar were interrupted by taking editorship of the rationalist Fortnightly Review in 1867, for which he also wrote. The trademark of agnostic Morley was to spell "God" with a small "g." His books include Burke (1867), Voltaire (1871), Rousseau (1873), On Compromise (1874), Diderot (1878), Life of Gladstone (3 vols., 1903), and Recollections (1917). He became editor of the crusading newspaper Pall Mall Gazette in 1880 and supported Gladstone, who won. Morley represented Newcastle in Parliament from 1883 to 1895, and Montrose Burghs from 1896 to 1908. He supported parliamentary reform and Irish Home Rule, and opposed the Boer War. Morley was Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1886, and 1892 to 1895. Known as "honest John Morley," he was Secretary of State for India from 1905 to 1910, and Lord President of the Council from 1910 to 1914, retiring from politics to protest entry into WWI. D. 1923.

“Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.”

—John Morley, Voltaire, Critical Miscellanies, 1872, and Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th Edition.

Matthew Arnold

December 24

---

On this date in 1822, Victorian poet and critic Matthew Arnold was born in Laleham on the Thames. He graduated from Oxford in 1844. His father was Dr. Thomas Arnold, the inspiration for Tom Brown's Schooldays, and head of the famous school of Rugby. Arnold parted ways with Christianity sometime in his teens, on intellectual and ethical grounds, and became an agnostic. In "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse," he later wrote: "Rigorous teachers seized my youth / And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire / Show'd me the high, white star of Truth." In 1851 he was appointed "Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools," an arduous responsibility he held for 35 years. His poem, "Empedocles on Etna," published only with the initial "A," appeared the following year. Religious critics censored sale of the book after only 50 were sold. Poems of Matthew Arnold was published in 1857, followed by other volumes. Arnold served for a decade as professor of poetry at Oxford. In his 40s he largely turned from poetry to critical writing. His Essays in Criticism came out in 1865. Arnold's freethinking was clearly delineated in Culture and Anarchy (1869), Saint Paul and Protestantism (1870), Literature and Dogma (1873) and Last Essays on Church and Religion (1877). In his poem, "Dover Beach," he described "The Sea of Faith . . . Retreating." Although Arnold gently defined religion as "morality touched with emotion" and some detect a tinge of regret in his rejection of faith, he was an ardent critic of Christian doctrine and the bible. "It is almost impossible to exaggerate the proneness of the human mind to take miracles as evidence, and to seek for miracles as evidence," he wrote in Literature and Dogma. "Miracles do not happen," he baldly wrote in the preface to the 1883 edition of Literature and Dogma. D. 1888.

“The personages of the Christian heaven and their conversations are no more matter of fact than the personages of the Greek Olympus and their conversations.”

"

—Matthew Arnold, God and the Bible, preface, 1875. (Quote source: 2,000 Years of Disbelief by James Haught.)

Evolution

Have the flu? Don’t take antibiotics.

In 1929 Alexander Fleming discovered that penicillin prohibits bacterial growth. From that one amazing discovery, antibiotics were developed to fight bacterial infections that once killed many people, such as tuberculosis.

Antibiotics work by disrupting key components of bacterial growth, such as formation of the cell wall or DNA replication, and thus preven ts the bacteria from reproducing. Why don’t antibiotics hurt human cells? Antibiotics target very specific components of cells, and the antibiotics we use cannot harm human cell components. Antibiotics do not work on viruses because viruses are not alive outside of a human cell. Viruses use human cells to reproduce, and so antibiotics cannot harm viruses because there is nothing for the antibiotics to work on.

Antibiotics won’t hurt you, so why not take them for the flu? First, antibiotics won’t stop the flu, because it is a virus. Second, when antibiotics are misused, bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics.

There are two common ways to misuse antibiotics. Taking antibiotics for a viral infection is one way. Taking antibiotics when you don’t have a bacterial infection will expose the bacteria present in your body to the antibiotic. Only those bacteria with some resistance will survive. If the bacteria ever begin to grow out of control (as often happens with yeast infections), then the antibiotic may not be effective because the bacteria growing have a resistance to it.

Another way to misuse antibiotics: if a person is prescribed antibiotics and he/she does not finish the prescription, there is a possibility that not all of the bacteria have been killed. By not finishing the prescription, that person has allowed the bacteria with the greatest amount of resistance to survive and reproduce. The next time that person needs to take antibiotics for that bacteria, the antibiotics may not work because the bacteria are resistant.

If the misuse of antibiotics continues, eventually no dose or type of antibiotic may be effective against the bacteria causing the infection. This has already happened to certain types of bacteria. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a type of staph bacteria that commonly infects the skin and is very difficult to treat. The most common types of antibiotics no longer have an effect on MRSA and an infection of MRSA can be life-threatening.

Photo courtesy of YouthHealthWorld.com
http://youthhealthworld.com/Sneezing_and_Coughing.htm

Sources:

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Antibiotic_resistant_bacteria

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/medicine_03

http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-a-Virus.aspx

http://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/medication/question88.htm

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-antibiotics-kill-b

http://www.cdc.gov/mrsa/definition/index.html

Eddie Vedder

December 23

---

On this date in 1964, singer and lyricist Eddie Vedder (né Edward Louis Severson III) was born in Evanston, Ill. With a rocky home life, which included living with seven foster siblings, Vedder changed his name to his mother's maiden name when he learned that his father was actually his stepfather. His family in the mid-1970s, moved to San Diego, where Vedder picked up surfing as a pastime, but he returned to Chicago to briefly attend community college in the early 1980s. Musically he was influenced by rock and punk bands such as The Who, The Doors, U2, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and Black Flag. Vedder, in his twenties, sang in the bands Bad Radio and Indian Style, with future Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave drummer, Brad Wilk. Then Vedder met with unexpected, and, according to him, unwanted fame when he co-founded the band Pearl Jam with Mother Love Bone guitarist Stone Gossard and three other skilled rock musicians. (The band was so named for Vedder's great grandmother Pearl's delectable homemade jam). The band released its first album, Ten, in 1991, and it quickly hit the top of the charts and eventually sold 12 million copies. With its dark lyrics about depression, suicide and angst, Pearl Jam, based in Seattle, became the band of choice for so-called "Generation X" teens. Anti-mainstream, Pearl Jam refused to produce any videos for its second album, Vs (1993), and canceled its summer 1994 tour when Vedder entered a heated battle with Ticketmaster for charging what he felt were unreasonable fees. (The Justice Department sided with Ticketmaster in 1995). Pearl Jam's third album, Vitalogy (1994), went multiplatinum and featured a new drummer, Jack Irons from Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band went on a 1995 European tour with Neil Young, and collaborated with him for his 1995 album, Mirror Ball.
Eddie Vedder has also made a name for himself individually, unaffiliated with Pearl Jam. Vedder wrote the songs and performed for the popular soundtracks of "Dead Man Walking" (1995), "I Am Sam" (2001), and "Into the Wild" (2007). He is an outspoken environmentalist, vegetarian and pro-choice advocate. Vedder has made widely known his nonbelief. In a Rolling Stone interview he said, "When you're out in the desert, you can't believe the amount of stars. We've sent mechanisms out there, and they haven't found anything. They've found different colors of sand, and rings and gases, but nobody's shown me anything that makes me feel secure in what happens afterward. All I really believe in is this moment, like right now. And that, actually, is what the whole album [Ten] talks about" ("Right Here, Right Now," 1991). At a July 22, 1998 Pearl Jam concert in Seattle's Memorial Stadium, Vedder said of the good weather, "I would thank God, but I don't believe in it." In a UK interview with John Robinson, Vedder noted, "[T]he word 'religion' has such bad connotations for me, that it's been responsible for wars, and it shouldn't be that way at all, it's just the way the meaning of the word has evolved to me. I have to wonder what we did on this planet before religion" (NME, "It's Getting Vedder (Man!!)," Jan. 17, 1998).

Janeane Garofalo: Can I ask what your feelings are about God?

Eddie Vedder: Sure. I think it's like a movie that was way too popular. It's a story that's been told too many times and just doesn't mean anything. Man lived on the planet — [placing his fingers an inch apart], this is 5000 years of semi-recorded history. And God and the Bible, that came in somewhere around the middle, maybe 2000. This is the last 2000, this is what we're about to celebrate [indicating about an 1/8th of an inch with his fingers]. Now, humans, in some shape or form, have been on the earth for three million years [pointing across the room to indicate the distance]. So, all this time, from there [gesturing toward the other side of the room], to here [indicating the 1/8th of an inch], there was no God, there was no story, there was no myth and people lived on this planet and they wandered and they gathered and they did all these things. The planet was never threatened. How did they survive for all this time without this belief in God? I'd like to ask this to someone who knows about Christianity and maybe you do. That just seems funny to me.
JG: Funny ha-ha or funny strange?
EV: Funny strange. Funny bad. Funny frown. Not good. That laws are made and wars occur because of this story that was written, again, in this small part of time.

Compiled by Bonnie Gutsch - www.ffrf.org