And We're Back!

Wow, I can't believe that it's been almost a month since I have blogged!  So much has been happening both with the SECULAR Center and in my personal life.  I got married on November 27th to my partner of 3 years, Keith.  We had a small secular ceremony on the Star Cruiser Yacht out of Kemah, TX.  Our families traveled from Washington, Ohio, Italy, Massachusetts, Washington DC, and New Mexico to be there and we all had a wonderful time.  If you're interested in seeing pictures, friend me on Facebook.

Lots of exciting things have been happening with both the SECULAR Center and the Houston/Texas freethought community.  I'm going to separate out the news into different posts and backdate some of them so that they are relevant, so expect to see quite a few posts from me in the next few days.  For now, I will tell you that we are wrapping up editing on the new SECULAR Center video!  It's a one minute and thirty second video that talks about the SECULAR Center and what we do.  As soon as it's up on our website, I will blog with more info about how to find it.

My new husband and I leave tomorrow for Seattle for 10 days for the holidays.  I hope all of you are having a great holiday season full of laughter and joy.  Please don't forget to give whatever you can during this season since there are so many in need out there.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!
Noelle

SCUSA has been invited to the HEADS Meeting

The SECULAR Center has been invited to the HEADS Meeting in Washington DC this January!  This meeting gathers together all of the leaders of the US National Freethought organizations such as the American Humanist Association, Atheist Alliance International, Atheist Nexus, American Atheists, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Center for Inquiry, and others.  The meeting is January 8th-10th 2010.  Can you believe we're almost at 2010 already!?!

It's important for SCUSA to attend the HEADS meeting so that we can continue to form partnerships with national organizations.  This will help us further our goals, because we want to coordinate all non-theist volunteerism and charitable efforts.  Please feel free to send feedback to me at secularcenterusa@gmail.com if there's any ideas or comments you would like me to bring to the table with these national organizations. 

Texas Freethought Convention

The SECULAR Center attended the Texas Freethought Convention on November 14th in San Antonio!  The convention was great fun and included interesting speakers such as Stuart Bechman from AAI, Dan Barker from FFRF, Dr. Victor Stenger, and others. 

The SECULAR Center had a table set up at the convention and collected over 30 new signups for our e-mailing list!  There was also a lot of interest in starting volunteerism and charitable activities in Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin.  We're starting to discuss possibilities with members of those communities, and I may travel to Dallas in January to speak at the North Texas Church of Freethought about working together for volunteerism and charitable causes.  They are already doing some great things up there including adopting a highway and more!

We now have almost 300 supporters who are signed up for our newsletter and e-mail list.  This support is crucial to our goals, because when we apply for grants we have to show that the atheist community is behind us.  If you haven't signed up for the e-Newsletter list, please do so today on our website at http://www.secularcenterusa.org/.  Thanks!

SECULAR Center on Chariots of Iron Podcast!

The SECULAR Center's President and Executive Director, Noelle George, is on this week's Chariots of Iron podcast at http://www.chariotsofiron.com/.  Check it out and see how she did!  Post a comment and let us know what you thought!

They Think; Therefore They Know? Part 5 of 5

Here is the closing portion of our first weekly series:

So we come to line three, the last and final option in the list of possibilities: Is god both able and willing to prevent evil? Then why does evil exist? This is an issue often debated and the answer from the religious is that god loves us and wants us to grow and learn. In other words, we can’t become better people if we have no challenges. Let’s apply question one to that statement: Is this true all the time? Is there ever a time when we become better without a challenge facing us? Can we learn and grow without challenges? I think we definitely learn more quickly when there is a challenge present. But, that is my opinion. It’s not based on repeatable scientific evidence because it’s not really testable. Therefore, it’s not a fact because it can’t be confirmed or denied.


Let’s move on to question number two: What’s the evidence? Is it provable that evil exists? Well, we know that bad things happen whether or not choose to call them ‘evil’. So yes, evil does exist. But how can we know that god wants us to grow and learn because of evil? Does it say that in the Bible, the source of the Christian religious stories? Not that I know of. In fact, the Bible is not fact either because it doesn’t pass the two questions to distinguish fact. It’s not true all the time; there are many stories and instructions in the Bible that we know not to be true. So how can we know that god wants us to learn from evil? We don’t – it’s not a provable fact, it is opinion.

If only the religious community could distinguish between fact and opinion, I think I could probably have some fun and intelligent discussions with the believers. Until then, I will continue to challenge their confusion between what will continue to be improvable opinion versus provable scientific facts. I hope that you will do the same whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Thanks for reading the first SCUSA weekly series!  If you liked it, please let us know so that we can continue and do others!  If you didn't, please let us know as well!