By Eric Jayne

On September 11, James Zimmerman delivered an engaging presentation before the Critical Thinking Discussion Group in Maple Grove. Zimmerman spoke about his experience as a practicing Jehovah’s Witness (JW) and the struggle he encountered from leaving the church and eventually becoming an atheist.

 

Exercise your right as a Minnesotan and make sure your voice as an atheist is heard!

 

 

Members of the La Crosse Area Freethought Society (LCAFS) (Jan Contreras and Hank Zumach) and Minnesota Atheists (August Berkshire and Matthew Richardson) took turns staffing a booth at the La Crosse Gay Pride festival on August 28. The weather was sunny, hot, and windy. Speaking of hot wind, outside the festival gates a handful of evangelical Christians held a peaceful, though misguided, counter-demonstration. August confronted them and was told that one reason they could "prove" homosexuality was "unnatural" was that gay people, on average, didn't live as long as straight people. August pointed out that the higher level of suicides for gay youth was attributable to Christian persecution. The Christians also pointed to AIDS as a consequence of "sin." August countered that lesbians have the fewest STDs of all sexual orientations, so they must be "god's chosen people." In the end, it is impossible to argue with fundamentalists who are convinced that even the worst god-ordained atrocities of the Bible can be "properly interpreted" (i.e. spin-doctored) so as not to reflect badly on their god or their religion.

by James Zimmerman

 

Disproving Christianity: Refuting the World’s Most Followed Religion, by David McAfee
96 pages, CreateSpace, ©2010

In Disproving Christianity, author David McAfee sets out to deftly, succinctly point out all the reasons why the Holy Bible can’t possibly be the word of a loving, all-knowing deity. And he does a respectable job.

 

By George Kane

Two stories of religious strife between Christians and Muslims in America played out in September.  First came manufactured Christian outrage over the approval by New York City planners of a Muslim culture center down a side street two blocks from Ground Zero.  Presidential hopefuls Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich demanded that the “Ground Zero Mosque” be stopped, as it was an insult to the people who died on September 11, 2001, and a triumphal celebration of Muslim conquest.  When President Obama pointed out that New York City Muslims have a right to build a mosque on property they own, opponents of the project were dismissive.  “Of course they have the right to build the mosque,” lectured Jay Sekulow, Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice.  “That’s not the point.”