<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6mmskXXetcg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6mmskXXetcg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
.
Richard Dawkins
October 7, 2009
Berkeley, CA
<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TjxZ6MrBl9E&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TjxZ6MrBl9E&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
.
by George Kane
Our public meeting in May was our largest of the year, with over 100 people turning out to hear the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year and celebrated science blogger P. Z. Myers tackle the question of whether science and religion can coexist. Myers answered that question at the very outset of his presentation, declaring that religion and science can coexist “in the same way as humans and tapeworms.” That is, religion is only a drain to science, and never has anything of value to contribute to it.
.
Read more: May Membership Meeting: Myers Draws a Full House
by August Berkshire
Minnesota Atheists is the state’s oldest, largest, and most active freethought organization. We promote not only our own activities but, through our Atheist Weekly E-mail (AWE), those of many other groups. We supply atheist speakers to other freethought groups, especially at colleges. At our recent Day of Reason celebration at the Minnesota State Capitol, we invited representatives from most of the other freethought groups in Minnesota to share the stage with us – and many of them did.
.
Read more: The Minnesota Atheists Center
By Eric Jayne
About one in five known pregnancies ends in a natural abortion (i.e. miscarriage) according to the Mayo Clinic
website. If the American Pregnancy Association is right there are about 6 million
known pregnancies every year in the United States. That means that there are roughly 1.2 million natural abortions each year in this country. The estimate is a conservative one since many miscarriages occur in the early stages of pregnancy before women realize they’re pregnant. Add the number of induced abortions performed in a year—1.2 million according to the Guttmacher Institute —and we have exactly doubled the rate of total abortions. Since 1973 there have been almost 50 million induced abortions and at least that many natural abortions. That’s 100 million abortions in less than four decades—and that’s just in the United States. All of the natural abortions are a direct act of God, if we suspend reality and entertain a belief in “Him.” However, if we accept the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient god, as many do, then induced abortions are also surely an act of God’s purposeful inaction to intervene and rescue the unborn (not to mention those of us living outside the uterus from fatal tragedies). This leaves me wondering why any rational person would use prayer as a means to end abortion. As it stands, there is a popular movement to do just that and I’m reminded of it each time I pass the large memorial outside St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Savage that reads “Pray to end Abortion.”
.
Read more: We Need to Abort Prayer
