By August Berkshire
On March 12, 2014, atheists and humanists in Minnesota made history when Minnesota State Representative Phyllis Kahn introduced what is believed to be the first legislative bill to ever mention us. House File 2966 (HF 2966) is titled “Marriage solemnization by atheist and humanist celebrants authorized.” It allows for our celebrants to legally perform civil marriages.
Minnesota Atheists welcomes anthropologist and science blogger Greg Laden to talk to us about the intersection of religious communities and climate change denialism at our April 27 meeting in Maplewood. A frequent guest on our radio show, this month, he'll join us in person.
By Eric Jayne
Walt Whitman once said that “baseball is the hurrah game! well—it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere—belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.”
By George Kane
The next session of the Minnesota legislature opens on February 25. It will not be as intense for secular activists as last year’s session, when same-sex marriage dominated attention, but every year there are bills of concern. Conservative Christians are eternally committed to undermining Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state, and defining America as a Christian nation.
This crusade is championed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which provides model bills for conservative legislators to introduce in their states. Because there are Minnesota lawmakers who are members of ALEC, a religion-based bill introduced in other states could be introduced here, so if such a bill surfaced in another state, we would at least know what we could expect in ours.
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By Greg Peterson
Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? (Retails for $21.93 in Paperback)
“Nothing is esteemed a miracle,” wrote brilliant Scottish philosopher David Hume, “if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country.”
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