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1 FIRST COAST FREETHOUGHT SOCIETY, INC. An organization of freethinkers and secular humanists supporting free inquiry, education, and community in the Northeast Florida area Our Motto: To Question is the Answer. Post Office Box , Jacksonville, FL Telephone: Website: Your Support Promotes Freethought on the First Coast. Dear FreeThinker Recipient: To provide support on line, click here: to go to the FCFS website and use a credit card or PayPal account. If you prefer to mail a check, print this page and use the card (below) to indicate your choices. To print this page, put your cursor anywhere on this page. Click Print. Then select Current Page and click the OK button. Mail your check to the FCFS, P.O. Box , Jacksonville, FL Thank you! The First Coast Freethought Society, Inc. Post Office Box Jacksonville, Florida I wish to make a tax-deductible contribution to: NPR corporate sponsorship General pomotion No preference Enclosed is my contribution for (please check one): $25 $50 $75 $100 Other I authorize the FCFS to include my name in a forthcoming issue of the First Coast FreeThinker recognizing my support. Name: Address: Thank You for Your Support!

2 First Coast FreeThinker January 2013 Inside this issue: President s Message Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society 4 Creative Balance 6 Teaching and imparting of knowledge make sense in an unchanging environment...but if there is one truth about modern man it is that he lives in an environment that is continually changing. The only man who is educated is the man who has learned how to learn...how to adapt and change... who has learned that no knowledge is secure, that only the process of seeking knowledge gives a basis for security. Carl Rogers Fred W. Hill D ecember 21, 2012, the most recent candidate for the day the world was supposed to end, came and went without any noticeable global catastrophe. Ancient Mayans allegedly predicted that such a cataclysm would occur that day, that we d never have to worry about Christmas shopping again. Turned out all they really did was neglect to chisel a new calendar. All too typically, however, apocalyptists around the world even in China, to the annoyance of the politburo leaped at yet another chance to curry favor with god and laugh at all the unbelievers who would be left behind in abysmal straits. Meanwhile, amused skeptics gathered in Volume 12, Issue 1 We re Still Here - And So Are the Mayans [Ancient Mayans] were brought low not by an angry god but by a devastated landscape that could no longer support their once vast numbers. January 2013 Meeting doomsday galas and drank toasts to such tunes as R.E.M. s It s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine) and Prince s (Tonight We re Going to Party Like It s) Fine or not, the faithful and atheists alike are still here in the 2013 th year of the Common Era as many of us of the latter persuasion put it, or of Our Lord as Christians among the former insist. Many things did end in December, strictly as a matter of routine, of statistical happenstance an average of 153,781 people die every day, all of entirely natural causes. Lightning, viruses, car crashes, bombs, cancer, (Continued on page 3) Crimes Against Logic: Identifying Errors in Reasoning Earl Coggins, President, Founder, First Coast Freethought Society Monday, January 21, 2013, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. In the Sanctuary, upper parking lot level Doors open at 6:00 Unitarian Universalist Church 7405 Arlington Expressway Jacksonville, FL

3 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January Humanist Book Discussion Group When: 2:00 p.m., the first Sunday of each month Where: Books-A-Million, 9400 Atlantic Boulevard, Jacksonville, FL What: Books planned for discussion: February 3, Whale Falls: The Exploration of Belief and Its Consequences, by Cecil Bothwell March 3, Nonbeliever Nation, by David Niose Books may be found in the library, purchased from local book stores, or purchased online. The First Coast Freethought Society will receive a small remuneration from your purchase (at no additional cost to you) if you first go to and then click the link to Amazon.com for your purchase. A riveting account of a deeply examined life, Whale Falls offers culture-changing insight into the ramifications of our most deeply held assumptions. No reader will exit this volume without rethinking everything from dietary choice to drug policy, from Biblical inerrancy to domestic violence. This journey of the heart recalls the moral and geographic sweep of Pirsig s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the naturalist s sensibility of Dillard s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. An excerpt from the first chapter: Before the last years of the last century, most who considered whales at all were chiefly interested in converting them to cash. At one point, whaling was the fifth-largest industry in America. Collateral damage has never much mattered where it stands between men and wealth whether it s cancer and black lung in coal mine communities, children blasted by cluster bombs and land mines laid in oil fields, or gang victims in the misguided and fraudulent war on drugs. The pain of whales, poor children, and those defined as criminals rarely affects public policy, no matter how they might climb our heart charts. When the discovery that whale blubber could be rendered to useful fuel was combined with improved navigation and the construction of large ships, we started on the road to Exxon-Mobil, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and global climate change. Thar she blows, indeed. It all started with beached whales. From Whale Falls, Cecil Bothwell, Brave Ulysses Books, 2010 For more information, contact Herb Gerson at , or 12herbert30gerson@bellsouth.net.

4 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January ( We re Still Here cont d from page 1) heart disease, and schizophrenics with grudges and guns, all took their toll. Yet billions made it through without much trauma or dramatic change. For the most part, things simply continued onto the next month, the next year, including arguments about deities and days of reckoning. For the Mayans, last December 21 had cultural but not apocalyptic significance it marked the last day on their Long Count calendar of the 13 th b ak tun, a period of time equal to 144,000 days or solar years. Modern Mayans celebrated the day as part of a millennia-old heritage. Conquistadors and Catholic priests could overwhelm it in the post-columbian era but failed in their efforts to eradicate it. That day was as much a reason to party for them as New Years Eve of the year 2000 was for those raised on the Gregorian calendar, whether or not they believed the myths associated with day one of their respective timekeeping systems. The Mayan and related Mesoamerican calendars have been dated back to at least the 5 th century BCE, preserved on stone monuments and slabs discovered by archaeologists over the last 200 years. Just as the pagan Romans and Christians backdated their calendars to events of dubious veracity, so did the Mayans start from a mythical creation date corresponding to August 11, 3114, BCE. On that day the fourth and last of successive worlds was created, as Ceremonies to celebrate the end of the Mayan cycle and the start of the new Maya era are held at the Tikal archaeological site in Peten, Guatemala, on December 20, (Photograph by: JOHAN ORDONEZ, AFP/Getty Images) revealed in the Popol Vuh, a collection of Mayan myths. As to the future, the Mayans prophesized that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the 13th [b ak tun] as described by Yale University Professor of Anthropology Michael D. Coe in The Maya, first published in Other Mayan scholars, however, have sharply disagreed with Coe s interpretation (see Wikipedia entry on 2012 phenomenon ). In a recent National Geographic article, ( Unprecedented Maya Mural Found, Contradicts 2012 Doomsday Myth, May 2012), Erik Vance describes recent excavations of a Mayan mega-city, including a 1,200 year old mural with markings that suggest dates thousands of years in the future. Far from anticipating the world s end, Vance notes, the Mayans held hope that the world would continue Of course, considering that the Mayans spent considerable time warring on one another and were as likely to disagree with each other as with people of any other ethnicity or nationality, it s highly probable that some Mayans did believe the world, and all the wickedness within it, would come to an end in the not-too-distant future, while other Mayans optimistically believed their world would last forever, just as it was. As it was, the world as the Mayans once knew it did come to an end. At its height, during the classic period from 200 to 900 C.E., the Mayans developed the most advanced pre-columbian civilization anywhere in the Americas and supported a population of an estimated 14 million in the region of the Yucatan peninsula and northern Central America. Beginning in 800, however, drought, soil erosion, defor- (Continued on page 10)

5 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January President s Message - January 2013 Earl Coggins I n my December message, I explored what it should mean to be a freethinker and offered what I feel is a core value of freethinking:...at a minimum a freethinker should be willing to consider any idea and/or any possibility. It sounds easy enough. We have a room full of people wanting to consider any idea or any possibility my kind of fun. That is, until someone in the room offers as truth a claim that others in the room feel cannot be substantiated. Then what? Would it be okay to go with the majority opinion? When I offered what I felt it should mean to be a freethinker, my offer came with a disclaimer:...the standard for ascertaining the truth-value of any idea or possibility should not be relegated to dogma or tradition, nor should it be an appeal to authorities instead, it must be grounded in reason and logic. Scientists have proven with experimentation how easily humans powers of perception can be manipulated and deceived. Might makes right has ruled many a day, but every decade more and more people want to sit down and reason things out use what is now called the science of valid inference to ascertain a truth claim, i.e., logic. I believe the use of logic, or perhaps better stated as the ability to reason with the greatest amount of accuracy possible, is the essence of the freethought movement. [T]he First Coast Freethought Society should consider devoting a lot of resources throughout the remainder of this decade to the promotion of critical thinking. It is ignored or under attack in many areas of the world, including our own country. There are many people who stand out as pioneers in the quest to incorporate logic and reason as a way of ascertaining truth claims. One such person was Epicurus ( BCE), an ancient Greek philosopher. He is tributed as being the first person to logically examine the philosophical dilemma called the problem of evil. In a nutshell, the problem of evil dilemma is a question: How do you explain the existence of evil in a world created by a deity who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent? Epicurus put it another way: If God is all-loving and all-powerful, why does he allow terrible and hideous pain and sorrow to exist in the world? Epicurus reasoned that there were only two possibilities: either god could not, or would not, stop pain and sorrow in the world. This led Epicurus to reason further that if god could not stop pain and sorrow, he was not omnipotent; and if god would not stop pain and sorrow, he was not omnibenevolent. Epicurus reasoned that it was illogical for a god who was both omnipotent and omnibenevolent to allow pain and sorrow. From there, it s a domino effect of reasoning and logic. If god is not both omnipotent and omnibenevolent, then the bible is mistaken and therefore fallible and no longer beyond reproach. This lead to even more reasoning: if the bible is fallible, what other parts of it are

6 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January illogical or inaccurate? Epicurus literally let the genie out of the bottle, and things haven t been the same since. What caused Epicurus to reason in such a manner? Epicurus may have decided it was a fallacy to side with a majority or authority for their own sake. He let his intellect guide him. He also might have had a little help from Plato ( BCE). Another famous philosophical dilemma in reasoning is the Euthyphro Dilemma. It is from Plato. Plato s Euthyphro Dialogue is yet another question. Socrates asks Euthyphro: Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? Put another way: Is moral goodness commanded by god because it is morally good, or is it moral goodness because it is commanded by god? Simply put, the question is this: are there moral standards that exist regardless (independent) of god s existence? In the dialogue, Euthyphro and Socrates both agree the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious. This reasoning leads to a startling conclusion: a person can be morally good independent of any belief in a god. According to a review written by James A. Haught in the December 2012/January 2013 issue of Free Inquiry magazine, Harvard professor Stephen Greenblatt contends in his book The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, that the poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) written by Titus Lucretius Carus (99-55BCE) and dedicated to Epicurus,...helped trigger the Renaissance, the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, and the sixcentury upsurge of science, reason, and democracy in the Western world. There is little doubt that Epicurus was a critical thinker, i.e., freethinker. Greenblatt contends that a freethinker s poem changed the world. It might be ludicrous to say a poem changed the world, but I am willing to consider any idea or possibility, as long as it is grounded in reason and logic and subject to critical thinking. I believe the First Coast Freethought Society should consider devoting a lot of resources throughout the remainder of this decade to the promotion of critical thinking. It is ignored or under attack in many areas of the world, including our own country. If you are skeptical of my assertion, check out this quote from the Republican Party platform of Texas: We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

7 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January Creative Balance Joe Varon And God said Now that the mastodon is done I ll build a mosquito just for fun I ll make the cheetah fast you know But balance it with a slug that s slow There ll be beauty in a butterfly And be ugly when things rot or die Man and woman will be as different as can be To balance them off, but lovingly Fish will swim, turtles will crawl Gerbils made short and giraffes made tall For people to fish, I ll make lots of worms And to kill people off, billions of germs Creation is fun, it allows so much range To make things wonderful and make things strange Things that are virtuous, balanced with bad Things to make you happy, nauseous or sad I m making a world where people can love their brother And simultaneously, where my creations eat each other To make it more interesting, I even foresee Folks who will and won t believe in me Monthly Social Where: When: RSVP: OLIVE GARDEN on Philips Highway, across from the Avenues Mall. Tuesday January 22, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. Proceed directly to our room. Drinks at 6:00. Dinner at 7:00. (Order from the menu.) CarrieRen@att.net (or ) by Tues. a.m., if you plan to go!

8 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January Of course this guarantees certain conflict there But let them argue, I don t care It takes creative genius to build a place With so much crowding, yet so much space With magnificent grandeur and stark desolation A veritable smorgasbord of contradictory creation I m mysterious, un-knowable too There s not a bit of logic to what I do But I don t have to be logical you see Because logical or not, billions will believe in me A world so randomly organized takes careful execution So perfectly incongruous, it just couldn t be evolution Ongoing FCFS Activities Dinners for Doubters: Sign up to attend or to host a dinner yourself. If a dinner is scheduled, signup sheets will be found at the back table at the monthly meetings. For details, see the website, or ask a greeter at the back table, at a meeting. Second Harvest Second Saturday: On the 2nd Saturday of every month, 10:00 a.m. to noon, join FCFS members and JAM (Jacksonville Atheist Meetup) group members, to volunteer at the Second Harvest North Florida food bank warehouse, 1502 Jessie Street, to help distribute food to the less fortunate in North FL. See or call Fed Hill, Secular Sunday Morning in the Park: Freethinkers, let s get acquainted and enjoy intelligent conversation the 4th Sunday of every month (unless inclement weather prevails) at 10 a.m. until? under the pavilion at Losco Park, Hood Rd., S., Jacksonville 32257, between Shad and Losco Roads. For directions, call Beth Perry at or Google the address. We generally provide coffee. Bring a breakfast snack and a chair or two. Note, if it s too hot under the pavilion, we take our chairs to some trees with a nice breeze. Mark your calendar. We hope to see you there! Caring Tree: If a telephone call, flowers, or a sympathy card to a member is in order, please contact Judy Hankins at , or her at info@firstcoastfreethoughtsociety.org.

9 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January First Coast Freethought Society, Inc. P.O. Box Jacksonville, FL Statement of Purpose The First Coast Freethought Society, Inc. is an educational, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization dedicated to supporting nonreligious persons in the Northeast Florida area and promoting a nontheistic approach to everyday life. Meetings The FCFS meets the THIRD Monday of each month at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jacksonville, upstairs in the sanctuary, 7405 Arlington Expressway, Jacksonville, Florida 32211, (904) Meeting time: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Meetings are free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. For other activities besides monthly meetings, please see the website, brochure, or newsletter! FCFS 2013 Board Members President Earl Coggins Vice President Carrie Renwick Secretary Don DuClose Treasurer Stephen Peek At-Large Herb Gerson At-Large Fred Hill At Large Richard Keene Other Appointments Parliamentarian Mark Renwick Secretary Carrie Renwick Committees and Chairs Editorial Fred Hill Community Outreach Richard Keene Finance Stephen Peek Fundraising Carrie Renwick Membership Judy Hankins Publicity Carrie Renwick Website Mark Renwick First Coast FreeThinker The First Coast FreeThinker is published for all freethinkers and potential freethinkers. Nonmembers may receive the version indefinitely. Nonmembers may receive three hard-copy issues free, after which they must join the FCFS to continue to receive hard copy. Readers are invited and encouraged to reprint our original materials provided they give credit to this publication. The officials of the FCFS are not responsible for opinions or other statements expressed in this newsletter. The FreeThinker is intended to convey ideas that stimulate thought and promote discussion on a variety of subjects. Information for Contributors We welcome submissions. Articles for consideration should be submitted via to the address shown below. Contributors who cannot submit manuscripts electronically may send them to Fred Hill, 1817 Egner St., Jacksonville, FL The deadline for time-sensitive submissions is the THIRD SATURDAY of each month for the following month s issue. We prefer articles no longer than 1,000 words. Longer articles will be evaluated in terms of whether their importance and degree of interest to our readers warrant publication. Subject matter must tie in with freethought or with the Affirmations of Humanism (found on our website). All accepted manuscripts are subject to editorial modification. Our style guide is The Chicago Manual of Style. Manuscript submissions cannot be returned. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of all quotations and for supplying complete references where applicable. Address for Submissions Editor@firstcoastfreethoughtsociety.org ADVERTISING RATES: Eighth-page (business card size) $25.00, quarter-page $50.00, halfpage $75.00, and whole page $100. To advertise, contact Fred Hill at , or Editor@firstcoastfreethoughtsociety.org

10 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January First Coast Freethought Society, Inc. P.O. Box , Jacksonville, FL (904) Membership Application Name Date Home address City State Zip Code address Home phone Business phone Occupation Areas of interest and/or expertise How did you hear about us? Comments? Membership level (please select one): Regular ($30/yr.) Carl Sagan ($50/yr.) Charles Darwin ($200/yr.) Student ($15/yr.) Bertrand Russell ($75/yr.) Robert Ingersoll ($500/yr.) Senior ($15/yr.) Thomas Paine ($100/yr.) Lifetime ($1,000) Family ($45/yr.) Do you object to your name appearing on our membership list, distributed to other members? Yes No I m interesting in getting involved in the FCFS as a(n): General member Committee member Officer Financial supporter Annual dues cover the period of January 1 through December 31. The initial dues for new members joining in July through September are half the regular rates. Membership extends to the end of the current calendar year. The initial dues for new members joining in October through December are the full, regular rates. Membership extends to the end of the following calendar year. You can make a lasting impact on the future of freethought and secular humanism in this community if you provide for the First Coast Freethought Society in your Will. Your bequest will ensure that the FCFS continues to be a beacon for freethinkers on the First Coast and to remain a vital Voice of Reason in the Northeast Florida area. Several options are available for establishing a bequest (specific, percentage, residual, or contingent). We will be happy to provide the appropriate wording to you and your attorney, depending upon your wishes. For further information, contact Carrie Renwick, P.O. Box , Jacksonville, FL or CarrieRen@att.net All inquiries are held in the strictest confidence.

11 FreeThinker Newsletter of the First Coast Freethought Society January Upcoming Freethought Events of Interest on the First Coast Monday January 21 FCFS Monthly Meeting, Jacksonville - 6:30 p.m. Tuesday January 22 FCFS Monthly Social at Olive Garden, Jacksonville - 6:00 p.m. Sunday January 27 FCFS Secular Sunday in the Park, Jacksonville - 10:00 a.m. Sunday February 3 FCFS Humanist Book Discussion Group, Jacksonville - 2:00 p.m. Saturday February 9 FCFS/JAM Volunteer at Second Harvest, 2nd Saturday - 10 a.m. Monday February 11 JAM Meetup at European Street Café in San Marco - 6:30 p.m. Saturday February 16 FCFS Deadline to submit articles for March 2013 FreeThinker Monday February 18 FCFS Monthly Meeting, Jacksonville - 6:30 p.m. First Coast Freethought Society (FCFS) Jacksonville Atheist, Agnostic, Secular Meetup Group (JAM) Northeast Florida Coalition of Reason (NeFCoR) The FCFS is a proud member of the Humanists of Florida Association and the Northeast Florida Coalition of Reason. (Continued from page 3) estation and other environmental troubles led to gradual collapse, reducing the Mayans to roughly 30,000 by the time the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s. They were brought low not by an angry god but by a devastated landscape that could no longer support their once vast numbers. Yet despite the calamities, including further decimation brought about by exposure to Old World diseases, as a people the Mayans survived and retain a thriving culture, even if it hardly resembles that of their ancestors of 1,400 years ago. Their world didn t end, but it did change, as it will continue to do for all of us. It remains possible that some natural catastrophe may destroy all life on this planet in the near future. An asteroid larger than the one that did in the dinosaurs may somehow escape all our vaunted scientific detection and slam into Earth next week. More likely, however, humankind will face what at least a few appear to regard as an even worse fate that we and our descendants will have to put up with one another for a few million more years or however much longer Earth s biosphere will sustain us.