July, 2012 Newsletter of the Lake Superior Freethinkers

 

Facilitators: David Broman – 218-349-7455 & Bill Guse - 834-4583, 343-4806

 

First Sunday - Radisson Hotel – 9:00 AM Social – 10:00 Brunch

George Erickson, editor, tundracub@mchsi.com

 

 

PROGRAM

 

On Sunday, July 1, Milan Kovacovic will present "America's religiosity and Balkan considerations, from a French perspective." Milan teaches French language, culture, and literature at UMD. He is a dual national of France and the U. S., a card-carrying World Citizen and a U.S. Army veteran (1965-67). He is the author of a recently published memoir titled "Ma's Dictionary: Straddling the Social Class Divide" chronicling his discontinuous journey through radically different sectors of society in France,Slovakia, and the United States.

 

**********************************************************************

 

Our Lending Library

Bringest thou a learned tome for thy fellow freethinkers to dwell upon, and you will be blest among men – and the ladies, too - for you will have given them sustenance to guide them through these trying times. George’s contribution this month is The Discoverers - by Daniel Boorstyn.

 

**********************************************************************

In Brazil, a man raped a 9 year old girl, who became pregnant. Doctors performed a life-saving abortion. The Catholic Church excommunicated the mother, the child, and the doctors but spared the rapist, who is fine in the church's eyes but the girl is going to hell.

See the details here.

 

“When one guy sees an invisible man, he's a nut case; if ten people see him, it's a cult; if ten million people see him, it's a respected religion.”
Richard Jeni, comedian and actor (1957-2007)"

 

 

Ambrose Bierce, author — "Religion is a daughter of hope and fear, explaining to ignorance the nature of the unknowable."

 

 

Thomas Edison — "I have never seen the slightest proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal god. Reli­gion is all bunk. Religion ... is a damn fake."

 

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not…, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
Benjamin Franklin

June 4, 2012

Bill van Druten - Freethinking: Lost and Found

Bill spoke first about the poem "On the Nature of Things" written by Lucretius and the other "The Swerve: How the world became modern" by Steven Greenblat. Greenblat's book is on the rediscovery of the poem and its implications for the modern world. Please note that in the open nature of the meeting some of the participants will be more difficult to hear as the microphone wasn't always keeping up with the locations of all of the participants in the room.