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New Reed Secular Alliance Signator, Elad Gilo, is passionate about the freethought movement.  Below is a complete biography of the Reed sophomore.

Reed Secular Alliance Signator, Elad Gilo

Name: Elad Gilo

Interests: I love to travel. Whenever I get the opportunity to travel the world and experience new cultures, geographies and people, I will take it. I enjoying backpacking and outdoor sports. Snowboarding is my sport of choice, as I used to partake in it competitively on a national level. Above all I like to hang out with friends and talk about whatever pops into our heads.

Major: Economics and Philosophy Interdisciplinary Major

Year: Sophomore, class of 2012

Passions: The topics I tend to be most passionate about usually surround religion (e.g. atheism, secularism, and the rise of evangelical Christianity). The other topic that I feel particularly connected to and passionate about is the Iraeli-Palestinian conflict. I am strongly committed to the establishment of a two-state solution and the pro-Israel, pro-Peace movement.

Secularism: Secularism has become an increasingly important topic for me. Since I began my journey from skeptical young boy to an atheist adult, I have taken it upon myself to engage any and all on the topic of religion and the existence of “god”. While I hope to have treated everyone with respect, I became very tired of a society that found it so difficult to a) address the issue of piety and religion, for fear it would offend someone’s personal beliefs, and b) that people would not use the consistent reasoning in their own daily life or regarding the existence of a deity.

As my own path has taken me to atheism (the negation of a world view, not a world view in itself), I understood very well that my goal could not be the abolition of religion (unrealistic/utopian) but rather the assurance of a secular society in which one’s individual rights and self be protected from the influence of religion. To this degree I find the issue of secularism something that can unite atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and even the religious.

With nearly 1 of 5 individuals not subscribing to a theological belief in the US, there is significant work that has to be done, in order to unify this voice and as a whole ensure the civil liberties of all (particularly in the face of rising evangelical political influence). This task is not an easy one. Trying to organize a population of non-theological individuals around a cause appears rather paradoxical to many. The same people who reject the organization of a belief also organizing themselves? To this I respond by saying a) the alternative is much worse, and b) so long as secularists remain non-dogmatic in their worldview, then the worry becomes unfounded.

As the Reed Secular Alliance signator, I hope to continue fostering debate and dialogue regarding secular issues on the Reed Campus. It would be my goal to continue educating the students at Reed about local and national issues regarding unconstitutional religious influence in civil society, and furthermore, mobilizing students for different secular campaigns. If nothing else, the RSA will provide a space for like-minded individuals to meet and discuss along with showing support for secularism on a state and national level.

By:  Leslie A. Zukor

Christopher Hitchens and Leslie Zukor

When I was invited to have dinner with Christopher Hitchens, I jumped at the opportunity.  For the past several years, Hitchens has made a name as a provocateur, as someone who minces no words with regard to his personal views.

His latest target, as he wrote about in God Is Not Great, is the institution of religion.  When I had the opportunity to eat dinner with Hitchens, I was curious as to the validity of the book’s subtitle, How Religion Poisons Everything.

What came next I should have expected.  Hitchens comported himself with an almost narrow-minded disdain for all things religious.  Anything good that believers did was possible without religion, and everything else was the fault of the faith.

By the end of the night, I had tired of Hitchens’s dogmatic rejection of religion.  In a room full of scholars and educated people, he could have learned something from others’ experiences.  Instead, Hitchens clung fervently to his disdain for faith.

It was ultimately Hitchens’s dogmatism that proved to be his undoing.  Such a strident rejection of religion shared more than a little in common with the religious people he condemned.  In short, Hitchens is an atheist fundamentalist.

For more about the Hitchens dinner in Portland and my objections to his dogmatism, see the Portland Monthly Magazine’s website.

After more than 80 years, the Oregon House moved to revise the Statute that says that public school teachers are forbidden to wear religious garb.  The objection was met by praise in some quarters, but others bristled with hostility at the allowance of expressions of faith in the classroom.  Read more.

A prisoner is locked in his cell

Editor’s NoteThe following is Part Eleven of the Reed Secular Alliance’s prisoner letter feature.  Throughout this series, a prisoner who receives literature from the Freethought Books Project has been writing letters, to tell more about both prison life and atheism behind bars.  Prison Bob is a pseudonym for a real, living, breathing inmate in Oklahoma.  To check out old additions, start with the first prisoner letter feature.

It has been a busy few days here in the ol’ Barbed Wire Monastery.  As temperatures cool and people are kept indoors more, forced interaction peaks.  This isn’t a good thing.  In trying to get away from this forced by-play, I ended up with more material to write about.  IT started another of my famous discussions.  The loud talk began with my recounting what I overheard our newest Ultra-Christian [Jad], whom I’ve written about previously.  He’s the one who was gay, but now is getting “married” if and when he leaves here.  He got picked out online like a puppy from the pound.

Anyway, Pubby Boy is a freshly minted Christian with all the inherent blind spots.  He was holding forth on what an “awesome and relevant” tome the book, “Jesus Freaks” is.  If you haven’t read this work, keep it that way.  I’ve read most of it.  It could be a powerful tool of indoctrination for new seekers looking for any port in a storm.  The basic gist is:  If these modern people, facing torture and execution can hold onto their faith “unto death” – why can’t you?  (The book is a list of martyrs.)

Hmm…because II have survival instincts?  Because I realize that I can do Nothing when deceased?  Because this deity you tout is a myth to me?

My point in the oncoming argument was, that type of ideological fealty is the stupidest damned thing a human being can do.  My buddy, temporarily turned adversary said, “No, it isn’t stupid.  It’s glorious.  They advanced the cause.  They’re martyrs and saints now.”  Sometimes he likes stirring me up.

I don’t believe they furthered any cause.  It does them no good to be martyred.  They are dead.

So, as always:  The following are my opinions after considerable hours of pondering the point.

A)  If you feel it valorous or morally obligatory to die for your beliefs when a simple, if illusory, change of mind would keep you from being terminated, good riddance.

B)  If you are not smart enough to know that the only sacrosanct and inviolate area we have is the mind, and you are stubb0rn enough to die instead of lie about a concept, see  ya.  we’re better off as whole without you in the gene pool.

C)  To exist is the foremost goal, the primal directive, if you will.  Humans are evolved to think and survive.  Only when misguided intellect interferes do we get things like religious martyrdom.

You are able to effect change only if you exist.  You may be a catalyst for change after your demise, but what can you care?  You’re dead.  At that point, nothing matters to you.

As humans, we come chock full of survival instincts.  If you ignore millennia of conditioning, in the form of instincts, you die.  When something causes pain, we do what is necessary to stop the pain, or we suffer and/or die if the pain is too detrimental.  This is how humans learn.

If you’re not smart enough to get out of jury duty or say aloud under torture: “Oh, I’m sorry.  You’re right.  Communism is the best for of governance ever.  My bad!” to effectively escape death – then you deserve destruction.  Because it is possible to say things you do not believe.

All people die.  It is the only thing that all humans have in common.  If you die due to a giant game of “My Dad will kick your Dad’s ass,” that’s on you.

If you’re already being tortured, they’re probably gonna kill you anyway.  Cost benefit ratio.

-Prison Bob

Freethought Books for Prisoners

Freethought Books for Prisoners

In the November 2009 issue of Freethought Today, the Freedom From Religion Foundation featured the Freethought Books Project.  The article, entitled, “Project Puts Freethought Behind Bars“, showcased the Reed Secular Alliance’s efforts to get non-theistic literature into prisons.

“It was neat to be covered in Freethought Today,” book project founder, Leslie Zukor, explains.  “That publication reaches a lot of eyes.”  And since the article’s publication, the RSA has heard from prisoners and potential Pen Pals wanting to benefit the project.

A Humanistic Chanukkah

A child plays dreidel

Reed Secular Alliance President, Leslie Zukor, had the pleasure of attending a Humanistic Chanukkah celebration.  The event, which was put on by Kol Shalom Community for Humanistic Judaism, was a blend of traditional songs and and contemporary celebrations of our common humanity.

A Sunday School student acts in a play

“I enjoyed the Chanukkah party,” Zukor said.  “It was nice going to a Jewish event where one doesn’t need to say blessings mentioning God.”  Zukor took a number of photos at the event, two of which are showcased here.  Zukor hopes to continue to be active in the secular Jewish community.

Man Behind Bars

The following is Part Ten of the Reed Secular Alliance’s prisoner letter feature.  Every so often, a real prisoner, “Prison Bob”, incarcerated in Oklahoma, writes a letter for the website.  Since he has no email access, we transcribe the letter and post it here.  Previous editions can be found by clicking “Prisoner Letters” in the Categories at right.  We hope you will enjoy this series.

Everyone around here thinks of me as “that angry atheist guy”.  Don’t talk to him, “He hates god”.

In my own defense, I’m not always or even often angry.  There’s nothing here [in prison] really worth my anger.  It’s one of those things that helped get me where I am today, which is locked up, behind a fence.

I do, however, get irritable when a religious neophyte approaches and asks me if I’ve accepted a purely fictional and mythological entity as the central anchoring structure of my moral life experience.  Because, that is what they’re asking.

That question made me uncomfortable before incarceration, and it does no better now.

It makes me uncomfortable for the same reason that the frozen pizza commercial – where the lady wants a crust that rises “naturally” without chemical leaveners – does.  I know what they mean.  I also know what they said.  “Have you accepted JC as your…” makes me antsy the same way the concept of “all natural” sets me off.  If you think it through, everything is all natural.

No, many things we use so readily today don’t occur in nature, but neither do Beefsteak tomatoes, or min-pins, or half a million other things.  Yet, there is no combination, however derived, that did not begin as all natural.

I understand the psychology of the sale.  I understand that the actress lady probably doesn’t actually care, or even know what’s in her pizza crust.  And I am oh – so aware that if people took a moment to think it through, they may opt for bicarbonate of soda, as a leavener over yeast farts.

It’s all about empathy.

Just like when a [insert denomination here] asks you:  “Had a bad day?  [Insert major deity here] can help.”  Or “Have you accepted a recycled, re-branded myth as your overlord?”

People think I’m angry about religion, but I’m not.  I”m abrasive to shut people up.  We all talk too much.  Self included.  I’m not noticed or disparaged when I’m working out, or quietly reading book after book.  I’m not noticed or even heard from when I’m working on a story.  But let one person come up to me and say:  “I don’t mean to cause a debate…But,” and suddenly I’m “that angry atheist”.

And that isn’t even correct.  I know that there are thousands of gods.  Humans make them in droves.  You can’t get away from them.  Anywhere.

But, if there is an Ultimate-Supreme, None Other But This One who started “it all”, it would have to be Infinite Random Chance or Julian.

Julian Bless us everyone.

-Prison Bob

P.S. – Don’t know a Julian, but do like the name.

The Reed Secular Alliance is pleased to announce that Greg Epstein’s lecture is now online.  The November 19th talk centers around Greg Epstein’s new book, Good Without God:  What A Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe.  Below you can watch the unedited Humanist speech.

Unfortunately, the talk cuts out at the tail end of Epstein’s response to the last question.  Nevertheless, it is an enjoyable presentation, with interesting information about the speaker’s background and the influences on his Humanist development.

Boxes of Freethought Books

Monday, November 30th, marked the Freethought Books Project’s second mailing of the semester.  The first mailing saw nineteen boxes of books distributed to atheist, humanistic, and freethinking prisoners.  While not as large, this effort led to more prisoners getting access to such literature.

The following is a statistical run-down of what was donated and to whom it was sent:

Prisoners: 10

Mental patients: 1

Literature:   55 books

22 different works

TitlesThe Born Again Skeptic’s Guide to the Bible, American Infidel:  Robert G. Ingersoll, Humanist Manifesto 2000, Forbidden Fruit:  The Ethics of Humanism, Atheism:  A Reader, Imagine No Superstition, Keepers:  Voices of Secular Recovery, One Woman’s Fight, The Mind of the Market, How We Believe:  The Search for God in an Age of Science, Science & Religion:  Are They Compatible?, Rhymes for the IrreverentPhilosophers Without Gods, Sense and Goodness Without God, God:  The Failed Hypothesis, The Fifth Miracle, Secular Wholeness, Like Rolling Uphill, The Portable Atheist, Why Atheism, Atheism:  The Case Against God, Affirmations:  Joyful and Creative Exuberance.

For more information on the Freethought Books Project, check out http://www.freethoughtbooks.org.

Freethought Books for Prisooners

Freethought Books for Prisoners

On Friday, Hemant Mehta’s The Friendly Atheist blog featured the Freethought Books Project.  The November 27th article showcases Michael L’s letter to the Reed Secular Alliance, thanking the group for the books, especially the biography of Robert G. Ingersoll, The Great Agnostic.

The Freethought Books Project, started by RSA President, Leslie Zukor, has been around since 2005.  The Book Project gives atheist, humanist, and freethinking literature to prisoners, mental patients, and others in need.  For more about our efforts, go to http://www.freethoughtbooks.org.

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