Oklahoma Humanist Newsletter

Issue #19
April 1, 2004

Newsletter of the Humanist Association of Tulsa
P. O.  Box 571127
Tulsa, OK 74157-1127
Editor: Dan Nerren
Production and Distribution Specialist:
Kathy Warren

On the Internet at:
http://tulsa.humanists.net
------------------------------------------------

HAT Events
Humanist Study Group meets on the second Sunday of each month at 2:00
PM at Border's Bookstore, 81st & Yale.

HAT Business/Program Meeting
meets on the third Sunday at 2:00 PM at the Genealogy Center (formerly
Harmon Foundation Building), 2901 S. Harvard.

Food & Fellowship Gatherings are held on the fourth Saturday or Sunday.  The venue and starting time varies.

Let's support the rally at the Capitol defending Separation of Church and State on Thursday, May 6, the day designated by the U.S. government as a National Day of Prayer.

See the HAT website for more specific information about HAT events.  Visitors are welcome to attend all events.

Numbers We're Watching
Human population:
World: 6,389,559,000
United States: 292,921,000
Funds Raised in “34 Million Friends
Campaign”: $1,886,225 (as of 3/12/04)
HAT Members: 12


HAT Ads to Run in OSU Paper
One-line ads giving the HAT web address will run in six consecutive issues of The Daily O'Collegian, the newspaper of Oklahoma State University.  The paper is distributed on both the Stillwater and Tulsa campuses.

Tracts Distributed at Passion Showing

Approximately 150 “Why Jesus?” tracts purchased from the Freedom From Religion Foundation were distributed recently outside a Sapulpa theater showing the film The Passion of the Christ.  Kathy Warren and Dan Nerren placed the tracts on about ninety-five percent of the cars in the theater parking lot one
evening in March.

Back to Square One at TU

Robert Nekervis of the Secular Student Alliance has been following our efforts to start a secular humanist group at Tulsa University. Tom Devlin and Larry Hicks made the initial efforts by manning an information table during a campus activity fair.  An organizational meeting was held which was attended by HAT members Tom Devlin and Glenn Visher.  However, since that time we have heard nothing from the group.  Efforts to contact them, if the group still exists, have been futile. Robert has asked me to start over with our
efforts by posting some SSA flyers on the outdoor kiosks at Tulsa University.  I don't know if there are any outdoor kiosks at TU, but I am going to see if I can find some place to post the flyers Robert is sending.  I told him
I would also see if I could post some flyers at OSU-Tulsa.

If anyone would like to put up a flyer or two at ORU, please contact me.


Nancy Craig Relocates to WI

HAT has lost an active member with the relocation of Nancy Craig to Madison,
Wisconsin.  She obtained a job with the U.S. Geological Survey.  Nancy was HAT Secretary as well as guitarist and singer with the Secular Singers.  Her departure leaves HAT without a secretary and places the Secular Singers on hold until we can find a replacement.

Marilyn Clarke Fills Social Events Planner Post

Marilyn Clarke is one of our newer HAT members.  I recently called for a volunteer to serve as a planner of social events, and Marilyn came forward to serve in this role. She also gave a presentation at our March meeting, telling us about the subject of psychohistory.  As Social Events Planner, she will be scheduling our Food & Fellowship gatherings.

What HAT Could Use

HAT could use a few more people to take the initiative.  When I think back to the activities we have undertaken in recent years (distribution of flyers, picnics, freethought music presentations, Nothing Fails Like Prayer rallies), most every idea has originated with myself.  I would like to see more people proposing activities for our group.  What would you like to see HAT doing?  Let us hear
from you.

From My E-Mail Inbox

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundie

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of
thousands of gods claimed by other
religions, but are outraged when someone
even questions the existence of yours.

9 - You claim to feel "insulted" and
"dehumanized" when scientists show
evidence that humans share common
ancestors with "lower" life forms, yet you
have no problem whatsoever with the
absurd Biblical claim that we were created
from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have
no problem believing in a triune god, a
three-part deity so absurd that even
Thomas Jefferson once likened it to
Cerberus, the three-headed dog that
guards the gates of Hades in Greco-Roman
mythology.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear
of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah and
his followers, but you don't even flinch
when hearing about how Yahweh
supposedly commanded the slaughter of all
the male babies of Egypt in Exodus, or
when he allegedly ordered the elimination
of entire nations in the books of
Deuteronomy and Joshua -- yup, whole
NATIONS -- even including women,
children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify
humans, and Greek claims about gods
sleeping with women, but you have no
problem believing that the Holy Spirit
impregnated Mary (an unwed Jewish
mother, as it were), who then ostensibly
gave birth to a man-god who got killed by
his father's orders so that his father's
bloodthirst might be sated -- yup, a
man-god who then supposedly came back to
life, and ascended into the sky to live once
more with the guy who knocked up his mom
and the parent who had deemed infanticide
necessary in the first place.

5 - You are willing to spend your life
looking for little loopholes in the
scientifically established age of Earth (i.e.,
a few billion years), but you find nothing
wrong with believing dates recorded by
Bronze Age tribesmen sitting around in
their tents and spinning fantastic tales and
borrowing parts of much older myths and
playing guessing games.

4 - You believe that the entire population
of this planet with the exception of those
who share your beliefs -- though excluding
those in all rival sects - will spend the rest
of eternity in anguish and suffering. And
yet consider your religion the most
"tolerant" and "loving" of belief systems.

3 - While modern science, history, geology,
biology, and physics have failed rolling
around on the floor speaking in "tongues"
may be all the evidence you need to
"prove" Christianity. (Oh, or his sister who
writhes on the church floor in a bad Linda
Blair impersonation to "prove" Christianity
by showing you that she is "demon
possessed.")

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success
rate" when it comes to answered prayers.
You consider that to be evidence that
prayer works. And you think that the
remaining 99.99% failure rate was simply
the "will of God."

1 - You often know far less than many
atheists and agnostics about the Bible,
Christianity, and church history -- but you
still consider yourself a Christian of the
highest order.

The following letter was written by Stan Simpson and sent to the Tulsa World ;
however, it has not yet been published. We have been bombarded by the so called"Breast" scandal. The attack in the major media by prudish and prissy people who think we "are all going to hell in a hand basket". They have reacted much the same way as when they learned of Bill Clinton's private
indiscretion with Monica. An act which in no way affected his job performance as President. Let's look at the Breast incident from a global perspective. First off, my European friends are shaking their heads over all of the hullabaloo surrounding this incident just as they did over the Clinton indiscretion. They have a different perspective than most Americans. They are
not so uptight about their bodies. When I was a young officer in Paris in the late
fifties I visited the famous Moulin Rouge. While eating dinner and drinking champagne I was watching the spectacular floor show. It is said, performing at the Moulin Rouge means you have reached the zenith. The twenty ladies in the chorus, of course, were bare breasted. At a table near me was a
Husband and wife and their 10 year old son having dinner. They would glance at the show from time to time in a calm appreciative way. The child had one small glass of wine. A tour bus arrived with mostly Americans who were
the perfect example of "ugly Americans". They were making inappropriate remarks. To them the scene was naughty. Another example: My young co-pilot,who's testosterone was always raging, spent a weekend at a nude beach off the coast of Spain. His comment when he returned, " after looking at hundreds of breasts you realize it's no big deal and begin to look at faces.
For centuries European art has routinely displayed women's breasts. Some Americans need to acquire some cultural maturity from Europe.

Stan Simpson


Financial Report
November/December 2003

Balance as of 10/31/03....694.55

RECEIPTS

Dues.... 32.50
Newsletter.... 0
Contributions....13.00
Interest.... 0.86

TOTAL RECEIPTS.... 46.36

EXPENDITURES

Copies.... 23.31
Postage.... 0.83


TOTAL EXPENDITURES.... 24.14

Balance as of 12/31/03.... 716.77

Thanks go to Sharon Bohannan, Marilyn Clarke, Larry Hicks, Stan Simpson, Dan Nerren, and Glenn Visher for financial support received during November and December 2003. 


Financial Report
January/February 2004

Balance as of 12/31/03.... 716.77

RECEIPTS

Dues.... 36.00
Newsletter.... 0
Contributions.... 0
Interest.... 0

TOTAL RECEIPTS.... 36.00

EXPENDITURES

Copies.... 0
FFRF Nontracts.... 30.00

TOTAL EXPENDITURES....30.00

Balance as of 2/29/04.... 722.77

Thanks go to Andy Kariger, Bea McCartney, Russell Blue, Kathy Warren, Warren Beason, and Marilyn Clarke for financial support received during January and February.


Editor's Notes:

Enclosed with this issue you should find an envelope addressed to the HAT P.O. box. I'm hoping this envelope will encourage those of you who have not paid your 2004 dues to do so.  Dues are still six dollar a year -- a very
minimal amount.  And it's not that we need to money.  Surely there are more than twelve people in the state of Oklahoma who are willing to pay six dollar to be a voting member in what now may well be the only avowedly humanist organization left in the state.

It is dispiriting to observe all around us a resurgence among evangelical Christians and to witness the growing influence of fundamental Islam half a world away. Meanwhile, we humanists, at least locally, seem to languish.  Who would have thought a few years back that the President of this country would be a born-again fundamentalist Christian?  Well, we can sit and stew -- or get
up and do.  And doing something is much more satisfactory than hand-wringing. As I wrote earlier in this issue, we need more people to come forward and take the initiative to get things done.  I look forward to my retirement years when I will have more time to devote to humanist activities.  But as
things stand now, I am working a 40-hour week (sometimes 48 or 56 hours).  Plus my work as a freelance indexer takes another 15 to 20 hours a week.  I guess you noticed this is the first issue of the newsletter I've put together in almost a half year. I have been encouraged by the time and energy put into this chapter by such people as Randy Bradley, Larry Hicks, Tom Devlin,
Kathy Warren, and Marilyn Clarke, to name just a few who come to mind immediately.

I would encourage you to work on behalf of humanist values as if it all depended upon you.

Skeptical of religious claims? Can't swallow the Jesus story? Or the Muhammad story? Or the Vishnu story? If none of the 2,500 gods which humans have invented seem real to you, you are not alone in the Tulsa area. Several people whose worldview is based on naturalism rather than supernaturalism enjoy the friendship of fellow freethinkers in the Humanist Association of Tulsa.

You can learn more about us at http://tulsa.humanists.net.