Atheist Internet Outreach Newsletter
Winter 1998 NEWSLETTER
A THANKSGIVING IDEAL
by Sandra Feroe
Ed. Note: (This feature article first appeared on the Internet Infidels website in November 1998.)
Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and I've been thinking about the history of the holiday, about who we're "thanking", and why. When the Pilgrims first celebrated Thanksgiving, they prayed to a Christian god. After all, that was more than 150 years before the U. S. Constitution was written, and ironically, even though many of the Pilgrims were religous dissenters in Europe, they established theocracies in the American colonies.
As I pause to think about my life, and those who have shared and enriched it, I give silent thanks to scientists who eradicated polio so parents could rest easier, to farmers who grow the vegetables and fruit that sustain us, to others who keep warmth and light in our homes... to teachers, doctors, artists, the list is endless. But a speech given long ago reminds me that we mustn't take for granted something which the vast majority of humankind has never been lucky enough to experience. Just before Thanksgiving of1979, not long after the Pope visited the United States, Rep. Paul McCloskey, a California Democrat, delivered a speech concerning separation of church and state to the House. It's remarkable for its candor, and its message of principle, as shown in these excerpts, is just as important today as it was almost twenty years ago.
Rep. McCloskey began speaking, thanking the Pope profusely for his visit. Then he continued: "... an even greater cause for thanksgiving lies in the quiet reflection that our unique American constitutional heritage allows us to view the Pope in perspective as only one leader of one religion; that no longer can a single religion command that its beliefs be accepted by others upon pain of death at the stake or upon the rack. We are reminded that our first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 to mark the survival and good fortune of new arrivals to a rocky and forbidding land. At the same time, and for two centuries thereafter, Pope John Paul II's predecessors in Rome were presiding over the Inquisition, torture and execution of thousands.....
"Our own continent, less than three centuries ago, saw the long arm of the Spanish Inquisition raised over the Pueblo indians of New Mexico. ... In our colonial days we saw executions for witchcraft and banishment for differences in religious beliefs... As a result we adopted in the very first addition to our Constitution, Article 1 of our Bill of Rights, with its clear declaration of principle: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
"The Pope's visit... could not help but refocus our thinking on the benefits of our own separation between church and state. The Pope saw no problem in urging that our laws be changed to reflect the moral precepts of his church. On abortion, he was specific... "right to life must be recognized and fully protected by law." As to church law, we agree. But as to civil law, we think the Pope was uncharacteristically unaware of our history when he said "must". No religious view "must" be written into law... Is it not best that we maintain the separation of church and state which has served us so well for nearly 200 years?
"We have learned, at great cost, not to delegate the same power to those in civil authority which your church accepts as its due. We respect your views on abortion and contraception, but our laws are otherwise... We have studied and understand the derivation, from St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, of your view that women should not be accorded equal rights in your church, but we hope you will understand our pride in our own 1964 Civil Rights Act which guarantees women equal rights in their legal relationships.
"We respect your church's progress since the Inquisition, as we revere our own fortunate progress away from religious persecution since our first Thanksgiving. We will celebrate our Thanksgiving holiday this year with a special blessing for your reminder to us of the unique and priceless heritage we enjoy of freedom of religion... and freedom from religion, if we so choose."
Why should I find this speech extraordinary when reading it so many years later? Are these not the ideals taught in American history class? Why shouldn't we expect our leaders to rise and pound the podium in defense of keeping the state separate from religion, rather than be surprised when they do? As we watch latter-day Puritans exert unprecedented religious influence over our government and culture, smug in their wrong-headed belief that they know better than we do what's good for us, do Rep. McCloskey's words not haunt us even as their meaning today appears less treasured and more out of reach? Why must we sue our government over such obvious violations as "In God We Trust" on our currency and "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, only to have the judiciary turn a blind eye to these unconstitutionalities in the name of "tradition", and a very brief tradition at that?
We who are unbelievers have so much to lose. The fire in the belly for freedom of conscience can be quelled when threatened, and the lips can be forced to mouth words. But the mind of the unbeliever, once opened to the fact that nothing supernatural exists either to worship or to fear, cannot be stilled without paying a great price. It is all too evident that life is a struggle for power by some human beings over others, and history has shown time and again that the most effective weapon for grabbing that power is religion. Will history show ours to be proof of the maxim that free societies don't last?
I have an investment in this country, in whether I can say, as Clarence Darrow did, "I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose," or put a Darwin fish on my car if I want to, and in whether my children will continue to live in freedom throughout their lives. So this Thanksgiving, as my family gathers together, I'll think of Paul McCloskey's words, and be grateful that we live in a land where people are not put to death at the stake or upon the rack by a government hand-in-fist with religious Inquisitors...
yet.
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A CHRISTMAS SERMON
by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll
New York Evening Telegram, 1891
The good part of Christmas is not always Christian -- it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human, natural.
Christianity did not come with tidings of great joy, but with a message of eternal grief. It came with the threat of everlasting torture on its lips. It meant war on earth and perdition hereafter.
It taught some good things-- the beauty of love and kindness in man. But as a torch-bearer, as a bringer of joy, it has been a failure. It has given infinite consequences to the acts of finite beings, crushing the soul with a responsibility too great for mortals to bear. It has filled the future with fear and flame, and made god the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men. Not satisfied with that, it has deprived god of the pardoning power.
And yet it may have done some good by borrowing from the Pagan world the old festival called Christmas. Long before Christ was born the Sun-god triumphed over the powers of Darkness. About the time that we call Christmas the days begin perceptibly to lengthen. Our barbarian ancestors were worshippers of the sun, and they celebrated his victory over the hosts of night. Such a festival was natural and beautiful. The most natural of all religions is the worship of the sun. Christianity adopted this festival. It borrowed from the Pagans the best it has.
I believe in Christmas and in every day that has been set apart for joy... Christmas is a good day to forgive and forget-- a good day to throw away prejudices and hatreds-- a good day to fill your heart and your house, and the hearts and houses of others, with sunshine.
(Col. Ingersoll's Christmas Sermon was attacked in an angry rebuttal by Rev. Dr. Buckley, editor of the Christian Advocate, the recognized organ of the Methodist Church, who called upon the public to boycott the newspaper for publishing Ingersoll's opinion. On the very same day the Christian Advocate article appeared, the Telegram published an answer from Colonel Ingersoll that enflamed his critics even more:)
COL. INGERSOLL'S REPLY TO DR. BUCKLEY:
Whenever an orthodox editor attacks an unbeliever, look out for kindness, charity and love. The gentle editor of the Christian Advocate charges me with having written three "gigantic falsehoods"...
... According to the orthodox creeds, Christianity came with the tidings that the human race was totally depraved, and that all men were in a lost condition, and that all who rejected or failed to believe the new religion, would be tormented in eternal fire. These were not "tidings of great joy".
If the passengers on some great ship were told that the ship was to be wrecked, that a few would be saved and that nearly all would go to the bottom, would they talk about "tidings of great joy"? It is to be presumed that Christ knew what his mission was, and what he came for. He says: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother." In my judgement, these are not "tidings of great joy."
Now as to the message of eternal grief:
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous (meaning the Methodists) into life eternal."
"He that believeth not shall be damned."
"He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."
"Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
"And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever."
Knowing, as we do, that but few people have been believers, that during the last eighteen hundred years not one in a hundred has died in the faith, and that consequently nearly all the dead are in hell, it can truthfully be said that Christianity came with a message of eternal grief.
Now, as to the second "gigantic falsehood,"... In the Old Testament there is nothing about punishment in some other world, nothing about the flames and torments of hell. When Jehovah killed one of his enemies he was satisfied. His revenge was glutted when the victim was dead. The Old Testament gave the future to sleep and oblivion. But in the New Testament we are told that the punishment in another world is everlasting, and that "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever."
This awful doctrine, these frightful texts, filled the future with fear and flame. Building on these passages, the orthodox churches have constructed a penitentiary, in which nearly all the sons of men are to be imprisoned and tormented forever, and of this prison God is the keeper. The doors are opened only to receive. The doctrine of eternal punishment is the infamy of infamies. As I have often said, the man who believes in eternal torment, in the justice of endless pain, is suffering from at least two diseases-- petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of the brain.
The next question is whether Christianity has deprived God of the pardoning power. The Methodist Church and every orthodox church teaches that this life is a period of probation; that there is no chance given for reformation after death; that God gives no opportunity to repent in another world... If this dogma be true, then God will never release a soul from hell ... the pardoning power will never be exercised. How happy God will be and how happy all the saved will be, knowing that billions of his children, of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, and children are convicts in the eternal dungeons, and that the words of pardon will never be spoken! Yet this is in accordance with the promise contained in the New Testament, of happiness here and eternal joy hereafter, to those who would desert brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children.
It seems to me clear that Christianity came with a message of eternal grief; that it did make God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, that the penitentiary was destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men, and that it deprived god of the pardoning power...
According to the Methodists, God has an eternal prison... an everlasting Siberia. There is to be an eternity of grief, of agony and shame... The editor of the Christian Advocate has no idea of what intellectual liberty means. He ought to know that a man should not be insulted because another man disagrees with him... I do not warn people against reading Catholic or Methodist papers or books. But I do tell them to investigate for themselves, to stand by what they believe to be true, to deny the false, and above all things, to preserve their mental manhood. The good Doctor wants the Telegram destroyed... because it published something with which the reverend Dr. does not agree. It is too late. That day has faded in the West of the past. The doctor of theology has lost his power. Theological thunder has lost its lightning... it is nothing now but noise, pleasing those who make it and amusing those who hear....
What have I to say to the Doctor's personal abuse? Nothing. A man may call me a devil, or the devil, or he may say that I am incapable of telling the truth, or that I tell lies, and yet all this proves nothing. My arguments remain unanswered.
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CHRISTMAS
by Barbara G. Walker
The Woman's Encyclopedia Of Myths And Secrets
For its first three centuries, the Christian church knew no birthday for its savior. During the 4th century there was much argument about adoption of a date. Some favored the popular date of the Koreion, when the divine Virgin gave birth to the new Aeon in Alexandria. (Joseph Campbell, The Mythic Image, 1974). Now called Twelfth Night or Epiphany, this date is still the official nativity in Armenian churches, and celebrated with more pomp than Christmas by the Greek Orthodox. (C. A. Miles, Christmas Customs and Traditions, 1975).
Roman churchmen tended to favor the Mithraic Winter-Solstice festival called Dies Natalis Solis Invictus, Birthday of the Unconquered Sun. (Salomon Reinach, Orpheus, 1930). Blended with the Greek sun-festival of the Helia by the Emperor Aurelian, this December 25 nativity also honored such gods as Attis, Dionysus, Osiris, Syrian Baal, and other versions of the solar son of man who bore such titles as Light of the World, Sun of Righteousness, and Savior. (Homer Smith, Man and His Gods, 1952).
Most pagan Mysteries celebrated the birth of the Divine Child at the Winter Solstice. Norsemen celebrated the birthday of their Lord, Frey, at the nadir of the sun in the darkest days of winter, known to them as Yule. Early in the 4th century the Roman church adopted December 25 because the people were used to calling it a god's birthday. But eastern churches refused to honor it until 375 A.D. (Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough). The fiction that some record existed in the land of Jesus's alleged birth certainly could not be upheld, for the church of Jerusalem continued to ignore the official date until the 7th Century. (Miles, Christmas Customs and Traditions).
Trappings such as Yule logs, gifts, lights, mistletoe, holly, carols, feasts and processions were altogether pagan. They were drawn from worship of the Goddess as Mother of the Divine Child. Christmas trees evolved from the pinea silva, pine groves attached to temples of the Great Mother...
Christmas celebrations remained so obviously pagan over the years that many churchmen bitterly denounced their "carnal pomp and jollity." Polydor Virgil said "Dancing, masques, mummeries, stageplays, and other such Christmas disorders now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalian and Bacchanalian festivals; which should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them." (W. C. Hazlitt, Faiths and Folklore of the British Isles, 1965). Puritans in 17th century Massachusetts tried to ban Christmas altogether because of its overt heathenism. (Claudia de Lys, The Giant Book of Superstitions, 1979). Inevitably, the attempt failed.
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OUR PAGAN CHRISTMAS (Excerpts)
by R. J. Condon
Part I. The Solar Rebirth.
The Egyptian Nativity.
Not the least of Christian borrowings from paganism is the Nativity story itself. Some 1700 years B.C. its prototype was being applied to the firstborn sons of the pharaohs, the kings and sun-gods incarnate of Egypt. The legend is portrayed in four scenes on the wall of the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Amen at Luxor, built by Amenhotep III. In the first scene the ibis-headed god Thoth, the Egyptian Gabriel, hand upraised in a manner reminiscent of Christian paintings of the Annunciation, hails the virgin queen Mut-em-ua (Mother-of-one!) and informs her that she is to bear a son (Amenhotep) in the character of Horus, the divine child.
Next comes the descent of the Holy Spirit. The god Kneph, "spirit" by name, assisted by the goddess Hathor, impregnates the virgin by holding the "ankh" symbol of life to her mouth. Conception is indicated in the queen's fuller form.
The third scene is the nativity, with the mother seated on the stool then used in childbirth. A nurse holds the newborn child.
Finally, we have the Adoration. The child is enthroned, receiving gifts and homage from gods and men. Behind the ram-headed Kneph are three human figures, kneeling and offering gifts with one hand and life with the other. The Egyptologist Samuel Sharpe declared:
In this picture we have the Annunciation, the Conception, the Birth and the Adoration, as described in the first and second chapters of Luke's gospel; and as we have historical assurance that the chapters in Matthew's gospel which contain the miraculous birth are an after addition not in the earliest manuscripts, it seems probable that these two poetical chapters in Luke may also be unhistorical, and borrowed from the Egyptian accounts of the miraculous births of their kings.
The Three Kings.
Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons in the second century, wrote: "The gnostics truly declared that all the supernatural transactions asserted in the Gospels were counterparts (or representations) of what took place above." Many scholars have seen the key to the Nativity story in astronomical allegory. Take, for instance, those three kneeling figures who were known to the Egyptians ages before they were supposed to have followed a star to Bethlehem. We are told that wise men or magi came from the east, in search of a king whose star they had seen in the east, and Roman Catholic legend says that these wise men were three kings. Now if, on a clear evening in midwinter, we look eastward, we see the most striking of all constellations mounting the sky. The three stars so conspicuous in Orion's belt point to the east from whence they came, as if announcing a marvel. And the marvel comes; Sirius, the most brilliant of all the host of heaven, rises in the east in line with those three stars, known of old as the Three Kings, a name they still bear in some parts of Europe. To the Egyptians, Sirius was the most important star of all, for they regulated their calendars by its heliacal rising. At one period in Egypt, Sirius reached its highest point at midnight on December 24, the moment of the solar rebirth, and accordingly the star was known as the Herald of the Sun. Thus it was true, astronomically speaking, that the Three Kings had "seen his star in the east," the Herald proclaiming the advent of the real King of Kings.
The Stable At Bethlehem.
The tradition that Jesus was born in a stable may be similarly accounted for. When the sun was being reborn in Virgo, the constellation directly under the earth was Capricorn, the Goat, also known as the Stable of Augeas. Thus the sun was said to have risen from the Stable. All the sins committed on earth gradually drifted down to Capricorn; hence the filthy condition of the Stable whose cleansing was one of the twelve zodiacal labours of Hercules, himself a sun-god. The second-century church father Justin Martyr remarked that Christ was born when the sun had its birth in the Augean Stable, Jesus coming as a second Hercules to cleanse a foul world. There is another Stable in the constellation Auriga, on either side of which are Taurus the Bull and Ursa Major, known in Egypt as the Ass of Typhon. Here we have the ox and ass of the traditional Nativity scene.
Crib and Manger.
The crib and manger originated in Egypt. There the earth was mystically spoken of as the Mount, whose summit was Apta (or upper earth), this being the birthplace of the sun. But apta was also the word for "crib" and "manger," which accordingly became symbols of the birthplace. Hence the exhibition of the solar child in one or other of these makeshift cradles was an annual feature in the streets and temples of ancient Egypt.
The Star of Bethlehem.
Stars heralding the births of gods and great men were a mythological commonplace in the ancient world. Stars signalled the births of Buddha, Krishna, Lao-Tsze and of Moses and Abraham in Jewish legend. The Persian Zend-Avesta, compiled long before the Christian era, attributes a remarkable prophecy to Zoroaster (6th Century B.C.). It reads:
"You, my children, shall be the first honoured by the manifestation of that divine person who is to appear in the world. A star shall go before you to conduct you to the place of his nativity, and when you shall find him, present to him your oblations and sacrifices, for he is indeed your lord and an everlasting king."... This prophecy could well have been known to the writer of the Nativity story in Matthew's gospel. It was certainly known to the author of the apocryphal Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, for we read there that "the Wise Men came from the East to Jerusalem according to the prophecy of Zoroaster."
The Holy Family.
Mary was both a virgin and a mother, impossible in nature but a familiar concept of pagan mythology. Races as far apart as the Mexicans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Etruscans, the Teutons, and the Scandinavians all knew the virgin-mother goddess. There can be little doubt that the Virgin Mary has been modelled directly upon the Egyptian Isis, for the two are virtually indistinguishable. The qualities which so endear Mary to the Roman Catholics are the ones which made Isis so popular in Egypt. Both goddesses, gentle mothers that they were, could intercede with the all-powerful creator and stern judge far more effectively than their sons, and accordingly both have been styled Intercessor... Other titles of Isis include Our Lady, Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Saviour of Souls, and Immaculate Virgin, all appropriated by her Christian counterpart. Like isis before her, Mary is portrayed standing on a crescent moon with an arch of stars above her head. Certain images of Isis were celebrated for their miraculous movements, or the shedding of tears, and she was even said to have appeared to her worshippers on rare but special occasions. The miraculous work of "Our Lady" was naturally continued by the Christian church which gradually took over the cult of Isis. In fourth-century Alexandria the Temple of Isis and the Church of St. Mary stood side by side, the devotees of the mother goddesses indifferently frequenting either. The end came in the sixth century, when the last remaining Temple of isis, on the Nile island of Philae, became a Christian church.
Figures of Isis nursing the infant Horus were taken from the temples to serve as the madonna and child... Isis is said to have suckled Horus in the house of Seb (protector of Isis and as earth-god, the foster-father of Horus during his infancy on earth), and it was Seb who accompanied the holy mother and child in their flight from the evil serpent Herrut until they were safely hidden in the marshes of Lower Egypt. Here we have the origin of the unhistorical Flight into Egypt. Evidently the gospel writer "Matthew" took advantage of the similarity of sound between Herrut and Herod to work in this piece of Egyptian mythology.
Horus himself was but one of several types of God the Son in Egypt. Strange as it may seem, the Egyptians knew a "Jesus" some two thousand years before the Christian saviour is said to have appeared. This was Iu-em-hetep, "He who comes with peace." Jesus in the Gospels is both "he that should come" and the giver of peace. Like Jesus, Iu was a miraculous healer and famed for his wise teaching. Some scholars have seen in Iu the Egyptian form of the name Jesus. Whether it is or not, a monument in the church on Caldy Island, Pembrokeshire, in southwest Wales testifies to the Christian use of Iu for Jesus as late as the ninth century.
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SKEPTICAL QUOTES:
The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun.
--Thomas Paine
All children are born atheists, but Santa Claus can make god believers out of them for life. Teaching children to believe in Santa at a time when they believe everything their parents tell them prepares their minds to accept the adults' god when they are a little older. Thus, faith in Santa Claus serves as a springboard for religious belief... Is belief in Santa Claus harmful to children? Yes, if you think that predisposing children to the irrational belief systems of adults is harmful.
--Gary C. Grassl, Nov/Dec 1994 The American Rationalist
"He sees you when you're sleepin'... He knows when you're awake, He knows if you've been bad or good... so, be good for goodness sake.."
--lyrics to "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"
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THE BIRTHDAY OF THE GODS
Dorothy B. Thompson
Christmas, that great mass of Christ
With jingle bells and holly.
It's on us once again and so
We're generous and jolly!
Now, Jesus has to share that day
With lots of other saviors,
Like Krishna, Quexalcote and Thor,
God-men of like behaviors.
Each was born of virgin on
December twenty-five,
The day of winter solstice when
The sun takes a nosedive.
Twenty other saviors who more
Ancient far than he,
Were born that day, did miracles,
Were hung up on a tree.
Angels, shepherds, wisemen, stars,
A setting most familiar.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh
Were not at all peculiar.
Even the name Jesus was
Borrowed from the Druids.
Their god's name was Hesus
And he sacrificed red fluids.
December twenty-fifth ever
The birthday of sungods
Was borrowed by the Christians too
To tighten up the odds
That this would be accepted as a
Full-blown true religion,
To build up wealth and power over
Dedicated pigeons.
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SPOTLIGHT ON AAI MEMBER SOCIETIES:
Atheists/Agnostics of Wisconsin
The purposes of the AAW are to:
1. Promote knowledge of, refinement of, and appreciation for the principles of rationalism, freethought, atheism, agnosticism, and related subjects.
2. Support the principles of separation of church and state.
AAW Update:
The Atheists & Agnostics of Wisconsin have been busy with our monthly meetings and programs, among which we have discussed the impact of November's election results for freethought issues in Wisconsin; watched a superb and comedic video by Herb Silverman on the history of his efforts to seek the Virigina governship as an atheist in a Bible Belt state, and his years of struggle to become a notary public as someone who refuses to swear an oath of belief in God.
In December we once again voted Jim Cox as President, Bethany Cox as Treasurer, Mark Shahan as Membership Chair, and re-appointed Richard Russell to continue handling our AAW telephone "hotline".
Upcoming on January 4th will be a protest rally at the Wisconsin state capital in Madison when Governor Tommy Thompson is sworn in for yet another term. We hope to draw attention to the Thompson administration's continuing efforts to erode the wall of seperation between religious right and the state government. AAW member and political activist Dennis Coyier is coordinating this activity.
Incidently, one of our AAW members, Jim Mueller, ran against Thompson as the Libertarian Party candidate for governor.
Also in January will be our Solstice Party, a time of social conviviality and just plain fun for the freethought folk who make up the AAW.
James A. Cox
President, AAW
http://www.AtheistAlliance.org/aaw
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ATHEIST ALLIANCE NEWS:
Next Easter weekend, (April 2-4, 1999), all atheists and other Freethinkers are invited to Austin, Texas for the 1999 Freethought Roundup!, the national convention of the Atheist Alliance. Speakers already scheduled include DanBarker, who will speak and perform a Freethought Concert, and Dr. Arthur F. Ide, author of over 400 titles on wide variety of issues, many of relevance to non-believers. The Atheist Community of Austin, host for the event, is still entertaining suggestions for speakers and workshops.
A Friday dinner will be served, as well as lunch on Saturday and a banquet Saturday evening. All meals will feature the flavorful fare for which Austin is widely known. Plans are also being made for a visit to Esther's Follies for some irreverent hilarity, and of course there is always a possibility of a drive to the recent cenotaph battleground of Comfort, Texas. Expect the weather to be fair and the wildflowers to be in bloom.
The 1999 Freethought Roundup will be held at Austin's Downtown OMNI Hotel at 700 San Jacinto (512-476-3700). We are getting a special rate, so tell them you're with the Freethought Roundup (or Atheist Alliance Convention) to get the good deal.
The OMNI is built on the site once occupied by the official residence of the President of the Republic of Texas, which burned down in 1847, and is only a block away from 6th Street's collection of restaurants, live music venues, and the hottest night life in Texas. The Capitol Building is a few blocks away, and most of Austin can be seen from the rooftop pool.
The 1999 Freethought Roundup! promises to be an exciting, informative, and revitalizing event for all non-believers. The friendly folks at the Atheist Community of Austin will do their best to make your convention experience a positive one.
Contact Don Rhoades at 512-892-3188 or Mary Sue Osborne for further information.
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ABOUT THE ATHEIST OUTREACH NEWSLETTER:
Atheist Outreach Newsletter is an online publication of Atheist Outreach, a member organization of Atheist Alliance, Inc. We are an organization of volunteers whose goals are to promote freethought issues such as the separation of state and church, provide a means for atheists around the world to communicate with each other, and to support the aims and purposes of the Atheist Alliance and its member organizations.
Membership in Atheist Outreach is free. Simply send your name and email address to AtheistOutreach@atheistalliance.org. You are also invited to submit letters, articles or comments for inclusion in our online publication. Should you prefer not to receive future issues, please send an "unsubscribe" message to AtheistOutreach@atheistalliance.org.
All newsletter subscribers have permission to utilize the articles on thematically-appropriate internet discussion groups, websites, and organizational newsletters. Please give credit to Atheist Outreach when doing so.
Sandy Feroe, Editor-in-Chief
AtheistOutreach@atheistalliance.org
http://www.atheistalliance.org
"A free mind in a free society can still make mistakes, but those errors will never be canonized."
- Jim Cox, Contributing Editor
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