Free Inquiry Forum

From Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster:

The Florida State School Board is holding public hearings to talk about changes to science standards.New standards were written by scientists and educators, but some evangelical Christians want Creationism and Intelligent Design taught as well.

Clearly, this is an issue that concerns us. Are there any Pastafarians in Florida willing to give us a first-hand report?

They’ve held a meeting in Jacksonville already. There’s a meeting in Fort Lauderdale next week.

You can read the article from First Coast News, though it does not say much.

A more informative article: here

*Update*

The meeting in Ft. Lauderdale is scheduled for:

JANUARY 8TH from 5:30-7:30pm

Can anyone make it? A prize to anyone who shows up in pirate regalia and asks - respectfully - if the new standards will be inclusive of the beliefs of Pastafarians.

From the Herald-Tribune:

Human bodies exhibit to be shown in Sarasota

SARASOTA — The exhibit that has drawn praise and criticism for its intimate look at the inner workings of the human body is coming to Sarasota beginning this week.

“Bodies Revealed” opens for what promoters call a limited engagement on Friday at G.WIZ, the hands-on science museum. The length of the exhibit’s stay will be decided by its popularity, organizers said.

Full article here

If you haven’t seen the BODIES exhibit yet, I highly recommend it.

More information available at the G.WIZ webiste:
http://www.gwiz.org/

PBS’s NOVA will be airing a new dramatization of the Dover, PA case on November 13 at 8:00 pm.

More details here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/

Stephen Pinker will be a featured author at the Sarasota Reading Festival.  It looks like he will be doing a reading from his book around 2:30 PM at Fellowship Hall in the First United Methodist Church on Pineapple (schedule):

Steven Pinker
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
(Viking)
New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books-including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate-have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today’s most important and popular science writers. Now, in The Stuff of Thought, Pinker marries two of the subjects he knows best: language and human nature. The result is a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. What does swearing reveal about our emotions? Why does innuendo disclose something about relationships? Even the names we give our babies have important things to say about our relations to our children and to society.

Clip from a Stephen Pinker lecture on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=eZW89kq0aBc

I just noticed that Michael Shermer will be appearing on the Colbert Report on Tuesday, August 21.  That should be a good one.

From C-SPAN2:

A monthly LIVE author interview, featuring your calls
Sunday 12 PM-3 PM ET, re-airs Sunday at midnight ET

Join us for a conversation with author Edward O. Wilson. Pulitzer Prize-winner and biologist Edward O. Wilson has taught at Harvard University since the mid-1950’s, and is currently a research professor there. Mr. Wilson was named one of America’s 25 most influential people by Time Magazine in 1996. His books include: Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, On Human Nature, The Ants, The Diversity of Life, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, and Nature Revealed: Selected Writings 1949-2006.

From Randi.org:

Friday May 11th at 9pm Eastern. ABC 20/20 will air a 2 hour special: “Seeing is Believing: The Power of Faith.” One of the topics in the special is Peter Popoff, who Randi exposed 20 years ago on the Tonight Show (watch video). ABC sent a video crew to the JREF and got a good interview with Randi discussing Popoff and the so called Faith Healers. Make sure not to miss it. Afterward make it on over to the forums for further discussion on the topic.

State Representative KEITH FITZGERALD has just arrived back in Sarasota on Sunday after the conclusion of the 60-day Florida Legislative session.

He will speak on this WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 at 7 PM in the auditorium of SELBY PUBLIC LIBRARY, 1331 First Street, downtown Sarasota on WHAT THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE HAS DONE TO OUR CHURCH-STATE WALL. This is the spring quarter public forum of the Sarasota-Manatee Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  THE PUBLIC IS INVITED AND THERE IS NO CHARGE FOR ADMISSION.

At least equally important as what was enacted is what some legislators concerned with keeping religious doctrine out of our laws did to keep several bad bills from passing.  Learn about what happened or might still happen (a special session has been called for June 12) regarding tax credits for religious schools, sectarian prayer in public bodies, stem cell research, abortion restrictions, gay rights,  potential murder charges for foetal death, religious interference in public health vaccination, and other issues. Find out about the stands of Legislative leaders, Governor Crist and others at Tallahassee on church-state separation.  Rep. Fitzgerald was directly involved in most of these issues.

Dr. Keith Fitzgerald was elected to the State Legislature by the voters of Legislative District 69 in November 2006.  He serves on the Legislature’s Economic Expansion and Infrastructure Council, the Environmental Protection Commitee and the Ethics and Elections Commitee.  He is a professor of Political Science at New College of Florida.  He earned his PhD in Political Science at the University of Indiana. He and his wife are the parents of six-year-old twins.  Rep. Fitzgerald was directly involved in most of these issues.  His presentation will be informal, and there will be ample time for questions and discussion.

From Christian News Wire:

After ABC ran a story in January about hundreds of atheists videotaping themselves blaspheming the Holy Spirit, best-selling author Ray Comfort contacted the network and offered to prove God’s existence, absolutely, scientifically, without mentioning the Bible or faith. He and Kirk Cameron (co-hosts of an award-winning Christian TV program) challenged the two originators of the “Blasphemy Challenge” to a debate on the existence of God. According to Comfort, he and Cameron (an ex-atheist) are qualified to debate on the subject. Comfort had not only written a book titled “God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists”, but had spoken at Yale on the subject of atheism, and been flown by American Atheists, Inc., to their 2001 annual convention to be a platform speaker.

ABC loved the idea, and will host a debate in New York City on May 5, 2007. Moderated by Martin Bashir, the debate will be streamed LIVE on their website and will also be filmed for “Nightline.”

For those of you not familiar with Ray Comfort, he is the genius that came up with using the banana as proof of the existence of God. I’m not kidding. Watch the YouTube video of this argument here. (Nice rebuttal here.)

If they plan on using the “banana argument” as “absolute proof of God’s existence” in the debate on May 5th, they might as well not even show up.

Nightline has more here.

UPDATE 5/11/07:
The full unedited version of the debate is available here.

This Saturday, April 28: A NATIONWIDE DAY OF PROTEST DEMANDING IMPEACHMENT AND LAUNCHING IMPEACHMENT SUMMER

Rally in Sarasota this Saturday:

CODE PINK is organizing impeachment sign holding on the corner of US 41 & Bee Ridge Rd. 3900 block of US 41 at the corner of Bee Ridge Rd. They are looking for as many participants as possible and at least ten volunteers to help out with making signs. The action will take place from 10AM to noon. Contact: bellaespana@verizon.net

More info:
http://impeach07.org/