Freethought Day, etc.

Happy Freethought Day! Freethought Day is celebrated by secularists to mark the end of the Salem Witch Trials. For more information and history about the holiday, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought_Day or http://www.churchoffreethought.org/library/36-lectures-and-sermons/288-a-holiday-for-facts-and-reason. In honor of the day, I am going to start a series of posts of an article about critical thinking.

Each week on Monday, I will post a part of the article. I will continue this for 5-7 weeks until the article has been posted in its entirety. The article is titled, They Think; Therefore They Know? The title is an adaptation of a famous quote, by Rene Descartes, usually translated in English as "I think, therefore I am".

SCUSA, HCOF, and Camp Quest Texas

Today I went to the Houston Church of Freethought monthly service (www.hcof.org) along with several others who are involved with SCUSA. Several presenters told stories of different creation myths including several Native American myths, a Norse myth, a Hindu myth, and others.

Representatives from Camp Quest Texas were at HCOF today to announce a T-shirt contest and kick off Houston fundraising efforts. SCUSA will be organizing fundraising in Houston for Camp Quest, so if you would like to donate or have any fundraising ideas, please contact us! Soon we will have a link to Camp Quest on our webpage as well as information about the fundraising activities. We are going to be competing with Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin to see who can raise the most funds for CQTX. Please check back for more!

Tomorrow is Freethought Day! In honor of the day, I am going to start a new series of weekly posts which will explore critical thinking and will analyze a specific quote which will be featured in the next SCUSA newsletter.

Thanks!
Noelle

SCUSA Media Appearances at AAI Convention

While at the AAI Convention, I was able to participate in several press events to talk about SCUSA and AAI. It was my first experience in front of cameras, and once I got over the nervous jitters I was excited to talk about SCUSA and AAI.

The first media event was a short interview on Friday afternoon for a documentary about Atheism. The documentary's goal is to show Atheists as normal people who are good, moral, and tries to combat the misconceptions about Atheists, which is very much in line with SCUSA's mission and vision. During the interview, I spoke about SCUSA's purpose, what we are trying to accomplish, and why we are needed. I'm not familiar with a website or title for the documentary yet, but once I get more information I will post it.

The second interview I did was with Joe (moJoe) from Atheist Nexus and the Chariots of Iron podcast. We discussed AAI and the Ambassador Program for about 1 minute before the conversation deteriorated into them teasing me about zombies (which I strongly dislike). You can view the video on the Atheist News page at www.atheistnexus.org.

Finally, I participated in the Dogma Free America live feed on Saturday night during the Atheist News party. People go online and ask questions to the interviewees live and we answer them. There was more teasing about zombies, but I did get a chance to get some good information out to the public.

Thanks!

AAI Convention Follow Up

I attended the AAI Convention this weekend in Burbank, California and had a great time! The weekend was packed with great speakers including Richard Dawkins, Bill Mahr (who received the Richard Dawkins award for Religulous), PZ Meyers, Jerry Coyne, Eugenie Scott, and many others.

My main role during the conference was as the Ambassador Director and Texas Ambassador for AAI, so I met many members of AAI and members of AAI's Affiliate groups. I also met with most of the other AAI Ambassadors and we had some great times getting to know each other as well as a productive meeting on Sunday to discuss the Ambassador Program.

However, I also had the chance to get some visibility for SCUSA and to make some important headway for our organization. AAI has agreed to partner with SCUSA, which means that we now have an important and well-known international organization in our corner! AAI will be promoting us as an Atheist charity and we will have visibility on an international level.

I'm looking at getting a booth for SCUSA at the AAI conference in Melbourne, Australia next March which will be our first international conference. Stay tuned for more on this as I work out the details! Thanks for your support of the SECULAR Center!

Nursing Home Volunteering

We had a great time this weekend socializing with several seniors at a West Houston nursing home. The activity? Bingo. The prizes? Candy. Who won? Everyone! We all left with heaps of candy and some great new memories. The nursing home residents were entertaining, funny, friendly, and sweet. Our volunteers were wonderful examples of caring nontheists who did their best to ensure the residents had a great time.

We didn't discuss religion. We didn't debate politics or healthcare reform. We just had a great time playing a fun game with some new friends. Pictures of the two hour event are on our website at http://www.secularcenterusa.org/. Thanks so much to the volunteers that came out and enriched the lives of some Houstonian seniors!