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The blue whale can produce sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.
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Atheist Census
Atheist Census, a project of Atheist Alliance International (AAI), an aims to build a picture of the world's atheists - location, genders, ages, education and religious (if any) background - and use that information to demonstrate the presence and importance of atheists in societies around the world.
So far the project has counted over 200,000 atheists! Are you one of them?
Stand up and be counted! |
30% Off All DVDs!
For a limited time, you can get all RDFRS DVDs for 30% click the picture below or click here!
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The inaugural newsletter of Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science!
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Welcome!
By Richard Dawkins
Welcome to the new monthly newsletter of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Although RichardDawkins.net is the nucleus of our activities, and we use other social media too, we have recently felt the need to issue a regular monthly newsletter to provide a different and more direct connection with our supporters, and this is its first edition. In addition to news about the activities of the US and UK foundations (they are legally separate entities although they have similar aims) the Newsletter will carry occasional "Calls to Action".
I'd like to take the opportunity of this first Newsletter to write a brief update on progress towards the shared aims of the two foundations. I am proud of the many things the foundations have accomplished, and will here list only a few.
Richard Dawkins is a preeminent evolutionary biologist and the former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, a position he held from 1995-2008. He is the author of, among others, The Ancestor's Tale, The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, The Greatest Show on Earth and the forthcoming An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist.
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Herding Kittens
Conference Child Care
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science provides child care services at national atheist, secular and skeptic conferences around the country.
Most recently at the American Atheists 50th Anniversary conference in Austin, TX. Child care is needed at atheist conferences because it also allows more people, especially women, to engage in the atheist/secular/skeptic community.
The care provided is beneficial for children as well as they have an opportunity to interact with other non-theist/skeptic children and will engage in fun activities that encourage and strengthen critical thinking skills.
Please consider donating to help us continue this important project!
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Richard Dawkins- We Are Atheism
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 | | Quincie looking at Sahelanthropus Tchadensis, 6-7 MYO, from Chad. Click the picture to learn more about human evolution. |
At the Heart of Science: A Child's Perspective
by R. Elisabeth Cornwell, PhD
It's been said that children are little scientists, always looking for answers to difficult questions, and mostly looking to adults to answer them. This fact became even more salient to me after spending a week with my seven-year-old niece, Quincie, in Washington, D.C.. Quincie, like most children her age, is a little learning machine - she soaks up information and language at a tremendous rate that all adults would envy. However, like other children, she doesn't always have a good filter to winnow away bad information and maintain the good.
This is why children are so vulnerable to indoctrination.
We visited many D.C. museums, including the Hirshorn, the Portrait Museum, the Air and Space Museum, the American History Museum, the Zoo, and the Natural History Museum. Each of them allowed us the opportunity to discuss new ideas and talk about both serious and not so serious topics. But by far, the museum she enjoyed the most was the Natural History Museum.
She delighted in the gems and mineral exhibits, and much preferred the raw minerals, crystals, and gems to the displays of jewelry. The exhibits are very well done, and they provide good, comprehensible information on how rocks are formed, the tremendous amount of time needed, and how the alignment of atoms determines their shape. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to discuss the age of the earth, and how science can explain so much of our world and beyond.
Each exhibit, from the butterflies and insects exhibit to the ocean exhibit, was another discovery of the beauty of science and of life. But by far, the two exhibits that gave us the greatest opportunity to talk about evolution were the Mammal and the Human Origins exhibits...continue reading.
R. Elisabeth Cornwell is an evolutionary psychologist. She is also the Executive Director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Her innovative ideas include the OUT Campaign, Non-Believers Giving Aid, the science vignettes, the Four Horsemen and other DVDs, and bringing childcare to national conferences.
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Department Updates
Outreach
The newest addition to the RDFRS team is Joel Guttormson, Outreach and Event Coordinator. He will be initiating science and charity events in partnership with national and local organizations, managing social media and RDFRS events. He is also the editor of the newsletter! If you have any suggestions please let him know. | Website
A number of new features have been added to the website. A few are;
- Real time streaming of comments on the home page
- Numerous security enhancements
- Carousel scrolling of articles on the home page
- Release of Spanish language website
Click here to see more additions and what's to come in the near future!
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Pardon me, Mr. President, might I have a word with you?
by J. Anderson Thomson, Jr., M.D.
"On the dogma of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Archibald Carey, 1816.
If Mr. Jefferson were alive today, you could say to him, "Pardon me, Mr. President, might I have a word with you? Religion is no longer beyond the comprehension of the human mind. We now know why human minds generate religious beliefs, why they generate the specific religious beliefs they do, why human minds are vulnerable to subscribe to those beliefs, and why we are eager to spread such beliefs. We are in this position today because when you wrote that letter to Archibald Carey in 1816, there was a seven year old boy in England who would grow up to change our view of all life on earth. Not only that, this man's discovery would change our understanding of the human mind: how it came into being, why the human mind is structured as it is, and how it functions to produce religious beliefs."
The young boy in question was Charles Darwin, who in 1859 published On the Origin of Species. Some might be unaware that a reflection of Darwin's genius is found in the next to the last paragraph of that monumental book. "Psychology will be based on a new foundation." Although psychology took longer than biology to see the implications of evolution by natural selection, when it did, there was an explosion in knowledge. One of the outgrowths of this new knowledge from evolutionary psychology and the cognitive neurosciences is an understanding of the origin and nature of religious beliefs. In this article, and in subsequent ones, I hope to demonstrate to you that this knowledge about religious beliefs is actually quite simple, like Darwin's idea of natural selection...continue reading.
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Do Something about the Religious Right Getting Rich on Tax Money
by Sean Faircloth
You may have heard that Minister Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral went bankrupt. Rev. Schuller, however, did not. Neither did his relatives. And you, the taxpayer, were a big help. The fact that a bankruptcy occurred sheds rare light on internal church finances.
For example, 2010 bankruptcy court records show that eight Crystal Cathedral Ministries' employees, including family members of the founder Robert A. Schuller, took flagrant advantage of this tax exemption. According to bankruptcy court filings in California:
-- Robert A. Schuller, the megachurch founder, received a $98,861 tax-free housing allowance annually; A son and daughter of Schuller received tax-free housing allowances that totaled $236,768 annually.
-- Three of Schuller's sons-in-law received tax-free housing allowances that totaled $306,093 annually.
-- Fred Southard, chief financial officer of Crystal Cathedral Ministries and who owns a home in Newport Beach, California, worth $2.3 million, received a tax-free housing allowance of $132,000 annually, and his son-in-law, a part-time pastor at the megachurch, received a tax-free housing allowance of $58,747 annually.
In the Crystal Cathedral Ministries case, the tax-free housing allowances totaled more than $832,000 annually. When the mega-church went bankrupt, the Schullers and top officials kept the money from the tax exemption.
This special tax exemption in the Internal Revenue Code allows a house of worship to provide one or more of its "ministers of the Gospel" tax-free housing or tax-free income equivalent to the rental value of the clergy's residence. This housing income is not counted as part of the clergy's income, and has been extended to all those who perform ministerial duties, including sacerdotal functions, conducting religious worship, and controlling or maintaining religious organizations. Clergy may also deduct their real estate taxes and mortgage interest from their taxes-as others without the parsonage exemption may do. Yet clergy are allowed to do so even if the mortgage interest was paid with the tax-free housing income. This is a "double-dip", generally prohibited by the tax code - except in this case...continue reading
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7 Tips for Coming Out as an Atheist
by David G. McAfee
 Coming out as an atheist doesn't only apply to those who are new to non-belief, and it's not just a one-off personal event only involving close family. Public non-belief means many different things to many people but, in a society that's largely intolerant of faithlessness, it's always an ongoing process that arises again each time an atheist is asked about his or her beliefs - or lack thereof.
It's important to note, especially for young non-believers growing up in religious homes, that if you're comfortable with your current living situation, it might not be necessary to "rock the boat" until you're older. That being said, if it's possible to be honest with family without serious repercussions, I wouldn't discourage it. In all cases, the decision to come out is completely dependent on an individual's circumstances.
Here are seven tips for coming out as an atheist!
David G. McAfee is a journalist, a religious studies scholar, and author of Mom, Dad I'm an Atheist: The Guide to Coming Out as a Non-believer.
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