Subject: Darwin Day and UUCA hUUmanists

From: "Lance and Letitia Haworth" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 20:31:48 -0500

Dear Dr. Stephens,

Thanks very much for your message about Darwin Day, which was passed along
to me by my wife who happens to be the membership coordinator at the
Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Virginia.

I'm glad to report that there is an active humanist(or "hUUmanist") group at
our church.  We are indeed aware of Darwin Day and plan to celebrate the
occasion at our bi-weekly (fortnightly?) hUUmanists' meeting on Monday,
February 13 with a showing of a recent Nightline special on the topic of the
Dover, PA school district's decision to support intelligent design as a
'scientific' alternative to evolution, followed by an open discussion.  Our
meetings are invariably lively and well-attended and provide a focus for
secular humanism at UUCA.  Last year we celebrated Darwin Day with a program
based on Darwin's wonderful letters to his family, friends, and colleagues,
and joined with our minister Michael McGee in a Sunday morning service built
around humanist ideas.  I have pasted in (below) a more extensive
description of our activities.  The web page link is 'under reconstruction'
at the moment, but will be up and running again soon.

Please send any additional Darwin Day e-mails to me at [email-masked] as
well as to [email-masked] if possible - I'll guarantee they get some
attention!

Congratulations on the Darwin Day web page, by the way - it's outstanding!

Sincerely

Lance Haworth
for UUCA hUUmanists
[email-masked]

UUCA hUUmanists

UUCA hUUmanists are members and friends of the UUCA who meet regularly for
informal discussion sessions, talks, videos and topics centered around our
common interests in humanism. Many of us - though not all - would describe
ourselves as secular humanists.  We reject all dogma, including our
own...free speech, and free thought, are cherished.
The group began meeting in the mid-1990's under the auspices of the UUCA
Adult Education program and has continued independently ever since as a
community of kindred spirits (!).  We meet on alternate Mondays from 7:30pm
until 9:15 at the church. Events are announced in the Sunday Order of
Service and in the Arlingtarian. These meetings are lively and open to all -
everyone is welcome!  Between 15 and 30 people usually participate, and one
or more of our 'regulars' may lead off with a few well-chosen remarks.  A
free-for-all follows!  A brief sampling of our meetings over the past year
includes discussions based on the public TV series "Closer to Truth" on
consciousness, science and religion, and other topics; a presentation on
religious affiliations and voting behavior by Dr. Michael Dimock, Research
Director of the Pew Research Center for People and the Press; a showing of
the PBS Frontline program "Bush and the Jesus Factor"; a Darwin Day
celebration; a showing of Michael Moore's movie "Bowling for Columbine"; a
series of meetings focused on the Presidential election this fall; and our
annual midwinter hUUmanist holiday party.  Earlier this year, Ruth Singer
and Lance Haworth participated with Michael McGee in a Sunday service on the
theme of humanism.
Our group also attempted to develop a very brief "I believe" statement
defining hUUmanism for the benefit of the Ministerial Search Committee.
Needless to say, an impossible task! No single sound-bite satisfied everyone
(we're UU's, after all), but here are three illustrative attempts:
·	Humanists rely on reason, compassion, and creativity, freely derived
from human experience, as the basis for ethics, morality and community.
·	I believe that if a thing needs doing, only humans will do it.
·	Humanists celebrate a philosophy of humanity and the universe based
on human experience and reason.  We embrace an ethics and way of life that
precludes the supernatural.

For more information about the hUUmanists, Google us at UUCA hUUmanists,
find our link on the UUCA web page at http://www.uucava.org/huumanists/, or
contact me at [email-masked].
						Lance Haworth - December
2004

-------- Original Message -------- Subject:  Darwin Day event at the UU
Church of Arlington (VA)? 
Date:  Thu, 20 Jan 2005 20:05:26 -0800 
From:  Dr. R. Stephens <[email-masked]> 
Reply-To:  [email-masked] 
Organization:  Darwin Day Celebration, a nonprofit corp. 
To:  [email-masked] 

To our Darwin Day friends at the UU Church of Arlington (VA), 

In late 2002, Arthur Jackson sent you a long email about Darwin Day.  This
is a reminder that the project is ongoing and growing.

Did you know that Charles Darwin attended a Unitarian church and school
during his earliest years in Shrewsbury, England?  We have maps and pictures
at http://darwinday.org/life/shrewsbury.html , in the first paragraph below
the map-picture and also halfway down the entire page.  Darwin's spirit
seemed to be like modern UU's, exploring all things and drawing conclusions
from real world evidence.  His family and the Wedgwoods also showed a social
conscience, being early public opponents of slavery.

You may already realize that Darwin's 200th birthday will occur on February
12, 2009.  You may have held events to celebrate science and humanity in
previous years.  For those who don't know, Darwin Day Celebration is a
nonprofit organization designed to promote an international celebration of
Science and Humanity each year on or near Feb. 12, as we proceed towards
2009.  Darwin and the theory of evolution are being used as symbols of
scientific progress, and our goal is to achieve a global celebration by
2009.  Currently, events are being registered on our Web site for 2005.

The purpose of this letter is to invite you to visit our website at
http://www.darwinday.org -- and then to consider joining many others in this
constructive educational effort.  If you are the minister of a Unitarian
Universalist church, you might consider a sermon related to Darwin and
evolution.  Perhaps an examination of how knowledge is obtained through
traditional faith (receiving beliefs from earlier generations, gathering
supporting evidence, and avoiding challenges) versus how knowledge is
obtained in science (guessing about truth through falsifiable hypotheses and
encouraging attempts to disprove the false hypotheses).  You might call for
the evolution of IDEAS that do not promote survival in a new environment.
Perhaps reflect on your personal evolution and possible lessons useful to
others.  Perhaps an examination on how a failure to evolve one's life skills
makes one vulnerable to sudden shifts
 in circumstances.  Perhaps you could recount Darwin's own evolution f
rom a gentleman dabbler to a reluctant revolutionary, because the evidence
he saw convinced him of a new truth. Perhaps you could reflect on the likely
consequences of the recent results of DNA sequence comparisons that show
that all humans recently lived in Africa until about 100,000 years ago and
we are VERY closely related.  Perhaps something about current events
relating to Darwin's ideas, like the Georgia court's recent ruling that the
schoolbooks could not be required to have labels denigrating evolution.  Or
you can develop your own better idea.

We recently revised the DarwinDay.org site to emphasize science education
and the very HUMAN story of Darwin's life.  Our Web site offers information
to assist you in developing ideas for a celebration event that is suitable
for your own unique circumstances.  To sign up quickly as a supporter,
register at http://darwinday.org/register/index.php  and to publicize your
event go to http://darwinday.org/regevent/index.php .  If you have reason
not to register at our site, we'd still like to hear what you are doing, so
feel free to e-mail to us at mailto:[email-masked] 

Supporters of Darwin Day include prominent scientists, educators,
philosophers, and writers such as: Patrick Bateson, Provost, Kings College,
Cambridge; Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University; Richard Dawkins, Oxford
University; Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University; Steven Pinker, Harvard
University; Helena Cronin, London School of Economics; Eugenie Scott,
National Center for Science Education; Steve Jones, Univ. College London;
and many others.  We encourage you to join them and become an enthusiastic
participant in this project. 

Sincerely yours, 

Robert J. (Bob) Stephens, Ph. D. 
Emeritus Director, Cell Biology Program, 
SRI International, formerly Stanford Research Institute. 
Chairman of the Board, Darwin Day Celebration, a nonprofit corporation 
http://darwinday.org 

P.S. If you do not want to receive additional e-mail from Darwin Day
Celebration, simply reply to this e-mail at [email-masked].