Happy Birthday to Robert Green Ingersoll, “The Great Agnostic”

I just wanted to pass along this announcement from the fine folks at the Center For Inquiry regarding one of the most valuable orators and activists for freethought, science, and rationality: Robert Green Ingersoll.  This past Saturday (August 11th) was his birthday, and I think it is worth letting you know more about him:

Happy Birthday to “The Great Agnostic!”

Back before blogs, opinion-based news programs, talk radio, and even amplified sound, the American public gathered by the thousands to listen to professional orators calling out their opinions from train platforms, outdoor stages, and the steps of city hall. Oratory was wildly popular in the 1800s, and there was no lecturer more popular than Robert Green Ingersoll, a.k.a., “The Great Agnostic.”

Ingersoll continually championed science, reason, and secular values in the public square. He was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and a tireless advocate for women’s rights, racial equality, and birth control decades before others would pick up the cause. He often poked fun at religious belief, and he defied the religious conservatives of his day by championing secular humanist values.

Ingersoll’s work and his words are highly relevant to our day, too, so the Center for Inquiry and its sister organization, the Council for Secular Humanism, work to bring his wisdom and insights to a broader audience.

— Learn more about Robert Green Ingersoll —

• Discover the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace      Museum in Dresden, New York
• Read about the CFI staff field trip      to the museum
• Watch a video about Ingersoll      produced by the Council for Secular Humanism
• Visit the Freethought Trail in      West-Central New York
• Explore the full      texts of Ingersoll’s complete works
• Ponder some of      Ingersoll’s most popular sayings      and wonder why it took you so long to find this awesome writer! More here!
• Read this neat article about      Ingersoll’s life and influence in Washington
• Steal this awesome image from the      CFI On Campus Facebook page (and don’t forget to “Like” the page      while you’re there!)
• Watch the      finalists from CFI-DC’s Ingersoll Oratory Contest
• Enjoy an online walking tour of      Ingersoll’s Washington, D.C.
• Check out this Point of Inquiry      episode about Ingersoll
• In Indiana? Head      to the Circle in Indianapolis Sunday, August 12,      to hear one of Ingersoll’s most moving speeches,      recited by Tom Flynn, the director of the Robert Green Ingersoll      Birthplace Museum!

Happy Birthday, Colonel Bob!

Center For Inquiry Chicago Event: “On Deities, Doctrines, Superstitions and Other Things to Die For”

Anyone involved in skepticism in and around the Chicago area no doubt knows that one of the key organizations in the local skeptic/freethought movement is the Center For Inquiry Chicago. They have an upcoming event that I would like to pass along to you all in case anyone’s interested in attending…

The Center For Inquiry/Chicago invites you to our multi-media, participatory, Fall extravaganza!

On Deities, Doctrines, Superstitions
and Other Things to Die For

In Wicker Park at “St. Paul’s” Cultural Center – 2215 W. North Ave. – Chicago
Saturday, September 18^th 2010, from 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm

The program includes:

• Mark Twain “in person”—Warren Brown, a nationally renowned Twain scholar, will perform as Twain, Huck, and Jim, the runaway slave, and will illuminate their views on science, humanism and slavery. A Q&A discussion will follow the performance.

• Davis Schneiderman, a thought provoking multimedia author, college professor, and editor will read sections from his new book: “Drain.

• Miki Greenberg of “It’s A Girl” will mobilize us with his satirical songs.

• Poetry Slam! Write your own verse and then sign in with Davis Schneiderman, the host! Be ready to present! As always with a Slam, everything goes: reading, reciting or singing your poem/song, in costume or in plain clothes. Use your creativity, but stay with the theme, “On Deities, Doctrines, Superstitions and Other Things to Die For.” Be prepared—in keeping with the Slam tradition, the audience will express its admiration or disapproval of your wordsmithing!

• Art exhibit by three CFI/Chicago members—Ayala Leyser, Eric Wall and Ivan Phillips—on the theme “Not What Meets the Eye: On Deities, Doctrines, Superstitions and Other Things to Die For”

Throughout the evening:

• Food and snacks included with your admission. Cash bar is available for very reasonably priced drinks and soft drinks.

Free street parking, public transportation is nearby, and bike stands are available.

Click here to register online! Don’t miss this one!

Admission:

If you’ve never before been a Friend of the Center, become a Friend at $60 and pay only $7 more for this event—over half off!

Price if purchased online by Sept. 11th (one week before):

Regular: $15
Current Friend of Center: $12
Student: $8

Price if purchased online after Sept. 11th, or at the door (if at door, cash is much preferred):

Regular: $18
Current Friend of Center: $15
Student: $10

See below for performers’ bios:

Warren Brown, a nationally known Illinois Humanities Council “Roads Scholar,” presents a first-person Chautauqua-style program as Mark Twain. Twain will take us on a journey on water, land, and air, sharing insights from the “Diaries of Adam and Eve” and thoughts about Galileo and Newton. Mark Twain is claimed by freethinkers as one of our own for his still remarkably contemporary, funny and humanist viewpoints on religion, hypocrisy, and the straight-laced Victorian “virtues” of Then and Now.  Brown received the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award for his Chautauqua-style portrayal of Samuel Clemens, “bridging the lessons of history with the demands of contemporary living.”

A multimedia artist and writer, Davis Schneiderman is the author and editor of eight books, including the novels Drain, Abecedarium, and the forthcoming blank novel, Blank: a novel. He co-edited the collections Retaking the Universe: Williams S. Burroughs in the Age of Globalization and The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism’s Parlor Game; as well as the audio collage Memorials to Future Catastrophes. His creative work has appeared in numerous publications. He is Chair of the English Department, and Director of Press/&NOW Books, at Lake Forest College.

As a pianist, composer and arranger for Maestro Subgum & the Whole, Miki Greenberg has been making music on Chicago’s underground scene since 1986. He co-founded the Lunar Cabaret in 1994 and is currently with the group “It’s A Girl,” working on his 16th album. Superstition, religion and things people die for were his obsession while working with his previous band, “Fetal Position,” as he continues to mix good entertainment with wit and critical thinking.

For more information, please visit centerforinquiry.net/chicago or email chicago@centerforinquiry.net.

Creating Skeptics: Why Every Kid Should Have a Teacher Like Matt Lowry

I wanted to toot my own horn a bit and repost a wonderful account of my recent talk at the Center For Inquiry Chicago titled “Teaching Freethought: How to Create a Skeptical Kid”. The account comes from Alan, a.k.a. the Jewish Atheist, who was in attendance at the event.  Alan’s other musings regarding myth, magic, and how easily believers allow themselves to be fooled are worth considering.  So, with that, I refer to you to Alan’s post…

May 18th, 2010 by Alan

“Science, I maintain, is an absolutely essential tool for any society with the hope of surviving well into the next century with its fundamental values intact — not just science as engaged in by its practitioners, but science understood and embraced by the entire human community. And if scientists do not bring this about, who will?”

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

“We must trust to nothing but facts: these are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation.”

Antoine Lavoisier

Matt Lowry is the teacher you wish you had (and some of us were lucky to actually have had), be it in physics or literature. In Matt’s case it is physics, which he teaches in high school and college in Lake County, IL. I recently attended, in Chicago, his Center for Inquiry presentation on how he cultivates skepticism in high schoolers, through science.

His scientific knowledge is hugely impressive, as are his demonstrations – walking on burning coals, broken glass; lying on bed of nails – which powerfully hook kids on curiosity and skepticism. He teaches them Carl Sagan’s “Dragon in the Garage” analogy and lets them draw their own conclusions.

At Halloween he stages an interactive Haunted Physics Lab (including demonstration of the magnetic forces that make the Ouija Board seem to work), once again teaching kids that all magic is done by someone just a little smarter than you.

His high school students come from various religious backgrounds. Some actually believe the world is only a few thousand years old. Some come away enlightened (“My grandmother should hear this – she’s really into that Bible stuff”), others with only a seed of doubt planted. As Matt says, you cultivate wonder and skepticism and “take what you can get.”

I’ll come back to Matt’s clientele later (and remember, they’re somewhat self-selected — lots of kids stay away from physics classes; it takes an outstanding teacher to bring them in)….

Teaching Freethought: How to Create a Skeptical Kid

Okay, shameless plug time 🙂

On Sunday, May 16th, I will be speaking to the Center For Inquiry Chicago on the topic of freethought, skepticism, and education.  Basically, I’ll be talking about my experiences as a science teacher & skeptic and how to promote critical thinking among high school & college students…

Sunday, May 16th 1-4pm

Location: Our usual place: Room 613 (behind elevators), University Center East building, 750 S. Halsted (UIC campus), Chicago

Teaching Freethought: How to Create a Skeptical Kid! – with Matt Lowry, high school teacher and skeptic at large

Matt spends a lot of his in-class time teaching the art of meaningful skepticism to high schoolers.  He will give us some insight into his method of doing this!  He will also share his view of the many challenges that both science teachers and their students face when confronted with religious objections to the pursuit of scientific objectives.

Today’s presentation will be a stimulating follow-on to our recent day-long conference, “Dangerous Nonsense: Exploring the Gulf Between Science and its Impostors!”

Matt Lowry is a familiar face to many CFIers in Chicago. He is a high school physics teacher in the north suburbs, a part-time physics and astronomy college professor, and emphasizes critical thinking among his students at every opportunity. When away from the classroom, he also serves as the president of the North Shore Illinois chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church & State, the leader of an online pro-science group titled Darwin’s Bulldogs, and the leader of the Vernon Hills Freethinkers meetup group.

A self-described skeptic, he believes in Carl Sagan’s adage that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!”  He blogs at: https://skepticalteacher.wordpress.com/

Please come to this most interesting AFTERNOON meeting!  We provide the hot coffee, and we very much appreciate pastry and snack donations.

Non-CFI Members will be asked for a modest contribution.

Questions? Just call our (part time) office phone: 312-226-0420