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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (42108)	9/23/2013 5:19:23 PM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 69300

Facebook Evolution wall amazingly active 630,000 likes facebook.com Anyone, organization, group, can start a page, fill it with information and watch it fly Darwin's Doubt 230 likes, zero activity, not one post (hasn't changed in 2mos) facebook.com!/pages/Darwins-Doubt/563105590387975

To: Solon who wrote (42108)	9/23/2013 5:29:32 PM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 69300

Facebook: "Pantheism" page facebook.com!/everythingisgod "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." ? Jiddu Krishnamurti

To: Solon who wrote (42108)	9/23/2013 6:24:22 PM
From: 2MAR$	Respond to of 69300

Atheism starts its megachurch: Is it a religion now? (this fun & i guess for real, 100% celebration of Life! ) The non-religious Assembly is perhaps the fastest growing church in the world -- and it's coming to a mall near you, those whacky, fun loving, young ,articulate brits! By Katie Engelhart sundayassembly.com Enlarge(Credit: Artur Bogacki via Shutterstock/Salon) Organized Atheism is now a franchise. Yesterday, The Sunday Assembly—the London-based “Atheist Church” that has, since its January launch, been stealing headlines the world over—announced a new “global missionary tour.” In October and November, affiliated Sunday Assemblies will open in 22 cities: in England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, the United States and Australia. “I think this is the moment,” Assembly founder Sanderson Jones told me in an email last week, “when the Sunday Assembly goes from being an interesting phenomenon to becoming a truly global movement.” Structured godlessness is ready for export. The Assembly has come a long way in eight months: from scrappy East London community venture (motto: “Live Better, Help Often and Wonder More;” method: “part atheist church, part foot-stomping good time”) to the kind of organization that sends out embargoed press releases about global expansion projects. “The 3,000 percent growth rate might make this non-religious Assembly the fastest growing church in the world,” organizers boast. There’s more to come: In October, the Sunday Assembly (SA) will launch a crowdfunded indiegogo campaign, with the ambitious goal of raising £500,000 (or, about $793,000). This will be followed by a second wave of openings. “ The effort reads as part quixotic hipster start-up, part Southern megachurch. Like any attempt at organized non-belief, the Sunday Assemblies will attract their fair share of derision from critics. But the franchise model might dismay some followers too. For a corporate empire needs an executive board; a brand needs brand managers; a federation needs a strict set of guiding tenets—and consequences for those who stray from the fold. And isn’t that all wholly opposed to Freethought? I went to my first Sunday Assembly last April. Then, we were a crowd of several hundred heathens, gathered at a crusty deconsecrated church in East London. The Assembly had a wayward, whimsical feel. At a table by the door, ladies served homemade cakes and tea. The house band played Cat Stevens. Our “priest” wore pink skinny jeans. Many attendees were modish 20-somethings, and pretty obviously hungover. I did not need to be sold on the idea (explained nicely here by philosopher Alain de Botton). Like the Sunday Assembly’s founders, stand-up comics Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones, I don’t think religion should have a monopoly on community. I like the idea of a secular temple, where atheists can enjoy the benefits of an idealized, traditional church—a sense of community, a thought-provoking sermon, a scheduled period of respite, easy access to community service opportunities, group singing, an ethos of self-improvement, free food—without the stinging imposition of God Almighty. Evidently, I was not alone. A few months later, SA was boasting 400-600 regular attendees. As the hype mounted, Evans and Jones began receiving emails from all over the world from would-be Sunday Assembly founders. Jones admits that he had aspirations to expand from the get-go. Eventually, the founders opted for a controlled unfolding, choosing to personally license and launch 22 Sunday Assembly branches within a 2-month period. One new Sunday Assembly will launch in Los Angeles, in December. “We’ll have a godless congregation in the city of angels,” laughs Ian Dodd, a 53-year-old camera operator, and one of the chapter’s founders. For a number of years, Dodd—a lifelong atheist, apart from “a brief period as a young adult when I went looking for that something more”— had been a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church in Santa Monica. And for a while, he liked that well enough. “The Unitarian Church has this idea of ‘radical tolerance.’ It respects everything. It’s all good. Well that’s fine on one level, but at some point it becomes a little diluted.” Dodd was looking for a more robust secularism. In January, he caught word of the Sunday Assembly. A few months later, he was sitting across from Sanderson Jones at a pub in Hollywood, plotting the Assembly’s LA debut. “The church model has worked really well for a couple of thousand years,” Dodd muses. “What we’re trying to do is hold on to the bath water while throwing out the baby Jesus.” * Organized Atheism will require paperwork. A recent article by the newly-minted Sunday Assembly Everywhere (SAE) network outlines the SA affiliation process: Interested groups must apply for a Sunday Assembly charter and license agreement, “which will give you the right to use all the Sunday Assembly materials, logos, positive vibe and goodwill.” The next step is to form a legal entity, probably an “unincorporated association… which allows you to have a bank account.” And then, training from SA HQ, either in the UK or via “webinars and telecals worldwide.” If all goes well, aspiring founders will be invited to sign “A SAE Stage I Charter. This is a ‘provisional license,’ which gets you running your Sunday Assembly using our tried-and-tested formats and themes.” This is followed by a peer-review process and evaluation by other SA chapters. Nailed it? A “Stage II Charter” will be issued, granting full SAE membership. The model is inspired by TEDx.