Steel City Skeptics

At 7pm on Wednesday, January 24^th, there will be a one night showing of a Losing Our Religion, a feature-length documentary about how preachers who are no longer believers make the transition out of the church. Allowed access to the 600 members of The Clergy Project – a safe haven for preachers from all faiths who no longer believe – the documentary follows ex-members and clergy, who are not just losing their religion, for many they are losing their friends, community, and even family. As well as their job.  Losing Our Religion is a documentary about community, acceptance, and a view inside the complicated lives of clergy who are stranded in the rising tide of non-believers.

This one-night showing will be at 7pm, Wednesday, January 24, at the Melwood Screening Room (477 Melwood Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213) in North Oakland near the University of Pittsburgh campus.  The movie will be followed by a short Q&A with Pittsburgh native, Linda LaScola, who works for the Clergy Project out of their Washington, DC office, in close collaboration with Prof. Daniel Dennett, one of the other co-founders of the Clergy Project.

This event in Pittsburgh is being offered as a fundraiser for the Pittsburgh Freethought Community, a non-profit organization, whose mission is threefold:

1. To be a welcoming and caring community for all those who share a humanist worldview and an evidence-based perspective;
2. To provide a strong and respected public voice for the secular community in shaping public debate and formulating public policy;
3. To promote science, reason, critical thinking, and humanist values in the greater Pittsburgh area.

Hope to see you there!

This was a big week for supporters church/state separation, when U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ordered the suspension of the IRS regulation that allows Christian ministers to deduct housing allowances from their taxable income, because the deduction benefits religious leaders and no one else.  The ruling filed on Dec 13, 2017 addressed the often abused housing allowance that allowed megachurch preachers to live tax-free in multimillion dollar homes.  Judge Crabb correctly noted that by allowing the allowance only to ministers provides an undue benefit to religion by writing:

that 26 U.S.C. § 107(2), which excludes from the gross income of a “minister of the gospel” a “rental allowance paid to him as part of his compensation,” is unconstitutional. Specifically, I concluded that § 107(2) violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it does not have a secular purpose or effect and because a reasonable observer would view the statute as an endorsement of religion.

The ruling goes on to say that Congress has 180 days to produce an alternative, which might be extend the housing allowance to other non-profits (meeting certain requirements) or remove the housing allowance altogether.

Either way, the ruling puts an end to long-standing fight by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which began several years ago when they first challenged the law, asking why their non-profit organization cannot get this benefit for its “leaders”.  The initial response from the courts was rather curious.  They said that FFRF was never denied the exemption because FFRF never asked for it.  So, the next year, the Executive Board of FFRF designated a portion of the salary as a housing allowance for its co-Presidents, Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, who then filed an amended return asking for a refund. The IRS denied this request, which then allow FFRF to sue on the behalf of all secular non-profits.  This chain of events resulted in the landmark Dec 13^th ruling linked above.

Joel Osteen Tax-Free Home

What happens next, however, is somewhat unclear as Crabb’s decision gives others a chance to appeal and gives Congress six months to rewrite the law.  The revision could go several ways. The benefit could be extended to other non-profits, including FFRF. The benefit could be removed for all parties.  Or, there may be some other creative alternative, which would be interesting to see what emerges.  Whatever, the outcome might be, I am sure that we will hear from Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and others on the list of richest pastors in America, as to why paying taxes is so unfair.

The Boy Scouts of American made a lot of noise this week by stating that they were opening Cub Scouts to include girls as members, to be followed by girls as Boy Scouts a few years down the road.

While the media debates the plus and minus of that change, little attention is being paid to another kind of discrimination.  Unlike the Girl Scouts that allow all young girls to join, the Boy Scouts refuse membership to atheist, agnostic or humanist members, be they scouts or scout leaders.  With estimates suggesting that as many 30% of those under 30 would mark “None of the Above” when asked about their religion, the Boy Scouts are holding on to a discriminatory view of what makes a for good citizens.

As FFRF recently noted:

The official position of the group — “No member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing his obligation to God” — turns secular boys into pariahs and second-class citizens and defames nonbelief. This is a bias exclusively belonging to the U.S. division of Boy Scouts, which makes the religious litmus test all the more inappropriate in a secular country that welcomes citizens, of all religions or no religions. Furthermore, Boy Scouts has a congressional charter as a fraternal (not a religious group), and the president serves as the honorary commander in chief, all additional reasons why its religiously discriminatory policy must go.

In fact, as way of countering the bigotry against atheist scouts, FFRF has adopted a program to allow any young boy — or girl — to fulfill their own Atheist Merit Badge requirements and then receive the (unofficial) badge shown here that can be sewn on the merit badge sash as silent protest. If the Boy Scouts would change their discriminatory policy and allow this badge to worn with the other Scout merit badges, it would send a clear message that, in fact, Scouting is for All!

PaStAHCon 2017 will be held in Philadelphia the weekend of October 13-15. Over the next few weeks, this blog will highlight some of the speakers that you will miss if you don’t go, which is clearly something that you want to avoid. For the full list of speakers, as well as information on tickets and related events, go to http://atheistpa.org.

This year, the festivities will begin with a special Friggatriskaidekaphobia (Fear of Friday the 13^th) party hosted by Margaret Downey, where you might get to walk under a ladder, break a mirror, spill salt, and dance indoors with an open umbrella. It is all in good fun and you won’t even be asked to spell Frigga-what-ever-it-is-called!

Another timely event will be a talk by noted physicist, Lawrence Krauss,noted author of both scientific and popular works, including the New York Times bestsellers The Physics of Star Trek (1995) and A Universe from Nothing (2012). He will be available to autograph his newest book “The Greatest Story Ever Told…So Far”, which was released in March of this year.

And, who knows? Prof. Krauss might also include stories of watching a full eclipse on the West Coast with Penn Jillette last week. You can hear Penn’s side of this adventure on the most recent episode of Penn’s Sunday School.

In all, it will be a great conference that is worth the journey. Additional conference notes and speakers will be highlighted in this blog in the coming weeks. Hope to see you there!

It is now after Independence Day – and that means that summer is well under way. Which means that it is time (past time, really) to start making plans for summer fun – like our annual Canoe Trip on the Youghiogheny River and the Shrimp Boil at Cedar Creek Park for the halfway point of the trip.  Of course, for those not necessarily inclined toward watercraft activities, you are more than welcome to just attend the shrimp boil picnic. Or bike on the Allegheny Passage Trail that runs along the river and right through Cedar Creek Park. But however you wish to enjoy yourselves, come on out and join some like-minded folks for a pleasant summer day. The date for this year’s event is Saturday, August 19th. So mark your calendars!

For those not familiar with our annual event, here are some particulars: the Canoe Trip is a gentle, leisurely float down the Yough, from the put-in at Smithton downriver to the outfitter’s facility in West Newton, a distance of about 7 miles. There are no rapids or serious whitewater to contend with. We meet at Youghiogheny Outfitters in West Newton at 9:30 am. After registration and fitting of flotation devices, we are transported upriver to the put-in at Smithton. About halfway to the pull-out in West Newton, at a fairly large right bend in the river, there is a boat ramp on the left. That is Cedar Creek Park. If you are joining everybody for the Shrimp Boil or lunch, pull your craft out of the river and put it safely clear of the ramp. About two hundred yards to the left, past the concession stand, is Pavilion #19 where the picnic takes place. When you come up the boat ramp, across the road there are rest rooms.

If you are not going on the water and want to come directly to the picnic, just follow the signs to the park and enter on the park’s main road. Follow that road to where it seems to end in a small parking lot. It doesn’t. It crosses over the bike trail to the right and turns left past several more pavilions. We will be in Pavilion #19, the last one before the concession stand.

This year, we have a new feature, an upgrade as it were. For this year’s shrimp boil, we have acquired an 80-qt cooking pot. To borrow a term from one of our national political figures – a yuuuuge one. It will bigly cook enough food for everybody to eat together, at one time, rather than having to wait and eat in shifts, though we might have to use both rows of tables.

Details: Youghiogheny Canoe Outfitters, 226 Collinsburg Rd., West Newton, PA 15089

Canoes or tandem kayaks: $53 (canoes can have a 3rd person under 60 lbs for an add’l $4)

Single kayaks, sit-in or sit-on: $32

Shrimp Boil: $12 for adults; $7 for children under 12; n/c for toddlers

To reserve your spot(s), email BillK at unkabeard@verizon.net before August 4th and submit payment to:

CFI-Pittsburgh, PO Box 81003, Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Make checks payable to CFI-Pittsburgh. Payment must be received by August 12th, 2017