Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 01:26:15 EDT
From: MLGATHEIST@aol.com
Subject: June Newsletter of Arizona American Atheists
To: undisclosed-recipients:;


June Newsletter,                                   


Please join us at the 10 commandments monument at Wesley Bolin Plaza, in 
front of the State Capitol Bldg.  It is on 17th Ave between Washington Ave 
and Jefferson Ave.  It will be on Sunday June 17th.  The reporter from the 
Arizona Republic paper will be there @ 12:30 PM.  I am askingthat everyone 
meet @ 12:15 PM.  I would like to have everyone ready for the photos and 
possible interviews.  

You are all invited to go to the Phoenix Central Library for our regular 
monthly meeting.  It is located on Central Ave, just south of McDowell Rd.  
It is scheduled from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.


From the Editor:

I have been writing all of the members of the Arizona State Legislature.  I 
have been requesting that they assist with the removal of the 10 commandments 
monument from the Wesley Bolin Plaza.

I request that you all write, call, or email as many of our state elected 
officials.  The following is what I sent.  You can use it or any part of it 
that you want.

Dear Senator,
I ask for your help to get the 10 commandments monument removed from state 
property.  The US Constitution forbids the government from supporting one or 
more religions over other religions and from supporting religion over 
non-religion.  The Arizona State Constitution forbids the use of any property 
or money in the support of religion.

 Everywhere the claim is made that America was founded on the Ten 
Commandments - or at least that its system of law and justice is based on 
that biblical code.  Not even the Chief Justice of the United States seems to 
realize that our governmental system represents a reaction to the principles 
inherent in that code - in some cases a mighty rejection of that code.

 The First Amendment of the US Constitution, for example, is an eloquent 
repudiation of the First Commandment's prohibition of religious freedom.  It 
is also a repudiation of the Third Commandment's prohibition of freedom of 
speech. 

 The Thirteenth Amendment repudiates the institution of slavery which is so 
cozily assumed by the Fourth and Tenth Protestant Commandments. 

 Consider: what could be more American than the principle that every person 
is to be held accountable for his or her crimes only?  Could anything be more 
un-American than the Second Commandment's warning that "I Yahweh, thy God, am 
a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto 
the third and fourth generation"? Not even the Common Law would have hung a 
man because his grandfather had stolen a horse!  The Second Commandment 
(conveniently not enumerated in Catholic epitomes of the "Decalogue") also 
prohibits the making of "any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that 
is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters 
beneath the earth."  That would rule out all representational art - icluding 
dollar bills that bear the likeness of George Washington! Rather like the 
Taliban in Afghanistan?  Yet Chief Justice William Rehnquist seems still to 
cling to his 1980 opinion that "The secular application of the Ten 
Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of 
Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States."  [Stone v 
Graham, 449 US 39.101 S. Ct. 192.66 L.Ed. 2d 199 (1980)] 

 How many non-christians feel like second class citizens every time they see 
christian icons on government property?

 The colonies may have been started mostly by christians.  However, Deists, 
Atheists, and Agnostics founded the government of the United States of 
America on the principles of the enlightenment philosophy.


*CONTACT SOME OR ALL OF YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES 

* REACH OUT TO MEDIA, FRIENDS AND OTHER GROUPS!  Help educate others about 
the unconstitutional state support of religion.

Next meeting:

Sunday, July 15th at 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Phoenix Central Library, Room A.


Athest View Point

Watch "The Atheist Viewpoint" weekly television episode on Cox Cable Public 
Access, channel 98, and QWest channel 24.

The show now airs Wednesday at 2:00 P.M. Show days and times change regularly 
by a lottery system. For updated schedule information, you can contact Access 
Phoenix at 602-272-8700 or visit their web site at: 
http://www.accessphoenix.org/.  Access Phoenix has an on-line schedule for 
those with internet access.  If the view point is not on at the time you 
think it is, don't hesitate to call me.  My contact information is listed at 
the end of this newsletter.  I will email updated schedules when they occur.


A Quote from History:

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the 
abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. 
Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"

-   John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson


Quotes of love and reason from the Bible:

New English Version, Ephesians 6:5 "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your 
masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of 
your heart, as to Christ."

We're not a Christian nation and never were, however; slavery was one attempt 
to make us a Christian nation since the Bible condones it. The civil war put 
an end to that.   Abraham Lincoln was labeled an Atheist for his Emancipation 
Proclamation.  Most Theists should have that honor.


Send in your membership form!

Being a member of American Atheists Inc. entitles you to many benefits: 
monthly national newsletters, discounts on national meetings and much more.  
Additionally, you will be funding a cause we can all appreciate: the 
separation of church and state.

American Atheists Inc. is leading the way for Atheist's civil rights. 
American Atheists is dedicated to the separation of church and state and does 
not prioritize other issues.

So join the effort to fight for our civil rights: send in your membership 
today!

Contact the Editor

Please do not hesitate to submit articles, letters, or issues for this 
newsletter. All suggestions I receive will be considered, and I welcome any 
questions, comments, or complaints.

Bart C. Meltzer,
P.O. Box 64702
Phoenix, AZ 85082-4702
bartman9@earthlink.net
602-326-4504

My phone number is available 24 hours for all American Atheists.

MEMBERSHIP AIMS AND PURPOSES

Below is American Atheists' Statement of Aims and Purposes. All applicants 
must read it before proceeding. 


American Atheists, Inc. is a nonprofit, nonpolitical, educational 
organization dedicated to the complete and absolute separation of state and 
church, accepting the explanation of Thomas Jefferson that the First 
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was meant to create a 
"wall of separation" between state and church. 
American Atheists, Inc., is organized 

*   to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning 
religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices; 
*   to collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on all 
religions and promote a more thorough understanding of them, their origins, 
and their histories; 
*   to advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways the complete and 
absolute separation of state and church; 
*   to advocate, labor for, and promote in all lawful ways the establishment 
and maintenance of a thoroughly secular system of education available to all; 
*   to encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical 
system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of 
all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in 
relation to society; 
*   to develop and propagate a social philosophy in which humankind is 
central and must itself be the source of strength, progress, and ideals for 
the well-being and happiness of humanity; 
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affecting the maintenance, perpetuation, and enrichment of human (and other) 
life; 
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will be useful and beneficial to the members of American Atheists and to 
society as a whole. 

Atheism is the Weltanschauung (comprehensive conception of the world) of 
persons who are free from theism - i.e., free from religion.  It is 
predicated on ancient Greek Materialism.
Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the 
supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a life-style and ethical outlook 
verifiable by experience and scientific method, independent of all arbitrary 
assumptions of authority and creeds.
Materialism declares that the cosmos is devoid of immanent conscious purpose; 
that it is governed by its own inherent, immutable, and impersonal laws; that 
there is no supernatural interference in human life; that humankind -- 
finding their resources within themselves -- can and must create their own 
destiny. Materialism restores dignity and intellectual integrity to humanity. 
It teaches that we must priz our life on earth and strive always to improve 
it. It holds that human beings are capable of creating a social system based 
on reason and justice. Materialism's "faith" is in humankind and their 
ability to transform the world culture by their own efforts. This is a 
commitment which is in its very essence life-asserting. It considers the 
struggle for progress as a moral obligation that is impossible without noble 
ideas that inspire us to bold, creative works. Materialism holds that our 
potential for good and more fulfilling cultural development is, for all 
practical purposes, unlimited.

Continued.

Membership Application for American Atheists, Inc. 

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