Call us toll free at 1-877-842-9474. You can also email us at ssa@secularstudents.org. We are always happy to hear from you and answer any questions or concerns!

This is your eNewsletter and we are always updating and changing to fit your needs, so please let us know what you think of our new format! Email enews@secularstudents.org with any suggestions, ideas, or comments.

Editor-in-Chief:

Editors: Elizabeth R.A. Liddell, August E. Brunsman IV, Hemant Mehta, Jacquie Kuzma, Brian Gelletly, Landon Winkler

Depending on your hemisphere, the Summer or Winter Solstice has passed. While days get shorter, or longer, people all over the world are preparing to celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. Keep that enthusiasm going by making your organization even more successful. Lyz Liddell, Senior Campus Organizer, has provided two resources to make your events run like a well oiled machine and keep people coming back. Forget "Darwin Day," make it a Darwin Year! Be sure to check out the official Darwin Day website at www.darwinday.org.

Lyz Liddell, Senior Campus Organizer has heard your pleas, and responds to your concern that "No one comes to my events! This sucks! I'm going to quit!" with this helpful guide for getting more people to come to your events, and getting them to return. Along with great techniques for getting people to show up, make sure you aren't following any steps in the top ten list of ways to reduce meeting attendance?

TOP TEN WAYS TO REDUCE MEETING ATTENDANCE

1. Keep your group's existence secret (like a closed/secret Facebook group), and don't tell anyone about it unless you're absolutely, positively, 100% sure they're an atheist.
2. Don't tell anyone when your meetings are. Make the information hard to find, like posting it only on that closed Facebook group or an unadvertised website.
3. Change meeting times and places every week.
4. Holding meetings at times that are unlikely to work for people (i.e., during the school day, Friday nights, early mornings on the weekends, etc.)
5. Hold boring, business-only meetings that are only of interest to the officers.
6. Complain at every meeting about how people don't show up.
7. Give up after only one try of an idea.
8. Stick with one idea even when it doesn't work after several attempts.
9. Decide before trying anything that no solution can possibly exist that will solve the problems your group is having.
10. Refuse offers of help.

by Seth Coster

The modern theory of evolution is regularly a hot topic of controversy and conflict between scientific and religious circles. This February, the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers (UNIFI) will be debunking some of the misconceptions surrounding this important scientific theory. In celebration of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, UNIFI has put together a large-scale event called Darwin Week (www.darwinweek.com) that will take place from February 9th-12th in UNI's Maucker Student Union. Be sure to check out www.darwinweek.com for a full list of events around the world.

by Shelley Montjoy and Roy Roberts

On Tuesday, September 9, 2008, over 700 people arrived at Virginia Commonwealth University's (VCU) Student Commons to hear Christopher Hitchens and Frank Turek debate the existence of god. Even with limited publicity, the attendance was overwhelming; many stated they had only heard about the debate earlier that day. The room held 500. Those who decided to stay despite not making it into the main room listened to audio in two overflow rooms.

by Lyz Liddell

On December 2, 2008, the Springfield Nativity Scene Committee, led by Dan Zanoza, erected a Christian nativity scene in the rotunda of the Illinois State Capitol building. The group's stated intent is to show others that religious displays shouldn't be banned from public buildings. The project is privately funded and has the appropriate permits from the Secretary of State's office. The manner in which they put it up, of course, is not the issue.

The issue is the placement of a blatant religious symbol prominently in the center of a government building. The average person walking into the capitol is confronted with an apparent endorsement of Christianity by the Illinois government, thus implying that other religions - and, of course, unbelief - are inferior in the eyes of the state.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (www.ffrf.org) immediately responded by filing for a permit to put up a counter-display on the behalf of its members in the state of Illinois. The sign, identical to the display in Olympia, WA and Madison, WI, reads:

At this season of The Winter Solstice may reason prevail.
There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

Jim Coors received his Doctorate in Plant Breeding and Biometry at Cornell University. He's developed and released novel corn germplasm as part of research program that involves studies of long-term selection and the domestication of corn. Jim has served in a number of professional organizations including the Board of Directors for the Crop Science Society of America (President in 2005) and the American Society of Agronomy. He is a lifetime member and serves on Board of Directors of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Jim greatly enjoys talking about selection, both natural and artificial, and its role in evolutionary biology. Selection is, perhaps, the least understood and most abused topic by creationists, and Jim speaks to the effectiveness of selection to counter the nonsensical and anti-evolutionary concepts put forth by the Discovery Institute and others.

If you're interested in having this speaker come to your school and give a presentation, click here to fill out our online Speaker Request form.

Richard Cimino and Christopher Smith are currently conducting research on the "new atheism," as represented by such best-selling books by Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), Christopher Hitchens (god is Not Great), Sam Harris (The End of Faith) and Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell), and Bill Maher's film Religulous. They are interested in discovering how atheists, freethinkers and secular humanists views on these books and film. This research will be used in writing a chapter on the new atheism for a forthcoming book on this topic to be published by Brill. They will not use participants' real names or share any personal information (such as e-mail addresses). They would greatly appreciate it if you could take a few minutes and provide some of your thoughts on the new atheism. Partial answers are acceptable.

Click below for the survey.

Volunteer work and community service are some of the things that the SSA encourages all its groups to take part in. A great way to do this with your group is to plan a spring break service trip, much like the one the University of Illinois Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers took in 2008.

The SSA has a packet on how to organize your own spring break service trip (or a service trip anytime, for that matter!). We have a profile of the U of I's trip, as well as guidelines and resources for planning your own, and a checklist to get you going.

If this is something your group might be interested, NOW is the time to start planning! These trips require some work well in advance, and with spring break on the horizon, groups planning a service trip should get started right as the semester begins.