The SSA only exists because of your support. Please donate today. Secular shorts: Kurt Vonnegut, novelist and former honorary president of the AHA, died this past week. Read more. The Speakers Bureau page has been updated. Check it out and see if we can bring a speaker to your campus! Contact us! 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! What do you think? 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. eMpirical Team
Editor-in-Chief:
Elizabeth R.A. Liddell
Editors: Alison Bates, August E. Brunsman IV, Nic Hall, Hemant Mehta, Jessica Sharon
| IntroductionWell, it's past March 21, which technically means that we call the season "spring." And it was nice, for a week. Then the weather took a turn for the south, and it seems like it can't really decide what it wants to do. Typical for the season, really.
Much like the weather, our issue of the eMpirical is all over the map. We've got a little of everything: an essay, some analysis of current issues, some new opportunities, some news. Take your pick! If you don't like it, wait an hour and it'll change! Or maybe that's the weather...
Keep your eyes open for news about the New Humanism conference this weekend. If you're coming, we look forward to meeting you there!
The Secular Student Alliance has recently relocated from Columbus, Ohio to Albany, New York. And what would precipitate such an eastward migration? The answer is the Institute for Humanist Studies
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We understand this is soon. Register now.
We are looking for two or three college interns for this summer. These positions have a $200/week stipend. Read more...
 
 
The votes are in from the recent election, and we are excited to announce four new members of the SSA Board of Directors. Let’s welcome and congratulate Becky Robinson, Andy Buttler, Jacquie Kuzma, and Mary Ellen Sikes. Hemant Mehta and Maggie Ardiente were reelected.
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 We at the Secular Student Alliance are deeply saddened by the events at Virginia Tech on Monday. We received an email today asking for a secular perspective on what happened, and given our mission to serve students and student communities, we think it is important to offer our response.
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In the last few days I've received emails from people saying "finally, atheists who are interested in building up, not only tearing down," and I've received emails from folks who feel betrayed by Epstein--they think he has joined the ranks of the faithful who dismiss atheists as bigots for suggesting that faith is not actually a road to knowledge.
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 Who were the Gnostics and what happened to them? Where did their ideas stem from? Were the first Christians a branch of Gnostics? How did they influence the early Christian world and later Orthodoxy? These are just some of the questions Rook Hawkins addresses in his upcoming book, Discovering the Gnostics: A Look at the Evolution of Mystery Cults in the Early Christian World.
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Becky Robinson, founder of the UTA Freethinkers, wrote this essay for the American Atheists' Scholarship Competition. We think it's a great story of a freethinker's journey and are happy to share it with you here.
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Late last year, the Rational Response Squad, an online atheist group headed up by Brian Sapient, launched a project called The Blasphemy Challenge: make a YouTube video of yourself denying the existence of the Holy Spirit, and you get a free copy of Brian Flemming's DVD The God Who Wasn't There. I browsed the media coverage, and created a sampling of several big media sources and a couple small ones, to give something of an idea of what actually happened.
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Most of the bridges in Boston are measured in feet. The new Zakim bridge on the Charles River, for instance, runs 1,432 feet long. But what about that one bridge measured in Smoots?
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The American Humanist Association, EvolveFISH, and Rational Responders have teamed up to bring the positive message of Humanism to YouTube! And you're just the person to help make it happen. Express a positive vision of Humanism and win $500!
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The Rational Response Squad, the Center for Atheism and many other atheist/agnostic/freethought groups are organizing blood drives on the National Day of Prayer. Read more...
eMpricial reader Catherine Weaver let's us know what she thinks. What do you think? Tell us at enews@secularstudents.org
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