Eddie Tabash Campus-wide Event on 3/25

As I posted earlier, Eddie Tabash is coming to UF. I have now confirmed with Debbie Goddard from the CFI the date of March 25th for the event. As of right now, he has no debate opponent lined up at our locale -- the guy he is debating elsewhere in the state on different dates cannot make it to this one. However, I just wrote the following message to about 20 people involved in campus religious organizations, hoping to solicit a debate opponent for him, and get them to help us out with advertising and attendance: [note that I added links to the debate for this post, they weren't in the e-mail]

______________________________
Dear Staff and Officers of Campus Religious Organizations,

I'm nsfl, president of UF's student freethought group, AAFSA. The reason I'm writing you today is to ask you to co-host, co-sponsor, and/or participate in our campus-wide debate event on March 25 featuring atheist Eddie Tabash regarding the existence of God. I'm writing a lot of you, from all different denominations and faiths, for a good reason. I've also tried to reach some of you by phone.

If you are receiving this email, you are an officer or faculty advisor of one of the following organizations:

* Baptist Collegiate Ministries
* Campus Crusade For Christ
* Campus Unitarian Universalists
* Catholic Student Fellowship at the University Of Florida
* Chapel House
* Christian Campus House
* Gator Christian Life
* Islam On Campus
* Jewish Student Union
* Lambda Chi Alpha
* The Navigators

Too often debates on the existence of God are solely hosted by Protestant/Evangelical Christian groups. I would love for those groups to be involved now, but I would also love to see other faiths and denominations represented and participating. Due to the format of the debate, there will be an extensive Q&A session following, during which time the audience will ask either of the debate participants questions. That means your groups should be encouraged to attend and involve themselves, even if for no other reason than to ask questions afterwards.

Eddie has a debate opponent lined up in three venues in Florida during his trip to the state for debates, but not here at UF. Those of you in Campus Crusade for Christ may know that William Lane Craig has debated Eddie (also see here), as well as Richard Swinburne (reviews: link 1, link 2, link 3). I invite and ask you to please work with us to line up a debate opponent. If I get more than one offer, then great! We'll talk to those persons and figure out who might be best suited to represent each denomination. Perhaps we can have a debate involving multiple theistic positions, with Eddie as the atheist. Although that is atypical, it may be a more educational experience for our collegiate audience. That possibility could be considered. Most importantly, we need an experienced, qualified representative of your faith group who is capable of participating in defense of the existence of God.

There is not yet a time set for March 25. Because many of you do special things on Sunday, we are very flexible on the time, and we thought that perhaps an early afternoon time would work best for everyone -- perhaps 2 or 3 PM. We are also looking into reserving a room on-campus that afternoon -- perhaps Carleton Auditorium, or some other very large hall. If you have suggestions on either of these two considerations, please let us know.

If you are interested in co-sponsoring/co-hosting this event, and if you want to help line up an apologist for your faith to debate Eddie, please reply to this email, or call me at 352.870.4413. You can read more about Eddie at his website, or at the Secular Web:

* http://www.tabash.com/
* http://www.secweb.org/index.aspx?action=viewAuthor&id=323

Please feel free to FW this message to anyone and everyone whom you think would be interested in attending, or in participating in this event. Thank you so much!

With warm regards,
nsfl
______________________________

So I'm really hoping we get at least one good opponent for Eddie set up. I'm really excited about this, and I'm going to need your help in spreading the word, putting out ads and flyers, and getting all the details squared away. As of this moment, details on whether it will be a lecture or a debate, what time of day it will be, where it will be held, etc., are still being worked out. However, you can spread the word that he will be here that day, and to keep your calendars clear. I'll keep you posted on developments as they arise.

(Please Digg this story (vote for it to spread the news), use the little grey button 8th from the left, below the email icon.)
________________
Technorati tags: God, Religion, Atheism, Philosophy

Footer Buttons Code

I just spent a few minutes fooling around with notepad and came up with a nice template to help people install footer buttons for bookmarking and saving posts. You may notice the new buttons below each post as of today. If you aren't interested in modifying your template, ignore this post. See here for more on modifying Blogger templates.

Step 1: Copy the entire code (indented) below into Notepad
Step 2: Use the Find and Replace (CTRL-H) function to replace all "[" with "<" Step 3: Use the Find and Replace (CTRL-H) function to replace all "]" with ">"
Step 4: Use the Find and Replace (CTRL-H) function to replace YOURIMGSRCHERE with the root URL of the folder you will store all of the icon image files to.
Step 5: If you are in Blogspot, skip to step 8.
Step 6: If you use any other blogging platform besides Blogger, use the Find and Replace (CTRL-H) function to replace all "$BlogItemPermalinkURL$" with whatever tag your software (such as WordPress) uses to indicate a post permalink.
Step 7: If you use any other blogging platform besides Blogger, use the Find and Replace (CTRL-H) function to replace all "$BlogItemTitle$" with whatever tag your software (such as WordPress) uses to indicate a post title.
Step 8: (Optional) Use the Find and Replace (CTRL-H) function to replace "|" with a non-breaking space before and after the "|" -- use "& n b s p ; | & n b s p ;" without the spaces [if I try to type it out it immediately becomes a non-breaking space...]
Step 9: Use the Find and Replace (CTRL-H) function to replace "YOURSITEURLHERE" with your site's URL.
Step 10: Download all of the image files for the icons, and upload them to root URL of the folder you will store all of the icon image files to.
Don't change the filenames! If you do, you'll have to change each image file name in the code to match. Don't steal my bandwidth! If you do, the server manager will notice all the extra drag and cut off your image leeching.

I hope you found this a useful tool. If you have improvements, suggestions, or questions, comment on this post, or email me.

[a href="http://www.blinkbits.com/bookmarklets/save.php?v=1&source_url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="blinkbits"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/blinkbits.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to blinkbits" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.blinklist.com/index.php?Action=Blink/addblink.php&Description=&amp;amp;url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="BlinkList"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/blinklist.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to BlinkList" /][/a] |
[a href="http://blogmarks.net/my/new.php?mini=1&simple=1&url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="blogmarks"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/blogmarks.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to blogmarks" /][/a] |
[a href="http://co.mments.com/track?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="co.mments"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/co.mments.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to co.mments" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.connotea.org/addpopup?continue=confirm&uri=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="connotea"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/connotea.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to connotea" /][/a] |
[a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/add_delicious.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to del.icio.us" /][/a] |
[a href="http://de.lirio.us/rubric/post?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="De.lirio.us"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/delirious.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to De.lirio.us" /][/a] |
[a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="post this entry to Digg"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/digg.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Digg icon" /][/a] |
[a href="http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/edit.pl?new_url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]&linktype=Misc" title="Fark"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/fark.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Fark" /][/a] |
[a href="http://feedmelinks.com/categorize?from=toolbar&op=submit&url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="feedmelinks"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/feedmelinks.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to feedmelinks" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/furl.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Furl" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.hugg.com/submit?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Add to Hugg: [$BlogItemTitle$]..."][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/hugg.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Hugg" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.linkagogo.com/go/AddNoPopup?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="LinkaGoGo"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/linkagogo.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to LinkaGoGo" /][/a] |
[a href="http://ma.gnolia.com/beta/bookmarklet/add?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="add this entry to Ma.gnolia"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/magnolia.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Ma.gnolia icon" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.netscape.com/submit/?U=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Submit to Netscape: [$BlogItemTitle$]..."][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/netscape.gif.jpg" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Netscape" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Seed Newsvine: [$BlogItemTitle$]..."][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/newsvine.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Seed Newsvine" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.netvouz.com/action/submitBookmark?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]&description=" title="Netvouz"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/netvouz.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Netvouz" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.rawsugar.com/tagger/?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="RawSugar"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/rawsugar.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to RawSugar" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Add to Reddit: [$BlogItemTitle$]..."][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/reddit.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Reddit" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.searchles.com/links/add_link/?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="post this entry to Searchles"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/searchles.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Searchles icon" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.scuttle.org/bookmarks.php/maxpower?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="scuttle"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/scuttle.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to scuttle" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.shadows.com/features/tcr.htm?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Shadows"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/shadows.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Shadows" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.simpy.com/simpy/LinkAdd.do?href=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Simpy"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/simpy.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Simpy" /][/a] |
[a href="http://smarking.com/editbookmark/?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Smarking"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/smarking.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Smarking" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.spurl.net/spurl.php?title=[$BlogItemTitle$]&url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]" title="post this entry to Spurl"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/spurl.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to spurl icon" /][/a] |
[a href="http://tailrank.com/share/?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="TailRank"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/tailrank.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to TailRank" /][/a] |
[a href="http://wists.com/r.php?url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&title=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Wists"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/wists.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Wists" /][/a] |
[a href="http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?u=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]&t=[$BlogItemTitle$]" title="Add to Yahoo: [$BlogItemTitle$]..."][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/yahoo.png" width="14px" height="14px" alt="Add to Yahoo!" /][/a] |
[a href="http://technorati.com/faves?add=http://YOURSITEURLHERE/" title="Add to Technorati Favorites"][img src="http://static.technorati.com/pix/fave/btn-fave2.png" width="80px" height="14px" alt="Add blogsite to Technorati Favorites" /][/a] |
[a href="http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=[$BlogItemPermalinkURL$]" title="View the Technorati Link Cosmos for this entry"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/technorati.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="View the Technorati Link Cosmos for this entry" /]entry[/a] |
[a href="http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=http://YOURSITEURLHERE" title="View the Technorati Link Cosmos for this blogsite"][img src="http://YOURIMGSRCHERE/technorati.gif" width="14px" height="14px" alt="View the Technorati Link Cosmos for this blogsite" /]blogsite[/a]

Hope you find this useful. Visit my sidebar, at the bottom, where it says, "Austausch" in order to pay me back, if you feel the urge to do so.
________________
Technorati tags: code, hack

Paula Zahn with Richard Dawkins on Darwin Day (2/12/07)

After the first (arguably horrific) segment done on the PZ hour regarding atheists and discrimination, the producers decided to take a stab at it again; this time, they actually include atheists on their panel, and feature Richard Dawkins in an interview with Paula.

**update**
Youtube 1 -- interview with Dawkins
Youtube 2 -- panel conversation
**

digg story

"Adultry" Fixed on Dixie County Monument

A while back, I noted that the Dixie monument had "adultry" rather than "adultery" inscribed on it. Almost all of the news articles from the original time of the media buzz (approx. Nov. 29-Dec. 8) show this misspelling, because they used the same pictures over and over. The clearest picture, and one used a lot, is from the original Dixie County Advocate news article, and you can view the full-size image here. It's as clear as day, and carved into granite. Even yesterday's article in the Sun shows it the same way.

Today, when I read about the ACLU finally filing a challenge, (see official court document here) I went to their site, and lo and behold: it is fixed!

I decided to call Ben Barber, owner of Dixie County Monuments, and personally ask him about it. He confirmed to me that he had done the repair, and said that he repaired it about a week after it was first noticed. He said that you really can't see the repair unless you get up close and look for it, but that if you do, you will see the fix. I think he did a great job; granite is as hard as hell to work with once it's finished.

Too bad that most of the pics of the thing are testifying to their illiteracy, rather than to their religious faith.

Here's the media roundup, again:

1. Gainesville Sun -- 11/28
2. Dixie County Advocate -- 11/30
3. Alligator -- 11/30
4. Alligator -- 12/1 (editorial)
5. FFRF Press Release -- 12/1
6. Gainesville Sun -- 12/02
7. 3 Letters to the Editor at the Sun -- pro, pro, con (12/2)
8. Dixie County Advocate -- 12/7
9. 2 More Letters to the Editor at the Sun -- pro (12/12), con (12/17)
10. St. Petersburg Times -- 1/3/07
11. St. Petersburg Times -- letter (con) 1/13/07 (4th letter down; response to 1/3/07 article above)
    
12. Gainesville Sun -- 2/7
13. ACLU News Release -- 2/7
    
14. Reuters (Miami) -- 2/7
    
15. Gainesville Sun -- 2/8
16. St. Petersburg Times -- 2/8
    

And HERE are all of the articles I've written on this story, as it developed, and my involvement and analysis of the situation.
________________
Technorati tags: Religion, Church-state

Dixie County, Now You're F#&%*d!

There's an old song I like, especially the version by Randy Travis:

"I told you so..."

Dixie County's dumbass decision to plant their religious monument at the courthouse is now officially headed to court. The names of the plaintiffs are being withheld to protect them, and I agree with that decision; those dumbass rednecks were ready to assault me that night.

I've heard over and over the assurances from the county's residents that no one in the county objects to it. Bullshit. People were just afraid to be harassed or beaten in retaliation (you know, because of God's abounding grace). Thankfully, a few plaintiffs have the courage to see this illegal action challenged.

Although the DC Commissioners are ecstatic about having free legal representation, what those stupid people don't apparently realize is that they'll have to pay the plaintiff's rather hefty legal fees once they lose this case. I'd love to see what percentage of the county budget $100K would be. If this goes way up to a state supreme court, that number could go into the millions.

Eventually, theocrats will be bled dry from such efforts, hopefully, and stop pulling this old trick.

For those who don't know, I appeared on FoxNews regarding this issue back on Nov. 29. CLICK HERE to watch and read some preliminary comments, and HERE for my detailed commentary on the legal and political issues.

Gainesville Sun, AP, St. Petersburg Times, my media roundup
________________
Technorati tags: Religion, Church-state