| Campus Inquirer | January 2008 |
Special Announcment
Coming this March: A speaking tour with Richard Dawkins, promoting the paperback release of his best-selling book, The God Delusion. Phoenix | San Francisco | Palo Alto | Madison, WI
New York City | Austin, TX | Minneapolis Student freethought and skeptic groups are invited to attend and help with book sales and event promotion. Watch for event details and schedule updates in future issues of Campus Inquirer!
Upcoming Events January 18, 19, 20
Toni Van Pelt: "Defending Science and Secularism in the Nation's Capital: A First-Year Report"
18: 7:15 p.m., CFI San Francisco, World Affairs Council Auditorium, 312 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA
19: 6:30 p.m., CFI Discussion Group of Kern County, Greenacres Community Center, 2014 Calloway Drive, Bakersfield, CA
20: 11:00 a.m. at CFI Los Angeles; 4:30 p.m. in Costa Mesa, CA January 20, 1:30 p.m.
Victor Stenger: "God: The Failed Hypothesis"
CFI Southern Arizona
Holiday Inn, 4550 South Palo Verde, Tucson, AZ January 25, 6:00 p.m.
Jim Underdown, Executive Director of CFI Los Angeles:
"Monument to Misinformation: An Inside Look at the Creation Museum"
CFI San Francisco
World Affairs Council Auditorium
312 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA January 25, 7:00 p.m.
David Colquhoun: "Science in an Age of Endarkenment"
CFI Ontario
University of Toronto
MacLeod Auditorium, Medical Sciences Building, Toronto, ON January 29, 7:00 p.m.
William Lane Craig vs. John Shook: "Does God Exist?"
University of British Columbia
Woodward Building, Lecture Hall #2, Vancouver, BC February 9, 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Darwin Day 2008, with Sir Harold Kroto, Michael Ruse, Eugenie Scott, et al.
CFI Tallahassee & Florida State University
FSU College of Medicine, Call Street at Stadium Drive February 22-23
CFI Florida Statewide Conference
Holiday Inn UCF (University of Central Florida), Orlando, FL February 22-25
Civic Days at the Capital (see feature below)
CFI DC, Washington, D.C. March 8
CFI Indiana and IUPUI Freethinkers:
Third Annual Darwin Day Conference, featuring Richard Carrier
Indiana University/Purdue University - Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN March 9, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Panel: African American Atheists and Political Liberation
Featuring Norm Allen (African Americans for Humanism) and Sibanye (CFI Harlem Discussion Group)
CFI Chicago
University of Illinois - Chicago
Student Center, Room 613, 750 S. Halsted Street, Chicago, IL
We need you in Washington D.C.! It's election year - finally! It's time to let our representatives know that their constituents support science and reason. It's up to us to represent secular values, so join us for CFI Civic Days at the Capital: - a time to learn about science and secular issues
- an opportunity to become politically active
- a chance to walk the halls of Congress with your fellow freethinkers
- a time to talk to your representative about the issues that are important to you
Events include: (subject to change according to the Congressional schedule) Cultural Excursions - Trip to the Global Warming Exhibit at the Marion Koshland Science Museum, the museum of the National Academy of Sciences
- Tour of the Library of Congress
- “Ingersoll’s Life in DC” - 1.5 mile, 2 hour afternoon walking tour. (Bring your favorite Ingersoll quotation to share.)
- Evening walking tour of the D.C. memorials (weather permitting)
- Alternate museum visits of your choice - Air and Space, American Indian, Natural History, etc.
Seminar Briefings - Separation of church and state and current state of CFI legal cases ~ Ron Lindsay, Director, CFI Legal Affairs
- Climate change and global warming bills in Congress ~ Dr. Stuart Jordan, emeritus senior staff scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- Lobbying how-to and briefing on current legislation ~ Toni Van Pelt, Director of Government Affairs
- Working at home on the state and federal level ~ D.J. Grothe, Vice President & Director, Outreach
On the Hill and in the Halls - Meetings with legislators, attendance of congressional briefing or hearing. If time allows, a tour of the Capitol building.
The registration fee for this event is $100; special student rates available. Click here to register online via PayPal. If you are interested in attending or would like to register at the student rate, please contact Toni Van Pelt a tvanpelt@cfidc.org, 800-398-7571, or 202-546-2330. Join us this February! Lend your voice to CFI Civic Days so science and reason will once again be heard on Capitol Hill! For complete details and current information, visit www.centerforinquiry.net/dc.
Darwin Day Is Right Around the Corner  Darwin Day is February 12th. All over the world, people will gather to celebrate science and humanity. Held every year on or near the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, CFI's Darwin Day events celebrate human understanding and knowledge and promote public education in science. Colleges, universities, museums, campus and community groups, and science enthusiasts in hundreds of locations will host events. These range from lectures and readings of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, to multi-day conferences. Host a Darwin Day event on your campus! Resources and suggestions can be found at http://www.darwinday.org.
New CFI Campus Groups We would like to welcome twenty-two new affiliate and prospective CFI campus groups that have joined CFI since November: Canada University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba United States (alphabetically by state) Redondo Union High School, Redondo Beach, CA
University of California - Santa Barbara, CA
California State University - Bakersfield, CA
University of Colorado at Boulder, CO
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Florida Atlantic University, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Florida International University, Miami, FL
Miami Dade College, Miami, FL
Rollins College, Winter Park, FL
University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Bentley College, Waltham, MA
Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Minuteman Regional High School, Tewksbury, MA
Grand Rapids Community College, Grand Rapids, MI
Montana State University - Billings, MT
University of Rochester, NY
Bard College, Annandale On Hudson, NY
Finger Lakes Community College, Canandaigua, NY
Community College of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA
University of Washington, Seattle, WA To get involved with a group, e-mail dgoddard@centerforinquiry.net, or go to www.campusinquirer.org to help start one on your campus.
Featured Book and Book Tour:
The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life 
Who holds the monopoly on morality? Cultural conservatives from the Vatican to Washington tell us that ethics presupposes religion, and so religion belongs in public life. Secular liberals counter that conscience is a private matter, a personal choice free from shared standards of truth or right. Conservatives charge that conscience without standards is relativism. Liberals didn’t lose their moral compass—they gave it away. In this incisive new book, The Secular Conscience (Prometheus Books, March 2008), philosopher Austin Dacey breaks this ideological deadlock by boldly rethinking the nature of conscience and its role in public life. Inspired by an earlier tradition he traces to Spinoza and John Stuart Mill, Dacey urges secular liberals to reclaim the language of objective values. Dacey seeks nothing less than to interrupt a suicide, and he has written a beautiful primer on how our secular tradition can be rescued from self-defeat. The Secular Conscience reveals how simplistic notions of privacy, tolerance, and freedom keep dangerous ideas sheltered from public debate. This is an extraordinarily useful and lucid book.
– Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation This spring, Austin Dacey will visit campuses and community groups to talk about The Secular Conscience, in cities including: New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Tucson, and Grand Rapids. Events are being planned in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis - St. Paul, Indianapolis, and other regions. Details will be announced in an upcoming newsletter. If you would like to bring Dr. Dacey to your campus, or for more information, please contact Debbie Goddard at dgoddard@centerforinquiry.net. Austin Dacey is a representative to the United Nations for the Center for Inquiry in New York City, where he works on issues of secular values, science, and ethics. He is the author of articles in numerous publications including the New York Times. He holds a doctorate in applied ethics and social philosophy. His website is www.austindacey.com.
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