Internet Infidels Newsletter
AUGUST 1998
In this issue:
II is Proud to Announce that Richard Dawkins is an II supporter
If it is possible to judge an organization by the company it keeps, the Internet
Infidels have much to be proud of. We are proud to announce that Richard Dawkins is now an
Internet Infidel supporter. The list of supporters can be found at http://www.infidels.org/infidels/supporters.html.
This list includes some of the most preeminent names in philosophy, science, and
freethought.
Richard Dawkins, a zoologist at Oxford University, is one of the most important
evolutionary biologists in the world. His best selling books include The
Selfish Gene, The Blind
Watchmaker, The
Extended Phenotype, River Out
Of Eden and his most recent, Climbing
Mount Improbable. For more information on the cutting edge ideas and writing of
Richard Dawkins see the Secular Web's section on him at http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_dawkins/
or John Catalano's excellent site at http://www.spacelab.net/~catalj/.
The Internet Infidels are extremely honored to have the support of Richard Dawkins, one
of the most important thinkers of our day.
[Clark Adams prepared this report.]
Several Internet e-mail addresses received an e-mail message on 1 Jul, in which the
author threatened to kill the recipient unless the recipient called the author at a
designated telephone number within 24 hours. The author identified himself as
"Andy" and sent messages from the address <YOURS2BE@aol.com>.
Because several of the addresses were owned by individuals who posted to the Usenet
newsgroup alt.atheism.moderated, this prompted some atheists to wonder if the threats were
intended specifically for atheists. However, at this time there is no evidence that
atheists were specially selected as targets of the threat.
One recipient of the message, alt.atheism.moderated contributor G.R. Gaudreau, tried
calling the phone number but "kept getting a busy signal." When he tried calling
the Sheriff's Office in Clinton South Carolina, he was told by Detective Tim Hayes, of the
County Sheriff's Office, that they had received similar phone calls from all over the
world. The complete text of the message read as follows:
From: YOURS2BE@aol.com
Return-path: <YOURS2BE@aol.com
To: YOURS2BE@aol.com
Subject: Please Read
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 00:13:20 EDT
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
Hello, my name is Andy. I know where you live and I know where your kids sleep. If you
dont call me within 24 hours im going to kill your kids. my phone number is 864-833-3403.
P.S. This is NOT a joke.
According to MSNBC, both America Online and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are
investigating. MSNBC reports that they were able to get through on the telephone number
listed in the e-mail. A women answered the phone, saying that she had received phone calls
from police departments around the country, that Andy is her 15-year old son, and that he
did not send the e-mail.
MSNBC quoted John Ryan, AOL's assistant general counsel, as saying, "We’re
fairly confident that the account it passed through was not sent by actual account holder.
It appeared compromised."
Portions of this article are based upon information obtained from http://www.msnbc.com/news/177372.asp.
[Jeffery Jay Lowder prepared this report.]
In the latest round in the war between the Church of $cientology and the Internet, the
Church of $cientology is giving web starter kits to members, in an attempt to encourage
its members to create their own pro-$cientology web sites.
But web starter kit is much more than a piece of software to facilitate convenient
construction of pro-$cientology web sites. The web starter kit also comes with web
filtering software specially configured to block access to all web sites critical of
$cientology.
$cientology's opponents note that their web starter kit is nothing more than a way of
flooding the entire web with pro-$cientology spam. They accuse $cientologists of trying to
flood search engines with thousands of redundant pro-$cientology web sites, effectively
making it impossible for readers to find sites critical of $cientology. Fortunately, the
search engines are relying upon anti-spam measures to prevent $cientology from ruining the
integrity of their databases. Salon magazine quoted Alan Gross, a representative
of http://www.lycos.com, as saying, "We heard
about this major push to load up the search engines a couple months ago. We didn't get
real worried about it. We're pretty protected from a major effort like that just from the
way we catalogue." Gross added that this was not the first time $cientology contacted
Lycos; he says that last year a representative from $cientology requested that 20,000 URLs
be added to the search engine.
Moreover, critics of $cientology blast the web filtering software as "cult
mind-control for the 21st century" and further evidence that the Church of
$cientology is fundamentally opposed to the free expression of ideas.
Among the blocked sites are the following:
The filtering software is apparently also configured to block access to sites which
contain certain words, including: Andreas Heldal-Lund, anti-Christian, anti-church,
anti-God, FACTNet, James J. Lippard, Jim Lippard, and Operation
Clambake.
One wonders why, if the doctrines of $cientology are true, the Church of $cientology
feels the need to shield its members from critical or even hostile web sites. Of course,
that presupposes that the leadership of the Church of $cientology is even concerned about
the truth. In light of its actions, that seems like a rather dubious assumption.
[Information for this article was taken from http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/.
A full list of the sites blocked by "Clam-Nanny" is available at http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/. Special thanks to
Internet Infidel Doug Linder for bringing this to our attention.]
Every state should have a Lake Hypatia Freethought Hall. It is an oasis of reason in
that sea of lunacy often referred to as Alabama. Lake Hypatia Freethought Hall, which is
owned by the Freedom From Religion Foundation
(FFRF) is the only Freethought Hall in the American Southeast. The surrounding property,
which are owned by Roger Cleveland, Pat Cleveland, and Melody Cleveland, consist of 66
acres of piney Piedmont land. The property includes a 10 acre lake (Lake Hypatia) and
borders the Talladega National Forest.
Every July 4th weekend, Lake Hypatia hosts the largest annual gathering of freethinkers
in the South. Activities include speakers, discussions, poetry reading, boating, fishing,
hiking, and the ever popular "Atheists vs. Agnostics Softball Game" (not really
how the teams are divided). The speakers have included some of the most popular speakers
in freethought: James "The Amazing" Randi, Edd Doerr, Internet Infidels'
President Jeffery Jay Lowder, and Jim Lippard. This year was no exception. One
"exception" to this year's festivities was that this was the first time national
media covered the weekend.
The festivities began on Friday, July 3rd, with a welcoming to the gala by Alabama's
premiere freethought activist, Pat Cleveland. Internet Infidels' Public Relations Director
Clark Adams then gave a speech on current freethought trends, where he talked about the
most important developments within freethought over the past few years. Shortly after his
talk, a crew from the Public Broadcasting Service series arrived to film for their weekly
"Religion and Ethics" program. They filmed most functions and interviewed dozens
of freethinkers for the episode which aired on the weekend of July 25th.
Later that evening came the highlight of the weekend when Internet Infidel mathew
lectured on mass communications and atheism. It was ironic that mathew gave this talk with
network cameras present as his talk was often critical of network television. He talked
about the "soundbite attitude" of current news media and how it is difficult to
posit atheism and other positions in a soundbite. Following mathew, was the ever popular Dr. Delos McKown, philosophy
professor emeritus at Auburn University and Internet Infidel supporter. Delos talked about
his forthcoming book Kicking the Religious Habit - Guilt Free. Delos is currently
working on four books, this one and a three part series on Jeremy Bentham. Delos' wit and
attitude always make him interesting to read and hear.
Saturday, July 4th began with philosophy professor Heidi Malmquist's lecture on goddess
worshipping cultures and how they differ from paternalistic ones. She talked about the
different influence of goddess cultures of Crete and other civilizations, and how this
compared with modern feminist authors. Following this was the poetry reading at the brand
new lake front pavilion which is on Lake Hypatia.
The evening of Saturday brought forth a very sentimental moment. One of the benefactors
of Lake Hypatia was a freethought activist names Edyth Rizzo of Florida. She passed away a
few months ago. She had previously given the Hall a piano and many freethought books. Her
daughter sent Hypatia a small plaque to be placed on the piano. Accompanying this was a
check from her estate. This check was "seed money" for a fund drive to build an
adjoining auditorium since the hall has gotten too small as attendance has grown.
Alabama is the state most under siege by the Religious Right. The Alabama Freethought
Association presented Olivia Turner and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of
Alabama with an award for tirelessly supporting the Jeffersonian wall of church-state
separation in Alabama. After the award presentation, Martin McCaffrey, also of the Alabama
ACLU, talked about current state-church legal battles in Alabama and how he achieved one
of his life-long dreams, being negatively mentioned on both the Rush Limbaugh Show
and the 700 Club in the same week.
The evening saw a freethought concert by musician and FFRF's Public Relations Director
Dan Barker. "Nothing Fails Like Prayer" and the German freethought classic,
"Die Gedanken Send Frie" were most popular, as much of the audience
sang and laughed along. Always entertaining, Barker debuted three new freethought songs
which will be featured on an upcoming CD release.
Sunday, the final day of the gala, began by Memphis activist Kevin Colquist's
discussion about his micro-radio (also called "pirate radio") atheist radio
show. He has a lot of fun with it, and encourages others to explore micro-radio in their
cities as well. When wattage is below a certain level, FCC regulations do not apply. This
makes having a micro-radio station within easy reach of many.
The gala closed, as it usually does, with an activists' victory forum. Led by Alabama
freethought activists Adam Butler and Rachel Doughty, this allows freethinkers from all
over to share their victory stories and discuss projects they are currently working on.
Freethinkers from Kentucky to Alabama to Missouri talked about their current projects. The
July Lake Hypatia Gala, sometimes called "The Lollapalooza of Freethought," has
become one of the most popular freethought events in the U.S. It is the most affordable,
as well as the most informal of all the national gatherings. Every freethinker in America
should make the "non-pilgrimage" there. As they leave, the most common statement
is "I can't believe this is in Alabama."
[Clark Adams prepared this report.]
WARNING, CAUTION, DANGER, AND
BEWARE!
Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet!
[Note: In recent months, several virus hoaxes have been forwarded to II mailing
lists. The following satirical message is intended to help people identify virus hoaxes
instead of inadvertently perpetrating them.]
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The Institute for the Investigation of Irregular
Internet Phenomena announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new
virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and
dire warning that shows up in their inbox or on their browser. The Gullibility Virus, as
it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating
to cookie recipes, email viruses, taxes on modems, and get-rich-quick schemes. "These
are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie
numbers," a spokesman said. "Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh
at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner." However, once
these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they
read on the Internet.
"My immunity to tall tales and bizarre claims is all gone," reported one
weeping victim. "I believe every warning message and sick child story my friends
forward to me, even though most of the messages are anonymous." Another victim, now
in remission, added, "When I first heard about Good Times, I just accepted it without
question. After all, there were dozens of other recipients on the mail header, so I
thought the virus must be true." It was a long time, the victim said, before she
could stand up at a Hoax's Anonymous meeting and state, "My name is Jane, and I've
been hoaxed." Now, however, she is spreading the word. "Challenge and check
whatever you read," she says.
Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include
the following:
The willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking. The urge to forward
multiple copies of such stories to others. A lack of desire to take three minutes to check
to see if a story is true. T. C. is an example of someone recently infected. He told one
reporter, "I read on the Net that the major ingredient in almost all shampoos makes
your hair fall out, so I've stopped using shampoo." When told about the Gullibility
Virus, T. C. said he would stop reading email, so that he would not become infected.
Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend
that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search
engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends,
and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community. Courses
in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is online help from many
sources, including Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html.
Symantec Anti Virus Research Center at:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
McAfee Associates Virus Hoax List at:
http://www.mcafee.com/support/hoax/hoax.asp
Datafellows Hoax Warnings at:
http://www.Europe.Datafellows.com/news/hoax.htm
Those people who are still symptom free can help inoculate themselves against the
Gullibility Virus by reading some good material on evaluating sources, such as:
Evaluating Internet Research Sources at:
http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/evalu8it.htm
Evaluation of Information Sources at:
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm
Bibliography on Evaluating Internet Resources at:
http://refserver.lib.vt.edu/libinst/critTHINK.HTM
Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the Gullibility Virus by
sending copies of this message to anyone who forwards them a hoax.
For over two years, moderate Christians and Muslims (frequently students) on America
On-Line (AOL) discussed and debated the great differences between Islam and Christianity.
The Arabic-speaking Christians even created a web page (formerly located at http://www.aol.com/suralikeit/) which contained
several short verses (called suras) in the style and language of the Qur'an.
These suras had been on the net for some time. There was never any claim that these
were real suras from the Qur'an, and moderate Muslims clearly understood their purpose and
were happy to discuss their merits and the degree to which they attain the standards set
by the Qur'an.
In mid-June, various Islamic groups organized a massive protest against AOL over the
web page. The Islamic media carried the story, Muslim student groups got involved, and
even the prestigious Al Azhar University of Cairo complained to AOL about the 'defamatory'
site. Meanwhile, moderate Muslims advocated tolerance, arguing that closure of the site
would reinforce stereotypical views of Muslims as intolerant.
On June 23, 1998 AOL decided to review the site. AOL subsequently decided that the site
violated the terms of their service and closed it down. The conservatives won. Yet,
critics noted that there is only one way the SuraLikeIt web site might have violated the
AOL terms of service. The AOL terms of service states that AOL has the right to terminate
any web page which engages in "other activities that may impair the enjoyment of our
members."
According to one critic, "It means that while you may be technically 'free to
speak', they will not host your site if other people disagree with you and register their
protest!" Moreover, he noted that "This is not something which is confined to
the Christian-Muslim religious divide-- it could affect any web publishing which
is likely to arouse the feelings of those who disagree . . . If other Internet Service
Providers followed this approach, freedom of speech will only mean 'You are free to say
what you like... as long as no one protests.'"
Critics also charged AOL with hypocrisy, citing both pornography and
anti-Christian/pro-Muslim material on AOL web servers. "If they are going to censor
anything which generates protests, they should at least be consistent with their own
policy and censor all of it", said one opponent of AOL's decision.
Meanwhile, Muslim reaction was -- and still is -- mixed. Conservative Muslims hailed
the move by AOL as a great victory over discrimination against Islam. Moderates, on the
other hand, felt that such tactics could rebound against Muslims and urged caution in
future.
[Jeffery Jay Lowder prepared this report from a variety of sources. For an
excellent web page critical of AOL's decision, see http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/suralikeit/.
For an excellent web page supportive of AOL's decision, see http://www.angelfire.com/al/islamfirst/]
 Why
Christianity Must Change or Die : A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile
By John Shelby Spong
In an explosive contemporary creed of Christian faith and life for the 21st century,
controversial figure Bishop John Shelby Spong--American Christianity's premier liberal
voice--offers his unified and brilliant new vision of an authentic Christian belief for
our time.
Helping you to sip from the information firehose
How did the Church of Scientology win so many awards for its home page? In
this month's web.scan, mathew helps us to
understand the fine art of Self-promotion for
Beginners.
How Not to Run a Freethought Organization
Imagine a church that has no (lay) Sunday services, no ceremonies of any kind (not even
weddings or funerals), and no music. The church might sponsor a local chapter of the
Christian Coalition, but not necessarily. The only guarantee this church makes is that it
offers Sunday School. Moreover, imagine that the Sunday School offered by this church is
so theologically advanced that you need at least the theological background of a college
sophomore majoring in religion. Would you want to attend such a church? I doubt it. And
even if you had the prerequisite knowledge of, and interest in, philosophical theology,
would this "church" really satisfy all of your needs? And even if it did satisfy
all of your needs, what about individuals who agree with the church's teachings, but want
more than just a Sunday School?
I submit that the majority of atheist, agnostic, freethinker, and humanist groups are the
secular equivalent of the "church" I just described. They are not a
"church", but they do tend to dwell on issues in the philosophy of religion or
First Amendment studies. Freethinkers tend to dwell on the intellectual issues so much
that we actually drive people -- freethinker and non-freethinker alike -- away from our
organizations. Freethought organizations generally fail to address other needs that many
freethinkers have: raising children as nontheists, the need for community, and even the
need for ceremonies (e.g., weddings, funerals), and music. As someone who just got
married, I know from personal experience just how difficult it can be to create and
arrange a meaningful secular ceremony.
I suspect the reason that so many freethought organizations neglect these "other
needs" is that many freethinkers (at least those in leadership positions)
unconsciously perceive this as an "either/or" type of issue. According to this
reasoning, a freethought organization must be either intellectual/activist or a
"social" organization that satisfies many of the needs my hypothetical church
does not. Since intellectual pursuits and activism are far more important than building
communities, freethought organizations must therefore be an association of philosophers or
lobbyists, and not a community of like-minded friends. As long as this sort of thinking
continues to dominate freethought organizations, I think it's pretty obvious that our
numbers will stay small. (In fact, given the extent to which this thinking tends to
dominate freethought organizations, it's amazing we have the numbers we do.) We've simply
got to come up with ways to make our communities more accessible and more interesting to
the average person.
In my opinion, there is at least one freethought organization which does exactly that: the
North Texas Church of Freethought (NTCOF).
(As an aside, if I had been responsible for naming that organization, I am not sure that I
would have included the word "church" in its name; but I wholeheartedly agree
with the concept and I consider the concept much more important than the
name.) NTCOF recognizes that even nontheists have emotional needs which
"traditional" freethought organizations have not adequately addressed, and I
believe the NTCOF leadership deserves praise for its insight and vision.
For our part, Internet Infidels, Inc. has done a minimal job of addressing "other
needs": we maintain a mailing list for single agnostics, atheists, freethinkers and
humanists and (thanks to Robby Berry) our web site has a "Families Corner". But
there is much more which remains to be done on our web site, and we intend to do
everything we can to fill the gap. We would appreciate any suggestions our readers might
have on how Internet Infidels, Inc. can better address these other, important needs I have
described.
[Jeffery Jay Lowder wrote this editorial.
He is President of Internet Infidels, Inc. Comments on this editorial are welcome at infidel@infidels.org.]
Beginning with the July issue, I took over as editor of the newsletter from Mark Vuletic, my predecessor, and former
Secretary of the Internet Infidels. Mark has decided to devote all of his energy toward
work on his dissertation for the Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Illinois,
Chicago. As most of you who are familiar with Mark's tenure as Secretary know, I have some
mighty large shoes to fill. Mark juggled the many demanding tasks with such skill that he
even made it look easy. We'll miss Mark around here as Secretary, but look forward to
publishing Dr. Vuletic's research in the future!
[James Still took over as Secretary of
the Internet Infidels in March 1998.]
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