The mission of CT Valley Atheists is to be more active in the community and participate in charity events. For our first activity, we decided to join Relay For Life® of South Windsor and Rockville. The CT Valley Atheist Team is captained by Mike Rickaby.

The actual walk is on June 13-14 at South Windsor High School. Please join us or make a donation in our name.

Dan, our intrepid Vice Coordinator, will be representing CVA as a guest on two radio programs on Thursday, Dec 20.

WPLR’s Chaz & AJ will have Dan as a call-in guest to at about 7:15 am. Then at 7 pm Dan will be a call-in guest on the internet radio program Answers in Atheism, hosted by Edwin Kagin. The morning interview will last about ten minutes, while the evening’s interview will last 30-45 minutes (and is likely to be much more sympathetic.) The Chaz & AJ show is broadcast on 99.1 FM, WPLR, New Haven, CT from 5:30 to 10 am.

Answers in Atheism can be streamed from answersinatheism.net from 7 to 8 pm.

Please tune in if possible. If you are able to tape the interviews, that would be great. We can replay them at our next meeting.

On December 1, 2007 we erected the Town of Vernon’s first Atheist holiday display. It will eventually be joined by a Christian display and a Jewish one. Traditionally only a Christian display has been erected. We would prefer no displays promoting theological worldviews be displayed at all, but as long as they are we thank the Town of Vernon for permitting Atheists equal access.

Since we erected our holiday display in Vernon we have received several emails suggesting that the World Trade Center design was inappropriate. This is our response:

First, we are equally aghast and disturbed by what happened on Sept. 11th. In fact, many of us atheists decided to become more active because of that incident. Our image was not dramatic — it was a serene pre-9/11 image. If we have opened up any old wounds, it is completely unintentional.

We are also not insinuating that all religious people are to blame. Clearly, 9/11 is the work of fanatics. However, we feel that religion even in moderation provides a foundation for fanatical groups to thrive. In short, we are against the idea of god and religion but not against the people caught in the web of illusion.

Our complaint about religion with regards to 9/11 is not new. Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, a professor of theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York made this observation in an interview conducted by FRONTLINE producer Helen Whitney in the winter of 2002.

From the first moment I looked into that horror on September 11th, into that fireball, into that explosion of horror, I knew it. I knew it before anything was said about those who did it or why. I recognized an old companion. I recognized religion. — Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete