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SPEAKER: PAUL GROSSWALD
SUBJECT: FROM MY RECRUITMENT INTO SCIENTOLOGY TO MY EXIT COUNSELING

Paul Grosswald was recruited into the Church of Scientology during his sophomore year at Hofstra University. During six months of intense indoctrination he became increasingly drawn to the group, until he ultimately dropped out of school, moved into the cult's Manhattan compound, and signed a one-billion year employment contract with Scientology's Sea Organization. After finally breaking free from the cult's influence, he returned to Hofstra where he earned a B.A. in Communications.

Today, Paul is a practicing attorney and works to enlighten individuals about Scientology as to:

1) Scientology endangers personal freedom and constitutional rights, .

2) Scientology is a dangerous organization. it enforces policies which require its members to sever ties with their families.

3) Scientology uses destructive psychological techniques to intimidate followers into compliance. and Scientologists are taught how to lie and deceive.

4) Many people are afraid to speak out against Scientology for fear of its widely demonstrated retaliatory methods.

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New York City Atheists Inc. is a not-for-profit educational and activist association dedicated to separation of church and state and the right to be nonreligious. It is open to all—freethinkers, humanists, skeptics and doubters as well as those who are questioning and searching. NYCA is an affiliate of American Atheists, AtheistAlliance International and the Center for Atheism.
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SPEAKER: Dr. Seth M. Asser M.D, F.A.A.P.

SUBJECT: When Prayer Fails -- And Children Die
Save the Littlest Victims…

LOCATION: Press Box - 932 Second Ave. (49/50th) - 2nd Floor

Please note that this is a new location for us. Kennedy's Pub is becoming
too overcrowded for our needs.*
*The Press Box has a lovely Ivy League ambience.*

COST: $20 (Buffet, soft drink, tax and tip)

Religions that Refuse Medical Treatment Blamed For Hundreds of Unnecessary Deaths of Children

Dr. Seth M. Asser does not like to see children die. He gets especially mad if children die when proper treatment could have saved their lives.

In his 17 years as head of the children's intensive care unit at the University of California in San Diego, Dr. Asser, a board-certified pediatrician (or children's doctor), took care of many critically ill children whose parents had taken them to Tijuana for the latest miracle cure like Laetrile or coffee enemas. "Their illness generally got worse because they weren't being properly treated or they got complications from the crazy treatments they received in Tijuana, and they ended up in my ICU," he says. So Dr. Asser began to research the problem of why people would reject modern scientific medical care for Third World voodoo or miracle cures.

In the course of studying this phenomenon, Dr. Asser came across some former Christian Scientists who had organized a group called Children's Health Care Is a Legal Duty, or Child. "It was founded by a couple who had lost their own child when he had an illness and instead of getting medical care, they called a Christian Science practitioner to come and pray over the child," Dr. Asser says. "They were eventually told that the baby wasn't getting better because they didn't have enough faith. Actually, the child had bacterial meningitis and needed antibiotics."

Dying of Treatable Causes

After the baby died, the parents formed the organization call Child. Dr. Asser learned that the founders of Child had become aware of some 300 similar cases over the years of children who had died when they could have been saved by simple medical treatment.

Dr. Asser turned this information into a medical study that was published in the medical journal, Pediatrics, in 1998, in which he documented that these children died slow, horrible, painful deaths from easily preventable or treatable conditions like appendicitis, pneumonia or measles, or just not having a trained nurse or doctor at a delivery.

Dr. Asser has written and published and spoken out about this problem to try to help change still-in-existence laws in most states that allow religious parents to be exempt from child neglect or child abuse charges when they let their children die from lack of medical treatment. "Only a small handful of these parents have been prosecuted, and of those, only three that we are aware of ever served any jail time."

Come and hear the good doctor tell New York City Atheists about which religions perpetrate this kind of child neglect, what happens to the sick children and their parents, and what can be done to prevent these unnecessary deaths of innocents who cannot speak for themselves.

Book Club / Library

After brunch, we move to the NYCA Library located on East 79th Street.

We continue discussing Christopher Hitchens' god is not Great, Chapter 12: "A Coda: How Religions End."

Need not have read the assignment to participate.

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ORDER TICKETS ON LINE:
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PURCHASE TICKETS FOR 7PM SHOW
DINNER AND DISCUSSION IN A LOCAL RESTAURANT AFTERWARDS.

Angelika Theater (just west of Broadway)
B D F G (Broadway / Lafayette)
N R (Broadway / Prince)
6 (Bleecker / Lafayette)
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Believers, Skeptics and a Pool of Sitting Ducks

By STEPHEN HOLDEN (NYT) October 1, 2008

There is no arguing with faith. As the comedian and outspoken nonbeliever Bill Maher travels the world, interviewing Christians, Jews and Muslims in the facetiously funny documentary “Religulous,” you begin to wonder if there might be two subspecies of humans.

The skeptical minority to which Mr. Maher belongs constitutes 16 percent of the American population, he says, citing a survey. For many of them, including Mr. Maher, the tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Islam (Eastern and African religions are ignored) are dangerous fairy tales and myths that have incited barbarous purges and holy wars that are still being fought. A talking snake? A man who lived inside a fish? These are two of Mr. Maher’s favorite biblical images offered up for ridicule.

The majority of Americans, however, embrace some form of blind faith. But because that faith by its very nature requires a leap into irrationality, it is almost impossible to explain or to defend in rational terms.

Mr. Maher has already established his position as an agnostic in his HBO comedy series, “Real Time With Bill Maher.” A recent clash on the program with his frequent guest the blogger and author Andrew Sullivan, who is a Roman Catholic, illustrated how believers and those who doubt might as well be from different planets. They can argue with each other in fairly reasonable voices about politics, but not about faith.

In a small journalistic coup Mr. Maher interviews a Roman Catholic priest in front of the Vatican, who laughingly agrees with him that the fundamental teachings of the Catholic Church are nonsense that are not to be taken literally. Mr. Maher, unfortunately, doesn’t press him on why he wears priestly vestments and presumes to exert religious authority.

Although theologians and scientists are interviewed in the film, they are fleeting presences in a documentary that doesn’t pretend to be a serious cultural or scientific exploration of the roots of faith. Because Mr. Maher adopts the attitude of an inquiring reporter instead of a pundit, his contempt for organized religion isn’t as pointed in the movie as it is in his television monologues.

His strategy is to coax most of those subjects who are true believers to appear foolish as they offer stumbling, inarticulate responses to his friendly interrogations. The majority of his subjects are easy targets. One such sitting duck is José Luis de Jesús Miranda, a nattily dressed Miami preacher who declares that he is the second coming of Christ and claims that his Growing in Grace ministry has 100,000 followers. Like the fulminating televangelists whose ministries the film glosses over, he comes across as a greedy, self-satisfied charlatan with a fondness for gold.

When Mr. Maher asks Senator Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat and fervent evangelical Christian, why faith is good, he stumbles for an answer. Returning later to Senator Pryor, Mr. Maher suggests that many evangelicals look forward to the end of the world, when it is prophesied that Jesus will return. The senator doesn’t dispute him.

John Westcott, a former homosexual who is now married and the director of Exchange Ministries in Winter Park, Fla., an organization whose mission is to reorient sexuality, can only smile when Mr. Maher reminds him that Jesus never addressed the subject of homosexuality. At a Christian theme park where the passion of Christ is re-enacted in a tacky musical pageant, the actor playing Jesus compares the Holy Trinity to the three states of water: liquid, ice and vapor.

Ultimately, “Religulous” turns into a thunderous warning about the future, complete with apocalyptic images of stampeding armies and mushroom clouds issued by Mr. Maher, standing in the ruins of Megiddo, the Israeli site from which the Book of Revelation says Armageddon will originate. Secular humanists, agnostics and atheists should rise up and make themselves heard, he declares. Instead of faith, he emphasizes, we should consider doubt.

It includes humor that many will consider blasphemous.

Flash!

Natty Adams Is Back by Popular Demand

To Conduct NYCA Meetup on Sept. 16!
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Islam and Terrorism to Come Under Natty’s Magnifying Glass

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Natty’s back, and this time, he’s got the gloves off for a discussion about Islamic terrorism.

Oh, he’s still the Natty Adams we know and love: Dapper, handsome, incredibly charming---the Natty who dresses like Tom Wolfe, looks like a young Dr. Zhivago and engages the Meetup crowd with intelligent charm. But this time, you’ll see yet another side of Natty. This is the Natty who wants to bring to your consciousness the specter of this huge, growing religion and what it means to us here in America.

“I plan on initiating a discussion about Islam, terrorism and international political secularism because I notice that American atheists often seem to want to talk only about how much the local Christian fundamentalists tick them off,” Natty told us. “Well, if you think our conservative religious leaders are bad, you should see theirs.”

Radical Islam Increasing
Natty added, “I’d like to hear what people in the group have to say about the increasing force of a radical political strain of Islam throughout the world and what we as atheists and secularists can and should do about it.”

Possible topics of conversation can include: women’s’ rights, Israel and Palestine, September 11, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and censorship (The Satanic Verses, the Danish cartoons, the new novel about Muhammad’s child bride, etc.)

Some books Natty has found interesting, if anybody would like to know, are:

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Why I am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq

Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, edited by Ibn Warraq

Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman

The Foreigner’s Gift by Fouad Ajami

The War for Muslim Minds by Gilles Kepel

You don’t need to have read any of these books to take part in the discussion.

Come prepared to think, to engage in an exchange of ideas, to air your opinion—or to just listen and learn, if that’s what you prefer.

This is your Atheist salon, folks, where friends are made and ideas sharpened.

Come to meet other questioning, articulate Atheists in a friendly, safe, accepting atmosphere among people who will know where you’re coming from. Come to enjoy the rare joy of being among sharp, courageous people who think the way you do!

EVENT SUMMARY

WHAT: Natty Adams Leads Discussion on Islam and Terrorism

WHEN: Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008
7 p.m. till whenever…
WHERE: Stone Creek Bar & Lounge
140 East 27th Street (bet. 3rd & Lex.)
Back Room

COST: FREE, but we like to give the Stone Creek some business
in exchange for them letting us use their back room. Drinks
and food available, reasonably priced.
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New York City Atheists is a 501C3 non-profit organization dedicated to the separation of church and state and to promoting the Atheist lifestyle and values. All are welcome: atheists, agnostics, secularists, humanists, skeptics and those seeking and questioning.
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