David Fitzgerald

Ten Beautiful Lies about Jesus

David Fitzgerald

January 19, 2014

 

davidFitzgeraldWhy would anyone think Jesus never existed? Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to accept that he was a real first century figure?

As it turns out, no. David Fitzgerald’s award-winning book Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All sheds light on ten beloved Christian myths, and with evidence gathered from historians all across the theological spectrum, shows how they point to a Jesus Christ created solely through allegorical alchemy of hope and imagination; a messiah transformed from a purely literary, theological construct into the familiar figure of Jesus – in short, a purely mythic Christ.

Join us as we hear Dave lay out the ten biggest “facts” Christians get wrong about Jesus in his talk “Ten Beautiful Lies about Jesus.”

Praise for David Fitzgerald’s

Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All

Voted one of the top 5 Atheist/Agnostic books of 2010

About Atheism.com’s Reader’s Choice Awards

“Fitzgerald’s is possibly the best ‘capsule summary’ of the mythicist case I’ve ever encountered …with an interesting and accessible approach.”

—Earl Doherty, author of The Jesus Puzzle

 

“Fitzgerald summarizes a great number of key arguments concisely and with new power and original spin. I really learned something from him. Recalls classical skeptics and biblical critics. A surprising amount of new material.”

—Robert M. Price, author of Deconstructing Jesus and The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man

 

“David Fitzgerald reveals himself to be the brightest new star in the firmament of scholars who deny historical reality to “Jesus of Nazareth.” His brilliance would have been sufficiently established had he done nothing more than illustrate and explain traditional arguments with a clarity and transparency never achieved…But he has done more. He has developed new arguments and insights as well…”

—Frank R. Zindler, editor of American Atheist Press and author of The Jesus the Jews Never Knew

 

“Fitzgerald has hit the nail on the head…A nice, readable introduction to the top ten problems typically swept under the rug by anyone insisting it’s crazy even to suspect Jesus might not have existed.”

—Richard C. Carrier, Ph.D., author of Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed and the forthcoming book On the Historicity of Jesus Christ

 

BIO:
David Fitzgerald is a writer and public speaker who has been called both “The Ferris Bueller of San Francisco” and “one of the busiest atheist activists in the Bay Area.” He is the Action Coordinator for San Francisco Atheists and serves on the board of the Center for Inquiry-San Francisco; Co-founder & Director of both the world’s first Atheist Film Festival and San Francisco’s oldest annual Darwin Day celebration, “Evolutionpalooza!”

He is on the Speaker’s Bureau of both the Secular Student Alliance and Center for Inquiry, and lectures around the country at universities and national secular events, including national conventions of American Atheists and the American Humanist Association, and an audience favorite at Skepticon.

Besides all that, he is a historical researcher who has been actively investigating the Historical Jesus question for over ten years. He has a degree in history and was an associate member of CSER (the former Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion).  His most recent book is NAILED: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All, which critically examines the historical evidence of Christ.

Emily Harris

Emily_Harris_Headshot

Why California Can’t Buy Its Way Out of the Prison Crisis

Emily Harris

January 12, 2014

 

Our criminal justice system – including our prisons and jails – is broken AND expensive. The United States, with less than five percent of the world’s population, has nearly 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population. California has one of the highest prison and jail populations in the US. Our recidivism rate at more than 67% is also among the highest.

Emily Harris, Statewide Coordinator of Californians United For a Responsible Budget (CURB ), will speak. CURB’s goal is to stop the expansion of the failed system and replace the brutal practice of putting people in cages for long periods with evidence-based treatment, rehabilitation and training programs to facilitate their reintegration back into society.

Martin Carcieri

Physician-Assisted Suicide and Beyond: What Would Rawls Do?

Marty Carcieri

January 5, 2014

Martin Carcieri
Martin Carcieri

Physician-Assisted Suicide, even for the terminally ill, is legal in only four U.S. States. Yet there are now proposals in the U.S. and abroad to extend the right to die (i.e., to obtain and consume a reliable lethal dose of barbiturates) even further: 1) to those over 70 years of age, and 2) to those whose longtime spouses are near death and who wish to die with them. How would these proposals fare under the principles of justice articulated and defended by John Rawls, the most influential political theorist of our time? Friend of SVH Martin Carcieri will present his application of Rawlsian principles to one of the most urgent public policy issues of our time.

Martin Carcieri is an Associate Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, where he teaches courses and seminars on Constitutional Law and Political Theory. He holds a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California, and has published twenty-five journal articles and book chapters.

To learn more before the presentation on Sunday, you can read the handout.

 

 

Annie Ashmore

Invisible Children

Annie Ashmore

December 29, 2013

 

Annie Ashmore
Annie Ashmore

Invisible Children (www.invisiblechildren.com) is an organization dedicated to ending, and helping people recover from, the extreme damage caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).   Led by Joseph Kony, the LRA has operated in Uganda and neighboring countries since 1986.  Kony has been accused by government entities of ordering the abduction of children to become child-sex slaves and child soldiers (an estimated 66,000 children have become soldiers).  He was indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in 2005, but has evaded capture.

Annie Ashmore, a freshman in college who led her high school’s Invisible Children group for several years, will discuss the inspiring work of the many young people who volunteer for the Invisible Children group.  She will be asking for donations for this project.

 

Overview of flyer dropping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf9yiDWXaiU

 

 

 

Arthur Jackson

Human Nature: Genetic Propensities and Symbolic Language

Arthur Jackson

December 22, 2013

 

Arthur Jackson
Arthur Jackson

Drawing from his 2011 book, How to Live the Good Life: A User’s Guide for Modern Humans, author Arthur Jackson will discuss “human nature.”  His work is considered seminal to understanding why people do what they do.

Jackson, a long-time Humanist activist,  served as Assistant Director of the American Humanist Association (1965-69). Coordinated activities for Humanist Celebrants who serve as alternatives to Ministers, Priests, and Rabbis as well as AHA’s chapter program; was Editorial Associate The Humanistmagazine (1965-69); chaired the International Humanist & Ethical Union’s Working Party on Humanist Counseling (1968-78);  developed a model AHA Humanist chapter and served as full time Executive Director of the Humanist Community of San Jose (HCSJ) (1969-76); and sponsored a humanist group at Soledad State Prison (1970-73).