Lisa Bauer has described her experience with Islam and religion in the October/November 2009 and December/January 2010 issues of Free Inquiry magazine, with an introduction by Richard Dawkins, whom she assisted with research duties for his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth. The final installment describing her saga is in the February/March 2010 issue.

Lisa is currently a graduate student in Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson. In the past two years, she has made great strides towards overcoming both religion and her own social phobia, and has become involved in various atheist and humanist groups.

In the articles, Lisa describes her lifelong journey from atheism to her family's Roman Catholicism to Islam, and finally back to atheism. It was a long and often treacherous journey, emotionally painful and often self-destructive, extending to sexual as well as emotional submission to a trusted authority figure. In the end, though, and with the help of some trusted friends, she managed to break free of her former religions.

An expert in the psychology of illusion, HSGP member Anthony "Magic Tony" Barnhart has lectured on the topic at magic conventions and to students of psychology at colleges and universities. As a graduate student in cognitive psychology, himself, he has employed psychological principles to elevate his magic’s impact and increase the audience’s sense of wonder. Nowhere is this influence more evident than in his strolling magic where, in a one-on-one environment, he is able to strongly influence the behavior of audience members.

Click here to watch a segment KTVK Phoenix Channel 3 aired about psychology and magic, featuring Magic Tony. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLMyZ0PL5G4. For more information on psychology and magic, visit Magic Tony's website at http://www.magic-tony.com/

The Humanist Book Club meets on the fourth Saturday of each month at 10:30 a.m., Mesa Main Library, Main Branch, 64 East 1st Street (East of Country Club Way at the intersection of N. Centennial Way -- N.W. corner)

From Publishers Weekly:

Harvard government professor Sandel (Public Philosophy) dazzles in this sweeping survey of hot topics—the recent government bailouts, the draft, surrogate pregnancies, same-sex marriage, immigration reform and reparations for slavery—that situates various sides in the debates in the context of timeless philosophical questions and movements. Sandel takes utilitarianism, Kant's categorical imperative and Rawls's theory of justice out of the classroom, dusts them off and reveals how crucial these theories have been in the construction of Western societies—and how they inform almost every issue at the center of our modern-day polis. The content is dense but elegantly presented, and Sandel has a rare gift for making complex issues comprehensible, even entertaining (see his sections entitled Shakespeare versus the Simpsons and What Ethics Can Learn from Jack Benny and Miss Manners), without compromising their gravity. With exegeses of Winnie the Pooh, transcripts of Bill Clinton's impeachment hearing and the works of almost every major political philosopher, Sandel reveals how even our most knee-jerk responses bespeak our personal conceptions of the rights and obligations of the individual and society at large. Erudite, conversational and deeply humane, this is truly transformative reading.

Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss is an internationally known theoretical physicist with wide research interests, including the interface between elementary particle physics and cosmology, where his studies include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. He received undergraduate degrees in both Mathematics and Physics at Carleton University. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1982), then joined the Harvard Society of Fellows (1982-85). He joined the faculty of the departments of Physics and Astronomy at Yale University as assistant professor in 1985, and associate professor in 1988. In 1993 he was named the Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics, Professor of Astronomy, and Chairman of the department of Physics at Case Western Reserve University. He served in the latter position for 12 years, until 2005.

In August, 2008, Dr. Krauss took up his new post as Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department, and Inaugural Director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University.

Prof. Krauss is the author of several acclaimed popular books, including The Physics of Star Trek and Beyond Star Trek. Naturally, our HSGP president, Susan Sackett, is particularly thrilled to welcome Dr. Krauss to be our guest speaker!

Linell Cady is Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. She is professor of modern western religious thought, and her work has primarily focused on the relationship of religion and the public/private boundary, with primary attention to the American context. Topics of particular interest include the construction of the modern category of religion and its interface with understandings of the secular and the public; the contested role of religion in public life; and method and theory in the study of religion and theology. She is currently directing two projects funded by the Ford Foundation. The first “Religion, Secularism, and Democracy: A Crossdisciplinary, International project” is a comparative study of secularisms and the public role of religion in four democracies: France, India, Turkey, and the United States. The second “Teaching and Talking About Religion in Public” is part of Ford’s “Difficult Dialogues” initiative, and will lead to the development of an undergraduate certificate program in religion and conflict at ASU.

Your HSGP Board of Directors brought everyone up to date on the progress, plans and needs for our HCC (Humanist Community Center) building in Mesa. We answered your questions, suggestions as well as concerns and discussed completion plans for the building.

The Humanist Book Club meets on the fourth Saturday of each month at 10:30 a.m., Mesa Main Library, Main Branch, 64 East 1st Street (East of Country Club Way at the intersection of N. Centennial Way -- N.W. corner)

From Publishers Weekly:

Checking in on a friend's brother at Ivenwald, a Washington-based fundamentalist group living communally in Arlington, Va., religion and journalism scholar Sharlet finds a sect whose members refer to Manhattan's Ground Zero as "the ruins of secularism"; intrigued, Sharlet accepts on a whim an invitation to stay at Ivenwald. He's shocked to find himself in the stronghold of a widespread "invisible" network, organized into cells much like Ivenwald, and populated by elite, politically ambitious fundamentalists; Sharlet is present when a leader tells a dozen men living there, "You guys are here to learn how to rule the world." As it turns out, the Family was established in 1935 to oppose FDR's New Deal and the spread of trade unions; since then, it has organized well-attended weekly prayer meetings for members of Congress and annual National Prayer Breakfasts attended by every president since Eisenhower. Further, the Family's international reach ("almost impossible to overstate") has "forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world." In the years since his first encounter, Sharlet has done extensive research, and his thorough account of the Family's life and times is a chilling expose.

Dr. Leonard Gordon is Professor Emeritus of sociology, and was recently appointed to his second two-year term as Dean of the ASU Emeritus College. The Emeritus College is an official unit of Arizona State University whose members are retired ASU faculty with emeritus status. The purpose of the Emeritus College is to give a home and a focus to continued intellectual, creative and social engagement of retired faculty with the University. The Emeritus College fosters and promotes the scholarly and artistic lives of its members, prolonging fruitful engagement with and service to the University and the Community.

The Emeritus College provides the University a continued association with productive scientists, scholars and artists who have retired from their faculty positions but not from their disciplines.