Edited by Sharon Fratepietro and Sharon Strong

• October Speaker Wrote The Book About Jesus

• New Meeting Format Starting October 20, 2002

• Book Review: "Losing Faith in Faith"

• Tattoos: Against God's Will in SC
  Herb Silverman

• Banned Author to Speak in Charleston

• Humanist Book Discussion Group
  Sharon Strong

• Letter to the Editor by SHL Member
  Herb Silverman

• Our National Mottos
  Herb Silverman

• Godless Lyrics for a Familiar Song
  Dan Barker and Steve Benson

The Gospel of Yeshua is Skip Johnson's fictionalized story of the life and teaching of Jesus the man. Johnson wrote the account as fiction, he says, "because the Bible tells conflicting stories of Jesus' life, making a truly nonfiction story impossible."

Skip Johnson will be our guest speaker at the SHL meeting on Sunday, October 20, at 4 p.m. The meeting will take place at Gage Hall, 4 Archdale St., next to the Unitarian Church in downtown Charleston.

The Gospel of Yeshua is written from a journalist's perspective. "As a journalist," Johnson says, "I spent more than 20 years collecting information from ancient and modern sources about Jesus and the era in which he lived. Then I organized the information into chronological order, tested the precepts in my own life, physically traced Jesus' footsteps through Palestine, and edited the information to its essence. I have presented it as a simple narrative, following the outline in the synoptic Gospels of Mathew, Mark and Luke. My purpose was to get as close as I could to what was important to Jesus at the time he lived, eliminating what the church and writers who did not know him have added to the story. I'll talk about those differences, which are immense."

Johnson was born and reared in South Carolina. Following high school, he joined the Marine Reserves and spent six months on active duty before starting college. After being expelled by two colleges in two years, he began a newspaper career that lasted 30 years and earned him multiple awards as a reporter, columnist and editor. Highlights of his career included helping cover the desegregation of Alabama and Mississippi for the Associated Press. Johnson also has been chief political writer for The Orlando Sentinel, state capital bureau chief for The Tampa Tribune, and religion editor and columnist for the Charleston News and Courier. He resigned from newspapers in 1991 to become an independent writer. Since then he has written many magazine articles, and The Gospel of Yeshua is his first published book. The book's Web site is www.yeshuabooks.com

We've noticed that there never seems to be enough time to chat with old and new friends at our monthly meetings. Therefore, to remedy this complaint, starting on Oct. 20 our Sunday meeting will take on a new format. The meeting will start promptly at 4 p.m. (so take the hunt for a parking space into account). Following a few business announcements, our guest speaker will talk until 5 p.m. Then we'll break for a half-hour of refreshments and socializing. At 5:30 we'll reconvene with the speaker for an informal discussion of the meeting topic, and at 6:00 we'll leave for an optional dinner at nearby Vickery's Restaurant.

Book Review: Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist by Dan Barker

If you have ever wished you had more courage to speak up for freethought or atheism, this 1992 book by Dan Barker may provide the inspiration. Not many people in America could have had more to lose than Barker did by announcing he had become an atheist. From the age of 15 to 35, Barker was a Christian fundamentalist preacher, missionary, and successful composer of Christian music. As a sincere believer, he wrote over 100 Christian songs and musical plays and supported himself and family of five with the royalties and honorariums for his sermons and musical performances.

The first part of the book is autobiographical, describing what it was like to be a true believer, his self-directed journey to atheism, and his public "coming out". What follows is a series of thought provoking and readable essays on topics such as the lack of historical evidence for Jesus, Bible contradictions, dealing with believers who want to diagnose why you are an atheist, and the origin of evil. One particularly memorable essay discusses the extraordinary fact that the word "cross" never appears in the original Greek text of the New Testament.

The third part of the book recounts Barker's experiences as a freethought activist with the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), including reminiscences of radio and television appearances as the atheist guest. This book is packed with well thought-out and compelling arguments for freethought and for speaking out.

There are many books on atheism and freethought, but something that sets this book apart is the insight into the worldview of fundamentalists from someone who has been there and remembers its pull. Barker is now a spokesperson of the FFRF (Madison WI), and a composer of atheist music.

South Carolina Is Not Massachusetts

By Herb Silverman

Our state, deservedly, is being laughed at for yet another reason. Opposed to South Carolina's ban on tattooing, local tattoo artist Ronald White decided to tattoo a man on local TV. That act cost him a criminal conviction, five years' probation and a fine. White has appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tattooing was found by one court in Massachusetts to be "the most commonly purchased form of original artwork in the United States." This is not the view in South Carolina, or, for that matter, Oklahoma�the only other state that outlaws the practice.

South Carolina state Sen. J.M. Knotts explained that tattoos are against God's will, because "if God wanted you to have a tattoo, He'd have put your name on you."

The South Carolina Supreme Court held that, though a tattoo might be a form of protected expression, the "process" of tattooing was not protected. According to Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University, "this is akin to treating the Declaration of Independence as protected speech but not Benjamin Franklin's printing of the document."

Though living under a fatwa, Bangladeshi writer and physician Taslima Nasrin refuses to be silenced. She will speak publicly at the College of Charleston on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at 3:15 p.m., on the Hindu-Muslim struggle in Bangladesh, and her own response to religious war. The location will be room Maybank 100 at the College of Charleston.

Dr. Nasrin has been living in exile since 1994. At that time Muslim clerics issued a fatwa against her for criticizing Islam's repression of women in her novel, Shame, about Muslim persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. "She is worse than a prostitute," complained Maulana Azizul Haque, the mullah who called for the execution of Taslima Nasrin. "She demands 'freedom of the vagina.' She says that if a man can have four wives, a woman should have the right to four husbands. Even within marriage, she says a woman should have the right to other men. This is against the Koran and Allah. It is blasphemy!"

In December 1993, 5,000 zealots marched through Dhaka, demanding the death of the 34-year-old Nasrin. In an ensuing general strike, one man was killed and more than 200 people injured. Dr. Nasrin hid with the help of friends for 60 days. The U.S. State Department helped get her out of Bangladesh, and 12 nations of the European Union offered her asylum. She fled to Germany and Sweden, proclaiming that "the fundamentalists are destroying our society. The silent majority is afraid of them. They will do anything in the name of God."

For her writing and her courage, Dr. Nasrin has received awards, including the Human Rights award from the French Government, 1994; Feminist of the Year, USA, 1994; the Monismanien Prize, Sweden, 1995; and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament, 1995.

A poet and novelist, Dr. Nasrin has recently published the first volume of her memoirs, entitled Meyebela: My Bengali Girlhood. At the talk on Nov. 5, she will be signing copies of this account of growing up female in a Muslim world. The Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry is among the sponsors of Dr. Nasrin's appearance.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The Web site for Islam Online (http://www.islamonline.net/english/News/2002-08/28/article15.shtml) offers the following different account of Taslima Nasrin's problem in Bangladesh.

By Sharon Strong

On Sunday, October 27, the Humanist Book Discussion Group will be discussing God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church by Caroline Fraser. The book is available at the West Ashley Barnes and Noble. The author is a former Christian Scientist whose book details the life story of Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy and the troubled history of her church. The discussion will be led by Mike Epstein, himself an erstwhile Christian Scientist. We will be meeting, as usual, in the Barnes and Noble bookstore at 1812 Sam Rittenberg Blvd., 3:00-5:00 p.m.