2004 Newsletters

Is It Constitutional? Richard Layton’s Discussion Group Report Sometimes questions arise about the constitutionality of laws. This month the Discussion Group read the U.S. Constitution and discussed it. Below are some of the questions r...

Update: The ACLU in Utah Dani Eyre, director of the Utah Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, addressed the January meeting of Humanists of Utah. Eyre made several points but they all supported her central thesis that the Bill...

Marion Craig Memorial Essay Contest Winning Entry A Rational Look At Gun Ownership The results are in and the winner of our first annual Marion Craig Memorial Essay Writing Contest is  Marc Watterson  who is a Senior at West Jordan...

What Can You Expect From Your Newspaper? The Readers Advocate for the Salt Lake Tribune , Connie Coyne, paid a high compliment to the Humanists of Utah in her weekly column two days after being the speaker at our March 11th general meeting....

Ouch! Your Free Speech is My Pain Ken Wallentine, who works for the Administrative Council for the Utah Department of Public Safety, addressed the Humanists of Utah general meeting on April 8, 2004. His presentation was sponsored by the Utah...

Humanism in Star Trek Gene Roddenberry, creator of the sensational television series Star Trek , wanted the characters to portray the ultimate of human potentials according to Susan Sackett in her May 13th presentation to the Humanists of Utah....

Unearthing the Atheist Roots of Judeo-Christianity I am a former Mormon. I was raised all my life in an active Mormon family, went on a mission and was married in the Idaho Falls Temple and had fully convince myself that it was the 'true religion'...

Lake Powell Reservoir and Glen Canyon Dam in Crisis The following is a summary of a lecture given by Chris Peterson at the Humanists of Utah July general meeting. Glen Canyon Dam, completed in 1963, dammed the free flowing Colorado River...

Letter From Our President Many of you know I started a second Master's Degree course, Educational Leadership and Policy, this Spring at the University of Utah, in hopes of qualifying to become a school administrator. This would enable me to...

Textual Silences and Critical Thinking A hallmark of the humanities is the ability to think critically about the world. In practice, this has typically meant the close examination of language, be it discourse, texts, or data. When we read...

Voice of Reason Local radio personality Tom Barberi spoke at our October general membership meeting. His remarks covered a wide range of topics including politics, his own recently forced unemployment, corporate America, etc. He started his...

The Logic of Myth The Buddha told the story of the blind men and the elephant. The men, each assigned a different part of the elephant, could not agree on the nature of the beast. Yet we know that the elephant was a combination of all of the...