• August Berkshire

  • Contact
  • Biography
  • Photos
  • Awards
  • Presentations
  • Speaking Terms
  • Past Appearances

• Upcoming Appearances

  • May 18, 2012:
    • Speaking at Imagine No Religion 2 Convention; Kamloops, British Columbia, Can. (7:00 pm)
  • May 20, 2012:
    • Speaking at Imagine No Religion 2 Convention; Kamloops, British Columbia, Can. (4:00 pm)

• Feedback From Appearances

  • Comment from SCSU Debate (February. 24, 2010)
  • Notes from an Evil Burnee (June 1, 2008)
  • High School “World Religions” class students (March 2002) [PDF]

• Past Print Appearances

  • “Student organizations debate existence of god” – Valerie Steffl (Mar. 1, 2010)
  • “Challenging the deepest beliefs” – Nia Jonesz (Dec. 2, 2008)
  • “Minnesota Atheists head elected International VP” – Tim Harlow (Oct. 6, 2008)
  • “August Berkshire: Atheist Talk-Show Producer” – Steve Marsh (June 2008)
  • “Minnesota Atheists radio program to debut on Air America Radio in January” – Tim Harlow (Dec. 27, 2007)
  • “Civil Unions for Everyone?” – August Berkshire (Nov. 28, 2007)
  • Time magazine letter re. Mother Teresa – August Berkshire (Sept. 17, 2007)
  • “Becoming atheist akin to finding religion” – Jean Lundquist (Sept. 3, 2007)

• Writings: Atheism

  • Atheism 101
  • The Seven C’s of Atheism
  • 34 Unconvincing Arguments for God
  • Season’s greetings from the secular side

• Writings: Atheism – Criticism

  • Capital “A” Atheism?
  • Ethics and Unity in the Atheist/Humanist Movement

   

• Writings: Bible

  • Jesus Did Not Die For Your Sins
  • Biblical Commandments Are Unconstitutional
  • The Character of God in the Bible

• Writings: Problem of Evil

  • The Problem of Evil
  • “God Loves You”

• Writings: Science

  • A “Fine-Tuned” Universe as Proof of God?
  • Losing Miller’s God
  • Creationists Announce New Theory of Gravity!

   

• Writings: Human Rights

  • MNA Gay Rights Policy
  • God & Abortion

• Writings: Humor

  • “God Loves You”
  • Creationists Announce New Theory of Gravity!
  • Season’s greetings from the secular side
  • Inter-Non-Faith Dialogue, Part 1
  • Inter-Non-Faith Dialogue, Part 2

• Pamphlet Template Downloads

  • Atheism 101
  • The Seven C’s of Atheism
  • The Problem of Evil
  • A “Fine-Tuned” Universe as Proof of God?
  • God & Abortion
  • Jesus Did Not Die For Your Sins
  • Biblical Commandments Are Unconstitutional
  • Creationists Announce New Theory of Gravity!
  • “God Loves You”

• Quotes By August

  • A few quotes from August Berkshire

August Berkshire Links

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• Atheism

  • “History of Atheism” (Wikipedia)
  • “Atheism 101: Introduction to Atheism & Atheists” – Austin Cline
  • “The History of Freethought and Atheism” – Gordon Stein
  • “Why I Want to Turn Religious People Into Atheists” – Greta Christina
  • “Atheism and the silly goodness competition” – Susan Jacoby (Feb. 15, 2010)
  • Godless – Dan Barker
  • The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins
  • Letting Go of God – Julia Sweeney
  • Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment – Phil Zuckerman
  • “Nonreligious community increasingly split by provocative tactics”

• Atheists & Skeptics

  • Women Without Superstition – Annie Laurie Gaylor
  • “The 50 Most Brilliant Atheists of All Time”
  • “Roger Ebert: The Essential Man” – Chris Jones (Feb. 16, 2010)
  • Interview with Sam Harris (Southern California Public Radio, Feb. 15, 2010)
  • Divine Impulses: Richard Dawkins on “the arrogance of religious persons” (video)
  • “Thoughts About God” – James Randi (YouTube)
  • “How an Amazonian tribe turned a missionary into an atheist”
  • George Carlin on MAD TV – “Touched by an Atheist” (YouTube)
  • “Confessions of a Lonely Atheist” – Natalie Angier (Jan. 14, 2001)
  • The Age of Reason, Parts 1 & 2 (full text for free) – Thomas Paine

• Evolution: General (Books)

  • The Greatest Show on Earth – Richard Dawkins
  • Why Evolution is True – Jerry A. Coyne
  • Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters – Donald R. Prothero
  • Your Inner Fish – Neil Shubin

• Evolution: General (Articles)

  • Talk Origins
  • NCSE Creation/Evolution Journal (1980-1996)
  • “29+ Evidences for Macroevolution” – Douglas Theobald
  • “Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions”
  • Evidence For Evolution and Against Creationism (32 videos)
  • “Why Evolution is True” – Jerry Coyne (YouTube)
  • Nova: “What Darwin Never Knew” (video)
  • “This is Why Every Scientist Accepts Evolution” (YouTube)
  • “Let’s Test Them: Evolution vs. Creationism” (YouTube)
  • “Evolutionary Fate Of ‘Useless’ Traits”
  • “The Mistakes That Argue for Evolution” – Kenneth Chang
  • The Cambrian Explosion
  • The Clergy Letter Project (supporting evolution)

• Evolution: Origins of Life

  • “In Lab, Clues To How Life Began”
  • Mimivirus: A clue to the origin of life? (March 2006)

• Evolution: Epigenetics

  • “Our Genes, Not the Whole Story” – Sarah Baldauf (Feb. 2010) (go to page 26)
  • “Why Your DNA Isn’t Your Destiny” – John Cloud (Jan. 6, 2010)
  • “What Alters Our Genes?” – Sharon Begley

• Evolution: Transition Species

  • Cetacean Evolution
  • “Early Whales Used Well Developed Back Legs For Swimming, Fossils Show” (Sept. 18, 2008)
  • “Millions of Years Ago, Snakes Were Hip” (April 19, 2006)
  • Nova: Transitional “Fossil Evidence”
  • Nova: “The Four-Winged Dinosaur” (video)

• Evolution: Vestiges & Atavisms

  • “Top 10 Useless Limbs (and Other Vestigial Organs)” – Brandon Miller
  • “Top Ten ‘Useless’ Organs” (Science Channel)

• Unintelligent Design

  • Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes
  • “Unintelligent Design” – Abagail Hafer (video)
  • Malevolent Design: The Death of a Loving God – Steve Mansfield

• Creationism & “Intelligent Design”

  • Index to Creationist Claims, with Rebuttal- Mark Isaak, ed.
  • The Counter-Creationism Handbook – Mark Isaak
  • The Cambrian Explosion
  • “Intelligent Design’s 8 Biggest Fails”
  • “Evolution Of ‘Irreducible Complexity’ Explained”
  • “Evolution myths: The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex” – Michael Le Page
  • “More ‘Evidence’ of Intelligent Design Shot Down by Science” – Brandon Keim
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson on “Intelligent Design” (YouTube)
  • “Rock of Ages and the Age of Rocks” – Frank Zindler
  • “Let’s Test Them: Evolution vs. Creationism” (YouTube)
  • Exposé of Muslim creationist Harun Yahya

• Universe / Multiverse

  • “Splitting Time from Space”” (Dec. 2009)
  • “A Universe From Nothing” – Lawrence Krauss (YouTube video)
  • “A Designer Universe?” – Steven Weinberg

• Brain & Mind

  • Discover magazine: Mind & Brain Articles
  • “The Human Brain: How We Decide” – Jonah Lehrer (YouTube)
  • “I Didn’t Sin – It Was My Brain” – Kathleen McGowan
  • “Mind Reading Is Now Possible” – Sharon Begley

• Free Will Vs. Determinism

  • “How Free Is Your Will?” – Daniela Schiller & David Carmel (March 22, 2011)
  • “Neuroscience, free will and determinism: ‘I’m just a machine’ ” – Tom Chivers (Oct. 12, 2010)
  • “Scientists say free will probably doesn’t exist, but urge: ‘Don’t stop believing!’” – Jesse Bering (April 6, 2010)
  • Does Free Will Exist? – Alfred Mele (Jan. 5, 2010)
  • “Free Will versus the Programmed Brain” – Shaun Nichols (Aug. 9, 2008)
  • “Free will?  Not as much as you think” – Barbara Feder Ostrov (April 14, 2008)

• Afterlife & Near-Death Experiences (NDE) & Out-Of-Body Experiences (OBE)

  • Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences – Susan Blackmore
  • “Heaven Can Wait” – Jerry Adler

• Neurotheology

  • “Neurotheology – With God In Mind” – Victoria Powell
  • “The God Helmet” – Todd Murphy
  • The God Part of the Brain – Matthew Alper
  • “Is God All in Your Head?” – Michael Craig Miller
  • “Searching for God in the Brain” – David Biello
  • “The Biology of Belief” – Jeffrey Kluger
  • “(Un)wired for God” – Sharon Begley
  • “Creator of God: A Brain Surgeon’s Story” – Vivekananad Palavali

• Religion: General

  • “The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product?” – Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Marc Hauser (Feb. 8, 2010)
  • How a Lack of Control Leads to Superstition” – Michael Shermer (Feb. 2010)
  • “Creating God in one’s own image” – Ed Yong (Nov. 30, 2009)
  • “Why fundamentalism will fail” – Harvey Cox
  • “The Evolution of the God Gene” – Nicholas WadeAn Evolutionary Bent Toward Religion?
  • “How Will Religion Evolve?” – John Tierney
  • “The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions” – Gregory Paul (3rd Qtr. 2009) [PDF]
  • “The Non-Evolution of God, Part 1” – Nicholas Wade
  • “The Non-Evolution of God, Part 2” – Nicholas Wade
  • “The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful” – Greta Christina
  • “Viruses of the Mind” – Richard Dawkins

• Judeo-Christianity & The Bible

  • Early Jewish Writings
  • Early Christian Writings
  • Skeptic’s Annotated Bible
  • Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So – Annie Laurie Gaylor
  • Which Ten Commandments?
  • Bible Atrocities – Donald Morgan
  • The Jury Is In: The Ruling on McDowell’s “Evidence”
  • Case Against Faith: Debunking Lee Strobel
  • “God is not the Creator, claims academic” (Oct. 8, 2009)
  • “An Open Letter to Dr. Laura” – J. Kent Ashcraft

• Jesus

  • The Jesus Puzzle – Earl Doherty
  • The Jesus Mysteries: Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? - Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
  • Deconstructing Jesus - Robert M. Price
  • The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man – Robert M. Price
  • The Jesus the Jews Never Knew – Frank R. Zindler
  • The Jesus Project
  • “Did Jesus Exist?”
  • “Shroud of Turin Developments” – Joe Nickell (Dec. 1, 2009)

• Islam & The Qur’an

  • Skeptic’s Annotated Qur’an
  • “Predicting Modern Science: Epicurus vs. Mohammed” – Richard Carrier
  • “Cosmology and the Koran” – Richard Carrier
  • Space Travel in the Qur’an?
  • “Islamic Embryology and Galen”
  • “Koran: The Myth of Embryology!”
  • Why I Am Not a Muslim – Ibn Warraq
  • Infidel - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
  • Jihad Watch
  • “Ayaan Hirsi Ali: abandoned to fanatics” – Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie
  • “Yale under fire for removal of Muslim cartoons”

• Scientology

  • Australia: Scientology claimed to be a “criminal organization”
  • “Scientology Spokesman Storms Out on Nightline”
  • Why We Protest
  • Operation Clambake
  • Xenu TV
  • Ex-scientology Kids

• Sexuality / Abstinence

  • “Many Teens Don’t Keep Virginity Pledges”

• Homosexuality / GLBT Rights

  • “The Conscience of a Conservative: Gay Marriage is a Legal Right” – Eve Conant (Jan. 18, 2010)
  • “Nepal to court gay tourism” (Jan. 20, 2010)
  • “Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans” (Jan. 12, 2010)
  • Rachel Maddow’s coverage of Ugandan anti-gay bill (Dec. 2009)
  • “Lesbian albatrosses and bisexual bonobos have last laugh on Darwin” – Chris Smyth
  • “Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name” – Dinitia Smith (Feb. 7, 2004)
  • Biological Exuberance – Bruce Bagemihl
  • Evolution’s Rainbow – Joan Roughgarden
  • “The Gay Animal Kingdom” – Jonah Lehrer
  • “The gay culture war is about to turn chemical” – William Saletan (June 18, 2008)
  • “Sexual Antagonism: A genetic theory of homosexuality” – William Saletan (June 25, 2008)
  • “Gay Men in Twin Study” (Dec. 17, 1991)

• Exposing “Ex-Gay” Ministries

  • “The ex-gay files: The bizarre world of gay-to-straight conversion” – Patrick Strudwick  (Feb. 1, 2010)
  • “Going Undercover in the Crazy, Tragic World of Christian Gay-Conversion Therapy” (Dec. 5, 2009)
  • Anything But Straight – Wayne Besen
  • “Why Reparative Therapy and Ex-Gay Ministries Fail”
  • APA: “Insufficient Evidence that Sexual Orientation Change Efforts Work”
  • APA: “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation [pdf]
  • “Is It Possible to Systematically Turn Gay People Straight?” – Melissa Lafsky

• Abortion

  • “The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy” – Richard Dawkins (Feb. 3, 2010)
  • “Abortion’s New Battleground” – Ruth Marcus (Nov. 28, 2009)
  • “The Price of Health Reform: Abortion Rights?” – Rachel Morris
  • “Whose Team Is It, Anyway?” – Katha Pollitt
  • “Some Abortion Foes Shifting Focus From Ban to Reduction” – Jacqueline L. Salmon

• History and Separation of Religion & Government

  • Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History, Vol. 1 - Chris Rodda

• Court Decisions: State & Church

  • “Engel v. Vitale” (1962): Prayers in Public Schools
  • “Abington School District v. Schempp” (1963) &
  • “Murray v. Curlett” (1963): Bible Reading in Public Schools
  • “Lemon v. Kurtzman” (1971): Public Funding of Religious Schools
  • “Lee v. Weisman” (1992): Prayers at School Graduation

• Court Decisions: Evolution & Creationism

  • “Ninth Circuit Court allows Univ. of California to reject admissions credit for Creationist courses” (Feb. 6, 2010)
  • “Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District” (2005): Intelligent Design (complete decision)
  • “Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District” (2005): Intelligent Design
  • “Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School Distric” (2005): Intelligent Design
  • “Edwards v. Aguillard” (1987): Evolution, Creationism, and Balanced Treatment

• School Vouchers

  • Milwaukee Study Shows ‘Choice’ Scheme Doesn’t Work

• Polls / Surveys / Trends: General

  • “Study Links Religion and Racism” (Feb. 10, 2010)
  • “Who Needs God?” – Tom Rees (Jan./Feb. 2010)
  • “Pope decries growing ‘aversion’ to Christianity” (Jan. 30, 2010)
  • “Divorce Rates Higher in States with Gay Marriage Bans” (Jan. 12, 2010)
  • “Paranormal Flexibility” (Pew Forum) – Charles M. Blow (Dec. 11, 2009)
  • “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths” (Pew Forum) (Dec. 9, 2009)
  • “New Study Links Religion to Immoral Behavior” (Nov. 19, 2008?) (YouTube)
  • American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2008
  • ARIS 2008: “America becoming less Christian, survey finds” (March 9, 2009)
  • ARIS 2008: “Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds” (March 17, 2009)
  • “Atheists as ‘Other’: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society.”
  • “Why the Gods are not Winning” – Gregory Paul & Phil Zuckerman
  • “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies” – Gregory S. Paul
  • Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment – Phil Zuckerman
  • “Who Needs God When We’ve Got Mammon?” – David Villano
  • “Plummeting attendance shows Canadian church faces ‘extinction’ ” (Dec. 6, 2005)
  • “Atheists Are (Happy) People Too, Study Says”
  • Intelligent people tend to be more secular

• Polls / Surveys / Trends: Young People

  • “Atheist student groups flower on college campuses” – Eric Gorski
  • “Less Than 1 Percent of Young Adults Hold Biblical Worldview” (March 10, 2009)
  • Many In U.S. Drop Their Childhood Religion
  • “This Just In: College Will Make You an Atheist” – Susan Henking
  • unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity – Kinnaman & Lyons
  • “Young adults aren’t sticking with church” (Aug. 6, 2007)
  • “Teen Birth Rates Higher in States Where Religion Is Widespread”

• Ethics / Morality & Mirror Neurons: Books

  • Morality Without God? – Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
  • Moral Minds: How Nature Designed a Universal Sense of Right and Wrong – Marc D. Hauser
  • The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Car, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule – Michael Shermer
  • Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals – Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce
  • The Ethical Brain – Michael Gazzaniga
  • Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others – Marco Iacoboni
  • On Being Moved: From Mirror Neurons to Empathy – Stein Braten, ed.
  • Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions, Emotions, and Experience – Giacomo Rizzolatti, Corrado Sinigaglia, and Frances Anderson
  • Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved – Frans de Waal, edited by Stephen Macedo and Josiah Ober
  • Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals – Frans de Waal
  • The Evolution of Morality – Richard Joyce

• Ethics / Morality & Mirror Neurons: Articles

  • “Biologist sees human morality evolving from the sociality of primates” – Nicholas Wade
  • “Deformed Skull Suggests Human Ancestors Had Compassion” – Alexis Madrigal
  • Lawrence Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development
  • “The Moral Instinct” – Steven Pinker
  • “Evolution Easily Explains Morality” – Philip Brocoum
  • “Godless Moral Values” – Austin Cline
  • Moral Foundations Theory
  • “Atheists ‘just as ethical as churchgoers’ ” (Feb. 9, 2010)
  • “Atheism and the silly goodness competition” – Susan Jacoby (Feb. 15, 2010)

• Humanism

  • AHA: About Humanism
  • AHA: “Humanism and its Aspirations”
  • CFI: “What Is Secular Humanism? An Overview”
  • “Can One Be Good Without God?” – Greg Epstein (YouTube)

• Homeopathy

  • “Homeopaths Admit Expensive Concoctions Just Water” (Jan. 31, 2010)
  • “Homeopathy – does it work?” (May 26, 2009)

• Faith Healing & Alternative Medicine

  • What’s the Harm?
  • Quackwatch
  • Faith Healing
  • Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD)
  • U.S. Supreme Court: “Prince v. Massachusetts” (1944)
  • “Authorities say faith-healing church baby died from pneumonia”

• Prayer: Heart Study

  • “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer”
  • “Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer”
  • “Power of prayer flunks an unusual test”

• Placebo Effect

  • “Hooked on a Feeling: This is your brain on a placebo.” – Sharon Begley
  • “The Flip Side of Placebos: The Nocebo Effect” – John Cloud

• National Health Care

  • “Sen. Al Franken humbles Hudson Institute dilettante over health care bankruptcies” (YouTube)
  • “Learn to Speak Teabag” – Mark Fiore (YouTube)
  • Insurance Reform Watch
  • “Abortion’s New Battleground” – Ruth Marcus (Nov. 28, 2009)
  • “The Values Question” – David Brooks (Nov. 23, 2009)
  • “My Health-Care Story: Over 50 and Out of Luck” – John Hewko
  • “The Price of Health Reform: Abortion Rights?” – Rachel Morris
  • “Whose Team Is It, Anyway?” – Katha Pollitt
  • “Why I Voted NO” – U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich
  • “Uncharitable Charities” – E.J. Dionne Jr.
  • “Private insurers are in it only to make a buck” – Chris Gay
  • “Until Medical Bills Do Us Part” – Nicholas D. Kristof
  • “No Country for Sick Men” – T.R. Reid
  • “Another take on health care execs’ tale of woe” – Jan Rabbers
  • “For Those of You on Your Way to Church This Morning” – Michael Moore
  • “As always, Arne Carlson speaks his mind” – Lori Sturdevant
  • Sick for Profit
  • Sick for Profit: “Was I Hired to Stand in the Way of Health Care Reform?” (Blue Cross)
  • The Health Insurance Racket: Cigna (YouTube)
  • Fight back against health insurance lies: UnitedHealthcare (YouTube)
  

• Debates

  • 400+ Atheism vs. Theism Debates

• Atheist Humor

  • Jokes and One-Liners
  • “Shocker: Kansas Votes 4-1 to Allow Intelligent Design” (Feb. 5, 2010)