uhSSA
Welcome to the official website of the University of Houston chapter for the Secular Student Alliance. Make sure you bookmark this page to stay updated with our events calendar, news feed, Facebook page and media section. At this site you will also find useful links to our member organizations, independent and local media, as well as other resourceful links.
If you want to know more, you can contact us directly at secularUH{at}gmail.com or join our Facebook group to begin participating in the discussion now.
What is Secularism?
Secularism is the concept that government or other entities should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs.
People who consider themselves to have secular can come from a very wide range of backgrounds and beliefs. Secularists can be theists, but are usually atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, and skeptics.
In one sense, secularism may assert the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, and freedom from the government imposition of religion upon the people, within a state that is neutral on matters of belief, and gives no state privileges or subsidies to religions. (See also Separation of church and state and Laïcité.) In another sense, it refers to the view that human activities and decisions, especially political ones, should be based on evidence and fact unbiased by religious influence.
How to Join
The Secular Student Alliance is a 501(c)3 educational nonprofit whose purpose is to educate students around the community and on campus about the value of scientific reason and the intellectual basis of secularism in its atheistic and humanistic manifestations.
If you would like to join our group, or if you just want to meet like-minded people on campus, fill out the form on the right, send an e-mail to secularUH{at}gmail.com or register on our Facebook group and you'll be joining the discussion in no time. Joining our mailing list will keep you updated on the activities of the group as well as when upcoming meetings and community events are.
Editorial
Study: Morality likely came before religion
Religious belief is likely a by-product of human moral reasoning, suggest psychologists Monday. In an opinion piece in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Ilkka Pyysiainen of Finland’s University of Helsinki and Marc Hauser of Harvard, looked at recent experiments in moral psychology to argue for religion’s roots. “We were interested
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Obama’s Faith-Based Discrimination Office Must Change
Obama has reinvigorated my hopes for his presidency this year beginning with his renewed commitment to push Congress to repeal the“don’t ask, don’t tell” policy—which bars gays and lesbians from openly serving in the armed forces—in his first State of the Union Address. Other positive news includes the administrations global health imitative
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The Importance of Honoring Darwin
As we approach February 12–the anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday and International Darwin Day–it’s worth reflecting on current attitudes about evolution in our country. The overall data is not good. Based on a 2006 study, acceptance of the theory of evolution by natural selection is abysmal compared to many other
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The Christian Right and Public Education in Texas
Years ago, Religious Right leaders made it clear that controlling what students learn in public schools was critical to their goal of changing the nation’s political culture. Perhaps in no other state has that strategy advanced as far as it has in Texas. Conservative evangelical Christians set out to take
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Secularists ‘deeply disappointed’ with Obama over Faith-Based Initiative The White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships published its recommendations for reform of the faith-based initiative program today (March 9) but the
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Christianity Crucifying the Constitution The ‘Catholic League’, as well as ‘In God We Trust’, have made their contempt for the American Constitution, and specifically the First Amendment, abundantly clear.
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The Texas Taliban There’s been talk lately in Texas about seceding from the US. Even Republican Governor Rick Perry has broadly hinted that Texas should exercise its “tenth
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Virginia lawmaker: Children with disabilities are God’s punishment to women who previously had abortions. On Thursday, Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R) spoke at a press conference against state funding for Planned Parenthood. He blasted the organization for supporting
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Meet the Flinstones Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that
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Ultraconservative Texans Rewrites The Nation’s Textbooks “Evolution is hooey…the way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald
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Illinois Politician Claims Atheist Sign Is ‘Hate Speech’ William J. Kelly, a Chicago Republican, is suing the Illinois Secretary of State for allowing an atheist sign to be placed next to a nativity
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James Arthur Ray – arrested on three counts of Manslaughter James Arthur Ray – the charismatic new age neo-Freudianism guru who was the darling of celebrities such as Oprah was charged officially February 3rd for the
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