Humanist Fellowship of North Texas Science, Art, Compassion, Reason, Education, Democracy

Updates / Services / Family / Lists / Contact / Members / Celebrate / Affiliations / Beliefs / History / Links

Updates

• 2009 Feb 01 Sun

  The Humanist Fellowship of North Texas has been defunct for over two years now. It is time for a revival. If you would like to help us restart this organization, please join our announcements and discussion lists and say hello.

• 2006 Dec 25 Mon

  We thank Shannon Kristine Croft for her presentation of The History of Holiday Symbols at our service this month. We thank Heather Brown for leading the children in painting HumanLight candles during Religious Education. We had 6 adults and 4 children in attendance.

  We are pleased to announce that 9-year-old Benjamin Wallace Croft was a winner of the HumanLight.org design contest for his age category. You can order greeting cards, postcards, and ornaments with his design from their merchandise webpage.

  At the quarterly business meeting following the service, we unanimously voted to dissolve the Humanist Fellowship of North Texas. A new Humanist Fellowship might be forming in the Washington, D.C. area in the near future. Watch for an announcement on our mailing list and the Religious Humanist Association website.

Services

We hold our services on one Saturday of every month, generally the 4th Saturday, at 11:00 in the Community Unitarian Universalist Church at 2875 East Parker Road, Plano, Texas. Driving directions to the church are available at the UU Plano website, Yahoo Maps, and MapQuest.

Immediately following the service, we usually meet for lunch at a nearby restaurant with an indoor play place for the children.

Many of the topic selections in this calendar are extremely tentative. These selections will change as additional speakers volunteer or are recruited. Please subscribe to our announcements mailing list for up-to-date information.

Date	Speaker	Topic
2006 Nov 25 Sat	Joe Kleehammer	Hyphenated Humanism
2006 Dec 23 Sat	Shannon Kristine Croft	The History of Holiday Symbols

If you would like to volunteer to give a presentation as our speaker at one of our monthly services, please contact us. Upon request, we have a media projector available for those who wish to give a laptop slide presentation or play a video.

Family

The Fellowship is a family friendly organization. Children are welcome at all events.

Religious Education

Children accompany parents in the main hall at the beginning of the service and then leave for Religious Education (RE) before the sermon. Parent volunteers supervise childcare during the services. For more information about RE and childcare, please contact Shannon Croft at (214) 731-9284.

Playgroup

A playgroup for preschool children meets monthly so that the children can play together while the parents supervise and socialize. Children must be accompanied by one or more parents. Older siblings may also attend. The location rotates among the residences of the participants. For more information, please call Shannon Croft at (214) 731-9284.

Field Trips

Each month we meet at a museum or another location of interest in North Texas for a child-friendly field trip. Please join the North Texas Humanists Meetup group to participate in the scheduling and planning.

Lists

When we are not meeting in fellowship, we communicate via the announcements and discussion electronic mailing lists. Between quarterly business meetings, officers conduct business via the board mailing list. All Members may participate in planning services and events on the operational and administrative planning list. We invite you to subscribe.

Contact

For more information, please contact us at info@humanistfellowship.org.

Members

The Humanist Fellowship of North Texas (HFNT) operates as an all volunteer lay led direct democracy. Quarterly business meetings are held following the service on every third month. The minutes and resolutions for these meetings are archived on this website. The Board of Directors conducts business via an electronic mailing list between meetings. For more information about becoming a voting member, please see our Bylaws or contact us.

Members (2005-09-24)

Name	Date	City	State
David Wallace Croft	2002-11-14	Carrollton	TX
Shannon Kristine Croft	2004-06-19	Carrollton	TX
Sherry	2005-09-24	Plano	TX
Travis	2005-09-24	Plano	TX
Joe Kleehammer	2004-12-18	Fort Worth	TX
Emily Morris	2005-09-24	McKinney	TX
Steve Morris	2005-09-24	McKinney	TX
Randolfe H. Wicker	2004-03-20	Hoboken	NJ
Shannon Woody	2002-12-10	Pooleville	TX

Celebrate

For Humanist weddings, commitment ceremonies, rites of passage, and funerals, we recommend Dr. Russell K. Elleven, a certified Humanist Minister and a former Chair of the Humanists of Fort Worth.

You can find a list of Celebrants at the Humanist Society website.

Official Fellowship Holidays

Holiday	Date
Darwin Day	Feb 12
Democracy Day	Election Day
HumanLight	Dec 23

Affiliations

The Humanist Fellowship of North Texas (HFNT) is an affiliate of the American Humanist Association.

Beliefs

• Beliefs of the Humanist Fellowship of North Texas
• IHEU - Minimum Statement on Humanism
• IHEU - Amsterdam Declaration 2002
• What is Humanism? (IHS)
• What is Humanism? (Edwords)
• Humanism and the Humanist Manifestos
• Humanist Manifesto I (1933)
• Humanist Manifesto II (1973)
• Humanist Manifesto III (2003)
• The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion
• Essays About Religious Humanism
• Religious Humanist Reading List
• Wikipedia: Religious Humanism

History

The Humanist Fellowship of North Texas was previously known as the Humanist Church of North Texas and initially as the Freethought Fellowship. For a history of the Humanist Fellowship of North Texas, please see the Founding of the Humanist Church and the History of Religious Humanism.

Speakers

Past services are listed in reverse chronological order. The # is the estimated number in attendance at the service.

Date	#	Past Speaker and Topic
2006-12-23	10	Shannon Kristine Croft, The History of Holiday Symbols
2006-11-25	7	Joe Kleehammer, "Hyphenated Humanism"
2006-10-29	9	field trip, Dallas Arboretum
2006-09-23	9	video, Dan Dennett on TED Talks
2006-08-26	8	Joe Kleehammer, "Humanist Lessons from the Lord of the Rings"
2006-07-22	6	David Wallace Croft, "A Faith Like Mine" by Laura Buller
2006-06-17	12	video, The God Who Wasn't There
2006-05-27	6	David Wallace Croft, Evolve
2006-04-22	16	John Davis, "Rites, Rituals, and Ceremonies: With an Objectivist Orientation"
2006-03-25	12	Sherry, Why the 10 Commandments Are Wrong for Children
2006-02-25	13	David Wallace Croft, Evolutionary Humanism and Roundaboutness
2006-02-12	14	Darwin Day Celebration
2006-01-28	11	Shannon Kristine Croft, The History of American Food
2005-12-17	17	Sherry, Happiness Without God
2005-11-26	13	Joe Kleehammer, "Gnostic and Agnostic"
2005-10-29	13	David Wallace Croft, The Virtue of Selfish Genes
2005-09-24	13	Joe Kleehammer, "Ethan Allen, the Horned Devil of Vermont"
2005-08-28	9	Playgroup at the Croft Residence
2005-07-17	16	Shelly Hattan, "What the Heck is an Ethical Society?"
2005-06-18	3	Metroplex Atheists Summer Bash at the Hattan Residence
2005-05-21	9	Cynthia Keaton, "Virtue"
2005-04-16	9	Shelly Hattan, "The Future of the Fellowship and a Sample Service"
2005-03-19	10	Joe Kleehammer, "Easter Challenge"
2005-02-19	5	David Wallace Croft read "Magical Thinking" from "The Way of Positive Humanism" by Gerald A. Larue.
2005-02-12	13	Darwin Day Celebration
2005-01-15	9	Joe Kleehammer, "The Ascent of Humanism"
2004-12-18	14	Chana Shvonne Williford, "Queen Silver, the Godless Girl"
2004-11-20	6	David Wallace Croft read the last sermon from "The Way of Ethical Humanism" by Gerald A. Larue.
2004-10-16	7	Shannon Kristine Croft, "The History of Halloween"
2004-09-18	8	David Wallace Croft, Las Casas Day
2004-08-21	11	Cynthia Keaton, "Ethical Culture"
2004-07-17	11	Shannon Kristine Croft, Why I Joined the Humanist Church
2004-06-19	9	Infidel's Bash at the Hattan Residence.
2004-05-15	8	Naomi Bettencourt led us in a discussion on the various types of atheists and humanists.
2004-04-17	6	David Wallace Croft, "Why We Love Our Children (and Cats)".
2004-03-20	10	Cynthia Keaton led a discussion of randomly selected quotes about atheism.
2004-02-21	5	David Wallace Croft, "Why We Don't Believe in Santa Claus".
2004-01-17	9	Shelly Hattan, Secretary of the Metroplex Atheists and former Director of the Texas American Atheists, reviewed and summarized the book The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth by Alan Cutler.
2003-12-20	10	Cynthia Keaton, HCNT Co-Founder, presented "An Introduction to Austrian Economics".
2003-11-15	9	John Hattan, Chair of the Metroplex Atheists, gave a biography of the late Isaac Asimov, prolific writer and President of the American Humanist Association.
2003-10-18	9	In a tribute to Reason, David Wallace Croft spoke on the Socratic Method.
2003-09-20	9	In a tribute to Science, David Wallace Croft spoke on the Scientific Method.
2003-08-16	6	Edward Sebesta was our speaker for the 2nd service. He spoke on his research into the neo-Confederate movement. He wrote a brief article on this subject in the July 2003 issue of the Metroplex Atheists newsletter The Atheist Voice.
2003-07-19	10	David Wallace Croft spoke on the Founding of the Humanist Church and the History of Religious Humanism. Please also see the 2003-09-16 revision for a presentation to the Humanists of Fort Worth.

Volunteers

Past volunteers are listed in alphabetical order.

Reading Selections

Past discussion group reading selections are listed in reverse chronological order. We have discontinued the reading and discussion group meetings but if you are interested in reviving this activity, please post a message to our discussion mailing list.

Dates	Past Reading Selections
2004-08-21	The Humanist Way: An Introduction to Ethical Humanist Religion by Edward L. Ericson The first chapter of the book is available online.
2004-01-17	Economics for Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School by Gene Callahan
2003-10-18 2003-11-15	The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
2003-09-20 2003-08-16	The Sacred Depths of Nature by Ursula Goodenough

Inactive List Archives

• Freethought Fellowship announcements
• Freethought Fellowship discussion

Links

North Texas

• Campus Brights at U.T. Dallas
• Community Unitarian Universalist Church of Plano
• Dallas Brights
• Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
• Humanist Fellowship of North Texas
• Humanists of Fort Worth
• North Texas Atheists
• North Texas Humanists
• Plano Objectivist Study Group
• Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff

Remote

• American Atheists
• American Ethical Union
• American Humanist Association
• Asimov Humanists
• Atheist Alliance International
• Atheist Community of Austin
• Ayn Rand Institute
• Brights
• Church of Reality
• Church of Spiritual Humanism
• Ethical Society of Austin
• Evolve Fish
• Fellowship of Humanity
• Fellowship of Reason
• First Amendmist Church of True Science
• Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association
• Houston Church of Freethought
• Humanist Institute
• Humanist Society
• Humanists of Houston
• HUUmanists
• Institute for Humanist Studies
• International Humanist and Ethical Union
• Navigators U.S.A.
• Objectivist Center
• Optihumanist Fellowship
• Positivist Church of Brazil
• Religious Humanist Association
• Secular Seasons
• Society for Humanistic Judaism
• Society for Universal Immortalism

Copyright 2002 - 2006. The individual contributors and copyright holders of the content of the Humanist Fellowship of North Texas website grant you the right to copy and modify this webpage under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. For attribution, please link to www.HumanistFellowship.org.