Lee is once again the gracious hostess for the eastern suburbs book group. This months topic is Barbara Oakley's book Evil Genes. You may recall that she was in town for a book signing at the Barnes & Noble at the Waterfront. Anyone needing directions can e-mail her at or BillK at .

This gathering will feature a talk by former Carnegie Mellon physicist/professor Dr. Fred Bortz,author of Physics: Decade by Decade, who will talk to us about a few of the many surprises that twentieth century physics had in store for physicists who thought that most of the important questions had been answered.  They fully expected to spend their careers refining theories and making more precise and accurate measurements of universal constants, but thankfully they were wrong. As Dr. Bortz writes: "Instead of tying up a few loose ends, physicists pulled on a few snags and watched the entire theoretical fabric of physics unravel. It would take most of the new century to reweave it."

Pittsburgh Secular Freethinkers monthly meetup is the second Wednesday of the month.

From their website: "For September, we will discuss Gnosticism, a belief system in which knowledge or "gnosis" leads to salvation. This isn't scientific knowledge or rational knowledge, nor is it philosophy. It is an awareness and understanding of reality that goes against much of what is found in mainstream Western religion.

Although Gnosticism, as an actual religious practice, technically started as an early form of Christianity, it bears much in common with Eastern religions............."

For more information, contact Andrew Sydlik at

This will be the first monthly meeting meeting to be held on our new rotating venue schedule. This month, the meeting will be held at the Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore. Our program for this month is to preview the IMAX movie entitled "Wild Ocean". We will meet in the inside lobby of the Rangos Theater at 7:00 and then view the movie at 7:15. This will be followed by discussion and socializing afterwards until 9:00. I am hopeful that a strong turnout will afford many people to meet others that they have not had the opportunity to meet before.

There are several restaurants in the area for those who may want to meet for dinner and/or additional socializing prior to going to the CSC. Anyone wanting to organize such a thing can use the CFI Forums or post something on http://www.steelcityskeptics.net/

Once again, The Coffee Den in Mt. Lebanon is the scene of the South Hills Book Discussion Group. This month's book is Moyers on Democracy by (you guessed it) Bill Moyers. Again, the time is 5:00.

cfi-shbdg.freeservers.com/

This is our ongoing discussion group on "The Historical Jesus". It is based on the Bart Ehrmann's course of the same name. The discussion is led by Victor Bernard.

This is another non-CFI event, but it has strong appeal to our members. What follows is a synopsis of the last salon.

Anyone wishing more information should contact Charles at

Our monthly advisory board meeting is once again at Bill's apartment building in the downstairs party room.

Bill H is our very gracious host once again. We can have stimulating conversation or watch a video or find some other way of entertaining ourselves. Regardless of what we wind up doing, it is always a pleasant evening. Thanks again to Bill for being such a terrific host. Anyone needing directions or more information, please e-mail or BillK at

This will be the 4th Drinking Skeptically meeting in Pittsburgh. So far, a good time has been had by all. Drink, talk, and/or eat a little (or a lot) and join the fun. More information can be had by contacting Laura at the DS web page or at the CFI Facebook page. You can also check out the Steel City Skeptics website at http://www.steelcityskeptics.com