Category for all Forum posts.
Humanist Community member Alex Havasy will present summaries of the 11 state propositions on the November ballot.
The summary will include the main arguments in favor of and against each proposition, who is financing it, and how various organizations recommend you vote.
This presentation led to a lively and very informative discussion. Glad I waited to fill out my ballot!
Now in her sixth year at the helm of the Humanist magazine, Editor Jennifer Bardi has some confessions to make, namely that she never knew Humanists were sexist, gun-toting, anti-abortion, homophobic, sexually inhibited, free-market loving conspiracy theorists. Well, a few of them anyway.
Bardi will speak about hot-button social and political issues on which Humanists differ in their opinions, the history of the AHA’s stance on core issues, and how the AHA continues to advocate for nonbelievers of all stripes.
Humanist Community Forum (2012-10-28): Confessions of a Lefty, Godless Magazine Editor (Jennifer Bardi) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.
Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Psychology, and the study of Memory and Consciousness are all focusing on understanding the nature, behaviour and living reality of our home; the human mind, living within our human brain. Weighing 3lb, being 6.5″x5.5″x3.5″ in size, having 2% of our body’s weight, consuming 20% of our body’s energy, containing around 100 billion neurons and establishing around 100 trillion connections, the human brain is, or should I say most likely you are, perceiving and reading and interpreting these words within its neural networks right now.
What does this relatively new form of life, this highly self aware and complex human brain, bring to Earth, to our Solar system, and to this Universe as a whole, so far as we know? And how do we find joy within it and do well by it? I intend to share new scientific insights into the structure and processes of our memories in mind, and then offer some of my own thoughts and theories regarding the very nature and form that our human minds take within reality as a whole, and in doing so, seek to propose some answers to these questions.
To see Martin’s excellent slides click here.
Fifty years ago Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, exposing the devastating impact of pesticides, especially DDT, on the whole web of life. Time magazine dismissed her as “hysterically overemphatic” and the New Yorker published a letter from a reader who complained, “As for insects, isn’t it just like a woman to be scared to death of a few bugs!”
Why is it that men and women have often responded so differently to the environment and environmental issues? From pre-Columbian Native Americans to the modern environmental justice movement, gender has played an underappreciated role in environmental attitudes and actions. In this illustrated presentation based on her new book Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History (Oxford University Press), historian Nancy C. Unger reveals how women have played a unique role, for better and sometimes for worse, in the shaping of the American environment.
Humanist Community Forum (2012-10-14) – Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History (Nancy C. Unger) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.
Have you ever thought about writing your own personal Humanist Manifesto? Sandy Smith, a member of the Humanist Community, will give a brief history of the Humanist Manifestos written under the auspices of the American Humanist Association and other organizations, and then there will be an opportunity for you to consider how you would write your own.
Sandy’s slides provide an excellent history of Humanist Manifestos:
Humanist Community Forum (2012-10-07): You and Humanist Manifestos (Sandy Smith) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.