Category: Speaker

Category to indicate a forum is a single speaker.

Dinner & Musical Evening with Dan Barker, FFRF Co-President

Dan Barker

6:30 p.m., September 9, 2022

Dan Barker is the co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), the nation’s largest freethought association with over 30,000 members. Dan will play the piano and sing many of his fine freethought songs to us and with us. He will also speak briefly on the topic “Losing Faith in Faith,” followed by Q&A, and will give us a quick update on FFRF’s important work.

After about 19 years as a minister and evangelist, Dan became a nontheist by 1984. He now leads FFRF with his equally legendary wife, freethought leader Annie Laurie Gaylor. FFRF is known as a prominent champion of the separation of church and state in the United States.
Dan has written numerous books and an astonishing array of nonreligious songs (see “Dan Barker music” on YouTube). He and Annie Laurie host Freethought Radio and Freethought Matters on TV.

This exciting event is free and will begin the evening with a simple dinner in the meeting room. ACSJ will provide lasagna, salad, vegetables, fruits, and snacks, plus a variety of drinks including beer and wine. Please let us know if you can help bring any of the above items or want to add something different to the potluck. Please arrive by 6:30 so that there is time to mingle and eat before the presentation begins at about 7:00-7:15.

Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to engage with Dan Barker in person. This joyous event is appropriate for people of all ages, including children of course.

Please be COVID-careful. If you are experiencing any symptoms that might be COVID, kindly skip this event for the sake of your fellow nonbelievers. We will have space to spread out in this large room. Wearing a mask is encouraged, when you are not eating, drinking, or singing.

The Atheist Community of San Jose invites members of other nonreligious groups to join us for this special event.

LOCATION: Sunnyvale Community Center, 550 E Remington Dr, Sunnyvale, CA 94087
BUILDING: Recreation Center
ROOM: Community Room
PARKING: There is plenty of free parking in the Community Center lots

If you want to see more of Dan Barker, he will also be presenting in the North Bay on Saturday Sept 10 and in Sacramento on Sunday Sept 11 (Come Meet Dan Barker!, Sun, Sep 11, 2022, 1:30 PM | https://www.meetup.com/sacfan/events/287745212/)

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Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

War and Democracy

Michael Eisenscher

11 a.m., August 7, 2022

Michael Eisenscher has spent the last few years focusing on the intersection of labor, environment, foreign policy, and militarism, as interconnected and mutually-interrelated features of 21st Century US capitalism.
He will put forward some thoughts about their interconnection, and pose some questions to discuss with us.
Reading the following articles may provide a preview of some of the issues he will address.
The memes he creates: https://bit.ly/SolidarityINFOServiceMemes.
Back issues of SolidarityINFOService News: https://bit.ly/SISNews
Sign up to receive SIS News: https://bit.ly/SISNews-Signup

Michael Eisenscher is now in his sixth decade of activism in the labor and progressive movements – in struggles for peace, civil rights, civil liberties, women’s rights, immigrant rights, and environmental justice.
From 1972 until 2003, he worked for unions as an organizer and negotiator.
In 2003, he joined with other labor activists to found US Labor Against the War (USLAW), and served as its National Coordinator for the next dozen years.
Since “retiring” in 2015, he has continued his labor activity as a delegate to the Alameda Labor Council, helping to found its Climate and Environmental Justice Caucus.
He also joined other Bay Area trade unionists to found Labor Rise for Climate, Jobs, Justice & Peace, and is a member of the national Labor Network for Sustainability.
His articles have appeared in a number of periodicals, journals and bulletins, and in chapters of three labor anthologies.
Along the way, he picked up a BA in Labor Studies from San Francisco State University and MA in Public Policy from University of Massachusetts-Boston.
For six years he taught a course in political economy in the Labor Studies Program at Laney College.
He also produces memes and a twice-weekly news bulletin for SolidarityINFOService, which he established during the historic Teamsters UPS Part-timers strike in 1997.

220804 Michael Eisenscher.mp4 from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

To see the Forum, and to ask questions or make comments, if you wish, click here.
Our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, if it’s not already installed, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smart phone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

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RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
Add this event to your Google Calendar

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

The Secular Coalition for America Advocates for Religious Freedom

Heather Rigby

11 a.m., July 31, 2022

This Sunday Heather Rigby will talk to us about the Secular Coalition for America. The Coalition advocates for religious freedom and works to defend the equal rights of nonreligious Americans. It represents 20 national secular organizations, hundreds of local secular communities, and works with allies in the faith community. It combines the power of grassroots activism with professional lobbying to make an impact on the laws and policies that govern separation of religion and government.

Heather Rigby, Communications Manager of the Secular Coalition of America, comes from a background in education and public/educational/government media. She has earned awards from the American Association of University Women and the Alliance for Community Media, presented at conferences on topics including social media engagement and volunteer programs for nonprofits, and served on committees for media organizations and a library. Her passion is a good story — hearing or telling. As a child, Heather spent time immersed in the stories told by elders and veterans at the senior center and VFW where her grandfather volunteered and was a member. This turned into an academic career dedicated to understanding how stories build community and shape society, with a desire to have people’s stories take the lead in advocacy.

220731 Heather Rigby.mp4 from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

To see the Forum, and to ask questions or make comments, if you wish, click here.
Our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, if it’s not already installed, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smart phone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

———-

RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
Add this event to your Google Calendar

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

Twists and Turns in Teaching Evolution over the Years

Glenn Branch

11 a.m., July 24, 2022

Controversies over the teaching of evolution in the public schools have rocked the nation over the past century. Evolution’s foes have consistently used the same arguments, but their ambitions have shifted, from banning the teaching of evolution, through balancing it with a supposed alternative, to blunting it by misrepresenting evolution as scientifically controversial. In his talk, Glenn Branch, Deputy Director of the National Center for Science Education, will discuss the causes, history, and consequences of these controversies, with a special emphasis on events in California.

Glenn Branch is a coeditor of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools. He is the author of numerous articles on evolution education and climate education in such publications as Scientific American, The American Biology Teacher, and Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics. He received the Evolution Education Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers in 2020.

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220724 Glenn Branch.mp4 from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

———-

Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

To see the Forum, and to ask questions or make comments, if you wish, click here.
Our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, if it’s not already installed, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smart phone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

———-

RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
Add this event to your Google Calendar

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.

GeoEngineering for Climate

Sudhanshu “Suds” Jain

11 a.m., May 22, 2022

According to many experts, we have fewer than 10 years to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions if we want to stay below 1.5 degrees C of global temperature rise. Achieving this goal seems highly unlikely. We do know that the Earth cools for about 2 years after every major volcanic eruption. This effect has caused famines in Europe. We know now that volcanos inject millions of tons of sulfur into the Stratosphere which reflects sunlight back into space. Some people have proposed injecting particles in the Stratosphere to cool the earth. Suds Jain has been working for almost 10 years on a different scheme to make Marine boundary Layer clouds brighter by spraying purified seawater into the air. He considers these schemes as purely insurance policies to avoid catastrophic effects of global heating. He advocates for research but not deployment as he prefers first Herculean efforts to eliminate fossil fuel use. He will also discuss other GeoEngineering schemes to capture CO2 from the air and sequester it.

Background Info: NOVA episode on GeoEngineering: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/can-we-cool-the-planet/

Bio
Sudhanshu “Suds” Jain designed integrated circuits for 25 years. In 2008 he decided that the impending Climate crisis was far more important than designing the next switch chip for computer networking and he “retired” from Broadcom Corporation to become a “professional volunteer”. He also coached a FIRST Lego League team for 5 years and he cofounded the high school FTC robotics team at Wilcox High School and has coached it for the past 8 years. He currently serves on the Santa Clara City Council.

He’s active with Citizen’s Climate Lobby which advocates for a Carbon Tax with 100% revenue recycling (dividends to consumers). He’s taught a weekly “Climate Change Science” class to middle school students at Discovery Charter School since 2011. He has been working with Silver Lining Marine Cloud Brightening team since 2012. Sudhanshu holds BSEE and MSEE degrees from MIT.

———-
Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.

To see the Forum, and to ask questions or make comments, if you wish, click here.
Our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, if it’s not already installed, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smart phone, and then enter:
 Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

GeoEngineering for Climate – Suds Jain
 from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Follow us on Twitter here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
Add this event to your Google Calendar 

To help our Forum series continue, please consider making a donation or becoming a member (http://www.humanists.org/blog/membership/) of the Humanist Community.

Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.