Laura Mappin

Improve Your Argument’s Impact

Laura Mappin

February 2, 2014

Note: HCSV Board elections will occur on this date before this Forum begins.

telescope-250-5672Each of us has probably taken part in a number of persuasive arguments that have only resulted in hurt feelings and disturbed relationships but no further understanding or learning on anyone’s part. We have also probably found ourselves on both sides of those failed arguments. How can we do better?

In this forum, Humanist Community member Laura Mappin will take a look at several scholars’ views on this subject and then facilitate a group discussion on this topic. Audience members will consider real life argument examples provided by attendees and crowd-source possible responses. (This Forum will not be videotaped to allow for a freer discussion.)

Meet the Candidates & Discussion of HCSV

Meet the Candidates & Discussion of HCSV

Program to Meet the 2014 HCSV Board of Directors Candidates

January 26, 2014

 

boardCandidates2014

The five candidates pictured above and listed below are running for our 2014 Board elections to be held 2 February 2014.

They will introduce themselves and share their thoughts about what they hope to accomplish on the Board.

 

The candidates are:

 

Dominic Borg: “My foremost desire is to support HCSV in continuing to facilitate a great community and great events. Additionally, I hope to work with fellow Bay Area organizations planning events, and sharing knowledge and resources symbiotically. I would like to explore new things we could do that reflect our mission statement. I look forward to helping to get the word out about HCSV events and welcoming new people to the community.”

Hilton Brown: Hilton U Brown III: I’ve been a member of the Humanist Community for over twenty years. I served as treasurer for more than eight years, and I have served in several other offices in the HCSV. I want to help the community grow and fulfill the promises of our Values, Vision and Mission.

Jonathan Figdor: I was the first Humanist MDiv who graduated from Harvard Divinity School where I pioneered the Humanist Chaplaincy Training Program co-developed with Greg Epstein from the Humanist Community at Harvard. I served as the Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, and am now the Humanist Chaplain at Stanford. I’m interested in pursuing connections between HCSV and younger Humanists in Silicon Valley.

Laura Mappin: I spent almost 10 years looking for this community. I’ve been an active member for one year and a self-identifying humanist for over 30 years. I was particularly drawn in by the variety of topics you discuss at your forum. I’m particularly interested in getting more visibility for HCSV and in reaching out to many whom I believe are already looking for this kind of group so that this great resource you have built here can thrive.

Martin Squibbs: I have been a member of the HCSV since the late 1990’s, and a board member for the last 2 years. I believe the HCSV is of great value in providing a secular, welcoming and open minded community for people to come, make friends and explore the essential questions of life. What values to best hold and live by; how to better treat one another, and how to better protect and respect our home, planet Earth. I want to play whatever part I am able to in supporting this community and joining with its members to seek answers to these questions and to live by them as best I can.

 

There will be an opportunity for Q&A after their presentations as time permits. This will be followed by a general discussion with audience participation of HCSV as time allows.

David Fitzgerald

Ten Beautiful Lies about Jesus

David Fitzgerald

January 19, 2014

 

davidFitzgeraldWhy would anyone think Jesus never existed? Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to accept that he was a real first century figure?

As it turns out, no. David Fitzgerald’s award-winning book Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All sheds light on ten beloved Christian myths, and with evidence gathered from historians all across the theological spectrum, shows how they point to a Jesus Christ created solely through allegorical alchemy of hope and imagination; a messiah transformed from a purely literary, theological construct into the familiar figure of Jesus – in short, a purely mythic Christ.

Join us as we hear Dave lay out the ten biggest “facts” Christians get wrong about Jesus in his talk “Ten Beautiful Lies about Jesus.”

Praise for David Fitzgerald’s

Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All

Voted one of the top 5 Atheist/Agnostic books of 2010

About Atheism.com’s Reader’s Choice Awards

“Fitzgerald’s is possibly the best ‘capsule summary’ of the mythicist case I’ve ever encountered …with an interesting and accessible approach.”

—Earl Doherty, author of The Jesus Puzzle

 

“Fitzgerald summarizes a great number of key arguments concisely and with new power and original spin. I really learned something from him. Recalls classical skeptics and biblical critics. A surprising amount of new material.”

—Robert M. Price, author of Deconstructing Jesus and The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man

 

“David Fitzgerald reveals himself to be the brightest new star in the firmament of scholars who deny historical reality to “Jesus of Nazareth.” His brilliance would have been sufficiently established had he done nothing more than illustrate and explain traditional arguments with a clarity and transparency never achieved…But he has done more. He has developed new arguments and insights as well…”

—Frank R. Zindler, editor of American Atheist Press and author of The Jesus the Jews Never Knew

 

“Fitzgerald has hit the nail on the head…A nice, readable introduction to the top ten problems typically swept under the rug by anyone insisting it’s crazy even to suspect Jesus might not have existed.”

—Richard C. Carrier, Ph.D., author of Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn’t Need a Miracle to Succeed and the forthcoming book On the Historicity of Jesus Christ

 

BIO:
David Fitzgerald is a writer and public speaker who has been called both “The Ferris Bueller of San Francisco” and “one of the busiest atheist activists in the Bay Area.” He is the Action Coordinator for San Francisco Atheists and serves on the board of the Center for Inquiry-San Francisco; Co-founder & Director of both the world’s first Atheist Film Festival and San Francisco’s oldest annual Darwin Day celebration, “Evolutionpalooza!”

He is on the Speaker’s Bureau of both the Secular Student Alliance and Center for Inquiry, and lectures around the country at universities and national secular events, including national conventions of American Atheists and the American Humanist Association, and an audience favorite at Skepticon.

Besides all that, he is a historical researcher who has been actively investigating the Historical Jesus question for over ten years. He has a degree in history and was an associate member of CSER (the former Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion).  His most recent book is NAILED: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All, which critically examines the historical evidence of Christ.

Emily Harris

Emily_Harris_Headshot

Why California Can’t Buy Its Way Out of the Prison Crisis

Emily Harris

January 12, 2014

 

Our criminal justice system – including our prisons and jails – is broken AND expensive. The United States, with less than five percent of the world’s population, has nearly 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population. California has one of the highest prison and jail populations in the US. Our recidivism rate at more than 67% is also among the highest.

Emily Harris, Statewide Coordinator of Californians United For a Responsible Budget (CURB ), will speak. CURB’s goal is to stop the expansion of the failed system and replace the brutal practice of putting people in cages for long periods with evidence-based treatment, rehabilitation and training programs to facilitate their reintegration back into society.

Martin Carcieri

Physician-Assisted Suicide and Beyond: What Would Rawls Do?

Marty Carcieri

January 5, 2014

Martin Carcieri
Martin Carcieri

Physician-Assisted Suicide, even for the terminally ill, is legal in only four U.S. States. Yet there are now proposals in the U.S. and abroad to extend the right to die (i.e., to obtain and consume a reliable lethal dose of barbiturates) even further: 1) to those over 70 years of age, and 2) to those whose longtime spouses are near death and who wish to die with them. How would these proposals fare under the principles of justice articulated and defended by John Rawls, the most influential political theorist of our time? Friend of SVH Martin Carcieri will present his application of Rawlsian principles to one of the most urgent public policy issues of our time.

Martin Carcieri is an Associate Professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, where he teaches courses and seminars on Constitutional Law and Political Theory. He holds a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California, and has published twenty-five journal articles and book chapters.

To learn more before the presentation on Sunday, you can read the handout.