Tag: religion

Why Reality Needs a Religion (and Why Atheism isn’t Good Enough)

Why Reality Needs a Religion (and Why Atheism isn’t Good Enough)

Marc Perkel

July 27, 2014

Marc croppedMarc Perkel, founder of the Church of Reality, explains why Reality needs a religion and why Atheism isn’t good enough. In a perfect world Atheism becomes totally meaningless. No one cares what you don’t believe in, they care about what you do believe in. And what should you believe in? Reality!

Atheism needs Reality because without Reality there would be no place for God not to be real in. Realism is the science of understanding who we are, what our purpose is, and how we can live our lives in Right Relationship to Reality so that Reality doesn’t excommunicate us from existence.

So – Atheists – it’s time to put down your Bibles, quit talking about God, and start focusing on what is real rather than what isn’t real. If you know everything about nothing then you know nothing about everything.

You can watch the video of this most interesting presentation here.

 

Humanist Community Forum (2014-07-27): Why Reality Needs a Religion (and Why Atheism isn’t Good Enough) – Marc Perkel from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

 

Dark Deception

Dark Deception

Lawrence Pratt

July 13, 2014

Lawrence Pratt will discuss his recent novel “Dark Deception”, which deals with the struggle of the individual against “tribal” pressures to conform and obey when the individual mind wants to choose another path. Dark Deception is a fictional adaptation of the events that led the author and his wife from dedicated members of an authoritarian faith to complete atheism, and could easily be subtitled “How Religion Turned Us to Atheism”.

 

Humanist Community Forum (2014-07-13): Dark Deception (The Individual versus the Tribe) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

 

Is the end of religion near ?

Is the end of religion near ?

Alan Jeskin

June 22, 2014

Navy fighter pilot turned author, Alan Jeskin, will discuss and read an excerpt from his exciting new novel, Reason’s Fifth Dawning. Jeskin’s novel is an epic saga about how the lives of four very different people were set on intersecting trajectories that led to the beginning of a new age of enlightenment and the end of religion everywhere. Alan Jeskin served 21 years in the navy as both a nuclear submarine officer and a fighter pilot, and earned numerous awards for personal achievement and valor. His first book was Outgrowing God, Moving Beyond Religion. Both books will be available for sale at the event.

Click here to see Alan’s Presentation

Humanist Community Forum (2014-06-22): Is the End of Religion Near? (Alan Jeskin) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

TED talk by Alain de Botton

What Do Traditional Religions Get Right?

Arthur Jackson & Paul Gilbert

September 1, 2013

This Forum will begin with a 10-minute video of a TED Talk by Alain de Botton:

“What aspects of religion should atheists (respectfully) adopt? Alain de Botton suggests a “religion for atheists” — call it Atheism 2.0 — that incorporates religious forms and traditions to satisfy our human need for connection, ritual and transcendence.” 

Through his witty and literate books — and his new School of Life — Alain de Botton helps others find fulfillment in the everyday.  If you have the opportunity, this video is worth watching more than once:
http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0.html

After the video Dan Miller, Arthur and Paul all gave short talks, then there was a lively discussion.

You can read de Botton’s 10 Commandments for atheists at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iv-drip/bring-back-the-goodness-alain-de-bottons-10-commandments-for-atheists-8480128.html

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The following document was also available during this talk to facilitate further discussion of Humanist principles.

Robert D. Finch, a past president of the Humanists of Houston who has served on the AHA’s Board of Directors, has written an essay titled “Evolutionary Ethics and Its Future”, which is published in Volume 21 (1) 2013 of “Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism”.  The following is an abstract from “Evolutionary Ethics and Its Future”.

Let us recapitulate some humanist principles:

Truth and Knowledge: We should base our conduct on the best available knowledge of the natural world, in which people and their minds have evolved and of our human-made systems.

Rationality: The systems of the human mind based in the natural world, enable us to think, and be creative agents, and are the source of personal freedom, dignity and responsibility.

Emotions: We have to recognize that emotions are the driving force of our behavior. We need to provide the loving relationships of a  family for the security of young and old.

Values: People are able to share emotions and refine their values through the various arts.

Ethics: We should use or emotions, values and rationality in building ethical theories and systems to live by.

Pragmatism: We should uphold the methods of social systems that have proven to be successful in the past, including the law, science and good practice while working for their improvement.

Commitment: We need to belong to the organizations that foster our worldview and enable it to be tested and improved.

Destiny: We believe that Humanism should offer visions of the future which will inspire the individual and guide the policies of society.

 

 

My Religious Evolution:
From Being a Simple Catholic,
to a Conservative Preacher,
to an Agnostic Atheist

Tom Bergstrom

March 3, 2013

Tom Bergstrom
Tom Bergstrom

Tom Bergstrom, a Humanist Community member will share important things in his life in this talk. He grew up in a blue collar town of 78,000 in southeast Wisconsin as a practicing Catholic. As a child he was mostly interested in riding his bike fast, and then later developed an interest in world events. However, in his teens he became ill.

For years during Tom’s teens, his best friend used fear tactics to challenge Tom to join the friend’s church. When Tom was 18, he finally joined his friend’s small modest conservative Church Of Christ. After eight years in the Church of Christ or the “C of C”, Tom found out that he could preach. His short preaching career began in his 20’s and lasted a few years from 1991 to about 1994. By 1999 he went through a divorce which led to a new discovery on Christian hypocrisy.

About this he says, “This hypocrisy opened my eyes. I educated myself about philosophy, Taoism, Buddhism, evolution, US history, particle physics, and other sciences. This new education eventually led me to become agnostic.  At the same time as I was becoming progressive, American politics was becoming more conservative. Thus, I remembered my old Bible training which taught that there is a big difference between basic Jesus’ saying to love your neighbor and with right-wing American Christian propaganda. The right-wings’ lying rhetoric in the name of Jesus encouraged me to write, blog, protest, join socialists, join humanists, and to expose conservative right-wing American Christians’ hypocritical propaganda. I hope to open your eyes to the magnitude of the false Christian hypocrisy I have seen.”

You may view Tom’s slides here.

 

Humanist Community Forum (2013-03-03): My Religious Evolution (Tom Bergstrom) from Brian Davis on Vimeo.