Dear <<First Name>>,
We recently had a KASHA board meeting, on Sunday, January 29. A reminder from Darrel (Treasurer) to please pay your membership fee -- we have several unpaid memberships at this time. If you are unsure of your status, please email him at trust@askuskelowna.ca You can pay in person at a KASHA event or HERE on the KASHA website.
More exciting than that is the addition of Janice Selbie to our board in the role of Vice President/Secretary, taking over from Dave. (Thanks Dave!) Many of you are already familiar with the HUGE amount of work that Janice has done for those recovering from religious trauma; her conferences, articles, podcasts, and so on have been lifesavers for countless people who were -- or still are -- trapped in unhealthy situations. Thank you, Janice, for your work, and we look forward to what you bring to the KASHA board!
Questions and opinions and reflections on things like human nature, meaning, death, and those "big things" often pique my curiosity, and when a friend recommended "What Makes Us Human: An Artificial Intelligence Answers Life's Biggest Questions" by Iain S. Thomas, Jasmine Wang, and GPT-3, I just HAD to check it out.
The book is in question-and-answer format; the questions are asked by the human authors, and the answers are given by the third-generation Generative Pre-trained Transformer, a language-processing AI model. I often found its answers to be quite comforting and thought-provoking. On a related note, a documentary that you might find worth checking out is Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science by Alan Lightman.
Tania
think@askuskelowna.ca
KASHA - Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics & Humanists Association
Inquire with us at askuskelowna.ca
You can now become a member via our secure website payment system HERE
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Donate to the Earthquake in Türkiye & Syria Appeal
Your $75 donation goes where it is needed most.
The Red Cross Red Crescent is working to deliver emergency relief and to get help to those impacted by the earthquakes as quickly as possible. Money raised will enable the Red Cross Red Crescent to provide immediate relief, ongoing recovery efforts and resiliency and preparedness activities in impacted and surrounding areas. The activities and areas impacted may evolve based on emerging needs and compounding humanitarian crises.
To get to the Red Cross website, please click HERE.
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Finding a way out: Recovering from religious trauma syndrome
By Janice Selbie
Only Sky online magazine
Have you ever wondered how someone becomes radicalized—how an otherwise normal, intelligent person could become such a religious fanatic that they are willing to die for their faith? I don’t wonder, because I was that person.
My life as a head-covering, homeschooling, antifeminist, Bible-believing, fundamentalist Christian was rigid but simple. I only had to do one thing right: follow the rules.
I grew up in a home with an emotionally volatile father who also happened to be a religious zealot, so my siblings and I learned early on that there was a degree of safety in following rules. Combine a volatile religious parent with Bible teachings demanding obedience, parental respect, and the threat of eternal torture for breaking the rules, and presto! A desperate, fear-driven, earnest religious fanatic is formed. READ MORE HERE
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An infodemic is too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak. It causes confusion and risk-taking behaviours that can harm health. It also leads to mistrust in health authorities and undermines the public health response. An infodemic can intensify or lengthen outbreaks when people are unsure about what they need to do to protect their health and the health of people around them. With growing digitization – an expansion of social media and internet use – information can spread more rapidly. This can help to quickly fill information voids but can also amplify harmful messages.
Click HERE for the full article on the KASHA website.
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Nerd Immunity - JOIN KASHA HERE
The state of immunity or process of becoming immune to misinformation, bullshit, fake news, crack pot theories & malicious manipulation by conducting thorough research, checking sources & applying critical thinking.
When the mind is vaccinated against bollocks, the mind's owner could be said to have nerd immunity.
Have you joined KASHA? It's a terrific way to build nerd immunity against unsubstantiated, baseless conspiracy theories.
During the Covid-19 pandemic some people spoke of building herd immunity, yet a lot of them were quickly infected by fake news and false information because they didn't build some nerd immunity first.
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A "Happy Belated Birthday" to KASHA member Guy King! He recently turned 90.
Besides reaching the ripe young age of 90, Guy during his youthful 70's to 80's could often be seen walking the streets of Kelowna wearing his 'Tax the Churches' shirt and recruiting members. He was our secular ' Mormon' of the streets, spreading good words and facts to all who would listen.
All of us at KASHA have always been inspired by Guy's t-shirt promotion of secularism and taxing the church; hence, the KASHA board has granted him lifetime KASHA membership.
Thanks Guy for all your work!
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Click HERE to see our 2022 Festivus pics.
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KASHA COVID Policy:
KASHA follows the COVID guidelines laid out by the BC health authorities and therefore will not require vaccination to attend events and activities after 7 April 2022. However, given that many KASHA members are at a higher risk than the general population, it is preferred that attendees be fully vaccinated against COVID 19.
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Webinars & Town Halls on the KASHA website
Thanks to Darrel, we now have a page of interesting webinars and town hall meetings from BC Humanists, Center for Inquiry Canada, and Amnesty International that you can watch.
If you just can't watch another Netflix show or commercial TV, tune in here to see issues that are relevant to you. KASHA WEBINAR PAGE
You can also catch up on some of our previous newsletters HERE.
Thanks, Darrel, for all your work!
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We are officially an affliate local group member with BC Humanists. We receive support to help connect with humanists and atheists in our area. We become part of a larger network of non-religious people across the province by joining with other groups.