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Somers Town Coffeehouse
60 Chalton Street, London (map)
Please Note: We have moved back to the Somers Town Coffee House. This pub is close to Euston train Station on Chalton Street. Every first Wednesday of the month we... Learn more
Hosted by: Helen Palmer (Events Organiser )
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Saturday, November 10, 2012, 7:00 PM
Arguably Dan is one of America's best known humanists/atheists/secularists. He is coming to the UK to take part in "The God Debate" at the Oxford Union Among his oponents will be Peter Hitchens.
After which he has agreed to come and see us.
From evangelical preacher to secular champion.
Dan was ordained by the Standard Community Church, California, in 1978. In 1984 he announced to his friends that he was an atheist.
A successful musician, Barker has composed over 200 songs that have been published or recorded. He is the current co-president with his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an American Freethought organization that promotes the separation of church and state. Barker is co-host of Freethought Radio, a Madison, Wisconsin based radio program for atheists, agnostics, and other freethinkers that has included interviews with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Steven Pinker. His foundation published his book Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, and he has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper.
He is a member of the Lenni Lenape (Delaware Indian) Tribe of Native Americans, and in 1991 edited and published Paradise Remembered, a collection of his grandfather's stories as a Lenape boy in Indian Territory. Dan's father, Norman Barker, was also a musician who played the trombone. His father performed a musical duet with Judy Garland in the 1948 film Easter Parade.
This is one not to miss.
RSVP here
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There are more November events to be found on our meetup site - Just take a scroll and click http://www.meetup.com/Central-London-Humanists/
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Today is a Bank Holiday in France.
LA TOUSSAINT, All Saints Day
All Saints day is one of the most respected national public days in France
Visiting cemeteries and bringing flowers to the graves of loved ones is part of the All Saints traditions.
November the 1st is indeed a national Jour Férié in France, meaning that most of the shops, restaurants, schools and companies are closed. La Toussaint (All Saints Day), although deeply rooted in the Catholic religion, is widely respected in France.
French people like to attend the All Saints Mass to remember the Catholic Saints as well as honour their late relatives. Then they usually take the advantage of this bank holiday to visit cemeteries and lay down a symbolic bouquet of flowers at gravesites as a sign of honour.
On November 1st it is a common sight to see French people laying chrysanthemums or wreaths of immortelles (everlasting flowers) on the graves of loved ones.
Chrysanthemums are indeed so closely linked to La Toussaint that the French never give them as a gift.
La Toussaint national holiday actually represents two holy days: All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Renowned for their sense of tradition, many French people still respect this ancient religious ritual. Today November 1st has become a public holiday during which both children, parents and families can spend time together.
source: http://www.french-property.com/reference/french_public_holidays/all-saints-toussaint/
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I wonder what children in state schools are told about this holiday and whether any special effort is made to include those from non-Christian, non-Catholic, backgrounds? If you know please tell me - Josh
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Tonio Borg - no way!
Why he must not be the next Commissioner for Health & Consumer Protection
30 October 2012
 
Tonio Borg has been nominated by Malta to replace former Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection John Dalli after his resignation on 16 October 2012. Despite Tonio Borg’s well-known stands against women’s, LGBT’s and migrants’ rights, President José Manuel Barroso approved his nomination. It still has to be agreed by the European Parliament and European Council.
We believe that this candidacy is clearly damaging for Europe and seriously concerning for the quality of health services enjoyed by those millions of European citizens.
read more
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UN debates freedom of religion or belief
Fascinating insightful article by Matt Cherry, IHEU International Representative and also President of the NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief at the UN.
UN debates Freedom of Religion or Belief:  Britain supports state religions; the Netherlands wants more attention for the rights of atheists; Canada rejects the claim that religions have rights; and China rejects Canada’s claim that Falun Gong practitioners have rights that are being abused: these are just a few of the things I learned at the United Nations hearing on the Annual Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief.... read more
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BHA raises concerns over Cameron speech on faith and the ‘Big Society’
Prime Minister David Cameron is facing criticism for a recent speech in which he described his view of the role of religious organisations in the ‘Big Society’. Mr Cameron said that the space between the government and individuals can be filled by faith-based organisations, who can deliver public services. The British Humanist Association (BHA), which believes that public services should remain secular, has raised concerns over Mr Cameron’s comments.
The speech was made at a reception at 10 Downing Street to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Council of Christians and Jews. In his speech, Mr Cameron said: ‘There is hope for the future, particularly if people can follow the example of charities like your own. This government is trying to put charities, charitable groups, and charitable giving on a whole different footing. Right across the board you can see that we are saying you’re not the third sector - we believe charities have a huge role in delivering great public services.
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SEX, DEATH & THE MEANING OF LIFE
I have just finished watching BHA Vice President, Richard Dawkins's TV programs - "Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life".
This is not a review just a few personal thoughts.
Each topic is given its own program. All three are well worth watching - see links below.
For me two of the more fascinating interconnected points made in the second program were about the fallibility of memory and that materially we are never the same people we once were.
"A man may wear a wristwatch when he is twenty", says Dawkins, "and the same watch when he's fifty. It's the same watch, but it is not the same man inside. Every atom in his body has changed, has turned over. ... I am not the child I once was. The child I once was is dead."
For me this is key. What links my present self to an earlier me is a sequence of cause and effect in which I have been either the cause or the effect or both. However what is most significant, I believe, for a sense of meaning is my memory of events; distorted, bald, embellished or almost forgotten. Dawkins illustrates the falliblity of memory when his mother recounts her version of his childhood encounter with a scorpion and he recollects it quite differently. He does seem to be wondering whether he might not have embroidered the story, although he has a firm recollection of it having happened the way he tells it. Dawkins acknowledges that what we recollect actually is not like something captured by a video camera but just "a memory, of a memory, of a memory, of perhaps the real thing."
For me the meaning of my life is the ongoing production, in my brain, of my autobiography. My personal biography, as I sense it, is, in part, simply a consequence of living my life. It is, though, far from being totally under my control but I can influence it. I can shape it and this act of creativity does give meaning to my life. It does not have to be 'true' in any absolute sense, in fact it clearly cannot be, but what matters more is that it is acceptable to me. That I have the sort of memory-biography with which I can live comfortably. This is not so easy. And if biography drifts too far from reality, becomes too fanciful a fiction, there can, I believe, be serious consequences for mental health and stability.
In these films I find Richard Dawkins a compassionate, honest, Feynmanesqe inquirer after truth. He is a quintessential Englishman, a donnish figure, courageous in confronting the realities, squinting somewhat stocially at strangeness, but childlike in the joy of discovery. He resembles Charles Darwin, whom he so much admires, for he travels the world in search of the specimens of human behaviour from which to develop a theory.
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IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED PLEASE DO FORWARD THIS REMINDER
Membership of the Central London Humanist Group is by joining us on Meetup. Membership is free. To be a voting member of the Central London Humanists you need to be a paid-up member of the British Humanist Association. Non-voting members (and guests) are most welcome to almost all of our meetings.
The Central London Humanist Group is a fully independent group which has chosen to define its voting membership by this means.
[Note: you can register as a BHA supporter free of charge but this does not confer voting status of the Central London Humanists]
(Josh, on behalf of The Central London Humanist Group, sent this email - if you would rather I didn't send you reminder Emails please let me know )
Not already a BHA member? Join now and support the vital work!n |
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