Category: Forums

Category for all Forum posts.

Performance Forum

Hosted by Sena Havasy

November 26, 2017

Do you love music? Play a musical instrument and/or sing? Solo, group or sing along? Do you have a favorite poem? Is it one that you’ve read or one that you wrote yourself? Do you have a skit or dance piece you could share with us? We are looking for participants for our ninth Annual Performance Forum.

We are taking sign-ups at the Greeters Table. Contact Sena Havasy at senahav@gmail.com for more information.

After the Forum, please join us for a lunch at 12:30pm. The lunch is complimentary for first-time visitors and students.

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Cooking For Time, Taste and Turf – Healthy Holidays for People and Planet

Laura Stec

November 19, 2017

The odds of eating healthy are not in our favor. Grocery shelves are stocked with highly stimulating junk foods, and brains have been hijacked into expectations of “eatertainment” rather than nourishment. And who has the motivation, or the time to cook and eat healthy food anyways?

Join chef and author Laura Stec for a discussion on what influences our shopping and eating choices, and for tips on how to stay on the healthy side of the holidays. We’ll look at the effects that sugar, salt, fat, time, money and culture have on our minds, bodies and households, and learn ways to set up our kitchen for delicious, nutritious outcomes. Topics include: teaching our taste buds, meal motivation, foods and the environment, vegetable seasonings and complements, cooking with grains.

A mini cooking demo completes the presentation.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-11-19): Cooking For Time, Taste and Turf – Healthy Holidays for People and Planet (Laura Stec) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.


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By the Numbers: Nonbelievers in the U.S.

Dr. Judith Banister

November 12, 2017

What is the situation today regarding religious believers and nonbelievers in this country? For some people, the religious landscape is changing frightfully fast. But for many of us, progress toward Humanism and Atheism seems glacial.

The best source of reliable current data and insights on nonbelievers and believers in the U.S. is the surveys designed and carried out by the Pew Research Center. For decades, this unbiased research group has conducted large in-depth surveys to get at respondents’ actual religious or nonreligious beliefs, practices, and affiliations. Let us use Pew Research results to assess not only what recent trends have been, but also where we stand today as a nation.

Dr. Judith Banister is a local Ph.D.-level demographer (population specialist) and statistician. Raised Protestant, Judy became a strong Atheist and Humanist at age 18 when she took an eye-opening college course on the History of Religions. Judy will report and analyze for us the Pew Research Center’s surveys and resulting reports from the most recent decade. Then we will explore together what this reality means for us Humanists and how this knowledge can help guide us going forward.

Click here to see the slides that the speaker showed during her talk.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-11-12): By the Numbers: Nonbelievers in the U.S. (Dr. Judith Banister) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.


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Concentration Meditation

Beverly Kam

November 5, 2017

Meditation is an ancient art and science. Meditation teachers from years ago knew the benefits of meditation. Their students also knew or heard of the benefits and sought out the teachers. In our current day and age, with the use of technology, we can actually see for ourselves how practicing meditation is beneficial on many levels – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Come and hear a presentation on Concentration Meditation as well as have an opportunity to try it from the comfort of your own seat.

Beverly Kam is a licensed marriage and family therapist with over 20 years of experience in the field of psychotherapy. She is also a certified meditation teacher. She is seeing more clients in her practice who are seeking the tool and technique of meditation as a modality to deal with workplace, relationship, and stress issues.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-11-05): Concentration Meditation (Beverly Kam) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.


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Benefit Corporations

Hosted by Arthur Jackson

October 29, 2017

Longtime Humanist Community member and leader Arthur Jackson will introduce the concept of a Benefit Corporation, and then show a 30 minute video of a HCSV Forum talk by John Montgomery on Benefit Corporations from 3/31/13 (https://vimeo.com/64508036). Mr. Jackson will then host the Q&A period, drawing from John’s article in the May/June 2014 issue of The Humanist magazine (https://thehumanist.com/magazine/may-june-2014/features/the-benefit-corporation) which Mr. Jackson helped make possible by connecting John with Jennifer Bardi, the editor of The Humanist.

Mr. Jackson would like to promote the idea of Benefit Corporations, which give corporations a conscience so they benefit all of society – not just the investors. Mr. Jackson’s goal is to find a way to develop pressure groups to spread the idea of benefit corporations and the power they have to change the whole world through using economies fairly. In contrast, traditional corporate law often forces corporations to stand in opposition to a society’s best interests.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-10-29): Benefit Corporations (Arthur Jackson) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.


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