Category for all Forum posts.
April 17, 2016
Longtime Humanist Community member and leader Arthur Jackson (who authored the book “How to Live the Good Life: A User’s Guide for Modern Humans”) will offer a concise, focused talk on what humanism is, and why it is important for individuals and for humanity.
Humanist Community Forum (2016-04-17): A Humanist Perspective (Not The Humanist Perspective) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.
April 10, 2016
Suds Jain (B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and a Board member of Acterra.org) will discuss his work with a team of retired engineers on a geoengineering project that someday may have to be used to reduce the amount of extra heat being trapped on the planet due to global warming gasses. See http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/energy/environment/tech-industry-vets-fight-effects-of-climate-change for more details of this project.
April 3, 2016
Who coined the word “blurb”, published a short story in 1905 which anticipated the 1980s movie “Ghostbusters”, and was responsible for Picasso getting his first solo exhibition in America? Gelett Burgess, a truly remarkable Renaissance man, started out as a civil engineer and became a West Coast bohemian who responded to the European Decadent movement with nonsense poetry. He wrote essays and short stories about the nature of humor, the function of art, gender relations, and the basis of empathy. Our speaker, Alfred Jan, is a practicing optometrist with an M.A. in Philosophy specializing in Aesthetics. He compiled a collection of Gelett Burgess’ works called “A Gelett Burgess Sampler: Ethics and Aesthetics” in 2012, and has lectured several times about Burgess since.
Humanist Community Forum (2016-04-03): Gelett Burgess, a Renaissance Man (Alfred Jan) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.
March 27, 2016Watch Full Movie Online Streaming Online and Download
Zahra Billoo is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations – San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA) chapter. She is also a 2010 recipient of the San Francisco Minority Bar Coalition’s Unity Award and a 2011 recipient of the South Asian Bar Association of Northern California’s Public Interest Attorney of the Year Award. She spoke to us about Islamophobia in 2013. With the present political climate, the prejudice and stereotyping Muslims face has worsened. She will present an update to the challenges facing American Muslims and other minorities, and to what we can do to improve the situation.
Humanist Community Forum (2016-03-27): Prejudice Against Muslim-Americans (Zahra Billoo) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.
March 20, 2016
When our ancestors lived in nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes, they evolved with emotional instincts for loyalty to their tribe and aggression toward other tribes. Later, when humans settled into large communities, some new behaviors were required, and religion was an evolutionary adaptation for this new social environment. These groupish instincts are with us still and are contributing to our religious and political polarization. Humanist Community member Ron Gerber will discuss the writers Nicholas Wade’s and Jonathan Haidt’s review of our evolutionary history and suggestions for resolving our current predicament.
Click here to see the slides that were presented at this Forum.
Humanist Community Forum (2016-03-20): Evolutionary Psychology (Ron Gerber) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.