Speaker – Page 47

Empowering Women in Ghana with Cookstoves

Adam Creighton

July 23, 2017

Over one-third of the planet still cooks their food over open fires–at a human health and environmental cost that is staggering, and wholly unsustainable. The health and economic impacts fall hardest on the shoulders of women and young girls, and the paradigm contributes to systemic poverty among the most vulnerable people in the world.

For almost 10 years, the team at InStove (www.instove.org) has been building a movement centered around a technology that could change this paradigm. From unsustainable cooking that kills forests, blackens lungs, and dirties the air, to clean cooking that feeds hundreds at a time, makes hospitals safer, and helps women build their economic assets to escape poverty–for good–InStove has mobilized a sector behind approaches and partnerships that work.

Come see Adam Creighton of InStove discuss their work and the newest applications of their renewable energy technology–a stove which the US EPA has found to be the most efficient in the world.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-07-23): Empowering Women in Ghana with Cookstoves (Adam Creighton) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Naturalistic Transcendentalism

Dr. Peter Bishop

July 16, 2017

Dr. Peter Bishop was a very important and very generous member of the Humanist Community in the 1980’s and up until a few years ago, when he and his family moved to the East Coast. Here is a summary of his talk that Dr. Bishop provided:

Natural Transcendentalism is a philosophy that ties together everything that I have been discovering from a philosophical point of view, and published in my first peer-reviewed journal article of the same name in the Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism.

I am continuing to make headway on this work, but I will present the fundamental point of view: starting from the Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was interested in the human capacity for intuition and other religious experiences, such as revelations, but looking at this from the 21st century and a 21st century naturalism. There are three major areas of philosophy that are ripe for advance with such a point of view, and I lay out the three areas in my talk.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-07-16): Naturalistic Transcendentalism (Dr. Peter Bishop) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Learning to Live

Wes Fornes

July 9, 2017

One of the most impacting statements ever is the Socratic statement: the unexamined life is not worth living. It takes courage to view yourself as the subject matter for interrogation, scrutiny, and questioning. Wes will come at this idea with experience from counseling patients in their last stage of life while on hospice.

Wes Fornes is a former Evangelical pastor who is now an Atheist chaplain. Once a passionate evangelist for Jesus Christ, Wes now uses his passion for meaning-making to help the dying and bereaved deal with loss. The fundamental focus for Wes is: How can I have meaning and purpose in life? Unable to shake his deep conviction for spirituality, his career now as a Secular Humanist revolves around helping terminally ill patients on hospice cope with grief and death.

After receiving a master’s degree in Theological Philosophy and studying Existentialist Philosophy at Oxford’s Green College, Wes spent 12 years deeply committed to full-time ministry. Wes pastored churches in both Baptist and Pentecostal traditions while in Texas and Virginia. In 2010, Wes left the ministry after being a closet Atheist for a year while still a pastor.

Currently, Wes directs the psychosocial team of chaplains and social workers whose goal it is to provide spiritual and emotional support to patients and their families. Wes often speaks in the Bay Area on issues concerning ethics, morality, grief and terror management theory.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-07-09): Learning to Live (Wes Fornes) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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The Human Awareness Institute

Anne Watts

June 25, 2017

Anne Watts is a certified hypnotherapist, educator, mediator and coach, specializing in couples and family dynamics, healing the inner child and issues of self-esteem and sexual abuse. In workshops offered by the Human Awareness Institute (http://w15.hai.org), Anne witnessed the transformation occurring on a deep and practical level; they opened their hearts to themselves and others through the healing power of love. Anne realized that she had found the vehicle to express compassion, empathy and service to others in a way that transcends social and cultural boundaries, and trained to be a HAI facilitator. Since 1985, she has facilitated hundreds of workshops in the U.S., Australia, Japan, Germany and England.

The Human Awareness Institute (HAI) empowers individuals to be potent, loving, and contributing; promoting personal growth, by replacing ignorance and fear with awareness and love. HAI aims to create a world where people live together in dignity, respect, understanding, trust, kindness, compassion, reverence, honesty and love. The Human Awareness Institute is committed to creating a world where everyone wins.

Humanist Community Forum (2017-06-25): The Human Awareness Institute (Anne Watts) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Fostering Identity, Promoting Community: The Gay Bar in American History

Prof. Nancy C. Unger

June 11, 2017

For more than one hundred years, gay clubs and bars have served as sanctuaries and party-spots and hook-up sites. They’ve been the secular centers of community and education. But also of violence and persecution that ultimately led to great advancements in pride, rights, and freedoms. This richly illustrated talk by Santa Clara University history professor Nancy C. Unger highlights the history of a long and colorful American tradition in the LGBTQ community: the gay bar.