Toni Van Pelt, Public Policy
Director of the Institute for Science
and Human Values,
Powerful Women Joining Forces
Unite Women Rally in Orlando
We Are Women March, Florida
Saturday, April 28th 12:00 p.m. to 3:00
p.m.
Speaking at 1215pm
Senator Beth Johnson Park
59 South Ivanhoe Blvd, Orlando, FL
“Women
are joining forces to halt
the tidal wave of male dominated
backlash in the halls of Congress and
State Legislatures. We are pushing back
and moving forward demanding our human
rights and freedom from unwanted
intrusions in our right to privacy and
happiness.”
Norm Allen shares how humanist
groups all around the world have joined hands to
make this world a better place, to promote goodness
without god. PATAS is also very grateful for the
generous donation of books from Prometheus,
publisher of popular books on humanism, secularism,
and atheism.
Guest Speakers: Norm Allen Jr. and Christopher
diCarlo
Has Christianity really been a source of good for
African Americans and Canadians? Join us for a
lively talk and discussion on the impact of
religion--from the cradle of humanity in Africa to
modern-day North America--and dinner with the
speakers afterward.
Government Faith-Based Programs & Church/State
Realities
Obama's
Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships
marked its first anniversary last week.
Unfortunately there has been little change from the
Bush created program, "Faith-based and Community
Initiatives". Join Toni Van Pelt, Policy Director
of the Institute for Science and Human Values, for
an update on the current state of the current
administration’s programs. Lack of accountability,
job discrimination, tax dollars flowing to religious
groups, proselytizing....it’s enough to make one
question if we truly do live in secular, democratic
society.
Just as important to this question is the Florida
legislative 2012 ballot initiative: Florida
Religious Freedom, Amendment 7. Find out what
you can do to help educate Floridians on the dangers
of this amendment to our civil society.
Date:
Saturday, February 18, 11.00am
Location:Jimmie B. Keel Library on Bearss Avenue, east
of Dale Mabry,
Sponsor:Tampa
Humanist Association, Inc.
Monday & Tuesday,
January 23 & 24, 2012
21st CENTURY. TOWARDS
THE NEW HUMANISM
Mission Rossotrudničestvo in France –
Russian Centre for Science and Culture
(61, rue Boissiere, 75116, Paris,
France)
and
UNESCO Head-Quarters,
(7 place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris,
France)
Paul
Kurtz, ISHV Chairman, father of the modern day
Neohumanist movement, Toni Van Pelt, ISHV
Policy Director and Southeast Regional Director of
the National Organization for Women and
Norman Allen, ISHV Director
of International Outreach, founder
and former executive director of African Americans
for Humanism will be featured on the program and
will participate in meetings with the French
Humanist Philosophers in Sorbonne and Ecole normal
superieure.
Saturday,
December 10, 2011
Government Faith-Based
Programs & Church/State Realities
Toni Van Pelt to speak
at
8th Annual 'Freethought'
Party, Orlando Florida
Saturday, December
10, 2011, 6:00 PM
Obama's
Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships
marked its first anniversary last week.
Unfortunately there has been little change from the
Bush created program, "Faith-based and Community
Initiatives". Join Toni Van Pelt, Policy Director
of the Institute for Science and Human Values, for
an update on the current state of the current
administration’s programs. Lack of accountability,
job discrimination, tax dollars flowing to religious
groups, proselytizing....it’s enough to make one
question if we truly do live in secular, democratic
society.
Thursday,
April 12, 2012
The Philippine Atheists and Agnostics
Society (PATAS), Inc. will hold what is being billed
as the first conference for non-believers in Asia.
This is especially
historic because the Philippines has long been the
only predominantly Catholic nation in Asia.
Norm Allen, Jr. the
editor of THE HUMAN PROSPECT, and his brother, Dave
Allen will speak at the conference. It will be held
at the Bayview Parks and Hotels, United Nations
Avenue, Manila, Philippines. For more information,
visit their Website at
http://patas.co, or for a registration form,
send an email to
levi@patas.co.
Satur
day,
November 19, 2011
Dr. Paul Kurtz is appearing at The
New Orleans Secular Humanist Association
Dr. Paul Kurtz is appearing at The New Orleans
Secular Humanist Association meeting on October 15
at 4 PM at Dominion Learning Center auditorium, at
Audubon Zoo, 6500 Magazine Street. The talk by Dr.
Kurtz is on the theme of his new book "Personal
Morality in a Turbulent Universe ." The talk will
be followed by Q & A period. The public is invited.
Monday, April 18, 2011
George Mason University, to an
assembly of humanists organized by associated
faculty member Shelly Mountjoy.
This presentation features a
discussion of the arguments both for atheism and why
these arguments, while compelling, are not airtight
in the light of modern physics and cosmology.
The speaker was
Dr. S. D. Jordan, president of the Institute for
Science and Human Values, a self-described
pragmatic atheist or secular humanist, but not a
dogmatic "new atheist."
The rational
argument for atheism is based on the correct idea
that if modern quantum mechanics can be applied to
all phenomena in the Universe, then there is no need
for a supreme being to bring a Universe into
existence. To this can be added the almost
vanishing probability that such a deity exists in
light of passionate attempts to uncover some tiny
fragment of evidence for a coupling between the
natural order of science and the postulated
supernatural order of "God." In spite of this
earnest and often desperate quest, no such evidence
has ever emerged.
The argument that
demonstrates that dogmatic atheism is not justified
by current scientific knowledge is based on our
current lack of what theoretical physicists and
cosmologists call "a theory of everything." This
is a theory that encompasses all of the rest of
physics and in principle, all natural science. The
argument proceeds by first noting that such a theory
does not exist today, and that many Nobel Prize
winning physicists and cosmologists are becoming
pessimistic that we are close to achieving it.
(Example, Steven Weinberg, in his latest book).
Natural scientists once thought that Newton had
provided the basis for "the theory of everything,"
and that the job of science was mainly to fill in
the details and apply it. Then along came Einstein
and relativity, and Newtonian mechanics was revealed
to be only a special case, conceptually, of a much
grander picture. But there was more to come!
Quantum mechanics, to which Einstein could never
reconcile himself, but which has passed thousands of
critical tests to date and has failed none of them.
But it cannot be said that modern quantum theory
applies everywhere to all phenomena in the
Universe unless it can be shown to be compatible
with a still not available "theory of everything."
Since modern quantum mechanics is the basis for
arguments for the "triviality of God" (nothing left
for a god to do) and it cannot meet that test,
strictly speaking the epistemological question
remains open.
May 14 Annual
weekend "Advance," or strategic planning meeting of
the Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH)
held at the ISHV president's cabin in the West
Virginia hills: A presentation on the Institute for
Science and Human Values was given by S. D. Jordan,
who is also a Board member of the WASH
organization . Founded by Professor Paul Kurtz, a
noted international humanist leader, it was
emphasized that ISHV organizes all of its planned
activities around the central importance of human
values, and the application of science and
reason to the assessment of all issues that arise.
The ISHV workshop on the moral education of children
that occurred one week following this WASH meeting
was described, as were plans for further workshops
on neuroethics and the science and politics of
climate change. The first copy of the journal, The
Human Prospect, was also described, and
the international aspect of ISHV emphasized. The
WASH Board endorsed this approach and elected to
consider future autonomous affiliation with ISHV in
the light of its planned programs.
June 12 Talk on
ISHV to the Northern Virginia Chapter of WASH in
Falls Church, Va:
The presentation
featured a discussion of the arguments both for
atheism and why these arguments, while
compelling, are not airtight in the light of modern
physics and cosmology. The speaker was Dr. S. D.
Jordan, president of the Institute for Science and
Human Values, a self-described pragmatic atheist or
secular humanist, but not a dogmatic "new atheist."
Friday - Sunday, April 1-3, 2011 Polytechnic Institute
of NYC, 5 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY.
11201
The
President's Bioethics
Council and the Ethics of Synthetic Biology
According to the President’s Bioethics Council’s
website the first public body formed to make
recommendations to the Congress and the Executive
Office on bioethics policy was the 1974 National
Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of
Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Commission
explored and investigated practices involving
research of fetuses, children, prisoners and those
“institutionalized as mentally infirmed. Since then
six more committees have been constituted over the
decades examining topics as diverse as defining
death, whistle blowing in biomedical research, the
use of humans as subjects of research using ionizing
radiation to biotechnology and the pursuit of
happiness. Under Presidents Clinton and Bush, the
advisory commissions studied, wrote reports and made
recommendations on cloning human beings, ethical
issues in human stem cell research, religious
perspectives and for the first time a look at
international research.
This brings us to President Obama’s newly
constituted 2010 Presidential Commission for the
Study of Bioethical Issues. Their task? To examine
the benefits, risks and ethics of synthetic
biology. The first question is what exactly is
synthetic biology? Is there a definition we all can
agree upon? According to Drew Endy, Ph.D.Stanford
University the capacity to synthesize genomes and to
install them in replicating cells is a big technical
deal. Do we embrace the research and deal with the
risks or do we ban it so federal scientists are
unable to participate. Do we leave this work to
private industry, public/private partnerships here
in the U S or to those overseas. Is this in fact, a
big deal? Some disagree citing Arthur Kornberger’s
work of 1976 with the virus genome in E.coli. Presented by Toni Van
Pelt
