Book: Australian Book of Atheism published December 2010
"The Australian Book of Atheism aims to change that, gathering together an impressive collection of essays from pre-eminent Australian atheist, rationalist, secular, humanist, and skeptic thinkers, many of whom participated in the 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne." [from the publisher Scribe Publications]
Also I'm one of the contributors with an article on Progressive Christianity. Alex McCullie
Course 2011: Making Sense of the World
Centre for Adult Education: Melbourne
Content
What is Reality?
We shall examine two competing ways of understanding reality. Naturalism with its strictly physical world-view and traditional Christianity with a divine creator and organiser. Since the 18th Century Enlightenment, western society has moved away from traditional Christian understandings to a more naturalistic view of existence. We shall compare the two views.
What is Truth?
Modernism (there are universally reasoned truth) and Post-modernism (we can have personal truths only) also compete with different explanations on the status of knowledge and truth. This conflict lead to the (in) famous science and history wars of the late 20th century.
5 sessions:
Tuesdays 6.00PM-7.30PM: 17/05/11 to 14/06/11
Venue: CAE Building B - 253 Flinders Ln, Melbourne
Click to book
Course 2011: Being Good – 3 Views of Morality
Centre for Adult Education: Melbourne
BEING GOOD: 3 VIEWS OF MORALITY
We think about moral issues every day. Newspapers, television programs, and internet web-sites tell us what is immoral and moral.
Class details
5 sessions:
Tuesdays 7.30PM-9.00PM: 22/02/11 to 22/03/11
Venue: CAE Building B - 253 Flinders Ln, Melbourne
Content
We explore two traditional foundations of Western moral attitudes - traditional Religious beliefs and Philosophical thinking - with the more-recent and challenging research of Moral Psychology and ask the questions, does morality exist? Can there be universal moral rules? How do we know right from wrong? What is evil? How does culture influence morality?
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Presentation: Science – the Quest for Objectivity July 2011
Talk proposed for July 2011 for Sofia in Melbourne, where I'll question that science is simply the business for finding objective truths.
Natural Philosophy of Life – Blog
Click to read
Natural Philosophy
The natural philosophy of life offers a simple, elegant, and powerful alternative to religious dogma. This philosophy has a firm foundation in nature, science, and reason. It is centered on the core values of honesty, generosity, equality, and freedom. (quoted from the site)
National Post (blog)How the New Atheists are turning atheism into a religionNational Post (blog)He said atheists should not be tolerated because 'promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist'. Paradoxically, today, when atheism enjoys unprecedented respectability, it is being turned into a . […]
Atheist Billboard in Santa AnaNBC Los AngelesBackyard Skeptics, a local grass-roots skeptics/atheist group, with American Atheists from New York placed the billboard on the 55 Freeway and Edinger in Santa Ana. This is not the first time atheism has been publicly expressed in Southern California.Billboard: Tell your family you don't believe in godsExamin […]
Maher's New Rule: Atheism And Religion Are 'Not Two Sides Of The Same Coin'MediaiteEven though Maher produced a documentary four years ago whose title was literally a portmanteau of “religion” and “ridiculous”, he admitted that atheism isn't even a hobby of his. “That's the nice thing about being an atheist, it takes up so little of […]
New coalition of atheist groups set Palouse eventsTheNewsTribune.comAtheist speakers. Daniel Dennett and PZ Myers will speak Thursday evening at Washington State University. Fred Edwords and Jennifer McCreight will speak at the University of Idaho on Friday. Those events, which together are called "Darwin on the ...Atheist groups in Pullman and Moscow p […]
Atheist groups plan events in PalouseThe Seattle TimesThe Palouse Coalition of Reason is hosting two events next week as part of International Darwin Day, featuring leading atheist speakers. Daniel Dennett and PZ Myers will speak Thursday evening at Washington State University. Fred Edwords and Jennifer ... […]
The guilty verdict against three members of the Afghan-Canadian Shafia family shows that North America is finally starting to identify and address honor-based crimes, and improve policies to deal with them, something European countries embarked on 15 years ago. […]
A French court upheld fraud charges and a €600 000 fine against the Church of Scientology in France on Thursday for cajoling members into spending tens of thousands of euros on personality tests, vitamin cures and sauna sessions. […]
You can tell a lot about a person from their body. And I don’t just mean how many hours they spend at the gym, or how easy it is for them to sweet-talk their way out of speeding tickets. For the past several decades researchers have been studying the ways in which the body reveals properties of the mind. An important subset of this work has taken this idea a […]
Do you enjoy having time to yourself, but always feel a little guilty about it? Then Susan Cain’s “ Quiet : The Power of Introverts ” is for you. It’s part book, part manifesto. We live in a nation that values its extroverts – the outgoing, the lovers of crowds – but not the quiet types who change the world. She recently answered questions from Mind Matters […]