Hugh Taft-Morales, Leader of the Baltimore Ethical Society and Co-Leader of the Ethical Society Without Walls, will give a platform address on "Evangelizing for Evolution". Although Ethical Culture places deed before creed, there are few claims about reality more universally accepted within humanism than the theory of evolution. Yet creationism is alive and well in the United States. In preparing to celebrate Darwin Day next month, how can evolution satisfy human spiritual yearnings for experiences such as awe, humility, and a connection to something greater than ourselves? Can humanists ethically evangelize for evolution?
Events
| « | January 15, 2011 - May 15, 2011 | » |
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01 / 15
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01 / 16
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01 / 17
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01 / 18
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01 / 19
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01 / 20
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01 / 21
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01 / 22
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01 / 23
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Aseel Elborno, the National Outreach Coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), will address how people of good will can help combat Islamophobia in the United States. After a brief introduction on Islamophobia and the importance of intercultural dialogue in combating it, Ms. Elborno will go through a series of steps on the most effective methods for eliminating Islamophobia. Some of these methods include ways of approaching the media, the internet, and public figures. | ||
01 / 24
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01 / 25
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01 / 26
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01 / 27
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01 / 28
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01 / 29
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01 / 30
Start: 10:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
So, a school can refuse to allow religious-themed music during holiday performances but can't prohibit students from distributing Christian-themed pens shaped like candy canes. The wall between church and state has become more like a picket fence, with a lot of pickets missing but with other sections electrified. NoVES member Howie Kallem will try and make sense of it all. | ||
01 / 31
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02 / 1
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02 / 2
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02 / 3
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02 / 4
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02 / 5
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02 / 6
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Iris Woodard will speak on "Learning to Listen." Listening is something we all take for granted and think we do well. It is only when our conversation goes off track that we discover we might not have as much skill as we thought. This talk, inspired by the seminar and book of the same title authored by Brian Grossman, a PhD Psychologist, will present different listening styles and how to work with them in everyday relationships. Iris Woodard works for Kaiser Permanente in the Workforce Development Department where she helps employees develop new skills needed in the changing environment of health care. | ||
02 / 7
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02 / 8
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02 / 9
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02 / 10
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02 / 11
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02 / 12
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02 / 13
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Dr. Michael S. Franch is Dean of the National Leaders Council of the American Ethical Union and Affiliate Minister at First Unitarian Church, Baltimore. He writes, “Our homage to the men and women who died in military service is appropriate but incomplete. We glorify the sacrifice but don’t ask ‘why.’ One doesn’t have to be a pacifist to acknowledge that we have fought deceptively- promoted, ill-conceived, and ineptly-conducted wars. Religion, even humanistic religion, calls its adherents to reflect, repent, and change their ways.” | ||
02 / 14
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02 / 15
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02 / 16
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02 / 17
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02 / 18
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02 / 19
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02 / 20
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
If empathy is the foundation for ethical behavior, and emotional literacy is the basis for empathy, then how do we develop emotional literacy and the emergence of empathy in children? Lynn Konnerth, NoVES’s Director of Religious Education, will explore how we as parents, teachers, and caring adults can foster development in these areas. This will also provide thought for fostering greater empathy in ourselves. Mindfulness to how some of us may have been parented, and our habitual or automatic responses to situations, will be explored. | ||
02 / 21
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02 / 22
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02 / 23
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02 / 24
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02 / 25
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02 / 26
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02 / 27
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:10 pm
Inspired by the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath and other recent books on human behavior, Kris Maccubbin explores how we tick. Why do we do the crazy things we do? How can we learn to accept it and use that understanding to elicit the best from ourselves and others? And finally, how can we use this understanding to do a better job to motivate people around the issues we value? | ||
02 / 28
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03 / 1
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03 / 2
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03 / 3
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03 / 4
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03 / 5
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03 / 6
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Every year, some 8,000 children arrive in the US without parents or legal guardians and are detained by the US immigration authorities. Many of these children have fled to escape from violence, abuse, or neglect and have been victims of human trafficking and persecution. Some of these children are detained in two facilities in Northern Virginia. Ms. Ham Pong, who heads the Capital Area Immigration Rights Coalition's project to provide assistance to such children, will describe how our government deals with these children and the work her organization does to help them. | ||
03 / 7
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03 / 8
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03 / 9
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03 / 10
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03 / 11
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03 / 12
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03 / 13
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Fritz Williams, Leader Emeritus of the Baltimore Ethical Society, believes in meeting life's challenges by juggling opposing strategies. He believes in reckoning with life's ultimate meaninglessness even as we fall in love with the miracle of being alive. He believes in working passionately to make our lives count, but also never losing sight of how insignificant they really are. He believes in caring deeply and in being beyond caring. It is by encompassing these opposites, by being totally involved and vulnerable, but simultaneously transcendent and detached, that our lives are graced by vitality and contentment. | ||
03 / 14
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03 / 15
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03 / 16
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03 / 17
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03 / 18
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03 / 19
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03 / 20
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Humanists serve honorably in our military, operating without the support afforded to traditional religious groups. Comprehensive reform is necessary for a military that is unprepared to support humanists, and in some cases hostile to nontheistic service members. Aggressive litigation is a key and indispensable remedy for the worst offenders, but litigation brings with it bad will and broken relationships. Jason Torpy, president of the Military Association of Atheists & Freethinkers, discusses how through collaboration, MAAF is creating long-term culture change through a strong military humanist culture and new relationships with interfaith allies. | ||
03 / 21
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03 / 22
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03 / 23
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03 / 24
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03 / 25
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03 / 26
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03 / 27
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Join us for readings, dance, comedy or whatever else the creative minds of NoVES members and friends come up with to celebrate the end of a very long, cold winter. | ||
03 / 28
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03 / 29
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03 / 30
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03 / 31
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04 / 1
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04 / 2
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04 / 3
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Kakenya Ntaiya, the founder and president of the Kakenya Center for Excellence, will talk about her journey, her dream for the girls of her village and what she has accomplished with the Center for Excellence. With the Center, the first and only primary school for girls in a remote village in Kenya, Kakenya is transforming attitudes from the traditional beliefs of early childhood marriage and female genital mutilation to the value of education for girls. The Center opened in 2009 with 32 girls in residence and hopes to enroll 150 girls in grades 4th through 8th. | ||
04 / 4
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04 / 5
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04 / 6
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04 / 7
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04 / 8
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04 / 9
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04 / 10
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Randy Best, Leader of the Ethical Humanist Society of the Triangle (Chapel Hill, NC) will address forgiveness. What is it? Do we need it? Should we give it? Do we need to wait for an apology? Forgiveness is both an act and the attitude toward another that results from the act. It is letting go of anger and hurt caused by the actions of another. It is not always offering absolution. Sometimes it is acceptance or even resignation about something that you cannot change in another. Sometimes it is just a new level of understanding about someone else. | ||
04 / 11
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04 / 12
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04 / 13
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04 / 14
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04 / 15
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04 / 16
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04 / 17
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Dr. Peter Bishop is transitioning from a career in hi-tech to one as a humanist philosopher. As such he has been giving great thought to the relationship between science and religion and arriving at some new perspectives that may help us address some of the problems that exist today in this relationship. | ||
04 / 18
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04 / 19
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04 / 20
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04 / 21
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04 / 22
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04 / 23
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04 / 24
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04 / 25
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04 / 26
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04 / 27
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04 / 28
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04 / 29
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04 / 30
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05 / 1
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Living Compassion: Jone Johnson Lewis, NoVES's Leader, will discuss some practices that can help us live each day with more compassion - towards ourselves, those close to us, people in the wider world, the Earth. | ||
05 / 2
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05 / 3
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05 / 4
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05 / 5
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05 / 6
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05 / 7
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05 / 8
Start: 11:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Melissa Sinclair will talk about what it means to be a super mom and how it affects not only the moms, but their families. Is it even a good idea to try to be a super mom? What does that teach our children about motherhood and appropriate expectations? And how do you cope when you realize you aren't super mom after all? Melissa Sinclair is a NoVES member and mom to a high schooler and a kindergartener. She has been a full time working mom and a stay at home mom and is still struggling to find the right balance as mom as well as trying to reclaim her identity other than wife, mom, Henry's mommy, and Mrs. So-and So. | ||
05 / 9
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05 / 10
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05 / 11
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05 / 12
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05 / 13
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05 / 14
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05 / 15
Start: 11:00 am
For Founder’s Day, Jone Johnson Lewis, NoVES's Leader, will talk about the history of the child labor movement (including the involvement of Ethical Culture in the movement) and the status of child labor in the world today. | ||
