2008 Meetings
January meeting topic: Audiotape of Sam Harris from AAI Conference
Sunday, January 13, at 12 noon
Sam Harris, the well-known critic of religion and author of End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, took a surprising turn in his talk at the Atheist Alliance International Conference last September. He advocated that atheists stop calling themselves atheists to avoid controversy, and he suggested that secular people could learn by studying spirituality. We will play an audiotape of his talk and discuss the interesting turn in his thinking. Location: The Orient Restaurant.
Special Interest Group
“Humanism and Philosophy”
Religion and Evolutionary Psychology
Friday, January 18, 7:30 p.m.
Evolutionary Psychology is a general description of theories which try to relate human psychological and cultural phenomena to human evolution, especially to characteristics of human cognition that seem to be results of a process of natural selection. Much criticized both as an inappropriate reduction of psychological and cultural phenomena to crude biological models and as an empty discipline which tells “just so” stories to “explain” how things happened without showing how they had to happen that way, Evolutionary Psychology is a discipline still in the process of forming. We will consider the background of Evolutionary Psychology, objections to it, and current work which appears promising. For more information, call 410-521-6215.
February meeting topic: Darwin Day speaker “Opening Up the Intelligent Design Debates” by Nathaniel Comfort, PhD, Professor of History, Johns Hopkins
Sunday, February 10, at 10:30 a.m.
Location: Baltimore Ethical Society
Why do scientists have so much trouble in the ongoing debate with the creationist/ID fundamentalists— despite having every scrap of evidence on their side? While Prof. Comfort is utterly persuaded by the evidence for evolution, both Darwinian and non-Darwinian (e.g., random drift), he sees the in the ongoing debates over evolution something troubling about the place of science in our culture. He says, “I consider it a badge of honor to have been singled out for attack on the Discovery Institute website for this argument. On the other hand, serious scientists have criticized me for being too soft on the ID folks. So I am positioned right about where I want to be: not beholden to either camp.” Nathaniel C. Comfort, an associate professor in History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins, is a historian of genetics and biomedicine with an interest in the history of recent science and oral history interviewing. He holds degrees in biology (BA, UC Berkeley, 1985), neuroscience (MS, Cornell, 1990), and history (PhD, Stony Brook, 1997). Comfort is currently working on the history of human and medical genetics in America. He is the author of The Tangled Field, a biographical study of the geneticist Barbara McClintock (Harvard, 2001), and the editor of The Panda's Black Box: Opening Up the Intelligent Design Controversy (Johns Hopkins, 2007), from which this talk is drawn.
Special Interest Group
“Humanism and Philosophy”
Topic: Ideas of God in Medieval Philosophy
Friday, 15 February, 7:30 p.m.
For centuries medieval philosophers were engaged in a project to reconcile faith and reason, or more specifically, the doctrines of Christianity with the philosophical heritage of the Greek and Roman world. We will present an overview of the tensions this involved, stressing the fact that as philosophical concepts of God became more sophisticated, the relationship of the God of philosophy to the God of the scriptures and popular belief became ever more tenuous. In spite of this tension, the medieval philosophers explored philosophical issues using methods and achieving results that remain of interest today. For more information, call 410-521-6215.
March meeting topic: Audiotape of Matthew Chapman from AAI Conference
Sunday, March 9, at 12 noon
Location: Orient Restaurant
Matthew Chapman is notable as the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, but he is also well known in his own right. He has written and directed five films, and he has written two books, one of them about the Pennsylvania Dover trial. He discusses his experiences as an atheist filmmaker and his ideas about the reasons for religion fundamentalism in the U.S. Location: The Orient Restaurant.
Special Interest Group
“Humanism and Philosophy”
Topic: Platonism
Friday, 21 March, 7:30 p.m.
The fifth century B.C.E. philosopher Plato began a philosophical tradition that continues to be influential today. We will explore some basic ideas of Plato, and trace his influence on medieval and Renaissance philosophy and later movements. For more information, call 410-521-6215.
April meeting topic: DVD of Michael Estes speaking on "Atheists and Freethinkers in the Civil Rights Movement, 1901-1950" from AAI Conference
Sunday, April 13, at 1:00 pm
Location: Elkridge Library
If you think that the Civil Rights Movement started in the 1960's with religious ministers, then you need to see this talk. During the period of 1900 to 1950, there was a transition from frequent lynchings of blacks, to the desegregation of the U.S. Defense industry and the U.S. Army. Many of the leaders of this transition were atheists or freethinkers. Mike Estes is an Air Force veteran, and he has produced a very well-researched talk on this important period of history. Location: Elkridge Library.
Special Interest Group
“Humanism and Philosophy”
Topic: Miracles
Friday, April 18, 7:30 p.m.
Virtually all religious traditions include tales of miracles, either those worked by deities or by specially empowered sages, prophets or saints. Despite the hundreds of miracles that have been at one time or another alleged, good evidence for their actual occurrence has always been conspicuously lacking, a fact that seems in no way to affect continued belief in them by millions of people. We will examine the psychological and apologetical dimensions of belief in miracles with emphasis on the miraculous tradition in Christianity. For more information, call 410-521-6215.
May meeting topic: Audio from Barack Obama's book The Audacity of Hope
Sunday, May 11, at 12:00 noon
Location: The Orient Restaurant
Obama is known as a inspiring speaker, but his book indicates that he has given serious thought to current political problems. We will play an audiobook chapter and discuss it. Location: The Orient Restaurant. Directions: Take Baltimore Beltway exit 26 or 27 (York Road or Dulaney Valley Road) through the traffic circle to York Road, and go three blocks on the right to the Orient. Take a left to the parking garage on Chesapeake.
Special Interest Group
“Humanism and Philosophy”
NOTE: The SIG meeting for Friday, 16 May has been canceled.
June meeting: Cancelled for AHA Conference in Washington, D.C.
Special Interest Group
“Humanism and Philosophy”
Topic: Is There Progress in Philosophy?
Friday, June 20, 7:30 p.m.
"Humanism and Philosophy," a Special Interest Group, continues. The topic will be “Is There Progress in Philosophy?” While no one can deny that science and technology have made enormous strides in the past three centuries, it is far less clear whether philosophy has done so. We will discuss both the issue of whether a valid argument can be made about philosophy’s progress or lack of it, and what a comparison of philosophy to science and technology tells us about the general project to understand the natural and human world better. For more information, call 410-521-6215.
For previous meetings, click here.