Bc Humanists Podcast

A panel of activists speaks about the South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy and social justice. The mission of SANSAD is to develop a secular democratic South Asian diaspora in Canada. Their goal is to create a secular democratic force within the South Asian diaspora through education and engagement in the struggle for peace, social justice, human rights, democratic rights, and a sustainable world. Their concerns embrace their homelands, adopted land, and other lands where people share our interests. The presenters (in order) are: Jovian Radheshwar is a rap artist, poet and recording artist. Born in Bombay and raised in New York, Jovian taught Black Studies and Political Science in Santa Barbara, California. He currently lives in Vancouver where he teaches Political Science at Douglas College. Jovian finds in rap a powerful medium for making a statement both personally and politically. As MC Bitter Buffalo on the album “No Hooks” (2012), Jovian collaborated with Bobby Musgrave (Pensive Blue Pol

Maggie Rayner is one of the women, who, with Jancis Andrews, began lobbying the BC government in 2004 to take action on the abuses in Bountiful. After CBC’s, The Fifth Estate documentary, Leaving Bountiful, aired, she spent time with Debbie Palmer and was saddened to learn specific details of the abuses taking place in the community. Her ancestors were polygamists and her parents, mainstream Mormons (devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,commonly known as Mormon, or LDS), were waiting to resume the practice in their Mormon heaven. She was raised on the West Coast and when she was eleven, FLDS polygamists from Bountiful visited her mainstream LDS congregation. She watched an aging polygamist court her 16-year-old sister. She considers herself fortunate to have escaped being married off to a polygamist. At eighteen she chose between church and family, and the freedom to learn how to think for herself and make her own decisions. Her recent memoir, In Polygamy’s Shadow: From a Mormo

A global consensus has taken hold in the healthcare field that doctors who object to abortion and other reproductive healthcare for personal or religious reasons should be allowed to refuse to provide care. But measures to regulate the exercise of “conscientious objection” (CO) so that women can still have access to abortion have fallen far short. The result has been rampant abuse of the “right” to CO in many countries. In countries such as Italy, Poland, and Spain, a majority of Obstetricians/Gynecologists refuse to provide abortions or even refer women to another doctor. In this presentation, Joyce Arthur will explain why CO is unethical and harmful and should be eliminated from healthcare, and describe how she and others have been fighting to turn around the consensus in favour of CO – and making some progress! Joyce Arthur is the founder and Executive Director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), which protects the legal right to abortion on request and works to improve access to quality ab

Eiynah is a Pakistani-Canadian illustrator/blogger who writes and draws about sexuality in South Asia (mostly Pakistan), religion, politics, feminism, godlessness. Her podcast is Polite Conversations. Follow her on twitter @nicemangos or Facebook and support her work on Patreon. Eiynah spoke to us remotely. https://soundcloud.com/politeconversations https://twitter.com/NiceMangos

What on earth is going on with American politics? Fake news? Eric Merkley demystifies our instincts to develop bias, how they are targeted by politics, and how to overcome them to make our political discourse more productive, civil and factual. Eric Merkley is a Ph.D. candidate at UBC’s Department of Political Science and a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholar. His research focuses on how citizens make judgments on public policy in the context of limited information and motivation. His recent ongoing projects explore why American voters polarized on climate change, and more broadly on the conditions under which public preferences may diverge from expert opinion, such as on free trade, and genetically modified foods. Eric has provided expert commentary on U.S. elections, polling and public opinion, and campaign strategy for outlets such as the CBC, Breakfast Television, Roundhouse Radio, and News 1130. He has also recently worked as a Research Associate at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, specializing in a

The Vancouver Tenants Union seeks to build a base of tenants throughout the city to establish political power to create change. Over 50% of Vancouver households are rentals, yet tenants continue to be disempowered and disconnected. In an effort to address this, the Vancouver Tenants Union is committed to educating renters on their rights and standing up to landlords and developers who persistently compromise our security and livelihood. We are fighting for the rights of tenants and the preservation of affordable housing. Everyone, regardless of class, lifestyle, ability, age, gender, race, sexuality, or citizenship deserves a safe, secure, and affordable home. The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and many of our members are not on Meetup. We have a regular attendance of about 30 people at our Sunday meetings (rather than the small number who RSVP on Meetup). Keep up to date with our current topics at http://bchumanist.ca

Ian talks about the status of the legal battle for Trinity Western University to exercise a charter that evangelizes and implicitly discriminates against non-Christians. It questions the nature of religious organization and what rights they have. He discusses the role and efforts of the BCHA in standing for secularism and human rights. Make a donation to support our campaign: https://www.canadahelps.org/dn/27636 Read our response: http://www.bchumanist.ca/bcha_scc_twu_arguments

Stacey Hrushowy is a Masters student in biology at Simon Fraser University. She studies the role of microparasites like bacteria and viruses in wild populations of salmon and trout, and just completed her third field season on the beautiful Central Coast of BC in the unceded territory of the Oweekeno First Nation. Before this, Stacey studied archaeology and biology at UVic and has spent time working with seabirds in Alaska, steelhead in California, and school children at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre. Over the past ten years she has worn a diversity of hats ranging from science educator to cider maker and spanning a lot in between. The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and many of our members are not on Meetup. We have a regular attendance of about 30 people at our Sunday meetings (rather than the small number who RSVP on Meetup).

Christopher Levenson taught English and Creative writing at Carleton University, Ottawa, and now lives in Vancouver. He has publish 12 books of poetry. Arriving at Night won the Archibald Lampman Award in 1978. He was co-founder and first editor of Arc magazine and series editor of Carleton University Press’s Harbinger imprint for first books of poetry. His 12th book A tattered coat upon a stick has just been published. Recorded at our August 27, 2017 Sunday meeting in Vancouver, BC.

The crucifix is in! You can fool most of the people most of the time. In The God Con, Lee Moller, a life-long atheist and skeptic, looks at organized religion through the lens of the con. Organized religion has been selling an invisible product, that it never has to deliver, for thousands of years. It has given us bigotry, rampant paedophilia, terrorism, and bloodshed beyond imagining. And its acolytes have, in turn, given organized religion power over their bank accounts, their reproduction, and their very "souls." The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and many of our members are not on Meetup. We have a regular attendance of about 30 people at our Sunday meetings (rather than the small number who RSVP on Meetup). http://bchumanist.ca

Daphne Bramham has been a columnist at the Vancouver Sun since 2000 and has won numerous awards for her writing, including a National Newspaper Award. She was named Commentator of the Year by the Jack Webster Foundation in 2005 and was honoured by the non-profit group Beyond Borders for a series of columns on the polygamous community of Bountiful, BC. She is author of the 2009 book The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada's Polygamous Mormon Sect and has been providing extensive coverage of the trial in the Vancouver Sun. Recorded at the Sunday, August 13, 2017 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

Kat's main interest is in how changes in the physical environment alter biological interactions. My current research focuses specifically on how the addition carbon dioxide (ocean acidification) changes competition and herbivory in seaweed communities. Understanding the outcomes of anthropogenic climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing biologists today; while we expect that climate change will have large impacts on community structure and ecosystem function, we have only a minimal understanding of what those impacts will be. @KatMAnderson The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and many of our members are not on Meetup. We have a regular attendance of about 30 people at our Sunday meetings (rather than the small number who RSVP on Meetup).

Last June Freemasonry celebrated worldwide its 300th anniversary as an organisation, although Freemasonic Lodges have existed, as historically proven, since at least the 1600’s. There are over 5 million members in the world today who made an oath never to reveal its secrets. What are its tenets and what does it stand for? Is there any relationship between Freemasonry and Humanism? For an answer to these and other questions, Helio Da Costa, a Freemason for 32 years, a Humanist and a descendant from Freemasons on both sides of his family will reveal some aspects of this institution. Helio is one of our board members. The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and we have a regular attendance of over 30 people at our Sunday meetings.

As applications of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) extend to areas outside of industrial environments, it is increasingly important for designers and policy makers to address the question of “What should an autonomous system do?” For example, what should a robot do when it is on an urgent mission to deliver a package to someone upstairs, but the elevator is already occupied by someone else? Designing the robot to always yield (or never yield) might be a matter of a design decision for roboticists. But it also has normative implications with regards to systematically shaping priority relationships in human-robot interaction. The speaker advocates that designers shouldn't be the only ones left with the task of figuring out answers to these questions, especially when there's lack of guidelines on what the right answers are and how to implement them. The future adopters need to have increased awareness of how to use these technologies in a way that connects to their social and ethical ideals. Drawing

Donate to the Overdose Prevention Society: https://www.gofundme.com/wesavelives In September, 2016, three women were so concerned about the growing fentanyl overdose crisis that they set up a tent & table in an alley behind the DTES Market they managed. In potential violation of the law, they set up a drug injection/ consumption site in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to combat the many overdose deaths. About Ann: Ann Livingston is a creative, energetic and focused community organizer, who has made significant contributions to improving access to health care for people who use illegal drugs at the local, regional and national levels. After co founding the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) with poet/ activist Bud Osborn in 1998, she was employed as VANDU,s executive program director for 10 years. She encouraged people who use drugs, who are criminalized and labeled mentally ill, to form citizen associations and insist that they design and implement harm reduction programs. Consequently, VANDU ha

Nasser Najjar was formerly the spokesperson and head of communications for the International Committee of Red Cross mainly in Gaza, Palestine and went to other short mission in different places in the Middle East. He was also a researcher for Human Rights Watch and had documented violations committed against civilians in Gaza and refugees along the Turkish-Syrian border. In addition, Nasser had worked for a UN agency as a production manager. He wrote for some paper such as USAToday, Al Monitor, Gulfnews and worked as a producer for New York times. The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and we have a regular attendance of over 30 people at our Sunday meetings.

Dr. Ellen Wiebe is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia. After 30 years of full-service family practice, she now restricts her practice to women’s health and assisted death. She is the Medical Director of Willow Women’s Clinic in Vancouver and provides medical and surgical abortions and contraception. She developed Hemlock Aid to provide consultations for doctors and patients about aid in dying and provides assisted death. The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and we have a regular attendance of over 30 people at our Sunday meetings.

Why sharks matter: the ecological and economic importance of sharks, threats they face, and how you can help. Dr. David Shiffman is a Liber Ero Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Simon Fraser University, where his research focuses on the sustainability of Canadian shark fisheries. He is also an award winning science communicator who has written about sharks for the Washington Post, Scientific American, and other outlets. Follow him on twitter @WhySharksMatter The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and many of our members are not on Meetup. We have a regular attendance of about 30 people at our Sunday meetings (rather than the small number who RSVP on Meetup). For more details on how to find the centre: http://www.bchumanist.ca/oakridge_seniors_centre

Carrie Jenkins is a philosopher and author of the new book: What Love Is "Aside from being the title of many a popular love song, this is one of life's perennial questions. In What Love Is, philosopher Carrie Jenkins offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love that reconciles its humanistic and scientific components. Love can be a social construct (the idea of a perfect fairy tale romance) and a physical manifestation (those anxiety- inducing heart palpitations); we must recognize its complexities and decide for ourselves how to love. Motivated by her own polyamorous relationships, she examines the ways in which our parameters of love have recently changed-to be more accepting of homosexual, interracial, and non-monogamous relationships-and how they will continue to evolve in the future. Full of anecdotal, cultural, and scientific reflections on love, What Love Is is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand what it means to say "I love you." Whether young or old, gay or straight, male o

One of the stories we tell ourselves is that human beings are dispassionate, rational, calculating machines. We collect data, we weigh evidence, we discuss, we debate, we judge, we decide. Not quite. Evidence suggests that when it comes to decision making, we're often biased, emotional, and irrational -- and there are few better examples of this than how we do politics. I'll discuss emotional, irrational decision making in the context of the recent rise of of nationalist and xenophobic populism in North America and Europe. David Moscrop is a PhD candidate in political science at UBC researching political theory/decision making. He has also written and commented for Macleans and BC1. To learn more, you can read David's dissertation online: https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0343290 The BC Humanist Association was formed in 1984 and many of our members are not on Meetup. We have a regular attendance of about 30 people at our Sunday meetings (rather than the small number who