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The Center for Inquiry West is an educational nonprofit organization that explores and advances critical thinking, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values through education, outreach, and social services.
Please visit our website at http://www.centerforinquiry.net/la.
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Some of you may remember the conspiracy theorist Zan Overall, the loyal opposition who made endless protest signs, posters and flyers, and often showed up outside CFI West's events. When I first met him in 2003, he was still talking about the moon landing "hoax" and JFK assassination, but quickly moved full-time to 9/11 "truth" and anti-Israel talking points. I thought about him recently, and found an article saying that he died in June 2020 at the age of 94. I will share links in the comments.
In honor of Black History month, please enjoy this powerful performance from 2 years ago by musical artist, Sandra Booker.
Black History Month is a good time to get back to work defeating the corporate duopoly that made Trump and his poor deluded desperate cultists not only possible but inevitable. We started our YouTube channel When Humanists Attack to celebrate amazing human beings. These people all champion humanist values such as respect for human beings, critical thinking, rationality, freedom to create their life in pursuit of happiness. Make your life happen. And while you’re doing that volunteer; be political; be courageous, be kind, be generous and make the world happen. Happen better.
WHEN HUMANISTS ATTACK we do it with debate, discussion, art, ideas and EXAMPLE
https://www.facebook.com/whenhumanistsattack
Mandisa Thomas founder of Black Nonbelievers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgBhvLcN61c
We interviewed Dr. Jeanette Hill Porter PhD about mental health issues in the African America community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5_J23MQYtM&t=9s
Interview of Robert Anthony Gibbons Poet, Activist, Boardmember of BSEC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvBBQSj_wEM&t=1s
What if the Trumpists mount a coup d'etat? Growing numbers of believers in democracy are preparing. Please read this. Share it with your friends. Form your own action group. Tens of thousands of groups of friends are ready to act together in November. We can do this. We will do this.
This footage is unedited, but the conversation was lively and fun...
New Tweet: Agree? Richard Dawkins
@RichardDawkins
· 13h
It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.
Where are the Neanderthals? Wm Barr, Att Gen USA, says: "Scholarship suggests that religion has been integral to the development and thriving of Homo sapiens since we emerged roughly 50,000 years ago."
https://youtu.be/IM87WMsrCWM?t=1608
Of course, Barr is relying on the "scholarship" of the experts at the The Creation Museum, in Petersburg, Kentucky, where photographs of Homer Simpson riding dinosaurs prove Barr's case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Most Vital 773 Words Ever Written ?
The Purpose of Life …is Life
The sole purpose of life, and therefore our only human purpose may simply be, life itself. That, upon reflection, would appear to be enough. The life force does have its urges though, lots of them, it would appear. After countless eons of self-replication along came sexual reproduction, life had apparently gotten to be in somewhat more of a hurry. Life then pursued bigger and better forms of itself as mobility, size, vision etc. ensued over time.
Vision was unique and a promising end in itself, but life appeared to desire a different platform with which to fully employ this new sense. Many prototypes came and went, and eventually on the scene appeared humankind complete with a newly acquired awareness. Whence came then, this thing, this awareness, this brightness in the void, now so cherished by life our very species could be made forfeit to preserve it? Perhaps it was the animal curiosity of some lumbering hominids possessed of sufficient cranial matter that chanced upon a source. The menu of vegetable suspects is quite large. The plants, cacti, mushrooms and vines that possess the chemical soups that have the ability, and perhaps desire to exert themselves aggressively when combined with suitable host brain, is legion. We currently regard these substances as “mind altering” but could they perhaps have been “mind creating” at some remote point in time?
Students of psychedelic phenomenon have reported a tendency among this family of substances to exhibit a strong urge to promote its own agenda over the host consciousness at times. Life, in this way, may have introduced the initial spark of awareness in receptive hominid brains with suitable vegetable matter containing psychedelic chemical ingredients. Imagine the wonder this revelation surely produced in a previously unconscious world. The binges and quest for more light shows that followed in the still only partially illuminated minds of these creatures must have been incredible.
Perhaps this initial visitation of consciousness onto a receptive human brain and the incredible awakening produced therein is responsible for the ongoing human quest for enlightenment. Our species has demonstrated a universal affinity for various visions, ecstasies and raptures and they have been zealously sought for millennia. Perhaps then, a racial memory of, and longing for a return to that original staggering event gives impetus to the universal spiritual quests we humans faithfully follow to this day
Eventually something went wrong between human beings and the life force. Life lives on by consuming itself but the feasting is benign. Humans often miss this subtlety. We know large portions of the recent history of our species and it's not very good. Considering our history, can we begin to significantly amend our ways if life demands a timely accounting? If and when life decides we have exhausted all possibility of further usefulness, and our excesses overwhelm life's other vital interests, do we then risk severance of the thread with life? Should we begin to tug ever more gently at this tether to lessen our risk? Does life even care about the fate of us, its creature? Probably not, countless other species have traveled along on life's quest, prospered to a degree and vanished. Will we join them?
Of course it is possible life may now be providing itself with a non-life fallback to the dilemma posed by our misuse of awareness and consciousness. If humankind becomes suspect of probable catastrophic losses to many of its other progeny, life then may seek to substitute Artificial Intelligence for flawed human intelligence. We, ourselves, may rapidly be creating the instruments for our future replacement with life's resigned encouragement. Life may value this tediously acquired awareness beyond all measure. More the pity for humankind.
These phenomena are unique on the planet; life, the life force and the awareness/consciousness of one primate species. What we regard as ultimate reality is simply the stories we tell ourselves and others combined with whatever actions humans are capable of accomplishing. Humanity must now learn to live with 5 Gigabit technology becoming a reality and should perhaps begin to wonder which future Gigabit number will be the one to provide the artificial intelligence and awareness deemed sufficient by the life force to render human beings redundant if it chooses to do so? Could we, perhaps, change our behavior?
Robert Magill
[email protected]
Note: (I used logical simplicity a.la Einstein but could not include freedom since the life force on our planet appears to be a closed system. The premise is advanced without a prior model and with the near certainty of rejection because worldwide left hemispheric lateralisation resists right brain grounding.)
