Bc Humanists Podcast

Gary Bauslaugh is the author of three books related to assisted death in Canada; his most recent (The Right to Die, April 2016) tells the stories of the courageous Canadians whose often heroic actions helped create a climate of acceptance of the idea that assisted death should be legalized in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada’s historic ruling in February, 2015, declared the law prohibiting assisted death unconstitutional, and provided guidelines for new legislation which would be in tune with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then it went to the politicians to pass actual legislation, an exercise that many of who have been advocates for progressive reform on assisted dying looked forward to with great hope and anticipation. The results, however, were tragically inadequate. Bauslaugh spoke out against the proposed legislation and on May 6 was called to Ottawa to speak on the matter to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. His views were reflected in the Senate’s initial

Dr Karen Garst speaks to the UBC Freethinkers about the archaeological evidence for worship of the female goddess in the Paleolithic era through its continued existence when male deities became incorporated into the pantheon of gods. Karen Garst has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the UW - Madison, a Masters in French Literature from the same, and a BA in French from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. She has served as a field representative for the Oregon Federation of Teachers (AFT), executive director of the Oregon Community College Association, and executive director of the Oregon State Bar. She is married and lives in Salem, Oregon. In 2014, the U. S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Burwell v Hobby Lobby. She was incensed. “Since when did a ‘corporation’ get to use its religious beliefs to dictate what health care a woman could receive?,” she stated. She decided to write a book on atheism and the harm religion has done to women. A friend introduced her to Dr Peter Boghossian at PS

Ian Bushfield, Executive Director of the BC Humanist Association presents a detailed analysis of the June 2016 Insights West poll commissioned by the BCHA to explore attitudes in BC about religion and its interaction with laws and social policies. Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/bchumanist/is-anyone-in-bc-still-religious-ian-bushfield Full data: http://www.bchumanist.ca/religious_and_secular_attitudes_2016 Presentation on BCHA 2013 poll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr6bwREC6C0 Recorded at the Sunday, August 21, 2016 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

Joyce Arthur, a freelance writer and women's rights advocate, talks about the recent study her pro-choice group completed on anti-choice “Crisis Pregnancy Centres” (CPCs). The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada recruited volunteers to review every CPC website in Canada to look for misinformation on abortion or signs they were being deceptive and not upfront with potential clients. The study identified 180 CPCs across Canada. Of those, 166 had websites. The findings revealed that a large majority of CPCs do one or both of the following on their websites: 1) spread misleading or inaccurate information about abortion, contraception, sexually-transmitted infections, sexual activity, or adoption; 2) present themselves deceptively, such as by not disclosing that they won’t refer for abortion, or hiding their religious stance from prospective clients. This means that CPCs are posing a public health risk and interfering with the reproductive rights of women. What can be done? Joyce will go over some recomme

Armin Navabi, of Atheist Republic, an ex-Muslim from Iran will speak about how Ex-Muslims in the West are frequently attacked from bigots on the right, and apologists on the left. This marginalizes many ex-Muslims, leaving them feeling betrayed and unwelcome, muting the most effective force against Islamic extremism. Recorded at the Sunday, June 26, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

Pamela Zevit, of Evidence for Democracy updates us about the state of science policy in Canada today. What has changed, what still needs to change to return Canada to its former position as an example of public policy informed by science. Recorded at the Sunday, June 19, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

In this episode, we hear from Stephanie Smith who tried to form an agnostic version of Alcoholics Anonymous and Byron Wood who's brought a human rights complaint forward after being forced to attend a theistic 12-step program. For an update on Byron's case see: http://www.bchumanist.ca/human_rights_complaint_over_religion_in_aa_to_proceed Recorded at the Sunday, June 12, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

Les Brown is on the board of the Vancouver Chapter of Fair Vote Canada, a group working to promote changing the Canadian electoral system to ensure that the numbers of MPs in Parliament from each political party more closely match the fraction of the popular vote each party receives. Les Brown has been working on electoral reform for the last 20 years or so. He's a firm believer in the adage that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Les talks about how and why the Canadian electoral system is "broke" and what we need to do to "fix" it. Recorded at the Sunday, May 29, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

Pat, an atheist, and Jonathan, a Christian, do a tag-team presentation on their joint program "Meeting of the Minds" where issues of the day are explored from two radically different worldviews, but often coming to similar conclusions. Recorded at the Sunday, May 15, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes.

C Dax and Drake interview Glenn Hardie. Glenn was one of the founders of the BC Humanist Association and author of several books on Humanism including Reason With Compassion: The Humanist Way. Learn more about the BC Humanist Association at http://www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. And make sure to subscribe to our podcast.

Female personhood is one of the most urgent issues of our time and is deeply entwined with questions of religion. Female personhood scholar Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson will explain what female personhood is and why it should matter deeply to Humanists around the world. Recorded at the Sunday, May 8, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

Dr Sue Hughson, Dying With Dignity Canada Board Member and Vancouver Chapter Coordinator and BC Humanist Association Past President, talks about the status of the fight for the right to die with dignity in Canada. This talk, recorded on Sunday, June 5, 2016, was one day before the Supreme Court of Canada's Carter v Canada decision came into effect, striking down the criminal prohibition on assisted dying and allowing physicians to help a suffering patient hasten their death. Sue also talks about issues with Bill C-14 as passed by the House of Commons. Learn more at http://www.dyingwithdignity.ca Recorded at the Sunday, June 5, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

From June 1-3, 2016, the BC Court of Appeal heard arguments in Trinity Western University vs the Law Society of BC. The BC Humanist Association was an intervener in the case and BCHA Executive Director Ian Bushfield attended the hearings. This is his report on the case. This is not intended as a thorough or objective legal analysis. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

In Canada registered charities are limited in the political activity they can undertake and are prohibited from any partisan activity. Under the previous federal government, Canada Revenue Agency was instructed to conduct a series of audits into the political activity of charities. The organizations scrutinized were seen to be critics of the previous Conservative government and while no evidence of wrongdoing was found, the audits put a chill on the entire sector and some organizations, like Dying With Dignity Canada lost their charitable status. Since the Liberal Party came to power in October, there has been a halt on further audits but those in process are continuing. The Liberals promised during the election and in their recent budget to consult on clarifying rules – but much of Canada’s charity law dates back to 19th century English case law. These rules privilege religion and limit the scope of debate for an entire sector that is by definition dedicated to the betterment of our whole society. This ta

Paul Ingraham, a science writer at painscience.com, and Assistant Editor, ScienceBasedMedicine.org: speaks to us on the subject of Muscle Knots On Skeptical Trial - How suspicious should we be about "trigger points" as a cause of common muscle pain? Not just a fascinating case study of applying skepticism to a unsolved medical mystery, this talk also has plenty of practical "owner's manual" information about the biology of a nearly universal kind of pain. For more information on trigger points: http://www.painscience.com/tps http://www.painscience.com/trial Recorded at the Sunday, April 10, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at http://www.bchumanist.ca Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram. Subscribe on Soundcloud, Stitcher and iTunes. Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science http://www.symphonyofscience.com

Ian Bushfield, executive director announces that the BC Humanist Association has been granted leave to intervene at the BC Court of Appeal in the case over Trinity Western University's proposed law school. Find out more about the BCHA and support our work at http://www.bchumanist.ca And be sure to subscribe to the BC Humanists podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher or your favourite service.

Dr James Linville is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta. "Each After Its Own Kind”: How Creation Museums are not all created equal There are about 3 dozen Creation Museum in North America with a handful of others scattered around the globe. Many predate the large Answers in Genesis facility in northern Kentucky and a number more are in the planning or construction stage. While Christian young earth creationists are united on certain key doctrinal and social perspectives, the museums themselves vary widely in terms of size, funding, focus, intended audience, and the degree to which they attempt to refute secular science. Dr Linville offers an overview of the diverse museum landscape and takes you on an illustrated tour of some of the museums in Alberta, Kentucky, Texas and California. Dr Linville highlights the need to look beyond the well-funded organizations and the influential and charismatic figures in “Big Creation” to truly understand what is happeni

Benjamin Purzycki of the Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition, and Culture at the University of British Columbia first discusses contemporary approaches to understanding religion cross-culturally. Then, he draws from this discussion and attend to the role beliefs about gods’ minds play in our relationships with the natural world and with each other. Purzycki's recent study published in Nature on the role that belief in punitive gods played in the expansion of human societies received wide coverage. Recorded at the Sunday, March 13, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at www.bchumanist.ca Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science www.symphonyofscience.com

Samir Gandesha is an Associate Professor in the Department of the Humanities and the Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University. He specializes in modern European thought and culture, with a particular emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries. A key element of humanism must be a critical assessment of religion. Today such a critical assessment is more important than ever given the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the US, Hindutva or Hindu fundamentalism on the Indian subcontinent as well as politicized forms of Islam. In this talk, Dr Gandesha sketches out some of the key criticisms of religion in the work of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Frederich Nietzsche, before going on to show how their ideas might help us understand the combustible connection between religion and politics in our contemporary world. Recorded at the Sunday, March 13, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at http://www.bchumanist.ca Intro music: We are all connected instrumen

Gail Miller speaks about the first pilot project in the planned global campaign to promote critical thinking among the children of the world. The pilot project is two secular schools and a library in Guatemala. Recorded at the Sunday, March 6, 2016 meeting of the BC Humanist Association in Vancouver. Learn more at http://www.bchumanist.ca Intro music: We are all connected instrumental - Symphony of Science http://www.symphonyofscience.com/