News – Page 19 – Toronto Oasis, Secular Community

Sun Jul 25 – [Online] The Camino de Santiago: Then and Now

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

With twelve hundred years of history, Spain’s Camino de Santiago is one of the world’s great pilgrimage roads. After a steep decline through much of the twentieth century, the Camino has experienced an amazing reflowering since the 1980s.

This Sunday, our featured speaker, Robert Ward, will offer a brief introduction to the Camino for novices, then compare the meaning and experience of the contemporary pilgrimage to the ancient, before looking at some of the changes the Camino has undergone in the twenty years since Robert’s first pilgrimage.

Robert Ward was born and lives in Toronto. He is the author of Virgin Trails, an atheist’s guide to the sacred places of the Virgin Mary, and All the Good Pilgrims: tales of the Camino de Santiago (available on Amazon and Indigo). Since 1999, he has walked the Camino “about seven times.”

Robert Ward’s website: https://robertward.ca

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksycckbhc/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lwjV-ZL2WDBHDqdx1evRAPJ9pXJtSc6E/view?usp=sharing

Sun Jul 18 – [Online] Homeopathy, Quackery and Fraud

We will watch a TED talk by James Randi. Dan Cooperstock, a Toronto Oasis organizer, will be introducing the topic and leading the discussion.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksycckbxb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun Jul 11 – [Online] Celebrities as Role Models?

“Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids” (Charles Barkley)

Athletes and other celebrities are routinely held up as “role models” for children, youth, minorities, and others. According to this popular idea, members of underrepresented or disadvantaged groups simply need to see “someone like themselves” doing something spectacular – winning Olympic medals, sitting in the Supreme Court, serving as US vice-president – to demonstrate that such success is possible. Simple problem, simple solution? No, it’s not an individual’s lack of imagination that’s the problem, it’s a systemic problem, and celebrity role models are not the answer.

Our featured speaker on this topic will be Helen Lenskyj, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto, where she taught sociology. Helen grew up in Australia and has lived in Toronto since 1966. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 1983, and was a professor from 1986 until retiring in 2007. As well as writing books, she enjoys swimming and kayaking. Her website is www.helenlenskyj.ca; TWITTER: https://twitter.com/helenje63185798

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aGOUUjN9rvfGk4BkyNQyEh3eULlBgloy/view?usp=sharing

Sun Jul 04 – [Online] Canadian Shame: A History of Residential Schools

We will watch a TEDx talk by Ginger Gosnell-Myers, the City of Vancouver’s first Indigenous Relations Manager. Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer, will be introducing the topic and leading the discussion.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksycckbgb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun Jun 27 – [Online] Free Will and the Brain

What does modern neuroscience say about the age-old question of ‘free will’? What kind of ‘free will’ is possible? What kind of ‘free will’ is worth believing in? Although the mechanical metaphor of computing pervades popular discussions of the brain, in fact the evidence suggests that brain activity is much more chaotic: you can never think the same thought twice. So, your choices may depend predictably on your current state of mind, but still seem unpredictable or ‘free’ to those around you and to yourself.

Our featured speaker on this topic will be Dr. Mark Reimers. He works as a computational neuroscientist: studying brain function by applying statistical methods to look for patterns in large-scale and high-resolution recordings of brain activity and behavior. He applies these methods to understand normal brain function in memory and to shed light on mental illness.

Dr. Reimers has worked at the US National Institutes of Health, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics in Richmond, and now does research and teaches at Michigan State University. His broader aim is to ground our understanding of feeling and thought in the facts of biology.

Dr. Reimers was the leader of the Richmond Humanists in Virginia for five years, and now leads the UU Forum in Lansing, and speaks frequently at humanist and science outreach events in Michigan.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/cbgqgsyccjbkc/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10SLWfMbeZHL2wyTX9VSvZKSAIM7_r68K/view?usp=sharing

Sun Jun 20 – [Online] How to Be an Antiracist

We will watch a YT video talk by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer, will be introducing the topic.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/cbgqgsyccjbbc/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun Jun 13 – [Online] I Speak French — Sort Of

Our featured speaker will be Elka Enola. As an anglophone, born in Montreal long before French was declared the official language of Quebec, Elka’s experiences learning, using and teaching French took some peculiar turns, not the least of which, was discovering that only Quebec calls their language ‘French’.

Elka was born in Montreal in 1941 where her first language was Yiddish, her second English and her third was French. Her grandfather, who lived with them, only spoke Yiddish, so, until his death, only Yiddish was spoken at home. Then she and her brother would speak in English while her mother and aunt continued in Yiddish. How Elka reached the place of fluency in French is quite a convoluted story that she will share.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/cbgqgsyccjbrb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BApWH5x9vCYtU9oTumxmf356cBNKwa1l/view?usp=sharing

Sun Jun 06 – [Online] How Memory Plays Us

For our featured presentation this Sunday, we will be watching and then discussing a video of a TED talk by Elizabeth Loftus.

Elizabeth Loftus is an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory. She has conducted research on the malleability of human memory. Loftus is best known for her work on the misinformation effect and eyewitness memory, and the creation and nature of false memories, including recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. As well as her work inside the laboratory, Loftus has been involved in applying her research to legal settings; she has consulted or provided expert witness testimony for hundreds of cases.

Dan Cooperstock will introduce the TED talk and moderate the discussion that will follow. Dan is the Toronto Oasis Treasurer, an atheist Quaker, and a software entrepreneur, writing and selling software for churches and charities.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/cbgqgsyccjbjb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun May 30 – [Online] Tales of Passion

For our featured presentation, we will watch a video of a TED talk by Isabel Allende. Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer, will introduce the video and lead the discussion after we watch the video together.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/cbgqgsycchbnc/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun May 23 – [Online] How Literacy Spreads and Books Get Disseminated

This Sunday, our featured presentation will be the second in a series of talks by Michael Dorman. In his first talk, back in January, Michael presented a brief cursory survey of the history of some major writing systems leading us up to the invention of the Gutenberg press. In this second talk, Michael will outline how literacy spreads and how books get disseminated (libraries, bookstores, mobile libraries, etc).

In the discussion that follows, Michael would like participants to talk about their bookstore and library experiences; whether they come from homes with or without books and other readers; or were they the only in the house to be a reader and how they think being a reader impacted their lives.

Michael received his B.A. in Anthropology from McMaster University in Hamilton and trained to teach English and French as second languages. He taught French to grades 7 & 8 for a couple of years. Michael has a passion for languages with French and Spanish being his second and third languages and he has studied Italian, German, Portuguese, and Latin. Michael is interested in language in general.

Please RSVP on meetup:
https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/zgtbgsycchbfc/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/185709uxx8uD-_5elBMBpnV84czmlpv2z/view?usp=sharing