Toronto Oasis, Secular Community

Sunday March 26th – [Online] Deceiving Ourselves

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. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:30 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

How can we deceive ourselves? This talk and discussion will explore some of the ways in which we can fool ourselves and why. Some motives are familiar to folk psychology, such as avoiding a hard truth or tough decision. Others mystify most people: we may lie to ourselves to better persuade others. Our featured speaker, Dr. Mark Reimers, will propose that self-deception is integral to our consciousness: our evolved intense attunement to other people induces us to fool ourselves in order to belong.

Dr. Mark Reimers is a quantitative neuroscientist at Michigan State University working to elucidate how dynamic brain activities give rise to mental functions and moods. 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.

This Sunday, we will also be having live music! Our featured musician will be cellist, George Crotty: https://www.georgecrotty.com/

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/pkdtctyfcfbjc/

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

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20230326-152503_Recording_1920x1080.mp4

The guest musician was also recorded above.

Sunday March 19th – [Online] Recovering from Religion

Our featured speaker, Steve Ironside, will be here to discuss the mission of Recovering from Religion (RfR), the principles they stick to and how the organization benefits those leaving the fold.

Steve Ironside is a native Ontarian who grew up in Muskoka, but now lives in the Windsor area. He started volunteering with RfR in May 2020 and is now the RfR Ambassador Director.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/qgcgctyfcfbzb/

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

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20230319-153327_Recording_1920x1080_EDITED.mp4

Sunday March 12th – [Online] What is a Karen?

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm. You can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. After 12:30 pm, we will also have an extended discussion for half an hour, until 1:00 pm.

We will be watching and then discussing two YouTube videos that explain the Karen trope. The videos were selected by Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer. Tania will also briefly introduce the topic and videos.

In addition, this Sunday we will be having live music! Our guest musicians will be The Roughnotes. The Roughnotes are Colin and Jay. They have been playing together for about twenty years. They began playing in this iteration of this band in the fall of 2014. Colin and Jay are both from around the Thousand Islands but have lived in Toronto since the mid-2000s.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/qgcgctyfcfbqb/

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

The guest musician has been recorded: GMT20230312-152703_Recording_640x360.mp4

Sunday March 5th – [Online] A Little Longer Than the Seven Year Itch

We all know when intimate relationships start feeling ‘not right’ and we start looking to see who is to blame.

Maybe nobody is to blame. Maybe it’s just the wrong people for that time.

This Sunday, our featured speaker will be Elka Enola, a Toronto Oasis participant. Elka will examine intimate relationships in terms of their appropriateness at different stages of our lives. The perfect person for one stage might very well be dreadful for another stage.

Elka will suggest that ideally we should have different partners for different stages of our life and will discuss the obstacles to that.

Her comments will apply to all intimate relationships within Western cultures including heterosexual, same sex, polyamorous, asexual, open sexual, with children, without children… and anything else.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/291596839/

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

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20230305-163223_Recording_1920x1080.mp4

Written version of Elka Enola’s talk: A Little Longer Than the Seven Year Itch:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13scdJP87m9E0PebOnfb7qL3DGckZQ_w-/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=102734254050847344830&rtpof=true&sd=true

Sunday February 26th – [Online] Swimming: Why? Why Not?

Is the ‘Australian crawl’ really Australian? Why do people cut holes in the ice to swim? What are the barriers to adults learning to swim?

Our featured speaker on this topic will be Toronto Oasis participant Helen Jefferson Lenskyj. Helen will talk about swimming’s history, issues of access and safety, and the growing popularity of ‘cold water swimming’ since COVID lockdowns. She will share some of her favourite books about swimming, and conclude with her own experiences in the water in Canada and Australia, ending with a short video of her favourite snorkeling spot in Sydney.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:

https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/qgcgctyfcdbjc/

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

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20230226-163007_Recording_1920x1080.mp4

Sunday February 19th – [Online] Calling In Versus Calling Out

We will be watching and then discussing two videos featuring Loretta J. Ross, an African American academic, feminist and activist. The topic and videos will be introduced by Toronto Oasis volunteer, John Shannon.

We will also be having live music this Sunday! Our featured musician will be Kathryn Merriam. Described by audiences as ‘other-worldly’ and ‘transcendent’, Kathryn Merriam’s songs interweave melismatic melodies with soaring lyricism, evoking flavours of Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush. Accompanying herself on the guitar and harp, Kathryn explores the intersections between folk song tradition and mystical music – making subtle observations of the human experience, and musing on reality, perception, meaning, healing, and purpose. You can check out her music here: https://soundcloud.com/kathryn-merriam

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link: https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/khbwzsyfcdbzb/

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

Sunday February 12th – [Online] What is Consciousness?

Can we ever understand consciousness? What is consciousness, really? We will discuss whether studies of brain activity during awakening or awareness can help clarify these questions. While these studies don’t give final answers to the deep questions, they do build on empirical evidence to point us in useful directions.

Our featured speaker on this topic will be Dr. Mark Reimers, a quantitative neuroscientist at Michigan State University working to elucidate how dynamic brain activities give rise to mental functions and moods. 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.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link: https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/khbwzsyfcdbqb/

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

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20230212-162941_Recording_1920x1080.mp4

Sunday February 5th – [Online] Confronting the Resistance to Learning Black History

Last year, at Toronto Oasis, we watched and discussed the following video featuring Nikole Hannah-Jones, an American investigative journalist, known for her coverage of civil rights in the United States: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSVBR964RiY

In this video, Hannah-Jones talks about her work on the 1619 Project – a long-form journalism endeavor that re-examines the legacy of slavery in the United States. In 2020, Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on the 1619 Project.

As a follow-up to that topic and discussion we had about a year ago, this Sunday we’ll be watching and discussing an interview of Nikole Hannah-Jones by one of her critics, broadcast journalist Chris Wallace. It’s a tough but very interesting debate-style interview. It’s particularly relevant given the current climate in the United States where some states are passing legislation “forbidding any teacher or lesson from mentioning race/racism, and even gender/sexism” (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/). More recently, in Florida, the DeSantis administration has blocked an AP course on African American Studies for high school students (https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/politics/ron-desantis-ap-african-american-studies/index.html)

This topic and video were selected and will be introduced by Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer.

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:
https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/khbwzsyfcdbhb/

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

Sunday January 29th – [Online] How Dan Built and Sold His Business

We will be watching and then discussing a video of a podcast interview of Dan Cooperstock, a Toronto Oasis organizer. Dan recently sold his business through the business broker firm that hosts this podcast. Dan will be there to introduce the video and contribute to the discussion we will have afterwards.

Also, this Sunday we will be having live music! Our featured musician will be Cassie Norton, a Toronto-based singer-songwriter, violinist, and climate activist.

Cassie is also the music director of Toronto Oasis. She has recorded two full length albums as a solo artist, Little Strength (2009) and Quiet Wilderness (2010). Cassie and her band released their first EP: Lullaby for the End of Time in February 2019. When she isn’t busy making her own music, Cassie shares her love of music with others through teaching. She teaches a variety of private and ensemble classes at Regent Park School of Music, and through her private studio. Her website is: https://www.cassienorton.com/

Please RSVP on meetup to get access to the Zoom link:
https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/khbwzsyfccbmc/

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

This meeting’s guest musician was recorded: GMT20230129-162441_Recording_640x360_EDITED.mp4

Sunday January 22nd – [Online] The Mysteries of Human Memory

Memory is indispensable for us to function in daily life, and central to our identity as persons. Yet how memory works remains a mystery. Our featured speaker this Sunday, Dr. Mark Reimers, will give a talk about how recent science illuminates how memory works, including making memories, recalling them, and distorting them.

This will be the first in the following series of three linked talks by Dr. Reimers at Toronto Oasis:

The Mysteries of Human Memory (Jan 22nd)
Can We Understand Consciousness? (Feb 12th)
Deceiving Ourselves (date TBD)

Dr. Mark Reimers 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 to get access to the Zoom link:
https://www.meetup.com/toronto-oasis/events/khbwzsyfccbdc/

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

This meeting has been recorded: GMT20230122-163631_Recording_1920x1080.mp4