Event Calendar
Dinner and drinks, great conversation. Come join us!
We meet at 9am and go for a few hours, please make sure you dress for the weather and we would advise AGAINST sandals or shorts/capri pants as the grass gets pretty long and dirty. Please also be advised that Alberta Transport requires volunteers for the highway cleanup to be at least 9 years of age.
Our section of the QE II is the east side of the road, just north of Highway 625.
Meeting Location:
South end of the Sparrow Drive Service Road in Nisku at the cul-de-sac just south of the Blackjacks Roadhouse. When you turn into the dirt road, Blackjacks is in front of you, turn left to the end of that road where the billboards are.
GPS: 53.338802,-113.544435 http://goo.gl/maps/Rdxuh
SEA will supply:
Safety vests (but please bring one if you have one)
Water
Garbage Bags
Volunteers should bring:
Ski pole, or stick with nail on end to pick up garbage
Sunscreen/hat/sunglasses – be prepared for the weather
Bug spray
Work gloves/thick gardening gloves (latex gloves are not suitable)
Bacon, on a Sunday.
We meet at 9am and go for a few hours, please make sure you dress for the weather and we would advise AGAINST sandals or shorts/capri pants as the grass gets pretty long and dirty. Please also be advised that Alberta Transport requires volunteers for the highway cleanup to be at least 9 years of age.
Our section of the QE II is the east side of the road, just north of Highway 625.
Meeting Location:
South end of the Sparrow Drive Service Road in Nisku at the cul-de-sac just south of the Blackjacks Roadhouse. When you turn into the dirt road, Blackjacks is in front of you, turn left to the end of that road where the billboards are.
GPS: 53.338802,-113.544435 http://goo.gl/maps/Rdxuh
SEA will supply:
Safety vests (but please bring one if you have one)
Water
Garbage Bags
Volunteers should bring:
Ski pole, or stick with nail on end to pick up garbage
Sunscreen/hat/sunglasses – be prepared for the weather
Bug spray
Work gloves/thick gardening gloves (latex gloves are not suitable)
Join us for our monthly round table meeting.
**OUR LOCATION HAS TEMPORARILY CHANGED
Our contact at the University has given up room booking priviledges and we can no longer meet there until we find a new contact (we’re working on it). We thought we’d try out various other locations to see if any others suit us okay in the meanwhile.
Jasper Place Library Travel Info:
Bus stop #5176 northbound is located at the west end of the library and bus stop #5067 southbound is across the street. The Library is also located one block north of Meadowlark Transit Centre.
TOPIC: Bradley Peter, national board member for Dying with Dignity, will be coming to speak to us regarding the religious arguments against MAID. What does the Catholic Bishop in our province say about it, and how does that affect regular Albertans? Are there other religious groups that disagree with Medical Assistance in Death? What other types of groups are opposed?
We meet afterwards for drinks and continued conversation, starting around 9pm.
Join us after Round Table for drinks and continued conversation.
The FreeThinker Book club meets in the basement of the Westwood Unitarian Church at 7:00 PM on the last Wednesday of the month from Oct-March. The format varies but typically begins with a round table check-in and first reactions to the book. This is followed by a free ranging discussion, triggered by questions from other members.
All are welcome – atheists, humanists, agnostics, and theists and of course ‘free thinkers!!
The club members have chosen the following texts for this coming season.
This month we are reviewing
Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion by Susan Jacoby
In a groundbreaking historical work that addresses religious conversion in the West from an uncompromisingly secular perspective, Susan Jacoby challenges the conventional narrative of conversion as a purely spiritual journey. From the transformation on the road to Damascus of the Jew Saul into the Christian evangelist Paul to a twenty-first-century “religious marketplace” in which half of Americans have changed faiths at least once, nothing has been more important in the struggle for reason than the right to believe in the God of one’s choice or to reject belief in God altogether.
The FreeThinker Book club meets in the basement of the Westwood Unitarian Church at 7:00 PM on the last Wednesday of the month from Oct-March. The format varies but typically begins with a round table check-in and first reactions to the book. This is followed by a free ranging discussion, triggered by questions from other members.
All are welcome – atheists, humanists, agnostics, and theists and of course ‘free thinkers!!
The club members have chosen the following texts for this coming season.
This month we are reviewing
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker
If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.
Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.
With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.
The FreeThinker Book club meets in the basement of the Westwood Unitarian Church at 7:00 PM on the last Wednesday of the month from Oct-March. The format varies but typically begins with a round table check-in and first reactions to the book. This is followed by a free ranging discussion, triggered by questions from other members.
All are welcome – atheists, humanists, agnostics, and theists and of course ‘free thinkers!!
The club members have chosen the following texts for this coming season.
This month we are reviewing
The problems with the Bible that New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman discussed in his bestseller Misquoting Jesus—and on The Daily Show with John Stewart, NPR, and Dateline NBC, among others—are expanded upon exponentially in his latest book: Jesus, Interrupted. This New York Times bestseller reveals how books in the Bible were actually forged by later authors, and that the New Testament itself is riddled with contradictory claims about Jesus—information that scholars know… but the general public does not. If you enjoy the work of Elaine Pagels, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and John Shelby Spong, you’ll find much to ponder in Jesus, Interrupted.
The FreeThinker Book club meets in the basement of the Westwood Unitarian Church at 7:00 PM on the last Wednesday of the month from Oct-March. The format varies but typically begins with a round table check-in and first reactions to the book. This is followed by a free ranging discussion, triggered by questions from other members.
All are welcome – atheists, humanists, agnostics, and theists and of course ‘free thinkers!!
The club members have chosen the following texts for this coming season.
This month we are reviewing
Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture by Marvin Harris
One of America’s leading anthropolgists offers solutions to the perplexing question of why people behave the way they do.
Why do Hindus worship cows? Why do Jews and Moslems refuse to eat pork? Why did so many people in post-medieval Europe believe in witches?
Marvin Harris answers these and other perplexing questions about human behavior, showing that no matter how bizarre a people’s behavior may seem, it always stems from identifiable and intelligble sources
The FreeThinker Book club meets in the basement of the Westwood Unitarian Church at 7:00 PM on the last Wednesday of the month from Oct-March. The format varies but typically begins with a round table check-in and first reactions to the book. This is followed by a free ranging discussion, triggered by questions from other members.
All are welcome – atheists, humanists, agnostics, and theists and of course ‘free thinkers!!
The club members have chosen the following texts for this coming season.
This month we are reviewing
The Good Atheist: Living a Purpose-Filled Life Without God by Dan Barker
How Does an Atheist Respond to the Question, What Is the Purpose of Life?
For a Christian, it is faith that gives their life purpose. In his best-selling book The Purpose Driven™ Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, Rick Warren says, “You must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.”
But as a non-believer, your purpose resides in yourself; it is yours alone to discover and develop. It’s about choosing to live your own life for your own reasons. No one can dictate your purpose. You decide.
This book will help you understand and appreciate why freely choosing to help and cooperate with others is the true path to finding purpose. Life does not need purpose: Purpose needs life. To punctuate this point, The Good Atheist includes inspiring biographies of humanity’s true heroes—men and women who did not waste their lives as slaves to a God, but rather found purpose in enhancing life on this Earth for all of us.