Event Calendar
*this month will be one week late due to the Food Bank event
Sherlock Holmes runs a trivia night on Tuesdays, once a month we test our knowledge! Join our team ”The Heathens”!
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-April. 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!!
Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions edited by Susan Tive & Cami Ostman
Beyond Belief addresses what happens when women of extreme religions decide to walk away. Editors Susan Tive (a former Orthodox Jew) and Cami Ostman (a de-converted fundamentalist born-again Christian) have compiled a collection of powerful personal stories written by women of varying ages, races, and religious backgrounds who share one commonality: they’ve all experienced and rejected extreme religions.
Covering a wide range of religious communities- including Evangelical, Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Calvinist, Moonie, and Jehovah’s Witness- and containing contributions from authors like Julia Scheeres ( Jesus Land ), the stories in Beyond Belief reveal how these women became involved, what their lives were like, and why they came to the decision to eventually abandon their faiths.
The authors shed a bright light on the rigid expectations and misogyny so often built into religious orthodoxy, yet they also explain the lure- why so many women are attracted to these lifestyles, what they find that’s beautiful about living a religious life, and why leaving can be not only very difficult but also bittersweet.
TOPIC: Have what are known as ”identity politics” hurt atheist organisations? Why have atheist conferences shut down or suffered from lower attendance numbers? If atheism is still growing, why isn’t there more support for atheist and humanist groups?
We will also be taking some time to discuss the focus of our organization, and what the future looks like for us (as we didn’t have time to do that last month).
Idylwylde Library
8310 88 Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta T6C1L1
Bonnie’s Lounge and Sports Bar, Bonnie Doon Mall
Join us after round table for continued discussion and drinks.
**THIS EVENT IS HOSTED BY THE SECULAR HUMANISTS OF ALBERTA**
Student’s Union Building, in the lounge. They will be set up at a table or sofa area, with the secular humanists logo on display.
An evening of lively intelligent conversations. Feel free to suggest a humanist topic for an ice breaker. The topics flow naturally after we get started. Each meeting is uniquely enjoyable with the diverse crowd of like-minded individuals.
Please RSVP to the meetup group if you are attending, as they are limited to numbers due to the nature of the space.
Coffee, tea and great conversation! A great event for newcomers.
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-April. 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!!
How the West Really Lost God: A new theory of secularization by Mary Eberstadt
In this magisterial work, leading cultural critic Mary Eberstadt delivers a powerful new theory about the decline of religion in the Western world.
The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself.
Drawing on sociology, history, demography, theology, literature, and many other sources, Eberstadt shows that family decline and religious decline have gone hand in hand in the Western world in a way that has not been understood before–that they are, as she puts it in a striking new image summarizing the book’s thesis, “the double helix of society, each dependent on the strength of the other for successful reproduction.”
In sobering final chapters, Eberstadt then lays out the enormous ramifications of the mutual demise of family and faith in the West. While it is fashionable in some circles to applaud the decline both of religion and the nuclear family, there are, as Eberstadt reveals, enormous social, economic, civic, and other costs attendant on both declines.
Her conclusion considers this tantalizing question: whether the economic and demographic crisis now roiling Europe and spreading to America will have the inadvertent result of reviving the family as the most viable alternative to the failed welfare state–fallout that could also lay the groundwork for a religious revival as well.
How the West Really Lost God is both a startlingly original account of how secularization happens and a sweeping brief about why everyone should care. A book written for agnostics as well as believers, atheists as well as “none of the above,” it will permanently change the way every reader understands the two institutions that have hitherto under-girded Western civilization as we know it–family and faith–and the real nature of the relationship between those two pillars of history.
Bacon, on a Sunday.