Hello Everyone,
Good news! I was able to book Barrie Public Library’s 50 seat meeting room for all our regular monthly meetings in 2010. The not so good news is that I was unable to book the room on the last Wednesday of every month. Please put the following COHA meeting dates in your 2010 calendar:

Wednesday January 20
Thursday February 25
Wednesday March 24
Thursday April 29
Wednesday* May 26
Wednesday* June 30
Wednesday* July 28
Wednesday August 18
Wednesday* September 29
Thursday October 28
Thursday November 25
Wednesday* December 29

The asterisks flag the last Wednesdays of those months. Although historically we have not met in June, July, August, and December, I booked those months just in case (and will cancel as soon as we know we won’t need the room). If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.

More good news!
Dr. Monika Havelka is over H1N1, and will be coming to our November meeting. As you know, last January a snow storm caused most of us to miss Monika’s (TVO’s twice nominated best lecturer) extraordinary slide presentation. Then the day before she was to speak at our October meeting her daughter came down with H1N1. Sooo… hopefully for sure this time come prepared to learn about the exciting discoveries coming from the emerging biological specialty of “evo-devo” — whereby a set of genes common to all life forms, including us, control the construction of our bodies. There will be time for questions, and I intend to ask her about the even newer field of epigenetics. And please, post a copy of the attached poster on your favorite grocery store’s bulletin board and/or other venues.

One of the reasons we can enjoy Monika’s presentation at our Annual General Meeting, is that the business portion of the meeting can be mercifully short. — the current slate of Directors is being acclaimed, so no time is required for elections.

In yet more good news, the recent changes in our afilliation with Humanist Canada (the old HAC) allow us to decouple our membership fees. This means you can choose to continue your Humanist Canada membership or not. If not, you need only pay COHA’s annual membership fee, which starting on Jan. 1, 2010, will be $30 per person, or $50 per household, or $15 if you have a student card. If you do want to renew your Humanist Canada membership you can download it from www.humanistcanada.com and remit it to Humanist Canada yourself. And please note that if you wish to make a charitable donation to COHA (always needed and welcome), you can remit it to Humanist Canada with the stipulation that it be forwarded to COHA, and a tax deductible receipt will be issued to you. That way, all tax payers support COHA as well as all the churches out there.

Warm regards,
Paul
President, Central Ontario Humanists Association

Hello fellow Humanists and Humanist-friendly people,

I have 4 interesting things to tell you.

1. Vote for November’s video presentation
2. Last months presentation available online
3. Discussion group
4. Richard Dawkins’ new book available at next meeting
5. Humanist social / meet-up

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1. Vote for November’s video presentation

The November presentation and AGM is coming up it less than two months. We will be having a video presentation and want you to vote on which short video we will use to start a discussion on November 25th (that’s next month). Please respond to this email with your selection of one of the following three videos:

a) *Jonathan Haidt* on secular morality

Associate Professor of Psychology Jonathan Haidt, author of /The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion/ discusses where innate morality comes from in a secular, naturalistic world view. Also, how morality intersects with politics on the left and the right as well as with religion.

b) *Dan Dennett* on dangerous memes

Starting with the simple tale of an ant, philosopher Dan Dennett unleashes a devastating salvo of ideas, making a powerful case for the existence of memes — concepts that are literally alive.

c) *Julia Sweeney* on letting go of God

This video features Julia Sweeney (of Saturday Night Live fame) giving a sample of her one-woman show ‘Letting Go of God’. This delightful and thought provoking video intertwines a young ladies coming of age story and humour and Julia Sweeney discussions he deconversion from the Catholic faith.

Please respond to this email before October 26th to make your vote count, only a few weeks away.

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2. Last months presentation available online

You can now download last months presentation of the psychology of bahaviourism from our website in MP3 form and the slides. Go to the following website:

http://www.cohumanists.ca/2009/behaviorism-and-daily-life/

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3. Discussion group

At the last meeting I told everyone that we had started an email discussion group. We now have 6 people signed up, and they are interesting people! We have been talking about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and what the proper etiquette for people who don’t believe in gods actually is. Is it more respectful to sit in silence while others pray out loud? Is it mocking their beliefs to pretend to pray or accept communion? Is it disrespectful to not sit down until the hand-holding grace-saying pre-meal festivities are over? What if you are the host and religious people are coming to your house?

Sign up and take part in future conversations. We are inviting all atheist, agnostics, skeptics, freethinkers and otherwise Humanist-friendly people in the area and beyond to join the discussion. You don’t need to be a member.

Email shawn @ cohumanists.ca to be added to this email distribution list so you can participate or just listen.

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4. Richard Dawkins’ new book available at next meeting

We are pleased to announce that at this months presentation we will have copies of Richard Dawkins’ new book ‘The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution’. This book is a return to Richard Dawkins’ first interest, evolution. Rather than a critical look on religion this is a biology book. A minimum donation of $20 to COHA is required for you to pick up this book at our next meeting.

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5. Humanist social / meet-up

A bunch of us are getting together at William’s Coffee Pub on Bryne Dr. on Wednesday, October 20th, 2009 at 7:30 PM. If you would like good company come on down and hang out with us. Everyone is welcome to join. This is behind the south-end Wal~Mart.

***

Have a good October!

Hello Everyone,

• We will no longer meet at Zehrs — it keeps raising the rent and reducing the service. For the rest of this year at least, we will hold meetings in the Boardroom at the Barrie Native Friendship Center 175 Bayfield Street. It is a bit south of highway 400, on the East side, a more central location. This venue charges $60 per meeting and includes coffee (so I’m told)!
• COHA withdrew its registered charity application (after considering the federal government’s negative response). This makes sense, given COHA is a community association, not a charity in the usual sense of raising funds to help the needy. Unfortunately, this means COHA cannot issue tax deduction receipts. Now if we were a religious movement ….
• COHA is incorporating as a non-profit organization (NPO). Why you may ask? Because NPOs are eligible to hold meetings at the Barrie Public Library at no cost. Reserving Library space for our 2010 meetings must be done in early November, and we expect to be registered by then. The cost to incorporate is less than $800, which is just over a year’s rent. That said, our financial position will be more precarious for some time, so please be generous when helping yourself to coffee, or acquiring one of our books, etc.
• COHA may dis-affiliate with Humanists Canada (HAC). Below are some thoughts to ponder. Please email your own thoughts to shawn@cohumanists.ca. Next month Shawn will integrate them into a comprehensive list of pros and cons, including HAC’s position (if any). COHA members will vote on this issue at our annual general meeting:
  • Historically HAC affiliation allowed members to receive tax deductions for donations to COHA. But when HAC changed its governance model, members lost this ability.
  • Historically HAC funded COHA. In the new model we fund HAC.
  • HAC has been unresponsive, such as when we requested membership data and advice on applying for charity status.
  • Individuals can still be members of HAC, so what benefits accrue from COHA’s affiliation?
  • HAC forced COHA to raise its dues this year. Of the $60 annual dues, COHA receives only $20.
  • Dis-affiliation would enable COHA to both reduce its dues and improve its financial situation.
  • COHA expects to be able to participate in secular humanist activities with or without HAC.
  • There are other organizations we might prefer to affilate with, such as The Centre for Inquiry, and the Brights movement.
• COHA is forming an email server. It’s purpose is to permit interested people to learn about Humanist news and views, and to be able to add your own comments and ideas for further discussion by others on the list. Anyone interested in being on this list please contact Shawn@cohumanists.ca
• COHA needs your ideas, your enthusiasm, and your community spirit. We cannot thrive without you occasionally participating in such things as
  • greeting people as they arrive at our monthly meetings, and registering their attendance.
  • leading a monthly discussion on a humanist topic of their choosing
  • educating the community at large, especially young people, about Secular Humanism
  • running fund raisers, such as a monthly 50-50 draw
  • most importantly, helping COHA function by being on the executive, which consists of the President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Membership Director.
  • hosting our annual solstice parties
  • implementing Humanist pet projects of your own!
• Sign-up Sheets will be on hand at the next meeting, so please think about what you would like to do in time to let everyone know.
• Tom Cooke is forming an elections committee in order to fill the executive roles for 2010. Please feel free to offer yourself for office and to nominate others by emailing him at tom@cohumanists.ca.

I am pleased to report that yesterday’s edition of the Barrie Examiner (Saturday April 19, 2009) featured an article which interviewed myself on the topic of Humanism in the Life section. Sadly, the article itself focused on the atheist bus-ad campaign featured in last months topic and not a deeper exploration of Humanism itself. News articles need specific angles, and the bus ad controversy was the angle Bruce Cameron took.

I would like to thank Bruce Cameron and the Barrie Examiner for printing this story and asking the Central Ontario Humanist Association for an interview. The Barrie Examiner has now posted this article on their website, you can see the scanned version as it is currently available for download on our website. (If it looks to small in your browser, you may have to click it to make it larger.)  But the full text of the article is available below.

Do you have feedback about the article? Please email me at sha…@cohumanists.ca as I’d love to hear your response.

SOCIETY: Barrie humanist says campaign has been ‘too forceful’

Debate over bus ads keeps on rolling

By BRUCE CAMERON

“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,” is the hot button wording now seen on bus and subway ads in cities around the globe, including larger Canadian centres such as Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary.It’s the atheistic response first seen on London, England, buses in January of this year to an ad on a bus that warned of “eternal lakes of fire” for all non-believers.

Humanists (atheists, agnostics, sceptics, freethinkers) in that city replied with the cheeky ad quoted above, but there’s one Barrie atheist who doesn’t necessarily approve of it.

“I believe it was perhaps being a little forceful,” said Shawn Conroy, vice-president of the Barrie-based Central Ontario Humanist Association.

Conroy said humanists have always tended to speak with an independent voice, especially in pre-Internet days, when trying to get them to agree on something “was like herding cats.”

He much prefers the wording on a billboard ad seen recently in the U. S. Its message: “Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone.”

“It (ad) had the advantage of only expressing that opinion and not making a judgement on anyone else. It was consciousness-raising for people who are believers and maybe don’t know that atheists are here, and to get them comfortable with the idea that atheists are just like everyone else,” Conroy said.

“For atheists, it let them know that their fellow atheists were here and did it in the most inoffensive way possible.”

The ad sparked heated reaction, especially in the American South, home of the Bible Belt. Conroy said a number of the billboards had to be taken down because religious folks complained that it “denigrated their faith.”

“I think it’s part of the problem, the fact that they think even a dissenting opinion denigrates their faith. As a humanist, I’m saying we need to have this conversation,” Conroy said.

For Rev. Dennis Posno, who for the past 13 years has lived his vocation at Collier Street United Church in Barrie, he remains philosophical over the debate regarding the ad.

“I recall a quote from Voltaire during the French Revolution,” he said.

“There was someone who was expressing a point a view with whom he took exception, but he said, ‘Although I disagree with what you said, I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”

But as for matters spiritual, the similarities between the two come to a fairly quick end.

The Central Ontario Humanist Association’s pamphlet says, in part, “COHA is a non-profit group of Humanists and Humanist-friendly people including, but not limited to, atheists, agnostics, non-atheists, skeptics and freethinkers. Despite our non-religious nature, we are humbled by the universe’s majesty, in awe of life, and inspired to live ethically.”

As for the show-stopping evidence of a deity, or miracles, Conroy leans on logic.

“I don’t believe in any miracles,” he said. “I do believe that sometimes unexplainable things happen. And I believe that a long time ago, lots of stuff was unexplainable. Now, we’ve managed to explain more of it and I think that’s one of the beautiful things about the process of science.”

According to Posno, there most definitely is a God, the very one who created things like the majesty of the universe, but a simple belief in the existence of a ‘Higher Power’ has to take a backseat to the idea of faith.

“Life pushes us to ask different question, but in many instances, the questions are as important as the answers,” he said. “I can’t prove to you the existence of God, I can only say to you, I know for me and my heart, that there is more.”

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• Humanism, Having Its Ultimate Faith In Humankind, Believes That Human Beings Possess The Power Or Potentiality Of Solving Their Own Problems, Through Reliance Primarily Upon Reason And Scientific Method Applied With Courage And Vision.
• Humanism Believes In An Ethics Or Morality That Grounds All Human Values In Earthly Experiences And Relationships; One That Holds As Its Highest Goal This-Worldly Happiness, Freedom, And Progress (Economic, Cultural, And Ethical) Of All Humankind, Irrespective Of Nation, Race, Or Religion.
  SOURCE: The Philosophy Of Humanism By Corliss Lamont

The COHA Executive is pleased to announce the election results for the new Executive that will be co-ordinating the group activities for next year:

Paul Basset, President
Shawn P. Conroy, Vice-President
Alexander Hamilton, Treasurer
Andrew Noble, Membership Secretary
Rebecca Conroy, Secretary

To email any of the executives, simply email their first name at cohumanists dot ca. For general information, email info at cohumanists dot ca.

All COHA members in good standing may be nominated for a position on the COHA
Executive. Positions include President, Vice-President, Treasurer and
Secretary. Self-nominations are accepted, as well as nominations from
others.

All nominations must be received by Wednesday, October 31, 2007, which will be
the day of our next presentation, in one week’s time. The Central Ontario
Humanist Association’s Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday,
November 28, 2007. We will elect the new Executive at the AGM.