Posts Tagged ‘Leeds Atheist Soc’

Monday of Reason Week saw us host a panel discussion on Religion as a Human Creation. The panel included two speakers from the Sea of Faith, the non-theist Quaker chaplain from the university chaplaincy and our very own Gijsbert talking on behalf of Humanism.

I’m not quite sure we briefed all of the speakers on the topic quite well enough – Gijsbert was perhaps a little too assertive – making valid points that I am sure we would all agree with – but maybe not really required at an event where we all already agree that religious is a human creation.

I really enjoyed the discussions that you might be forgiven if you came away from the event still wondering what Sea of Faith actually is. Much like the Quakers, they don’t have a set doctrine, so they don’t actually have a list of things they believe. However, Sea of Faith and Quakers seem to share a common theme of taking the good out of something that most of them don’t actually believe is there.

Thanks to everyone who helped out to make Leeds Reason Week 2011 a fantastic success. A big thanks to whose who put the time in during the day the man the stall and allow us to talk to so many people and it is great to see James successfully made it through the week without exploding from organising everything – good result all round!

On Tuesday, Atheist Society hit Stick and Twist for what was officially a Think and Drink, though more importantly was also steak night at Wetherspoon’s :D.

Last Tuesday I delivered a talk entitled “A History of Atheist Charity” at Leeds Atheist Society. I’m not sure how accurate the title was, it also looked at religious charities and why we shouldn’t expect atheist charities, before going on to discuss atheist charities past and present. The feedback was positive however, so it seemed to go quite well.

On Tuesday, we celebrated Galileo Day. The day started with Michael delivering the Galileo Day Lecture on the life and works of the man himself. Unfortunately I ended up missing most of the talk as I had to take some phone calls. Luckily I’m fairly familiar with the subject anyway having contributed to the recently published Galileo Day pack.

Afterwards, we headed down to Red Hot World Buffet for some all you can eat goodness. I ended up setting a new personal record, getting through seven plates, so I’m fairly sure that isn’t something to be proud of lol. I was actually ready to give up after five but then when I found out that Elina was on her sixth, I had to up my game.

Last Friday saw the second session of Leeds Atheist Society‘s 2011 Perspective. Unfortunately the speaker, who was going to be speaking on Hinduism, was unable to do the Friday, so Norm kindly stepped in at the last minute to save the event and talk about Humanism.

On Friday, the first session of Perspective 2011 took place with Robin Fishwick talking to us about the Quakers.

On Tuesday, James delivered the first Leeds Atheist Society talk of 2011, on alternative medicine.

Last Sunday I spent five and a half hours in meetings. I think that has to be somewhere near a new record for a Sunday.

The day started with a Reason Week planning brunch, which was productive, though didn’t actually include any food which was disappointing. Things are starting to fall into place for the week, which is promising given how close we are to it lol.

The second meeting was a Foundation trustee meeting which produced some interesting results – more on that will be announced soon, I’m sure.

On Monday, we headed down to Sheffield Skeptics to see a talk by Richard Wiseman. Despite struggling to see the screen, which is a little annoying in a talk mostly about optical illusions lol, it was a really enjoyable evening and managing to get a quick chat with Richard I can see it was well worth going down for.

On Tuesday, Atheist Society began it’s regular Tuesday night meetings (See You Next Tuesday 😉 ) with a screening of the Chris Morris film, Four Lions. It’s an awesome film and well worth a watch. Though it did take us ages to get the film working despite bringing it on four different formats! So you can’t say we didn’t have a backup plan lol.

On Wednesday, I headed up to York for a York Brights meeting. It has been a while since I last saw them and could be a while again with Perspective Citywide starting so it was good to see everyone, and interesting conversation was provided aplenty as always.

Finally, on Thursday I was at a Humanist Society of West Yorkshire committee meeting which was great because the meeting was both efficient and productive – which tends to make a change from most committee meetings I’m in lol.