Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

On Tuesday I gave a talk to Leeds Atheist Society on animal consciousness. I wasn’t sure how well it went at first but the feedback came back very positive, despite one of the dolphins the audience telling me he didn’t believe animals were in fact conscious.

Last Sunday we saw the second Humanist Community meeting. It was a great success, things ran a lot smoother than last time (which I’m taking as a big victory and things ran very smoothly the first time to be honest), we matched our initial attendance which is always a challenge at a second meeting and the meal in the restaurant afterwards as excellent too. Roll on April!

At the recent meeting of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub Mike Granville delivered us the talk The Catholic Church: Big Church or Big Business? It was fascinating to learn that at the start of the 20th century the Catholic Church was actually on it’s knees and it was only alliances formed around World War II that restored it to power. Another interesting twist in the story of the Catholic Church.

Last Saturday I headed over to York to see Stewart Lee.

The opening had Simon Munnery opening for him who was in my opinion as good as Lee himself, especially when he moved onto Dawkins. “I’m writing a new book called The Salad Delusion. There’s no such thing as salad – it’s just different ingredients on a plate.”

Afterwards Stewart Lee came back to the stage for his new show, If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Please Ask For One. Yes the criticisms are true, he did spend around twenty minutes talking about how he wished Richard “The Hamster” Hammond was dead but then again, it’s just a joke, like on the Top Gear! In any case, highly recommend for fans of Stewart Lee ;).

On Friday we invited the Pentagram society to Perspective to talk about Paganism. It was a very interesting talk although I have to say I’m not a fan of Paganism, or certainly that brand of Paganism because it’s too wishy washy new age. While religions such as Christianity are clear they are making crazy claims in a take it or leave it fashion, the views expressed were very much trying to force a square peg into a round hole and say it fits.

For example one of the things suggested was that what we called magic thirty years ago is now called neuro-linguistic programming and so a lot of Paganism is things science simply doesn’t understand yet. That would almost be an argument if it wasn’t for the fact that NLP is for the most part unproven bullshit. More importantly it really smacks of when alternative medicine practitioners try to attribute something that clearly doesn’t work but they are still trying to sell as being something to do with quantum theory, taking advantage of the lack of public understanding of the topic.

It was also interesting to witness the fact they couldn’t actually work out what they believed in. Most religions have differences in their beliefs – just look at the amount of different denominations of Christianity (or even Islam which now has more and more developing despite stricter controls over it and even, unbelievably, Scientology) but they do at least have some common beliefs. 100% of Christians believe in Jesus for example whereas the Pagans didn’t seem to be able to give us anything they could say 100% of Pagans believed in which, as Chris Tedd did, raises the question “how do you even know your a Pagan?”

Finally I also felt there was a lack of internal consistency in the beliefs, probably resulting in the fact that they can’t really work out what it is they believe in. For example they started by talking about reincarnation and then later talked about talking to dead ancestors so Heini raised the question “how can you talk to dead ancestors if they have been reincarnated?”

A much better approach to take to the belief system I felt was the one presented to us at last year’s session on Paganism where out speaker basically said “I’m not going to lie to you, we made it all up in the 60s, but it works for me.” Never the less, it was a very interesting evening and well worth attending.

Yesterday saw a nationwide protest against the sale of homeopathic remedies at Boots. At cities across the UK, and indeed some in Australia and Canada too, people gathered to take a homeopathic overdose to show that there was in fact nothing in the pills at all.

At Leeds we managed to get 32 people down to the event most of which, including myself, downed an entire bottle of homeopathic arsenic and yet somehow survived. We also got a reporter from ITV’s Calendar news come down and featured us on their evening segment – I’ve yet to see it but I’ve heard a mixed reaction so far.

The response from Boots was a predictable one – homeopathy is recognised by the NHS (something which is in the process of changing as the government inquiry is quickly dismantling the case for it) and that many people use homeopathic remedies – of course many people read horoscopes that doesn’t mean there is any truth in them. But of course we knew they would just ignore the science and just try and insist that lots of people bought it so it must be true.

Most of the major papers have run stories about it today so we’re chalking this one down as a big success for the skeptics movement. A big thank you to everyone from Leeds Skeptics who came down to take part, Daryl for organising the Leeds event and the guys at Merseyside Skeptics for putting it all together.

On Friday, the new season of Perspective kicked off in Leeds with representatives from the Mormon faith coming down to talk to us. I was actually surprised how interesting and informative it is, there is actually quite a lot of deviation from traditional Christianity that is not immediately apparent.

We weren’t best prepared for the course not having things like plates but the food was never the less good and with Essentials now open until 10pm we even managed to source some coffee (Extras stocked it but they only had decaff so I just walked out).

On Tuesday Simon Singh came to the University of Leeds to talk about liable reform. Obviously as a free thinking group the Atheist Society was particularly concerned with such lawsuits for speaking out against obvious nonsense we asked Liberty@Leeds to be involved and had Sophie and Norm deliver a quick introduction on why it was important to us.

The talk itself was very good, it was both amusing and very informative. It is hard to believe how biased the legal system is (actually have studied law I don’t find it that unbelievable but that certainly isn’t a good thing) and how easy it is to bring a liable suit forward – makes me wonder what would happen if the thousands of people who have seen Simon speak and are behind him brought a frivolous suit against the BCA.

On Monday evening I headed over to York to speak at a meeting of the North Yorkshire Humanists a rather nice invite sat in between Ariane Sherine in December and Andrew Copson in February.

The talk went fairly well, I could really tell that it had been a while since I had done much public speaking and was somewhat out of practice but everyone I spoke to said they found it quite interesting and there were plenty of questions so the feedback was positive. Having run through it the night before I was a little taken aback at how much stuff I had so it’s probably for the best I kept things moving at a good speed.

Interestingly the street we were on, Priority Street, apparently has seven churches on it – five separate church buildings and two other church groups which meet in the same community centre as the Humanist group hold their meetings – most exciting of all was the Rock Church next door :D.

The decade is over and a new one has begun. So once you’re done clearing up from the wreckage of NYE parties and making arbitrary promises about how you are going to change your life, it might be nice to take a quiet moment to reflect on the fun and games we’ve enjoyed during the past year.

As usual the year began with January which was the month I got into Twitter just before it become cool. I also attended York Brights for the first time and launched Leeds Skeptics in the Pub. Meanwhile on the atheist front the bus campaign was in storming through and we officially won the Christmas vote.

The temperature dropped in February but there was plenty of emotional warmth as Perspective launched. We celebrated Darwin’s 200th birthday and Galileo Day with a traditional feast. Meanwhile down in London the AHS held it’s press launch.

It was a quiet month in March though with plenty of drinking of course including a RDF meetup. As part of my AHS work we began planning a society in Huddersfield and saw Durham through their first Reason Week. I also spoke for Humanism at the interfaith panel and launched the Humanist Action Group.

Most of our time in April was taken up by Rationalist Week 2009 whether it be planning, writing talks, gathering equipment or the week itself – and of course, being interviewed by the local press. This was shortly followed by the LAS AGM at which we elected Sophie as president.

Lighter nights resulted in be finally spending some quality time at the park in May as well as having a 4am post-close BBQ. It wasn’t all fun and games though as I set a new personal record with a 44 hour shift.

Summer was finally drawing near by June as Atheist Society celebrated with our End of Year Ball. The AHS held it’s AGM in Warwick and I worked my last day at Open Door Design. Meanwhile in the real world the BNP won two seats in Europe and Michael Jackson died.

Stress levels were running high in July as I battled with letting agents and finally made it in to my new apartment, not to mention swine flu running rampant. I celebrated 5 years of blogging and re-launched this website in preparation for the CWF website integration. Meanwhile Leeds Atheist Society went camping and HAG expanded our activities.

I kicked off the fun in August with a visit down to Swindon to visit Kieran and followed it up with a good warming of my house. We also said goodbye to Michelle and Rich went back in the closet meanwhile I got myself an iPhone and the Chris Worfolk Foundation was incorporated.

The arrivial of September saw the start of a new academic year but also resulted in us having to say goodbye to Felix. Elsewhere Si took another step towards becoming an alcoholic and Derren Brown correctly predicted the lottery numbers.

Change was afoot in the month of October as LAS got into it’s full swing for the 2009/2010 academic year. I celebrated by birthday, myself and Daryl planned the re-launch of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub and the Chris Worfolk Foundation held it’s first official trustee meeting.

Leeds was feeling the aftermath of the EDL protest in November as I filmed a debate for Ummah Channel and in a suprising twist attended a live sporting event in the way of the Four Nations Final. Leeds Skeptics rebooted at it’s new venue while the Chris Worfolk Foundation launched it’s new website, the Perspective leader’s guide and announced humanist communities.

Finally in December we won a huge victory in the form of Killing in the Name beating X-Factor to Christmas number one. I left The D after three years and tried to carry on my life under very testing conditions. Finally the year ended with a good old fashioned Circle party for New Year’s Eve amidst a very drunken weekend for myself and Kieran.

That concludes fun times ’09. Things will be no doubt be just as exciting in 2010 – officially the year of the Chris Worfolk Foundation, which I will be writing about later. And as if that wasn’t enough we even have a new Doctor Who as well! It’s all going on in the next twelve months.