Following the talk by Antony Lempert on Tuesday, we headed down to D-Fusion for a bit of Reason Week karaoke. D-Fusion was friendly as always though disappointingly they have moved over to a new karaoke system which is really difficult to use and has no where near the selection.
On Tuesday, Dr Antony Lempert, coordinator of the Secular Medical Forum, delivered us a talk on Cutting Religion out of Medicine.
I’ve heard Antony talk twice before, he spoke at the 4th Leeds Skeptics in the Pub event and again at last year’s Enquiry Conference and he always delivers an excellent performance, so it was great to see that he had been asked to speak at Reason Week.
As an extra bonus, he also brought his trophy having been named Academic of the Year at the Erotic Awards 2010.
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 Thursday, it was Elina’s birthday, so to celebrate I took her out to dinner to the somewhat either arrogantly or naively titled The Restaurant on City Square.
It isn’t a restaurant that I had been to before, which in some way is part of its appeal as it is quite embarrassing having lived directly in the city centre for 18 months now when a restaurant comes up in conversation and I have to admit that I haven’t actually eaten there yet.
I turned out to be an excellent choice – it was somewhat more upmarket that I had anticipated and the staff were very friendly though it was a little noisy in comparison to the nice quiet meal I was originally aiming for.
The food was excellent too, I had the steak which I would say successfully bested the one I had had at Brooklyn Bar on my man-date with George last week, but not up to the standard of the the real Leeds powerhouses of the steak world – Blackhouse and River Plate.
The wine was great too, though I’m somewhat annoyed I’m developing a richer taste for wine because quite frankly it’s just irritating having to spend more money on good wine because you can really tell the difference (oh to be 19 again).
Recommended if you’re looking for somewhere slightly more upmarket than your standard city centre restaurant while still somewhere near the reasonably priced bracket.
On Wednesday, we welcomed Hull & East Riding Humanists secretary Tim Stephenson over to Leeds to present the Perspective Citywide session on Humanism. Tim’s talk was excellent, looking at both the philosophical side behind Humanism and also why it is important to stand up and be counted as a Humanist.
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 Sunday, myself, James and Elina headed down to Hope City Church.
Officially I think they come under the label of a “charismatic” church, which means they are hip, young and evangelical. They were founded twenty years ago by a mysterious figure that everyone refers to as Pastor Dave and has now spread to six different cities – one of which is in Africa.
Their new “Megacentre” is located in a former warehouse, which seems to be the trendy place to put a church these days and as we went in, we made or way to the brand new auditorium complete with an iMac controlled technical set-up, full band on stage and video link-up facilities so they can broadcast the news from across the Hope City Church family.
After the service, Joel very kindly sorted us out with tea and coffee (actually, I somewhat threw them when I asked if they had any cold drink) and we hung out in the “Impressions Cafe” on some very comfortable sofas. The biscuits were good but not quite up to the standard of York Rock Church which even had branded cups!
We came away with a welcome pack of goodies which included Hope City Church magazine, which was incredibly glossy and well printed, and featured a story on 20 years of Hope City Church. It was interesting to see that they had tried to start a number of satellite churches over the past two decades, some of which had worked out, others apparently hadn’t. It was interesting to see that they have become a success story – expanding into Frankfurt this November – by sheer force of will and not giving up. It may not be our cause, but it could certainly be good inspiration.
For the forth session of Perspective Citywide, we welcomed Joel Baker to talk about Christianity.
Joel is currently serving as the interfaith secretary for the Christian Union at Leeds and discussions were very forthcoming – I had to call an end to them in the end because we ran out of time. A big thanks to Joel for coming down and very much looking forward to Tim tonight.
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.
