Show Your Support at Halifax Events: Rally, Meeting, Debate
Events February 23rd, 2009If you’re in or around Halifax come support the Atheist Bus Campaign this Tuesday or Wednesday! I’ll be around at the following events, the descriptions of which I am copying from various promotional listings:
1. Silent Rally: Show your support for free speech — oppose Metro Transit’s censorship
Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Grand Parade (Just outside of City Hall)
It has been three weeks since Metro Transit — a publicly-funded organization, bound by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — publicly announced their intention to censor our message.
Citing a policy that ads “must not be objectionable to any race, creed, or moral standard,” Metro Transit expressed their desire to protect the delicate sensibilities of Haligonians from a point of view that might… differ from their own!
Despite the public outcry from atheists and religious folk alike — all of whom are concerned about the implications of this decision for free speech — Metro Transit has, to date, refused our repeated requests to meet with them in the hopes of coming to an amicable resolution.
Facebook Event for Tuesday’s Silent Rally
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=64919326864
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2. Dalhousie Atheist Community and the future of Secular activism in Halifax
A meeting with CFI Canada’s Executive Director, Justin Trottier
Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 6:00pm – 9:00pm
Council Chambers — Dalhousie Student Union Building, 2nd floor
6136 University Ave
As a Centre for Inquiry campus group, Justin will be meeting with the Dalhousie Atheist Community to discuss free speech and the atheist bus campaign. This will flow into an organizing meeting for those interested in the Centre for Inquiry’s campus and off campus groups in Halifax.
Interested in becoming more a part of freethought activism in Nova Scotia? Want to help grow the DAC and help foster similar groups in the Maritimes?
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=64919326864#/event.php?eid=67560982585&ref=ts
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3. Just in Time Debate: Can We Be Good Without God?
Is religion foundational to our collective sense of right and wrong? Can a purely secular society maintain its moral grounding?
Panel: Eric Beresford, President, Atlantic School of Theology; Justin Trottier, Executive Director, Centre for Inquiry Canada. Moderated by Kevin Kindred, Legal Counsel, Bell Aliant
Scotiabank Theatre
Sobey School of Business
Saint Mary’s University 7-9 pm.
Free Admission
Facebook Event for Wednesday’s CCEPA Debate
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=51125909817
February 25th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Re: Can we be Good without God ?
Chris, H, Jim, Nick, Hal, Trevor, Vronvron, Justin etc.
Ok – Now that we know for “almost certain” that there is no god(s). How do we improve the world ?
Have any of you read Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is within you”
It’s not about “God”, by the way – so you don’t need to be afraid to read it. It has some excellent ideas on how to make the world a better place. It was a key piece of literature for Martin Luther King Jr.and Mahatma Ghandi.
It helped to end slavery and free India.
I believe that the only way to make the world a better place is to stop all the killing. Passive and non-violent resistance.
What are your thoughts ?
February 25th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Can we be good ?
Sanatana Dharma recognizes that the Ultimate Reality, which is the ground of infinite potentiality and actualization, cannot be limited by any name or concept. The potential for human wholeness (or in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, liberation, transformation, blessedness, nirvana, moksha) is present in every human being. No race or religion is superior and no color or creed is inferior. All humans are spiritually united like the drops of water in an ocean.
Therefore:
Don’t enforce one belief, one way of worship or one code of conduct for all. Do not attempt to destroy different forms of worship, claiming your own way to be the only right one. Such enforcement of uniformity would be un-natural and contrary to the Divine Law. It hinders the progress of a human being in his/her journey to the state of divinity.
Give importance to sincerity of heart and nobleness of conduct in the field of religion. Do not claim to have obtained from God, exclusive and irrevocable power of attorney to be a dictator and to persecute others on behalf of God, because they do not agree with you.
Don’t claim to have bound the Boundless God. Do not create inter-religious wars and massacres, forcing your claims and dogmas on others.
Give a person freedom to think, freedom to believe, freedom to disbelieve and freedom to adopt a way of worship, which suits his/her temperament. After all, what is important in worship of God is the sincerity of heart, not the outer form of worship.
Don’t divide the human race into conflicting armies and camps of Holy believers and Unholy Others.
http://sanatana-dharma.tripod.com/
February 26th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Dear Gabriel or gabriel (which is it?) —
First you say you are almost certain there are no gods, and then you talk about divine law. Nonsense.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:49 am
H of h
You don’t have a clue, do you.