What is our best protection against moral catastrophes such as the Holocaust and killing fields of Cambodia? Are such events a product of the collapse of traditional religious authority and the rise of secularism and atheism? Must we either return to traditional religious values and authority, or slide into moral relativism and nihilism? How do we raise moral citizens?
Chaired by Adrian Bailey from Birmingham Humanists, and introduced by Jane Wynne Willson.
Date: 17 May, 2013
Time: 7:00 pm for 7.30 pm start – 9.30 pm
About the speaker:
Stephen Law worked as a postman before first entering university as a mature student at the age of 24. He has a B.Phil and D.Phil in philosophy from the University of Oxford and was a stipendiary Junior Research Fellow in philosophy at Queen’s College, Oxford, for three years. He is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, Provost of Centre for Inquiry UK, and a member of the Humanist Philosophers Group.
He gave the first BHA Darwin Day lecture “Is creationism scientific?” in February 2002, and also wrote “Sleight of hand with faith”.
Specialist topics include: relevance of philosophy; philosophy and religion; philosophy and children; moral education; creationism v evolution.
Stephen is editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s new popular journal of philosophy Think: Philosophy For Everyone, and the author of a number of popular philosophy books, including The Philosophy Files (Orion, for adults and children 12+), The Philosophy Gym (Headline, winner of the Mindelheim philosophy prize), The Xmas Files and a book on faith schools called The War for Children’s Minds (Routledge). His most recent books include Really, Really Big Questions, for children age 9+ (Kingfisher), A Very Short Introduction to Humanism (2011), and Believing Bullshit (2011).
May 17th, 2013 7:00 PM
through
9:30 PM
Moseley Exchange
149-153 Alcester Road
Moseley
Birmingham, B13 8JP
United Kingdom
149-153 Alcester Road
Moseley
Birmingham, B13 8JP
United Kingdom
3 comments:
Do videos of these lectures ever get posted? If so, I'd like to watch one.
Cheers & thanks;
Dave
I'd second Dave's thoughts. I'm a parent and I'd like to think I'm doing it alright, but I'd be very interested in watching this.
Hello, at the talk I cited an extra case for Liberalism in terms of thought reform being carried out on Priests in China.
The text I got that from Kathleen E. Taylor was here on Page 17 (scroll up a bit):
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=D3tYeMLc4hQC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=brainwashing+priests+china&source=bl&ots=geb4XHqawJ&sig=T2jF_SBKbFC6iyQiST90v83pd4I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OoqeUfeDAqeo0QX_k4GgBQ&ved=0CGYQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=brainwashing%20priests%20china&f=false
I checked that you have cited her before. However this I think was cited from Robert Lifton's book 'Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism:
A Study of Brainwashing in China.'
I remember being sceptical about her account of the Jonestown masacre and how it didn't match up exactly on a documentary on the same topic, but I think it was a discrepency in describing a chain of events, but it wasn't that important to the theme of the book.
Lifton has also been mentioned here by a responder on this blog but his 8 signs of a cult is I think generally very important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQO3GsCgY4
Also I mentioned in the car park that there was a kids TV show that taught Philosophy called KNTV which was a BAFTA award winner in 2006: Well here is some of it and I challenge you to try not to laugh whilst watching it. They are addictive. Also I think General Smoliakov belongs in the bottom right of your Liberalism- Authoratarian Thought-behaviour graph.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF9x0vffr5Y
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