Sunday Meeting

Sunday, September 5 at 11:00 am

Superfluidity and the

Enigma of Consciousness

Presented by Sterling Bunnell

Sterling’s talk this morning will be on the nature of consciousness.

All of Sterling’s talks manifest his brilliant command of both theoretical explanations and historical examples: both theory and fact. Sterling is a rare generalist, a philosopher, freely sharing his thoughts in our world of guarded specialists. Hear Sterling talk, participate in the group discussion, and get the education you might have missed in the course of your life!

by

Joel Nakamura

To learn more about Sunday Programs held

at Humanist Hall

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Wednesday, September 29 at 7:30 pm

Blue Gold:  World Water Wars

by Sam Bozzo

Wars of the future will be fought over water, as they are today over oil, as the source of all life enters the global marketplace and political arena.  Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling fresh water supply, prompting protests, lawsuits, and revolution from citizens fighting for the right to survive.  Past civilizations have collapsed from poor water management.  Will ours too?

In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level as population and technology grows.  The rampant over-development of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the Earth.

Corporate giants force developing countries to privatize their water supply for profit. Wall Street investors target desalination and mass bulk water export schemes.  Corrupt governments use water for economic and political gain.  Military control of water emerges and a new geo-political map and power structure forms, setting the stage for world water wars.

This alarming film follows numerous worldwide examples of people fighting for their basic right to water, from court cases to violent revolutions to U.N. conventions to revised constitutions to local protests at grade schools.  As Maude Barlow proclaims, “This is our revolution, this is our war.”  A line is crossed as water becomes a commodity.  Will we survive?

http://bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/

To learn more about Film Series held

at Humanist Hall

click here

Wednesday, September 22 at 7:30 pm

Six Degrees could Change the World

by National Geographic Channel

By the year 2100, many scientists believe that the Earth’s average temperature could rise by as much as six degrees Celsius.  In a compelling investigation, National Geographic leads a degree-by-degree journey to explore what each rising — and critical — degree could mean for the future of people and the planet.  This spectacular film shows how global warming has already affected the reefs of Australia, the ice fields of Greenland, and the Amazonian rain forest.

The oceans are the critical carbon absorbing element and dead and dying coral is the “canary in the coal mine” indicator of coming disaster — dead oceans by 2050.  The Amazon is the next most critical element in global warming.  The film shows riveting views of the Amazon river drying up in 2005, and the potential scenarios of drought, fires,  and more drought in the Amazon.  All this devastation on land and in water is not to mention  the increasing destructiveness of weather — which today we are all aware of in the everyday news media.  One amazing esoteric point in the film is its spotlight on a man who figured out the total carbon footprint of the cheeseburger, to include the methane farts of the cows.

With a sobering look at the effects of our world’s insatiable appetite for energy, the film explains what’s real, what’s still controversial, and how existing technologies and remedies could help dial back the global thermometer. We are well on our way to 2-3 degrees rise in temperature right now.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/six-degrees-could-change-the-world-3188/Overview

To learn more about Film Series held

at Humanist Hall

click here

Wednesday, September 15 at 7:30 pm

Crude Impact

by James Jandak Wood

This amazing, eye-opening, and deeply disturbing film is simply the clearest exposition of peak oil and its far-reaching consequences.   It features interviews with leading experts in a variety of related fields.  It’s a sobering account of our dependence on ancient sunlight to power industrial civilization and the consequences we face as we top over the global oil production peak and enter the irreversible depletion phase.  The impact of peak oil has been profound.  The film focuses on the relationship between the size of the human population and the increasingly intensive extraction of resources.  The concept of peak oil itself is not fully expanded in the film until after an array of economic, political, social, and economic threads are systematically explored — then the full impact of peak oil then becomes frighteningly clear.

http://www.crudeimpact.com/

To learn more about Film Series held

at Humanist Hall

click here

Wednesday, September 8 at 7:30 pm

World in the Balance:

The Population Paradox

by NOVA

The staggering power of this film lies in its conceptual insights — how diverse and complex the twin problems of population growth and global warming have become.  This complexity makes the outcome near unpredictable and likely catastrophic.

Population growth is predicted to reach 9 billion by mid-century despite declining birth rates in industrial countries.  What is unexpected is the potential disastrous consequences of such declining birth rates in Europe and Japan;  the older generation vastly outnumbers the young, who will be unable to support them.  A different problem exists in Africa, where AIDS has devastated those in their prime, leaving both elderly and children uncared for.

China has a different dilemma;  it’s trapped by the rising affluence of its huge population resulting from industrialization without pollution controls, and finds it difficult to impose such controls without causing economic collapse and civil unrest.  The paradox posed here is that “backing down” the ladder of population growth is far more difficult than imagined;  as is “backing down” from industrialization or even imposing pollution controls on a nation whose population is finding new affluence.

Global warming is the other part of the dilemma;  at least significantly the result of over population and industrialization.  Global warming is no longer controversial in the financial world.  Neither population control nor pollution controls on levels significant enough to affect global warming seem likely in the near future.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/

To learn more about Film Series held

at Humanist Hall

click here

Friday, August 20 at 6:00 pm

Justice for Oscar Grant

Presented by Lesley Phillips

The New Years Movement 4 Justice is holding a benefit performance for justice for Oscar Grant! Spoken word and food will be plentiful and the featured performers will be:

Caribbean Allstars

performing “Jail Killer Cops”

Donations this evening will benefit Oscar Grant’s family and continued organizing in the movement for Justice for Oscar Grant, all New Years’ victims, and all victims of police abuse and brutality.

http://newyearsmovement.org

Wednesday, September 1 at 7:30 pm

Avatar

by James Cameron

James Cameron describes his science fiction tour de force as “a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence and an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience that aspires to a mythic level of storytelling.”  The enormous popularity of this magnificent film comes from the fact that it is primarily an action adventure journey of self-discovery in the context of imperialism and deep ecology (that is to say, in the context of our times).  The film is also a sensation because it debuts a number of revolutionary visual effects techniques — most notably in the 3D arena.

The film is an emotional journey of redemption and revolution — the story of a wounded former Marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in biodiversity and wonderfully inhabited by a tall, blue native people.  He eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous blue people in a battle for survival.  The story includes an entire world complete with an ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures and a native people with a rich culture and language.

This film has a great deal to say about native cultures that are close to nature, about exploitation of resources by technology, and about the mystery of life itself.  It will make its viewers think about the mystery of incarnation.  This is a deeply thoughtful production, a fact that will not be missed as viewers follow the carefully written action and adventure story line.  The theme, and the artwork, bear a signature that is unique in the history of filmmaking.

http://www.avatarmovie.com/

To learn more about Film Series held

at Humanist Hall

click here

Wednesday, August 25 at 7:30 pm

2001:  A Space Odyssey

by Stanley Kubrick




Here’s a landmark science fiction classic — perhaps still the best science-fiction film about exploration of the unknown.  It’s about space travel and the discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence.  It’s the predecessor of many popular science fiction films and TV shows to follow.  Coincidentally it was a prelude to orbiting and landing on the moon with Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 and it prophetically showed the enduring influence that computers would have in our daily lives.

This masterpiece is profound, visionary, and astounding as well as a tremendous visual experience.  It contains more spectacular imagery (about what space looked like) and special effects than verbal dialogue.  The first spoken word is almost a half hour into the film, and there’s less than 40 minutes of dialogue in the entire film.  Much of it is in dead silence (accurately depicting the absence of sound in space) or with the sound of human breathing within a spacesuit.  It’s breathtaking, richly eloquent, visually poetic and deliberately moves at a slow pace.  All scenes in the film have either dialogue or music (or silence), but never both together.  Viewers are left to experience the non-verbal, mystical vastness of space and to reach into their own subconscious and into the film’s pure imagery to speculate about its meaning.  Many people are inspired by the film’s story of how humans are dwarfed by technology and space.

http://kubrickfilms.warnerbros.com/video_detail/2001/

To learn more about Film Series held

at Humanist Hall

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Wednesday, August 18 at 7:30 pm

Forbidden Planet

by Fred M. Wilcox

Fifty years after its theatrical release, this amazing film still ranks as one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made  Not until Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was another science fiction film to approach its intelligence and depth and take such a thought-provoking approach to the human condition.

Inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Forbidden Planet is the story of an intrepid crew from the “United Planets” sent to investigate the fate of the Bellerophon, a ship that landed on the fourth planet of the star Altair twenty years before.  They find the only survivors, the scientist Morbius and his beautiful daughter Altaira.  In an eden-like setting, the scientist has been uncovering the remains and the secrets of a once-great society, the Krell, who flourished on the planet eons in the past.  Morbius explains that the Bellerophon settlers were hideously murdered by a unseen monster.  Only he and his family remained unaffected, and the ship itself was vaporized as the last settlers attempted to escape. He spent two decades exploring the vast spaces of the Krell’s mysterious underground power plant, and boosting his lowly human IQ to half the level of the Krells.

Forbidden Planet is the first film in which humans are depicted traveling in a flying saucer of their own construction.  And It ‘s the first science fiction film set on an alien world in deep space, far away from the Earth and its solar system. This film hallmarks the first film appearance of Robby the Robot, probably one of the most popular, recognizable, and enduring icons in science fiction film history.  Robbie was one of the first movie robots with a genuine personality — he  was more than just a tin can.

http://www.moria.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1483Itmid=1

To learn more about Film Series held

at Humanist Hall

click here

Sunday Meeting

Sunday, August  1  at 11:00 am

Brainwashing, Shellshock, and Millennialism

Presented by Sterling Bunnell

Sterling’s talk this morning will be an exploration of innate patterns in the human psyche and genome which help us survive prolonged stress.

All of Sterling’s talks manifest his brilliant command of both theoretical explanations and historical examples: both theory and fact. Sterling is a rare generalist, a philosopher, freely sharing his thoughts in our world of guarded specialists. Hear Sterling talk, participate in the group discussion, and get the education you might have missed in the course of your life!

To learn more about Sunday Programs held

at Humanist Hall

click here