Online Forum: Fear of Science and its Origins - Allan Griff


Details
Because of the coronavirus situation, this Forum will be held online.
If you don't intend to ask any questions or make any comments during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view the Forum as it occurs (in real time):
https://www.echoplexmedia.com/humanist
If you may want to ask a question or make a comment during this Forum, then please click the below link on Sunday around 11 a.m. in order to view, and possibly take part in, the Forum as it occurs (in real time):
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/314247393
Note: If you don't have the Zoom app installed on your desktop computer, then joining the meeting via the above link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer, and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your smart phone, and then enter 314247393 as the "meeting number" that you want to "join".
----------
This online, general audience discussion Forum will be on the topic of:
"Fear of Science and its Origins"
It’s easy today to see examples of opposition to scientific conclusions. If the denial of global warming isn’t enough, we have the current polarization around masks and exposure to COVID.
It starts in childhood, where we are told by people twice our size and strength who give us the food and shelter we need that we are to behave in certain ways and, especially, restrain natural Impulses.
Consequences of disobedience depend on the trainers, but the response is usually successful. Sometimes an external enforcer is invoked, perhaps a hands-on god, or karma, or whatever you want to call it, but it is comforting that something is reining in the willful and selfish. This training pattern is then learned and helps to bind social grouping -- a primary function of religion; another Is explanation of the unknown, which supports the need for miracles. The more impossible the miracle, the more powerful the miracle-maker.
For a longer description of this talk, please visit:
http://www.humanists.org/blog/2020-08-09/
Allan Griff is an unretired senior, born 1933 in New York City, the only child of immigrant Lithuanian-Jewish parents (a social worker and a nurse). He was educated there (Cornell chemical engineering, Columbia anthropology), self-dependent since college and self-employed since 1961.
Allan identifies as traditional Jewish and knows history and traditions well, but is not affiliated with any religious group, and sees Western Christian culture as an extension of Jewish origin and a primary source of his values. As a scientist, he sees Darwinian survival principles as applying to culture as well as biology.
----------
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humanistcommsv/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HumanistCommSV/
Website: http://www.humanists.org/blog/
Videos of previous forums: https://vimeo.com/hcsv/
To help our Forum series continue, please consider making a donation or becoming a member (http://www.humanists.org/blog/membership/) of the Humanist Community.
Do your online shopping at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/94-6173979, and Amazon donates to the Humanist Community every time you do.
Note: If you would like to speak at a Forum, or know of someone who you think might be willing to speak at a Forum, please send an email about your idea to the HCSV Program Committee (hc-program@googlegroups.com).

Online Forum: Fear of Science and its Origins - Allan Griff