BC Humanists Podcast

This is final section of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A...

This is part eight of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Gu...

This is part seven of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Gu...

This is part six of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Guid...

This is part five of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Gui...

This is part four of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Gui...

This is part three of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Gu...

This is part two of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Guid...

This is part one of our guide for anyone non-religious (humanist, atheist, agnostic) preparing for their own, or witnessing a loved one at the end of their life. This guide is also for those who are simply interested in learning more about the humanist perspective of life & death. For information and support about experiencing a loss, please read our second guide, Memorials & Grief: A Guid...

This event was originally held live on Zoom on August 13, 2020.

In the wake of George Floyd's murder, mass protests and calls to action across the globe have cast a light on critical issues of systemic racial discrimination and dehumanization. In a continuation of our lecture series taking a humanist look at systemic racism and criminal justice, our presenter Corey Clay focuses in this talk on how racial dehumanization intersects with wider issues around crimi...

From the Research Desk is a regular check in with our executive director, Ian Bushfield on some of the current projects that our campaigns teams are working on. This talk, recorded on June 5, 2020, is on some of our work on private schools in British Columbia. We've previously documented the background of their funding model, shown that everyone appointed to oversee independent schools has come fr...

From the Research Desk is a regular check in with our research team, Dr Teale Phelps Bondaroff and Ian Bushfield, on some of the current projects that our campaigns teams are working on.  This talk was broadcast on May 15, 2020. In this talk, Ian & Teale talk about our work on charity law. Watch the video of this talk Join or Donate to the BC Humanist Association Creative Commons intro mu...

Introducing a new virtual program from the BC Humanist Association. From the Research Desk is a weekly check in with our research coordinator, Dr Teale Phelps Bondaroff, on some of the current projects that our campaigns teams are working on.  Our first broadcast was on Friday, April 3, 2020. In this talk, Teale talks about our findings on the use of prayers in provincial and municipal govern...

At the end of November, MLAs voted unanimously to begin every day's sitting of the BC Legislature with "prayers and reflections" rather than "prayers." The change followed the publication in September of the BC Humanist Association's landmark  House of Prayers Report . The Report examined the transcripts of 873 prayers said in the legislature between October 2003 and February 2019. It al...

Furquan Gehlan is currently Co-Chair of the Vancouver chapter of Canadian Peace Initiative and is also on the board of the Global Alliance for Ministries and infrastructures for peace. From 2013 to 2019 he was the National Co-chair of Canadian Peace Initiative. He is currently chapter coordinator for World BEYOND War’s Metro Vancouver chapter  and is focused on d...

Via wikipedia: David Barsamian (born 1945) is an Armenian-American radio broadcaster, writer, and the founder and director of Alternative Radio, a Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly public affairs program heard on some 250 radio stations worldwide. David spoke at the Vancouver Humanists Sunday meeting on October 20, 2019. Photo by Shahen books - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikim...

AccessBC are a group of young people from around British Columbia who are concerned with removing barriers to accessing prescription contraception. Visit https://www.accessbc.org/ Bree is a multi-disciplinary activist originally hailing from Dartmouth, NS. Trans-spectrum, chronically ill, queer, disabled, and experiencing poverty, Bree’s primary focus is on Safer Spaces, Harm Reduction, and Access...

THE GWANGJU TRAGEDY AND HOW SOUTH KOREA BECAME A DEMOCRACY (Via Wikipedia) In May 1980, peaceful demonstrations took place in Gwangju against Chun Doo-hwan, leader of the South Korean military coup d'état of December 12, 1979. The demonstrations were suppressed by military forces, including elite units of the Special Operations Command. The situation escalated after a violent crackdown, resulting...

Apologies for the poor audio quality in this recording. Charlotte Ross is a nurse who recently completed her PhD Thesis in SFU's Department of Health Sciences. Her research looked at substance use practices among nurses across Western Canada. Her work highlights the prevalence of AA or 12-Step based practices, despite participants disagreements with the moral and religious basis. She has interroga...

Boris Reitman runs the local Atheism Q&A meetup and has a background in philosophy. In this talk he will talk about his group and give one of his presentations on the origins of Judaism. To learn more about the BC Humanist Association visit https://www.bchumanist.ca

Lisa Shapiro is a professor of philosophy at Simon Fraser University. She heads New Narratives in the History of Philosophy, which aims to develop new narratives of our philosophical past that centrally include women thinkers, and thereby to reconfigure, enrich and reinvigorate the philosophical canon, focusing on the early modern period (roughly 1560-1810). In this talk she touches on the New Nar...

Are some animals more equal than others? SFU Professor Arne Mooers expands on his recent piece in The Conversation to look at the philosophy and ethics underlying efforts at conservation. https://theconversation.com/losing-some-species-may-matter-more-than-losing-others-108337

Bethany Lindsay is a CBC news reporter and former biologist. In 2018, she published investigations into bogus medical claims being made online, the lack of oversight of alternative medicines and BC chiropractors who promoted anti-vaccine messaging. She previously worked for the Vancouver Sun, North Shore News and CTV. She is the author of British Columbia Burning: The worst wildfire season in BC h...

Laura is a human rights lawyer and the Director of Education in Community Legal Assistance Society's Human Rights Clinic. She advocates on behalf of people who have experienced discrimination and assists complainants to navigate BC’s human rights process. Laura also has a strong interest in making legal knowledge accessible. She delivers workshops and presentations to a wide variety of audiences t...