Past Events 2011

Annual Winter Solstice Event

Fantastic evening featuring two prominent North American humanist speakers:

DAN BARKER, co-president, Freedom from Religion Foundation

CHRISTOPHER diCARLO, activist & author of "How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass"

Plus:

Catered buffet; live music; appetizers; drinks; membership draw; socializing with friends!

Donations are appreciated and will go to Camp Quest Ontario - Canada's only annual summer camp for young freethinkers! Click on link for details: CAMP QUEST ONTARIO

HOW TO BECOME A REALLY GOOD PAIN IN THE ASS: Critical Thinker's Guide to Asking the Right Questions

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Click above for Mr. Deity interviewTalk, book signing, meet & greet with Dr. Christopher diCarlo

4:00 PM @ The Symposium Café & Lounge

304 Stone Rd W (Guelph)

Free for members; $5 non-members.

SOFREE members RSVP at: info@sofree.ca

The book can be purchased via our online bookstore at:

FREETHOUGHT BOOKS

How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass is a witty, engaging, and much-needed guide to critical thinking and its benefits by Dr. Christopher diCarlo. The purpose of this book is to provide readers with tools that will allow them to challenge beliefs and assumptions held by those who claim to know what they are talking about - from politicians, lawyers, bankers, doctors, the divinely inspired, even your boss. A really good pain in the ass is someone who is empowered with the ability to spot faulty reasoning and then, by asking the right questions, hold people accountable for what they believe and how they behave.

This book revolves around asking and answering five very important questions, referred to as: "The Big 5":

What can I know? Why am I here? What am I? How should I behave? What is to come of me?

The way you answer these questions can tell you a lot about yourself. And if you ask others, their answers will tell you a good deal about them, how they think, and what they value. Of course, if you persist in asking these questions, others may think you’ve become a pain in the ass... But that’s not such a bad thing according to Dr. DiCarlo because it means you have learned to think critically!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Christopher diCarlo is an award-winning activist for freethought, humanism, and secularism, a lifetime member of the Society of Ontario Freethinkers, an advisor to Freethought TV, an annual presenter at Camp Quest Ontario, and has given many enlightening talks at numerous humanist events all over the world. His lecture tour We Are All African has been presented across North America and has helped raised awareness of evolutionary theory and funding for the Masai for Africa, an HIV awareness program in Lesotho, Africa.

SATURDAY OCTOBER 1 @ World Religions Conference in Waterloo. As always, SOFREE presents the humanist side to conference themes. Join us for dinner after the conference. Please RSVP by September 30 if you can make it at info@sofree.ca

2011 Annual World Religions Conference

Click on link or image above for conference program details

10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Humanities Theatre, Hagey Hall, University of Waterloo

200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario

FREE: Admission * Presentations * Exhibits * Food and drinks

Camp Quest Ontario 2011: JULY 17 - 23

Canada's first and only humanist camp in Toronto this summer!

Sign-up deadline: JUNE 30

Email us for registration details

Donations are needed to help subsidize CQO. Please support our efforts by clicking on the donation button below:

If you wish to donate by mail, cheques must be made payable to: SOFREE, and mailed to: 550 King Street North, Box 42036, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6K5.

2011 highlights:

Meet an advanced humanoid robot
Interactive evolution workshop with live reptiles
Learn about crime scene investigations and develop forensic savvy to uncover hidden clues and collect evidence to solve a crime (with real forensics experts)
Take part in an exciting live "Whodunit?" mystery game
Learn about "real" haunted houses
Play our classic Capture the Flag outdoor game
Learn how to interview and write a good news story (with journalists, artists, poets)
Learn about the power, wonder, and scarcity of water with live demonstration
PLUS: humanism and secularism workshops, fabric painting, code-breaking, scavenger hunt, relay races, field trips, walking tours, piñata party... and more!

The Mind's Big Bang

SOFREE Movie Night

May 5, 2011 @ 7:00 PM

Large meeting room @ Grand River Stanley Park Library (Kitchener). Entrance off Heritage Drive. All welcome.

TVO Special

April 30, 2011 @ 5:00 PM

THE NEW ETHICS: A Synthetic Approach to Understanding Good and Evil with Dr Christopher diCarlo

Christopher diCarlo is a Philosopher of Science and Ethics whose interests in cognitive evolution have taken him into the natural and social sciences. His personal research focuses on how and why humans reason, think, and act the way they do. He is interested in how and why the human brain has evolved to its current state and what cross-cultural and cross-species behaviour can provide insight into universally common modes of reasoning. He is also interested in the application of neuroscience (specifically fMRI work), in an effort to better understand psychoneuroendocrine feedback looping in problem solving.

Dr. diCarlo is an outspoken activist for freethought, humanism and secularism. He is a fellow of the Society of Ontario Freethinkers and workshop presenter for Camp Quest Ontario.

Thursday March 24, 2011

Video presentation: Debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens

Grand River Stanley Park Library

7:00 - 9:00 pm

175 Indian Rd (Kitchener)

Take Ottawa St N from Hwy 85 to Heritage Rd; left on Heritage Rd. Parking lot is on left just past arena.

About the debaters:

TONY BLAIR became a Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in 1983 and leader of the Labour Party in 1994. He subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, and served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from May 1997 to June 2007. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since 1812. Since leaving Downing Street, Tony Blair has served as the Quartet Representative to the Middle East. He represents the USA, UN, Russia and the EU, working with the Palestinians to prepare for statehood as part of the international community's effort to secure peace. In May 2008, Blair launched his Tony Blair Faith Foundation which promotes respect and understanding between the major religions and makes the case for faith as a force for good in the modern world. Faith is vitally important to hundreds of millions of people. But religious faith can also be used to divide. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation is a response to these opportunities and challenges.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS is a British author, journalist and literary critic. Currently living in Washington, D.C., he has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, Slate, and a variety of other media outlets. He is visiting Professor of Liberal Studies at the New School in New York and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at the University of Stanford, California. Hitchens is also a political activist, whose best-selling books, flamboyance and erudition have made him a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. An outspoken atheist, Hitchens describes himself as a believer in the Enlightenment values of secularism, humanism and reason. His 2007 book God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything suggests that organized religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children."

Lecture by Dr Christopher diCarlo in Guelph and Oshawa:

The New Ethics: a Synthetic Approach to Understanding Good and Evil

In 2008, SOFREE's own Dr Christopher diCarlo won Ontario's Best Lecturer and was named Canada's Humanist of the year. He is a philosopher of science and ethics whose interests in cognitive evolution have taken him into the natural and social sciences. His research focuses on how and why humans reason, think, and act the way they do. In this special preview of his upcoming televised lecture, Dr diCarlo brings together aspects from philosophy, biology, the neurosciences, chemistry, physics, and the social sciences, in an attempt to articulate an epistemically responsible account of what it means for Homo Sapiens as naturally evolved beings to value the actions and behaviour of themselves and others. In order to do so, he believes we must understand the constrains under which someone has the ability to act in a certain way.