CFI-OC's
FEED YOUR BRAIN Lecture Series
presents
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Jeff Schweitzer
Moral Life in a Random World
Sunday, June
21 at 4:30 p.m.
Is morality the biological destiny of humans, or do
they need religion to create their meaning
and sense of purpose in life? Can we find
happiness and fulfillment in life without
submitting to a higher power? Dr. Jeff
Schweitzer will answer these questions
as he has done in his new book, Beyond
Cosmic Dice: Moral Life in a Random World.
We will not appeal to religion or god,
Schweitzer says. Happiness and fulfillment
are derived from the freedom to discover
within ourselves our inherent good, and then
to act on that better instinct, not because
of any mandate from above or in obedience to
the Bible, but because we can.
Dr. Schweitzer is a scientist who has
written extensively on topics of morality,
religion, politics and science - how they
relate to each other and their importance in
today's polarized social environment. As a
former White House science advisor under the
Clinton Administration, he provided policy
advice and analysis to the President, Vice
President Al Gore and the director of the
Office of Science & Technology Policy. Dr.
Schweitzer says that from that perch, he
realized "that one critical element was
missing from global efforts to bring
science, conservation and development
together; there was no appropriate ethical
foundation providing a compelling mandate."
$8, or free for
Friends of the Center.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845 Park Ave.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
1 block west of Newport and Harbor Blvd.
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Prof. Amos Nur
Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God
Sunday, July 19
at 4:30 p.m.
Archaeologists and historians have traditionally
rejected earthquakes as an important aspect of out ancient past,
but now with the advent of plate tectonics and modern
instrumentation, new information is emerging as scientists, such
as Stanford University Prof. Amos Nur, begin to offer
answers to some key questions in both disciplines.
Prof. Nur, whose new book is Apocalypse: Earthquakes,
Archaeology, and the Wrath of God, will explore significant
geophysical and archaeological questions about earthquakes and
archaeological findings about regional destruction and
civilization collapse, focusing on the catastrophic end of the
Bronze Age circa 1200 B.C.E. He will also discuss how
earthquakes have played a role in the way religious beliefs
tried to comprehend the impact of catastrophic disasters.
Prof. Nur
is the Wayne Loel Professor of Earth Sciences at Stanford
University, where he has taught since 1970, and the current
director of the university's Overseas Studies Program. He
received his BS in geology from Hebrew University in Jerusalem
and his Ph.D. in Geophysics from M.I.T. For more than 20 years,
he has been investigating the temporal and spatial patterns of
earthquakes throughout history to find clues useful for
earthquake prediction.
$8, or free for Friends of the Center.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845 Park Ave.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
1 block west of Newport and Harbor Blvd.
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Brad Spellberg,
M.D.
The Rising Antibiotic Crisis
Sunday, August 16
at 4:30 p.m.
By the 1950s, the medical community predicted the end
of infectious diseases as a threat to society. In fact,
infections are a greater problem today than any time since the
first widespread use of penicillin in 1945. Infections are now
more frequent and antibiotic resistant, creating a critical need
for the development of new antibiotics - all during a time when
antibiotic development is dying.
In his talk, Brad Spellberg, M.D., will discuss the
causes and extent of antibiotic resistant infections and dying
antibiotic development, which he describes in his new book,
Rising Plague: The Global Threat from Deadly Bacteria and Our
Dwindling Arsenal to Fight Them. Spellberg will explain that
physician misuse or overuse of antibiotics is not the cause of
the problem, but that economic, regulatory, and political forces
are the causes. He will describe his own personal experiences at
the front line of this policy struggle, share compelling patient
stories , and describe a comprehensive plan that attacks the
problem of dying antibiotic development at multiple levels, and
will serve as a call to action for solving this problem.
Dr.
Spellberg is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the David
Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Los Angeles Biomedical
Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Spellberg
is an academic scientific investigator who sees patients,
teaches students and resident physicians, and has an NIH-funded
program in vaccines and immune-enhancing therapies. He is a
member of a national task force at the Infectious Diseases
Society of America charged with solving the antibiotic crisis.
$8, or free for Friends of the Center.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845 Park Ave.
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
1 block west of Newport and Harbor Blvd.
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Darrel Ray, Ed.D.
Exposing the God Virus: Religious Infection in Our Society
Sunday, September 20
at 4:30 p.m.
Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett opened the door
to a hard-nosed look at religion in our society, but no one
seemed to be using their concepts to explain the psychology of
religion and its practical effects on people. So Dr. Darrel
Ray, psychologist and author of The God Virus: How
Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture, stepped into this
gap to discuss religious infection from the inside out. How does
guilt play into religious infection? Why is sexual control so
important to so many religions? What causes the anxiety and
neuroticism around death and dying? How does religion inject
itself into so many areas of life, culture and politics?
Darrel Ray is an organizational psychologist and lilfelong
student of religion. He has degrees in sociology, anthropology,
and religion as well as a Doctor of Education degree in
psychology. Ray also is the founder of Recovering from Religion,
and organization devoted to helping people escape religion and
recover from its effects [www.recoveringreligionists.com]. He
has written two other books, both dealing with teams and
teamwork in the business world.
$8, or free for Friends of the Center. |
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