Orange County Groups
The Center for Inquiry-West wants to gather freethinkers and rational
people in a purely social setting. We want to introduce people who share a
common rational worldview - that is, the idea that the universe operates
on principles and ideas which are or will be explained by science and
rational means. Paranormal and religious followers have, in many ways,
dominated the media and the culture. Consequently, many skeptics and
non-religious people experience a feeling of isolation in their
communities, and even among friends and family. We seek to erase that
feeling by getting some of the thousands of freethinkers and rationalists in
the area together.
We sincerely hope you'll join us.
Click on the links below to jump to different
groups and meetings.
Upcoming Orange
County Events:
▪ David Hurwitz, Feb. 17
▪ Austin Dacey, March 30 (held in
place of the March 16 talk) -
The Austin Dacey talk will be held at 3:30
p.m. at the Costa Mesa Library at 1855 Park Avenue
(adjacent to the Community Center).
▪ Ibn Warraq, April 20
OC Skeptics Supper Club
CFI Community of Orange County
The Fullerton Atheists and Agnostics
Students for Science and Skepticism
Upcoming Orange County Events
CFI-L.A.'s
FEED YOUR BRAIN Lecture Series
presents
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The Lie Heard
'Round the World
 with David Hurwitz
Sunday, Feb. 17
4:30 p.m.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845
Park Ave. in Costa Mesa
map
$6, or
free for Friends of the Center |
What would the American Revolution have been without
repudiation of monarchy and the establishment of an independent country
based on "securing freedom and property to all men, and above all
things, the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of
conscience*"? Did you know that prior to the January 10, 1776
publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense there was little
interest in independence, and longstanding bonds of loyalty to the King
of England were still strong in the Colonies?
This talk will
be rich in sourced quotations from leading participants in the struggle. The record is clear that the call to
independence was initiated by Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
Attendees are encouraged to
re-read the approximately 50 page document (which is available online),
to get a sense of how it electrified --to use Jefferson's
word-- the Colonists, and was thus able to take advantage of the perfect
moment in terms of political events and psychological readiness to
achieve such a radical shift in worldview.
*Quoted from Common
Sense.
David Hurwitz is a
former electronic engineer with years of experience working for
various high tech companies in Southern California. He is currently
in the process of founding a revolutionary Internet start-up that
essentially re-invents the debate for key societal issues in an
exciting new way featuring world-class experts and authorities,
which utilizes streaming video and proprietary features which would
not be possible in traditional real-time formats. This will result
in the creation of continuously available gold-standard debates
which overcome the fundamental and practical limitations of
traditional formats which include superficiality, interruptions,
lack of opportunities for methodical challenge, and unavailability
of source documentation to resolve disputes about the actual wording
of the sources.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845
Park Ave. in Costa Mesa
One block West of Harbor and Newport blvd.
map |
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CFI-L.A.'s
FEED YOUR BRAIN Lecture Series
presents |
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Austin Dacey
The Secular Conscience
Sunday, March 30 at
3:30 p.m.*
$6, or
free for Friends of the Center |
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Who decides what is moral and what is not in
society? Cultural conservatives from the Vatican to
Washington say that ethics presupposes religion,
which thus belongs in public life. Secular liberals
counter that conscience is a private matter, a
personal choice free from shared standards of truth
or right.
In his new book, The Secular Conscience,
philosopher Austin Dacey breaks
this ideological deadlock by boldly rethinking the
nature of conscience and its role in public life.
Inspired by an earlier tradition he traces to
Spinoza and John Stuart Mill, Dacey urges secular
liberals to reclaim the language of objective
values.
Dacey, who holds a doctorate in applied ethics and
social philosophy, serves as a CFI representative to
the United Nations working on issues of secular
values, science and ethics. He is also on the
editorial staff of Skeptical Inquirer and
Free Inquiry magazines.
This lecture will first be given at
11 a.m. at CFI-L.A. in Hollywood.
*Please
note: This lecture has been moved from the usual
time and location! It is now at 3:30 p.m. at the
Costa Mesa Library at 1855 Park Avenue. This is
immediately adjacent to the regular Community Center
meeting place, to the North. We apologize for the
inconvenience. |
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CFI-L.A.'s
FEED YOUR BRAIN Lecture Series
presents
|
Ibn Warraq
The Apologists of Islam
Sunday, April 20 at
4:30 p.m.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845
Park Ave. in Costa Mesa
$6, or
free for Friends of the Center
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Conflicting assessments about the character
of radical Islam today are reminiscent of
past disputes about the nature of communist
systems. Attention should be paid to earlier
analyses of radical Islam by important
Western scholars and thinkers. In both
cases, central to the disagreements has been
these questions: To what degree do beliefs
and ideologies determine policies or
behavior? How closely did ideas shape
actions?
Ibn Warraq, an independent scholar
and a leading figure in Koranic criticism,
will answer these questions in his talk. A
senior fellow at the Center for Inquiry-Transnational,
he has written five books on Islam and
Koranic criticism, including Why I am Not
a Muslim and the forthcoming Which
Koran? His most recent book is
Defending the West: A Critique of Edward
Said's Orientalism. Copies of his book
will be available for sale and signing.
This lecture will first be given at
11 a.m. at CFI-L.A. in Hollywood.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845
Park Ave. in Costa Mesa
map |
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OC Skeptics
Supper Club
Meets the second Thursday of each month at 7:30pm
The monthly
skeptical supper club in Orange County meets for
dinner on the second Thursday of each
month.
The
get-together is intended for those who are pro-science and
anti-pseudoscience, including skeptics, atheists, and
humanists, but all are welcome. The
site is convenient to the 5, 57, and 22
freeways:
Hof’s Hut
4050 W. Chapman
Orange, CA 92868
(corner of Chapman and Lewis, right across the street from the Crystal
Cathedral)
map
Menu entree items
range from about $5 to $15. For more info, please
contact Dave Richards at:
david@iigwest.com
CFI Community of Orange County
For information, email Dave Richards
david@iigwest.com.
The Fullerton Atheists and Agnostics
A chapter of the
Campus Freethought Alliance. Please contact Fullerton
Atheists and Agnostics president Brandon Johns at
fullertonskeptics@shoutmail.com, or phone (909) 924-1885 for more info.
Students for Science and Skepticism
at University of California,
Irvine
http://spirit.dos.uci.edu/sss.
Fax and voice mail: 1-206-201-8828.
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