| 25/01/22 | Can you live forever and would you want to? | People have always been puzzled and concerned by why and how they grew old, got sick and died. Millennials are the first humans born into a world in which those questions have answers and those answers are inspiring billion-dollar companies to create new treatments. What causes ageing? How does it make us ill? Can we all extend our lives in good health beyond 120 years? What will it cost? If we could, would we want to? And if not, why not? |
| 22/02/22 | Do We Really Need Leaders? | We have all followed leaders, whether they be parents, teachers, managers, politicians, etc. What are the qualities of a good leader? Do we even need them? Should they be paid more than the people they lead? What does “taking full responsibility” mean these days? |
| 22/03/22 | Religion or Belief in Britain: New data, new thinking | What are the implications of changes in our religion/belief landscape, especially for the Established Church? Are values becoming more significant than beliefs? If so, what does that mean for humanists? |
| 26/04/22 | Twenty Years of Weird Science at Goldsmiths | Opinion polls show that the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur. Such widespread experience of and belief in the paranormal can only mean one of two things. Either the paranormal is real, in which case this should be accepted by the wider scientific community which currently rejects such claims; or else belief in and experience of ostensibly paranormal phenomena can be fully explained in terms of psychological factors. |
| 24/05/22 | Humanists UK Campaigns | Humanists UK devotes much of its time to campaigning and lobbying on behalf of the non-religious as well as for freedom of religion, belief, speech, thought, and expression more generally. They work for an open society and a secular state with no religious privilege or discrimination based on religion or belief. The charity also campaigns for a rational approach to public ethical issues in order to contribute to a public life where decisions are made on evidence rather than on the basis of irrational beliefs or religious doctrines. |
| 14/06/22 | My journey from Christianity to humanism, with Peter Tatchell | Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for human rights since 1967. He is best known for two attempted citizen’s arrests of the Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe, one of which resulted in him being beaten unconscious. He is Director of the human rights organisation, Peter Tatchell Foundation. |
| 25/07/22 | Social Event @ Fox Goes Free, Charlton | Social Walk |
| 27/09/22 | Nuclear disarmament and more, talk by Dr Rebecca Johnson | Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the spectre of nuclear war. Veteran activist Dr Rebecca Johnson speaks out. Rebecca Johnson is a British peace activist and expert on nuclear disarmament. She is the director and founder of Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy as well as a co-founding strategist and organiser of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. |
| 25/10/22 | Stoicism, Humanism and Environmentalism | Christopher Gill is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter, having also taught at Yale, Bristol, and Aberystwyth Universities. He has written extensively on Stoic ethics and psychology and ancient philosophy in general; his latest book is Learning to Live Naturally: Stoic Ethics and its Modern Significance, forthcoming with Oxford University Press. In recent years he has been actively involved in Modern Stoicism, an organisation which aims to present Stoic ideas as life-guidance to a wide audience and he has given many talks in that connection. |
| 22/11/22 | Putting the non-religious into religious education | Luke Donnellan is the Director of Understanding Humanism at Humanists UK where he leads their resource development, school speakers programme, and teacher training. He is the co-author of Understanding Humanism and creator of two online courses on humanism: Introducing humanism, and Humanist lives. Before working at Humanists UK he was a primary school teacher and a producer director of video resources for teachers and schools, and other factual entertainment programming. |