Feed Your Brain Lecture Series
Please join us at 4:30 p.m. on the third Sundays of every month for our FEED YOUR BRAIN programs.
These events feature fascinating authors, scholars, and luminaries from many fields that expand our knowledge and understanding of the world and the people who inhabit it. CFI's naturalistic approach to wisdom holds that there is no issue exempt from examination and discussion. Admission to these events is $8, or free for Friends of the Center, unless otherwise noted.
Held at the Costa Mesa Community Center, 1845 Park Ave. Costa Mesa, CA 92627
1 block west of Newport and Harbor Blvd.
Upcoming Events:
4:30 p.m., Sunday, June 21
Jeff Schweitzer
Moral Life in a Random World
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."
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4:30 p.m., Sunday, July 19
Prof. Amos Nur
Apocalypse: Earthquakes, Archaeology, and the Wrath of God
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.
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4:30 p.m., Sunday, August 16
Brad Spellberg, M.D.
The Rising Antibiotic Crisis
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.
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4:30 p.m., Sunday, September 20
Exposing the God Virus: Religious Infection in Our Society
Darrel Ray, Ed.D.
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, an 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.
