Event Report: Atheism research at the 2015 IAPR World Congress

http://blog.nsrn.net/2015/10/19/event-report-atheism-research-at-the-2015-iapr-world-congress/

← Event Report: American Psychological Association Annual Conference

Event Report: Atheism research at the 2015 IAPR World Congress

Posted on October 19, 2015 by katieaston

In this post, Thomas Coleman discusses the conference the International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR) 2015 World Congress (17th-20th August 2015). Coleman takes us on a tour of the conference, through panels of interest to him on topics of atheism, disbelief and nonreligious mystical, or transcendent, experience.

Buddhist View on Evolution and Creation - - Khenpo Sodargye

http://buddhism.uk/events/english/buddhist-view-evolution-and-creation-khenpo-sodargye

Buddhist View on Evolution and Creation - - Khenpo Sodargye

Event type:

• Free

 City:

• London

 Date: 

22 Oct 2015

 Time: 

18.15 - 20.15pm

The Role of Faith in British Schools/Education

The Role of Faith in British Schools/Education

http://se-faithforum.net/national-events/conference-2015

2015 UC Davis CMB Mindfulness Research Summit, by Clifford Saron

2015 UC Davis CMB Mindfulness Research Summit 

Introduction : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8SiKyFNPfQ

Published on Jul 18, 2015

Part 1 of 12 from the May 21, 2015 UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain day-long meeting "Perspectives on Mindfulness: The Complex Role of Scientific Research" - Remarks (and performance) by CMB Director Steve Luck, PhD, Conference Chair, Clifford Saron, PhD, and Cellist Barbara Bogatin. 

See http://cmbmindfulnesssummit.faculty.u... for full conference program and http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edufor links to other conference talks and other information about the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis.

Steven J. Luck, PhD is the Director of the Center for Mind & Brain and a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Luck’s research focuses on the intersection of vision and higher cognitive processing. His laboratory has developed methods that are now widely used to assess the capacity and precision of visual working memory, leading to an explosion of research on the structure of internal mental representations and how they vary across individuals and groups. Dr. Luck also studies neurocognitive processing in schizophrenia, where he has found many aspects of impaired cognition can be explained by changes in network dynamics that lead to an aberrant hyperfocusing of attention. Dr. Luck is also a leading expert on the use of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to measure the neural activity underlying cognition. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he is the winner of many prestigious awards, including the Troland Award from the National Academy of Sciences.

Clifford Saron, PhD, Research Scientist (effective 7/15) at the Center for Mind and Brain and MIND Institute at the University of California at Davis, received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1999. Dr. Saron is Principal Investigator of the Shamatha Project, a longitudinal investigation of the effects of intensive meditation on physiological and psychological processes central to well-being, attention, emotion regulation and health. It was conceived with and taught by Alan Wallace, with the talents of a large consortium of researchers at UC Davis and elsewhere. In 2012, Dr. Saron and his colleagues were awarded the inaugural Templeton Prize Research Grant in honor of H.H. the Dalai Lama from the John Templeton Foundation to continue this work. Dr. Saron also studies sensory processing and integration in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and is part of a large collaborative study examining if mindfulness-based interventions can ease the chronic stress of mothers of children with ASD.

Barbara Bogatin, cellist, has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony since 1994, and holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School. Before joining the San Francisco Symphony she played with New York Chamber Soloists, the New York Philharmonic, Casals Festival, and as principal cellist with Milwaukee and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras. She has performed and recorded on Baroque cello and viola da gamba with Aston Magna, the Amati Trio, Connecticut Early Music Festival and New York’s Classical Band, and played at music festivals including Chamber Music Northwest and Lake Tahoe Summerfest. With her husband, Clifford Saron, she has led workshops on meditation and music practice at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the Esalen Institute, Stanford Symposium for Music and the Brain, Telluride Compassion Festival and the Institute for Mindfulness South Africa Conference.

Evan Thompson, PhD - Context Matters: Steps to an Embodied Cognitive Science of Mindfulness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHCae1liAI

Published on Jul 18, 2015

Part 2 of 12. This opening talk by Evan Thompson, PhD, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia was given as part of the 2015 UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain research summit "Perspectives on Mindfulness: the Complex Role of Scientific Research" on May 21, 2015.

Robert Sharf, PhD -The “work” of religion and its role in the assessment of mindfulness practices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-mzNLf3L7U

INFORM AUTUMN SEMINAR

INFORM AUTUMN SEMINAR
Children, Minority Religions, and the Law

Date - Saturday, 17 October 2015; 9.30am – 4.30pm
Location – Clement House, London School of Economics 

Registration is now open and can be done using a credit/debit card through PayPal or by posting a booking form and a cheque payable to 'Inform' to Inform, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE. Tickets (including buffet lunch, coffee and tea) paid by 28 September 2015 are £38 each (£18 students/unwaged). Tickets booked after 28 September 2015 will cost £48 each (£28 students/unwaged). 

What is in the best interests of a child?

All states who are members of the UN (except the United States) have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which requires the State to act in the best interest of the child. Since ratification, there have been several occasions when States have intervened in what was perceived as infringement of the well-being and/or rights of children living in religious communities. But have these states (or their local authorities) acted in the best interest of the child?

While there are documented cases where children have been neglected and/or harmed when raised within religious communities (both new and old), some minority religions argue that what society proposes (in its culture, education, medical provisions) is not at all in the best interest of the child, and aim to protect their children from such negative influences. Who should decide on what is in a child’s best interest? In this seminar we will concentrate on legal issues surrounding children in minority religious communities, from a variety of perspectives.

Provisional Programme 

9.30 - 10.00         REGISTRATION

10.00 - 10.15       Eileen Barker (Founder and Honorary Research Fellow, Inform) Welcome and Housekeeping

10.15 - 10.40       Amanda van Eck (Deputy Director, Inform) Introduction

10.40 - 11.05       Heiner Bielefeldt (UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief)Religious Socialization in Light of Article 14 of the Conventions on the Rights of a Child

11.05 – 11.30      Alain Garay (Lawyer in Paris, France) Children, Minority Religions and the European Court of Human Rights Case Laws 

11.30 – 11.55      TEA/COFFEE

11.55 – 12.20      Jean Swantko Wiseman (Twelve Tribes lawyer since 1983, USA) Germany to Twelve Tribes Parents: You can Get Your Children Back if You Leave Twelve Tribes

12.20 – 12.45      Tony Brace (Legal Department, Watch Tower Society) Jehovah’s Witnesses: Children, Blood Transfusions and the Law (Who Holds the Key or Controls the ‘Flack Jacket’?)

12.45 - 13.45       LUNCH

13.45 - 14.10       Roger Kiska (Senior Counsel, Deputy Director, ADF International) Judicial Dogmatism: Home Education and the Rise of Humanist Statism in Europe

14.10 - 14.35       David Waldock Reflections on a Tennis Shoe

14.35 - 15.00       TEA/COFFEE

15.00 - 15.25       Anat Scolnicov (University of Winchester) Children, Family and Community - A Clash of Rights?

15.25 – 15.50      Lorraine Derocher  

15.50 – 16.30      GENERAL PANEL DISCUSSION   

Introducing the 9th Global Conference on Buddhism | 8 & 9 Aug 2015 | Perth | 9gcb.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBQOQwl29W8

Introducing the 9th Global Conference on Buddhism | 8 & 9 Aug 2015 | Perth | 9gcb.org

Published on Apr 5, 2015

Buddhism—Australia’s second largest religion
The spotlight will fall on Perth’s growing role as a cultural and tourism hub for the Australasian region over the August 8–9 weekend this year, when more than 1,000 international and Australian delegates will gather for a unique conference hosted at Perth’s Convention & Exhibition Centre: the 9th Global Conference on Buddhism, themed on Resolving Conflict with Mindfulness.
The conference, featuring a diverse and distinguished line-up of international speakers, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, will also underline the significant part now played by Buddhism in Australia’s national spiritual life—Buddhism is the country’s second largest religion.

LSE: Inform Autumn Seminar - Minority Religions and Schooling

http://www.inform.ac/node/1576

Inform Autumn Seminar - Minority Religions and Schooling

Saturday, 6 December 2014; 9.30am - 4.45pm
New Academic Building, London School of Economics.

State multiculturalism has failed’, declared David Cameron in 2011. Yet there is a continued expansion in state-funded religious schooling in Britain. This expansion has gone hand-in-hand with legal rulings that have placed minority religions on stronger footing next to the more established faiths. After exponential growth of Academies operating outside of local authority control since 2000, and three years after the first Free Schools opened their doors (a programme which has assisted the expansion of a diversity of faith-based schools), it is a good opportunity to take stock and reflect on the nature of minority faith schooling in Britain.

Provisional Programme

The presence of speakers on an Inform programme does not mean that Inform endorses their position. The aim of Inform Seminars is to help participants to understand, or at least recognise, different perspectives.

9.30 - 10.00 REGISTRATION

10.00 - 10.10 Eileen Barker (Founder and Honorary Research Fellow, Inform)

Welcome and Housekeeping

10.10 - 10.35 Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist (Deputy Director, Inform) and Suzanne Newcombe (Research Officer at Inform)

Minority Religions and Schooling

10.35 - 11.00 Farid Panjwani (Director of the Centre for Research and Evaluation in Muslim Education at the Institute of Education, University of London)

Muslims and Faith Schools: identity and social aspiration in a minority religion

11.00 – 11.25 Damon Boxer (Assistant Director, Academies and Free Schools Policy, Department for Education)

Government Policy on Minority Religions and Schools

11.25 – 11.50 TEA/COFFEE

11.50 – 12.15 Ozcan Keles (Executive Director of the Dialogue Society)

Fethullah Gulen-inspired Hizmet schools from an alumnus: basics, characteristics and critique

12.15 – 12.40 Usha Sahni (Education Director, Avanti Schools Trust)

Inclusivity and Fidelity

12.40 - 13.05 Richy Thompson (Campaigns Officer (Faith Schools and Education), British Humanist Association)

A Humanist Perspective on Minority Religions and Schooling

13.05 - 14.15 LUNCH/BOOK LAUNCH

14.15 - 14.40 Graham Kennish

Vision as Mediator between Faith, Belief, Experience and Knowledge

14.40 - 15.05 Jonny Scaramanga (Doctoral student at the Institute of Education)

The History of Accelerated Christian Education in the United Kingdom

15.05 - 15.30 TEA/COFFEE

15.30 - 15.55 Jo Fageant (SIAMS inspector and Principal RE Adviser, Oxford Diocesan Board of Education)

Faith and Inspection in Church of England schools

15.55 – 16.45 GENERAL PANEL DISCUSSION

Registration is now open and can be done using a credit/debit card through PayPal or by posting a booking form and a cheque payable to 'Inform' to Inform, Houghton St., London WC2A 2AE.
Tickets (including buffet lunch, coffee and tea) paid by 10 November 2014 cost £38 each (£18 students/unwaged). Tickets booked after 10 November 2014 will cost £48 each (£28 students/unwaged). A limited number of seats will be made available to A-Level students at £10 before 10 November 2014 (£20 after 10 November).

LSE: Inform Seminar : Innovation, violence and paralysis: how do minority religions cope with uncertainty?

Inform Seminar

7^th February 2015
London School of Economics, London, UK

This is advance notice for theFebruary Inform seminar.

Innovation, violence and paralysis: how do minority religions cope with uncertainty?

What happens when groups lose control of their own destiny? Whether it leads to violence, as in the case of Aum Shinrikyo’s response to a potential police investigation in 1995, or to non-violent innovations, as found in minority religions following the death of their founders or leaders, uncertainty and insecurity can lead to great change in the mission and even teachings of religious groups. What does it take to bring back certainty? Bringing together past and current members, as well as academics and practitioners this seminar will explore how minority religions and their members work with notions of uncertainty and insecurity.

More information will follow shortly. Please forward this information to your contacts and networks as appropriate.

-----------------------------
Inform
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
020 7955 7654

www.inform.ac

BASR: Annual Conference 2014, Art,Religion,Performance

http://basr.ac.uk/conference-2014/

BASR: Annual Conference 2014, Art,Religion,Performance

BASR’s 2014 conference takes place on September 3-5th, at the Open University in Milton Keynes. This year’s conference has two themes: “religion, art and performance” and “the cutting edge”. Both can be interpreted broadly. Panels and papers are invited.