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Climate Change at Thinking Aloud
The first Thinking Aloud of the season is about Climate Change and will be on Friday 15 January, 7.30-9.30pm on the sofas upstairs at the Vineyard Centre. Click below to let us know you are coming, so we get enough snacks and seats!
Presenters for the evening will be
- Clive Beggs, Professor of medical technology at the University of Bradford - who has recently revised his textbook on Energy management, supply and conservation to consider issues relating to climate change.
- Dennis Laws, geography teacher at Tadcaster Grammar School, and regular contributor at Thinking Aloud
As usual we will have brain-food snacks, a bit of open space to share what you have been thinking about recently, and then short presentations on the main topic of Climate Change. The purpose is to understand the topic more clearly, work out the connection with faith, and what kind of response should be made.
We won't be travelling to Copenhagen for the discussion!
Thinking ahead to future months, some people have told me they are working up to discussions on the following topics, although it is hard at this stage to predict which topics will be on which evenings:
- Medical ethics
- Open theism (which Tom touched on in July)
- Is reason an adequate way of knowing (How much light was there in the enlightenment?)
- Autonomy
If you would like the challenge of doing a mini-presentation to open discussion a particular topic, please respond below.
The dates for your diary are: 12th Feb, 12th Mar. Same time, same place.
An ideal situation is where two or even three people prepare their thoughts taking different angles on the same subject area.
Guests and friends are very welcome.
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Thinking Aloud is an opportunity to explore topics of contemporary discussion and research with a Christian faith perspective. We aim to support one another in tackling the challenges to faith in the media, education, business, caring professions and academia.
 We meet on the sofas upstairs at the Vineyard Centre in Sheepscar, with hot drinks and light snacks as "brain food". The current series is timed to coincide with the Friday Night Project youth club downstairs for the convenience of people with teenage children.
- Anyone is welcome, whether you have a Christian faith or not, and including students, young people studying at school and their parents
- Up to three people offer in advance to prepare a brief presentation on a topic they have been thinking about, discussing with friends, reading about and/or researching. Often the topics are related to each other in a theme.
- Typical topics look at the various perspectives of faith, theology, scripture and apologetics with science, philosophy, ethics, social sciences, the educational curriculum and so on.
- Most individuals have found that the stimulus of preparing for a discussion is helpful in consolidating and moving forward their thinking
- Each presenter gets a maximum of 20 mins or 5 slides on one topic. It doesn't have to be the last word on a subject - thinking in progress and outstanding questions are fine.
- It is OK to re-examine even the core foundations of faith, or Christian practice (hence the pun on "Thinking Allowed"). See the talk on Honest Questions.
- We value input from ordinary people in the community, practitioners and academics, but ask for jargon and acronymns to be busted wherever possible. We don't tend to invite external specialist speakers (other groups in Leeds like WYSOCS and cafe scientifique do that very well)
- During or following these introductory presentations, a facilitated discussion allows the group to explore the topic further. This is the other half of the "Thinking Aloud" pun.
- We explore different perspectives to understand whether and how they can be reconciled. It is a respectful discussion, not an aggressive debate between opposing viewpoints.
- We encourage self-disclosure and open self-reflection on the thinking process - however incomplete.
- We invite the Holy Spirit to illuminate and guide our thinking and discussion, believing that with his help we get a clearer picture of reality.
In previous sessions (and we can revisit these topics if there is demand) we shared and reviewed some of our formative spiritual experiences, thought about how and why God gets personally involved with us humans, and checked to make sure it is not just a "trick of the mind" as Derren Brown would have it. We have frequently looked at the interplay between science and faith - take a look at some past material on Science and Faith. In May 09 we looked at prayer for healing - is it real? what is best practice in praying for healing?
If you'd like to come to the next one (no obligation to come to any more!), please fill in the form below and press Send so we get some idea of whether we'll need extra chairs to supplement the sofas!
Thinking Aloud is not particularly related to the Radio 4 programme Thinking Allowed.
Response
I'd like to come to Thinking Aloud
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David Wallace, 14/01/2010 |
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