A Talk by Sunsara Taylor on Bob Avakian’s book, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World
Where: University of California Berkeley
Room 2060 in the Valley Life Sciences Building
When: Wednesday, Oct 8 at 7pm
Sunsara Taylor will speak on Away With All Gods, drawing from the book, and her experiences around the country, challenging religion and the harm it does.
-- Is believing in gods actually harmful?
-- Is there such a thing as an unchanging, unchangeable human nature?
-- Can people be good without god?
-- Why is patriarchy and the oppression of women foundational to so many religions?
-- Why is there a rise of religious fundamentalism throughout the world?
****
Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution newspaper, a dynamic speaker and an uncompromising atheist. Her coverage of the rise of Christian fascism has taken her to the gates of abortion clinics across the country, to Terri Schiavo’s hospice, to inside the stadiums of the BattleCry movement to train Christian youth shock troops and led to numerous impressive verbal battles with Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and countless thoughtful interviews with reality-based radio hosts. Sunsara co-hosts WBAI (Pacifica ) radio program “Equal Time for Free Thought” where she interviews cutting edge authors on the dangers of the Christian right, the oppression of women, and the importance of science, critical thinking and an unfettered search for the truth. Ms. Taylor is available for interviews.
Author, Bob Avakian, is the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. He is the author of many works, including Marxism and the Call of the Future: Conversations on Ethics, History and Politics (co-authored with Bill Martin), From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey From Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, a memoir; Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About (DVD/VHS). (Mr. Avakian will not be present at these events.)
Event is sponsored by the UCB student group Radical Friends and by Revolution Books, Berkeley
For more info, contact 510-848-1196 or revolutionbooks@sbcglobal.net
Away With All Gods! is available from Insight Press.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
5 comments:
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I am really bored so lemme try and answer those questions
ReplyDeleteIs believing in gods actually harmful?
Yes, because it can lead to ignorance in the face of reason and it can also lead to a scenario where a religious person may see the world in black and white and nothing in between; for example; a person may say 'all ppl of my faith are my brothers and the unbelievers should be vanquished or i should not talk or mix with them. As Steven Weinberg said; for good ppl to do evil things, it takes religion!
-- Is there such a thing as an unchanging, unchangeable human nature?
We can all change, just listen to Barack Obama haha. No seriously, anyone can change either for the good or for the bad.
-- Can people be good without god?
I dont have a religion and so far i have not gone on any murderous rampage or beaten my girlfriend or stolen any money. You can rule out fear of eternal punishment to why I dont do any of the mentioned.
-- Why is patriarchy and the oppression of women foundational to so many religions?
Because nearly all of the main religions were founded a long time ago, and at that time, primitive cultures still looked down upon women as child bearers and all that *worshipping men* thing. Obviously, with the rise of modern civilization, everything has changed.
-- Why is there a rise of religious fundamentalism throughout the world?
I am guessing it has to do with the fact that with the rise of science and reason, religion is not going down without a fight. Also, another reason is that people are using religion as a tool to further their needs and ambitions. I mean CMON, Iraqis are not killing americans because of religious differences but because American soldiers are in their land. There are other examples too like Israel, which is a clearly secular state but they dont want Palestinians to have a land of their own because they fear the Palestinians may end up expanding their settlements. It has very little to do with Jewish Muslim incompatibility
Sunsara Taylor & Bob Avakian. Oh, great. Some of my least favorite atheists in the world.
ReplyDeleteThe Revolutionary Communist Party (who are behind certain groups such as "World Can't Wait") seems just great... until you actually try to partner with them and accomplish a political end. Then they will suddenly decide to turn on you when you can least afford it. When you ask them why, they tell you that your willingness to compromise for political purposes is deeply wrong, and they've decided to take over the situation. They have no problem with dishonesty.
The book is good, and I know Sunsara personally; she's a terrific speaker.
ReplyDeleteDo you have more details on issues and problems you've had with the RCP? They seem very up front and explicit about their unwillingness to compromise and settle for reformism.
BB,
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just the Chicago "World Can't Wait" people, then. I had a bad experience trying to organize an anti-Iran-War resolution in the Chicago city council with them and some other groups. When the Resolution started to have trouble, as Daley thought we were endangering Israel or some crap like that, the World Can't Wait people started pulling for radical action. When the rest of us said, "No, please don't do that", they went and did it anyway.
They then accused us of "joining with the dark side" because we were attempting to organize around some compromise language with some sympathetic aldermen. Some of the other coalition members got odd phone calls from the WCW people, and began to get paranoid that they were intentionally trying to kill our resolution in order to make an ideological point. I don't know if this was really more than just paranoia.
Now, maybe, looking at the whole situation objectively, and with the benefit of hindsight, I can see the point of the WCW's strategy. It is pretty much a moot point now since the resolution is dead. And, I don't know what Sunsara Taylor or Bob Avakian are really like, I should not have said that.
The whole situation made me wary of "World Can't Wait" and the "Revolutionary Communist Party", that's all. Maybe we would have had better luck if we had understood the political differences between us from the get-go.
Leftists in general have a hard time working together; we don't attract the same sort of authoritarians as the right.
ReplyDeleteIn any event, I've read Away With All Gods myself, it's a good book, and nails a most of the topics important to militant atheists.