PBB online seminars!
Registration is now open for the Parenting Beyond Belief Online Seminars and I’m giddy about it. Here’s the blurb:
THE PARENTING BEYOND BELIEF ONLINE SEMINARS
hosted by Dale McGowan, editor/co-author, Parenting Beyond Belief
Join author Dale McGowan and other nonreligious parents for these fun and informative web events: The PBB Book Club and the PBB Webinars. Information and registration links below.
The Parenting Beyond Belief Online Book Club
One-hour online discussions led by Dale McGowan, author/editor of Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion
Join Dale for a live discussion and Q&A about the book Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, the first comprehensive resource for parenting without religion.
Dale describes the process of bringing this groundbreaking book from concept to release, as well as the consensus that emerged from the book’s 25 contributors on how to raise great kids without religion. The floor is then open for questions from the participants.
To facilitate the Q&A, registration for each one-hour Book Club meeting is limited to 15 participants.
Registration is FREE OF CHARGE, and you do NOT have to have read the book to listen in! Click on the date of your choice to register:
Sunday, January 27 at noon Eastern
Monday, January 28 at 9:00 pm Eastern [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
Tuesday, January 29 at 9:00 pm Eastern [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
Wednesday, January 30 at 9:00 pm Eastern [REGISTRATION CLOSED]
Thursday, January 31 at 9:00 pm Eastern
Friday, February 1 at 9:00 pm Eastern
Saturday, February 2 at 3:00 pm Eastern
The Parenting Beyond Belief Webinars
Dale McGowan, author/editor of Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion, hosts a five-part series of online seminars (or “webinars”) addressing the central issues of parenting without religion.
Registered participants log in to a provided website at the allotted time, then dial a provided phone number for the session audio. During each one-hour webinar, presenters can submit questions online, of which Dale will answer as many as time allows.
Each topic is offered twice in a given week, once on Sunday and again on Tuesday, with identical content. Participants can sign up for any number or combination of topics in the five-part series. Registration for each webinar is $18.
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WEBINAR #1: Secular Family, Religious World
Register for Sunday Feb 17 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday Feb 19 at 9 pm Eastern
I often find myself saying I’ve “set religion aside.” Actually, that’s a bit like saying someone who rides a bike to work has set traffic aside. I’m still in it, still surrounded by it, and always will be. One of our jobs as secular parents is to help our kids learn to co-exist with religion, even as they engage and challenge religious beliefs and their effects.
This seminar explores issues of secular parenting in a religious world, including
- -Helping kids to be religiously literate without indoctrination;
-Dealing with church-state separation issues in schools;
-Helping kids respond to the idea of hell and pressures from religious friends;
-Hopeful signs for secular parents in the United States.
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WEBINAR #2: The Religious Extended Family
Register for Sunday Feb 24 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday Feb 26 at 9 pm Eastern
Most nonreligious parents are raising their children within a religious extended family. This can provide enriching diversity but also painful conflict: “Should we just go to church to satisfy Grandma?” “Should we have the kids baptized to keep the peace?” “How can I tell Aunt Ruth it’s not okay to proselytize my son?”
This seminar looks at ways to minimize conflict, resolve disputes, and turn seemingly unbridgeable gaps into benefits for the entire extended family.
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WEBINAR #3: The Art of the Question
Register for Sunday March 2 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday March 4 at 9 pm Eastern
Wondering and questioning are at the heart of naturalistic parenting. This seminar explores ways in which secular parents can use the pivotal moment of the question to build an environment of boundless wonder and fearless inquiry for their children.
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WEBINAR #4: Raising Naturally Ethical Kids
Register for Sunday March 9 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday March 11 at 9 pm Eastern
Morality isn’t magic. It is, and has always been, based in reason. Understanding the reasons to be good can move children beyond simplistic rule-following to the development of active moral judgment—a far more reliable ethical foundation.
This seminar describes the difference between commandments and principles and offers tips for encouraging children to be actively involved in their own moral development.
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WEBINAR #5: Death and Life
Register for Sunday March 16 at noon Eastern, or Tuesday March 18 at 9 pm Eastern
The single most significant and profound thing about our existence is that it ends, rivaled only by the fact that it begins. Death is a hard thing to grasp, let alone accept. Religious notions of an afterlife are of little real help—believers cling just as frantically to life, grieve just as bitterly its end, and have the added burden of worrying about hell.
This seminar presents practical ways to help children begin a healthy and satisfying lifelong contemplation of mortality, using the Inversion Principle and the Improbability principle to flip the whole equation on its head. A healthy understanding of death can help our children envision life itself in an entirely new way—one that religion cannot hope to match for pure, astonished joy.