EthicalStL.org

All art is storytelling in one form or another. Artists create stories they want people to believe...at least for a while. Some art is forgettable, but some of it – the powerful stuff – stays with us for hours after we leave the theater or the gallery or after we turn off the television...and some of it we just can't shake. It takes on a life of its own, becoming more real than it has any right to be. Are our religious stories like this? Are they art run amok? How long should disbelief really be suspended? lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Gwydion Suilebhan is a playwright who self-identifies as a secular humanist and who lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Maura. His play "The Reals" is being performed by St. Louis's Hot City Theatre company for the 5th Annual GreenHouse New Play Festival. Gwydion earned his M.A. in poetry from Johns Hopkins University, and his poetry and articles have appeared in many publications. He has also taught playwriting, creative writing, and literature at Johns Hopkins and the Maryland Institute College of Art. He has received two Individual Artist Fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and has been accepted into the Mead Theatre Lab program three times. In 2009 he was a finalist for Outstanding Emerging Artist at the D.C. Mayor's Arts Awards.

Video games are a large part of our culture, yet many of us know little about this world. This platform address will introduce the multifaceted nature and fading boundaries of video entertainment, assessing the current direction of this form of media and exploring some of its inherent ethical implications.lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Joseph Koepke has been an early childhood and elementary educator for the past decade, and he has been a video game player his entire life. His work both in and out of the classroom building communities has provided.

Gardens enrich body, mind, and soul and enliven the human experience. A garden is the place where we can be fully present and engaged through all the senses. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Linda Wiggen Kraft has been a garden designer since 1993. Her background in art, business, and meditation give her a unique approach to gardening that she will share in her presentation. She gives lectures and workshops throughout the U.S. She has written gardening columns for "The Healthy Planet" since 1998, in which she writes about the big picture of why we garden. Her work can be seen on her website: lt;a href="http://www.gardensforthesoul.com" target="_blank"gt;GardensForTheSoul.comlt;/agt;.

The U.S. Peace Corps places volunteers in over 70 countries in the developing world in sectors ranging from public health to English teaching to small business development. Most volunteers concur that the experience is life-changing. A year into her two-year commitment with the Peace Corps, Laurie Pickard will share insights from her time as a volunteer in Nicaragua's Agriculture and Sustainable Food Security program. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Laurie Pickard grew up attending the St. Louis Ethical Society Sunday School from pre-school through Youth Group and was a member of the first Coming of Age class. She graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's degree in politics and from Temple University with a master's degree in geography. She is currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Nicaragua. She writes regularly about her experiences there on her blog, lt;a href="http://www.wanderphilia.blogspot.com" target="_blank"gt;www.wanderphilia.blogspot.comlt;/agt;.

As an emergency room doctor in Bloomington, Illinois, Dr. David Gill some-time works 13-hour shifts seeing dozens of patients. About half of them are emergency patients because they cannot afford insurance, family doctors or costly drugs. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Dr. Gill believes that to serve the people best, we must change from a system run by for profit corporate insurers to a system paid for directly by a progressive tax that does directly to health care providers. High costs of health care are fueled by the fact that insurers are there to create profits. “They’re not evil - they must make profits for their shareholders,” Dr. Gill said. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; He is making his third run for Congressman from central Illinois’ 15th District. He accepts no corporate gifts. His campaigns depend on small dontions from individuals and the free labor of hundreds of volunteer workers. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; He and his wife Elaine have a family of six children. Dr. Gill practices medicine at the Advocate BroMenn Regional Medical Center in Bloomington, which treats 42,000 emergency patients a year.

Felicia Graber survived WW II in hiding in Poland and later fled to Western Europe. She immigrated to the U.S. with her husband, where she earned two college degrees. She raised two children, taught school, and became a speaker and writer about the Holocaust, as well as a leader in the Jewish community. This is her story of Coming of Age. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; "I was born in Poland a few months after the German invasion. I survived the war posing as a Catholic with my mother. Like most child survivors, I always was a 'very good girl.' In my mother's words, I never gave her any trouble. This obedience lasted throughout my growing up years. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;At nineteen, I married a U.S. army chaplain 9 years my senior. I always looked up to him as being far superior to me in intelligence, knowledge and wisdom. My goal in life was to be his support system and helper. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;From the mid-1960s on, however, I started to assert my own needs, ideas, and wishes. I still deferred to him most of the time and always stayed in the background as he became a community leader. It was not until my retirement in 1996 and his in 1997 that I started on my path as a speaker, writer and community leader. Now our roles are almost reversed, I am in the public eye, serve on various committees and he has become my support system."

Hell has been a powerful image for thousands of years, although in more recent times many religious traditions have been moving away from the concept of hell. This platform address will look at hell's history, how it's been used, and what it means to abandon it. Ethical Humanism has never promoted the notion of hell, and while there are obvious good points to not believing in hell for oneself, there are also ethical and psychological issues with not having a "final jail" to which to consign people who have committed cruel acts. What does it mean to live in a world with no hell below us, as John Lennon sang?

On Friday, March 12, a bus full of Missouri couples and clergy drove from St. Louis to Iowa City to solemnize 17 marriages. Why such a long drive to get married? Because these devoted couples happen to be gay and lesbian. Iowa legalized same-sex marriage in 2009. Marriage equality has had prominent gains and setbacks in the past few years, and the Missouri Love Bus can be seen as a political statement; but more than that, it is the culmination of the love stories of real people. Kate was honored to have been on the Love Bus twice to help officiate these marriages and will share some of the stories from this year's ride.

We are witnessing the sixth great extinction crisis due to the pressures of humankind on the natural resources of the earth. Evolution of biodiversity spanned millions of years, yet now its loss in mere centuries will entangle humanity within its web, as we threaten the very sustainability of all life on earth. Our future will depend on not only knowledge of science to understand how our ecosystems work and of economics in recognizing intrinsic values of earth’s natural systems, but ethics in accepting personal responsibility for taking global action to preserve a sustainable environment. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Karin Schwartz, daughter of members Eugene and Ruth Schwartz, grew up in the Ethical Society. Her upbringing gave her a solid foundation for embracing diversity, not only in her connections with different people and cultures around the world, but for the diversity of species that she would encounter as a zoologist. She started her zoo career as a zookeeper at the St. Louis Zoo. Interest in all things animal led her to a Master’s degree in Animal Behavior from UMSL and a job as Registrar at the Milwaukee County Zoo. She led the development of a training program for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association in use of the International Species Information System, a global system to record animal data from over 800 zoological institutions worldwide. She extended her records training sessions outside of the USA, presenting sessions for zoo associations in India for the South Asian region, in Argentina for the Central and South American region, as well as in Ecuador, Hawaii, and recently, South Korea. Now the Biological Database Manager for the Chicago Zoological Society, Karin is an active member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission, serving on committees within the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group, Tapir Specialist Group and Reintroduction Specialist Group.

Timothy Dennehy joined Monsanto Global Scientific Affairs in 2008, ending 25 years as an academic. He has B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Entomology from the University of California, Davis. He was on the faculty of Cornell University for a decade, and then moved to the University of Arizona. There he was a member of a research and extension team recognized internationally for bringing conventional pesticide use in Arizona cotton to historic low levels. In 2006 he was recognized with the title University Distinguished Professor, the highest honor awarded at the University of Arizona for faculty outreach. Tim has authored over 200 publications. With some apprehension, he has agreed to share with us perspectives on the often-misunderstood and evocative issues surrounding biotechnology. What do we know about the safety of bioengineered foods and what are the alternatives? Can we feed the world with organic agriculture? Is sustainable agriculture a scientifically-sound middle ground?