Since 2011, Laura Emerson and her husband have lived in a wood heated, off-grid log cabin… with an outhouse, in Alaska. It is accessible only by float plane, ski plane or snowmachine (snowmobile), because there are no roads within 40 miles. The full time population of the region is 70 people in an area as large as the combination of several New England states.

Each winter, 5 months may pass without seeing anyone else or getting any resupply.

The move from a high-rise in Houston, TX to a log cabin in the woods involved a steep learning curve for her. She tackled this by creating a curriculum of skills and knowledge in nature and homesteading. Her magazine column and book, Log Cabin Reflections, available on Amazon for $5, as well as her blogs, alaskauu1.blogspot.com and alaskauu1.substack.com describe many of the challenges and differences of living like this, often with humor and self-effacement.

Previously, Laura majored in Religion and Classics at Duke University, with two masters degrees from Washington University in St. Louis. She was a rotating guest speaker at UU churches throughout the country. Professionally, she was a securities compliance officer, chemical markets analyst, English teacher/professor, and business writer.

Ed Gibney is a writer, philosopher, and co-founder of the Evolutionary Philosophy Circle (EPC). The EPC is one of several groups that are operating within ProSocial World (PW), which is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 2020 by distinguished scientists David Sloan Wilson and Paul Atkins. PW’s stated purpose is to “consciously evolve a world that works for all.”

The EPC has over 50 members, comprised of professional and amateur philosophers who are interested in exploring how evolution affects all of the major branches of philosophy. The EPC believes that when all of these elements are considered together, the previously siloed information from this “archipelago of knowledge” can combine to inform a powerful and motivating worldview. And since any community acting together to preserve something sacred can be considered a secular religion, the EPC would like to invite anyone from the Religious Naturalist Association to join in.

Anyone can participate in the Evolutionary Philosophy Circle. We have been inspired in our design by the Vienna Circle, which included academic and non-academic philosophers, as well as scientists and thinkers from a variety of other disciplines. They included teachers as well as students. They met regularly to discuss important papers and ideas. Some members wrote a manifesto for the group. They organized conferences. They started a peer-reviewed journal. And numerous influential books were produced in their intellectual environment. Now, with advances in technology, we aspire to do all this and more, drawing from a worldwide audience of interested participants. All those who are eager to learn about and apply “this view of life” are welcome.

For more on the Evolutionary Philosophy Circle, see here:

https://www.prosocial.world/groups/evolutionary-philosophy

For more on Ed Gibney’s work on evolutionary philosophy, see here:

https://www.evphil.com

Marcelo Gleiser is a theoretical physicist and  public intellectual at Dartmouth College working on basic research ranging from cosmology and applications of information theory to complex phenomena to history and philosophy of science and how science and culture interact. He is devoted to the public understanding of science and is a popular speaker with a strong social media presence and books published in 15 languages.  

https://marcelogleiser.com

Article: Why We Are The Only Humans In the Universe and Why It Matters For Our Collective Future 

• For millennia, tribal divisions governed humanity. But what was good for our ancestors and their survival now seeds deeply destructive and predatory behavior. Humanity needs to unite.
• One way for humanity to unite is to realize that we are the only humans in the cosmos. Even if life exists elsewhere, it won’t be like us.
• Therefore, the human voice is unique in the cosmos. If we ruin our project of civilization, the Universe will once again become silent.

The Dawn of a Mindful Universe by Marcelo Gleiser

An award-winning astronomer and physicist’s spellbinding and urgent call for a new Enlightenment and the recognition of the preciousness of life using reason and curiosity—the foundations of science—to study, nurture, and ultimately preserve humanity as we face the existential crisis of climate change.

The Seeker

Steven Clark Cunningham is a surgeon, poet, and scholar of religion.  Developed from his master’s work in religion at Harvard, his new book has been described by world experts in the field as “a must-read,” “creative, accessible, and informative,” “brilliant,” “deeply important,” “well-balanced,” “engagingly creative,” and “an essential reader for youth, parents, all adults.” It was just released November 2022 from Orange Hat Press in Waukesha, WI.

It is called It’s Considerate to Be Literate about Religion: Poetry and Prose about Religion, Conflict, and Peace in Our World and is a cultural-studies approach to religious literacy, written for all ages (it looks like a children’s book – and indeed it one – but is more a book for adults disguised as a kids’ book!).  It is inbued with a keen sense for what a powerful force religion has been, for better and for worse, in shaping our social and natural world.

This nonfiction book is a collection of poetry and prose that explains and illustrates, in Part I, the American Academy of Religion’s definition of religious literacy in a way that is widely accessible to both youth and adults.  Part II uses Part I as a foundation to review several conflicts around the world that revolve around religion and examines them through the lens of religious literacy.  Part III is a succinct, 2-page summary that puts it all together.   Themes are diversity, equity, peace/violence (cultural, structural, and direct violence/peace), human agency, prejudice, and understanding.