Video: What Will Replace Religion

Imagine, if you will, a humanist church that met at night under the open sky, discussing the true nature of the planets and stars, and the incomprehensible vastness and majesty of the cosmos of which we are but a very small part. Imagine a humanist church that spent its Sundays not shut up in a…

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Yearning for a Meaningful Spiritual Life

The Templeton Foundation is seeking researchers to study an important big question: “How can those who experience a deep yearning for a meaningful spiritual life, but find traditional religion unsatisfying, fulfill that yearning? This new research is addressing the spiritual yearnings, existential concerns, and search for meaning of spiritually curious but nonreligious individuals and communities.…

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Video: Kate Bush – Cloudbusting

Based on a true story set in Maine. Wilhelm Reich 24 March 1897 – 3 November 1957) was an Austrian doctor of medicine and a psychoanalyst, along with being a member of the second generation of analysts after Sigmund Freud. It was shortly after he arrived in New York in 1939 that Reich first said he had discovered a biological…

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Video: Sparks – How Youth Thrive – Peter Benson

No one has ever said, oh this child of mine, my fondest wish is they will ace statewide benchmark math and science tests when they’re 16… When you actually listen to people’s statements about their dreams for our kids, you hear a very different language. Kids who experience joy. Kids who are connected and engaged.…

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Video: Let Kids Rule the School

I recently followed a group of eight public high school students, aged 15 to 17, in western Massachusetts as they designed and ran their own school within a school. They represented the usual range: two were close to dropping out before they started the project, while others were honors students. They named their school the…

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Video: The Koh Panyee Football Club: A True Story

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In 1986, in a floating village in the middle of the sea that has not an inch of soil, the kids loved to watch football but had nowhere to play or practice. But they didn’t let that stop them. This film is based on a true story about a little island in the south of…

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Video: How Eric Whitacre conducted his virtual choir of 2,000 voices

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  With an emergent technology, something happens that you’d never imagined. Here, YouTube and Hulu, via WordPress, Facebook, and Twitter — and built upon the Internet — bring something new and wonderful to life.   In a moving, madly viral video last year, composer Eric Whitacre led a virtual choir of singers from around the…

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Video: Is my essence just a delusion?

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By Niraj Chag There was a season when my steps were unwavering Within me was this ocean That would repair and cure me of all my pains But at the passing of time I am no longer certain of my hearts integrity The days of my youth Now only an abstract memory Is my essence…

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Video: An Idea is a Curious Thing…

An idea is a curious thing. It can be hard to find, and then suddenly appear. It can be simple or complex, big or small. An idea can come from anywhere, and go anywhere. And once you have an idea, the real fun begins. By 90˚W. Video and Bad Dog Pictures. Original composition by Mark…

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Video: Thought of You

“Thought of You” video from YouTube From Open Culture Ryan Woodward has worked on the art direction of many big name Hollywood films – Ironman 2, Spiderman 2 & 3, The Iron Giant, the list goes on. But he had an idea for a short animated film, a love story expressed through dance, and it…

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Video: Derek Sivers – How to Start a Movement

With help from some surprising footage, Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started. (Hint: it takes two.) “Leadership is overglorified…. It was really the first follower that transformed the lone nut into a leader. So, as we’re all told that we should be leaders, that would be really ineffective. If you really care about…

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Creative Destruction

Just as the cassette tape replaced the 8-track, only to be replaced in turn by the compact disc, itself being undercut by MP3 players, …  online free newspaper sites such as The Huffington Post and the National Review Online are leading to creative destruction of the traditional paper newspaper…. In fact, successful innovation is normally…

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The Internet doesn’t need your ‘great idea’

Great ideas. That is what we are all after isn’t it? That one spark that leads to an empire, money and power? Well, I’ve got news for you. Ideas are yesterdays news. Passé. Done. Last century…. The difference between a nice idea and a very successful idea has always been execution, timing and a large…

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American creativity is declining

The accepted definition of creativity is production of something original and useful, and that’s what’s reflected in the tests. There is never one right answer. To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result)… Highly creative adults tended to grow up in families…

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DIY: From Whole Earth Review to This Old House

“In the 1970s, DIY spread through the North American population of college- and recent-college-graduate age groups. In part, this movement involved the renovation of affordable, rundown older homes. But it also related to various projects expressing the social and environmental vision of the 1960s and early 1970s. The young visionary Stewart Brand, working with friends…

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