KOCHI: The Facebook group, ‘Freethinkers’ and ‘Kerala Freethinkers Forum’ are jointly organising a two-day seminar, ‘Freethinkers Meet - 2017’ at Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram on April 22-23. ‘Freethinkers’ is one of the most prominent Malayalam Facebook groups with over 1.4 lakh members.
‘Freethinkers’ will discuss and debate topics like religion, atheism, science, politics, gender, cinema. The group was recently in the news for playing a significant role in organising the ‘Kiss of Love’ campaign and Dinkoism-related events.
Renowned rationalist Sanal Edamaruku, the founder of Rationalist International, will speak about romance and the post-religious world.
Dr. C. Viswanathan, a pioneer in bringing enlightened rationalism to Kerala, will speak on ‘Consciousness, brain, and society’. An orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. Viswanathan has been active in the Kerala rationalist movement since 2010.
Dr. Vaishakan Thampi will speak about common sense and science. A physics professor at Govt NSS college, Cherthala, Dr Thampi is a well-known science populariser in Kerala.
The talk tries to explain why common sense is not a reliable tool in the search for truth. Examples where common sense leads to wrong conclusions will also be discussed.
Sunny M Kapikad, a media personality, is a strong advocate of Dalit Rights. In his speech, Sunny Kapikad will speak about the ‘annihilation of caste: Modernity, Ambdekar and Gandhi’.
The others who will be speaking include Vaikhari Aryat, Ashish Jose Ambat, Dr. Beena Kayaloor, Haritha Thambi, Dr. K. M. Sreekumar, Sonam Mittal, Kishor Kumar, Kannan Keercherill and Hrishikesh Bhaskaran.