About Joe

JOSEPH R. SIMONETTA

HUMANIST Author/Speaker

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

ACADEMIC:

Joseph R. Simonetta holds a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School where he studied ethics, global environmental problems, world religions, cosmology, and evolutionary biology. He also studied at Yale Divinity School.

He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Colorado. He also studied architecture at the University of Southern California.

He holds a B.S. in Business Logistics from Penn State University.

BIRTHPLACE:

Born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he is the second of three sons of an immigrant blue-collar steelworker and his wife.

He was raised in the shadows of the blast furnaces of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

He has since lived for significant amounts of time in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Florida, Greece, New Zealand, and Ecuador.

PROFESSIONS:

As a young man, disturbed at the extraordinary amount of unrelenting suffering in the world, he vowed to himself to do something to alleviate it.

He went on to live a very unusual life; his rich life experiences encompass many fields.

He has been an Army officer, professional athlete, entrepreneur and businessman, architectural designer, real estate developer, home builder, environmental activist, author, speaker, senior editor of the World Business Academy, twice a nominee for the U.S. Congress, and once a nominee for the U.S. presidency (Democratic Party National Convention, New York City, 1992).

Intermittently, he wrote a mix of fiction and nonfiction books about humanity and the state of the world.

He serves on the board of directors of The Secular Community.

At the 2023 U.S. National Senior Games held in Pittsburgh, PA in July 2023, he won the gold medal in the Sprint Triathlon in his age division, 80-84.

For media stories about this feat, please search “Joe Simonetta triathlete.

FAMILY:

He is married to Susana Rojas Simonetta.

They have a son, Russell, born April 22, 2013 (Earth Day) and a daughter, Fiorella, born October 12, 2015.

speaker

TALK TESTIMONIALS

This was the clearest presentation of reality that I ever heard. It could form the basis for a new world belief system.

I’ve attended lectures by the most highly regarded teachers. None gave more usable and inspiring information than you. An awe-inspiring brilliant presentation! How I wish everyone could be in attendance.

Joe is a brilliant man who offers the simple, yet profound answers to today's perilous human condition. If this talk could be heard by millions, it would greatly improve the prognosis for the human race and the natural world we depend upon.

This a profound talk that gets to the heart of truth—we must overcome core emotions and coping strategies for immediate survival by developing our complex brain functions for long term survival—reflectiveness. It is done so eloquently!!

AMAZING COMMON SENSE! Thanks for putting together and sharing THE TRUTH! ...keep going, people need to remember our origins and natural law now more than ever.

Wow! I thought your talk was absolutely amazing. I loved every single second of it. I feel lucky to have gotten to see it!

Joe Simonetta's new lecture is magnificent. Through his breadth of awesome language and stunning visuals, he captures our place in an unfathomably huge universe. So powerful! May everyone be given the opportunity to look and listen and be inspired to sustain and advance our civilization!

BRILLIANT! This is foundational knowledge for a planet to function elegantly. Your distillation of so much critical information into such a well- conceived sequence is astonishing. Each segment is worth serious consideration and reflection to see if one can be more aware, rational, and mindful. Thanks for your years of arduous work to put this together!

The best talk I ever heard regarding all aspects of our human experience, past, present, and future. A joy!! Ingenious!

You should give that talk to the U.S. Congress…no…you should give it to the United Nations.

I cannot tell you how much your talk today meant to me. You said so succinctly what I have believed all my life but was never able to express. You speak so well – and convincingly. But it was what you said that was most compelling.

A very thought-provoking, informative, well-researched presentation. The portion that shows we are less than a speck in the universe is the most complete and compelling (and humbling) I have seen or heard. Regardless of where you are on the spectrum of religion or faith, it is important to listen to what Joe Simonetta says. You may embrace it, reject it, or incorporate some of it into your philosophy of life, but it is important to encounter it.

COUNSELOR

If you’re having difficulty letting go of religious beliefs that were brainwashed into you when you were a child, I may be able to help you.

The study of religion, costly in time and funds, was a rewarding and liberating experience. It cleared the false religious dogma from my mind that as a child I was programmed–brainwashed–to believe by the Catholic Church as so many children continue to be today by one religion or another.

When I was a child, my family attended church regularly. As an altar boy, I served countless masses. It was my nature then as it has been all my life to be observant and contemplative.

I observed the restrained and reverential behavior of people in church: the kneeling, genuflecting, crossing themselves with “holy water” (water blessed by a priest becomes “holy water”!), the praying, bowing, etc. Outside the church, I observed the irreverent, insensitive, and sometimes brutal behavior of these same sanctimonious people. As a youngster, I thought to myself, “There’s something wrong here.”

The bottom line is that religion is the product of the infancy of our intelligence. It has been and continues to be very damaging. Billions of people live in a world of fiction and fantasy believing that some supernatural being is going to “save” them. Religion should be studied as history, not adopted as a belief system. All that one seeks is found in reality.