You want to know how quickly the Secular Student Alliance is growing? Here’s the group photo from the first annual conference I attended back in 2009:
That was the year PZ and 300 atheists (including myself) zerg rushed the Creation Museum. We’re all making Cthulu faces.
Here’s the group photo from the 2012 Secular Student Alliance conference that I attended this weekend:
That’s 300+ secular student leaders of today and tomorrow. And the number is just going to keep going up. Wooo!
16 comments
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Ophelia Benson
July 10, 2012 at 5:12 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yay future!
Nadai
July 10, 2012 at 5:17 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Looks like next year you’re going to need a bigger staircase.
BenSweaterVest
July 10, 2012 at 6:44 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hey look, I’m in there…. (Im the one in the sweatervest)
Sarah Maddox
July 10, 2012 at 6:56 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hell doesn’t have enough room for us :)
Miriam
July 10, 2012 at 7:02 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Yay! This was my first year and I’m glad I came.
Keiv
July 10, 2012 at 7:04 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Group photo from the first ever SSA conference in Minneapolis in 2000:
https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/193_8703030919_6104_n.jpg
Group photo from the second ever SSA conference in Chicago in 2001:
https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/188_578199616330_9725_n.jpg
Robert
July 10, 2012 at 7:27 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
How exactly do you have time to do this a grad student? Is your adviser not sufficiently hateful, manic, or generally crazed? Mine still calls me a random hours of the night and I’m a postdoc for some else.
Steph Blalock
July 10, 2012 at 7:51 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It looks like you are all licking your paw like a cat. :-)
joelklinepeter
July 10, 2012 at 8:15 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Hah, I’m in that first picture! That conference was such a blast! I’ve really lost weight since then too, the picture made for a nice confidence boost for me lol.
Holms
July 10, 2012 at 9:34 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Jen, both events are described as having 300 participants, when the first one looks to have 100 tops. Typo?
A Hermit
July 10, 2012 at 9:46 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Damn I wish there had been something like this when I was in school, back in the dark age of punch card computing. Might have helped me ditch my delusions sooner, saving me a lot of angst and embarrassment and time…
Makes me glad to see an organization like this growing and prospering.
IslandBrewer
July 11, 2012 at 2:01 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
In three years you evolved out of the tentacles!
Dan Linford
July 11, 2012 at 1:27 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
This is so awesome! I really wish I could have gone. Well, guess there’s always next year!
Sarah
July 12, 2012 at 3:07 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
They see me mowin’
Down the Creation Museum door
I know they’re all thinking
I’m so White N’ Male-y
Think I’m just too white n’ Male-y
Think I’m just too white n’ Male-y
Can’t you see I’m white n’ Male-y
Look at me I’m white n’ Male-y!
Really, really white n’ Male-y
First in my class here at M.I.T.
Got skills, I’m a Champion of D&D
MC Escher that’s my favorite MC
Keep your 40
I’ll just have an Earl Grey tea
My rims never spin to the contrary
You’ll find they’re quite stationary
All of my action figures are cherry
Steven Hawking’s in my library
James
July 17, 2012 at 6:31 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It’s too bad we didn’t have such an organisation when I was in school (that shows my age . . .)
Good on ya. The group is growing quite rapidly from your pictures.
Unfortunately, so are churches. And faster.
gunterbeyser
July 19, 2012 at 6:10 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I am not so sure about them churches growing faster than us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/young-adults-losing-faith-americans-under-30-doubt-god-exists_n_1627333.html