I love Canada

I had a blast at the Imagine No Religion conference in Kamloops, BC. The organizers did a fabulous job, especially considering it was the first time this area tried to organize a conference. There were over a hundred attendees and the talks were very high quality. I was particularly moved by Nate Phelps‘s talk about what it was like growing up in the Westboro Baptist Church, how hard it was to leave, and how it affected the rest of his life. Absolutely stunning – you could have heard a pin drop.

Thankfully there were some funny talks in the afternoon, since the WBC is alwa
ys a bit of a downer. Brian Dalton (aka, Mr. Deity) had a fun presentation about his show (which I love) and being a Formon (Former Mormon), and PZ Myers gave a great talk about the benefits of laughing off religious craziness. More impressively, he didn’t get lynched for starting his talk near the end of the Canucks hockey game. Though not everyone was totally attentive…It’s still a little surreal being a speaker at these conferences. It’s odd having people want to get a photo with me or have them sign their shirt, when I’m still squeeing over getting to have dinner with PZ and Mr. Deity. You’re fangirling over a fangirl!But it’s still pretty awesome, and I’m so thankful for all the people who approached me after my talk to share some kind words. I had a hard time even refilling my coffee or going to the bathroom because I was stopped so much, haha.

Thanks for the great conference!

I have a proposition

All atheist conferences should start with Ceremonial Disemboweling of Deranged Creationist Ideas.
At least, that’s how the Kamloop’s Imagine No Religion Conference started. After PZ Myer’s talk on evolution, one person asking a “question” that managed to combine “tolerance means accepting my wrong beliefs,” “if you don’t believe in god why do you keep living because then life is pointless,” and Pascal’s wager into one statement (because it wasn’t really a question). Another creationist crank then persisted to the post-talk mingling, and spent hours debating PZ. And by debating, I mean repeating tired and refuted arguments ad infinitum and changing the subject whenever someone tried to answer his questions.

Poor PZ. Can’t even drink his beer in peace.

But seriously, can all atheist conferences start this way? I’m feeling positively invigorated. It’s a great reminder of why we’re doing what we’re doing – because people are still spewing these noxious ideas into the atmosphere.

Apparently even in Canada. Is there nowhere I can escape to?!

A warm welcome to Canada

Hey, remember how I just said I’d be going to Canada for a lovely godless conference? Well, the same atheist group sponsoring the event had some bus ads in the area – evil, evil signs saying stuff like “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Bus drivers refused to drive the buses featuring the ads, and the spokeswoman for the organization announced that any vandalized ads would be removed and not replaced. You know, just so everyone knows that. Wink nudge.

Unsurprisingly, the bus ads are now down – but not because someone took a magic marker to them. They mysteriously disappeared from all of the buses while locked in a guarded area, and look to have been removed professionally rather than ripped off. And of course, the bus company refuses to replace them.

Man, if religious people are that afraid of atheists saying “There’s probably no god,” we better bring the smelling salts for this conference. I’m sure they’ll love my talk about how “God” is a misogynistic, abusive asshole. Hopefully I don’t disappear in the middle of the night too.

My diversity panel from AHA

I’m currently in Going Insane with Grad School Work mode, so here’s something to tide you over until I have time to write real posts. It’s long, but what’s better than listening to me, Debbie Goddard, and Greta Christina talk about diversity within the atheist movement?

It’s long, but I think the panel went really well, so it’s worth the watch. I certainly learned new things!

Are you an SSA member?

Don’t forget that the Secular Student Alliance board elections are tomorrow! You have until 5pm EST on April 30th to get your ballot in. And if you’re still not sure who to vote for, a chat with all of the candidates and current board members will be going on from 3 to 5pm EST. Just click the “Voting” tab after you log in for a link to the chatroom!

Regardless if you’re a member or not…what sort of things would you like to see the SSA focus on in the future? Feel free to discuss below.

I must crush PZ…for the children!

Come on, you know you’re Team GHJJ – root for the underdogs!

Five awesome atheist bloggers are competing to see who can raise the most money to support Camp Quest!

Since one of those bloggers is the indomitable PZ Myers of Pharyngula, we have made two teams in order to make this competition more fair.

Team 1: Greta Christina of Greta Christina’s Blog, Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist, Jen McCreight of Blag Hag, and JT Eberhard of Zerowing21.

Team 2: PZ Myers of Pharyngula.

The first team to raise $5,000 for Camp Quest, or the team that has raised the most by June 1, 2011 will win!

What will the winning team receive? Bragging rights. Pure and simple.

You can help your favorite team win by donating through ChipIn to support the team of your choice. Early reports think PZ has this sewn up, so if you like underdogs, give to this ChipIn and help his competition. Or you can make help make the pharyngulation complete by supporting PZ’s ChipIn.

All contestants and contributors receive: the knowledge that they have supported a fantastic program for freethinking families and their children.

Read more in the post below about why you should support Camp Quest!

Camp Quest is an absolutely fabulous program for the children of freethinkers. If you want to help the future of secularism (and give me bragging rights), please consider a donation!

Speaking of speaking…

One of the new speaking events I’ve added recently is Mensa’s Annual Gathering in Portland, OR. I was invited by the Mensa Atheists, who apparently have at least one of my blog readers as a member (hello!).

I’m pretty excited to give my Creation Museum talk to an audience that isn’t explicitly atheistic or skeptical. They’ll probably have heard less about it than a room full of atheists, and I’m curious to see how they’ll react.

But I’m also excited to poke around a non-godless conference for a change. It looks so wonderfully eclectic. My talk is at the same time as “How to Create a Successful YouTube Channel,” “Ireland and the Grail, or: Yes, Sophie, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ is Wrong!,” “Near Death Experiences 101,” and “Space Vanguard: How Some of Us Are Preparing for a Brighter Future.” And that’s not even the oddest stuff – you should really skim the program if you have the time.

Maybe I’ll be able to get some good ideas on how to improve our atheist conferences. I was told that Mensa AG has a 24 hour game room and that speakers can get free booze all day in a hospitality room. Are you listening, TAM and Skepticon?!

Truer words have never been spoken

From a student who attended the American Atheists’ National convention in Iowa this weekend:

The last thing you want to do at an atheist convention is to announce at the end of a session, “There is a provocative fundamentalist Christian protesting outside, DO NOT GO TALK TO HIM.” This means that half of the attendees will rush outside until Jesus returns.

Between crazy protesters, bar crawls with PZ, costume party dinners, and all of my godless friends being in one place, I’m really sad I didn’t go. Oh well, next year!

EDIT: I wish I could read everything on this guy’s shirt. I love playing the “How many horrible sinning categories apply to me?” game. If I’m under 50%, I lose.

Religion is bullshit…except for mine!

Last night I gave a talk for the Alliance of Happy Atheists at the University of Oregon. It was a lot of fun, like usual. The group of students were all awesome to talk to, the pizza was yummy, and my talk was well received (or so I was told – would an Alliance of Happy Atheists say anything negative…?).

Near the end of my talk I mention how feminists who are still religious are way more likely to believe in woo-woo spiritual stuff, like reiki, astrology, paganism, and wicca because they tend to be a lot more pro-women. But the problem with these things is that they’re still bullshit, just like Christianity or Islam.

Apparently one student took offense at this because he considers himself an atheist pagan, and he didn’t appreciate his beliefs being dismissively called “bullshit.” During the Q&A he asked me if I saw value in any sort of spiritual beliefs. I replied that people find value in different things – that I find value in truth, so unfounded beliefs in any sort of supernatural things don’t improve my life somehow. But that even if people found their lives improved by those things, it doesn’t make them any less bullshit.

The back and forth went on for quite some time. He basically seemed to be rewording his question in an attempt for me to admit that other spirituality – not that of mainstream religions – is somehow awesome and deserving of a free pass. I tried to emphasize that I don’t think people who believe that stuff are necessarily stupid or bad in some way, but that the beliefs are still false.

At dinner a friend of his mentioned how offended that guy was that I used the word “bullshit” and didn’t respect his pagan beliefs. I always feel a twinge of guilt, because I never purposefully try to offend. But I can’t feel much more than a twinge, because it’s goddamn hypocritical expecting your particular wacky beliefs to get some sort of free pass. If you were lapping it up while I spent 45 minutes tearing apart Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, you don’t get to put your own belief in a little bubble.

Everything is fair game.

And dude? I reel it in a fair amount when I give presentations. Make sure someone brings smelling salts if you ever listen to a hot-blooded firebrand like PZ or JT.