Now you know what I did last week: a quick review of the Global Atheist Convention 2012

Right now, in my bleary, jet-lagged state, I thought it would be a good moment to scribble down what I found most memorable about the Global Atheist Convention.

  • First and foremost, the attendees. It’s an unfortunate characteristic of conference organization that the speakers get all the attention…but of course, they’d be nothing without someone to listen and occasionally shout back. I had the best time outside the conference, talking to all those swarms of jubilant godless folk.

  • Christopher Hitchens. He’s gone, but both Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss gave excellent testimonials. And the very best is this video, Hitchens distilled down to his sharpest, most acerbic self.

  • The organizers. Whoa, but this conference was smoooth — everything on time, we speakers were pampered and tended and delivered on stage professionally, the conference center was lovely, and there wasn’t a hitch in sight (and no Hitch, either, but not their fault). I’d be interested to hear the attendees perspective, but I don’t think this was an event where they felt neglected or bored either.

  • The humor. This has become a signature of atheist conventions: we don’t have hymns, we don’t have a liturgy, but we do have comedy (which sometimes misfires horribly — bitter misogyny is not funny — but OK, exploring the boundaries will sometimes lead to failure). Our godless future is apparently going to have us laughing a lot.

  • The protesters. We had a couple of Christian groups and one Muslim group appear outside the conference hall with microphones and amplifiers, at which time they howled at us. Note, they did not talk with us — it was all top-of-the-lungs screaming about how much they loved Jesus and how much they wanted to decapitate Ayaan Hirsi Ali. They came off as desperate, stupid, and pathetic…thank you very much!

  • The weirdness. This is a combination of the attendees and humor: Australians are a wild and crazy lot. So yes, Martin Pribble and I had a hug-off.

  • Profit! OK, this was a little odd; I didn’t find as much time to do podcasts with rational Australians as I’d have liked, but I got collared by one persistent fellow with a professional video rig and a cameraman and taken aside for about an hour of solid recording in an interview. Afterwards, I signed a release and he gave me a great big wad of cash, to my complete surprise — so much cash that all my incidental expenses for this trip were covered, and I came home with a nice bit of extra money. Weird. And then later I was informed that my interviewer was a Seventh Day Adventist and creationist, so you can expect that interview to come out in little edited dribs and drabs in the future. It felt like Expelled all over again.

    It was kind of silly, too: I would probably have given a sharper, pithier interview if I’d known what it was about. At least I was able to pass on warnings to other speakers at the conference afterwards.

  • Australia. We did find time for a little sight-seeing: a museum, the zoo, the aquarium. It’s a lovely continent. I wish plate tectonics would hurry up and send it a little closer to us, though — it’s far too far away.

  • I had an interesting evening with Stedman and Cannold. What can I say that’s pleasant about Stedman? He’s a very, very nice guy, and he would be an excellent liaison to the religious community if only he’d stand up for secularism rather than this interfaith bullshit, which simply panders to wacky people with ridiculous beliefs.

    I have to say, though, that my highlight of that evening debate was the after-party at Embiggen Books. Now that is a bookstore; I wish they were all that good. Imagine a bookstore with all the New Age dross and religious self-help wankerism swept away, and all that was left was the intelligent stuff. That’s Embiggen Books.

  • The future. I am optimistic. We keep growing, the people are happy and ambitious. We are going to win. You’re all going to the next GAC (the organizers, I’m sure, don’t even want to think about that right now), which will be even bigger, right?

Melbourne Day Two

The day is off to an awful start. Internet access in the hotel is only intermittent, and it’s only occasionally that I can get on; and then this morning my laptop plays prima donna and dies, repeatedly, with ugly lock-ups and horribly slow performance. I may be restricted to blogging by iPad all weekend, which is slower and clumsier.

The day will get better. Mary has plans for us. We’re going out to see the sights this morning and afternoon, so she’s totally in charge. She keeps talking about flowers and trees and birds, though, and not a word about Cephalopoda or Insecta, so it might be a little weird. I’ll try to cope.

Then, 4:00 to 6ish, any pharyngula people in the vicinity ought to converge on the South Wharf Hilton Bah for some ‘Strine beeah. The Global Atheist Convention commences at 6:15 with a cocktail party, and then…chaos reigns!

Dawkins/Pell on Q&A

It’s about to be a long weekend of triumphant atheism in Australia, and Richard Dawkins set things up by sacrificing that idiot, George Pell, on the altar of reason. The whole debate is now online.

I was really unimpressed with most of the audience’s questions, and even less impressed with Pell. Pell threw in Atheist Hitler at about 11 minutes in, and some smug audience member exhibited his confusion about atheism and agnosticism at 14 minutes. Also, the guy at 21 minutes with a video embarrassed all Australians, I think.

It’s a good warmup for the rest of the week, though.

It was also a warmup for Richard: here he is the next morning on the radio.

“Undeniable” denies itself; changes name to “Forgettable”

There’s some weird Christian sect that is planning on a counter-demonstration on Sunday in Melbourne. I wrote about it before, it’s called Undeniable, and it was definitely billed as a response to the Global Atheist Convention. Here’s the google cache version of their announcement.

The Global Atheist Convention is coming to Melbourne in less than two weeks. They will be mocking our God. I don’t know about you, but I’m not OK with this!

There comes a point when something has to be done and it needs to be done loud!

Ps Dennis Prince (my dad) has produced a Christian newspaper (The Regal Standard) in response to the Atheist Convention, to glorify God and make him known. So far it has sold 75,000 copies and also received secular newspaper and radio attention.

And then twelve days ago the Lord stirred my heart to put on an event in response to the Global Atheist Convention.

Wait, why google cache? Because they have already wimped out. Blinked. Backed away. Run in fear. After a few atheists noticed their game and laughed, pointed out that their show was after the GAC, and suggested that maybe we’d stroll down by the Undeniable event and do some public denying, they completely rewrote their copy to remove any mention of the GAC.

On Thursday 22nd March 2012, my heart was stirred to put on an event. An event to glorify God, with the message that thousands of Christians know God is real because He has changed their lives. This event will be on Sunday 15th April at 7:30pm at Federation Square (the Main Stage).

Heh. It hasn’t even happened and we’ve already won. The original message also talked about having Christians wear white t-shirts and to give testimonies.

And so I’m boldly asking every man, woman and child from every church and denomination to come to Federation Square on Sunday 15th April. Come wearing a white T-shirt (or top) and bring your glow sticks. We will also have a limited number of printed T-shirts with the words “ASK ME MY STORY.” Our message to the media is that there are thousands of us with a unique story to tell. Our testimonies are evidence that there is a God, because He has changed our lives.

That’s all erased now; somebody had left a comment — “Will be attending & would love to get the T-Shirt you speak of” — which is now dangling on an article that says nothing at all about any t-shirt. I may still stroll by the Square, though.

I’ll be dressed in black.

What a deal!

You’re all looking forward to Skepticon (9-11 November, in Springfield, Missouri), but did you know you could preorder your very own Skepticon5 t-shirt right now?

And because we’re special, the Pharyngula Horde gets a special code: enter “CrocoduckLives” in the box, and you will get a free surprise gift with your t-shirt order. It probably won’t explode or shower you with razor-sharp shrapnel or stab you or poop on you. Probably. But does it matter? It will be a surprise!

Where? North Texas?

I’ve got to say it: I never heard of Frisco, Texas before, and had no idea where it is. But it’s apparently a big city of 100,000 people out in the northeast part of the state, north of Dallas/Fort Worth, and they are putting on an atheist convention! These things are getting to be everywhere, and I think this is an excellent development. We just had an excellent event out here in a much more obscure part of the world (but where it is needed), and now Texas is popping up pockets of rationality everywhere.

Let’s see Amarillo and Midland and Corpus Christi join in the trend — a great wave of people of reason standing up and making themselves known all across the state.

Until the Great Texas Atheist Revolution, though, you’ll have to go to the North Texas Secular Student Convention. It’s got a great lineup; everyone in the region should hop into your Volvos with the gay pride bumper sticker and head to Frisco on the 14th of April.

As well as a debate featuring:

Midwest Science of Origins conference…all done!

I’m extremely impressed with this group of students, the organizers of the first ever #msoc.

They pulled it off: they brought in a great lineup of speakers, Marco Peloso, Michael Wilson, Dan Demetriou, and Neil Shubin,* who did a fine job of explaining how science works, why we’ve got the answers we do, and the importance of scientific thinking. A special thanks to Neil Shubin, a scholar and a gentleman who made a major effort to support a student run event.

They also drew in a respectable number of community and regional citizens. I’m so used to having science events in Morris, and the usual suspects — students and faculty of our science and math division — show up, but no one else. These two days I looked out at the audience in wonder, because I didn’t recognize most of the people!

Another bit of good news is that in that collection of student organizers are a fair number of sophomores and juniors…they aren’t all graduating this year. And what that means is continuity and experience, ripe for MIDWEST SCIENCE OF ORIGINS II! You didn’t really think we were completely done, did you? There will be another, even if I have to take a whip to the students (which I won’t, since they were all totally enthusiastic and disciplined about this one).

One last note of appreciation: I have to thank Answers in Genesis for making it all possible. It was Terry Mortenson’s lies and ignorance, proudly paraded in a series of church-sponsored lectures last year, that outraged these students and inspired them to respond productively, bringing in scientists to report the facts accurately, rather than that awful creationist propagandist. Good work, Ken Ham! It’s amazing how effective you are at motivating young scientists to fight back!

Although, speaking of Terry Mortenson, one thing I noticed at that lecture was that the church was packed: where were you church attendees this weekend? You missed an opportunity to learn something. But don’t worry, like I said, there will be another chance next year at #msoc2.

*I know, they know…all men. They tried to get more diversity in the speakers, but this conference was assembled on a shoestring, and there were other speakers who turned them down. Next time, with a proven track record, the hope is they’ll be able to get more money and be able to afford speakers from elsewhere other than the upper midwest, and also get more positive responses. First time events are hard, but now we’ve got momentum.

A fine time in Morris

#MSOC is off to a great start — we had the first talk this evening (OK, it was me, ho hum), and I was impressed: we got a good crowd of people, and most importantly, they weren’t just the usual science faculty and students I see every day, but we actually succeeded in drawing in people from the local community and region. Yay, student organizers done good!

We had a good dinner with Neil Shubin, Marco Peloso, Dan Demetriou, and a gaggle of the student organizers at the local Italian place tonight. Tomorrow, more talks! It’s not too late to join us!

Last call for the Midwest Science of Origins Conference

The conference starts here in Morris tonight, with an opening lecture by yours truly on the evolution of creationism in the science auditorium on campus. It’s just the one event, so you’re forgiven if you only show up tomorrow for the main course — a day of science and philosophy, starting at 10am and continuing with breaks until about 7. All talks will be held in the science auditorium, except Neil Shubin’s at 2:00, which will be held at the elementary school gym (just a few blocks down the road from the university).

Then, on Sunday, we wrap up with Chris Stedman talking about community service or something.

Come on out! It’s going to be a grand couple of days, and we’d love to make the community wonder what’s going on by swamping all the local restaurants at lunch and dinner.

I’ve received questions about this: what if you haven’t registered? DON’T WORRY. SHOW UP ANYWAY. It’s entirely free, they just want you to register to help keep track of how many show up, and to get contact info for future events. You can also just show up for any one talk you want to hear (Shubin is in the Elementary School because we expect more will show up for that talk than the others). It’s OK — this is all casual and fun, the goal is engagement with the region and community, and we’re not going to force anyone to jump through hoops.

How many more conferences can you bear?

This is getting ridiculous. Another collision: on 18-20 May, I’ll be attending Imagine No Religion in Kamloops, BC. At the same time, the Women in Secularism conference is taking place on the other side of the continent, in Washington DC. I can’t be at both!

But I do have a proxy. My daughter Skatje will be traveling to DC, and she will also be posting the occasional summary of the days’ events here on Pharyngula. One blog, two conferences. We shall do everything!

Warning: if you are at the same conference with Skatje, do not attempt to weasel sordid stories of her awful father and his goofy behavior out of her — she is under strict instructions to obey that one commandment about honoring your father and mother. Also, the one about killing.

OK, maybe not the one about killing if you get too pushy.