The Australian had a few things to say about the convention.

It sold out.

That’s probably enough. This convention could have been much, much bigger, with a little more support. Next time — and I did hear the organizers talk about the possibility of doing it again in two years, hint, hint — it can be an even bigger event. After all, you are all planning to go, right?

The venues on the first two days were smaller, the result of caution. The organisers chanced a bigger hall yesterday when Richard Dawkins was invited to speak, but could have sold more tickets on Saturday, when philosophers Grayling and Tomas Pataki and the hilarious American biology lecturer and science blogger P.Z. Myers gave talks.

The crowd was hardcore. Few gasped when comedians – lesbian former Mormon Sue-Ann Post, ex-Catholic columnist Catherine Deveny and the New York writer, radio host and stand-up comic Jamie Kilstein – blasphemed without restraint. (Dawkins succeeded in provoking gasps when he referred to the pope as a Nazi.)

Grayling was received like a rock star; the crowd shouted with laughter when Myers spoke. Pataki’s denser argument – an atheist himself, he cautioned against the prevailing wish to see religion fade away – was received more quietly, with bemusement. He spoke of people’s emotional need to be heard and loved by a non-existent personal deity, if no real person could fill the role.

Wait, wait…I’m hilarious? I was deadly serious the whole time! I’m going to have to work on my presentation style some more, I guess.

There were a lot of real comedians working the joint, and I thought it was great. Jamie Kilstein actually succeeded in converting me. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster never really appealed to me, but the Church of the Smiling Vagina…those are my people. He gave us the Ten Commandments of his faith, and I think I could follow them.

We were hardcore. There may have been a few accommodationists around, but they were quiet. Probably cowed. Or trying to accommodate to the ferocity of their surroundings. The ones who spoke were found unconvincing by most of the audience. I was rather pleased when one young woman described me in a term I found much better than “New Atheist”. I am, apparently, a Hard Atheist. I told her that I do try to rise to the occasion and that we are all much more satisfying than those Soft Atheists.

I’m afraid I won’t be doing much posting live from the Global Atheist Convention; I’m busy, I’m having fun, my dancecard is full, and whenever things slow down a little bit some new person comes up to say hello. But have no fear, I’ll put up some comments afterwards, and also, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has dispatched a crack team of ace believers to cover the convention and scowl primly at us all. You can get the fun-house mirror version of the conference from those weirdos…and much amusement. I find it very funny that, for instance, that they can complain about how the GAC is unfair in not representing religious believers, and comparing us unfavorably to the Parliament of World’s Religions meeting, all without noting that the PWR got buckets of money from the government here, while the GAC got doodly-squat. It’s silly to demand that we respectfully engage the clownish buffoons of religion, and at the same time insist that we must use our limited resources to give a pulpit to said buffoons.

They are also a bit snooty about the fact that the opening night was a festival of comedy. How dare atheists think that the appropriate way to cope with the follies of faith is by developing a sense of humor! But then, I find this guy hilarious: catch this juxtaposition.

The night finished with Catherine Deveney and “God is Bullshit. That’s the good news.” In your face, yes. And no surprise to those who read her columns in The Age. Her milder lines included, “The only person who takes the Pope seriously is Tony Abbott.” And: “If there is anybody out there who is not an atheist, don’t worry: it’s an intelligence test and you will be eventually.” I met Catherine at the bar before the program started and after chatting she agreed to ‘an interview’ on Sunday.

My thoughts so far? As a Christian I am appalled and ashamed of the crimes, victimisation and discrimination committed in the name of Christ or by those who bear his name. To make light of them through humour is risky. And to stereotype religion in such a way is akin to taking Stalin or Pol Pot as your stereotype atheist.

I’m a little worried about Australian religion and politics now. Chris Mulherin apparently believes that making fun of the Pope and Tony Abbot is like making them the equivalent of Stalin and Pol Pot.

Nobody is making light of the horrors perpetrated in the name of religion — I do appreciate the fact that the first defensive reaction to criticism of religion is a sense of shame, at least — but the goofiness of religion is a wonderful target for humor. To whine that making a joke about one of their poorly regarded pious politicians is stereotyping them as evil tyrants suggests that their guilt and embarrassment is even deeper than I suspected.

Don’t expect much favorable coverage from this lot (and by the way, it’s also hypocritical to complain about the lack of religious apologists on the stage when the ABC blog doesn’t include even a token atheist). They’ve got an agenda that is going to be disappointed, and I predict they will continue to complain in their oblivious fashion. They’re out there in the audience, watching, hoping, and maybe even praying that someone will say something nice about their superstitions; their definition of a good convention is one that reassures them that we don’t think their bliss-ninny belief system is an unsalvageable stew of raw sewage spiced with smug ignorance.

That despite all the terrible things we know about religion – the oppression of women, the paedophilia, the social control, the violence and cruelty perpetuated in the name of one faith or another – there’s a niggling truth that millions of good, decent, hard-working people around the world are sustained, guided, and comforted by their beliefs. Instead of merely bagging religion, maybe we should be trying to understand why this is? In other words, can you have a new awakening without fully knowing what you’re waking from?

Oh, yeah, there’s that guilt again. Aside from the violence and oppression and child-rape and cruelty, how can we possibly consider taking away the baby’s dummy? That’s a fairly common argument for religion, you know — it’s the old “opiate of the masses” defense. It’s not much of a defense. When you’re amidst a group of people who have seen how swaddling minds in ignorance leads to nightmares of stupidity, it’s no defense at all.

We know that millions of good people cherish their delusions. We don’t care; that a lie makes people feel good doesn’t make it a truth. We also understand religion far better than a group of people immersed in it, making a living from propping it up, and desperate to deny that they’re wasting their lives worshipping a phantasm.

I imagine the ABC team sitting out there in the sea of the happy godless, busily taking notes, hoping for some little morsel of acknowledgment that maybe they aren’t idiots and fools for believing in a magic man in the sky who will reward their intellectual blindness with fluffy comfy chairs in a celestial paradise, or at least won’t set their immortal souls on fire for eternity. They aren’t going to get that validation. Which means we already know everything they’re going to say about the conference.

The official kick-off of the Melbourne Global Atheist convention is tonight, but we’re starting without the the officials.

I met Bride of Shrek (who is not green) and Rorschach (who wasn’t wearing the cool shifting pattern mask) for dinner last night. I can’t say I was exactly lively company — I was coming off something like 25 hours of total travel time with no sleep at all, and was feeling like I was staggering towards a brick wall of total unconsciousness — but I survived, mostly. Got a very good night’s sleep last night, too.

It’s now morning in Australia. I’m heading off to an atheist blogger/podcaster breakfast meetup, just to get my day started. If I can find the place. If not, I’ll be wandering the streets of Melbourne, somewhere down by the river.

At noon, I’m off to the Freethought University Alliance for a free lunch. I have to say a few words, too, but I aim to brief, because I am an old geezer and these are the Youth of Australia Who Will Change the Future. They should be doing most of the talking. They can run circles around me, too, which is why there is a rumor that I may have to fortify myself with some Jesus during the talk, just to keep up.

Then around 3ish, we’re having a Pharyngufest with a mob of foaming-at-the-mouth, militant, crude, rude, angry internet atheists and Pharyngulators at the Young and Jackson Hotel. Bride of Shrek tells me that we have the privilege of sharing the pub with Chloe, which, with the prospects of my first Australian beer, will probably help soothe the horrifying horde. A little bit.

Finally, at 6, after we’ve already had a full day to work ourselves up to a shrieking fever pitch, the official events begin. It should be fabulous. I’ll be looking for you all.

Here’s a personal account of how Charlie Crist deals with atheists:

Last night as I was leaving a pizzeria in Downtown St. Pete, I ran into a small group of people around Florida Governor Charlie Crist who was campaigning for a US Senate run. So, I walked over waited a moment to gain his attention and shook his hand. As we were shaking hands I asked him if he really believes that the letters he sent to Jerusalem prevent hurricanes from hitting Florida.

His smile immediately dropped and he replied “Who’s more powerful than God.” That wasn’t really an answer so asked him again to which I got a similar reply. While this was happening one of his people put a “Charlie Crist for US Senate 2010” sticker on me. Then when I told Charlie that I did not believe in God he turned beat red and ripped the sticker off of my chest. He did a 180 to start shaking other peoples hands, and turned to scream over his shoulder that he feels sorry for me.

Do you think there are any ‘militant’ atheists out there in the leadership of our movement who would react in the same way if a Baptist or a Catholic or a Muslim came up to shake their hands? Not one.

This one crosses religious boundaries — it will get me in trouble with some atheists, even. What is one act that will turn many a respectable citizen of Western society into a gibbering denialist?

[Read more…]

Now the godless Australians are getting into the atheist bus sign business, and I must say, this is my favorite ad of the bunch so far, since it’s got the nice sciencey touches to it. And it’s a fine bunch of happy atheists promoting it, too.

Kentuckians havesomething to live down right now, Ken Ham and his Cretin “Museum”. But look back to your noble past: read some of the words of Charles Chilton Moore, a godless newspaperman from Lexington who was as bold as any today.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Constantine, who murdered his own wife and children, started the Christian religion.

From that day to this that religion has been the greatest curse that ever afflicted the earth.

This religion teaches that 6,000 years ago God made the first man out of dust – not even mud – and the first woman out of a bone; that God cursed the whole human race because a snake made the woman eat an apple; that God had a son by another man’s wife, and that he had this son murdered in order to keep himself from sending all the human race to hell.

This son taught that any man who did not believe that piece of ignorance and priestly lying would go to hell and burn eternally in fire and brimstone.

The Bible, in which these things are taught, favors drunkenness, murder, slavery, lying, stealing and lechery.

He published that in 1900. Fiery bunch, those Southern newspapermen — I am reminded, for some reason, of Twain’s Journalism in Tennessee.

Next week, we’ve got the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia (with a side event, the Freethought University Alliance meeting, just for students). At the end of the month, it’s the Northwest Freethought Converence in Renton, Washington. If none of those are close enough for you, here’s another: the Atheist Alliance International is meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark (nice lineup, too).

Come on. There’s got to be room in your schedule for a godless vacation somewhere. There are probably other meetings going on, too — they seem to be popping up like mushrooms.