Congratulations To 2013's Atheist Of The Year, Sarah Morehead

Despite having a day of heavy people interacting while tabling for Apostacon, I picked the wrong night head out of the convention to have some introvert time.  I say this because after getting to my hotel room, I saw this posted.

My bias on this issue is all over this blog, in the form of my support for Recovering From Religion.  But even with that, and having not yet learned American Atheists' stated reasons for choosing Sarah Morehead for this award, I feel safe saying this award was well deserved.

Sarah Morehead has worked tirelessly to make Recovering From Religion grow into an international organization that provides real help to real people suffering real harm from religion.  I can think of no group that is more underrated than Recovering From Religion.

On top of that, they've got the Hotline Project coming soon, which will give people in the middle of a faith crisis a place to call, where they will receive support without proselytizing of any kind.

In addition to that, while Apostacon was/is mostly definitely a large team effort, Sarah was a driving force in the success of Apostacon last year, which has received high praise from several of our speakers.  Most of those speakers were people we were only able to get because of Sarah's involvement in Apostacon.  Without Sarah, Apostacon may have remained as good as it was before the name change form Midwest Freethought Conference, but it wouldn't have been become great.  And that's definitely where we're headed with Apostacon.

And then, as a side project, she stepped up to settle the Matt Dillahunty, Sye Ten Bruggencate back and forth debate challenges and got the damn thing scheduled.

So, if you want to be Atheist of the Year, that's what it takes.  Be a Getting Shit Done Machine.

Sarah with her award & Dan Fincke

I can only imagine how much more she'd be able to get done if she could keep her cell phone charged.

Edit:  Fixed the year

About A Different Debate (That Has Not Happened)

While tabling for Apostacon last year at ReasonFest, I learned of a plan that was being worked for Apostacon later that year.  Learning of this was on the condition that I didn't share the information because it was still in the works and it would have had its own announce done by Apostacon itself.

The goal was for a debate.  Matt Dillahunty vs Eric Hovind and Sye Ten Bruggencate.  If you're wondering who the hell Sye Ten Bruggencate is, you're wondering the same thing I was then and some friends were  the other day when I referenced him.

Here's the example of him I was shown.

The full show is here.

The gist is that he was entirely reliant on the tactic he has, Presuppositional Apologetics.  It involves an effective straw man of forcing the other person into a corner of solipsism by putting an intense focus on absolute knowledge, claiming only he can have knowledge (because God), and declaring anyone who doesn't claim absolute knowledge cannot know anything and thus cannot speak.

It's a childish word game.  When a member of the show called him out on it, instead dropping the game and having an adult conversation (the point of the show he was on), he immediately left in a tiff.

I wish I could say that was an isolated incident, but the more I learned about him, the more I learned that was his only debate tactic.  For instance, he pulled the same shit on Steve Shives and the other 2 who were on the Biblethumpingwingnut Show.

By the time my part in this story because, Matt had been dealing with Sye for a while, and he thought the potential for 2 vs 1 would get him to finally participate in a debate.  Multiple attempts were made by Apostacon to get in contact with them.  For a while, we received no response at all.  Eventually, a representative for Hovind declined citing schedule (a reasonable excuse).  We sent Sye enough e-mails that he cannot reasonably claim to have not seen them.  He never responded.

We eventually dropped the plan to attempt to make a debate happen out of logistical necessity.  We had a conference to plan and no time to play games.  Matt still came to Apostacon, where he did a magic show, that I hear was quite good^[1].

After that, I hadn't put any thought toward the failed attempt for a debate or Sye until Matt tagged Apostacon on Twitter in response to Sye tweeting this video.

In that video, Sye has a clip of Matt referencing the offer Sarah Morehead that I talked about above.  In his response to that, Sye lied about not being aware of the offer.  The only other option is that he's incredibly lazy about checking his e-mail.

Why is he lying?  Only he knows.

So, Matt responded.

In his response, Sye makes excuses about why he's still never called into the show anyone can call into and nitpicks trivial details.  In claiming he'd be hung up on, he's entirely ignoring the episodes Matt is referencing, where neither Matt Slick nor Ray Comfort were hung up on.  Sye has no good reason to think he would have been treated any differently.

I suspect that Sye decided to challenge Matt to a debate after seeing the Nye-Ham debate and decided to himself some attention.

If it was nearly anyone but Matt Dillahunty, I would advise not to waste your time with him Sye Ten Bruggencate, who I do not believe is capable of a civil, honest, or sincere debate.  But I think Matt is much more likely than most to effectively call him out on his bullshit.

Matt knows he won't convince Sye that he's wrong.  But he also knows that exposing Sye as being full of shit could make a difference with believers in the audience.  Matt knows that there will be potential future atheists in the audience.

My expectations for the debate are similar what Shives posted on Matt's first video.

I expect Sye's part of the debate to be thoroughly frustrating.  I expect him to be dishonest, mostly in the from quote mines and claims of exclusivity to absolute knowledge.

Sye claims he wants to expose "the atheist worldview" for what it is.  But all he has is word games.  So, to make the endeavor worthwhile, all Matt has to do is expose the dishonesty and terrible arguments for what they are.

If he does that, it will have the same result as the Nye-Ham debate, with even Christians saying the atheist won and comparing him to a conspiracy theorist.

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1.  I missed it due to Apostacon related obligations

Atheist Conference's Website 'Hacked'

This morning, Apostacon^[1] announced on their Facebook^[2] that their website had been hacked.  The hackers left signs all over the site and even affected the pricing of the conference tickets.  The good news is we know who the hackers are.

Cartoon ninjas.

With what they did to the Speakers page^[3], they seem to have implicated two of the speakers in this crime as well.

Sarah Morehead as a ninja

JT Eberhard

Some of the other speakers have taken on the pirate role, to fight off the ninjas.

Darrel Ray as a pirate

Jamila Bey as a pirate

I can't tell which side David Silverman is on based on his hat.

I suspect that you've figured out by now that they weren't actually hacked.  It's a clever campaign by the Apostacon people to lower prices for one day and get some attention.  Anyone following their Facebook should have seen some hints of this coming.

August 25

You're Next^[4]

August 26

Not a butter knife^[5]

August 29

Nunchucks on the poop deck^[6]

August 31

Pirate surgeon?^[7]

September 2

Weird nails^[8]

September 4

Sketch of the suspect^[9]

September 10

I guess pirates don't play jacks^[10]

September 13

Ninjas reveal themselves^[11]

These ninjas might not be very good at ninjaing.  They foreshadowed their attack for weeks and have revealed their departure time (prices go back up at midnight tonight).  But anyone familiar with Shirt Woot already knows that cartoon ninjas aren't always good at their jobs^[12].

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1.  http://www.apostacon.org/
2.  https://www.facebook.com/Apostacon
3.  http://www.apostacon.org/speakers/
4.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=506464889428603&set=a.143615919046837.37149.134097119998717&type=1
5.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=506871406054618&set=a.143615919046837.37149.134097119998717&type=1
6.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=508125502595875&set=a.143615919046837.37149.134097119998717&type=1
7.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=509017545840004&set=a.143615919046837.37149.134097119998717&type=1
8.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=509628425778916&set=a.143615919046837.37149.134097119998717&type=1
9.  https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/q71/1231209_510475369027555_1543215635_n.jpg
10.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=513276575414101&set=a.513276615414097.1073741827.134097119998717&type=1
11.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=514409421967483&set=a.143615919046837.37149.134097119998717&type=1
12.  http://www.amazon.com/s/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field-keywords=unstealthiest%20ninja&linkCode=ur2&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aunstealthiest%20ninja&sprefix=unstea%2Caps%2C269&tag=omahathe-20&url=search-alias%3Daps