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

Such Christian Responses To The Atheist Monument

The first ever atheist monument to be on government property went up this weekend in Florida^[1].

[2]

Hemant covered the events quite well^[3].  And of course, there were protesters^[4].  I've been at plenty of atheist events that had protesters, but never one with such blatantly racist protesters.

I think I'll just leave the response to Amanda Knief's tweets^[5] on the matter since she said what I was thinking.

"Don't like Christian culture, go home!" What! Wait--I was born here; I am home. Where the hell should I go? #standmyground #StarkeContrast
— Amanda Knief (@mzdameanor) June 29, 2013

"The South is a Christian nation." Um, update: you lost that war a while ago & the South is NOT a nation. #realitycheck #StarkeContrast
— Amanda Knief (@mzdameanor) June 29, 2013

Only racists who don't know who won the Civil War could be the most ridiculous thing at a place Eric Hovind^[6] was.

[7]

I love this picture for a number of reasons.  It illustrates how disrespectful Eric Hovind is.  It would be rude stand up there if it was a random bench and it wasn't David Silverman sitting there.  No matter who was sitting there, it would be incredibly rude to stand right next to their head.

It being a monument that was making history and the person sitting there being the head of the organization who made it happen makes it that much more rude.  The fact that it's an extremely rare thing for any religious view that isn't Christianity to get any positive attention makes it even worse for him to be so brazenly arrogant.

And still, he has the right to do it.

I'm glad that @SyeTenB and @erichovind exercised their free speech. Might I suggest that you go ahead and wear that toilet seat as necklace?
— Matt Dillahunty (@Matt_Dillahunty) June 30, 2013

If only Christians were better able to show such respect^[8].

It's incredibly disturbing how often I see Christians portray the Bible commandment against murder as the only thing keeping people from killing.

I guess that's better.  He's only threatening to beat us up instead of kill us.  But one more had something to say about killing.

Instead of threatening us, he's pretending we did the threatening.  But, ...

Exactly.  So, I'll leave it at that and move on the more fun comments.

Chris is right.  Plus, regarding tolerance see the tweet of Matt Dillahunty's that I shared above^[9].

I wish I could expect that response to make the guy understand that being atheist doesn't make you a nihilist.

I also wish I could write off the hate as trolls.  But it's all consistent with what I see happen every time.  It happens online and in person.  Christian privilege in America leaves no room for anything else.  So they freak the fuck out^[10] anytime anyone else exercises their rights.

This last one is one I really hope is a Poe, but sadly, that kind of crazy shit is sometimes real too.

Just a hunch, but I suspect this guy might be a tad racist.  Either way, I'm sticking with the idea that the crazier they get, the more it means we're winning^[11].

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1.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/atheists-unveil-monument-next-to-ten-commandments-at-florida-courthouse/2013/06/29/f226a614-e10c-11e2-86b4-4efb8c53d62b_story.html
2.  https://twitter.com/AmericanAtheist/status/351024379854983168
3.  https://twitter.com/hemantmehta/status/351021011761762305
4.  https://twitter.com/jteberhard/status/351071613707485186
5.  https://twitter.com/mzdameanor
6.  http://aparticularblogbyaparticularatheist.blogspot.com/2012/11/eric-hovind-i-have-question-for-you.html
7.  I lost track of who gets credit for the picture.
8.  https://twitter.com/Matt_Dillahunty/status/351327995878846465
9.  https://twitter.com/Matt_Dillahunty/status/351184669334716416
10.  http://aparticularblogbyaparticularatheist.blogspot.com/2012/07/uncontroversial-billboard-is.html
11.  http://aparticularblogbyaparticularatheist.blogspot.com/2013/06/bryan-fischer-being-unhappy-makes-me.html