A Particular Blog By A Particular Atheist: American Atheists Convention

Showing posts with label American Atheists Convention. Show all posts

Monday, April 21, 2014

People Worth Your Attention - Count Dolby von Luckner

I first encountered Count Dolby von Luckner (Dale DeBakcsy) at the 2013 American Atheists convention a year ago in Austin. He had a table there, where he would draw pretty much anything requested. His notebook of sketches was packed with awesome. The clear standout was the Taftaroo (Howard Taft plus kangaroo), which was later paired with Tesla riding a velociraptor.

That year, JT Eberhard got Iron Man punching Jesus. I had no good ideas until after I got back home. But this year, I had one that I'm pretty happy with.

The inspiration for this request was one of my favorite criticisms of religion, Mark Twain's "The Fly".

To see Dale's other work:

The Vocate

Frederick the Great: A Most Lamentable Comedy Breaching Time and Space

He's also a contributors for a few publications:

The Freethinker
Philosophy Now
American Atheists Magazine
Secular World
New Humanist
Free Inquiry

Saturday, April 19, 2014

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

On The Similarities Of Mormons And Atheists

I'm at the American Atheists convention in Salt Lake City this weekend. I caught a tweet, retweeted by Recovering From Religion, from an LDS member who works near the convention hotel and wanted to spend his lunch hour with some atheists.

It was an interesting experience. Time was limited, so I intentionally avoided topics that would become debate, but I got to pick his brain a bit about Mormonism. We talked about the colleges around town, I asked about Book of Mormon, and I finally learned what the deal is with the Institute of Religion that is near the University of Nebraska Omaha campus. They're places to take courses to learn about Mormon theology, and they're intentionally put as close to colleges as possible. It's presented as educational, but I suspect the purpose is to proselytize. Either way, I hope to get a better look at them sometime this year.

If I keep talking to the guy I met, one thing I plan to dig deeper into is his comparison of Mormons & atheists. At first it was based on the fact that both of us are seen as outsiders to the general Christian community in America, which goes along with the premise of a Daily Beast article today about the convention.

The convention this week will bring together in Salt Lake City two distinctly American movements, with remarkably similar demographics, that are in the process of emerging into a public sphere that has long considered them suspicious outsiders.

That part is true. Both groups are seen as outsiders. The thing is, it's for very different reasons.

For Mormons, that suspicion goes back to the 1800s, when, as a young movement, they were driven from town to town and subject to anti-Mormon riots (the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, was killed by a mob in Illinois).

The article does touch on one similarity in where the hate for both groups comes from.

That suspicion subsided a bit, helped by the church’s renunciation of polygamy in 1890, and cropped up again in the 1980s and 1990s, the result of scandals, a slow adoption of racial equality, and attacks from some right-wing evangelical Protestants.

The Christian Right are no fans of the Mormon Church, and they're certainly not fans of atheists.

The article doesn't mention that Joseph Smith was convicted of fraud, or the other issues that lead to Mormonism being not trusted. It also doesn't mention that the main source of the mistrust toward atheists is Cold War anti-communism.

One hilarious similarity that my lunch companion made was the claim that both groups reject the supernatural. I think the premise he intended was that both groups reject the supernatural more than Creationists like Ken Ham, and I suspect that's true to a degree. Mormons do describe their god in less supernatural way than fundamentalist Protestants.

God is perfect, all wise, and all-powerful; the ruler of the universe. He is also merciful, kind, and just. He is our Father in Heaven. We are created in His image (Genesis 1:27). He has a body that looks like ours, but God’s body is immortal, perfected, and has a glory that words can’t describe. Because we are His children, He knows and loves each of us individually. He has a plan to help His children find joy in this life and return to live with Him when this life is over.

But they quite clearly believe in the supernatural. It's kind of a requirement of being Mormon. Or any other religion.

The author of the Daily Beast piece and my lunch companion were right about our 2 groups having some similarities, but we don't have similarities on any of what is the core of either group. Mormons are still a religion, founded by a con man. Atheism isn't a religion at all, and attendees of conventions like this one are primarily people who have escaped religion.

But the Daily Beast did get one thing right.

Well, the Mormons just had their Moment. And as for the atheists? While churches might be in decline, their numbers are growing.

Atheism is growing, and religion is shrinking. And with good reason. It's the same reason Phil Ferguson told a story on today's Dogma Debate about how, to get some kids to rethink their Christianity, he gave them both Bibles and asked them to read them.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

An Update On The Campaign To Get Biblename to AACon2014

Some friends met last weekend to create a campaign to get a talented photographer to the 2014 American Atheists Convention. Having an active YouTuber in the room also meant getting a pretty good video for the effort.

Soon after posting it, I saw links to it all over my news feed. Throughout the week, I've had numerous inquiries about the status of it.

In less than a week, with entirely viral marketing, this campaign is fully funded.

It's heartwarming to see atheists so eagerly supporting artistic talent and each other.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Saturday Morning Shares - 04-13-2013

Here's the links & tweets to share from the last week. Most were also shared on this Facebook page or retweeted. Please add any fun or informative stories I missed in the comments.

Asshole Of The Week:

Apparently MSNBC doesn't think your children belong to you. Unflippingbelievable. youtu.be/Oa9temz_Cxw
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) April 7, 2013

Funniness:

(via @thinkgeek)

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Saturday Morning Shares - 04-06-2013

Here's the links & tweets to share from the last week. Most were also shared on this Facebook page or retweeted. Please feel free to add any fun or informative stories I missed in the comments.

Random Stuff:

New 'GTA V' Screens Show Extreme Action and a Beautiful Game World (via @mashable)

24 Things You Didn't Know About Beer (via @Alyssa_Milano)

Science!:

Major study finds no link between vaccines and autism

(via @hemantmehta)

Gay Stuff:

Marriage Equality: 18 Creative Red Facebook Pics (via @mashable)

God Condemns Same-Sex Marriage? Really? (via @HuffPostRelig)

Religion Stuff:

Teresa MacBain, a Pastor-Turned-Atheist, Celebrates Her One Year ‘Coming Out’ Anniversary (via @hemantmehta)

(via @mikecannytalk)

I’m now a target for believers (via @PatheosAtheist)

The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense (via @hemantmehta)

(via God of the week)

(

(via New York City Atheists)

(via @jteberhard & @hemantmehta)

Painting of Jesus comes down in Jackson school (via United Atheists of America)

"Islamaphobia":

Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens: New Atheists flirt with Islamophobia (via @mxoom)

Criticism of Islam Is Not ‘Islamophobia’ (via @hemantmehta)

The Open Letter & Some Responses:

An Open Letter to the Secular Community

Why the American Secular Census didn't sign 'An Open Letter to the Secular Community'

A Response to "An Open Letter to the Secular Community"

#AACon13 (American Atheists Convention 2013:

Salas: Bringing people of all faiths — and no faith — together (via @exploregod)

American Atheists Convention 2013 recap: Friday (via @RussellGlasser)

American Atheists Convention 2013 recap: Saturday (via @RussellGlasser)

American Atheists Convention 2013 recap: Sunday morning (via @RussellGlasser)

American Atheists Convention 2013 recap: Sunday evening (via @RussellGlasser)

Reflections on #AAcon13 (via @DaylightAtheism)

(via @RussellGlasser)

(via @ShamarHawkins)

Preacher or Parodist? Jerry DeWitt’s Inspired Self-Deconstruction and Self-Affirmation (via @jerry_dewitt)

Back from American Atheist convention and other things. (via @SkeptimusPrime)

American Atheists Conference (via @hemantmehta)

Roger Ebert:

I do not fear death

The ‘Roger Ebert is in Heaven’ Cartoons Are Coming… (via @hemantmehta)

Secular Coalition of America's Weekly Update:

National Secular Movement Update Call (04/04/2013)