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Metroplex Atheists
American Atheists National Convention 2001 Shelly's Report The memorial for Murray-O'Hair's was scheduled on Thursday night. Unfortunately John & I couldn't make it. We had made our traveling arrangements before the memorial was announced and came in late that night. Friday morning was the start of the convention. About 250 atheists had shown for the convention. Greg McDowell, the Florida State Director welcomed everyone to the convention and started talking about the activism going on in Florida.
Ellen Johnson then delivered her keynote speech. Her main focus of her speech was to warn atheists that, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, our civil rights are being eroded. So, what does American Atheists need to do to insure these rights for the future? Ellen said the main focus right now is to start up a Political Action Committee (PAC) for non-believers so we can have a voice in our nation's political arena. We need to make atheists visible by becoming a very organized voting block and to start endorsing candidates.
Whitney Smith is a flag consultant and used examples of how Christian groups have tried to co-opt our nations flags to represent God. He spoke about the dangerous stance of the Supreme Court regarding ceremonial deism and the motto "In God We Trust". All of these can lead to the erosion of harmony within our borders.
Conrad Goeringer spoke about "Apocalypse Kitsch: Tim LaHaye's Left Behind Series And Its Impact On American Politics And Culture". He gave a very interesting history of how the Apocalypse was derived from the Bible. Apocalypse is the Greek word for "unveiling"; hence the term revelation. John Darby, a minister from the 1800's, is considered the father of the current-day evangelical doctrine. Conrad spoke how Tim LaHaye's work representation of a "Jesus of Retribution" has motivated the Christian fundamentalist movement to take control of the family and community. Conrad also pointed out LaHaye's latest work Mind Siege is a direct attack of secular humanism and can be seen as a modern day war scroll (similar to the war scroll found around the time of Herod).
The X-Files "Smoking Man", William B. Davis, gave an interesting speech about skepticism. He asked the audience to close their eyes and to raise their hands if the agree with the statement. He proceeded to ask four questions:
He then said he didn't believe any of the above statements. Mr. Davis went on to give a good speech about how skepticism is a fundamental basis of atheism in that the best solutions to complex problems are often the simplest explanations.
The highlight of the convention was the debate between Ron Barrier and Ray Comfort. Mr. Comfort stood up and said he was going to prove the existence of God because of four points:
During the "Evidence of Creation" segment (yes, I use segment because Mr. Comfort did not debate Ron. He was there to film a sermon to sell to his followers), Ray dredged up the same tired old arguments. He proceeded to "reinforce" the statement by repeating the same argument with other items: a soda can, a banana, a building, and a painting. He further claimed that Hawking and Einstein believe in a creator. "Evidence in the Bible" was somewhat non-informational. Mr. Comfort began to appeal to emotion by imploring us to "Be open to reason". The quote Mr. Comfort used from the bible to show the evidence, "Things are foolish to them unless they've been revealed". Ron Barrier proceeded to explain that all things that exist must have an environment. Thus, god should have an environment, too (i.e. the supernatural). According to Mr. Comfort, this supernatural being knows everything about the material world; thus, the being must not exist in the material world. This is an environmental incompatibility. Mr. Comfort never did address this point. Ron also pondered how prayer is supposed to be the way to communicate to this being who is outside of reality. He then listed the principles of unwarranted necessity:
Ron also quickly debunked the watchmaker argument by pointing out that the items Mr. Comfort showed all were made from pre-existing material. Where did the material come from to make God? Ray Comfort then delivered his "Evidence of Personal Experience" segment. He tried to explain the difference between belief and experience. It is my opinion that Mr. Comfort doesn't understand the definition of belief. He further said that humans are prone to error, thus he launched into the typical Pascal's wager argument. He then made several appeals to emotion to the audience (we all groaned). Ron Barrier rebutted by saying that Mr. Comfort cannot use ad-hominem attacks to help support his argument (Comfort called atheists "ignoramuses"). Ron also explained that complete knowledge couldn't be accepted without proof. Personal experience does not justify theism --external validation is necessary. Furthermore, Ron explained that you couldn't prove an idea with the information the idea originates from (i.e. the Bible). This is a typical Straw Man argument. The final segment "Evidence of Conscience" was short. Mr. Comfort said that everyone is "with knowledge" of god. Atheists choose to ignore this knowledge. Ron Barrier quickly stated because an idea is believable does not mean a god exists. Ron also spoke to being called "arrogant" by Mr. Comfort and Ron stated that the whole concept of god is arrogant. Ron stated that only since the Enlightenment have we as a species been able to progress. The final statement Ron said was "Reality just is". Mr. Comfort said he believed in "micro-evolution", not "macro-evolution". He further stated that atheism is a religion and proceeded to hold up a bumper sticker saying "Atheists Do It Without Guilt". Ron Barrier said that we are not out to create gods but to gain knowledge. We want to know it. We can't waste time on "what if's" when we need to know what it is. He further stated that atheists have a great lust for life and take on the unknown with out fear.
Michael Page, the editor and creator of Fade to Black web-magazine, delivered a humorous speech of his letter writing campaign to "protect the children from the violent portrayal of Jesus nailed to the cross".
Jordan Riak spoke about the connection of corporal punishment with religion. He showed us some deeply disturbing photos of the results of these punishments. The French Freethought Organization explained the status of the separation between church and state in the European arena.
Philip Stahl gave a very good speech about modern materialism. He has a great book called "The Atheist's Handbook of Modern Materialism". William Smith, the Director of Policy for Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), spoke about how religiosity is guiding our legislators to back Abstinence Only Until Marriage education. He gave some truly interesting information regarding what happens when you do not properly educate young people about proper birth control methods. Frank Zindler gave a speech about the Jesus the Jews never knew.
Arlo Pignotti, an atheist from the Atheist Community of Austin, gave a great speech with all the different Religious junk he has been able to collect over the years. Jim Strayer showed us the "science" textbooks the Bob Jones University Press publishes. He gave us some great pamphlets that shows direct quotes culled from the pages of these books.
Late Saturday night, we had a screening of Blasphemy. It's the semi-autobiographical story of the writer/director/producer John Mendoza. We enjoyed the movie so much, we bought a copy for ourselves and will likely host our own screening soon.
All in all, we had a really great time. The speakers were informational and I have some ideas for activism we can do:
John's Report Shelly did a good job covering the seminars and other "official" events at the convention, so I'll concentrate on the other stuff that went on. First off, we actually had a protester! While heading out to lunch one day, we noticed a robed character holding up a giant sheet-aluminum cross well away from the hotel. We couldn't resist, so we stopped the car and chatted with him a bit. He was a friendly guy, if a bit wild-eyed, and didn't mind us getting a picture.
Someone representing Bill Murray, estranged son of Madalyn, passed out flyers in the hotel, and Murray himself took out an ad in the local paper denouncing us. Interestingly, we got a couple of new attendees just from the ad. In an article on his web site, Murray said that teams of pastors were going to stay in the hotel to convert us. Either Murray was lied to or he's a bit too self-serving, because there were exactly zero proselytizing pastors in attendance. The book and product room was once again open and had a good collection of books, bumper stickers, flyers, and T-shirts for sale. We got a couple of new books that looked interesting. Randy Gorman, of course, picked up a couple more T-shirts.
While certainly not the amount you'd find at a sci-fi convention, William B. Davis got a small line for autographs from X-Files fans. Shelly and I later ran into him in the elevator and we all headed over to the cocktail lounge before the showing of Blasphemy. Shelly and I got a chuckle out of his shock that people were smoking in the hotel cocktail lounge --apparently that kind of thing is verboten in California, and while his character is known for his prodigious smoking, he's an ardent nonsmoker. Another interesting factoid is that Davis is a competitive water-skier. In fact, he was thrilled with being invited to Orlando so he could spend a couple of days skiing in the local lakes.
Our favorite Metroplex protester, Randy Gorman was of course in attendance. Here he is modeling the latest of our Fish-fashions and chatting it up with another attendee shortly after the Barrier-Comfort debate.
Dave Silverman was his usual charming self, and he did a great job making everyone feel welcome. At one point in the lobby, he explained the importance of "little old Jewish ladies", as they do much of his legwork up in New Jersey. Here are his two primary helpers, who have apparently done great stuff to help out his efforts up there.
After the second day of presentations, about 20 folks decided that it was time to party! Since Orlando is the home of the Mouse, we decided to excuse ourselves to Pleasure Island, which is Disney's restaurant and club complex for older teens and adults. It was a bit expensive to get in, but we got a group rate and the price included admission to all of the clubs. We started out in the Wild Horse Saloon, which wasn't so great. It's normally a country-music club, but since this was spring break and there were about two million high-schoolers around, they were playing pop.
After the Saloon, we headed over to the 21-and-over techno-club, Mannequins. This was a better idea, because it wasn't as clogged with young folks and it was a much cooler place. It was dark dark dark with smoke-machines everywhere, flashing lights, and throbbing techno-music. The coolest thing, though, was that the dance floor rotated like a giant record-player. It took a bit for us all to get our sea legs, but we ended up spending about two hours dancing up a sweat and having a great time.
The last day of the presentation included a short financial statement by American Atheists treasurer (and Metroplex Atheists member) Dick Hogan. It appears that American Atheists is more on its feet than it was when the organization went into disarray in late 1995, but there's always plenty of room for improvement.
The final presentation of the convention was a four-hour seminar on lobbying by The Trammel Group, a lobbyist-for-hire organization. While much of the material was at a much higher level than we could achieve as volunteer part-timers, he did give us a lot of great pointers on how to follow bills into laws, what persuasion techniques work, and what techniques don't.
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