Heading to the airport for the return flight(s) now. Was a great conference, and Melbourne is a lovely city. I’ll write up some of the talks - or rather, thoughts about them - at some point, but in the meanwhile, this tribute to Hitch that we watched on Sunday is really lovely: Tribute to Christopher Hitchens - 2012 Global Atheist Convention
Some impressions from the conference: http://synapses.co.za/thoughts-global-atheist-convention-atheistcon/
That is a very well written piece, Jacques, thank you.
Is your gripe that there was too much comedy or too little? (That most of it dealt with religion should be understandable given the context of the event and personally I don’t think religion can be ridiculed enough ;))
And surely any “burn in hell” thrown at one should be answered with a “fuck off you twat” or am I just too shallow? I am not much interested in being the better man or have the high moral ground. I think all kinds of responses can be effective in the end, I just prefer the direct, don’t beat around the bush anymore approach.
I’d be keen to read more if you’ll keep us posted. Job well done.
“burn in hell” ? my response would be: “your merciful, loving god created hell didn’t he?”
Blake said: “As the air is to birds and the sea to fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.” I think it’s fair to substitute ‘ridicule’ for ‘contempt’, and ‘ridiculous’ for ‘contemptible’. There are encouraging signs that the ‘you must respect religion’ mindset is being eclipsed by an increasing number of people who are prepared to call bullshit bullshit.
Preaching the Gospel to Hundreds at Global Atheist Convention, Melbourne, Australia, 2012
I found this quite by accident while searching for biking stuff last night. Quite a coincidence, but I do think same of the atheists in this clip are acting like douches, even if they’re replying to a douche. They don’t help our image with christians.
Yep, this was my concern also - I’d rather demonstrate how to engage in debate (as opposed to shouting). But this is a personal preference, and as I said in the piece, more extreme reactions are sometimes justified. But consider the reactions to the Muslim protesters - I don’t have a problem with the chants of “Mohamed was a paedophile” - but at some point that became chants accusing the protesters of being paedophiles, which seemed rather excessive. Some video of them linked below (but without those chants). Cyghost, I thought there was too much comedy - there were people in the audience (Blackford, Benson), as well as others not there (like Oppy) who I would have liked to hear, and the comedy took up slots that I thought could have been better used.
I’ll certainly try to get around to more posts, hopefully even tomorrow.
I watched about 5 minutes of BoogieM’s clip now. The problem as I see it, is that anyone who climbs on a soapbox armed with a microphone, isn’t there to “debate” anything. And imo, he deserves any and all heckling he or she gets.
Now, I probably wouldn’t even go to an atheist convention unless it happens right in my backyard and then I’ll probably not hang around when someone is preaching at all. (somewhere there must be a booth with babes? tell me there was booth babes, Jacques!) I don’t really know, having never been in such a situation. If I know myself, I may look on in morbid fascination for a while without taking part and then wandering off to greener pastures.
I’m happy do agree to disagree with you all, but I couldn’t see much I disagreed with in the first vid except the moron preaching his bullshit. (All atheists are liars? seriously fuck off with that shit) I guess I am one who simply don’t care much about ‘our image’ then. What the hell, they already think we eat babies…
To my they are the enemy, the enemy of reason, of logic, of everything good in humanity and the potential we have. (And the most militant thing I have ever done against the enemy or are likely to do, is speak out against it. On the interweb.)
Jacques mentions some people called the muslim protesters pedophiles (I don’t quite have the stomach to watch the second vid yet) and that seem a tad over the top. Even if your prophet was a pedophile and you revere him and you condone his pedophile actions explicitly, it doesn’t quite make you a pedophile. But I certainly understand and identify with such frustrations.
Be all that as it may, this is fascinating and I look forward to more of Jacques’ insights into this.
For me the best way to get Atheism out there is through entertainment. Movies like Whatever Works comes to mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whatever_Works The message is very pragmatic but I am not complaining. A Global Atheist Convention is a nice though. I would like to go to one.
Through entertainment we can wash away alot of the religious ideas around. More we market our ideas the better. We are not going door to door and asking someone to become Atheist. Our ideas spakle and shine in the bright light of what they are. Awesome.
PS Where is the spell check.