Atheist Convention

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend the Atheist Convention, held in Melbourne. It was a lot of fun! The people there were really nice, lots of conversations were had while waiting for talks to start.

I always like going to things like these, because it instantly gives people something to talk about. "What did you think of .....'s talk"? "Would you consider yourself an Atheist"? "Are you from around here"? 

I got full weekend tickets as a Christmas present (a little ironic I suppose), so got to see all speakers Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday night was fun, the talkers were more of a comedy style, not too much heavy thinking. They were also serving beer, champagne and some cool food. The beer was actually good, Red Angus! Not the normal stuff given away as 'complimentary'. Speaking of beer, there was one dude sitting behind me who was SMASHED. He kept yelling stupid things, and pissing everyone around him off. Catherine Deveny tore into him, "does the term 'shut the fuck up mean anything to you"?

The first speakers were at about 8:30 Saturday morning, bright an early! Phillip Adams was the first one up, I liked his talk. (I'm not going to go into too much detail, for that go to http://tiny.cc/tb0me)

The best speakers on Saturday were A.C Grayling, Taslima Nasrin, and of course P.Z Myers (who I got to say hello to, very cool!). A.C Grayling gave an awesome talk, but what made it great was that it just flowed, he didn't seem like he was reading from notes at all. 

Taslima Nasrin gave an amazing talk about her experiences writing about religion, and it was amazing to hear how much her life was at risk, just from writing! Scary stuff. She received a very well deserved standing ovation, the only other person who got one was Richard Dawkins (obviously). 

PZ Myers was incredibly funny, exactly as you would expect if you are a regular reader of his blog Pharyngula. I liked the way he talked about scientists who are religious. Religion compromises them, because they have to set apart a section of their brain to non-scientific thinking, and have to create these complicated scenarios in order to justify their beliefs. PZ of course explained it much better than I ever could. 

Sunday was great, I got there a bit late so missed half the first talk. I couldn't really concentrate for the bit that I did turn up to, because I was pretty sure I had locked my keys in my car, and didn't want to create a massive disturbance by searching through my entire backpack. Luckily I found them in the interval, they had fallen to the bottom of my bag.

Richard Dawkins was clearly the highlight of the conference, I would be curious to find out what the attendance would have been had he not been speaking. He gave a really great talk, but I must admit it didn't flow as nicely as other talks. The best part was during the Question and Answer section, when he was just going off the top of his head. 

One woman asked what she clearly thought was a killer question to destroy his atheism "what is DNA"? People started booing, but quickly quietened down, and Richard gave a really good answer. But it was annoying that time was wasted on a question that 99% of the audience understood, and could have been answered by reading a year 7 science textbook. It was unfair that a significant amount of time was given to a clearly religious person, when SO many other more interesting questions could have been asked and answered. I understood why people booed, and I get why they were quickly shooshed. If Richard hadn't answered, the religious would have won, "Richard Dawkins can't answer a simple fact, therefore Christianity is right". He handled the situation very well, in the best possible way. 

People did tend to abuse the question time, talking for aaaaages, loving their time in the spotlight. There must be a better way to do question time, maybe the same way the tv show Q&A (on ABC) do it? That way we could avoid idiots talking about how 'psychology is pseudoscience'. (Seriously, what a dickhead).

At the end of his talk Richard got a very well deserved standing ovation, then everyone rushed out to get their books signed. Man, the queue was loooooooooooooooooooooooooong. Like, really long. I was about in the middle, but the queue even seemed long when I joined it. But everyone was friendly no jostling or fighting. I had a good chat with the dude in front of me, about life the universe and everything. We also talked about how awesome the food had been! Seriously, I've been to conventions before, but the food here was the best I have come across. There was plenty for everyone, and it was varied and interesting and Tasty! Very cool.

The only downside was that nothing was really said that challenged any of my beliefs, or that I disagreed with. It's nice to be challenged, and have to change or defend an opinion. Also, the panel of women really should have been four separate talks, they should have had more time. Then the panel could have been more of a question and answer type thing, more of a conversation (like a panel is supposed to be).