March 29, 2024

Time to ascend

I don’t often promote these events, especially when it seems like everyone knows about it already, but at the moment, I just want to think about good things I can look forward to.

On Labor Day weekend, August 31st thru September 3rd,  three weeks from now,  I will be in Denver Colorado for the Ascent of Atheism.  I have been invited to join in a panel between Seth Andrews of the Thinking Atheist and Matt Dillahunty of the Atheist Experience.  With Seth’s years in radio, and Matt’s years on television, I’m sure I will pale compared to these men, but it will be an honor to share the stage with both of them.

Of course there will be quite a lot of other people there worth seeing too.  This will be a more family-oriented convention than most, with child care being provided for the kids who are too young to join the planned outing with Camp Quest.  We will be in Colorado after all.  My wife and son are coming with me, and I’m hoping my brothers will turn up too as they both live there.  If you haven’t attended any of these atheist or skeptics conventions before, this promises to be a good one to start with, and more good ones are upcoming.

12 thoughts on “Time to ascend

  1. I’m hoping my brothers will turn up too as they both live there

    Are your brothers rationalists/skeptics? I know from your other discussions about your family that you were raised in a very fundamentalist environment and I would see it as a very positive sign if not only you yourself, but also your siblings had been able to free yourselves from that.

    I will also understand completely if you don’t think that its a good idea to answer that question.

    1. You’re right; I shouldn’t answer this question. Nor could I as I don’t know the answer myself. My brothers come from the side of my family that never discussed religion. I know our father believed in some concept of God, and that he didn’t have much interest in science, but I doubt if he ever read the Bible either -or cared what it said. I never asked my brothers, and they never said, what it is that they do or don’t believe.

      1. Well my parents are both life-long Catholics and I know for a fact that I’m the only member of the family who has read the Bible.

        That sort of thing has always puzzled me; if I believed in a being as complex and ineffable as a god, and believed that there was in existence a book that offered real insight into that god’s character and personality, I’m pretty sure that the study of that book would obsess me.

        Yet lots of people apparently do believe that and still keep putting off actually reading the damn thing.

        1. The beauty of religion is that it does your thinking and ethical decision-making for you. User-friendly and zero-config, just watch the Meat UI. No reason to read the manual.

  2. I always knew it would be bikers who’d signal the dawn of an Age of Reason.

    One question. Does the squirrel have its own shades?

  3. Aron could meet Bob Enyart fact to face, seeing as how the convention is in Denver. Come to think of it, I wonder if Enyart will be attending.

  4. I love fox squirrels. But they seem to have been displaced by invasive gray squirrels in parts of the Houston area. Why? They are a northern species. You’d think global warming would favor the fox squirrels.

    I’ve seen whitewing doves displace Inca doves. I’ve seen black bellied tree ducks move into central Texas and displace coots and wood ducks. The tree ducks have spread all across the Gulf Coast and into Florida and Georgia.

    In every other case the tropical species have spread at the expense of the northern species. So how have the gray squirrels made headway down here?

  5. You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be actually something that I think I would never understand. It seems too complex and extremely broad for me. I’m looking forward for your next post, I’ll try to get the hang of it!

Leave a Reply to F Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top