I know many of you probably never saw my post a few days ago inviting everyone to the world religions conference where I was a key note speaker. I'd like to send a big thank you to kwintestal and Mincan for showing and giving their support, surfice to say it made quite an impression that the three people standing up and defending atheism at the event were all ex-witnesses.
The theme for the event was on the topic of morals and modesty. I will now give you an sample of an article that I wrote about the event being published in an upcoming Ontario Freethinkers newsletter, the talk its self is being published jointly by the sponsors of the event, the Islamic association of Hamilton and Canadian Freethiners Magazine.
We have many events around Ontario and I hope that more people will show up in the future, perhaps if we have some events close to the border some of our American brothers can come join us as well.
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I don't know how to describe the speech except to say that it was a major victory for humanism. Basically Matt went MIA and was not able to get one person from MASH to show up, so I took every book from my library I had on atheism and evolution and set up a stand on my own. I set up my stand will all my books like "The God Delusion" and "god is not Great, how religion poisons everything" on one side and all my books on evolution on the other, I put some old issues of the skeptical inquire I had in the center of the table. But for a last minute setup it worked out really well, more people came and checked out my display than any other. I even had a few people ask if they could buy my books, however, I had to reply "sorry were not a religion I don't want to take your money". I had two of my friends show up from Niagara Falls who are both atheist ex-Jehovah's Witnesses to help me out.
For my 'scripture' reading I read an essay by Richard Feynman on how no true scientists can have the same kind of certainty as a religious person does, and how eventually that doubt will eventually lead an honest person to question the very existence of God.
I was worried about the quality of my speech as I had just managed to put it together the day before, but my worries were unfounded. I was one of only two people to give a talk with public speaking experience and so I was able to grab and keep everyone's attention right with my opening line "God is a delusion, religion poisons everything ..." and I have to say, I've always wanted to say that to an audience filled with religious people. Don't worry though I quickly toned things down by asking the question after "How is it that titles like these have become national best sellers and what does it mean?"
The message I was trying to convey, that Humanism represents a universal code of ethics or morals that while sharing many components with different religions is different in the fact that we promote tolerance in areas where traditional religions obstructs the rights of individuals to self determination, was a resounding success. Also as I was starting my speech three men came in and it turned out that one was the mayor of Hamilton and the other two were MP's. I absolutely love the fact that they were sitting there in the front row as I presented the case that the public funding of only catholic schools was a morally irresponsible and repulsive act for a secular democracy to impose as all it does is promote intolerance.
After my speech the mayor of Hamilton got up and actually quoted lines from my speech about the importance of tolerance and universal human values, also during the break I had the moderator of the event come up and basic tell me he agreed with everything I said and told me how he is going to be teach a course at McMaster focusing on some of the topics I had brought up in the talk.
The best part of the event was the question and answer portion, that's where humanism really shined. Many of the questions were directed towards me, one of them was about abortion and how we as humanists view the matter. My answer got over half the women in the audience stand up and applaud.
The best part for me personally was at the end when some of the young kid (8-11) that was there representing the Catholic School Board, came up to me at the end and said "I loved all that stuff you had to say about Science, I don't understand how these other people couldn't understand what you were saying, it seems so simple!" I loved it! It made my day.
I may even have converted the president of the Islamic Association of McMaster over to atheism during my conversation with him, but I realize that my post is already getting verbose, so I will leave that story for another day.
Surfice to say that was the most fun I've had in a long time. I could really tell that I made a lot of people think, even my friend said to me at the end 'man you weren't just up there to give a speech to these guys, you were out there to convert' and I believe it may have work out better than I could have hoped. The organizers of the event are going to be publishing my speech along with everyone else’s and agreed to send me a free digital copy of a professionally produced video of the event.
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At the end of the day I had the sense that we walked out of that conference with the strongest moral arguments out of all the other religions, because ours were the only ones that were tolerant of all people and were actually using arguments based on scientific methods of inquiry.
Hopefully kwintestal or mincan can fill everyone in on any details I miss or got wrong.
I hope to see everyone at our next event and may natural selection favour you all!