Opening Speech For The Saturday #AtheistCon

by podblack on March 13, 2010

Maybe you missed it and I mentioned your site (sorry that I don’t have the links up… when I’ve got the time, I’ll correct that – EDIT – links now included)!

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Saturday of the convention – with an early morning start. I’m certain that the coffee and the eye-searing green decor of the conference rooms will wake you up if you’re somewhat jet-lagged…

The reason I’m here at all is mostly due to the influence of blogging and podcasting. Podcasting involves creating audio shows (I mostly do interviews), much like online radio shows that you download from a site or from iTunes. The podcast I do as a soloist is called The Token Skeptic and I contribute interviews to another show called The Skeptic Zone.

I’m pleased to say that there’s another member of the Skeptic Zone in the audience – Dave The Happy Singer of www.davethehappysinger.com.

You may have noticed that’s a subtle plug for his site?

I don’t think many people appreciate just how nice it is to have a site promoted, to have a forum board or a podcast recognised and appreciated? Especially when you may have got involved in, say, atheism, secularism, humanism, skepticism and the like, primarily due to online ventures.

I’ve had the experience of working with online communities, mostly in the dim-distant-past. But it has remained with me how involved people do get with them. They may be ‘virtual communities’ – but they’re still communities. People live, love, fall in love and even get married due to the interactions – I have one friend in the audience, Liz McRae, who met her husband online and moved from the US to Australia – she’s in the audience right now!

I have been told of a couple who run the Charlotte Atheists, from North Carolina USA, who have a web-based presence that promotes their existence – they have come to this conference for their honeymoon!

This is something many people in the audience, I’m sure, are quite aware of: the passion and commitment one makes to an online network. There are people here today from a forum board that used to feature on the Richard Dawkins website. That forum board may be no more – but that does not stop a ‘forum’.

Many of those people have begun to re-establish (or just continue) that same sense of community that they greatly valued – and now commiserate, support and network on a variety of other sites.

The Atheist Nexus is one such place – we even have in the audience Sean the Blogonaut, an award-winning blogger who was presented with the Monty Miller award. There’s the Rational Skepticism site. There’s also the official AFA forum board – a big hello to the moderators and members in the audience from that.

Just this weekend, the power of the internet was used to help representatives attend the Thursday inaugural meeting of the Freethought University Alliance, which I attended. Members from the Macquarie University Atheist league, the ANU League of Extraordinary Atheists and the Young Australian Skeptics were in attendance – their podcast called the ‘Pseudo-Scientists’ will be relaunched very soon.

We shouldn’t forget how vital sites like Meetup, Facebook and Twitter are to atheists, secularists, et al are – I believe the hash-tag for this weekend is #atheistcon? I have some friends in the audience from the Sydney Atheists and Western Sydney Freethinkers groups, for example. If you are looking to connect and think you’re the only one in your town, do check out Facebook and Meetup – you’ll find the Adelaide Atheists, the newly-launched Launceston Skeptics, the ‘red circle’ Atheist group on Facebook and the Brisbane and Sunshine Coast Atheists. The Melbourne Atheists even have a spiffy purple flyer with all the events they’re running during this convention, if you’re looking to catch up with people during the mornings and nights.

We shouldn’t limit ourselves to Australia, of course! There’s representatives from all over the globe here, who are internet-savvy and using the resources to their fullest. I’d like to acknowledge the newly-launched CUSP podcast from New Zealand, with a few members in the audience here today.

Much like our adventures on the internet – the purpose of a conference or convention is not to celebrate homogeneity – but to unite in a shared effort to intellectually challenge and explore. As Dave the Happy Singer (of www.davethehappysinger.com) would say – and have a laugh as you do it.