Monday, October 5, 2009

How Awesome Are Atheist Conventions?


The answer is exceedingly awesome. Huge thanks to everyone who came, chatted, said nice things and bought stuff.

Also, seeing people show up to the convention in our clothes? Mind-blowing.

In addition to meeting a horde of delightful atheists (and a few grumpy bastard atheists), we got the chance to meet Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett!

Here's Susan extorting an autograph out of Richard Dawkins in exchange for the safe return of his laptop.

Kidding. No extortion necessary. In actuality, he was overwhelmingly gracious- as was Daniel Dennett, who came by our booth and checked out all the Arrogant Atheist stuff.

What's particularly exciting for us is that both brilliant fellows got the new Galt Aureus album (which indeed, features anti-religious and atheistic songs- more on that in another blog). In my excitement, I suggested track 5 to Dennett. I know nothing of his musical tastes, but I'm fairly certain at least the sentiment of the piece will be appreciated.

Finally, thanks to everyone hitting us up for interviews for their newspaper columns, documentaries, podcasts, blogs, youtube channels and all the rest. Granted we hadn't slept in 40+ hours, worked like dogs, overdosed on caffeine and ate more McDonalds #2's in one weekend than in the last 10 years- maybe a camera in the face mightn't have seemed overwhelmingly enticing to others in the same situation- but for us, it was heartening as all hell to see that we're not alone in this fight. Atheists exist, and if we really push, we can make this world change.

One more thing, actually. The guy in the pic below, on the left? That's Leif. He helped us setup and run the booth this weekend. He also participated in one of the most epic Nerf-gun wars of all time. It seems only appropriate to publicly thank him for helping to make this weekend one of the best in a long time.