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American Atheists
AMERICAN ATHEISTS returns to historic Minneapolis, MN
for our 34th National Conference!
March 21–23 2008
Join us for a weekend of workshops, panels, talks by noted speakers and other activities. Minneapolis is also one of the premier tourism destinations in this part of the nation, so you’ll want to consider making your Conference visit an extended weekend.
The venue is the new, luxurious Minneapolis Marriott City Center Hotel in the heart of downtown. It offers everything from stunning views to magnificent accommodation, and you’re within walking distance of many regional attractions. There are also convenient mass-transit and other connections to spectacular destinations including THE MALL OF AMERICA, the world-class Minneapolis Institute of Art and so much more! The special convention room rate for the American Atheist conference is only $99 per night (single, double, triple or quad).
Reserve your room now. Be sure to specify that you are with the American Atheist conference to qualify for the special room rate… and don’t forget to ask about “shoulder dates” if you want to extend your stay before or after the conference weekend! You can visit the YAHOO! Travel web site for the Marriott City Center to learn more about the hotel and the local tourism sites and amenities. Click here for the hotel web site. Remember, you must make your reservations directly with the hotel at:
Minneapolis Marriott® City Center
30 South 7th Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402 USA
Phone: 1-612-349-4000
Fax: 1-612-332-7165
Getting There…
Major airlines service the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport. Once there, you can take a cab or private shuttle, or for only $2.50 hop the light rail which takes you downtown to the Marriott! Visit MSP Interntional Airport for information on flying to the conference.
Speakers
Ellen Johnson
Ellen Johnson has been the president of American Atheists since 1995. She became the Editor of American Atheist Magazine in 2006. She has twice testified before the United State Commission on Civil Rights. In 2002 she organized the Godless Americans March On Washington and she was the organizer of the November 11, 2005 “Atheists In Foxholes” March On Washington. In 2003 she established the Godless Americans Political Action Committee and she serves as its Executive Director.
Ms. Johnson has co-hosted the cable television program, “THE ATHEIST VIEWPOINT” since 1994. In 1998, she met with the Office of Public Liaison for the Clinton White House to discuss the subject of giving Atheists a “place at the table” in the discussion of issues of concern to our nation’s Atheists.
She is also a frequent guest on national radio and TV shows including the Fox Network’s “Hannity & Colmes,” “Heartland” with John Kasich, “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Scarborough Country,” “Tucker Carlson,” “Larry King Live,” “CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, ” The CBS Early Show, Glen Beck on Headline News, CBS Sunday Morning, a Barbara Walters Special and C-SPAN’s prestigious public affairs program “Washington Journal.”
Ms. Johnson is an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist International, and an Honorary Board Member of “Scouting For All,” a nationwide group that seeks to end discrimination against Atheists and gays within the Boy Scouts of America.
Ms. Johnson has a Master’s Degree in Political Science from The New School For Social Research in New York City.
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. Born in British colonial Africa, he was educated in England, where he now lives. He did his doctorate at Oxford under the Nobel Prizewinning zoologist Niko Tinbergen, then was briefly an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1967 to 1969, after which he returned to Oxford, first as a Lecturer in Zoology, then Reader, before being elected to his present professorship.
He is the author of nine books: The Selfish Gene (1976, 2nd Ed 1989), The Extended Phenotype (1982), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil’s Chaplain (2003), The Ancestor’s Tale (2004) and The God Delusion (2006). The God Delusion has sold more than a million copies in English, and is being published in 30 other languages. Dawkins is now editing an anthology of scientific writing for Oxford University Press, The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. In 2006, to promote the values of education, science, and critical thinking skills, he established The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) which is now a registered charity in both the UK and USA.
Richard Dawkins has Honorary Doctorates of Literature as well as Science, and is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature. He has been awarded the Silver Medal of the Zoological Society of London, the Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the Nakayama Prize, the Cosmos International Prize, the Kistler Prize, the Shakespeare Prize and the Lewis Thomas Prize.
David Eller
Dr. Jack David Eller - “Religion is Not What You Believe: How Religion Works without Belief or Meaning to Colonize Experience”
Dr. Eller holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and teaches anthropology in Denver, Colorado. He conducted field research on Australian Aboriginal religion and has published numerous articles and books for scholars and the public. His most recent anthropological works are Violence and Culture: A Cross-Cultural and Interdisciplinary Approach and Introducing Anthropology of Religion. He is also the author of Natural Atheism and the recently-released Atheism Advanced: Further Thoughts of a Freethinker. His latest project is a study of religious violence across cultures and religions. He is the former Colorado state director for American Atheists and current coordinator of the Atheists and Freethinkers of Denver.
Robert Lanham
Robert Lanham - The Sinner’s Guide To The Evangelical Right
Robert Lanham is the author of the books The Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right, The Hipster Handbook, and Food Court Druids. Neal Pollack calls him “the Margaret Mead of the North American Weirdo.” Lanham was born in Richmond, Virginia in the heart of the Bible Belt and was raised in a strict Southern Baptist church. He grew up in an environment where rock music was considered the devil’s music and with parents who speak in tongues, vote Republican, and have a vanity plate that says “Prayzin.” Lanham’s first babysitter was Republican Senator Tom Coburn, best known for advocating the death penalty for abortion providers. As a teen, before his fall from grace, Lanham tried to speak in tongues, but failed. Lanham now lives in the den of iniquity, New York City. Lanham’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Independent, Time Out, Nylon, Playboy, Maxim, and many other publications as well as in the collections The Subway Chronicles and Bookmark Now.
Frank ZindlerDennis Prager
Debate between Frank Zindler and Dennis Prager
(Topic not yet determined.)
Frank R. Zindler is the managing editor of American Atheists Press and the author of The Jesus the Jews Never Knew, a book that argues that the ancient Jews never heard of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, they had never heard of Nazareth either. Formerly a professor of biology and geology, for many years now he has worked as a linguist and science writer.
Dennis Prager is one of America’s most respected radio talk show hosts. He has been broadcasting on radio in Los Angeles since 1982. His popular show became nationally syndicated in 1999 and airs live, Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to Noon (Pacific Time) from his home station, KRLA. Widely sought after by television shows for his opinions, he’s appeared on Larry King Live, Hardball, Hannity & Colmes, CBS Evening News, The Today Show and many others.
Rene Salm
Rene Salm - THE MYTH OF NAZARETH: THE INVENTED TOWN OF JESUS
René Salm’s meticulous, exhaustive, 8-year-long research on the archaeology of the town now called Nazareth shows irrefutably that “Nazareth” was not inhabited at the time Jesus and his family are supposed to have been living there. This puts Jesus of Nazareth in the same league as the Wizard of Oz. Salm’s new AAP book, The Myth of Nazareth, will be released at the conference and is likely to be the biggest challenge to Christianity in centuries. Coming shortly after Israeli archaeologist Aviram Oshri’s demonstration that Bethlehem in Judea also was uninhabited in New Testament times and Frank Zindler’s discovery that Capernaum was a literary invention, Salm’s book is going to be a collector’s item for Atheists and all who are interested in the long war between science and religion. Salm is an authority on the origins of Buddhism as well as Christianity, and is a recovered Catholic.
Greydon Square - Performer
Greydon Square is an artist who promotes rationality and freethinking reality through hip-hop. He is originally from Compton California, but now lives in Phoenix Arizona where he is a physics major in college.
Mary Stanton
Mary Stanton - Return To Sender (Atheist Bill Moore’s 1963 Freedom Walk)
Mary Stanton is a historian whose primary research interest is white civil rights activism. She has written four books on the subject: Journey Toward Justice: Juliette Hampton Morgan and The Montgomery Bus Boycott, The Hand Of Esau: Montgomery’s Jewish Community and the Bus Boycott, From Selma To Sorrow: The Life and Death of Viola Liuzzo, Freedom Walk (The University Press of Mississippi, 2004) follows white postman Bill Moore on a determined walk from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi to deliver a plea for racial tolerance to segregationist Governor Ross Barnett. On the third day of his journey Moore was ambushed and murdered near Gadsden, Alabama.
Stanton has taught at the University of Idaho, the College of St. Elizabeth, and Rutgers University. Her articles have appeared in Government Executive, Southern Exposure, Gulf South Historical Review, Alabama Heritage, and Southern Jewish History. She lives in New York City and works as an administrator for the Town of Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York.
Eddie Tabash
Eddie Tabash - The Threat of the Religious Right to Our Modern Liberties
Eddie Tabash is a life member of American Atheists. He is a constitutional lawyer in the Los Angeles area. He is on the board of directors of the Center for Inquiry–Council for Secular Humanism. He has represented the Atheistic point of view in numerous debates against some of the world’s foremost theistic philosophers, including William Lane Craig and Richard Swinburne. He has been coached for his debates by some of the world’s most prominent non believer philosophers, including, Hector Avalos, Theodore Drange, R. Joseph Hoffmann,Paul Kurtz, Michael Martin, Keith Parsons, Quentin Smith, and the founder of Internet Infidels: Jeff Lowder.
Lois Utley
Lois Utley - Medicine and Morality: How Religious Restrictions Can Affect Your Health Care
Lois Uttley, MPP, is Director of the MergerWatch Project, a national initiative working to protect patients’ rights and access to care from the threat of religiously-based health care restrictions. The project is an affiliate of Community Catalyst, a national health care advocacy organization.
Check back for updates on Conference events! We promise you a blockbuster line-up of speakers, fun social events and so much more – what you’ve come to expect from this annual bash. Make reservations now! We’ll see you in Minneapolis!
Greydon Square - Artist, performer who promotes rationality and freethinking reality through hip-hop. A native of Compton, California, he now lives in Phoenix, Az where he is pursuing his degree in physics.
Laurence M. Krauss
Laurence M. Krauss is an internationally-renowned theoretical physicist, author and lecturer and former Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics at Case Western Reserve University. In 2002, he was named Director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case.
He is the author of over 200 scientific publications, and well as numerous popular articles on physics and astronomy. His popularly-acclaimed books include: The Fifth Essence: The Search for Dark Matter in the Universe (Basic Books, 1989); Fear of Physics (Basic Books, 1993); and the enormously popular work, The Physics of Star Trek released in 1995.
Dr. Krauss is also one of the vocal and articulate scientists speaking out against the spread of pseudo-science and Bible-based mythology, particularly the effort to undermine the teaching of evolution in public schools classrooms with so-called “creationism” and “intelligent design” or “ID.” He also defends the importance of science in modern culture, and recently penned a op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal proposing a Presidential Debate on science. That call has now been endorsed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Council on Competitiveness, as well as twenty Nobel Laureates, various members of Congress, business leaders and over 12,000 scientists working in a variety of fields.
In his spare time, Dr. Krauss enjoys scuba diving, fly fishing, and mountain biking.
There will be a book signing with Dr. Krauss following his talk at the American Atheists Conference.
Events
Friday Night Banquet Dinner
* Roasted Corn Chowder
* BLT Salad with apple wood smoked bacon, tomatoes, and blue cheese with Buttermilk Chive dressing
* Pan roasted chicken with Mustard chive sauce
* Vegetable Stacker (Baby Portabella Mushrooms, Tomatoes, Fresh Basil and Mozzarella Cheese with a Balsamic Reduction.
* Butternut Squash Ravioli with Sage Butter
* Herb roasted new potatoes
* Seasonal vegetables
* Chocolate Mascarpone Torte
* Coffee, Tea, Decaf., Iced Tea or Milk
($43.00 per person, includes tax)
(Deadline for registering for the dinner is March 17, 2008)
Saturday Night - Life & Legacy Members Dinner
(Members of Ten Years or more and Life Members)
* Focaccia & Tuscan Country Bread Served with Olive Oil, Grated Parmesan and Herb Butter
* Traditional Caesar Salad
* Fresh Mozzarella with Roma Tomatoes, Basil, Olive Oil and Balsamic Reduction
* Lemon Chicken with Artichokes and Tomatoes
* Poached Halibut with Mushrooms Relish
* Black Pepper Fettuccine with Sun Dried Tomatoes & Basil Pesto
* Balsamic Green Beans and Toasted Almonds
* Tiramisu & Cannolis
* Coffee, Tea, Decaf., Iced Tea or Milk
($43.00 per person, includes tax)
(Deadline for registering for the dinner is March 17)
Sunday Brunch (after the debate)
The cost is $28.00 per person and the menu is:
* Chicken Vegetable Minestrone
* Roasted Corn Chowder
* Tossed Green Salad
* French Potato & Bean Salad
* Roasted Vegetable Salad
* BLT with Avocado & Cheddar on Sourdough Bread
* Tuna Melt with Almonds, Celery & Cheddar on Artisan Bread
* Grilled Portabella with Roasted Pepper Relish, Lettuce, Tomato & Provolone on Focaccio
* Club Sandwich with Turkey, Smoked Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato & Herb Aioli on Artisan Bread
* All Sandwiches Served with Kettle Chips, Kosher Dill Pickles & Assorted Cheesecakes
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