AACON 2011!
I just came back from the American Atheists Convention in Des Moines, Iowa. And what an amazing time it was! So many topics--and the speakers: Tom Flynn, Jamila Bey, PZ Myers, Lawrence Krauss, Eddie Tabash, Greta Christina, JT Eberhart, Matt Dillahunty to name a few... They were all awesome, and for me, I really learned something about myself: how incredibly a different, unique, complex, multi-faceted person I am! A total Freak-a-zoid! LOL
This is what I learned about myself this weekend (although I always had a sense that I was very, very different from my family):
I am--part of a movement of Hispanic individuals that are increasingly leaving their religious upbringing and becoming atheist, agnostic, humanist, free thinkers, and skeptics--otherwise known as the Nones. I am also childfree and divorced and in a non-married relationship. The only other thing to really throw out on the fringe is for me to be gay, which I'm not. But hey, my brother is!
They had a diversity panel that discussed this and the state of being atheist as a minority, which I found totally fascinating, because, for some, being an atheist is seen by some minorities as a "White thing". Well, that was something that Bey (who's black) took issue with. I took issue with that too, but I can see the link between religion and minorities, because a large part of who they are, their identity, IS religion. It has social implications that are deeply rooted in minority communities, but as we found out, younger people are beginning to reject what the church and religion has to offer, because it just isn't doing much for them at all.
There was also a military panel (hooray!) that discussed the stupid Global Assessment Test (GAT) that Army soldiers are mandated to take. There's a section in it that is totally irrelevant, the Spritual Fitness section which rates your "spiritual" fitness on how you answer the questions it asks.
If you fail to answer the questions satisfactorily, like if you say that you are NOT a spiritual person, or your doesn't have any lasting meaning (whatever that means), it will come back saying that you somehow lack in this department and basically are in need of some type of 'training' to get you on the right track. No kidding. The Commander gets the results from this asssessment tool, so he can see who lacks and who doesn't.
Well, there have been great strides in getting this off of the GAT. So far it's only a partial victory; it's optional now, you can take the Spiritual part if you want to. Also, the need for a 'humanist' chaplain has been addressed, to assist those that have no religion in their lives. For so long, service members could not put "Atheist" on their dog tags, it was always "No Religious Preference" (which I had on my dog tags), now they can.
Anyway, it was a great weekend, they had booths from different organizations, a book room where you could get books, t-shirts, buttons, jewelry, stickers, tapes, etc. They even had a pub crawl on Saturday night, which I didn't attend because I got really tired--must be my menopause! That's what I'm gonna blame it on! But I had a really good time. There's stuff that I'll put in future posts to save space, so more pictures to come!