Imagine No Religion 3

If you’re an atheist with some time and a bit of coin laying around, and if you happen to live within walking, driving, or flying distance from Kamloops, British Columbia, then you really ought to think about picking up a ticket to the third annual Imagine No Religion conference. In addition to having a pretty amazing lineup of speakers this year, including the brilliant Daniel Dennett, Aron Ra, and YouTube atheist extraordinaire Cristina Rad (ZOMGitsCriss), the conference also provides attendees with opportunities to meet (and drink, heavily) with atheists, humanists, skeptics, and others from all over the world.

Seriously, the conferences are awesome. I’ve attended the first two; I spoke at the last one (as part of a panel – I’m nowhere near awesome enough to have my own spot!) and although I won’t be making it out to this one, I have no doubt that it will be even better than the last two.

Do yourself a favour folks; check this conference out if you are able. I have no doubts at all that you will be blown away!

Also, take the time to get to know Bill, the ringleader of this little shin-dig. That guy gave me one of my first opportunities to bore people to death with my public talks on racism and white supremacy. He’s pretty awesome.

A New wave of atheism

Over at the most excellent blog, “The Blag Hag”, Jen McCreight has a message. That message is simple: If you are a sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, bigot and you call yourself an atheist or skeptic, then please GTFO. You are no longer welcome in the movement. Jen’s right; for most of its history, the atheist and skeptical movements have been comprised largely of white, heterosexual, cis-gendered, middle-class men. Women and minorities have usually been left to haunt the peripheries of the movement, unless invited in to play the role of ‘token’ in order to paint the broader movement with a veneer of ‘diversity’. These liminal groups have been welcomed into the fold but only so long as they behaved themselves – READ: acted white/straight/cis/male. In other words, it was totally fine and awesome that Jen organized the ‘Boobquake‘ or set up an atheist and secularist group on her university campus, she became – almost overnight – a pariah in the movement when she had the temerity to suggest that maybe sexual harassment policies at skeptical conferences weren’t such a bad idea and maybe ought to be implemented. Put simply; so long as she sat quietly and played her role as the quiet and supportive woman skeptic she was welcome; as soon as she began to stand up for herself however, it was time for her to go.

This sort of attitude on the part of the privileged within the movement is, to be blunt, top-tier bullshit. Feminism isn’t some dirty word and those who identify as feminist are not – and should never be branded as – evil or malicious troublemakers simply because they identify as feminist. Skeptics and atheists often pride themselves on their objectivity and rationality, but I ask you; how fucking rational is it to deny the historical disadvantages of non-white, non-male groups in society, and how rational is it to threaten said groups with physical and sexual violence for daring to stand up for themselves?

Jen’s right; there needs to be a new wave of atheism and skepticism – one that carries on the work of the first waves but adds to it the understanding that issues of social justice are most definitely within the purview of the skeptical and atheist movements.