I'm just now catching up from my trip to the AAI Convention in DC.I took several pictures at the event, but none of them came out very well. I've got a cheap camera and I was having trouble with the lighting inside. I found that using a flash in a large room tends to highlight the people closest and make the rest of the room look too dark. When I turned the flash off, I got a brighter picture, but because the shutter had to stay open longer, those pictures turned out a little blurry.
It was an interesting event.... I was able to briefly speak with Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris (but not Hitchens). I spoke with Margaret Downey (the president of AAI) a few times very briefly (she was very busy with the convention but very nice), twice briefly with Julia Sweeney, and had a good conversation with Brights founder Paul Geisert about whether or not some people are hard-wired to believe.
I met Lori Lipman Brown (the lobbyist for the Secular Coalition of America) and spoke with the President of the American Humanists, Mel Lipman, and their Executive Director, Roy Speckhardt. I also spoke with Ellen Johnson (the president of American Atheists), had several conversations with Gary (the owner of EvolveFISH), and had a beer with "Pastor Deacon Fred" of Landover Baptist Church (the parody pastor and church) as well as some members of the Rational Response Squad.
I also talked to people from England, Holland, Canada, Australia, and all across the US. It was encouraging how many people came and how far some of them traveled to be there. There were over 500 people at the convention with over 600 on a waiting list. The AAI people were fairly overwhelmed with the response and would have gotten a larger place if they had anticipated it was going to be this big (Margaret Downey said it was over twice the size of last year's convention). There was also some media coverage from ABC and CBS, who were doing interviews.
Here is a shot of the fund-raiser Thursday night:
Dawkins [center] at the fund-raiser:
The crowd gathered in the main ballroom Friday to hear Dawkins and Harris:
Dawkins' presentation:
Sam Harris challenged the audience with some comments about the problem with using "atheist" as a self-identifying term.
See an edited transcript HERE.
Pastor Deacon Fred struggles with the demon alcohol...
Dawkins about to present Dennett with the Dawkins Award at the Awards Banquet Saturday night (transcript HERE):
