American Atheists Conference - March 21-23, 2008

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 Zindler & Dennis 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 - THE MYTH OF NAZARETH: THE INVENTED TOWN OF JESUS

Rene Salm was raised Roman Catholic. Researcher Rene Salm soon abandoned the tenets of that faith and as a young adult began to search for purely secular answers to life’s basic questions. Thirty years later, he has come to believe not in a personal “God,” but in the power of understanding, reason, and truth. After receiving Bachelor’s degrees in Music and German, Salm embarked on post-graduate training in religious studies and Hebrew, and has worked as the fields of mental health and music instruction. He is self-taught in Pali (a dialect of Sanskrit), Aramaic, and other ancient languages. Salm’s research efforts have been directed especially towards the misunderstood origins of Buddhism and Christianity, religions he now considers two very corrupt forms of a vibrant and universal ‘gnosticism’ (i.e., quest for truth). Salm sees religion as very imperfect in practice, though aspiring to perfection.

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 - 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.