I can't find a bio for Dr. Dawkins that's short enough to print here, so let me use my own words: Richard Dawkins is the unchallenged leader in Atheist thought. If you haven't read the God Delusion or the Selfish Gene, or any of his other books, you're missing out. Dr. Dawkins is probably the most famous living atheist in the world, and he's returning as our Keynote Speaker. He WILL be signing books, so be sure to stock up at the convention!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
American Atheists new President has a long history of Atheist Activism.
Many of you who are active in the movement will know of Dr. Buckner's accomplishments, originating in the Atlanta Chapter of the Society of Separationists (then an American Atheists affiliated corporation), helping to grow the Atlanta Freethought Society through its formative years, and then most recently serving as the Executive Director of the Counsel for Secular Humanism.
A hardcore Atheist, Dr. Buckner has written, spoken, debated, and appeared often in the media, both locally and nationally. He has been on MSNBC, Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, Fox News, the Michael Medved Show, CNN, the national CBS Radio News, NPR, and on nearly every local media outlet (radio or television) in the Atlanta and Buffalo areas, most repeatedly. He's been quoted, sometimes at length, in newspapers all over the nation and, occasionally, elsewhere in the world, been a featured guest on many Internet broadcast shows, and given the keynote address for Atheists Alliance International.
Dr Buckner has debated or spoken in Alabama , California , Connecticut , DC, Florida , Georgia , Illinois , Indiana , Kansas , Kentucky , Missouri , New York , Ohio , South Carolina , Tennessee , Texas , and a few times outside the U.S. He earned a doctorate (1983) and M.Ed. (1975) from Georgia State University ; B.A., English, Rice University , 1967.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. J. Anderson Thomson is a Psychiatrist, educator, researcher and author receiving his M.D. from University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1973. His childhood vacations spent in Virginia’s unreconstructed peanut and tobacco country exposed him to religion’s role in segregation and various cultural styles of repression. Though he is considered an expert in personality profile examination of leaders, his more recent area of research is the evolutionary history of violence in men and its connection to organized religion.
Dr. Thomson has done international conflict resolution work in Latvia, Estonia, Turkey, the Republic of Georgia, South Ossetia and Kuwait. His numerous publications address post traumatic stress disorder, suicide terrorism, sexual side effects of antidepressants, narcissistic personality disorder, religious identity, religious belief, and psycho biographical profiles of Lee Harvey Oswald and Robert E. Lee.
His talk, “Why Do We Believe In God(s): The Evolved Psychology of Supernatural Beliefs,” is the essence of that we are in the midst of a cognitive neuroscience revolution that is mapping out the reasons humans are vulnerable to generate and believe in gods and the supernatural.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michelle Goldberg is a peripatetic journalist and author who has always been fascinated by the intersection of ideology, sex and politics. Her first book, the New York Times bestseller “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism” (WW Norton), delved into some of the reddest precincts of the United States to expose the ascendant politico-religious fundamentalism dominating the Republican Party and, at the time, the Bush administration. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it “an impressive piece of lucid journalism…carefully researched and riveting.” It was a finalist for the 2007 New York Pubic Library Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism.
After “Kingdom Coming” came out, Goldberg spent the next two years traveling the globe to research “The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World,” which Penguin Press will publish in April. Reported from four continents, “The Means of Reproduction” is about the international battle over reproductive rights. Women’s freedom, Goldberg argues, is key to addressing both overpopulation and rapid population decline, helping the third world climb out of poverty and retarding the spread of AIDS. Yet attempts to improve women's status and give them greater control over their own bodies elicit fierce opposition from conservatives who see women's submission as key to their own identity. In 2008, “The Means of Reproduction” won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award . The judges described it as “a book of vaulting ambition and intellectual passion. Michelle Goldberg looks at literally the entire world through the prism of women's issues and women's rights. From abortion to female circumcision, from sexual trafficking to abstinence-only programs, from Poland to Ethiopia to Nicaragua, she examines the conflict between self-determination and patriarchal tradition.”
Before she started writing books, Goldberg was a senior writer for Salon.com. Her work has also appeared in Glamour, Rolling Stone, The Nation , New York, The Guardian (UK) and The New Republic, where she has a blog. Goldberg has reported from countries including Uganda, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, India and Argentina. She has taught at NYU’s Graduate School of Journalism, lectured throughout the United States and in Europe, and has been interviewed on hundreds of radio shows, including Fresh Air with Terry Gross. When she’s not on the road, she spends as much time as possible in her Cobble Hill, Brooklyn neighborhood with her husband, Matthew Ipcar.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Malloy came to talk radio by serendipity. Writing for CNN in 1987, a friend at an Atlanta radio station told him there was an opening for a weekend talk show host, if working for no pay was acceptable. Malloy gave it a try and decided it was more fun than actually working for a living at CNN. He was hooked and within a few months was being paid enough to cover basic necessities like rent, food and beer . But, that was a long time ago. His radio experience includes the 50,000 watt blow-torches in both the South and the Midwest, respectively WSB-AM in Atlanta and WLS-AM in Chicago, and as one of the original hosts on Air America - a two-year-long association that ended in a massive train wreck. Mike's nationally-syndicated program can now be heard weeknights on affiliates of the Nova M Network and on XM Satellite and Sirius Satellite Radio as well as on live Internet streaming.
In addition to writing and producing for CNN (1984-87) and CNN-International (2000), his professional experience includes newspaper columnist and editor, writer, rock concert producer and actor. He is the only radio talk show host in America to have received the A.I.R (Achievement in Radio) Award in both Chicago and New York City, the number three and number one radio markets in the country.
It is not difficult to pigeon-hole Malloy politically. Generally speaking, he is a traditional Liberal Democrat doing his part to return the Democratic Party to its Liberal roots.
He is married to Kathy Bay with whom he has a daughter born in July, 2004. He has an additional five children, all grown, and five grandchildren.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Morrow has been called “Christianity’s Salman Rushdie” by the
Denver Post. Born in 1947, this uncategorizable novelist has spent most
of his adult life writing satiric fiction that dissects the received
theological wisdom of his day — and of days gone by.
Thus far Morrow’s best known literary effort is The Last Witchfinder,
praised by Free Inquiry magazine as a “multi-tiered, magisterial, yet
cogently designed novel.” This offbeat historical epic tells of Jennet
Stearne, who makes it her life’s mission to bring down the 1604
Parliamentary Witchcraft Act. He followed it with a thematic sequel,
The Philosopher’s Apprentice, in which a woman with an overactive
conscience fights against “Corporate Christi,” the West’s cheerful
embrace of feel-good theocracy.
Throughout the 1990’s the author’s principal accomplishment was killing
the Supreme Being, an endeavor he pursued through three darkly comic
novels known collectively as The Godhead Trilogy. Towing Jehovah,
winner of the World Fantasy Award, tells of a supertanker captain’s
attempt to bury the two-mile-long corpse of God. In Blameless in
Abaddon, a New York Times Notable Book, a Pennsylvania magistrate puts
God on trial for crimes against humanity. The Eternal Footman
chronicles the “plague of death awareness” that descends on humankind
after God’s skull goes into geosynchronous orbit above Times Square.
Morrow’s other novels include the World Fantasy Award-winning Only
Begotten Daughter, the Nebula Award-winning City of Truth, This Is the
Way the World Ends, and, most recently, Shambling Towards Hiroshima. He
lives in State College, Pennsylvania, with his wife Kathy, son Chris,
and two adopted dogs. His favorite quotation comes from the British
philosopher Galen Strawson: “It is tempting to conclude that if [God]
exists, it is the atheists and agnostics that he loves best, among
those with any pretensions to education. For they are the ones who have
taken him most seriously."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Lombard
John was born and raised in Canada, but for the past 18 years he has been living and working in China. He established two businesses as well as a non-profit organization to work with one of the Chinese minority groups, the Mosuo. Beyond that, he worked with local Chinese skeptics and scientists to establish one of the first official critical thinking organizations in China.
John's speech, "Lessons From China," address the idea that while there is some debate over whether the Chinese government should be classified as an Atheist government, there is no doubt that their education is an Atheist system. Not only is religion not taught, it is actively discouraged. Thus, a great many Chinese grow up as Atheists. However, the educational system fails to teach critical thinking skills: instead, information is presented in a format where all students must simply accept and repeat what they are taught, and disagreement or alternative ideas are discouraged and penalized.
The result is that, when presented with new information and beliefs, many Chinese are unable to rationally evaluate that information. Much of what we see in China today -- rapid spread of religion and cults, a dogmatic defense of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and proliferation of numerous worthless or dangerous products -- is a result of this.
John's presentation will give an overview of the current ramifications, and lessons that can be learned by us.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Herb Silverman
Herb Silverman received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Syracuse University and has been a Professor of Mathematics at the College of Charleston since 1976. He has published over 100 research papers in mathematics journals, and is the recipient of the Distinguished Research Award.
In 1990, a colleague pointed out that atheists were ineligible to hold public office in South Carolina. After an eight-year battle, Herb won a unanimous decision in the South Carolina Supreme Court, which struck down the religious test requirement. Herb is president of the Secular Coalition for America, an umbrella group consisting currently of nine national nontheistic organizations, whose mission is to increase the visibility of and respectability for nontheistic viewpoints, and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government.
Herb founded the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry in Charleston, SC. and is founder and faculty advisor to the College of Charleston student Atheist/Humanist Alliance. He is a national board member of the American Humanist Association, Atheist Alliance International, and Humanist Institute. He is on the advisory board of the Secular Student Alliance, and a member of the National Advisory Council of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Herb has appeared in a number of debates, including one at the Oxford Union in Oxford, England on the topic: Does American Religion Undermine American Values. He has had articles published in The Humanist, Free Inquiry, Freethought Today, Humanistic Judaism, and is a regular columnist for Secular Nation.
===========================================================
Pastor Brother Harry Hardwick is known throughout the Christian world as “The Bible Answer Man.” Brother Harry’s hilarious fire and brimstone sermons are widely popular, and he holds the record for filling the most number of souls with the Holy Spirit while inducing the most convulsions in a single sermon. He will speak/perform in the Oak Amphitheater Thursday, April 9th. following registration and our Welcome Reception.
