A week from today I’ll be heading off to Amherst, New York for the Center For Inquiry Student Conference. I’m tres excited.
CFI is a pretty cool organization. …Here is what it is all “about”:
The purpose of the Center for Inquiry is to promote and defend reason, science, and freedom of inquiry in all areas of human endeavor. The Center for Inquiry is a transnational nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that encourages evidence-based inquiry into science, pseudoscience, medicine and health, religion, ethics, secularism, and society.
Through education, research, publishing, and social services, it seeks to present affirmative alternatives based on scientific naturalism. The Center is also interested in providing rational ethical alternatives to the reigning paranormal and religious systems of belief, and in developing communities where like-minded individuals can meet and share experiences.
Coooool. I’m really excited to get more involved with the center, as well as the secular group on campus at the University of Guelph. Not only do I want to be involved more heavily with these organizations, its my intention to get involved with Camp Quest next year (if I don’t run away and hide in Muskoka so I can pretend the world is okay for a couple months and just live in the forest.)
I figure if Kenesserie was going to fire me for being an atheist, I might as well try to get involved with a camp that will embarce my desicions to question life and live through reasonable thought.
More on the conference… There is an expected 140 people for the entire weekend! Woo! Speakers include Taner Edis a physics prof who wrote a book An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam, Barbara Forrest, a philosophy prof and key witness from the Dover/Kitzmiller ID trial, Eddie Tabash chair of the Council for Secular Humanism and the First Amendment Task Force, Jamy Ian Swiss doing a session called The Illusion of Psychic Powers and Nica Lalli author of Nothing: Something to Believe In.
I ‘m really excited to see all of the speakers and to hang out with all the people that will be there. (Including our very own commentor Alon Levy! Woo!) It’s going to be superb and a blast.
I will come back with pictures and stories galore. I promise.
