Terahertz

Last night I got to sleep at 6:00 am. I was not the last to go to bed (I got up this morning at 8:45 for a 9:00 am checkout). Needless to say I am tired, and most of the people here are too as well.

Yesterday featured some amazing speakers: Joe Nickell, Matt LeClair (who hung out with the student leaders all evening), and more.

Nickell is one of the leading sceptics in the world and he has exposed many pseudo-scientific claims. His talk was on what he called sceptical humanism, which emphasizes respecting people and searching for the truth (scientifically). He argued that its better to be a sceptic who will investigate claims then a doubter or naysayer who just claims “ghosts/etc. aren’t real.”

LeClair is essentially a modern hero of secularism. He worked against his entire town and county to stop a popular teacher from preaching in his public school. He audio recorded (he had legal one-way consent) lectures where his teacher preached, and also recorded a meeting with his principal and teacher where his teacher denied everything. After this story erupted his entire school, town, and county turned against him (he received a death threat which was ignored by the administration). He never gave up and won a court battle (he never sued) over the issue. His speech was uplifting and motivating and it was great to see such a motivated young man. He is more recently concerned with addressing grave inaccuracies in a civics textbook.

Another interesting thing that came out were preliminary results from CFIs survey of its membership. Among the findings were that the majority are at least college educated, and many (over 75% I believe) earn over $100,000 per year. The best however, came from ideas of what CFI should do. The leading answers were to further promote science, and secular ethics and values. Interesting answers included an “open bar” or “bitch slapping Ben Stein.”

Interesting announcements included a CFI Regional Director role, which would bridge gaps between Centres/Communities, campus groups, and other related groups; a new campus based podcast called the Course of Reason; and eventually a CFI group blog called Edger which will feature various freethought bloggers.

Today features a talk by Austin Dacey, CFIs representative to the United Nations, and some food before I head to Toronto to get on a flight to Edmonton, after which I will set up for ICOOPMA.

Finally, the answer of how I can still do this is (1) that I have a lot of caffeine and (2) that it is so stimulating that you can’t help but be invigorated.