UPDATED: The Secular Society and Its Enemies

The Center for Inquiry is hosting its 2007 conference titled The Secular Society and Its Enemies from the evening of Friday, November 9 through Sunday, November 11, 2007. I am pleased to report that I have enrolled to attend the Saturday and Sunday sessions of the conference. If you are interested in attending, click on the link above.

The Center for Inquiry has a number of good speakers lined up for the conference, including Christopher Hitchens, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Michelle Goldberg, who I had the pleasure of meeting once before. There is also supposed to be a surprise unannounced guest. I have my suspicions as to who this mystery guest is, but I will not reveal it here out of respect for the wishes of the guest and the Center for Inquiry.

I am looking forward to meeting Neil Tyson, and I plan to purchase his most recent book "Death By Black Hole" and getting another important addition to my collection of autographed books.

Below are Youtube clips for Neil Tyson and Michelle Goldberg, in case any of my readers are not familiar with them.


Neil deGrasse Tyson



Michelle Goldberg



Hat tip to Daylight Atheism.

UPDATE: It appears that Richard Dawkins will be attending this conference. This is great, not just for the opportunity to meet him, but also to repay a debt to one of my co-workers. Last year, my co-worker loaned me his copy of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. I think I got about one third of the way through it, often finding time to read it on train rides back and forth to work. Then, one morning, in a fit of absent-mindedness, I left my shoulder bag on the roof of my car as I drove to the train station. A driver behind me caught my attention with his flashing of his headlights and arm waving. I pulled over and he told me that the bag had fallen off the roof of my car. I thanked him and drove back to find it, but I was unable to locate it. I felt really bad about it, because the Dawkins book was obviously given to my co-worker from someone as a gift, as there was a personalized message written in it. I told my co-worker what had happened and offered to buy him a replacement copy, but he waved it off and told me not to worry about it.

It occurred to me that it would be a great idea if I could get my co-worker another copy of The Selfish Gene to replace the one I had lost, only as an added bonus, it would be autographed by Richard Dawkins himself. Between that, and getting Neil de Grasse Tyson and Victor Stenger to autograph my copies of their books, it looks like I am going to be carrying quite a load around with me!