We here at Skepticon HQ love our movement. We love that we don’t always agree, are wicked smart and have a penchant for awesome hats. Skepticon has always worked hard to cultivate a conference that celebrates such diversity and awesomeness, doing our best to ensure that any and all know that they are welcome and safe at our event.

However, after witnessing the actions of one of our years long sponsors, the Center for Inquiry (CFI), it has come to our attention that, in order to uphold the values that we have come to embody and endorse, we will no longer accept their sponsorship.

So what does this mean for Skepticon? Well, losing a large sponsor is going to hurt a little bit (we’re probably going to have to sell some of those awesome hats were were talking about) but it has made even determined than ever to make a conference that we can be proud of.

Love,

Skepticon

P.S.-Want to help us keep our awesome hats? Donate today and help us make your conference even better.

Skeptionians! It has been far too long (seven days in fact) since we last talked about who is gracing us with their presence this fall, so let’s get crackin’!

John Corvino

Author of What’s Wrong With Homosexuality (spoiler alert: nothing) and co-author of Debating Same Sex Marriage, John Corvino is more awesome than dinosaurs with mustaches and hats. He is also a youtuber, philosopher, speaker, professor at Wayne State University and international man of mystery. Here is his website and twitter so you can find out more.

Monica R. Miller

Currently a Senior Research Fellow with The Institute for Humanist Studies (Washington, DC) and co-chair of a new American Academy of Religion (AAR) group entitled ‘Critical Approaches to the Study of Hip Hop and Religion,’ Miller is principal investigator of a large scale survey project (Remaking Religion) in Portland, Oregon which explores religion in youth culture. She is the author of Religion and Hip Hop and is hard at work on her second book entitled Blacklandia: The Subtleties of Race in Portland.

Rebecca Watson

PZ Myers favorite speaker at Skepticon and of all time, Rebecca is the O.G. Skepchick and kicks all of the asses. She has an asteroid named after her and co-hosts the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. Here is her twitter–now go follow her and send her a link to a picture of an adorable sloth!

Seth Andrews

Head honcho over at The Thinking Atheist, Seth Andrews is the author of Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason, podcaster and fabricator of all the media things. Go to his twitter so you can tweet at him how psyched you are to see him this year! There may be just about a million Seth Andrews in the world (trust us, we googled it), but we like this one a whole lot. As a sidenote: Skepticon wants everyone to know we want Seth to read us stories at night because his voice is sweet, sweet velvety magic.

We’re halfway through the list! This year is going to be our most 6th one yet, I can just feel it!

Until next week!

Love,

Skepticon

P.s.–Like us? Want to see us fully fund this amazeballs show of amazingness? Head on over to our donation page and help us make this happen.

Another week of June gone and more speakers revealed! I just about peed my pants in anticipation so let’s get started!

Debbie Goddard

Debbie Goddard is the godmother of Skepticon. From Skepticon’s fledgling years as a bunch of crazy young people to our transition to slightly older crazy people, Debbie and her tireless activism and support has been there along the way. She is currently the Outreach Director over at the CFI as well as the Director of African Americans for Humanism. Follow her on twitter and tell her how awesome she is.

PZ Myers

A veteran of the Skepticon conference, PZ (Which stands for Paul Zachary–thanks Wikipedia!) has been here since day one after we plied him with a pirate hat and beer. He regularly blogs over at Pharyngula and can be found at the University of Minnesota, Morris teaching the next generation about biology and how to piss off the religious right. Also, he hates crackers and loves squids–please do not confuse the two. He once rode a dinosaur. Here are his yootubes and tweetar to get the full experience.

Rebecca Hensler

The founder of Grief Beyond Belief, Rebecca Hensler has introduced an invaluable support network for secular people everywhere. School counselor by day and super activist by night, Rebecca is pretty much ten tons of awesome and so much more than ‘the grief lady’. Fun fact: she once ordained one of Greta and Ingrid’s weddings.

Richard Carrier

Another veteran of the Skepticon conference (we bribed him with pirate regalia and compliments–a deadly combination), Richard Carrier is a historian, author, blogger, and knower of all of the things. Seriously, ask him about anything and forty minutes later you will know more than you could have ever imagined possible. Check out his youtube channel and blog to fill your brain with all the smarts.

Another week of speaker revealing has come and gone and gosh darnit, we liked it.

Till next time, stay skeptic my friends!

Love,

Skepticon

P.s.-Like what Skepticon does? Then head on over to our donation page so we can keep this ship a sailin’.

We here at Skepticon HQ are stupid happy to announce that the trailer for our much anticipated documentary is ready to be released, so check it out:

Oh man, we’re totally feeling the feels right now. Are you?

Love,

Skepticon

HOLY CRAP SKEPTICONERS!

It’s June! You know what that means? Each week we are going to release the names of the speakers that will be coming to Springfield, MO to rock your frickin’ socks off. Without further ado:

Aron Ra

Mere words cannot describe the man that is Aron Ra. Sent from an unknown Vulcan/Cowboy/Badass Mofo clan of people, Aron Ra lays down the law of evolution with his amazeballs yurturbes videos and immaculate facial hair. He is also the Texas State Director of the American Atheists and has a show about magic sandwiches. We couldn’t be happier to have him coming to speak this year, so check out Aron’s (pronounced ar-ron for you noobs out there) blorg and twitters to find out more.

Amanda Knief

Amanda Knief is the Administrative Director at the American Atheists, author, dog lover, giver of amazing hugs, and absolute workhorse for the secular movement through her lobbying and tireless activism. In the past, she has been the Government Relations Manager at the Secular Coalition for America, board member of the American Humanist Association, and has cultivated an army of secular lobbyists across the country with her speeches and workshops. Here is her twittar so you can know more about this truly amazing lady.

Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte is a journalist, blogger, and overall BAMF feminist/skeptic superhero. She has written articles for SLATE, Salon.com,  The Guardian, and a whole host of other super impressive places on top of being the executive editor of Pandagon, writing a couple of books and she still finds the time to hit us up daily with all of the knowledges. We’re pretty sure she never sleeps, so check out her awesome twittery thing and get readin’.

Yes, all those names start in A for AWESOME! Til’ next week!
Love, Skepticon

P.s.-Like what we do? Visit our donate page and help us fund your favorite convention today!

SKEPTICONTOWNVILLE!

After reading about some recent events, we here at Skepticon HQ want to make sure that our event is as accessible as possible to any and all that want to come. After doing some brainstorming on what we can do, it finally hit us that we should ask all of you (our most favorite people ever) how we can make this event a better experience. What kinds of things can we do to make this event as accessible and awesome as humanly possible?

Here are some things we are brainstorming to help kick off the conversation:

• Ginormous signage
• ASL Interpreters for as many talks as we can manage (Anyone know of awesome volunteers for this?)
• Braille printed programs

It’s important to us here at Skepticon that everyone have the best experience possible over our convention weekend, so let us know what we can do to increase the amazeballness.

Love,

Skepticon

Hello Skepticontown!

Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve posted, but rest assured that we have been diligently working on your favorite (are at least a close second…maybe even third) conference evar!

Some news for you:

1. We are THISCLOSE to finalizing who is speaking at SK6 and hoo dang, it’s gonna be good. We’ll be releasing names in June, so look out for the information then!
2. Our good pal Jerry DeWitt has this documentary on Kickstarter on what it has been like to come out as an atheist in his small community, you can see the trailer here. Warning: it’s amazeballs.
3. The schedule for this year is not yet set in stone, but we will have that by July just in case you were wondering when a certain someone will be speaking or when you can get your drank on.
4. We think you look really good today, is that a new shirt?

Until next time!

Love,

Skepticon

The money donated will not only fund the entirety of the center’s expenses for a year in which more than 1,000 people will be tested, but will also assist them in buying a house to run the facility rent free.

If you sat down and thoughtfully listened to Tony Pinn’s talk on the Fight Against Theism, teared up as JT Eberhard proposed on stage at the end of his talk, or even if you were one of the asshole commenters on Rebecca Watson’s tear down of popular evolutionary psychology, then we owe you our thanks. Especially if you accidentally clicked a link or you weren’t using Adblock. Double especiallies if you shared the link on Facebook and/or Reddit.

Also, we’d specifically like to thank the speakers for allowing us to monetize their videos wherever possible. Particularly anyone who’s talk generated 30 Reddit threads in less than a year that eventually direct everyone back to the video.

Skepticon would really like to give a hand to Rob for putting all of this together. He is an invaluable resource that puts countless hours of work filming, editing, uploading and maintaining the videos from past events.

Tonight, Skepticon would like you all to don your favorite bed sheet as a cape and jump off the couch.

Why?

Because now we’re all saving lives and it’s about damn time we dress the part.

To do this, just visit skepticon.org on any iOS device. Then click the share button at the bottom of the screen…

Then click the Add to Homescreen button

Tada! Now you have dino goodness right on your screen!

]]> http://skepticon.org/add-skepticon-org-to-the-home-screen-on-your-ios-device/feed/ 3 http://skepticon.org/tgif-sk6-hotel-information-released/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tgif-sk6-hotel-information-released http://skepticon.org/tgif-sk6-hotel-information-released/#comments Fri, 22 Mar 2013 20:19:19 +0000 Lauren Lane http://skepticon.org/?p=2228 You can follow this link to reserve your hotel rooms or use the code SKPT13 when you reserve online or over the phone. We here at Skepticon HQ hope that you all have a great weekend full of skepticism and awesomeness. And donuts. Aaaaand bacon. Love, Skepticon]]> Happy Friday everyone!

I am happy to announce the hotel information for Skepticon 6!

Accommodations will be at the University Plaza Hotel Center that is across from the Expo Center. You can follow this link to reserve your hotel rooms or use the code SKPT13 when you reserve online or over the phone.

We here at Skepticon HQ hope that you all have a great weekend full of skepticism and awesomeness. And donuts. Aaaaand bacon.

Love,

Skepticon