With Jason Ball, Spokesperson for the Atheist Foundation of Australia and presenter at the Global Atheist Convention.

Hey there! Sorry for being a bit absent lately, but things have been very busy — the academic year is wrapping up at Harvard and we’re gearing up for a big summer, planning and preparing for a year unlike any we’ve seen before. In addition to all that, I just submitted my final line edits for Faitheist to Beacon Press! So this post got slightly delayed in the hubbub of a busy month.

Last month I visited Australia for nearly 2 weeks of speaking engagements, timed to coincide with the Global Atheist Convention (the largest atheist conference ever)… and man, was I busy! I went from Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne and was scheduled with obligations for most of the trip — in fact, I was so booked that I didn’t even get to see a koala, kangaroo, platypus, or Natalie Imbruglia! (I made this joke a couple of times during my visit, but Australians didn’t seem to find it so funny. What they didn’t realize is that I was only half-joking about wanting to see Natalie Imbruglia. I mean c’mon, I grew up in the 90s! This is how I feel…)

With Kylie Sturgess, "Token Skeptic" and co-emcee of the Global Atheist Convention.

Okay, all jokes aside, I had an amazing time in Oz. It was an incredible opportunity to travel around the world’s largest island / smallest continent, meet and learn from so many different people, and discuss how the intersection of interfaith and atheism plays out down under. I still have many thoughts about the trip, which I may try to distill further at some point down the road, but here’s a roundup of what went down (along with some media).

Before I go on, I need to give a huge shoutout and express my heartfelt gratitude to all of the wonderful folks the Rationalist Society of Australia, InterAction, Humanist Society of Victoria, Global Atheist Convention, Atheist Foundation of Australia, Freethought Student Alliance, and Embiggen Books, all of whom made it possible for me to have this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Road Less Traveled Panel with PZ Myers & Leslie Cannold
(Global Atheist Convention Official Finge event) 

This panel discussion on whether atheists and the religious can work together for the common good – a conversation between me, hugely popular atheist blogger PZ Myers, and Australian public intellectual Leslie Cannold – was perhaps the most anticipated part of my Australian itinerary. It was talked up in the blogosphere as a ‘showdown’ between me and PZ (here’s PZ himself framing it as such).

Despite that hype, I think it ended up being a pretty insightful chat. But I know a lot of people want to listen to hear what went down when the moderator (Meredith Doig) asked PZ and I about how PZ has called me things like a “soppy interfaith wanker” (among other, erm, pleasantries) on his blog, how I responded when he said I “sucked,” or what happened when I challenged PZ directly about whether his characterizations of interfaith are based in any kind of actual experience or observation. So whether you want to listen for the thoughtful discussion, or for the moments that got the audience all riled up… You can stream or download the audio below on soundcloud, or here on the Rationalist Society of Australia’s website. Rumor has it that video from this event will eventually see the light of day, too.

Anyway, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio above! All in all, I really enjoyed this event — I confess I had been a bit nervous as I’m still pretty new at all of this and it was my first public discussion with someone who has been extremely critical of my work (and critical of me as a person, too), but I had fun with it and I really appreciated the opportunity to have a, y’know… dialogue.

Wheeler Centre speech (Global Atheist Convention Official Fringe event)

I loved speaking at the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing, and Ideas as a part of their awesome Lunchbox/Sopabox speaker series. For this event, which was also a part of the Global Atheist Convention’s official Fringe lineup, I was asked to talk for exactly 20 minutes (as opposed to my usual 45 or so). This challenged me to really get my ideas across in a condensed, concise way. (I find that very difficult! haha) I really enjoyed myself — there were some great questions during the Q&A and meaningful discussion after. In addition to streaming the video above, you can also download the audio here (to save the file, hit control and click, then select save) or the video here (do the same).

Other speeches

Speaking at the first Australian Freethought Student Alliance conference.

I did a few other speaking engagements while down under. I spoke at the first conference for the Freethought Student Alliance who (much like the Secular Student Alliance or the Center for Inquiry On Campus) coordinates, connects, and empowers atheist, agnostic, skeptic, humanist, and nonreligious Australian students. I talked about the ins and outs of interfaith work and facilitated break-out sessions to discuss how to reach out to religious campus groups. All in all, it was an amazing one day conference that brought together students from campus groups all over Australia — in addition to mine, it also featured keynotes Lyz Liddell of the Secular Student Alliance and Debbie Goddard of the Center for Inquiry On Campus — and I was honored to be a part of it. I also did a speaking event in Canberra co-hosted by the fabulous folks from the ANU League of Godlessness, Canberra Atheist Church, & Canberra Atheist Meetup Group (they also very kindly surprised me with a birthday dinner and cake to celebrate turning 25!) and facilitated a discussion for a fantastic organization called InterAction (Australia’s interfaith youth social action organization) called “Some of my best friends are atheists.” (More on those events below.)

Radio interview on Sunday Night Safran

Sunday Night Safran is a popular program that airs on Triple J, a national, government-funded Australian radio station intended to appeal to folks between the ages of 18 and 30. I was interviewed on the show the weekend of the Global Atheist Convention, appearing after Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s mother. You can click here to download the full episode through iTunes. Also,the Australian Broadcasting Corporation selected my interview from this show to be highlighted in their “Best Of” series — if you click here, you can go to that site and listen to or download an excerpt of my interview.

Crosslight and Canberra Times features

With the hosts of Sunday Night Safran.

Crosslight wrote two stories referencing my visit. The first was a thorough, very interesting article on the Global Atheist Convention featuring interviews with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and — of all people – me. I really appreciate that they decided to include my perspective alongside the perspectives of such prominent atheists. Portions of my interview appear at both the beginning and at the end of the piece — click here to check it out. Additionally, they wrote a story on my event with InterAction, which can be found here. And while I was in Canberra, the Australian capital city’s largest newspaper interviewed me for a feature story called “Losing My Religion,” in which I talk about how I got into this work. You can click here if you’d like to read it.

Other radio interviews: JOY 94.9, 4ZZZ FM, Manthropolgy, & Token Skeptic

Goofing off with some students at the Global Atheist Convention gala dinner.

I did a few other radio interviews while in Oz. I appeared on JOY 94.9′s The Spirit Room — a radio show focused on LGBTQ identity and religion — for their entire hour. JOY 94.9 is pretty special as it is a 24-hour LGBTQ radio station featuring all original content (one of only a handful in the world). I had such a great time; especially because the hosts invited me to pick out a few songs that I find meaningful to play on the air. (Spoiler: I chose songs by Brother Ali, Okkervil River, and John Grant — listen to the program if you want to hear my reasoning for choosing them!) You can click here to stream the episode (or control, click, and select save to download it).

I also did an interview with Jayson Daniel Cooke of Brisbane’s 4ZZZ FM — click here for their story on it and to stream or download the interview, or click here to download the MP3 directly. During my visit I also got to sit down with Australian comedian Simon Taylor for over an hour for a lengthy episode of his show Manthropology — we talked about my work and how I got into it (I shared a bunch of stories), but also about what it means to be a young man in the world today. Click here to download it through iTunes, or go here to download from the web. Finally, I did a 30 minute interview with the Token Skeptic podcast, hosted by Kylie Sturgess, right before I left for Australia where I talked about Faitheist, “confrontationalism versus accommodationism,” interfaith work and atheism, The Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard, and more. You can click here to get it through iTunes, or here to get it from the Token Skeptic site. I had such a fantastic time talking with all of these folks!

Some very quick thoughts on the Global Atheist Convention

At a convention reception with Eugenie Scott, Jack Scanlan, and other new friends!

The Global Atheist Convention was, for the most part, a fabulous experience. I was particularly inspired by Jason Ball, a young guy who is doing a lot around atheism and interfaith dialogue in Australia. Other speakers that really impressed me included Leslie Cannold (besides appearing on the panel alongside me and PZ, she spoke eloquently at the convention about the separation of church and state and the many problems Australia faces regarding church-state protection), Marion Maddox (a brilliant academic on religion and politics), Sam Harris (who spoke powerfully about death and mindfulness and led the conference in a guided mindfulness meditation – easily the biggest curveball of the weekend), Eugenie Scott (who is just always so wise), Daniel Dennett (who I find to be as bizarrely funny as he is thought-provoking), and many others. There were a few things that put a bad taste in my mouth (which I addressed in my blog post to Sam Harris a couple of weeks ago), but all in all it was such a treat to be a part of this historic event.

That’s it from me for now — I may write some more on the trip if I get the chance, but for now it’s back to work. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of this in the comments. Thanks for reading, friends!

Some of the folks at InterAction's "Some of my best friends are atheists" discussion.

(source)

I am very gratefuly that he took the time to read the post, respond, and share a link to it — I’m astonished, really — but I’m still hoping he’ll take me up on my offer. If you use Twitter, please feel free to tweet at him @SamHarrisOrg (and include me @ChrisDStedman) and let him know that my offer still stands. (We have options — in the days following the publication of this letter, many Muslims have reached out to me and offered to host us for a visit.)

Read on for the letter and, if you want to, please share it with others:

Sam Harris–I know you’re a busy man, but I’d like to ask you out. Will you go to mosque with me?

I’m not trying to convert you to Islam. Like you, I’m not a Muslim. Like you, I don’t believe in any gods. I’m happily, openly atheist. A queer atheist, even. Like you, I have many significant concerns about Islamic beliefs and practices. But still, I want to visit a mosque with you.

We don’t have to go alone–we could go with Mustafa Abdullah, a young community organizer in Winston-Salem, North Carolina who is currently campaigning against the state’s proposed anti-gay Amendment One. We could attend with Najeeba Syeed-Miller, a teacher and activist who has dedicated her life to peacebuilding initiatives. Or we could go with Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, who is committed to promoting pluralism and opposing bigotry, and who regularly speaks up for atheists as a religious minority in the United States.

Why am I inviting you to visit a mosque with me and my friends? Since I’m asking you publicly (I couldn’t find your phone number anywhere and I’m pretty sure this MySpace page isn’t really you), I should probably give some context.

A few weeks ago I saw you speak at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia. Before I go on, I need to confess: your remarks blew me away. In a weekend full of incredible intellects, your frank, contemplative, eloquent speech on death, grief, and mindfulness was easily my favorite. So I was not prepared for the crushing disappointment I felt when, just a few weeks later, you published a piece called “In Defense of Profiling” in which you unequivocally stated: “We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.”

Never mind that your argument doesn’t hold water–to quote my friend Hind Makki: “What does a Muslim look like? The 9/11 hijackers didn’t have beards and ‘dressed Western.’ The shoe bomber wasn’t Arab or South Asian. Sikhs wear turbans. The majority of American Muslim women don’t wear hijab. The majority of Arab Americans are Christian–though they often share the same names as their Muslim counterparts. Perhaps Harris would support an initiative that required all Muslims to sew a crescent and star onto our clothes. It would make his airport security time a more pleasant experience. (Though, I suppose, it wouldn’t have stopped McVeigh or Breivik.)” Though as a frequent traveler I share your frustrations with the TSA, profiling doesn’t make sense as a solution to its problems.

Instead, while we’re en route to mosque, I’d like to talk to you about something else. As I read your piece, which (along with the clarifying addendum you tacked on a few days later) failed to explain how you would determine who “looks… Muslim,” I thought back to another moment at the Global Atheist Convention a few weeks ago. As you were speaking, rumors began to fly that a group of extremist Muslims would be protesting the convention. Sure enough, a group of less than a dozen appeared just a short while later, holding signs that said “Atheists go to hell” and shouting horrible things. But to my dismay, their hate was mirrored by hundreds of conference attendees, some of whom shouted things like “go back to the middle east, you pedophiles,” tweeting ”maybe the Muslim protesters [are] gay so [they] don’t have wives? … A lot are/were camel shaggers,” and wearing shirts that said “Too stupid for science? Try religion.” Watching the scene unfold, I was reminded of how much work there is to be done in combating prejudice between the religious and the nonreligious.

Continue reading at The Huffington Post

When it was my turn to talk, I discussed how the idea that “common ground” might require ideological and theological consensus is often a stumbling block to bringing different voices into the interfaith movement (particularly atheist voices). To that end, I talked about how some language used in interfaith circles doesn’t make room for nonreligious people, and how interfaith worship or prayer breakfasts are inherently exclusive. I explained why we instead emphasize interfaith social action at the Humanist Chaplaincy, and offered my ideas about common ground as both a goal and a device for achieving other goals, and how we might go about locating it. Finally, I shared a couple of stories — one about finding common ground when it’s easy, and one about finding common ground when it’s difficult. The latter story explains how I responded when someone came to a speech I gave and told me I had a demon inside of me that was making me gay. Yep, that has happened! (More than once, in fact.)

I was lucky to sit on this panel alongside Jennifer Peace of Andover Newton Theological School, Latifa Ali of Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries of Massachusetts, Whitney Barth of the Pluralism Project, and Francis X. Clooney, S.J. of the CSWR. Each had some great insights and stories to share. Click here to watch the video and let me know what you think about this elusive and often vague concept of “common ground,” how we might find it, and what we might do with it!