Announcing a Fund Drive for $1,000 to Send Me to the SBL in New Orleans
As previously announced I've been invited to participate as a respondent on a panel for the prestigious Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in New Orleans, which meets November 21-24. As you'd guess I'm very honored. They will show the movie Religulous by Bill Maher Sunday evening and then the panel will discuss it the next day at 1 PM. The participants include professors Hector Avalos, Dennis MacDonald, Carol Exum, Randall Reed and yours truly. I am to respond to the other four papers. Here is the link.
While we're there several of us including Hector Avalos, Jim Linville, and Ken Pulliam will be having a meeting to discuss a non-religious group within the Society of Biblical Literature, which should be interesting and exciting.
Most institutions of learning pay for these scholars to attend the SBL by covering their expenses. Since no institution will pay my way I'm conducting a fund drive to help my wife and I travel there so I can participate. I calculate that we need $1,000 to cover the costs of gas, food, and six nights stay in hotels (four while there and one both coming and going). It might be more, but $1,000 should be good enough.
If this Blog is helpful to you in some way then please consider helping out by donating $5-$20-$50-$100 or more. Any amount would help quite a bit. Just click on the link "Donate" in the sidebar to do so. For any gift of $100 I'll send the giver one copy of my book and it's companion, both of which are titled Why I Became an Atheist, if requested as supplies last. There are other ways to financially help, but this drive is about helping pay for us go to New Orleans. I've created a graphic below to let you know the progress and will update it once a day as money comes in. As of this posting we leave in 18 days. Can this money be raised? We'll see. Thank you so very much if you can help. If you can't then thanks for visiting and participating in the discussions at DC regardless.
While we're there several of us including Hector Avalos, Jim Linville, and Ken Pulliam will be having a meeting to discuss a non-religious group within the Society of Biblical Literature, which should be interesting and exciting.
Most institutions of learning pay for these scholars to attend the SBL by covering their expenses. Since no institution will pay my way I'm conducting a fund drive to help my wife and I travel there so I can participate. I calculate that we need $1,000 to cover the costs of gas, food, and six nights stay in hotels (four while there and one both coming and going). It might be more, but $1,000 should be good enough.
If this Blog is helpful to you in some way then please consider helping out by donating $5-$20-$50-$100 or more. Any amount would help quite a bit. Just click on the link "Donate" in the sidebar to do so. For any gift of $100 I'll send the giver one copy of my book and it's companion, both of which are titled Why I Became an Atheist, if requested as supplies last. There are other ways to financially help, but this drive is about helping pay for us go to New Orleans. I've created a graphic below to let you know the progress and will update it once a day as money comes in. As of this posting we leave in 18 days. Can this money be raised? We'll see. Thank you so very much if you can help. If you can't then thanks for visiting and participating in the discussions at DC regardless.
[Edit: We're leaving tomorrow as I write this. I hoping the donations keep coming in while we're gone and that when we get home our trip will have been paid for. I hope to be surprised when I get back. Whether that's the case or not, thanks to everyone who donated, big or small. I am very grateful people think what I do here at DC is meaningful and helpful.]
9 comments:
This is a serious question. Have you nothing better to do with your time and your money?
Timothy David,
this is a serious answer from a fellow blogger,
You seem to have made an assessment on Johns values and found them to be less "valuable" than your own. Thats a little arrogant don't you think?
We have a passion for what we do.
We have jobs and careers.
We give back to society in the form of free labor and expanding the aggregate of Human Knowledge. At the moment, the internet is accumulating raw material from people like us, that can be data mined, and cleaned to create quality information and knowledge.
Some of us do what it takes to generate Quality Information, and to do that takes resources.
So why don't you put your money where your comment is?
;-)
Thanks TZC. When I saw his comment I wondered what he meant. I actually wondered if he could be an atheist who was telling me to get on with my life and enjoy it! ;-)
Now that's a thought!
im happy to donate. ive appreciated johns blog for some time now. But ( and this is no criticismon john ) why on earth is the society spending tim on Religulous ? it was hardly a major academic brreakthrough or a profound movie. Even for an atheist i think it flopped.
There have been many better documentaries produced, over here in the UK, particularly on Channel 4 by the theologian Robert Beckford, which mention the latest scholarly consensus without cheap shots.
Nonchai, I guess you'll have to ask the organizers. Bill Maher said it was a "comedy" because it's so easy to make fun of religions. But it has a serious point too, that they're all bunk. I think he succeeds but I'll have to make my point. I'll comment on the other papers and then stress that he's doing nothing more than applying my Outsider Test for Faith.
Thanks for any size donation.
{Thanks for any size donation.}
Youre welcome ( ive already made the donation under a different name )
"But it has a serious point too, that they're all bunk."
You seem to fall into the category of people who state caricatures of religion and then dismantle them. I really don't think you have great arguments and really bring nothing to the table. The Outsider Test For Faith is really just a recycled argument. Nothing New!
@Chris,
The "Nothing new" defence is not a refutation. Actually, it's pretty bland weak-sauce.
We've known an awfully long time, thanks to Pythagoras, that root(2) is irrational.
It's "nothing new."
Thanks to your arrogance, I'm going to pitch in for John's trip. So, in a weird way, he can thank you for getting him one step closer.
Guys like you are lost souls, stuck in blind faith. We can only hope you'll be saved from gods of your own making, some day.
"Thanks to your arrogance, I'm going to pitch in for John's trip. So, in a weird way, he can thank you for getting him one step closer."
My Arrogance? John Loftus thinks he can debunk Christianity... He thinks the OTF is his argument. He just renamed it.
"Guys like you are lost souls, stuck in blind faith. We can only hope you'll be saved from gods of your own making, some day."
You know nothing about me. You seem to use the same wrong definition of faith as Richard Dawkins. Do some research...
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