After hours of searching downtown Chicago for reasonable parking (and finally breaking down to pay $31 for about two hours worth), twelve members of the Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign finally made it to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's conference at the Chicago Hyatt on Oct 10-12.  The first evening of the conference included presentations by Kay Staley and Jeremy Hall, which we unfortunately missed due to our parking predicament, but were reportedly great speeches.  After a Q&A session, the attendees enjoyed some mingling and delicious deserts.  We found that our group had by far the most students in attendance, as young people in general were quite scarce at the conference in comparison to others we have attended.  This turned out to be an advantage for us, however, because it meant our presence was especially appreciated.  We had the opportunity to chat with Lyz, the new SSA Senior Campus Organizer; for a while and we even absorbed some straggler students who decided to come out to dinner with us.

Saturday's events included various speeches throughout the day.  Webster Cook, of "Crackergate" fame, spoke about his experience and his continued efforts to ensure that student fees are being utilized legally at UCF.  Next, Jim McCollum spoke about McCollum v. Board of Education - the Supreme Court case filed on his behalf as a child.  He explained the events leading up to the case, the discrimination he faced, and the resulting Supreme Court decision that declared religious instruction in schools unconstitutional.  Finally, Jeff Sharlet gave a fascinating background to his new book about The Family, a secretive influential ministry which currently holds the national prayer breakfast and which has disturbingly infiltrated even the highest levels of government.  Then, there was a break for lunch, which gave us the chance to do a little exploring.  We walked down Michigan Avenue and had lunch at the Big Bowl Chinese/Thai restaurant, which was delicious and almost painfully filling.  

Upon returning to the hotel, we heard a moving talk from Eleanor Clift about her most recent book, "Two Weeks of Life: Reflections on Religion and Politics." It addresses end of life issues in this country by juxtaposing the dignified death of her own husband against the media circus that surrounded the Terri Schiavo case.  The next speech was from the famed Daniel Dennett.  He gave a wide-ranging speech touching on issues including where he sees the future of religion going, the atheist public relations problem, his TEDtalk review of the Purpose-Driven Life, and other interesting stories.  Afterwards there was a book signing, and Dennett was nice enough to take a picture with our entire group.  His wise words of advice for student groups like ours is to get out there and do more volunteering, which was particularly fitting for us because we got to tell him about our recent spring break service trip to New Orleans.

After the banquet dinner we heard from Scott Dikkers, who gave probably the most hilarious speech you’ll ever hear at an atheist conference.  He spoke about the history and progression of The Onion, more about atheism's PR problems, and gave some insider information on a few specific articles.  As he spoke, headlines  from The Onion flashed on a screen behind him - inevitably causing uproarious laughter in the crowd.  (Incidentally, a guest sitting in front of us who had enjoyed one too many glasses of wine at the banquet proved even more amusing.)  After his speech, there was another book signing and the conference began to wind down.  We mingled a bit more, spoke with Dan Barker, and ran into Margaret Downey on the way out!  Overall, the conference was a great time, but maybe the best part was that our school funded almost the entire trip!  We would love to see more young people there in the future, seeing as how all the students we were able to meet were awesome and we will hopefully be able to maintain contact with them and perhaps even work together in the future.