Registration & Welcome Reception (with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres)

Opening remarks (Paul Kurtz, Chairman, CFI; Derek Araujo, Executive Director, CFI-NYC; Austin Dacey, UN Representative)

Gala Award Presentations:

• Carl Sagan birthday tribute (presentation by Ann Druyan & Neil deGrasse Tyson)
• International Academy of Humanism presentation of Humanist Laureate awards to Christopher Hitchens* (in absentia) (journalist, literary critic, author of god is not Great); Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysicist, author, Director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of NOVA scienceNOW); Ann Druyan (media producer, author, and writer (with her late husband Carl Sagan) of the television series Cosmos)
• Matthew LaClair: recipient, James Madison Religious Liberty Award; presentation by Wendy Kaminer (lawyer, feminist writer, social critic) with a special message from Nat Hentoff (journalist, historian, and social critic)

Address by Edward Tabash (lawyer, social activist, and champion of church-state separation): The Threat of the Religious Right to Our Modern Freedoms

Check In

Panel: Secularism Through History: from Spinoza to JFK: Susan Jacoby (writer, historian, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism); Rebecca Goldstein (philosopher, novelist, and author of Betraying Spinoza); Jennifer Michael Hecht (author, Doubt: A History).  Moderated by Austin Dacey (philosopher and author, The Secular Conscience)

Panel: Science and the Public: Richard Dawkins (biologist, author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion); Ann Druyan (media producer, author, and writer (with her late husband Carl Sagan) of the television series Cosmos); Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysicist, author, Director of the Hayden Planetarium and host of NOVA scienceNOW); Eugenie C. Scott (physical anthropologist, executive director of the National Center for Science Education); Victor Stenger (physicist, author of God: The Failed Hypothesis).  Moderated by DJ Grothe (host, Point of Inquiry).

(Break)

Panel: The Age of American Unreason: Religion & Politics in America: Wendy Kaminer (lawyer, feminist writer, social critic); Edward Tabash (lawyer, social activist, and champion of church-state separation); Michelle Goldberg (author, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism); Damon Linker (journalist and author, The Theocons).  Moderated by Susan Jacoby (writer, historian, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism).

(Lunch Break)

Video appearance by Christopher Hitchens* (journalist, literary critic, author, god is not Great)

What is a Center for Inquiry? (Paul Kurtz, Chairman, CFI; Derek Araujo, Executive Director, CFI-NYC; Austin Dacey, UN Representative; DJ Grothe, Vice President of Outreach, Host of Point of Inquiry)

(Break)

Address by Peter Singer (Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University)

Appearance by Richard Dawkins (biologist, author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion)

Check In

Panel: Secularism: The Next Generation: Matthew LaClair; Mark Anthony Smith; Sarah Stone; Justin Trottier; and Nica Lalli, author of Nothing: Something to Believe In.  Moderated by Derek Araujo.

Address by Alan Dershowitz (Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School)

(Break)

Panel: Secularism and Islam: The Next Islamic Enlightenment: Ibn Warraq (Islamic scholar and author, Why I Am Not a Muslim); Tawfik Hamid (scholar, author, and dissident of Islamic fundamentalism); Paul Berman (author, journalist and political commentator); and others.  Moderated by Austin Dacey.

Concluding remarks

Tour of the United Nations (elective) with Paul Kurtz, Derek C. Araujo, and Austin Dacey, CFI's official UN Representative.  Please RSVP by e-mailing adacey [at] cfinyc [dot] org.