I read Douglas Adams' "Hitch-hikers' Guide to the Galaxy" series of novels, in addition to some of his Dirk Gently books, in my younger days with much enthusiasm: I of course appreciated how man disproved the existence of god using the babelfish, but thought this was Douglas just taking the piss at this topic, as he did with so many others. It was only after his death that I found out he was quite the atheist, and that this was the orginal reason Richard Dawkins (another author and atheist whom I have read fairly extensively) contacted him, and friendship ensued. Anyhoo, this is a link to an off-the-cuff talk Douglas gave at Digital Biota 1998 on the question of an artificial god.
While I have yet to visit their office, or attend their events, or even pay them for membership, the Centre for Inquiry in Toronto seems like an interesting group of discussants.