Flip a switch; become a dude!

Okay, so it’s not exactly that simple; but researchers have found a gene that keeps females being…well, female. FOXL2, which was known to be involved with ovary growth, apparently keeps a woman’s body from turning into a man. Switch off FOXL2, and ovaries will start turning into testes and testosterone-producing cells will develop. Just think what this says about the human gender binary, or future less invasive methods for people undergoing gender reassignment.

*obligatory SCIENCE IS COOL flailing*

Sorry, that’s all the commentary you get, since my tonsils currently feel like they’re turning into…uh…inflamed…spikey…polka-dotted sadness*. Which I guess is better than testicles? Check out the article for a more detailed explanation, or for the genetically-inclined, read the original paper here.

*My wit fails me when I don’t feel well. I apologize.

Purdue Non-Theists and atheism featured in local newspaper

Today the Journal & Courier has a piece called “Atheism makes nonbelief known on campuses,” which features the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University (which I’m President and co-founder of, if you haven’t figured that out by now). It’s a fairly long piece, and I’m very happy for the coverage. The reporter basically emailed me out of the blue saying he saw the Secular Student Alliance‘s press release on the growing number of atheist groups (which was kind of a while ago, little slow I guess), and he wanted to feature ours. Some snippets:

At Purdue University, the Society of Non-theists held a “Fiction for Fiction” event. People could trade in religious texts, including Bibles and the Koran, for fiction novels.

As the stigma of atheism has diminished, campus atheists and agnostics have heightened their profile, fueling a sharp rise in the number of campus clubs in the mold of the Society of Non-Theists.

“The main reason I founded the club is because I felt so alone,” said Jennifer McCreight, a Purdue senior from Munster. “I thought I was the only atheist at Purdue. I quickly learned that was not the case.

“I now am surrounded by people that I feel comfortable sharing my lack of belief with. It’s a relief to have that safe haven when the many people at Purdue and in the U.S. react so negatively and threateningly toward non-theism.”

McCreight said the Purdue group is affiliated with the Secular Student Alliance. Nationally, campus affiliates have grown from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall.

Man, I soooo prefer email interviews to phone interviews. Look, I actually sound moderately intelligent when I get to type my responses, and it pretty much eliminates the ability to misquote!

Overall, I’m happy with the article. Like I said, they wanted to cover us completely out of the blue, and I think any advertisement we can get is a good thing. It’s a pity that it comes at the end of the semester when we won’t have any knew events for a month, but here’s to hoping people join our mailing list or something. I’m also glad that they highlighted some of our philanthropic events too – Secular Service Day and our food drive participation – because it makes us seem less like a bunch of cranky religion haters.

I do have a quibble, though (I always have something to complain about, don’t I?). This is the last third of the article:

The Rev. Patrick Baikauskas said he is praying for the Purdue Non-Theists to “find their way back to church.” He is the new pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Center at Purdue.

“There is a lot of seeking going on. There should be,” he said. “They are looking at a lot of things. They don’t want to believe just because their parents want them to.”

The Dominican priest said St. Tom’s campus ministry is stronger than ever. He estimated that 7,000 people worshipped in the church at various times on Ash Wednesday to start Lent. He said weekend Masses also are well-attended.

He said a recent discernment session was offered at St. Tom’s for young men wanting to find out more about the priesthood or religious life. Eighteen men attended. Past sessions have drawn only a handful of men, he said.

“All of them won’t become priests, but I thought that was a great turnout,” Baikauskas said.

Oh, where to begin.

1. I hate the patronizing nature of the Reverend’s quotes. Yep, we’re all just foolish children in a phase and rebelling against our parents. Bull. Shit. First of all, a number of us (like myself) come from families who didn’t feel the need to indoctrinate us in religion, so we don’t have a church to “find our way back to.” Yep, not everyone is raised in Christianity – shocker! Second of all, our members are some of the most intelligent people you’re going to find on campus. Many know more about religion than theists, and all have put thought into their non-theism. This isn’t some random decision we made to piss off mommy and daddy – most of us have put years and years of deep thought behind our non-theism.

2. Why does an article, which is supposed to be featuring atheism and our group, get the last third devoted to religion? What does our local Catholic church have to do with anything? Why did they get to list their numbers, but they didn’t mention that the Society has over 400 people on our mailing list after just over two years? When they do an article on the growing number of mass attendees, are they going to email me so I can poo-poo their beliefs and then talk about how awesome atheism is? I don’t think so. It seems like bad reporting to include this in a feature, when another side doesn’t need to be present, but it’s even more annoying since the reporter told me how awesome our responses were and how he wouldn’t be able to fit them all. Maybe if he cut out the irrelevant religious stuff, he could have.

3. They give links to our facebook page and twitter…but not our main website. We hardly ever use FB or twitter, and I only provided the link to our main website, so I have no idea how that happened. Advertising fail.

Alright, my complaints just took up more space than my praise, but I really am happy we got the article at all. We don’t get covered in the Journal & Courier a lot, so hopefully a lot of local non-theists will see this. Oh, and I get to spend the rest of the day reading the comments on the article, which always provides me with depressing amusement. Already have someone there telling me I can’t be good without God, woo.

Sometimes leaving my atheist bubble unnerves me

Yesterday I went to the Purdue Christmas Show with Bryan and a couple of our friends. I really wasn’t dying to go, as I’m already starting to get Christmassed-out… but it’s a 75 year old Purdue tradition, and I felt like I should go see it once before I graduate. I have to say, I was very impressed. The student singers were fabulous, especially when they were dancing around stage in unison, and I loved the bit where they played some songs just with bells. I’m a mediocre singer and never learned how to play a instrument, so musical things always impress me.

But then came Act II, and they dialed the Jesus Factor up to 11.

Instead of everyone being dressed in comfy sweaters or sparkly dresses, all of the students wore matching church choir robes. The background changed from a wintry landscape with snowflakes to stain glass windows and crosses. Instead of dancing around stage and impressing us with their coordinated jazz hands, they stood somberly and didn’t move for the entire act. And of course, instead of songs about winter and Santa and friendship and family, it was about Jesus and God and Creation and being saved.

Oh, religion. Why must you ruin everything?

Santa apparently loves Baby Jesus too.

I know what you must be thinking: “Jen, it’s the Purdue Christmas Show. You can go on and on about how it’s just a pagan holiday co-opted by Christians and is now losing its religious meaning, but some people do associate it with the birth of Jesus. You’re going to have some religious songs.” And you’re totally right. A lot of Christmas songs that I enjoy have religious imagery, and they’re quite beautiful. I went to this show totally expecting some.

However, I think sixteen highly religious songs* in a row is kind of overkill. By the time the fourth song came on, I literally started to feel trapped. It was like I had been tricked into going to church – the hall had been made to look like a Cathedral, and all the music turned into gospel worship songs. It was definitely uncomfortable, and that’s not how I expect to feel going to a music show from a secular public University**.

Baby behind us: *wails*
Me: *turns to Bryan* That’s about how I feel right now

But as I sat there, I realized it wasn’t the context of the songs that unnerved me – it was that the vast majority of the 5,000+ people there literally believed every word of it. We could all listen to songs about Santa and enjoy them without believing that he really did come down chimneys on Christmas Eve. But when they started singing about God creating the world and sending his only son (who was himself) to save all of us, all I could think was “I’m surrounded by people who believe this nonsense.” I would have the same feeling if you told me I was in a room full of people who all thought they had been abducted by aliens, or that the world was going to end in 2012.

That’s why leaving my atheist bubble sometimes scares me. Nearly all of my friends are atheists, the one club I have time for is the Non-Theists, I read atheist blogs…so I get deluded that everybody is an atheist. Then I go to something like this and I realize I am in the minority. It’s quite a wake up call.

*Here are the songs, in case you want to judge for yourself: Angels We Have Heard on High, The First Noel, Silent Night (these first three the audience was supposed to sing along), Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Can You Hear It?, Some Children See Him, Ring the Bells, Lux Arumque, Anthem for Christmas, Emmanuel, O Come All Ye Faithful, Go Tell It On the Mountain, Joy to the World, Little Drummer Boy, Each Single Day, Silent Night (needed to hear it again, apparently)

**On that note, how does a public University get away with having a religious Christmas show? I can understand a “Holiday” show were they throw in the dradle song for good measure, but something so explicitly about Jesus? I don’t see Purdue putting on giant shows for other religions. Where’s my Happy Monkey dance number?

Local newspaper highlights atheists who celebrate Christmas

Well, this was a pleasant surprise today! The Exponent, Purdue’s student newspaper, ran a piece today on atheists and agnostics who still celebrate Christmas. As a heathen who has pretty much been listening to nothing but Christmas music for the last week, I definitely fit into that group.

“It seems that Santa Claus, rather than Jesus Christ, is the mythical figure around which Christmas is centered,” Stolyarov said.

Chris Komlos, a junior in the College of Engineering, said even though his family is agnostic they still celebrate like everyone else.

“I tend to think of it as more of a second Thanksgiving. It’s more of a family holiday than a religious one,” Komlos said. “The commercialization of Christmas is good for those who are not so religious and want a feel-good family holiday.”

Remington Roberts, a junior in the College of Technology, said Christmas is lost in the commercial aspect and is hardly religious anymore.

Roberts is atheist but his family still puts up a tree, has dinner with relatives, opens presents and hangs up stockings.

“When I was younger I questioned the meaning behind Christmas, but after I found out I just started celebrating it to be with my family,” Roberts said. “There is never any conflict between my relatives who are religious and me; I just go with the flow.”

Success! Though the one downside is the Exponent is no longer taking letters to the Editor for this semester, so no watching those “Keep Christ is CHRISTmas” people spluttering.

I’m a bit bemused, however, that the Society of Non-Theists and it’s members weren’t contacted for this story. You’d think you’d want to use your resources on campus, right? Maybe I should take this as a sign that non-theism is becoming more accepted that they don’t need to go find a local group. Or more likely (since I’ve known people who worked at the Exponent), this reporter had some heathen friends she could call up, and that was good enough research for her. Oh well, good article nonetheless!

Erotic pottery, sleeping around, and the gaydar

Okay, now that I have your attention…

Today was just full of sexual news! Usually each of these stories would win their own post, but I guess I’ll just make one super sexy entry. Try not to get too hot and bothered.

1. A new exhibit has opened featuring the erotic artwork of ancient Greece and Rome. Ah, I’m so proud of my ancestors. I can’t imagine having the dishes in my apartment covered in drawings of gay sex. …Well, okay, I can, but some of my guests probably wouldn’t want to eat off of them. …Who am I kidding, my friends are all strange like me. They’d love it. That being said, I love their description of the prostitutes kiosk, with the walls covered with illustrations on what’s on the menu. “Eh, you like the retrograde wheelbarrow over there? That’s two chickens and a loaf of bread.” (Via Boing Boing)

2. A new study from University of Minnesota researchers has found that casual sex does not have a negative psychological impact on those that practice it. So to all of those people out there who say sex without love is evil or imply that something is wrong with people who enjoy sex for the sake of sex – HA!

3. Oh, the inner workings of the Gaydar. Not only do people fair better than random guessing when it comes to speculation on a stranger’s sexual orientation, but they can make that decision in under a second. Original article talks about the evolutionary implications and some of the studies flaws, though it left out my major criticism – how do fag hags do compared to the general public?!? I’m pretty sure I would have been an outlier if you threw me in that study.

Pin-up Priests

Apparently a traditional calendar in Rome, Calendario Romano, features hunky Roman Catholic priests. Photographer Piero Pazzi shoots these sexy men of the cloth to raise money and awareness for the Vatican. Even though it’s been nicknamed the “Vatican Beefcake Calendar,” the Holy See doesn’t endorse it and pretty much turns a blind eye. Hey, money and women* lining up for church services – it’s a win-win situation!
File this in the category of “Things that make Jen both happy and sad at the same time” (with relevant facebook groups here and here).

Unfortunately the calendar is already sold out. Darn. Guess we’ll have to stick to the Skepchick and Skepdude calendars (if they ever announce when they’re coming out!).

EDIT: Apparently there are Mormon pin-up calendars too (thanks Jake). Yowza, maybe that’s why they can only wear dorky short sleeve dress shirts and ties – to cover up their six packs. Oh, and I love how the female calendar, while sexy as hell, still manages to stereotype all women as mothers who are great at baking. Who occasionally pose seductively. Mind. Exploding.

*Shhh, let’s not mention the gays, or they may stop publishing this.
(Via Carnal Nation)

Female skeptics get shout out in USA Today

USA Today ran a great piece on friendly atheism today. While it contained the typical “What’s better: Aggressive, mocking tactics, or peaceful, accomidationist tactics?” false dichotomy, there’s a new spin. Women, they claim, are bringing a softer side to the movement, and we should embrace their efforts.

Now, I don’t think this is automatically stereotyping and saying that all female skeptics are passive and afraid to offend. Ariane Sherine is behind the controversial atheist bus campaign, and female bloggers can have some piss and vinegar in their posts (of course, I would never do such things *halo*).

But the article does have a point. Much of the work done by female skeptics (check out the list at the end of the article) has a positive spin, which can be easier for the general public to digest than stuff by Dawkins or Hitchens. Don’t get me wrong – I think “aggressive atheism” is just as important – but that a good cop/bad cop sort of technique will work the best.

Should female skeptics forever be the diplomats? No, but it’s an open niche we can fill for now. If this is the best way to start getting more integrated into the atheist movement, the ultimate goal being a 50/50 sex ratio and females whose names are as well known as Dawkins and Hitchens, I’ll take it. Appreciation will continue to grow.

So congrats, ladies! Let’s keep up the atheist girl power. (And Hemant. You go…guy?)

And no, I didn’t make their list of awesome female atheists ;) Not yet, at least! Maybe the project I have planned for winter break will launch me out of the blogosphere (and yes, I included that vague hint because I’m evil).

Discussion on atheism ironically demonstrates why we need discussions on atheism

On Tuesday there was an event held at Purdue University titled “A Day in the Life of: students who identify as secular or non-theist.” It was organized by various diversity offices on campus, not the Society of Non-theists, though our members were asked to sit on the panel. As stated by the event information, the purpose of the panel was “to provide an opportunity to students who identify as secular, agnostic, atheist, or non-theist to discuss campus life and experiences. The audience will be primarily composed of student services staff members with an interest in developing their understanding of all types of diversity, including (non-)religious identity.”

I can’t express how happy I am that Purdue is recognizing the needs of non-theists and including us in discussions of diversity. The more people realize that we exist, we are good people, and we face discrimination because of our lack of belief, the more we’ll be able to fight that discrimination. I unfortunately wasn’t at the panel for a certain reason, but everyone said that it was great and that they thoroughly enjoyed it.

Well, maybe not one person.

I’ll leave it to two of the panelists to describe what went down (very minor editing/splicing on my part).

Amanda:
We were probably just at the beginning of our hour and a half discussion when one audience member asked if the Non-Theists at Purdue get any hate mail. Since Jen wasn’t there, and we weren’t really sure about the hate mail specifics we answered yes, and bunny-trailed into discussing some of the letters to the editor in the exponent. A woman raised her hand to ask if the “hate mail” specifically said “I hate you”, then added that if the word “hate” wasn’t in it we shouldn’t be calling it “hate mail”. Erm…ok. At this point I had a feeling this woman was going to be belligerent and was just hoping that would be the last thing she would say…but unfortunately it wasn’t.

Alicia:
We kindly told her that it was certainly possible to express the feeling of hatred without using the word ‘hate.’ This also brought up the topic of the Society fliers being torn down or having Jesus-messages written on them. The Christian lady proceeded to tell us a random story about a church bake sale she did (she went into excruciating detail about this damn bake sale), where someone apparently approached her and really liked the brownies so he said he’d bring back some pals. He asked what it was for, and when she said it was for church, he said “Oh” very shortly and walked away, never to return. Shawn explained that every group has its radicals, including atheists, and we couldn’t really speak for this person because we didn’t know who he was or what his issues were. Kind of funny that she just assumed he was someone we could answer for.

Amanda:
More questions were asked and the discussion got moving forward again, but the woman began to monopolize the discussion, talking when other audience members clearly had questions to ask.

Alicia:
The Christian lady piped up again eventually with something along the lines of: “I think everyone in here is wondering”—(I’m pretty sure no one else in the room was wondering this)—“where you believe life comes from? Do you believe we evolved from monkeys?”

I pounced on this immediately. I am a biologist and a strong believer in evolution, and the whole “humans came from monkeys” thing is a personal pet peeve of mine. I immediately explained that no where in evolution does it state that man evolved from apes or monkeys, and this was a common and very unfortunate misunderstanding. However, I certainly believe that life evolved on Earth and that’s where humans come from. Then Tom added further explanation to that by explaining the difference between evolution, abiogenesis, and cosmology.

Amanda:
The other panelists, biologists and sciencey people in general, looked like they were holding back scoffs and I knew the question was going to take the discussion into the wrong direction; we were there to discuss the secular student experience at Purdue, not to debate evolution with someone who obviously didn’t get it at all. So, I tried to diffuse the situation by giving an answer that had nothing to do with monkeys. I said although I think evolution is the answer that makes the most sense, I feel like the specifics of how life on Earth happened don’t really matter to me. Even if someday, we knew the answer 100% for sure, it wouldn’t change my life so I don’t really care about where we came from.

This had exactly the opposite effect that I was hoping for. The woman started to look visibly upset and teary eyed when she again started talking and said “You said you don’t care about where you came from, but how can you say that? If you don’t care about where you came from, then you don’t care about yourself, and you can’t care about others. I feel sorry for you.” This was basically when shit hit the fan, and some of the other panelists and I started to get really fed up with the lady.

Alicia:
Well, Tom leapt on that immediately, and said, “That’s the kind of patronizing crap that really gets on our tits“—or something like that. I got really defensive as well, and I started to try and ask her why we need to believe in God to care about people, and she quickly claimed that she never brought God into the equation. Well, no, she didn’t say anything about God, but it was very obviously implied. I took Amanda’s statement to mean she didn’t care to understand science or evolution—not all people are interested in science, big deal. She took it to mean something way more spiritual, obviously, and was bringing God into it whether she intended to or not.

This fiasco was cut short by the moderator who said, “Not caring about the origin of life does not mean she can’t care about other people. Now, next question…”

Amanda:
Then we got to talking about the Porn and Popcorn event and I said I found the speakers at the event particularly offensive when they starting making unnecessary comments (insults) about nonbelievers. At this point we were near the very end of the discussion, and the woman just totally lost it. She started to cry again, this time she was blubbering, and said something like (it was difficult to understand, she was having trouble talking at this point)…”You said you were offended, well you offended me when you said you didn’t believe god exists.” Then she broke into more sobbing and sniffling and the other audience members started to snicker at her, or at least she thought they were snickering at her, and she yelled at them about how it wasn’t funny. At this point the moderators stepped in and ended the event early. The woman basically ran out crying, and that was the end of the discussion.

The last thing the woman said, about us offending her because we don’t believe god exists is what really got me. First of all, she voluntarily came to the discussion knowing it was called “A Day in the Life of: students who identify as secular or non-theist”. What did she expect? It seemed like with all her baiting, she just came there for an argument, and got upset when she realized the other audience members weren’t agreeing with her awesome words of wisdom. Secondly, what I supposed to do if the fact that I don’t “believe” in god, my very existence offends her? Am I supposed to crawl in a cave and let the people who believe evolution means “we came from monkeys” run the planet? I’m just disappointed that someone had to come piss in my cereal during an event that’s purpose was to promote diversity and a better understanding of atheists.

Alicia:
We stuck around for a little while afterward and spoke with the coordinators and apologized for what happened. They said we handled it well, and that they had been expecting something much worse than what they got. They also asked us if there was any way they could have handled it better, and we told them that moving the subject along was the best option. We don’t mind the questions about our beliefs or lack of religion, but letting things escalate is probably not a good idea.

Though this summary focuses on the major incident that occurred, the event as a whole went well. There were many great questions asked, such as What were your expectations as atheists when you came to Purdue?, What experiences have you had in classrooms or anywhere on campus in regards to your beliefs?, What has it been like coming out to your families?, What can Purdue do to make non-theists feel more welcome?, and Does being a female have any affect on your interactions amongst atheists? This one lady was the only audience member who reacted negatively to the panel.

I think this really demonstrates why we need to keep having discussions and panels like this and bringing our atheism out into the open. This individual, probably like many others, is so offended at the mere existence of atheists that she broke down into tears in a room full of her coworkers. As Tom mentioned to me after the event, would any of us now feel comfortable approaching her for the services of her position at Purdue? I know I’d have my reservations. But keep in mind that all the other people in the room, probably many (if not all) theists, reacted positively to the event and learned something that day. Maybe this lady did too, even though she didn’t handle it well at first. If just a fraction of the room now looks at non-theists in a new light, that’s a victory.

Thanks to all of the panelists for representing the Society, and to Amanda and Alicia for writing up their summaries.