The insanity begins

I’m part of a group of second year graduate students in charge of running my department’s recruitment weekend. Basically a gaggle of prospective graduate students fly in for the weekend and are shuffled around between interviews, food, and fun. Our duty is to answer any questions they have about the department, make them feel welcome, and make sure the shuffling occurs without anyone being left behind.

I’m less concerned with someone getting stranded during our scavenger hunt in Pike Place – the real labyrinth is the Health Sciences building, which is the world’s single largest university building. The floors of wings don’t match up – sometimes you spontaneously go from floor 3 to 4 without going up a flight of stairs. Some floors are only accessable via elevator if you happen to be in a particular wing. And the lettering system of the wings is nonsensical – you think something using letters would be vaguely alphabetical. I’m always expecting to turn a corner and see a graduate student who’s been trapped in its maze for years, with the stereotypical long hair, long beard, and worn clothes of a shipwreck survivor. Except that would be kind of hard to differentiate them from the regular graduate students.

Anyway, this all means that I’m going to be spending every minute of my day from now until Monday 11pm losing my mind. So, consider this an open thread!

Obama isn’t trying to destroy religion…

I AM.

Come on, Republicans. Give credit where credit is due.

The more I think about it, the more I think this could be a great ad campaign. Slap “Obama isn’t trying to destroy religion; we are” on a billboard and see the flood of media attention you get. Sounds like it’s right up the ally of those firebrands at American Atheists – wink nudge, Dave Silverman.

A simple step in promoting secularism

Last night I gave my talk about the Creation Museum. The highlight was making PZ jealous because I had crazier creationists in the audience asking me questions. Despite the talk being full of the mind numbing garbage the “museum” promotes, I try to end on a high note. What can we do to fight these ignorance spreading groups when they’re so organized and well-funded?

We need to become organized and well-funded ourselves.

There are plenty of worthy secular organizations out there, but I’m going to be biased and promote my favorite – the Secular Student Alliance. It’s easy to say something like “Students are the future.” People are more likely to change their minds about religion before they become set in their ways, have children, and all that jazz. And the young leaders we train will likely go on to other important leadership roles, both inside and outside of the movement.

But students aren’t just the future. Students are the present.

We have over 300 college and high school affiliate groups across the US. Each of those is its own grassroots community, working to promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, secularism, and human-based ethics. Our students are challenging unconstitutional religious legislation, creationism in their schools, and negative stereotypes about atheists. I know when I founded my SSA affiliate group at Purdue, it created a community where I finally felt comfortable talking about my atheism – it was an oasis in a sea of oppressive Christianity. And that’s why I’m now Vice Chair for the Board of Directors of the SSA. I’m happy to volunteer my time to help these student groups flourish.

If you want to help secular students across the country, please consider donating to the Secular Student Alliance today. And if you need even more motivation, there’s currently a $250,000 matching offer going on. That means any donation you make is effectively doubled!

We can win the battle against the Creation Museums, Focus on the Families, and Rick Santorums of the world.

PS: You could also start running for office – even if it’s piddly positions like Town Dog Catcher. We need to start being an active part of the political process, and I don’t mean just writing letters. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it – those of you who were at the pub celebration after the event know why. Thankfully I have 11 whole years to come up with my presidential campaign slogan and running mate.

Blogging makes a difference

Blogging can be frustrating. A lot of the time it feels like we’re beating our heads against the wall, replying to the same misconceptions over, and over, and over again. I occasionally have a low day where I wonder why I’m spending my time doing this if no one is “getting it.” It also doesn’t help that a lot of people like to poo-poo blogs as being wastes of time or circle jerks (though I never quite understood why circle jerks get such a bad rap). I think this opinion exists because you don’t see the feedback that we get in personal emails or buried in giant comment threads. And that feedback is what keeps me motivated, know I’m changing minds about issues I’m passionate about.

I got such an email from a reader named Matt the other day, which I think many of you may relate to, and he gave me permission to share it:

This email is something that I’ve meant to write, lingering in the back of my mind for a few years. I’ve finally been spurred to action by writing my “why I am an atheist” email for Pharyngula, and by telling an idiot friend on Google+ why “he” is not a valid gender-neutral pronoun. I want to give you sincere thanks, from the very bottom of my heart. You are singlehandedly the reason I consider myself a feminist instead of a men’s rights activist.

I know that’s kind of an odd divide. Let me explain.

I grew up in an environment one might reasonably say had a Republican/libertarian bent to it. When I was growing up, and even now, my mom was the type who–repeatedly!–claimed that the young, upper-middle-class, white male is the most put-upon ethnic group in modern America (I wish I were exaggerating). Suffice it to say I was led to believe I was in an “oppressed” group. The fact that I went to an all-boys’ catholic high school, overflowing with its male bravado, did not help. Add to all that my complicated relationship with my mom, which would go from amicable to adversarial in a matter of hours, and the result was potentially dangerous.

By nature I am kind of a shy, awkward guy, so when I got to college, it was a challenge to engage with women. Rather than try talking to girls, making mistakes, learning, and growing as a human being, I basically withdrew from the real world into forums and the internet. Obviously this made engaging with women (and eventually even men) seemingly impossible. It was a textbook catch-22. However, just being out of my parents’ house did get me exposed to other viewpoints, and it did make me realize there was more to the world than libertarianism. I began to understand how I wasn’t the oppressed prole I was led to believe. I still had a low opinion of women, though. My feelings aped the same depressingly common comments seen on MRA and PUA forums: “Why are all these women hooking up with guys who are not me (and are therefore assholes)?! I’m such a Nice Guy ™! My inability to interact with women couldn’t possibly be my fault! It must be them, not me! Me me me!”

There are two events which brought about the turning point in this story. First, in May 2009 I reconnected with a friend from high school who sent me a PDF copy of the PUA book by Neil Strauss, The Game. This was the first exposure I had to actual, someone-paid-money-for-this-crap pick-up artist stuff. I finished the book in a week, hoping for a clue to what I was “doing wrong.” Instead, I learned about the sleazy world of pick-up-artistry. Eventually, I decided to try using pick-up techniques. In what is hopefully a surprise to no one, I failed spectacularly, since PUA is about preying on people with insecurities and low self-esteem, and I tried using the techniques on normal, even confident, women. I didn’t want to date or hook up with someone with low self-esteem. Rather than ask myself, “am I doing it wrong?”, I found myself asking, “is this PUA stuff wrong?”

Around that time was the second event: I started reading your blog. I was using Google Reader to follow a few blogs and a bunch of dumb webcomics, and I searched for “atheism,” hoping to find the blog of some biology professor from Minnesota whose website name I couldn’t remember. Instead I found Blag Hag. Reading your blog was crucial in stopping me from a Mad Max-style nightmare future only with PUA/MRA forums. It made me realize a simple truth: “This woman isn’t some unassailable mystery, or some video game that responds to a proper combination of insult, backhanded compliment, quarter-circle-forward-fierce-punch… She’s like me. She’s a normal human being.”

As embarrassing as it is to type now, back then that seemed like a revolutionary thought. By the way you write, you made me pick-up artists as the manipulative shits they really are. You made me see men’s rights activists as the misogynist sociopaths they really are. Most importantly, you made me see feminism as something approachable, understandable, and ultimately, the only logical choice there really is.

Never stop what you do. Ever.

And it’s not just feminism. I got this sweet comment the other day from Timid Atheist:

Jen,

Your blog and Skepchick were the reason I finally admitted to myself that I’m an atheist. I enjoy reading what you and other ladies in the community have to say and the majority of Freethoughts Blogs as well.

When I see this kind of mindless hate and scorn for people come from someone who calls themselves an Atheist, it makes me not want to call myself that anymore and that really upsets me because I thought I’d finally found a place where I could be who I am and enjoy discussing things with like minded people.

I hope that anyone who defends TJ comes to their senses. But I most assuredly will never endorse someone like that. TJ and anyone who agrees with him has no place in any part of society.

Thank you for continuing to do what you do best. And perhaps someday, because of people like you, I won’t have to hide that I’m an Atheist from my family and friends in order to keep custody of my child.

To all the Matts and Timid Atheists out there who send me lovely things like this – and I do get them quite a lot – thank you. I try to reply though I occasionally get busy and forget, but know that I do read and cherish every one.

The Catholic contraception kerfuffle

The Obama administration mandated that health insurers cover birth control, and the ongoing drama is being framed in respect of the repression of poor, poor Catholics. How dare the government infringe on their freedom to police women’s bodies through their religion, blah blah blah. The next time someone brings up the Catholic aspect, obliterate it with the following three points:

1. There’s no legal basis:

“At a more fundamental level, though, the HHS rule simply doesn’t violate a cognizable free exercise right. In 1990, the Supreme Court decided a case called Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990). Two men, members of the Native American Church, used peyote in their rituals. They were employed in Oregon as counselors at a private rehab clinic. Oregon outlawed peyote, with no exception for religious use. The men were subsequently fired once their drug use was discovered, and applied for unemployment benefits. The state of Oregon denied them benefits because – guess what? – they were fired for committing a crime under state law, and had committed work-related misconduct.

The case found its way to the Supreme Court, where the court set down a new rule. The standard for determining if a regulation burdened the free exercise of a religious adherent or organization was whether the law was neutral toward religion and generally applicable, lacking any pretext designed to obscure a hostility toward religious practice. The court even stated that to permit otherwise under the First Amendment “would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

The author of this religion-destroying opinion? Noted Catholic Antonin Scalia.”

2. It’s not even about religion, it’s about gender:

The polling data backs this up; Catholics and non-Catholics support requiring all employers to cover insurance in roughly equal numbers. In fact, Catholics are slightly more likely to do so than the general public, mainly because evangelical Christians are suppressing the overall support numbers; only 38% of them want the mandate. What we’re seeing here is fundamentalist evangelicals and fundamentalist Catholics using ordinary Catholics as cover to push a misogynist agenda. I know, shocking, right?

But there’s another aspect to this story I want to talk about. The polling data makes this clear that there’s no conflict between Catholics and everyone else. But there are two groups that show huge divergences in the polling data on this: men and women.

“However, women were significantly more likely to favor free contraception through employee healthcare plans at 62 percent versus 47 percent of men, while 54 percent of women agreed religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals should provide this coverage versus 43 percent of men.”

The religious arguments have no real effect on men’s support or non-support of it; they either think it’s a benefit or they don’t. And the majority don’t. The spread between men and women on whether or not contraception should be a covered benefit is 15 points. The non-existent spread between Catholics and non is drawing a bunch of attention, but here is the real story. The only reason this is controversial is that a majority of men oppose it.

3. Catholics freak out about birth control because it prevents pregnancy, but most women use it for other reasons:

I’m sure every religious person will change their mind about the situation after being confronted with evidence. Right?

Santorum: Obama and secularism are the path to beheading religious people

“They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do, and when you’ll do it. What’s left, in France, became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that. But if we do, and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”

I don’t think Santorum‘s speech really requires any commentary (Via Slog).

Come see me for Darwin Day!

I’ll be a part of Darwin on the Palouse, a Darwin Day celebration in Pullman, WA and Moscow, ID:

  • Daniel Dennett and PZ Myers will speak in the Cub Senior Ballroom at Washington State University in Pullman on February 9, starting at 7:00 PM.
  • Fred Edwords and Jennifer McCreight will speak in the Clearwater Room at the University of Idaho in Moscow on February 10, starting at 6:00 PM. I’ll be giving my talk about Ken Ham’s Creation Museum, which is always a blast.

I find it kind of odd that I’m in fact returning to Moscow, ID. I was there when they hosted the Evolution conference a couple of years ago.

Not gonna lie, I’m kind of giddy to be part of the same event as Daniel Dennett. Thanks to the organizers for including me. Sadly I’ll miss his and PZ‘s talk, since I fly in Friday afternoon. PZ has already guilted me into buying him a beer as penance.

And I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I have to point out a pet peeve. Whoever wrote the speaker bios writes that Dennett is an author and philosopher, that PZ is a biologist and has won many secular awards, that Edwords is an editor and director of secular organizations…and that I’m the blogger that did boobquake. I know that’s what I’m most famous for, but that’s all you come up with? You don’t think it’s relevant to mention that I’m the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Secular Student Alliance, that I’ve published in the Atheist Guide to Christmas, that…you know, I’m an evolutionary biologist working on my PhD? For Darwin Day?

Nope, boob joke. I will never escape it, will I?

Scratch the Amazing Atheist off your list too

EDIT: Ironically, I forgot to include a trigger warning. So…trigger warning!

The Amazing Atheist is a fairly popular YouTuber. I admit I’m not all that familiar with his stuff, just because I’m really not into watching YouTube videos in general – I much rather read something than watch it. But now I definitely won’t be checking him out, after this disgusting diatribe he launched at a rape victim on reddit:

“I will make you a rape victim if you don’t fuck off.”

“Yeah. Well, you deserved it. So, fuck you. I hope it happens again soon. I’m tired of being treated like shit by you mean little cunts and then you using your rape as an excuse. Fuck you. I think we should give the guy who raped you a medal. I hope you fucking drown in rape semen, you ugly, mean-spirited cow. Actually, I don’t believe you were ever raped! What man would be tasteless enough to stick his dick into a human cesspool like you? Nice gif of a turd going into my mouth. Is that kind of like the way that rapists dick went in your pussy? Or did he use your asshole? Or was it both? Maybe you should think about it really hard for the next few hours. Relive it as much as possible. You know? Try to recall: was it my pussy or my ass?”

“I’m going to rape you with my fist.”

“BTW, you have to admit, when I told you that I hope you drown in rape semen, you got a little wet, didn’t you? It’s okay. We’re friends now. You can share.”

“Fuck you, liar. All night you douches have tried to shit on me and tear me down. Then when I do the same it’s like, “Whoa man! That’s too far. Calm down.” No. Fuck you. Go get raped in whatever orifice you have to get fucking raped in. I am sick of your shit. I regret nothing.”

What caused this filth to flow forth from his fingetips? A male feminist (Lorrdernie) commented that they were surprised someone was against trigger warnings. Wow.

PZ has a thorough takedown already. You know, in case you needed it spelled out why threatening to rape someone is bad. But also if you wanted a little history about this Amazing Atheist character, including his latest YouTube rant which can be summarized as “feminists are castrating bitches.” He got me! The sex-positivity thing is all an elaborate ruse in order to draw men into our clutches for the sole purpose of castration. Or something along those lines. I haven’t read the Grand Feminazi Takeover Manifesto recently.

And I swear, if someone trots out a “Yes, but…” or tries to say that this is worse so what Penn did was fine… Well, I won’t threaten you like the Amazing Atheist did, but I will be cranky.

Update: The Amazing Atheist has responded to PZ, somehow trying to defend his behavior. What a toad.