One more Sims update

Thanks to everyone who thought my atheist Sims were more hilarious than they were creepy. Someone requested that I upload them, so I did. If you have Sims 3, you can now download Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Hemant Mehta for your own use.

There have been requests to make other famous atheists (Phil Plait, Dennett, Hitchens, etc), which I may do if I have enough time or get bored enough. I still like PZ’s idea of having Ken Ham and Kent Hovind being a cranky gay couple next door. Incredibly tempting… Though I would just let them run wild through the town instead of controlling them. Three sims were hard enough for me to control, now I have four (Hemant’s wife) and a kid* and my micromanaging skills are starting to fall apart.

*As a side note, I got geekily excited when I saw the Sims boasting its “Genetic Algorithm” or whatever for deciding how babies would look. I thought maybe it would just blend the traits of the parents or something. Nope. The baby gets mom’s mouth, skin color and hair color, and dad’s nose, eye color, and hair type. I chose a pale blonde surgeon for Hemant’s wife…so his kid is this pasty white kid with bright blond hair that’s short and curly (I know he doesn’t have curly hair, but it was the short haircut that looked the best). So yeah, the kid looks absolutely nothing like him. Sorry SimHemant. I promise I didn’t see her sleeping around with other Sims.

Sim Atheists

So as I mentioned before, I bought Sims 3 this week. Usually I make myself and then a bunch of my friends, and then scatter celebrities (fictional and non) around the neighborhood. There’s just something oddly amusing about playing chess with Johnny Depp and marrying Harry Potter (or whatever).

Well, Sims 3’s editing options are so detailed that you can really make Sims look like the original person. So my odd mind obviously thought, “Why don’t I make a house full of famous atheist Sims?” Enjoy:
Sim Richard Dawkins
Attributes: Genius, Bookworm, Good sense of humor, Charismatic, Ambitious
Life wish: Become leader of the free world (Dawkins being in charge? Yes please.)

Sim Hemant Mehta
Attributes: Friendly (duh), Good, Charismatic, Vegetarian, Family Oriented (Was going to pick Hopeless Romantic or Flirt, but cheated a bit to make his life wish easier…)
Life wish: Have five children and raise them to teens (With all of Hemant’s baby posts, I found this oddly appropriate. Not quite his goal of octuplets, but close! Let’s see if he can restrain from eating them before they reach adulthood.)Sim PZ Myers
Attributes: Genius, Bookworm, Good sense of humor, Charismatic, Computer Whiz
Life wish: Become a creature-robot crossbreeder (Dear lord I nearly peed my pants when this choice came up. How could I NOT choose that for PZ?)

I can’t explain how much entertainment this has provided me over the last couple of days. It’s fun enough with all three of them sharing a house, but there are just so many little things. All of PZ’s outfits (formal wear, pajamas, etc) use the squid themed print I found, which was what initially spawned this terrifying idea of atheist sims. I’m still trying to find Hemant a baby mama, since that’s kind of necessary for his life goal (I promise to find someone cute!). The only real disturbing thing is whenever the Sims need to shower or use the bathroom. I mean, they blur it out so you can’t see any naughtiness going on, but I feel like a creepy voyeur. Of course, I don’t know if it can get much creepier than making Sims of random people you don’t really know and then controlling their lives like some sort of sick puppet master.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go hide in shame from being such a weirdo. Aka, go play more Sims. *runs off*

PS: You can click the images for larger versions, if you wish.

I swear to _____?

I had the following conversation about atheists swearing oaths to assert veracity of statements with a friend of mine (also an atheist). I figured I could type it up coherently for a neatly organized blog post, but 1) I’m lazy 2) This sounds more natural and 3) I now have more time to play the Sims. It’s slightly edited to remove typos and make it more coherent, but no real rewording.

Me: Is [Other Friend] still up? Tell him I wasn’t playing the Sims when he IMed me, the IM just never popped up.

Friend: Mmmm hmmmm.

Me: I swear to god. XP

Friend: You’re an atheist. That holds no sway.

Me: I swear on the Sims. XP

Friend: Oh, okay then. …You ever stop to think how prevalent that type of language is in our society? What alternative is there to that phrase? The concept of swearing an oath to a higher being to affirm veracity.Me: There’s all sorts of stuff… “bless you,” “oh my god,” “thank god”…I say it just because it’s a phrase. It could be “oh my smorgltoff” for all I care.

Friend: Or even just “Oh my!” “Deary me!” “Well I’ll be a son of a gun!”. But “I swear to god” is a unique one… The concept of affirming an oath to a higher power to achieve veracity. I mean, I guess there’s “No, really, I mean it.” But that doesn’t have the same oomph to it, y’know?

Me: Well, I think most people (aka religious people) wouldn’t swear to god unless they really meant it, because that’s kind of a bad thing to do.

Friend: But us?

Me: We’ve just stolen it and you hope we mean it, haha.

Friend: But that’s the thing. What could we possibly use as ethos collateral?

Me: I don’t think anything compares to an eternity of hellfire and doom, by definition. I think we’re stuck to using it in the metaphorical sense.

Friend: Eh.

Me: I mean, you could theoretically pick something like “I swear on my child’s life,” but that still implies you think some hocus pocus will cause your child to be unhealthy if you’re actually lying.

Friend: Right.

Me: Swearing on something automatically involves the supernatural. I mean, what sort of rational things do you want? “I will take a lie detector test.” “Bring on the DNA testing.”

Friend: I mean, we don’t necessarily have to go to that extreme. Perhaps we could build up a system of ethos points. Like, “I’ll wager 30 ethos points that I didn’t play the Sims.” The higher the number of points, the more vehement you are about it.

Me: Well that just seems arbitrary… And you know people would abuse it… “I’ll wager SEVENTY BILLION TIMES INFINITY ETHOS POINTS that I didn’t eat that last brownie!”

Friend: Point. Hmm… Well, religious people do that too… What if every person gets an ethos chip. Metaphorically, of course. “I’d wager my ethos chip.” That way it can almost be tangible.

Me: Haha, I think now you’re just being silly.

Friend: I disagree. I like the idea. =D

Me: Well, how is that different than betting? Like, “I bet you 20 bucks I’m right,” and just holding the person to it in the end. “I bet you a billion dollars I’m telling the truth!” wouldn’t come up that often.

Friend: This has a more family friendly feel to it. None of this gamesmanship stuff. =P

Me: Well, what if you lose all your ethos chips on a big lie, then can you never back up anything again until you catch someone else in a lie? A limited amount of ethos chips doesn’t make sense.

Friend: Again, this is a metaphorical thing. It’s not like people actually go to hell for swearing to god and getting caught in a lie. I figured referring it to an ethos chip would give it a higher level of perceived tangibility and, thereby, be more likely to be accepted.

Me: But to religious people it’s not metaphorical, it’s a very real consequence. If you want something on par with that, you should start chopping off fingers for big lies. That’s a tangible deterrent. =P

Then I had to go to bed, and we never really came to a conclusion. So what do you think? Is there some sort of assertion of veracity an atheist can make that is equivalent to swearing to god? Does it even matter since religious people abuse the phrase “I swear to god” anyway?

Same-sex couples and immigration

While we’re celebrating the victories for gay marriage in Maine and New Hampshire, I wanted to point out another big gay rights issue that you may not know as much: same-sex couples and immigration rights. An American straight woman can marry a foreign straight man and sponsor him for a green card, but gay couples cannot. If you happen to fall in love with a foreigner, they’ll struggle to stay in the US, frequently be sent back to their own country, and possibly lose the ability to reenter if they go home for a dying relative or some other sort of emergency. CNN has a great article describing the problem here that includes some really touching stories from gay couples.

After 9 years of being ignored, the Uniting American Families Act, which hopes to solve this problem, is finally getting some time in the Senate:

“The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the bill for the first time Wednesday, after 10 previous attempts to have hearings on the Uniting American Families Act. The bill has 102 co-sponsors in the House and 17 co-sponsors in the Senate, including Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council which opposes same sex marriage, has condemned the bill as “yet another attack on marriage at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.” “

Oh, you would say that, President of the Family Research Council, wouldn’t you? Because the number one goal of any organization with “Family” in the name is to ruin gay families. Blah. Anyway.

While I’ve always been a strong supporter of gay rights, this issue is especially important to me. My close British friend/coworker is stuck in this exact situation with his long term American partner. He’s been here a year and a half on a research visa, and after another year he’s going to be shipped back to England. He can’t go visit his family because he won’t be allowed back in the country, even if one of his parents became deathly ill. It’s horrible that this sort of inequality exists that would tear apart relationships (not to mention how idiotic it is to shoo away intelligent people with PhDs who want to be here…but that’s another issue).

You can help out by sending a letter to your representative urging them to support this bill – and if you want, there’s a nifty little form letter here. It only takes a second, and every little bit helps.

Wooo Scientific Adventures!

I’m starting to get pretty excited for Evolution 2009, which I’ll leave for in a week (June 11th, to be exact). It’s a pretty ginormous conference – apparently it attracts 1,000+ biologists. The program itself is a massive tome (can you find me in there? I’m in it, promise!). I’m going with three labmates and my professor, and there are a bunch of professors speaking there that I’m interested in for grad school, so it should be fun.

I’m lucky enough to go because I was accepted as part of their Undergraduate Diversity Program. They take 15-18 undergrads who somehow are “diverse” and pay everything so we can go to the conference. Plane ticket, hotel room, registration cost, food, everything. We even get Professor/Grad student mentors to help show us around the first day, and a special little social thing. Pretty freaking amazing. I’m not sure exactly what criteria made me diverse…if it was just being female, or if it was my work with the atheist club (though that’s probably a majority for an evolution conference, heh). Either way, I’m super grateful that they have this program and I get to be a part of it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to afford to go.

One gripe though (I know, I know…beggars can’t be choosers, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, yadda yadda). Man are the flights they booked for me awful. I asked to fly with my lab group, but they said they already booked flights for the program. I go 10 am Indianapolis > Chicago > Seattle > Pullman > Shuttle to Moscow, Idaho > Arrive at midnight. One, I’m always annoyed with flights from Indy to Chicago, since I could just freaking drive to Chicago in less time than all the hassle of flying from Indy. Two, I have a 9 hour layover in Seattle. I could theoretically drive to Moscow in less than 6 hours. Three, my return flight from Pullman leaves at 6:45 am, blargh.

The layover annoys me mainly because it’s just inefficient – however, since it’s so huge, I’m going to be able to spend the day exploring Seattle. I’ve never been there before, so now I’m kind of excited. I’m going to store my luggage at the airport and rely on buses/taxis/walking for some adventure. Anyone have any suggestions on must see places or even just awesome local places to eat dinner? So far I’ve been recommended the Space Needle, the Pacific Science Center, Pike Place Fish Market, and the Freemont Troll. I’m not sure what else there is to do, other than stalking Dan Savage and scowling at Starbucks world headquarters while hypocritically buying a cafe mocha.

Curse you addictive video games!

Oh good lord, what have I done? Why? Why?!?!

…I bought Sims 3 today.

I played the original Sims back when I was 14 or so, and never got Sims 2 because my computer was too crappy. But now I have a snazzy computer and disposable income, so I thought why not? Now I’m forgetting to eat and sleep because I’m too busy telling a virtual version of myself to eat and sleep. I spent an hour and a half trying to make Sim Jen look as much like me as possible. Hell, there are probably 30 different facial traits and bone structures and crap that you can tweak. Gahhhh.

The ironic part? My current job is “Professional Blogger” and I still can’t get any guys to like me. Damnit, Sims 3. You’re supposed to be an escape from real life, not a brutally honest reflection of it. Oh well, at least I haven’t set fire to my real stove (yet).

I think it’s time to start making Sim versions of celebrities for me to hit on. Suggestions? I kind of want to make a mad scientist PZ as my neighbor. They even have squid themed pajamas!

Atheism & the USSR

One of my commenters, gfish, has an interesting piece up at his blog about atheism and growing up in the USSR. Go check it out. While I’ve lived in the US all my life, I’m also a lifelong atheist – I don’t have some fancy deconversion story about leaving the faith – so I can relate to his post. It’s also interesting seeing the “other side” of the story, since over in the US we get a pretty biased view of what was going on in the USSR religion-wise.

One foot in the closet

People are always talking about atheists being in the closet, a term we stole from the gays for not being publicly honest about how you really are. I feel bad for the people who have to keep their atheism a secret. There are plenty of good reasons to do it – religious friends and family members you don’t want to lose, possible drama at work, living in a small conservative neighborhood, etc. But even if staying closeted is the safer alternative, it still sucks knowing you’re “living a lie.”

I’ve found myself in an odd predicament. I’m basically completely out of the closet except for two people – my grandparents. They go to church every weekend, they take religious holidays seriously, they cross themselves before eating, etc. But my grandparents are by no means bible thumpers or overly zealous; they’re fairly liberal and honestly never really talk about religion. They even know that my parents and I never go to church and that I wasn’t baptized, and that has never really come up in conversation as a problem (at least not in front of me).

However, them knowing I am an atheist is not an option. My mom asserts that it would break their poor 88 year old hearts knowing I didn’t believe in God, and to never ever mention anything about it to them. I have to catch myself to not mention club related stuff, especially since that takes up so much of my time at school. Usually I can get away with being in local newspapers because it won’t get back to them. And the internet isn’t too big of an issue because they have no idea how to use a computer.

Honestly my main fear is that someone who DOES know how to use a computer is going to Google my name one day and tell them about it. I mean, I don’t hide my atheism. I don’t want to hide it. I have an atheist heavy blog, my name is plastered on the Society of Non-Theists website, if you know my email you can probably find a half dozen websites and blogs I comment at. I used to think I was safe since my uncle, the only person who would probably squeal on me if he found out, had no idea how to use a computer. But apparently he’s at Googling level now, so I’m getting a bit worried.

I guess I should be happy it’s just two people I’m hiding from, but it still makes me feel bad that I have this “deep dark secret.” I’d love to be even more active in the atheist community – writing books, doing events that get national news coverage – but I’m too afraid it would trickle back to my grandparents. And the last thing I’d want to do is upset them; they’re honestly the most kind, wonderful people and I love them very much. People have told me that they’re old and to just wait until they pass away, but I think that’s awful. I’d love for them to live to be 120 if they could. I hope beyond hope that they make it to my wedding (whenever that will be, sort of have to find a guy first), but at the same time I know there’s no way I’ll get married in a church or have any mention of God at the ceremony. And that makes me nervous.

Is there anyone else teetering between out and closeted? Desperately trying to hide your atheism from a select few while being out and active everywhere else? Or am I just destined for failure?