A Christian, a Muslim, and an atheist walk into an classroom…

Today I took part in a religious diversity panel for an agriculture class at Purdue, Communicating Across Cultures. I was on the same panel representing atheists last year, which was a giant debacle that left a bad taste in my mouth. I decided to try again this year and hope for the best.

I have to say, it went much better. This time I was actually told that I was supposed to have a presentation prepared, and I was told the accurate topic (yes, last year was bad). I had limited time for my presentation, but here’s a brief outline of what I talked about.

– Definition for atheism and agnosticism
– Demographics of atheists in US
– Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, I can be convinced
– Secular humanism and general ideals some atheist have (search for truth, reason, evidence, concern for this life, ethics)
– Why atheism is not a religion
– Not all atheists hate religion (though some do), and we don’t hate religious people. In fact, most atheists were at one point religious.
– Atheists are not depressed, angry, hopeless people

The Muslim speaker (a recently graduated student) did an excellent job at explaining exactly what Muslims believe and some of their traditions. The Christian speaker (a pastor for Alpha Chi, the group with the zombie event), while very nice, was one giant facepalm. I really shouldn’t be allowed to be on panels or do debates, because I make a very obvious “What you’re saying is stupid and annoys me but I have to look polite” grimace, like so:It wasn’t her description of her belief that annoyed me. I disagreed with her just as much about there being proof of Jesus rising from the dead (uh, care to share that with us atheists?) and Intelligent design being proof for God’s existence (No) as I did with the Muslim talking about Mohammed being a prophet. I’ve heard the arguments before and I don’t agree with them, but the whole point of the panel was diversity, so they were totally appropriate.

What annoyed me is that she felt the need to comment on people other than Christians. Namely, atheists. To summarize her argument:

You know how when you were a little kid, and your parents forced you to go to bed at a certain time and eat your vegetables? And at the time you hated them and whined and resisted, but now looking back you thank them for being good parents? That’s God. Atheists don’t like that God’s a meanie and makes them do things they don’t like, so they rebel and go to the extreme and say he doesn’t exist. Atheists need to realize that God is all loving, and he makes rules in our best interest.

First off, when I was a little kid I went to bed at my curfew and ate whatever my parents told me to ate and never threw tantrums.

*ahem*

Really? Did she even listen to the talk I gave? I had just got done saying how atheists usually come to that conclusion after many many years of thought and introspection. That we weighed the evidence, and it wasn’t even enough to jiggle the scale. That we live by many of the same moral rules as religious people. That if given sufficient evidence, we would totally not hesitate in believing in God.

But no, atheists are just rebellious, selfish people who don’t want to conform to God’s rules. It’s just so fucking condescending, which is highly ironic considering it’s always the atheists who get labeled as the pompous jerks. I don’t think she was saying this to be mean, or even consciously aware of how bad it sounded – she really seemed like a legitimately nice woman. I didn’t go up and say how only atheists use reason and logic, and that theists are dumbasses. Blaaarrgghh.

One of the questions during the Q&A for me was what sort of evidence it would take to convince me that God exists. I gave my standard quip, that “If God is all knowing, he’ll know what will convince me,” which the pastor actually liked and agreed with. Then I added “Or he could make a trout materialize in front of me right now.” I paused, but no trout. Sadness. That was your chance, God!

Most of the other questions for me were pretty standard – Do you believe in a soul? (No) Where do you think you’ll go when you die? (In the ground) What do you think the purpose of life is? (There isn’t a preordained purpose, but we chose to give our lives purpose). How do you get along with religious people? (Just like someone with different political beliefs, you try to put it aside and find other things you have in common). I wish we had more time in the Q&A, because there were good questions we ran out of time for (exactly where do you get your morals, and how can morality evolve?). But since the class seemed so interested, the professor is going to email me the questions and let me answer them, and then she’s going to give my answers to the students.

I also really would have liked to address all the arguments the pastor was making. When she feels down, she asks God for strength and it makes her feel better (feeling better doesn’t mean he exists). When she looks at nature, she knows it couldn’t have come about by chance (it’s evolution, not chance). She hears the voice of God speaking to her, therefore she exists (you might want to get that hearing voices thing checked out).

But more importantly, atheists aren’t just some rebellious cranky kids who want to be able to run around having promiscuous sex and drunken parties! The ironic part is that she agreed that we have similar morals and care about the well being of others and want to live happy lives…so what exactly are we rejecting? An all loving God? Heaven? Yeah, I would just hate to have those things.

All in all, I still think the panel was a success. At the beginning of the talk, one girl said she didn’t know what the word “atheism” meant – hopefully now she does. And while I probably didn’t make any converts, I think it helped for them to see that an atheist is just a normal, happy person. They might think I’m wrong, but hopefully they won’t hate me.

Bigotry is even better when it’s hypocritical

Okay, I’m trying not to make every post about this Constance McMillen story, but I keep finding new stuff that makes me want to bang my head into my desk. Like all of the ridiculous, hateful comments Constance’s classmates have been making about her on Facebook. But that’s not even the best part. Some students were stupid enough to post photos from the secret prom on public Facebook accounts, where some ingenious person stuck them on Flickr to preserve forever. I want to point out two things:Notice the two girls wearing jeans. Now, I’m not pointing this out to illustrate how tacky it is to come to prom in jeans (hell, some of those dresses were fugly enough fashion nightmares all on their own). I’m pointing it out because the school and community were against Constance wearing a tux. You know, an outfit that has pants, because the dress code required that girls all be feminine little ladies and wear dresses. Apparently Jesus makes exceptions for straight girls.

But okay, I’ll let the pants slide. The real issue at hand was keeping the gay away right? We were told repeatedly that seeing two girls dancing together would just be too distracting for the other students. Good thing the kids at the alternative prom didn’t have to see any of that. Wait a second…OH GOD. GIRL IN THE SEAWEED DRESS IS DANCING WITH ANOTHER GIRL! AND AND AND…nobody seems to notice. Because it’s totally normal and okay for two girls to dance together, as long as they’re straight. Heck, it’s encouraged. Bump and grind away, ladies, because the guys will pay so much more attention to you! Except if you were actually lesbians, in which case that’s just wrong and you’re making baby Jesus cry.

Though, I can’t be sure. Maybe Constance has been successful in recruiting more innocents to her cause. Damn those wily lesbians!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go weep for our future.

Bigotry is even better when it's hypocritical

Okay, I’m trying not to make every post about this Constance McMillen story, but I keep finding new stuff that makes me want to bang my head into my desk. Like all of the ridiculous, hateful comments Constance’s classmates have been making about her on Facebook. But that’s not even the best part. Some students were stupid enough to post photos from the secret prom on public Facebook accounts, where some ingenious person stuck them on Flickr to preserve forever. I want to point out two things:Notice the two girls wearing jeans. Now, I’m not pointing this out to illustrate how tacky it is to come to prom in jeans (hell, some of those dresses were fugly enough fashion nightmares all on their own). I’m pointing it out because the school and community were against Constance wearing a tux. You know, an outfit that has pants, because the dress code required that girls all be feminine little ladies and wear dresses. Apparently Jesus makes exceptions for straight girls.

But okay, I’ll let the pants slide. The real issue at hand was keeping the gay away right? We were told repeatedly that seeing two girls dancing together would just be too distracting for the other students. Good thing the kids at the alternative prom didn’t have to see any of that. Wait a second…OH GOD. GIRL IN THE SEAWEED DRESS IS DANCING WITH ANOTHER GIRL! AND AND AND…nobody seems to notice. Because it’s totally normal and okay for two girls to dance together, as long as they’re straight. Heck, it’s encouraged. Bump and grind away, ladies, because the guys will pay so much more attention to you! Except if you were actually lesbians, in which case that’s just wrong and you’re making baby Jesus cry.

Though, I can’t be sure. Maybe Constance has been successful in recruiting more innocents to her cause. Damn those wily lesbians!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go weep for our future.

Annual pro-life demonstrators out again

The anti-choice group on campus has a large event every spring called the Cemetery of the Innocents. Before I try to explain it, it might just be easier to show you:Yep, Memorial Mall gets turned into a giant cemetery for all those unborn babies evil women keep aborting. But only Christian babies, apparently.

I can’t quite explain how much this event gets me down. It’s here every spring, but you never can quite prepare yourself for when it’s going to happen. They change the date and keep it very secretive so pro-choice and feminist groups can’t counter protest. Only my freshman year was a feminist group able to figure it out, and set up a stand handing out condoms – a real way to reduce abortions. Though of course, the pro-lifers didn’t get it. “What does sex have to do with it? That’s so immature!” they whined.

Yeah, we’re dealing with intelligent people, here.

I guess I should be thankful they’re not the kind of group spouting Bible verses or waving signs of bloody fetuses. It’s just that this event reminds me of what the majority of Purdue is really like – conservative, religious, anti-choice, and willfully ignorant about social issues – and it kind of depresses me. Can’t go hide in my liberal atheist feminist bubble of friends when I have to walk past this thing five times during the day.

But of course, I’m a masochist, so I had to go poke around. If the signs that greeted you really wanted to be honest, they would say “Warning! Emotional arguments within! No substance or rational thought!”I approached the table where most of the pro-life students (mostly women, how sad), were standing. After gathering up some flyers (which I wish I could unread, dear lord the stupid burns), I decided to ask some questions:

Me: So, do you think abortion should be illegal?
Gal: Uh…well…we just want women to know there are other options to getting abortions.
Me: So you don’t want it to be illegal?
Gal: Well, we don’t have an official stance. I’d like it to be illegal, but even if we did people would still just get abortions illegally, and those would be more dangerous, so it wouldn’t really accomplish much. Instead we want to educate people that they have this option.
Me: So do you guys support contraceptives then?
Gal: Well, we don’t have an official stance, but I don’t believe in them.
Me: How do you plan on reducing abortions then?
Gal: We just want people to know there’s an option of adoption. People think it’s either have the baby and raise it, or kill it. A woman in her forties came up and said she got pregnant at 18, and her mom gave her the option of getting kicked out of home, or having an abortion, so she had it and now regrets it.
Me: Well, I’m pro-choice, and even I would say that’s bad. That’s not choice, that’s an ultimatum. No one should be forced into having one.
Gal: Uh…oh.

I then asked why they used Christian crosses to represent all abortions, and their response was basically “We’re lazy and crosses were the easiest and cheapest things to make.” Well, at least they’re honest.

Really though, I’m disappointed. Pro-life groups are getting a lot smarter. They know certain things that they believe will make them look cruel or idiotic, so they don’t officially make it a group stance, even though all of the members support it. They can’t officially be Christian or oppose contraception or want abortion illegal or want prison terms for females, because that would expose the world to the crazy. In the past the group would babble about baby holocausts and other insane crap.

They say they’re providing an option, but they also think they’re right and if you chose incorrectly you’re a horrible murderer who will be doomed to a life of guilt and suffering. That isn’t an option, it’s an ultimatum. They just hope people who come up to their table will be distracted by the cute little plastic fetuses and succumb to their emotional arguments.

I gave up asking them questions, because it was obvious I wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of anyone. Wasn’t holding my breath that someone would have an answer to overpopulation, caring for all of these unwanted children, the lack of families willing to adopt, rape, disease…

Lesbian teen sent to fake prom

Remember the story of Constance McMillen, the Mississippi high school senior who wanted to go to prom in a tux with her girlfriend, and then the school canceled prom? And then how the ACLU sued their ass off and the judge said she had to be allowed to go? Oh, well they sent Constance to prom alright...a fake prom.

A lesbian student in Mississippi who sued her school for the right to bring her girlfriend to the prom said she was sent to a fake prom instead.

Constance McMillen, 18, told The Advocate that last month’s invitation to an alternate prom was a sham, saying that most students attended another dance organized by parents at a secret location.

“They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them,” McMillen told the magazine. “The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn’t invited to.”

“It hurts my feelings,” she said.

Itawamba Agricultural High School cancelled its prom over the controversy sparked by McMillen’s attempt to overturn the school’s policy banning same-sex prom dates.

Las month, a federal judge ruled that the school district violated McMillen’s constitutional rights, though did not reinstate the prom.

According to McMillen, the prom she attended was at a country club. She said of the five other students at the country club, two had learning disabilities.

“They had the time of their lives,” McMillen said. “That’s the one good thing that come out of this, [these kids] didn’t have to worry about people making fun of them [at their prom].”

…Fulton, Mississippi is officially the most horrible, bigoted, stupid town in the United States. How can you hate someone so much because of their sexuality to do this? This isn’t some neighborhood party where a couple of kids tricked Constance into going to the wrong place. These are parents and community members being cruel to a teenager. Just send all the undesirables to another building. Absolutely despicable.

Constance, get the fuck out of there and don’t come back. Use that scholarship to go to a good college, educate yourself, and rise above the muck that you happened to get stuck in. These people don’t fucking deserve you.

Atheism in 7 minutes

I’ve been invited to be on a religious diversity panel for a large class (200+ people) at Purdue. I’m representing non-theists, and I’ll have a maximum of 7 minutes to explain atheism & agnosticism to a room full of agriculture students. This will probably be the first time many of them have heard about atheism (at least, other than stereotypes), so I don’t want to screw up this opportunity.

If you had 7 minutes to explain atheism to someone, what would you include?

EDIT: These were the general guide lines I was given about the presentation:

– Who or what is God for you? (or what are your main objections about God)
– A summary of what you believe: Your faith
– What is your faith based on?

Yep, I get 7 minutes to explain a philosophy that took my whole life to understand. Awesome!

For realz: Reverend Jon Weyer’s talk at Purdue

So for those of you who are slightly confused, my previous post was a little April Fool’s Day prank. No, I haven’t suddenly seen the light – I’m still the same skeptical atheist you all know and love. I got a kick out of how many of you I actually made worried – I even had people emailing me out of concern, haha.

While I’m still a godless heathen, I wasn’t joking when I said that I really enjoyed Jon’s talk. And before I talk about it, I have an important side note to make. Every time we’ve had an atheist speaker on campus, something has gone wrong. It was raining for Hemant, snowing for Greta, and PZ‘s flight got delayed. Jon? Arrived early on the first beautiful, sunny, 70 degree weather day of the year. I think this is a sign…

I first met John at the Secular Student Alliance conference where he talked about how Christian groups can cooperate with atheists. We’ve kept in touch, and he has the honor of having the one Christian blog I follow. And like at his blog, he does a wonderful job of talking about Christianity in a way that’s a lot more understandable to atheists, especially ones (like myself) who were never Christian. One point that Jon made in his talk is why I like him so much – that he’s all about dialogue, not debates. He’s someone who will actually listen to what you have to say, and conversations don’t devolve into stubborn debates.

The bulk of his talk was about stereotypes people may have about Christians – that they’re anti-science, hypocritical, the morality police, etc. His main point wasn’t exactly revolutionary – that yes, some Christians do these bad things, but it’s not all Christians. But I’m mostly glad that he’s willing to admit this. Far too many people that I’ve talked to seem to think that Christians are infallible, but not Jon.

Though I will have to disagree with him on one point. When talking about certain Christian extremists, he remarked that he didn’t want to start “bashing Christians.” But I disagree. Okay, maybe not quite “bashing” – but we need more moderate Christians like Jon to speak out against Christian extremists. We all complain about the loud, obnoxious groups that get disproportionate media coverage, but moderate Christians need to start actually doing something about it. Do they see it as being traitorous towards their fellow Christians?

I don’t have too many specific remarks to make about the talk, but I definitely left feeling a bit uplifted. Not because I had seen the light, but because I remembered that there are Christians out there that I can talk to and be friends with. They’re not all right wing anti-evolution homophobic teabaggers. Jon and I definitely disagree on theological issues – I don’t agree with the concept of everyone being bad/sinners, or the whole… well, God thing. But we don’t feel the need to push our beliefs on each other, so we can still enjoy having a beer together and geeking out about Lord of the Rings.

Thanks, Jon, for coming and visiting us at Purdue! I know I enjoyed it, and so did others. Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you much at dinner – I’m sure our other members kept you entertained. Or more likely, somewhat frightened.

If you were there for Jon’s talk, please feel free to add to the discussion in the comments! Mike already has a good review up, as well.

—————————-

And as an aside,

Me: *leading the group to the restaurant, decided to take an alley for a short cut*
Member: Why are we going this way?
Me: It’s quicker.
Other member: *points ahead, we’re headed straight for the back of University Church* OH GOD, IT’S A TRAP! SHE’S TAKING US TO CHURCH!
Me: *evil cackling*
Member: He got to her, noooooo!
Me: You should have known this was just a plan to convert you all!

For realz: Reverend Jon Weyer's talk at Purdue

So for those of you who are slightly confused, my previous post was a little April Fool’s Day prank. No, I haven’t suddenly seen the light – I’m still the same skeptical atheist you all know and love. I got a kick out of how many of you I actually made worried – I even had people emailing me out of concern, haha.

While I’m still a godless heathen, I wasn’t joking when I said that I really enjoyed Jon’s talk. And before I talk about it, I have an important side note to make. Every time we’ve had an atheist speaker on campus, something has gone wrong. It was raining for Hemant, snowing for Greta, and PZ‘s flight got delayed. Jon? Arrived early on the first beautiful, sunny, 70 degree weather day of the year. I think this is a sign…

I first met John at the Secular Student Alliance conference where he talked about how Christian groups can cooperate with atheists. We’ve kept in touch, and he has the honor of having the one Christian blog I follow. And like at his blog, he does a wonderful job of talking about Christianity in a way that’s a lot more understandable to atheists, especially ones (like myself) who were never Christian. One point that Jon made in his talk is why I like him so much – that he’s all about dialogue, not debates. He’s someone who will actually listen to what you have to say, and conversations don’t devolve into stubborn debates.

The bulk of his talk was about stereotypes people may have about Christians – that they’re anti-science, hypocritical, the morality police, etc. His main point wasn’t exactly revolutionary – that yes, some Christians do these bad things, but it’s not all Christians. But I’m mostly glad that he’s willing to admit this. Far too many people that I’ve talked to seem to think that Christians are infallible, but not Jon.

Though I will have to disagree with him on one point. When talking about certain Christian extremists, he remarked that he didn’t want to start “bashing Christians.” But I disagree. Okay, maybe not quite “bashing” – but we need more moderate Christians like Jon to speak out against Christian extremists. We all complain about the loud, obnoxious groups that get disproportionate media coverage, but moderate Christians need to start actually doing something about it. Do they see it as being traitorous towards their fellow Christians?

I don’t have too many specific remarks to make about the talk, but I definitely left feeling a bit uplifted. Not because I had seen the light, but because I remembered that there are Christians out there that I can talk to and be friends with. They’re not all right wing anti-evolution homophobic teabaggers. Jon and I definitely disagree on theological issues – I don’t agree with the concept of everyone being bad/sinners, or the whole… well, God thing. But we don’t feel the need to push our beliefs on each other, so we can still enjoy having a beer together and geeking out about Lord of the Rings.

Thanks, Jon, for coming and visiting us at Purdue! I know I enjoyed it, and so did others. Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you much at dinner – I’m sure our other members kept you entertained. Or more likely, somewhat frightened.

If you were there for Jon’s talk, please feel free to add to the discussion in the comments! Mike already has a good review up, as well.

—————————-

And as an aside,

Me: *leading the group to the restaurant, decided to take an alley for a short cut*
Member: Why are we going this way?
Me: It’s quicker.
Other member: *points ahead, we’re headed straight for the back of University Church* OH GOD, IT’S A TRAP! SHE’S TAKING US TO CHURCH!
Me: *evil cackling*
Member: He got to her, noooooo!
Me: You should have known this was just a plan to convert you all!

Reverend Jon Weyer’s talk at Purdue

So as you all know, last night Reverend Jon Weyer came and gave a talk at Purdue called Kicking the Christian Strawman: What Christians are really like. It was nice to have Jon come to Purdue, since we met at the Secular Student Alliance conference and have chatting since then. It was really interesting, especially to us atheists who weren’t raised in Christian households. I kind of live in a self-reinforcing atheist bubble here at Purdue, so it was great to hear what Christians were really like from an actual Christian, not a raving atheist.

During the course of the night, he went a bit into why he believes what he believes. I have to say, this was the most enlightening part. A member asked about people who take the Bible literally, and his response was the first answer I’ve heard that finally made sense. That parts of the Bible are meant to be metaphorical, but they aren’t just arbitrarily choosing what parts they like – that there are contextual clues to help us figure that out.

The more he talked, the more…I don’t know, it felt like something had clicked. Like that spiritual experience everyone says they feel? Like how they say if you just open your mind a little you’ll see the way? I…felt that. Maybe I hadn’t felt it all along because I was raised atheist, but I realized that Christianity isn’t all about people riding on dinosaurs and Jesus performing magic tricks.

…I dunno, I’m feeling pretty confused right now. I need to do some introspection before posting any more. It’s just strange – for the first time ever, I had that nagging feeling in my gut that maybe this God stuff is right.

Reverend Jon Weyer's talk at Purdue

So as you all know, last night Reverend Jon Weyer came and gave a talk at Purdue called Kicking the Christian Strawman: What Christians are really like. It was nice to have Jon come to Purdue, since we met at the Secular Student Alliance conference and have chatting since then. It was really interesting, especially to us atheists who weren’t raised in Christian households. I kind of live in a self-reinforcing atheist bubble here at Purdue, so it was great to hear what Christians were really like from an actual Christian, not a raving atheist.

During the course of the night, he went a bit into why he believes what he believes. I have to say, this was the most enlightening part. A member asked about people who take the Bible literally, and his response was the first answer I’ve heard that finally made sense. That parts of the Bible are meant to be metaphorical, but they aren’t just arbitrarily choosing what parts they like – that there are contextual clues to help us figure that out.

The more he talked, the more…I don’t know, it felt like something had clicked. Like that spiritual experience everyone says they feel? Like how they say if you just open your mind a little you’ll see the way? I…felt that. Maybe I hadn’t felt it all along because I was raised atheist, but I realized that Christianity isn’t all about people riding on dinosaurs and Jesus performing magic tricks.

…I dunno, I’m feeling pretty confused right now. I need to do some introspection before posting any more. It’s just strange – for the first time ever, I had that nagging feeling in my gut that maybe this God stuff is right.