You’re going to the Women in Secularism conference, right?

Atheism and feminism go together like peanut butter and chocolate.* While lots of us have been blabbering about it on the blogosphere or giving the occasional talk somewhere, there’s now a whole conference devoted to the intersection. The Center for Inquiry is hosting the Women in Secularism conference in Arlington, VA May 18-20.

(Side note: Isn’t that website snazzy as hell? Props to whoever designed it.)

Anyway, I’ll be speaking there along with some impressive and amazing women. I’m honored to be listed among them, even though I currently have no idea what my talk will be about. I may talk about the student movement since I seem to be the only speaker from that demographic, but that isn’t particularly feminism-themed. Ideas?

*Unless you’re one of those freaks who doesn’t like peanut butter and chocolate. For reasons other than allergies, that is. Though the metaphor doesn’t extend any further than that – I promise I’m not trying to call you a misogynist.

Not associating with atheists is more important than curing cancer, apparently

The American Cancer Society recently turned down a $500,000 donation. Why? They keep giving conflicting, vague, or demonstrably false excuses. But it’s obvious from their stonewalling and differential treatment what the reason is – because those donations came from atheists.

Greta Christina has an excellent summary of the whole debacle here. I think this is the take home statement:

Now, in case you’re wondering if this is standard behavior, find someone who works as a development director for a nonprofit. Ask her what her response would be to a $250,000 matching offer from a philanthropic foundation. And ask if her organization would be drooling, celebrating wildly, and bending over backward to make it happen — or if they would be evading, delaying, dodging, deflecting, changing their stories, treating the potential benefactor with irritation and dismissal, and finding an endless series of excuses for not accepting the offer?

As someone who’s on the board of a nonprofit…uh, the former. Definitely the former.

If the barrage of comments from atheists on the American Cancer Society’s facebook page says anything, this may become a bit of a PR problem. You should desperately want to use a half million dollars

Michigan venue cancels Dawkins event

Richard Dawkins is currently touring the US promoting his children’s book, The Magic of Reality, and was scheduled to speak in Michigan in an event hosted by the Center for Inquiry. But the venue, Wyndgate Country Club, has now changed its mind and canceled the event. Why?

The Wyndgate terminated the agreement after the owner saw an October 5th interview with Dawkins on The O’Reilly Factor in which Dawkins discussed his new book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.

In a phone call to CFI–Michigan Assistant Director Jennifer Beahan, The Wyndgate’s representative explained that the owner did not wish to associate with individuals such as Dawkins, or his philosophies.

…How do you not know that Dawkins is a raging atheist? I mean, I feel like that should be general knowledge by now anyway, but you think you would double check who a speaker is before you agree to host them. You know, instead of canceling an event solely because someone is an atheist, which is just going to give even more media attention to those terrible atheists.

And in case you’re wondering, here’s the clip of Dawkins on O’Reilly. See how much of it you can bear to watch:

The godless résumé gamble

If you’re a first or second year grad student, you’re probably working on your application for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (…Or you should be, but instead you’re blogging about it). It’s a prestigious fellowship to acquire that comes with a number of perks, including access to special databases and networks – and a nice stipend increase, which makes us grad students drool.

The application consists of three two-page sections: your Research Proposal, your Past Research Experience, and your Personal Statement.” The Personal Statement generally causes the most headache and stress. It’s your main chance to set yourself apart from other students, since you can assume that most people who are in graduate school have the research part down, or at least have people in their lab who can help. But editors can’t magically send you back in time to teach classes, work with diversity programs, be an officer in clubs, volunteer in an elementary school science fair, or fly to Africa to help AIDs ridden children. That’s what the Personal Statement is about – showing your leadership, organizational skills, strength of character, and motivation for being a scientist.

As unfair as it is, if you just like sitting in a lab all day, you’re kind of screwed. You have to do it all.

But every time I have to write one of these things, I start getting worried. Many of my achievements are directly related to atheism. I founded and was president of an atheist student group. I’m on the board for a secular non-profit. I write a popular blog that, while talking about science, also often talks about atheism. When I go speaking across the country, I’m usually hosted by atheist groups. And hell, my very motivation for being a scientist is highly interrelated with my atheism. Learning about evolution led me to a naturalistic, godless worldview, and said worldview makes science and the search for truth even more important to me.

I still wonder if I was ultimately rejected from graduate schools – after very successful interviews – because someone in the chain of command was wary of my atheist activism. But I feel like to omit these things would mean not being true to myself. Not to mention, it hides the achievements that set me apart from other graduate students.

But mentioning godlessness is still a gamble. The NSF fellowship reviews are already a bit of a crapshoot – reviewers only have a couple of minutes to read your application and make a decision. You’re already hoping you’re lucky enough to get someone who had a good breakfast and isn’t in a cranky mood. But now you have to hope you don’t get the rare super devout biologist, or even a fellow atheist who doesn’t like her vocal sisters.

And the gamble is there no matter how diplomatically you put it. There’s always a chance someone will read what you wrote profoundly negatively. Four of my peers read my statement and had no problem with it – but another said I sounded like a “belligerent atheist” despite the fact that they personally agreed with me. And despite the fact that what I actually talk about was skepticism, naturalism, and scientific inquiry, with passing references to secularism and humanism when mentioning specifics. And despite the fact that the only time I actually say the word “atheist” is in the sentence:  “Also during my time at Purdue, I co-founded the Society of Non-Theists, a student organization that provided a safe place for atheists and agnostics, a minority on campus.”

Gasp! So belligerent!

This is a shining example of the privilege religion has in our country. I know for a fact that three other students in my department mention their involvement with religious organizations. But would anyone ever think of telling them to cut those examples of leadership out because they’re associated with religion? No, nor should they. So why is it okay to tell the atheist to tone down the atheism?

At least I have it easy, being in a field that’s already fairly godless. We had club officers who had to leave off their main leadership experience because they felt there was no way they’d get a teaching or financial job with “atheist” branded on their résumé. And that’s simply unfair.

Happy Blasphemy Day!

…or if you’re a frequent blasphemer like me, Happy Friday.

Today was the Religious Student Organization Fair, and the Secular Student Union had a booth. That alone is pretty blasphemous. But to crank it up, I wore my Imagine No Religion shirt. And we ended up sitting right across from the Jesus Fan Club.

But the day ended up being a bit anti-climactic. We were sharing a table with a Christian group that was super nice and we actually had a lot of intelligent, thought provoking conversations about our natural biases, the search for truth, freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and how silly people like the Jesus Fan Club are. We were BFFs by the end.

Jen and her new Christian friend

But the thing that’s really worth celebrating today? Department Beer Hour starts up again. Hurray!

My run in with the Jesus Fan Club

Today was the activities fair for all of the student organizations at the University of Washington. I was helping out the Secular Student Union booth, which was smack dab in an ocean of religious groups. Despite the fair organizers saying no one should set up before 10am, a dozen religious groups came super early to snipe all of the best tables. Some great religious ethics, right there.

We lamented the fact that no atheist student was going to wander into the religious section, but we did get a good amount of signatures. I shamelessly ate the free food that the religious booths were handing out.

Religious rice crispy treats

As I was looking around, I spotted a table that I needed a photo of: The Jesus Fan Club. If that name wasn’t enough reason for a photo, their apocalyptic advertisement sure was.

Jesus Fan Club

I went over to get a good photo. Then I forgot I was wearing my “Atheist, Ask Away!” sticker, and the girl working the booth approached me.

Let’s play the “How many apologetics can we fit into one fifteen minute conversation?” Game.

Christian: Oh, so you’re an atheist?
Me: …Yep.
Christian: Why?
Me: I haven’t been given enough evidence that would convince me that god exists.
Christian: So if someone gave you evidence, would you change your mind?
Me: Sure!
Christian: Well then I should tell you about all of the signs that the end times are coming…
Me: …Look, I’ve talked with a LOT of Christians and I have a feeling you’re not going to tell me anything new, but if you want to, go ahead.

She then went on to explain how all of the natural disasters, famines, wars, and HIV were proof that God was punishing his children. And that these things had risen by 200% in the last ten years. I blinked and didn’t even bother to confront the random statistics she was pulling out of her ass.

Christian: And the Bible proves these things, and even explains a lot about science that the people of that time wouldn’t have known otherwise.
Me: Oh yeah? Like what science?
Christian: …Let me get back to you on that.

Mhmmm.

She then explained that these natural disasters happen because God loves us. She asked me if I had heard of the story of Noah (…who hasn’t?) and said that was the perfect example. If a parent saw their children doing something bad, they would punish them instead of letting them keep hurting themselves. So God has to punish us with stuff like earthquakes.

I’m pretty sure she had no idea who she was talking about when it concerns the supernatural and earthquakes.

Christian: And when you look at earthquakes, they’re correlated with areas that are full of sin. Like Haiti, it had a very high rate of HIV.
Me: Earthquakes are also correlated with fault lines.
Christian: Well, God doesn’t break his own laws. So he has to use what he already has in place. Like if he wanted to punish Seattle, we’re more predisposed to earthquakes over other natural disasters, so he’d probably use an earthquake.
Me: That’s very convenient that God uses the type of disaster that’s already inclined to happen there due to random chance.
Christian: God has to work within the own laws he created for the universe, because God created everything. He can’t just like, stop the sun in the sky or something.
Me: …Except that God did stop the sun in the sky so one of his prophet could perform genocide on a whole race of people.
Christian: *look of shock* You know that story?!
Me: Yes.
Christian: Did you used to be Christian?
Me: No, I’m just well-read about the Bible.
Christian: The part about God stopping the sun is just a parable. A lot of people interpret the Bible wrong by interpreting it too literally.
Me: How do you know your interpretation is right? I mean, what if the whole Bible is a parable? What if God is a parable for the general goodness of people, and the whole thing is a story to teach us ethics? How do you know which parts are actually true?
Christian: They’re obvious.

Not to me.

The conversation then devolved into Pascal’s Wager.

Christian: But what if you’re wrong?
Me: What if you’re wrong? What if any of the other of hundreds of religions are right?
Christian: Well, then it doesn’t matter.
Me: Exactly.

Ah, that was refreshing, though it seemed a little unfair. Random Christian Undergrad vs. Person Who Has Been Writing and Speaking About Atheism for Four Years. And as tempting at the Mormon booth with their sign on the Five Absolute Truths was, I decided I had enough.

The first rule of Jesus Fan Club is you don’t talk about Jesus Fan Club. The second rule is to only use stupid arguments people have already debunked a thousand times. (Joke blatantly co-opted from Crommunist).

Oh Seattle

This actually happened a couple of weeks ago when I was heading to PAX, but I only randomly remembered it now.

I hopped on the bus to head downtown, still a bit groggy. The bus was fairly empty. I was about to choose one empty row, but realized someone had left a Bible sitting there…so I sat in the row behind it.

I rode the bus for about 15 minutes until I got to the stop where a couple of my friends were joining me. During that time period, at least six people were about to sit in that row, saw the Bible, turned back, and kept walking to another spot on the bus. But by the time my friends got there, the bus was pretty full. One sat next to me, and the other looked dejectedly at the Bible before sitting next to it.

The woman sitting near us laughed, and quipped about how only in Seattle would people avoid a Bible so much.

I had assumed someone left the Bible there as a form of evangelizing. But my friend flipped through it, and it was full of notes and business cards and phone numbers and flyers. Looks like it was nothing more than an organizational tool someone had left behind.

Is religion a dating deal breaker?

People have all sorts of deal breakers when it comes to the people they date, and they tend to be highly subjective. Some people have no interests in nerds (an idea which has caused more than one internet kerfuffle), while I consider nerdiness a requirement. I don’t give a damn what type of music you listen to, but that can be important to someone who loves the music scene. Some people find complementary political ideas are necessary, and others thing lively debate spices up a relationship.

Bigotry is my number one deal breaker. Homophobic? Going to crack jokes about me getting in the kitchen? Think random racist comments are funny? Yeah, not attractive in any way.

My number two deal breaker? Religion.

When I’ve said that before, some people say it’s hypocritical – that discriminating against a potential romantic interest based on religion is itself a form of bigotry. But no one would consider discriminating against meat eaters or Republicans a type of bigotry. And really, religion is no different, despite the way many people in society want to treat it. It’s an idea and philosophy, and one that makes me want to bash my head in. It doesn’t exactly put me in the mood.

And I know from experience. My dating record has gone something like:

Apathetic Agnostic
Wiccan (who later turned atheist, I think because of me)
Hard core Rush Limbaugh loving Lutheran (more on that anomaly in a bit)
Atheist
Atheist
Atheist

And if I had to put money on it, the next boyfriend will probably be an atheist too. Why? Because I’m done with dating religious people. My relationship with the Lutheran, while lasting 9 months, was one of my most stressful and unhappy relationships precisely because of the religion issue. Like most high school relationships, we only superficially got along – we were both nerds with similar tastes in movies. But I knew he didn’t agree with my religious views – that it made him feel guilty and even embarrassed for dating me – and in return it made me feel like crap. And when religion came up, we’d get in the stupidest, most unproductive fights.

And that was back when I considered myself agnostic! Now that I’m a full fledged atheist activist, I don’t know how it could work. Even if they loved the debate and their kink was being constantly told how wrong they are…no thanks. I deal enough with debunking religious ridiculousness as is – I don’t want to spend my relaxing time doing that too.

I’ve had people quip that I’m narrowing my dating pool. What if Mr. Perfect happened to be religious? I would never know if I didn’t try!

Well, I don’t believe in Mr. Perfect, so scratch that argument. And if you want to know why, ask Tim Minchin:

How about you? I know not all of you are as rabid atheists as I am. Is religion a deal breaker?

More on my weird life

I went to a Weird Al concert (awesome) and returned home to find healthyaddict, Thunderf00t, and the hosts of Ask an Atheist in my apartment. I have an atheist videoblogger infestation. Send help.

…No, they did not break into my apartment. It is a long and not very interesting story. I rather perpetuate idea that atheist videobloggers come to be via spontaneous abiogenesis.