Downsizing rational books

I’m back home for the holidays, woo. One of the weird things about being away from home for so long is seeing all the changes when you come back – favorite restaurants disappear and new ones pop up, businesses change, roads appear… These things seem gradual when you’re living there, but are a little unnerving when you’ve been away.

I went to Borders today and noticed the same thing. I always make a B-line to the science section…but it wasn’t there. I had to search for a while before I found it stuck in the reference section. Instead of three bookshelves worth of science books, there were now one and a half. Why had science been moved? Because religious books now took up sixteen bookshelves instead twelve, and supernatural/astrology books took up six bookshelves instead of two. It also took me forever to find the atheist books, which I knew were usually stuck in religion, because they now got a single shelf (so 1/5 of a bookshelf) instead of three…and half of the books there were actually against atheism.

Boo.

I understand it’s all about supply and demand, but that still makes me sad. How many Christian apologetics books does a person need? How many versions of the Bible could you possibly want? Four bookshelves were devoted just to the Bible, so apparently you can want a lot. Not only that, but they didn’t have hardly any new atheism or science books that have been published in the last year or so – only new book I saw was Dawkins‘, which was on display next to the Atheists Delusion.

How the heck am I supposed to buy Christmas gifts for all of the heathen friends and family?!*

*And before someone comments about my whining, I really don’t care. I just thought it was an interesting observation. I’ll get my heathen fix from Amazon.

Google’s religious censorship: the double standard

Anyone who has used Google before knows that when you start typing a phrase, Google will start suggesting searches for you based on common searches of other people. This can be useful, and it can also lead to some pretty wacky stuff popping up sometimes. But what happens when you combine religion and Google’s search suggestions? Let’s take a look at some major world religions:Wow, a lot of negative and critical stuff being searched, huh? Because I’m an equal opportunity offender, let’s throw in atheism too, even though it’s technically not a religion (though apparently most searchers don’t understand that).
But wait, what about Islam? Did I just forget about them? Nope – there’s just nothing to show.
Yep. Google censors the search “Islam is,” presumably so negative phrases don’t pop up. Apparently it’s okay to criticize other religions – but Islam? Oh ho ho, nooooo, we’re not opening that can of worms.

But maybe no one is searching for “Islam is,” and that’s why we don’t see it. Let’s take a look at the number of search results per term:

“Christianity is” – 2,600,000
“Judaism is” – 486,000
“Hinduism is” – 270,000
“Buddhism is” – 550,000
“Atheism is” – 548,000
“Islam is” – 14,400,000

Yes, even though “Islam is” has the most search results, it offers no search suggestion.

Maybe this is an isolated case. What happens if we look at a similar type of search term?
Huh, looking pretty empty around here. I guess this goes with the old “Respect the person, not the idea” mantra that I support. As long as Google does that for all of the groups…
Well…okay, I guess none of those things are really bad things…
Aaanndd never mind. Guess it’s still okay to pick on the ickle atheists, but not anyone else.

Let’s look at the search results:

“Christians are” – 2,600,000
“Jews are” – 7,880,000
“Muslims are” – 1,890,000
“Hindus are” – 268,000
“Buddhists are” – 95,300
“Atheists are” – 390,000

Again, an odd little correlation. Two of the terms with the lowest amount of search results are the ones that actually show search suggestions. It’s obvious Google is covering its ass and trying not to offend religious users – and you know what, as a company they have that right. And as long as they’re not censoring the actual results (which seems true, looking at the number of search results), that’s okay with me. But I think this really illustrates the attitude that surrounds criticizing religion.

We’ve gotten to the point where it’s okay to criticize everything but Islam – which is a better than not being able to criticize religion at all – but we shouldn’t be putting Islam on a special pedestal. We can’t be bullied into silence through threats and incidents like the Muhammad cartoons, because that only gives them even more power. Even something as simple as Google being afraid to highlight the searches of others (not their own personal views) shows how strongly people can fear criticizing Muslims.

And as for the search terms about individuals? I personally don’t think Google should censor anything, as it leaves silly loop holes like this. It shows which groups scare them the most – the ones with the most power – rather than any sort of logical, uniform censoring system. I don’t think Google hates atheists, but rather that they realize we won’t flip our shit at a couple of nasty search terms. It just all seems a bit ridiculous, really.

(Hat tip to Reddit for finding this)

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.

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!

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.

My mind is blown

Last night we had a pizza party and game night for the Society of Non-Theists’ last meeting of the semester. I brought my Wii along, and being foolish, didn’t bring the sensor bar. My logic at the time was that all the games I brought didn’t require the sensor bar, so why waste time untangling it from the jungle of wires behind me TV? As I turned the Wii on in the classroom, I remembered that you need to use the sensor bar to click the button on the Wii menu that actually starts the game. You’re unable to do this any other way – d-pad, joystick, and other random button mashing didn’t work.

My first thought was “Well, fuck.” My second thought was, “Wow Nintendo, I hate you. Way to make completely user-unfriendly controls just so people require your sensor bar.” My third and most intelligent thought was, “The internet must have a solution.”

I skimmed through a couple of pages of Google before I found something. It seemed so simple that I didn’t believe it. I yelled over the din of pizza eating heathens, “Does anyone have a lighter?”

Oh my God. AMAZING.

The way a Wiimote works is by detecting infrared light. You can also produce infrared light with fire. Members and I looked on in awe as I controlled the Wiimote by pointing it at a flame. It seemed like freaking magic, but no – it was SCIENCE.

Science wins again, allowing a bunch of atheists to beat each other up in Brawl and die hilariously in Super Mario Brothers (cooperation is hard!).

Dodads and insanity

Hey everyone! Sorry for my absence lately. ‘Tis the season of final projects, papers, exams, and graduate school applications. As you can imagine, I’m a bit out of my mind and not sleeping much, so blog posts may not be as frequent. Don’t worry – once winter break* hits, I’ll be bored out of my mind! My blogging then will probably make up for my disappearance now.

What, this post wasn’t atheisty enough? Well, here, look what came in the mail the other day**:If you follow Hemant over at Friendly Atheist, you’ll remember he had a little contest to win this heatheny Memo Maid for your computer. And yep, I was one of the winners! What was the contest?

We all know that Ray Comfort is giving away copies of The Origin of Species to college students… with his own 50-page introduction “debunking” the book.

What’s the next book Comfort will write an introduction to, and what already-airtight theory will he attempt to debunk in the process?

And what did I say that was so brilliant?

He’ll add a special intro to The Joy of Sex, reminding people that it only applies to married heterosexual couples and that all the sections except for the missionary position should be ignored.

I almost feel like I’m cheating. Every time I make a sex joke in one of Hemant’s contests, I win a prize (got a Friendly Atheist wristband last time!). Hemant, you’re just too easy***.

*Am I going to be banned by some Christian group because I didn’t say Christmas break?
**No, Hemant didn’t come included. I was just too busy/lazy to take my own photo. Though now that I think of it, a mail-order Hemant would be pretty cool…
***Double entundre obviously intended.****
****Alright, must stop innuendo about internet personas before I upset the boyfriend ;P

Obama’s godless Thanksgiving proclamation

Every year once the President is done with the serious duty of pardoning a turkey, he addresses the country with a Thanksgiving proclamation. However, Obama’s speech was a tad bit different than those in the past – he left out references to God. Well, not completely. His single reference to God was tucked inside of a George Washington quote:

Today, we recall President George Washington, who proclaimed our first national day of public thanksgiving to be observed “by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God,” and President Abraham Lincoln, who established our annual Thanksgiving Day to help mend a fractured Nation in the midst of civil war.

But those were George Washington’s words, which were balanced with the practicality of Lincoln’s quote. Obama himself didn’t invoke a deity. When you compare this to some of the things Bush said during his last Thanksgiving proclamation, you can see the difference:

On this day, let us all give thanks to God who blessed our Nation’s first days and who blesses us today. May He continue to guide and watch over our families and our country always.

We recognize that all of these blessings, and life itself, come not from the hand of man but from Almighty God….

Having arrived in the New World, these early settlers gave thanks to the Author of Life….

And as noted by Jill Stanek, “President Bush called the 1st celebrants “Pilgrims,” Obama said they were “European settlers.”” A subtle but significant difference.

Some nonbelievers don’t care when Obama gives a shout to non-believers or simply leaves God out of his secular speeches, but I think it’s important. If our President invokes God like belief is normal, required, and patriotic, it alienates the “Nones” of America. By simply keeping his Thanksgiving proclamation secular, Obama is making baby steps toward a more inclusive environment. Yes, there is certainly more I think he could be doing, but I’ll take what I can get for now.