I guess the Exponent is having a special Society of Non-Theists theme this week, because they covered another one of our events! Their article on our Blasphemy Day event was very positive and they managed to not misquote me this time:
Blasphemy Day posters garner attention
By Andrea Hammer
Assistant Campus Editor
Publication Date: 10/01/2009
Laura Hoffman | Campus Editor
Students gather around the Class of 1950 lecture hall Wednesday afternoon to exercise their right to free speech during the first International Blasphemy Day.
Students gathered yesterday outside the Class of 1950 building to exercise their right to free speech.
The first International Blasphemy Day event was held in order to promote free speech. Students were able to write freely on poster boards that were hanging on the pillars of the building.
According to a flyer from the organizer of the event, the Society of Non-Theists, the purpose was to promote free speech and stand up in a show of solidarity for the freedom to challenge, criticize and satirize religion without fear of murder, litigation and reprisal.
Jennifer McCreight, president of the Society of Non-Theists and a senior in the College of Science, said the event was being held at college campuses across Indiana and the nation. She said the group’s decision to have the posters in front of Class of 50 was in order to attract more students to participate.
“We thought we’d have more people see it (at this location),” she said. “We wanted a central location.”
Students wrote things ranging from “I like this pen,” to “I’m Christian, but I don’t believe in hell.”
Ryan Moore, a freshman in the School of Management, said he wanted to participate because he didn’t agree with some of the things on the posters.
“I support what they’re doing, but I just don’t agree,” Moore said.
Robert Winkworth, a graduate student, said he heard about the event on the GetInvolved Web site.
“I made several marks (on the posters),” he said.
Winkworth also said he thought the best thing that could come from an event like that would be more open dialogue between students.
“I don’t think we can ever have too much of that on a college campus.”
Man, if students thought us dressing as pirates was bad, I just can’t wait to see the letters about this one…
Blasphemy Day at Purdue
Wednesday the 30th was International Blasphemy Day, and Purdue was one of the many campuses where an event took place. What the heck is Blasphemy Day, you ask? Well, here’s the information the Society of Non-Theists had on the flyers we handed out:
Blasphemy Day International is a campaign seeking to establish September 30th as a day to promote free speech and stand up in a show of solidarity for the freedom to challenge, criticize, and satirize religion without fear of murder, litigation, and reprisal. The primary focus of the Blasphemy Day movement is not to debate the existence of any gods or deities, to promote hate or violence, or to insult or offend. Nor is it a movement of atheists – the tenets of one religion blaspheme against another if they disagree. The main objective of Blasphemy Day is to open up all religious beliefs to the same level of free inquiry, discussion and criticism to which all other areas of academic interest are subjected.
Why September 30? It is the anniversary of the original publication of Danish cartoons in 2005 depicting the prophet Muhammad’s face. Any visual depiction of Muhammad is considered a grave offence under Islamic law. The fury which arose within the Islamic community following this publication led to massive riots, attacks on foreign embassies and deaths.
So what did the we do? Like it stated, our goal isn’t to offend just to get our rocks off. And since Purdue is a fairly conservative campus, we went the safe route of just celebrating freedom of speech. We put up blank posters that anyone could write or draw on, with no censorship at all.
When I set up the event at 9am, we had 6 starkly blank flyers. At 11:30 I walked by on the way to my next class, and they were already full. By 12:30 when I returned, six more posters had been purchased by a new member (a friendly theist, actually!) and were already filling up. By 1:20, we had a total of 18 posters up, and by the end of the day people were having a hard time finding space to write anything new.
The messages ranged from politics, religion, and philosophy to potty humor, penis drawings, and internet memes. Some messages were deep, some were hilarious, and some were downright strange. Some I agreed with, and some I definitely did not. But that was the great thing about the day. I wasn’t offended if someone wrote about Jesus or Glenn Beck because our goal was to show everyone has the right to free speech, even if it’s criticizing others, including myself.
Throughout the day we attracted quite the crowd. Many random students wanted to add their opinions, and many more just wanted to read what others had said. I didn’t hear a single negative reaction through the day. Everyone was smiling and saying what a cool event it was, and people were asking if we could leave it up for the rest of the week. Unfortunately we couldn’t, especially since we later found out taping things to buildings is a no-no.
Yes, I had about a 30 minute conversation with the police about tape (I guess that’s how I pantomime adhesives). I think I scared the crap out of my members, because they had no idea what I was talking to the police about for the longest time. Effectively there was a miscommunication between me and the people approving the event (they didn’t realize we were taping it to the pillars), so it ended up not being a big deal at all, especially since we only had an hour of the event left. Pablo, the Dean of Students who I know from doing club stuff for the last three years, basically just had to come and make sure it was okay.
Pablo: Tape, that’s it? Man, I was ready to march down here and defend you guys and your freedom of speech and it’s just about silly tape?
All we had to do was promise to clean it up, so all was right with the world!
All in all, I’d call the day a success! Who knows, we probably offended someone (I think our mere existence offends some people), but the most common reaction was very positive. Let this be a lesson to all the atheist activists out there – you can be outgoing and controversial while still being nice!
Tomorrow I’ll have time to photograph each of the signs, and I’ll post them here for your viewing pleasure. But other than that, what should I do with them?! Art exhibit? eBay? Wallpaper to cover the hideous wood paneling in my apartment?
Atheism Activism Frustrations
Sigh.
Sometimes, I admit, I have to wonder if what I’m doing is actually having any effect. Yesterday’s letter got me a little down, but after reading Greta Christina’s great post discussing what if the atheist movement actually succeeds, I felt a bit better. But there are now two more letters in the Exponent that illustrate what the atmosphere at Purdue is really like. Effectively, “stop criticizing us because Christians have the right to do and say whatever you want, but since you’re a mean poopy head atheist you need to shut up.”
Why do I bother?
I have devoted so much time, effort, and even money into developing the Society of Non-Theists, and while we’re a big active group, are we actually accomplishing our goals? We do one event that’s mildly controversial, and instantly we’re being called lazy, ignorant, zealots, idiots, biased… I’m not necessarily upset that people disagree with me, but I’m upset that people are so damned ignorant about it. You can tell from their letters that they either didn’t read our flyers, didn’t visit our website, or at the very list didn’t try to rub two brain cells together to understand what we were doing. They don’t even try to be intellectually honest. And I can write letters back, but even if they do get printed (which only some will), they’re not going to have any effect because these people are so closed minded. Even ranting here seems effectively pointless, since I’m just preaching to the choir. It’s all well and good that people pat me on the back for writing a well thought out argument, but does it matter if only non-theists and skeptics are reading it? Or that even if a theist did read it, they’d just ignore it?
Or how do we even go about planning events if one controversial one is going to totally ruin our reputation? People will see our tame Blasphemy Day event tomorrow and think we’re a bunch of jackasses. They’ll go on claiming we’re amoral or don’t volunteer, even though we have volunteered and have many more philanthropic events coming in the future. But they’re so set in their ways they’re not going to take the time to ask questions or read a website. They know we’re not doing those things.
Blah. Maybe it’s just Indiana, or just my campus, or just the US, but it’s getting pretty damned frustrating.
One thousand and one atheist blogs
Nope, not Dalmatians! The Atheist Blogroll, “a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world” that’s run by Mojoey over at Deep Thoughts, has finally grown to more than a thousand blogs! Who was the lucky number 1000? …Me! I say lucky because Martinpribble actually signed up before me, but forgot his url, so go check out his blog too (looks like he has some awesome rock climbing photos over there, if you’re into that).
I think I may possibly get new people stopping by, so let me awkwardly introduce myself. I’m a nerdy biology-loving chick trapped in Indiana and the president of my university’s student group for atheists. I like to draw silly comics, talk about sex (a lot), cringe at atheists behaving badly, behave masochisticly by visiting religious things like the Creation Museum, and of course (and predominantly), ramble about atheism and religion.
So…uh…hello blogosphere, interwebs, etc!
Non-theists just whiny brats?
I didn’t post earlier because I’m having a kind of sour day, mainly because I opened the newspaper to find this lovely letter to the editor:
Non-theists are ‘little more than a club of whiny brats’
Publication Date: 09/28/200To the Society of Non-Theists:
All right guys, so apparently it is rude and bad for a man to come here and share his opinions with others who wish to listen. Oh, but I thought this was America, not North Korea.
And also, taunting said man with open mockeries of his beliefs is how you attempt to argue his opinions? I thought this was a college, not a kindergarten. You all seem like little more than a club of whiny brats merely exploiting the trend that in today’s “cool” society, it’s perfectly acceptable to prosecute and heckle Christians. Oh, you think I’m full of crap, and that you guys somehow acceptably embody non-theism and encourage tolerance amongst all peoples without merely harassing any single group? Why don’t you go pull your pirate and spaghetti bit in front of the Islamic Center all day (they are theistic, after all), and see how many people won’t see you all as bigoted assholes?
I’m all for open, equal debate, but the way your group goes about things is very childish and more anti-Christian than non-theist.
Josh Phillips
Junior in the College of Science
Sigh. I could write a book in reply to this, but yet again, I am limited to 300 words. I’d love to elaborate here, but I’m frantically studying for my Physics exam (electromagnetism is magic, MAGIC I tell you!) so here’s the letter I sent in reply:
Josh Phillips: First, I want to clarify that the quote of me saying Brother Jed was disrespectful so the Society of Non-Theists could be rude too wasn’t a misquote: it was a complete fabrication. I didn’t even talk to the reporter about Brother Jed, nor would I say something so immature. We had our Pastafarian Preaching planned for that day before knowing Brother Jed was coming. Furthermore, we never stopped Brother Jed from speaking – we fully support free speech, which is why we can talk too.
Now that that’s out of the way…Josh, I think you need to look up the meaning of “satire.” We were trying to look as silly as possible because that is exactly how fire and brimstone street preachers like Brother Jed look. One of our goals was to show that waving signs and yelling isn’t the proper place for civil discourse about religion. That’s why we preached the Flying Spaghetti Monster rather than atheism. The vast majority of our events are civil discussions or lectures on theism and atheism. However, it’s impossible to communicate with someone whose beliefs are based on emotion. Faith, by definition, is not based on evidence. We can present rational arguments until we turn blue, but that doesn’t matter to many theists.
As for your Christian persecution complex… You live in a country where you’re privileged that your religion enjoys the majority status. Someone disagreeing with Christianity isn’t discrimination. If Hindus made national laws outlawing eating beef, or Muslims changed our motto to “In Allah We Trust,” we’d be protesting them just as much. If you want to understand persecution, ask a Christian in China, a Bahá’ís in Iran, a Muslim in America, Hindus in Kashmir, Jews all over the world…I think having your feelings hurt will pale in comparison.
Not sure if mine will be printed – haven’t gotten a phone call yet. Apparently many other members sent in a response letter, though, so hopefully some reason will get into our student newspaper. Ironic how this happened right after one of my friends, who is a Christian, told Christians who claim persecution to stop their whining.
Contact: The Musical
Apparently a theater group has come up with the musical adaptation to Carl Sagan’s Contact. I usually either love or hate musicals, but I have to admit this one causes some giddy excitement. When someone asks me my favorite movie, I will unhesitatingly say Contact. I love it despite people harassing me for it or South Park teasing it. I first watched it with my dad when I was about 10, which was the same time I was super interested in everything space-related: I was in our elementary school’s astronomy club (yes, we had one) and was absolutely dying to go to Space Camp (parents wouldn’t let me though, sadness). I loved that movie so much that my dad bought me the VHS, and we probably watched it at least once a year. I’m sure after the fifth time he wanted to stab his eyes out, but what are dads for if not to suffer through things for their child’s enjoyment? The one theist I dated bought the DVD for me before I graduated so I could have it at college, and watching the love scenes between Ellie and Palmer (an atheist and theist, respectively) with him probably motivated me to give our relationship a chance (even though it eventually ended pretty badly).
But other than my emotional (and possibly irrational) attachment to the film, I’m still excited about the songs. Who doesn’t want this potential soundtrack about science and religion, the search for extraterrestrial life, and aliens that look like your daddy?
Video of my Creation Museum presentation
At long last, here’s the video of my presentation about my trip to the Creation Museum – yes, the one that Ken Ham is already blogging about. I do warn you, it’s long. My talk is about an hour and then there’s about 25 minutes of Q&A. The first couple minutes are a little rocky because I was kind of nervous, but then I get in my groove and I think it’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.
Overall I received very positive feedback, even from some of the theists in the room. As you’ll see if you watch the Q&A, Pastor Brent Aucoin of the Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette attended. He was nice enough to email me and ask if he could come to the event (of course he could!) and disclosed that he helped with the construction of the Creation Museum (and I can only assume he is the supporter that Ken Ham mentions in the post about my talk). He was very civil, and I thank him for that, but he did repeat the same creationist arguments that we hear over and over again. My favorite part is at the 1:09:00 mark. At the very least, watch it for my friend doing a literal *facepalm* twenty seconds later.
Though, the thing that made my talk totally worth it? My former Human Genetics professor (you can see her behind the Pastor) who’s 80-something, super liberal, intelligent, hilariously witty, a fan of Stephen Colbert, a non-theist, and a Holocaust survivor came up and shook my hand for about five minutes straight, saying how we needed more people like me who were brave enough to speak out against this stuff. Coming from someone I respect so much, that meant a lot.
Oh, and the tiny little blip about 50 minutes in isn’t us hiding something, it’s us changing the tape, haha.Ken Ham blogs about my Creation Museum lecture!
I’ve hit the big-time, guys – Ken Ham, founder and head of the Creation Museum, is blogging about the talk I gave at Purdue last night. And of course, even though he wasn’t there, hasn’t seen any video, and has yet to put up the reports from his informant (the pastor who came), he’s already reacting to what I may or may not have said:
Of course it is no surprise this person mocks the Bible’s account of origins—she’s an atheist! And one of the mantras of these atheists is that they vehemently attack the Creation Museum because children visit and are challenged concerning what to believe about origins. Of course, what is no surprise is that the atheists want to indoctrinate children in atheistic evolution and that there is no God.
And it would be no surprise to you that they don’t complain about the thousands upon thousands of children who visit the secular evolutionist museums, including the specialist children’s museums across the country where they are presented with atheistic and evolutionary ideas as fact—with no suggestion there could even be a different way of looking at things. (At the Creation Museum, children and adults are told about different ways of looking at the same evidence, and, so, we present the evolution belief system, but we do take a strong stand on the biblical account nonetheless).
As you’ll see when I post the video tonight, I fully disclose at the beginning of my talk that I am a biologist and an atheist, so people in the audience know where I’m coming from. I also repeatedly mention that the Creation Museum does not represent all Christians.
Then he starts talking about the Indianapolis Children Museum:
In the very popular dinosaur exhibit, millions of years is presented numerous times as fact. But also look at the other sign—there are neither “good” nor “bad” values or beliefs—just different ones.
- Atheists today (like the one from Purdue University) claim Christianity is “bad,” that children should not be exposed to Christianity—but, of course, they can be exposed to everything else, and as far as everything else is concerned it is neither “good” nor “bad”—only Christianity is bad!
- This is indoctrinating children not only in atheistic evolution, but indoctrinating them to believe that morality is relative—that there really are no rules—one can do what one wants (except believe in Christian morality, of course).
I never claim Christianity is bad, or that you must be an atheist to believe in evolution – I explicitly say in my talk that many Christians believe in evolution. But tonight you’ll be able to see for yourself what I did and didn’t say. Unfortunately I’m stuck on campus until 8 or 9 PM, so it won’t be up until late tonight. Maybe I’ll send it along to Dr. Ham and see what he thinks after really hearing what I said.
I have a feeling he still won’t like it.
Oh, what is it with Creationists not linking to their opponents or mentioning them by name? He went out of his way to delete any instance of Jennifer McCreight (or even Jennifer), and didn’t link to the Society of Non-Theists’s website (wouldn’t expect him to know my blog). Sadness.
My Letter to the Editor
I guess the Exponent has been running it’s special “Jennifer McCreight Edition” over the last couple of days. Not only was I quoted in two articles yesterday, but my letter to the editor was printed today:
PSUB’s ‘Porn and Popcorn’ slandered non-Christians
Publication Date: 09/22/2009
The event was a Christian anti-pornography event full of emotional arguments and void of scientific information. They presented gross misconceptions and outright lies about human sexuality to young adults, individuals who need proper health information the most. They went as far to say that “Protective sex is a joke” and that you would get diseases and pregnant no matter what sort of contraception you used, which is simply not true. Is this the kind of “educational” event PSUB sponsors?
Not only that, but the event slandered non-Christian students by stating that “To connect with an unbeliever is to connect with the devil” and “If he can’t be faithful to God, he can’t be faithful to you.” As an atheist and the President of the Society of Non-Theists, I am extremely concerned that PSUB would sponsor an event that told downright lies about a significant percentage of Purdue’s student body. Non-believers are just as faithful to their partners as Christians, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous and unfounded.
If religious groups want to put on biased programming that alienates people, go ahead. But PSUB is supposed to represent the entire student body, and for them to fund this is unacceptable. Why doesn’t PSUB remain religiously neutral like RHA?
Their only reply to my concerns was a form e-mail stating that Stewart Cooperative’s “application met our requirements.” So PSUB, once someone gets your money, they can do whatever they want with it? It doesn’t matter if their event is an unwelcoming environment for many students or contrary to PSUB’s purpose?
Jennifer McCreight
Senior in the College of Science
Let’s see if I get any responses!
Non-theists in student newspaper
Our Pastafarian Preaching got us into not one, but two articles in the Exponent today! The first one focused on just us, and was the better of the two articles:
Non-theist group demonstrates against religion
Publication Date: 09/21/2009
A band of swashbuckling pirates occupied campus on Friday, but not to loot and pillage.
The Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University gathered to voice their opinions on religion. Members chose to dress as pirates to satirize religious teachings that certain followers are better than everyone else by sarcastically saying that pirates are the chosen people.
“Our main message is that everyone should be able to criticize religion just like every other idea,” said Jennifer McCreight, a senior in the College of Science and president of the Society of Non-Theists, “especially if it is silly or hateful.”
The group for atheist, agnostic and non-religious students carried signs and read verses from the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is a parody of religion itself. The book challenges religious teachings and contradictions the Non-theists find absurd.
Although the responses to the demonstration were generally positive, some students felt that it was disruptive.
“I think that they definitely have a right to encourage students to think about these things,” said Quinn Frey, a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts. “Although, they were kind of in the way, making passing through the area a little inconvenient.”
The Society of Non-Theists has been trying to humanize the bad reputation that non-religious people sometimes have. Along with a day dedicated to “debunking atheist stereotypes,” the group is planning on working on a service project on the National Secular Service Day on Oct. 18.
McCreight believes that overall, the student responses to the pirate demonstration were positive.
“Although we have previously had some people get angry, the vast majority of responses to our actions are positive.”
The second one focuses on Brother Jed, and they didn’t misquote me…they just completely made it up!
The Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University were at Memorial Mall by coincidence to talk about Pirate Day.
“When we found out he was here we made signs to refute his arguments,” Jennifer McCreight, president of the society and senior in the College of Science. “I don’t think it’s disrespectful that we’re here because it’s rude that he’s here.”
What the hell? I never said anything even resembling that. I got to talk to the reporter for about five seconds, and all she asked me about was how non-theists felt on Purdue’s campus. I talked about our flyers being torn down, prayer at graduation, being in the minority…yet somehow they quoted me as saying that?
Maybe one of our members said that, but I most certainly did not…especially because it’s false. We did not make signs to refute his arguments. We had the signs left over from last year. We didn’t even know he was coming until after we planned our event. And the second line doesn’t even make sense! Gah!
Of course, by now I’ve pretty much lost all faith in the media actually reporting things correctly…bah humbug. At least the first article was really nice.
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