My dad is awesome

In case you didn’t figure that out from my previous post about my family…

Dad: [On Facebook, about Pastafarian Preaching photos] Some great looking pirates. I had do some research (you’re keeping my mine active) figure out what Pastafarian meant. It makes good sense to me.
Me: [Through email, to mom and dad] You’d both probably like to know that your daughter was interviewed by the local tv station for the 5 o clock news…dressed as a pirate. Thankfully the piece was very positive. Love, J
Dad: Got a kick out of you facebook pictures – you make a great pirate. You represented yourself well on the news interview — but tell them to get your name right next time. Love, Dad
Me: They even had me pronounce it on camera, and they still got it wrong! And spelled it wrong, did you catch that? Not to mention the club name…”Non-thesis” ha!
Dad: The reporter is probably in training for Fox News.

<3

Purdue’s Pastafarian Preaching!

Yesterday the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University had their annual Pastafarian Preaching. We go out in full pirate regalia preaching the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and hand out flyers to the confused students who run into us. One side of the flyer contains the “Eight I Really Rather You Didn’t“s and the other side explains what the FSM is really about. We want to be a satire of your stereotypical fire and brimstone street preacher to show not only how ridiculous these people look, but that we have the right to criticize religious beliefs, especially if they’re silly or hateful.In a stroke of wonderful luck that proves to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does exist, we found out Brother Jed was going to be there the same day as us. Brother Jed is a fairly infamous campus preacher who unites all religious denominations in laughing at him. He also looks exactly like Eugene Levy, which makes it all the more hilarious.We basically caused chaos for poor Brother Jed. We had our own readings from the Gospel while he was reading from the Bible, we held up our silly signs all around his, we giggled at all of the ridiculous things he was saying, we skipped around him singing pirate songs…but most of all, we got a great response from students who were sick of Jed’s nonsense.
We started to get a little bored with his ranting, so we decided to commandeer the Boilermaker Special, to the cheers of the crowd around Brother Jed. The train is Purdue’s mascot, so we have a little train looking car thing that you can get rides on on Fridays. So we climbed aboard and enjoyed our new ship, shouting piratical things at the now even more confused Purdue students.
When we returned Brother Jed was still going strong. Two of the Mormon missionaries approached us and asked what was going on. Oddly enough, they became our allies. We talked about how hateful Brother Jed was and how his method of preaching really didn’t make any sense. As silly as I think Mormonism is, I have to admit that the missionaries on campus are generally nice guys. Much preferred to people like Brother Jed.
Overall, the day was a success. We didn’t have any negative feedback, we handed out thousands of flyers, many people thanked us for what we were doing, we got interviewed by the Exponent for multiple stories, and we made the local tv news. I’m not sure how we could have done much better!
I can’t do the day justice through talking about it, so here’s a video of some of our pirate antics and Brother Jed’s hilarious nonsense.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me harties! Arrrrr!

EDIT: One of our other Pirates has blogged about it too, with more photos and video!

Purdue's Pastafarian Preaching!

Yesterday the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University had their annual Pastafarian Preaching. We go out in full pirate regalia preaching the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and hand out flyers to the confused students who run into us. One side of the flyer contains the “Eight I Really Rather You Didn’t“s and the other side explains what the FSM is really about. We want to be a satire of your stereotypical fire and brimstone street preacher to show not only how ridiculous these people look, but that we have the right to criticize religious beliefs, especially if they’re silly or hateful.In a stroke of wonderful luck that proves to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does exist, we found out Brother Jed was going to be there the same day as us. Brother Jed is a fairly infamous campus preacher who unites all religious denominations in laughing at him. He also looks exactly like Eugene Levy, which makes it all the more hilarious.We basically caused chaos for poor Brother Jed. We had our own readings from the Gospel while he was reading from the Bible, we held up our silly signs all around his, we giggled at all of the ridiculous things he was saying, we skipped around him singing pirate songs…but most of all, we got a great response from students who were sick of Jed’s nonsense.
We started to get a little bored with his ranting, so we decided to commandeer the Boilermaker Special, to the cheers of the crowd around Brother Jed. The train is Purdue’s mascot, so we have a little train looking car thing that you can get rides on on Fridays. So we climbed aboard and enjoyed our new ship, shouting piratical things at the now even more confused Purdue students.
When we returned Brother Jed was still going strong. Two of the Mormon missionaries approached us and asked what was going on. Oddly enough, they became our allies. We talked about how hateful Brother Jed was and how his method of preaching really didn’t make any sense. As silly as I think Mormonism is, I have to admit that the missionaries on campus are generally nice guys. Much preferred to people like Brother Jed.
Overall, the day was a success. We didn’t have any negative feedback, we handed out thousands of flyers, many people thanked us for what we were doing, we got interviewed by the Exponent for multiple stories, and we made the local tv news. I’m not sure how we could have done much better!
I can’t do the day justice through talking about it, so here’s a video of some of our pirate antics and Brother Jed’s hilarious nonsense.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me harties! Arrrrr!

EDIT: One of our other Pirates has blogged about it too, with more photos and video!

Best TA ever

Last night I emailed my Physics TA about my Friday 2 hour lab class. It falls directly during the peak hours of our Pastafarian Preaching, which greatly saddened me. Physics lab, however, has set make up dates for if you miss a lab for a valid reason, like illness. I asked if me being in charge of a student organization’s day long counter protest would constitute as a valid reason…and he said sure!

Granted, I didn’t include details of what we were going to be protesting (Brother Jed, I can’t tell you how excited I am for that) or what we’ll be wearing while protesting, or even what club it was for…but he didn’t ask. Maybe his noodliness used divine intervention to sway his opinions.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get my pirate costume ready.

A blogger’s dilemma

I got out of my biology laboratory about two hours early thanks to my awesome lab partner being bored and coming in to start an hour early. As I was happily walking home, I ran into something you’ll reliably see on a fall afternoon at Purdue: the two Mormon guys with their Books of Mormon and posters about Jesus.

Mormon: Hi, do you have a minute to talk?
Devil on my shoulder: Oh my god, this will probably make a hilarious blog post. Who doesn’t like illogical arguments from Mormons?! Do it, do it.
Devil on other shoulder: I’m want to go home, drink a coke, and take a nap. Don’t you dare.

Unfortunately for you guys, lazy Jen won out and I just said “No thanks.” Well, I guess I’m still making a blog post about it, so whatever.

To be honest I don’t like engaging random preaching theists unless something special really draws me in. I have talked to the Mormons once, and it went something like this:

Me: *accidentally makes eye contact* Oops
Mormon: Hi, would you like to hear the question of the day?
Me: Oh no, now I’m curious. Sure.
Mormon: What’s the meaning of life.
Me: Life has no preordained purpose, only that which you give it.
Mormon: *shocked look, like no one has said that to him all day* …What? You don’t believe in a God given purpose?
Me: I’m an atheist.
Mormon: …What? *even more shock*

Unfortunately I needed to run to class so I couldn’t stay and answer his further questions about my godlessness, not like it really would have made a difference. I would have gone on being a heathen, and he would probably still be giving away pocket bibles in his short sleeve dress shirt and little backpack*.

*As a side note, would someone like to enlighten me why the Mormon missionary outfit is so dorky looking? I mean, I understand that they don’t want to walk around in jeans and a t-shirt, but why not a long sleeved shirt or a polo? Why where the little backpack that straps in front at all times? Do they dislike homosexuality so much that they refuse to listen to basic fashion advice?

A blogger's dilemma

I got out of my biology laboratory about two hours early thanks to my awesome lab partner being bored and coming in to start an hour early. As I was happily walking home, I ran into something you’ll reliably see on a fall afternoon at Purdue: the two Mormon guys with their Books of Mormon and posters about Jesus.

Mormon: Hi, do you have a minute to talk?
Devil on my shoulder: Oh my god, this will probably make a hilarious blog post. Who doesn’t like illogical arguments from Mormons?! Do it, do it.
Devil on other shoulder: I’m want to go home, drink a coke, and take a nap. Don’t you dare.

Unfortunately for you guys, lazy Jen won out and I just said “No thanks.” Well, I guess I’m still making a blog post about it, so whatever.

To be honest I don’t like engaging random preaching theists unless something special really draws me in. I have talked to the Mormons once, and it went something like this:

Me: *accidentally makes eye contact* Oops
Mormon: Hi, would you like to hear the question of the day?
Me: Oh no, now I’m curious. Sure.
Mormon: What’s the meaning of life.
Me: Life has no preordained purpose, only that which you give it.
Mormon: *shocked look, like no one has said that to him all day* …What? You don’t believe in a God given purpose?
Me: I’m an atheist.
Mormon: …What? *even more shock*

Unfortunately I needed to run to class so I couldn’t stay and answer his further questions about my godlessness, not like it really would have made a difference. I would have gone on being a heathen, and he would probably still be giving away pocket bibles in his short sleeve dress shirt and little backpack*.

*As a side note, would someone like to enlighten me why the Mormon missionary outfit is so dorky looking? I mean, I understand that they don’t want to walk around in jeans and a t-shirt, but why not a long sleeved shirt or a polo? Why where the little backpack that straps in front at all times? Do they dislike homosexuality so much that they refuse to listen to basic fashion advice?

A form letter response to Porn and Popcorn

On Monday I wrote to the Purdue Student Union Board about the problems with the Porn and Popcorn event. I thought I may have slightly better luck since I somewhat know the President (had a couple classes together, are Facebook friends, will wave hello when we pass, etc). Here’s my email:

This past Friday I and approximately 25 members of the Society of Non-Theists attended Porn and Popcorn, an event cosponsored by the Stewart Cooperative and (according to the flyers) PSUB. I am writing you because I am very disappointed that PSUB decided to sponsor such an event, as it seems against its purpose to “Present programs designed to meet current entertainment, cultural, recreational, social, and educational needs of students.” I have two major complaints about the event:

1. No part of the event was based on factual or scientific information even though it claimed to be education. 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 as saying 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 a falsehood. It appalls me that such dangerous information could be connected to PSUB‘s name, especially when Purdue University and PUSH work so hard to educate Purdue students about sex. If anything, this was detrimental to the educational needs of the students.

2. 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 a 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. Their discussion that non-believers are of the devil and are certainly going to cheat on their significant other is troubling, and hopefully you can understand why. In addition to this, when the speaker was asking questions about audience member’s boyfriends and girlfriends, and asked if anyone had a “crazy drama girlfriend,” two of our female members raised their hands. A student then walked by and called our group “Faggots.” I know neither Stewart nor PSUB can control audience members, but this sort of “If you’re not a straight sex-abstaining Christian, there’s something wrong” attitude seemed to be the main theme of the event. I understand that the majority of Purdue students are Christians, and thus PSUB will likely sponsor Christian programming, but I am disappointed that this event was not welcoming to non-Christians.

I in no way want to ban further Christian events from being held at Purdue – they have every right to have their voice heard – but it worries me that PSUB, which is supposed to represent the student body as a whole, was associated with such an event. Thank you for listening to my concerns, and hopefully these problems won’t occur again in the future.

Jennifer McCreight
jmccreig@purdue.edu

Unfortunately, all I got in response was a form email:

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for your interest in campus programming at Purdue and your concerns in regards to the Porn and Popcorn event. Part of PSUB’s mission is to promote student programming on campus that enrich and entertain and recognize the campus’ diversity of interests. One way we meet this mission is by offering co-sponsorship opportunities to other student organizations seeking to hold programs on campus. We provided monetary support to the Stewart Co-operative Council for this event to help promote campus programming. The information they provided on their co-sponsorship application met our requirements and so the event co-sponsorship was granted by our Board of Directors. If you would like to further view the co-sponsorship guidelines and application, it can be found on our website at union.purdue.edu/psub.

Thanks again for your interest and concerns and I’m sorry you did not enjoy the event.

Wow, talk about a non response. So it’s totally okay that they provided misinformation and lies about sex and non-Christians because they didn’t include those things on the forms? Is there absolutely no consequences for people who do such things, or is it that once you get PSUB’s money you can do whatever you want with it? They apologized for me not having fun (even though the event did amuse me, but not they way they intended), but didn’t apologize for anything that really mattered.

I think it’s time for a letter to our student newspaper.

Sometimes accidental journeys bring you back to the beginning

You know when you start looking up the Wikipedia article for fly fishing and then you’re somehow reading about Impressionism in Poland? It’s even odder when that happens outside of the confounds of Wikipedia or Google. For example, look at the journey I took today:

1. My friend asked how I got interested in Evolution. I said I didn’t remember how I was first introduced to it, but around age 14 I started thinking a lot of Intelligent Design arguments made sense. I asked my then Science Olympiad coach (former 7th grade science teacher) if he could explain how evolution worked to me, and he promptly explained why ID was bunk.

2. I remembered I wrote a debate paper for AP Composition near the end of my senior year of high school why Intelligent Design shouldn’t be taught in school. Said teacher was a source (paper required one interview.)

3. I wondered if I ever wrote down my thoughts about Intelligent Design/Evolution/Atheism since I had a journal at the time. Old journal was terrifyingly emo, mildly hilarious, occasionally insightful, and full of emoticons and quizzes. It was also full of quotes from said teacher since I pretty much had the biggest crush on him for a long long time (I feel no fear admitting this because pretty much everyone in the universe knew about it, including him. Yeah, young girls aren’t too subtle.).

4. Remembering he had a blog, I go to check if it was updated. Hadn’t been updated since shortly after I graduated high school.

5. Wondering if he maybe kept the same username but moved to a different blog, I search for his username in Google. I see one of the links goes to Pharyngula, so I click.

6. I find this comment by him in late April, 2006:

Thanks for making available your presentation. As a science teacher, I recently recommended some links (including Pharyngula) to a student preparing a debate paper against teaching ID in science classrooms. Her paper was finished prior to this (and it was superb), but I will be sure she sees this piece.

Again, thanks.

That was him talking about my previously mentioned ID paper. My initial reaction was “Wow, he thought it was superb?!” with a sort of basking glow and those same girly butterflies in my stomach (old crushes die hard, I guess). But then it dawned on me. That’s how I found Pharyngula. People were always asking me how I stumbled upon it, but I never could remember. It was the first blog I ever read, but did I Google it or what? But now I remember – he linked me to it for that project. He was also the one who introduced me to the Index to Creationist Claims.

When I think about it, that man affected my life in pretty much every way I could imagine. His class was the first time I really got interested in science. He made me fall in love with genetics, and in a year I will be going somewhere to get my PhD studying it. He was always there to answer my questions about evolution, and made me passionate about the surrounding debate. His encouragement of logical thinking helped me get out of my weird supernatural deist funk and back to being an atheist. He even linked me to Pharyngula, which would eventually motivate me to become an atheist activist and start a blog, and be the thing that made my blog somewhat popular. And on the risk of sounding creepy, he likely started my trend of being attracted to sarcastic, somewhat cocky, skeptical, scientific men.

Hm.

Friend: He reads Pharyngula? PZ has linked to you a ton. What if he reads your blog?
Me: …I would be honored, and he might be creeped out that I just wrote this big post about him.

No scientific knowledge in radio personalities

Every once in a while I’ll search for “Indiana, atheist” just to see 1. If the Society of Non-Theists has made the news without me knowing or 2. What stupid things people in Indiana are saying about atheists. Unfortunately, it almost always results in number two. For example, take this lovely editorial by Peter Heck, radio host of Kokomo, IN’s Peter Heck Show (self described as “a conservative Christian commentary on social and political issues”). It’s titled “No atheists in birthing centers” and offers the birth of his child as proof of God. It’s like an I Spy of illogical theist claims! At quick glance I can find:

What can you spot? Or better yet, how many of you are dying to get out of Indiana or happy to have escaped?

Dear Pastor Tom

Hey there! How’s it going? Oh, don’t seem surprised – I know you’re subscribed to my blog since twice now you’ve written a rebuttal to my posts within 24 hours of my original posts. I just want to say it’s incredibly cute how you’re too afraid to mention my name or link to my blog lest someone read an alternative opinion and make their own decisions. I mean, we don’t want people thinking or coming to their own conclusions, do we? I giggle every time you make up a new excuse to not name me, like:

“Many atheist bloggers have expressed joy over this, but it’s not worth taking the time to tell you about any more of them.”

and

“because I don’t subscribe to the language and advertising on the blogs that are defending pornography, I’m not going to give any links, and will not permit any to be posted on this blog.”

But please don’t stop. I get a certain amount of glee knowing someone feels so intimidated by my arguments – must mean I’m explaining my points really well! And what an honor that you’ll mention Pharyngula and Friendly Atheist all the time, but Blag Hag is just too much of a threat! I am a little disappointed, though, that you didn’t come up with some witty pun of my blog to put under your “Evil Sites” links like PharyTales or Hateful Atheist. Can I suggest “She Who Must Not Be Named?”

Your favorite atheist blogger,
Jen