Three more days until Seattle!

Thursday I’ll be traveling to Evolution 2009 in Idaho, but I’ll be stranded in Seattle for about 9 hours waiting for my flight. These seem like the things I definitely must do while there:

– See the Space Needle, go up for look
– Pike Place Fish Market (weee flying fish!)
– Pacific Science Center
– Original Starbucks
– Freemont Troll
– Go frown by the Discovery Institute’s door

I know you guys probably all think I should try to get in the Discovery Institute…but I know I’d fail. Apparently two other female atheist bloggers got a tour through lies and subterfuge and were shown around by Casey Luskin (posts here, here, and here). Other than white lies with friends, I’m uncontrollably honest…so I don’t think I could go in acting like a big supporter of intelligent design. Even if I tried I probably wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure the second I tell them I’m on my way to an Evolution conference they’d slam the door in my face (er, well, keep it locked).

Oh well. Maybe if I’m feeling especially brave that day I’ll at least try – just need to remember not to wear one of my atheist/sciencey shirts. I drew this to sum up how I’m feeling (click for larger):
Of course the little devil has to be a blogger.

One more Sims update

Thanks to everyone who thought my atheist Sims were more hilarious than they were creepy. Someone requested that I upload them, so I did. If you have Sims 3, you can now download Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Hemant Mehta for your own use.

There have been requests to make other famous atheists (Phil Plait, Dennett, Hitchens, etc), which I may do if I have enough time or get bored enough. I still like PZ’s idea of having Ken Ham and Kent Hovind being a cranky gay couple next door. Incredibly tempting… Though I would just let them run wild through the town instead of controlling them. Three sims were hard enough for me to control, now I have four (Hemant’s wife) and a kid* and my micromanaging skills are starting to fall apart.

*As a side note, I got geekily excited when I saw the Sims boasting its “Genetic Algorithm” or whatever for deciding how babies would look. I thought maybe it would just blend the traits of the parents or something. Nope. The baby gets mom’s mouth, skin color and hair color, and dad’s nose, eye color, and hair type. I chose a pale blonde surgeon for Hemant’s wife…so his kid is this pasty white kid with bright blond hair that’s short and curly (I know he doesn’t have curly hair, but it was the short haircut that looked the best). So yeah, the kid looks absolutely nothing like him. Sorry SimHemant. I promise I didn’t see her sleeping around with other Sims.

Sim Atheists

So as I mentioned before, I bought Sims 3 this week. Usually I make myself and then a bunch of my friends, and then scatter celebrities (fictional and non) around the neighborhood. There’s just something oddly amusing about playing chess with Johnny Depp and marrying Harry Potter (or whatever).

Well, Sims 3’s editing options are so detailed that you can really make Sims look like the original person. So my odd mind obviously thought, “Why don’t I make a house full of famous atheist Sims?” Enjoy:
Sim Richard Dawkins
Attributes: Genius, Bookworm, Good sense of humor, Charismatic, Ambitious
Life wish: Become leader of the free world (Dawkins being in charge? Yes please.)

Sim Hemant Mehta
Attributes: Friendly (duh), Good, Charismatic, Vegetarian, Family Oriented (Was going to pick Hopeless Romantic or Flirt, but cheated a bit to make his life wish easier…)
Life wish: Have five children and raise them to teens (With all of Hemant’s baby posts, I found this oddly appropriate. Not quite his goal of octuplets, but close! Let’s see if he can restrain from eating them before they reach adulthood.)Sim PZ Myers
Attributes: Genius, Bookworm, Good sense of humor, Charismatic, Computer Whiz
Life wish: Become a creature-robot crossbreeder (Dear lord I nearly peed my pants when this choice came up. How could I NOT choose that for PZ?)

I can’t explain how much entertainment this has provided me over the last couple of days. It’s fun enough with all three of them sharing a house, but there are just so many little things. All of PZ’s outfits (formal wear, pajamas, etc) use the squid themed print I found, which was what initially spawned this terrifying idea of atheist sims. I’m still trying to find Hemant a baby mama, since that’s kind of necessary for his life goal (I promise to find someone cute!). The only real disturbing thing is whenever the Sims need to shower or use the bathroom. I mean, they blur it out so you can’t see any naughtiness going on, but I feel like a creepy voyeur. Of course, I don’t know if it can get much creepier than making Sims of random people you don’t really know and then controlling their lives like some sort of sick puppet master.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go hide in shame from being such a weirdo. Aka, go play more Sims. *runs off*

PS: You can click the images for larger versions, if you wish.

I swear to _____?

I had the following conversation about atheists swearing oaths to assert veracity of statements with a friend of mine (also an atheist). I figured I could type it up coherently for a neatly organized blog post, but 1) I’m lazy 2) This sounds more natural and 3) I now have more time to play the Sims. It’s slightly edited to remove typos and make it more coherent, but no real rewording.

Me: Is [Other Friend] still up? Tell him I wasn’t playing the Sims when he IMed me, the IM just never popped up.

Friend: Mmmm hmmmm.

Me: I swear to god. XP

Friend: You’re an atheist. That holds no sway.

Me: I swear on the Sims. XP

Friend: Oh, okay then. …You ever stop to think how prevalent that type of language is in our society? What alternative is there to that phrase? The concept of swearing an oath to a higher being to affirm veracity.Me: There’s all sorts of stuff… “bless you,” “oh my god,” “thank god”…I say it just because it’s a phrase. It could be “oh my smorgltoff” for all I care.

Friend: Or even just “Oh my!” “Deary me!” “Well I’ll be a son of a gun!”. But “I swear to god” is a unique one… The concept of affirming an oath to a higher power to achieve veracity. I mean, I guess there’s “No, really, I mean it.” But that doesn’t have the same oomph to it, y’know?

Me: Well, I think most people (aka religious people) wouldn’t swear to god unless they really meant it, because that’s kind of a bad thing to do.

Friend: But us?

Me: We’ve just stolen it and you hope we mean it, haha.

Friend: But that’s the thing. What could we possibly use as ethos collateral?

Me: I don’t think anything compares to an eternity of hellfire and doom, by definition. I think we’re stuck to using it in the metaphorical sense.

Friend: Eh.

Me: I mean, you could theoretically pick something like “I swear on my child’s life,” but that still implies you think some hocus pocus will cause your child to be unhealthy if you’re actually lying.

Friend: Right.

Me: Swearing on something automatically involves the supernatural. I mean, what sort of rational things do you want? “I will take a lie detector test.” “Bring on the DNA testing.”

Friend: I mean, we don’t necessarily have to go to that extreme. Perhaps we could build up a system of ethos points. Like, “I’ll wager 30 ethos points that I didn’t play the Sims.” The higher the number of points, the more vehement you are about it.

Me: Well that just seems arbitrary… And you know people would abuse it… “I’ll wager SEVENTY BILLION TIMES INFINITY ETHOS POINTS that I didn’t eat that last brownie!”

Friend: Point. Hmm… Well, religious people do that too… What if every person gets an ethos chip. Metaphorically, of course. “I’d wager my ethos chip.” That way it can almost be tangible.

Me: Haha, I think now you’re just being silly.

Friend: I disagree. I like the idea. =D

Me: Well, how is that different than betting? Like, “I bet you 20 bucks I’m right,” and just holding the person to it in the end. “I bet you a billion dollars I’m telling the truth!” wouldn’t come up that often.

Friend: This has a more family friendly feel to it. None of this gamesmanship stuff. =P

Me: Well, what if you lose all your ethos chips on a big lie, then can you never back up anything again until you catch someone else in a lie? A limited amount of ethos chips doesn’t make sense.

Friend: Again, this is a metaphorical thing. It’s not like people actually go to hell for swearing to god and getting caught in a lie. I figured referring it to an ethos chip would give it a higher level of perceived tangibility and, thereby, be more likely to be accepted.

Me: But to religious people it’s not metaphorical, it’s a very real consequence. If you want something on par with that, you should start chopping off fingers for big lies. That’s a tangible deterrent. =P

Then I had to go to bed, and we never really came to a conclusion. So what do you think? Is there some sort of assertion of veracity an atheist can make that is equivalent to swearing to god? Does it even matter since religious people abuse the phrase “I swear to god” anyway?

Curse you addictive video games!

Oh good lord, what have I done? Why? Why?!?!

…I bought Sims 3 today.

I played the original Sims back when I was 14 or so, and never got Sims 2 because my computer was too crappy. But now I have a snazzy computer and disposable income, so I thought why not? Now I’m forgetting to eat and sleep because I’m too busy telling a virtual version of myself to eat and sleep. I spent an hour and a half trying to make Sim Jen look as much like me as possible. Hell, there are probably 30 different facial traits and bone structures and crap that you can tweak. Gahhhh.

The ironic part? My current job is “Professional Blogger” and I still can’t get any guys to like me. Damnit, Sims 3. You’re supposed to be an escape from real life, not a brutally honest reflection of it. Oh well, at least I haven’t set fire to my real stove (yet).

I think it’s time to start making Sim versions of celebrities for me to hit on. Suggestions? I kind of want to make a mad scientist PZ as my neighbor. They even have squid themed pajamas!

Atheism & the USSR

One of my commenters, gfish, has an interesting piece up at his blog about atheism and growing up in the USSR. Go check it out. While I’ve lived in the US all my life, I’m also a lifelong atheist – I don’t have some fancy deconversion story about leaving the faith – so I can relate to his post. It’s also interesting seeing the “other side” of the story, since over in the US we get a pretty biased view of what was going on in the USSR religion-wise.

One foot in the closet

People are always talking about atheists being in the closet, a term we stole from the gays for not being publicly honest about how you really are. I feel bad for the people who have to keep their atheism a secret. There are plenty of good reasons to do it – religious friends and family members you don’t want to lose, possible drama at work, living in a small conservative neighborhood, etc. But even if staying closeted is the safer alternative, it still sucks knowing you’re “living a lie.”

I’ve found myself in an odd predicament. I’m basically completely out of the closet except for two people – my grandparents. They go to church every weekend, they take religious holidays seriously, they cross themselves before eating, etc. But my grandparents are by no means bible thumpers or overly zealous; they’re fairly liberal and honestly never really talk about religion. They even know that my parents and I never go to church and that I wasn’t baptized, and that has never really come up in conversation as a problem (at least not in front of me).

However, them knowing I am an atheist is not an option. My mom asserts that it would break their poor 88 year old hearts knowing I didn’t believe in God, and to never ever mention anything about it to them. I have to catch myself to not mention club related stuff, especially since that takes up so much of my time at school. Usually I can get away with being in local newspapers because it won’t get back to them. And the internet isn’t too big of an issue because they have no idea how to use a computer.

Honestly my main fear is that someone who DOES know how to use a computer is going to Google my name one day and tell them about it. I mean, I don’t hide my atheism. I don’t want to hide it. I have an atheist heavy blog, my name is plastered on the Society of Non-Theists website, if you know my email you can probably find a half dozen websites and blogs I comment at. I used to think I was safe since my uncle, the only person who would probably squeal on me if he found out, had no idea how to use a computer. But apparently he’s at Googling level now, so I’m getting a bit worried.

I guess I should be happy it’s just two people I’m hiding from, but it still makes me feel bad that I have this “deep dark secret.” I’d love to be even more active in the atheist community – writing books, doing events that get national news coverage – but I’m too afraid it would trickle back to my grandparents. And the last thing I’d want to do is upset them; they’re honestly the most kind, wonderful people and I love them very much. People have told me that they’re old and to just wait until they pass away, but I think that’s awful. I’d love for them to live to be 120 if they could. I hope beyond hope that they make it to my wedding (whenever that will be, sort of have to find a guy first), but at the same time I know there’s no way I’ll get married in a church or have any mention of God at the ceremony. And that makes me nervous.

Is there anyone else teetering between out and closeted? Desperately trying to hide your atheism from a select few while being out and active everywhere else? Or am I just destined for failure?

Judge refuses to dismiss National Day of Prayer case

From AP (short enough that I’ll just copy and paste the whole thing):

“MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled this week the case brought by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation can move forward with discovery.

A federal law sets the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.

Crabb says the nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics faces a heavy burden in proving the tradition violates the separation of church and state. But she says it should have an opportunity to do so.

The Obama administration and National Day of Prayer Task Force filed motions to dismiss the case, but Crabb rejected them as premature.”

Great to see that a judge is at least willing to hear the case. We obviously haven’t won anything yet, but it’s a first step. I don’t see how you could possibly interpret a federal law proclaming a day of prayer as constitutional. It scares me a bit that the Obama administration was one of the groups trying to dismiss the case. Anyone know anything more about that? If that’s true, shame on you, Obama administration. They keep doing more and more stuf that makes me uneasy…

Is a battle ever too hard to even bother?

I mentioned a couple of days ago that our student group was going to start fighting religious aspects of our public university’s graduation program (I didn’t get many comments, so I’m going to assume you all just sort of passively agreed with me). I sent out an email to our club for feedback, and I received a lot of great advice on who to contact, various things to consider, etc. Most of the feedback was positive and contained the humble comment that this was going to be a difficult battle. I’m fully aware of that, especially knowing Purdue. It’s an extremely conservative university, and it…well, generally ignores any student activism that takes place about its policies.

But I received one email that was a bit of a downer from a staff member at Purdue (who I know to be an atheist activist). He said the Provost would surely politely blow us off, promising to look into it but never speaking to us again. I thought, yeah, so what? I know it’s going to be difficult and we’ll have to deal with bureaucratic bullshit, but we know what to do. He then told me to not even bother, and to spend the club’s efforts doing projects we could actually succeed at.

Well boo on him.

At what point do we just sit down and shut up because doing anything would be too difficult? Because it would likely lead to failure? Even if we can’t get the obnoxious “Amen” singing removed, our fight is at least symbolic. We’re showing the university that we don’t agree with what they’re doing, and we’re showing others who agree with us that they’re not alone. I mean, you could have told all the Anti-Prop8 protesters to just go home, because judges obviously aren’t going to be swayed by some signs (well, hopefully), but should they have? No, I don’t think so.

I think this is a problem the atheist movement faces a lot mostly from the outside – people asking why we’re so angry, what’s the point, don’t we have better things to do? It’s just a bit disheartening when I hear a fellow atheist telling me “Don’t bother.” If we don’t bother, who will? If the national government wants to institute a time for prayer in school, do we just sit back and say “Well Big Brother is too strong. No way they’d listen to us,” and throw our hands up in the air? No, we try our damnedest to fight it.

I think this can all be summed up by one of my favorite quotes:

“Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” – Albus Dumbledore

This club has waited two years building up our good reputation before attempting something that will likely piss off the campus. Now’s the time to do what’s right.

Religion at Purdue’s Graduation

Hey everyone. First I’d like to thank all of you for your well wishes. I’m still feeling crappy, but my fever is gone so that’s a giant relief. I want to apologize ahead of time if my posts for the next couple of days aren’t as well written/coherent/witty as normal. I’ve been writing emails and IMing friends, and after I reread what I wrote I think “What the hell does that even mean?” Or worse, I’ll be in the middle of writing something and I’ll just end up blankly staring at the screen for a while. I guess these drugs are just that good.

Anyway, onto atheisty stuff. So, Purdue’s graduation ceremony (“commencement” technically) has many religious elements that our student organization is going to try to take care of. I have been to graduation for a friend and heard many identical reports from others, so that’s where I’m getting my information. Purdue actually has four separate commencements divided by schools since we have way too many people to fit in Elliot Hall of Music. Each of these contain these general elements:

– A talk by a religious leader from the community. There’s a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew, and a Muslim. Sounds like a set up for a bad joke, eh? Anyway, each commencement gets one of these, not all four at one commencement. I’ll get back to this.
– Following the talk is a “moment of reflection.” Aka, prayer by another name – the vast majority of the audience prays during this time. But hey, maybe it’s not meant to be religious, right?
– Following this the choir breaks out into song singing “Amen” over and over again for a couple minutes while the backdrop screen shows clouds serenely floating by. Whoops. Guess it is meant to be religious.
– Other songs the choir sings are hymns (a friend had to point this out to me, since I wasn’t really listening to what they were singing).

Back to the religious leaders. The one I saw (the Muslim) wasn’t too overtly religious. He did mention God a couple times at the end though and finished with “Amen” (I guess my standards for “overtly religious” are pretty low). I’ve been told the other speakers were similar. I haven’t seen them myself – Purdue streams its commencement live online, but I could never get the stupid codec for it to work.

They’re obviously picking four different faiths to try to be diverse and inclusive, but this ultimately fails. The day you graduate depends on your school, not your religion – what if you’re a Muslim stuck listening to the Catholic? A Jew listening to the Muslim? I hope this wouldn’t matter, but when you’re trying to seem all inclusive, it doesn’t help when the people actually attending only see one. More importantly, how about the students who aren’t represented? It’s not just atheists – I know Purdue has a fairly significant Hindu community thanks to the Engineering program. What about them? Conveniently they’ve chosen all the Abrahamic religions…

Though honestly, I don’t think it’s worth the fight to get rid of the religious leaders all together. One, knowing Purdue this would be an impossible battle. But honestly I don’t mind having a religious person talk if they’re saying something intelligent. If we could just enforce a rule like not explicitly mentioning God or using religious terminology, I’d be okay with that compromise. If we had a local humanist chaplain I’d suggest having them talk, but unfortunately we don’t. My biggest beef is with all the “Amen” excessive singing and hymns business. That’s obviously completely inappropriate. Let people have their moment of reflection, but don’t beat us over the head with the message that we’re supposed to be praying.

Any advice on how to go about dealing with this? I’m basically thinking a petition or letters from students/staff/alumni about how graduation should remain secular, plus a long main letter from the club explaining why this is inappropriate at a public institution. Tips on successful petitions, who to talk to, what to include in the letter, etc would be greatly appreciated!