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!

This Professor business will never end, will it?

After the last cranky email I received from The Professor, I had had enough. I sent the following short email reply to him:

“I tried to explain the reasoning behind my review and even extend my apologies to you, but you chose to ignore that. I have no idea why you think I would be motivated to deliberately misrepresent your book, other than the fact that you simply cannot comprehend that you wrote something bad. These emails only expose how insecure you are, trying to cut down some random 21 year old on the internet. I suggest you take a deep breath and calm down before writing me any more emails, because you’re really not doing yourself any favors acting this way.

And honestly, just because you paid some vanity publisher to publish your book doesn’t mean you’re any more of a professional writer than I am, nor does it mean I am unable to critique literature.

Jennifer”

I sent that on May 5th, and figured maybe this whole craziness was over since I never heard back. Maybe he took my advice on calming down before emailing me, and just was unable to calm down. Maybe I had upset him so much that this poor 80 year old man had a heart attack and died.

Me: Oh my god, I would feel so guilty. What if that happened?
Friend: Eh, I’m sure if he dropped dead one of your internet minions would forward you the obituary.
Me: Hmm, good point. *goes back to drinking their $1 long islands*

Though a note on the above quote: this insanity has become a great bar story when hanging out with my atheist friends. Anyway, I thought it was all over, but on May 15th I saw a new anonymous comment was left on “The Professor responds!“:

“I read the above comments. I still love students but I don’t know why. Think I’ll have lunch and then start my next book to be titled “The Testicle Eaters.” Or “God Likes Baloney Sanwiches.” It could start with two kids walking accross the lawn behind a church and meeting a man with a long white beard (me again) eating a baloney sandwich with mayonnaise. I just posted with the friendly atheist.com. John Harrigan”

I paused as I read the ridiculous comment. The nonsensical, rambling writing style fit him, but really? God Likes Baloney Sandwiches? My friend insisted it was just some commenter trying to pull my leg, but I had never mentioned the testicle eating in the original book (yes, that is something the serial killer does). Only someone who read (or wrote) the book would know that fact. Maybe it was John Harrigan, and his subconscious was trying to admit that he’s full of baloney.

I was going to let it slide, but then Hemant emailed me this funny PowerPoint Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists had made about the book (includes some hilarious things that I left out, like the testicle eating!). I figured I’d ask him if the Professor had contacted him, and he said yep, he left a long rambly comment on his post about the book. I won’t copy and paste it, since it’s basically his “editor’s” praise of the book, but woo boy. I did find it mildly hilariously that he didn’t think to delete his editor’s phone number…very smart, Professor. Though please don’t go calling the poor guy – the last thing we need is two upset 80 something year old men.

Will this ever end? Probably not, but I don’t mind as long as 1. It keeps bringing readers to my blog 2. This poor man doesn’t drop dead because of me and 3. I don’t get sued (not that he’d really have a case, but I’d just like to avoid the situation). I still think John Harrigan and I could make big bucks off of “gobbler of whangs par excellence” merchandise. If only he was willing to cash in on the accidental ridiculousness of his book!

Atheist Buses Approved in South Bend

After initially being approved and then unapproved, the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign has been approved again to have its ad on buses in South Bend. It completely misses the point of advertising while Obama was in town for Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony, but at least it was approved. One has to wonder if foul play was involved, though…

Because I’m a masochist, I decided to read the comments on the article. Oh boy. You know what, these don’t even need my commentary. Let me show you some of the gems:

“Running scared transpo? Afraid of a law suit? I would let them sue. I would not give these idiots the time of day.”

“I am appalled that we as citizens of a Christian nation are going to allow buses to have ads denouncing God. I am a veteran of a foreign war and I have seen enough crazy things in this world to let me know that there is most definitely a God. The 86% of us in this country need to tell this 14% minority to just be quiet and keep to themselves. Like the ten commandments debate on many courthouse steps; if you don’t believe in God fine, but aren’t the ten commandments a pretty good set of rules to live by anyways?”

“Exactly! This country and its democracy was built from Christian beliefs by Christian forefathers? Our money says, as a Nation “In God We Trust” If they don’t like living in a Christian nation, then move! Don’t use the Chrisian Money from the Christian nation if you’re affraid some good Christian values might rub of on you. Remember God said love your neighbor. Actually the best thing we can do as Christians is to prey for those lost souls. Hopefully before they die, they will be saved.”

“I agree 100% this is a sad statment to the condition of this country. We have gone from “In god we trust” to ” it isn’t wrong if you do not get caught” The Christian Majority need to stand up and say ” this is not right””

“You can be good without God, but you will still go to Hell. Should be what it reads…… Sorry to burst the bubble.”

“Thankfully we all have the right to choose our own religous preferances or none at all. Why atheists want to advertise the fact is beyond me. I don’t see what they have to gain by this. Maybe it’s the old “the devil made me do it” thing. Anyway, they will lose in the “end”, literally.”

“Atheists are stupid beyond belief………how the hell do you think you got here……………………..poof……..I don’t think so. The world is going to hell if you stupid people get ANY rights. God is GREAT”

And this is why we need to be vocal about our nonbelief.

By the way, there’s also a poll to the right of the article asking if you think the ads should be allowed. Yes is failing miserably. I think you all know what you need to do.

(Via Friendly Atheist)

Star Trek & Angels and Demons

I hadn’t seen a movie in theaters in ages, but I actually saw two today! Two different groups of friends wanted to go at different times. Hooray. The first one was Star Trek, so now all my geeky friends can finally stop bugging me to see it. I really liked it, but keep in mind I’ve never seen a second of old Star Trek episodes or movies before seeing this one. The extent of my knowledge was basically:

-Spock is supposed to be logical
-Klingons are angry and have their own language that uber-geeks learn
-The phrase “beam me up Scotty”
-The silly hand salute thing that’s hard to do
-Trekkies like to go around screaming “KHHAAAANNN” for reasons I do not understand

Now that I’ve offended every Trekkie out there… *ahem* I’m sure someone who’s expecting something in particular has their gripes with the film. I know I’m uber nitpicky when it comes to Harry Potter. But, as a Star Trek n00b, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie from an entertainment point of view. Though I have to admit, I was oddly unnerved by how sexy Zachary Quinto’s Spock was. Not quite sure I’m supposed to be having those feelings about Spock, but yum. Oh, and who else thought every time Spock got annoyed he was going to start slicing peoples heads open and stealing their powers?

Noooo, not teh kitteh! Why do you need nine lives when you can never die?!?!

I also saw Angels and Demons, which I thought was pretty good. Definitely better than the DaVinci Code, but that’s not saying much. Now, I know people like to harp on Dan Brown, but I genuinely enjoy his novels. He’s no Shakespeare, but his plots are entertaining page turners so you can stfu if you think I’m dumb for liking them. Anyway, like I said the movie was pretty good – probably helped that I read the book years ago, so I didn’t remember it well enough to be super critical. Tried not to cringe too much at all the antimatter stupidity and told myself to suspend disbelief for a bit. I really liked the idea that God sent an atheist intellectual professor (Langdon) to save all of Catholicism – how ironic.

The one thing that bugged me was that it seemed to have a big “Science and religion are compatible, and when you think they’re not, that’s when you have problems!” message. It’s not that I just disagree with this – but the very premise of the movie seemed to disagree with it. I mean, it was anti-science Catholics versus pro-science Catholics (the Illuminati), not versus atheistic scientists. Heck, the two irreligious characters are the only ones not murdering and blowing things up – they’re actually saving the day. Maybe people will get that message out of the movie instead of the one the film trying to jam down their throat.

Someone with reason in Bloomington, IN

Bloomington won’t be defending the bus system in the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign’s ACLU lawsuit.

Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan said he disagrees with the BT policy and he’s asked city government’s legal department not to represent BT in court.

“I felt strongly that the city shouldn’t be defending on this issue,” he said Thursday.

Bloomington Public Transportation Corp. operates as a separate municipal corporation, which contracts with the city of Bloomington legal department to provide legal services.

Kruzan said having city legal defend BT in court would amount to “promoting government sanctioned censorship” because the bus service gets city legal’s services at an hourly rate less than that of a private law firm, which is in essence a partial taxpayer subsidy.

Good job, Mayor Kruzan!

Also, a local Bloomington radio station, WFHB, runs a segment called “Voices in the Street” where they ask random people about a certain topic. You can hear the segment on the atheist bus ads here. It was actually pretty refreshing to listen to – the majority of people supported the ads, even if they were religious. Of course, you still got some gems like this:

“Ya’ll atheist people, ya’ll are gonna die in a burning pit of hell, eternal pit of hellfire. Good luck.”

Aaannnddd this is why I don’t want to go to grad school in the Midwest.

An uncontroversial atheist ad?

You know, maybe we’re being too hard on all the bus companies in Indiana who keep rejecting the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign‘s ad, “You Can Be Good Without God.” I mean, who are we kidding? That’s pretty controversial! Plenty of people think that concept is ludicrous, and an outright lie. We all know the only reason Christians don’t go around killing, raping, and stealing is because of the reward of heaven and the threat of hell. Ask any Christian what they would do if they were suddenly certain that their was no God, and I’m sure they’ll confidently state that they’ll go on a murderous rampage and take part in drunken orgies (two of the favorite past times of atheists).

That in mind, I figured I’d try to help the bus campaign out by coming up with some uncontroversial advertisement.

“This is What Atheists Look Like (insert photo of smiling family)” Woah, way too scare-tacticy there. Atheists can be anywhere and look like normal people while secretly sacrificing goats in their basement? But who will we know to discriminate against?!

“Atheists Are Human Too” Oh wait, apparently Cardinal Cormack Murphy O’Connor thinks atheists are “not fully human” because religion is a human universal. Scratch that idea.

“Atheists Don’t Eat Babies” Well, we know that’s an outright lie, so that’ll never fly.

“Atheists Exist” Hmmm, well, not exactly. I mean, atheists really believe in God, they just hate him, right? And all atheists will repent on their death bed, so they eventually won’t be atheists anymore. And how does that little saying go? Atheists don’t believe in God, so God doesn’t believe in atheists? Oh ho ho, so clever!

“Look, We Don’t Want to Convert Religious People, We Just Want Other Atheists to Know That They’re Not Alone so Stop Freaking Out” But atheists are alone because they have God shaped hole in their heart! They’re lacking Jesus! Actually, this ad is still offensive – I bet those atheists are trying to trick you into converting by getting your guard down!

Hmmm, well I’m running out of ideas now, but I’m sure we’ll eventually come up with an ad that’s not controversial. How about “Atheists are Ignorant Deluded Curmudgeons Bent on Sending Your Children to Hell”? That’s not a controversial message in the US, so it’s obviously okay to stick on a bus. Because what matters more – saying the truth, or trying not to offend people?

More Indiana Atheist Bus drama

First, I apologize if you’re getting sick of hearing about the Indiana Atheist bus campaign…but as an atheist in Indiana, it is important to me, so I’m going to keep blogging about it!

While the campaign was having trouble in Bloomington, the following ad had been approved in South Bend, home to Notre Dame:
The ads had been approved by Burkhart, the advertising agency in charge of bus ads and were supposed to go up on the TRANSPO bus system on Monday the 11th. This was a strategic move to have the ads circulating when President Obama would be in town to give his commencement speech at Notre Dame.

Key words: supposed to

At first the campaign didn’t worry, because their contract includes a five day leeway for putting up the ads. But now they’ve heard back from Burkhart and there’s a bigger problem. Burkhart has an agreement that they can approve ads for TRANSPO, but if the ad is controversial, they must show it for TRANSPO for their approval. Burkhart, apparently being a company full of reasonable human beings, did not find the add controversial, so they never sent it on to be checked. The general manager of TRANSPO read about the Indiana Atheist Bus drama in Bloomington in the newspaper and put the ads on hold. Why?

“The ad was deemed controversial not because of its content, board Chairman Chip Lewis said, but because of the media attention it got in Bloomington. The bus authority in that city declined to post the ads, which prompted a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, claiming the atheists’ First Amendment rights to free speech were being denied. Lewis, in South Bend, said because of the hoopla downstate, Transpo officials want to be sure about posting the ads.”

Ok, let me get this straight. You were originally fine with the content of the ads. You heard the media was freaking out downstate because a bus agency rejected the ads. Scared, you reject the ads yourself. …Wait, what? How the hell is it logical to avoid controversy then to do the same exact thing that caused the initial controversy? Don’t they realize that their rejection is going to cause the same response?

They’re holding a meeting on Monday to approve or reject the ad. While it will be great for it to be approved, it’s still crappy this is happening. It will miss President Obama and all of his media coverage, which was the #1 reason why the campaign decided to run the ads now instead of when class is in session. Even if they eventually run, it will be significantly less effective. Also, it’s being put up outside of their contractual five day leeway period. Why are they even waiting until Monday, if the drama here is potentially missing Obama? Why can’t they meet Thursday through Saturday (Obama’s speech being on Sunday)? Is the board of directors of a bus company in South Bend, Indiana so freaking important and busy that they can’t organize a meeting until Monday? Really?

Sigh. Will we ever see atheist ads in Indiana? Maybe West Lafayette will end up being the first after all.

Boobs and Atheism

Man, I just can’t stop talking about boobs lately.

Anyway, Friendly Atheist shared this idea for the “Atheist Bust Campaign” the other day:

Other than the fact that it’s hard to read (should be one phrase per cup!), I personally thought it was hilarious. Bus. Bust. Har har. A play on words, plus it’s a bit ridiculous – who would expect to see this on a bra if you’re getting hot an heavy with some girl? What a silly way to advertise! Funny, right?

“Do we really need to objectify women to make our case? This seems pretty tasteless to me.”

“I know it seems to be the consensus that anyone calling this sexist needs to “lighten up,” but I’m pretty sure this is exactly what stopped a lot of people from listening to Peta (in addition to a variety of other hypocrisies of course, but this is one reason). Objectification is bad no matter who does it, and it’s especially annoying as a feminist to see another cause I care about wanting to use it in order to reach out to nonbelievers.”

“I find the ad mildly offensive and somewhat humorous, but I’d be much less annoyed if there were another ad showing off a close up of men’s filled out briefs. But then that begs the question of what exactly do a bra and briefs have to do with the message here?”

“For those of you suggesting that the users who rightfully mentioned this should just “lighten up,” I ask–do you really want atheism reflecting such narrow-minded views about gender stereotypes, too? Atheism is supposed to be a part of the movement of intelligible REASON. It’s bad enough the religious are so willing to persecute women for being even remotely sexual and the LGBT community for merely existing. Also, if you disagree that subtle forms of sexism–even sexist humor–can be harmful to women, I suggest you read up on the stereotype threat literature.”

The comments for this post annoy the crap out of me. Yes, you all need to take a fucking chill pill, and that’s coming from a fellow feminist. It was one joke based on a play on words. Maybe if there was a national campaign dedicated to nearly naked skeptic girls without equally nearly naked skeptic dudes, then I’d see the objectification and problem with exploiting female sexuality for advertisement. But it’s not. The Richard Dawkins Foundation isn’t funding it; there’s no grassroots atheist boob effort. Maybe if we had been the “Atheist Class Campaign” the joke would be a booty for the “Atheist Ass Campaign.” “Atheist Dunk Campaign” would be “Atheist Junk Campaign” and we could all stare at some guy’s crotch. My point is, the person who made this image probably wasn’t going out of their way to objectify women – bust just sounded like bus, and the idea of atheist advertisements on bras is ludicrous and funny. I hardly see how a single joke is equivalent to PETA’s trashy campaigns or religious oppression of women and LGTB groups.

Are we not allowed to joke about anything sexual at all because of the fear of not being politically correct? My friends and I make jokes that uber-feminists would consider sexist, but you know what, it’s about context. We’re not making them because we think it’s true that women are dumb or emotional or whatever – we make them because we think it’s ridiculous that people actually do think that way. We’re mocking people’s intolerance. I don’t Feminist Avenger Punch my guy friends when they jokingly tell me to get in the kitchen and make them a sammich. Why? Because I know how to take a joke. If they were the type of males who actually believed that, I wouldn’t be friends with them.

This is why a lot of times I hate calling myself a feminist. I want equal pay, equal opportunities, etc, etc… Why don’t we worry about the big problems instead of flipping out over a joke about a bra? Yes, we should have concerns about the objectification of women in our culture – but when it’s something minor like that, I think we all need to calm the fuck down. I hate the fact that I’ve been told I’m not a “real feminist” because I’m not totally extreme. I had a friend once try to argue with me that shaving your legs was just conforming to the oppressive patriarchal rules, and if I disagreed with her I was just not educated enough to understand. No, I fucking like having smooth legs. It feels good. Even if it’s a symbol of the higher standards of beauty women face, I really don’t care. And that was an argument from someone who wears make up, and I don’t wear any. Should we start a jihad against lipstick because of what it symbolically represents, or try to tackle the bigger problem of women’s self image and social standards of beauty?

That being said, here’s a SMBC that I like to believe was released today especially for this post:
Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go prepare myself for the upcoming feminist flame war. *crawls in her barricade*

IN Atheist Bus News Coverage

WRTV 6News of Indianapolis had a story last night about Bloomington, IN’s rejection of the slogan “You Can Be Good Without Good” for being too controversial.

The lady shaking her head in disgust and saying “You can’t be good without God”? Yeah, that’s why we need this campaign, people. A statement we see as benign and obvious is terrifying to other people.

There’s also a an article online with…dun dun dun…an internet poll! I’ve already emailed it to PZ, but I figured I’d post it as well. Probably the best thing (or worst, if you’re anti-atheist) you can do to advertise something atheist related is have a dumb poll about it. A poll crashing at Pharyngula is way more advertisement than people ignoring it at Digg and Reddit.

What is your opinion of an advertisement rejected by Bloomington officials because its message of “You Can Be Good Without God” was deemed too controversial?

Choice Votes Percentage of 699 Votes
I agree with the advertisement and I think it should be allowed. 292 42%
I don’t agree with the advertisement, but I think it should be allowed. 87 12%
I don’t agree with the advertisement and I don’t think it should be allowed. 287 41%
I agree with the advertisement, but I don’t think it should be allowed. 23 3%
I don’t know. 10 1%

Alright, off to bomb my Physics exam! Woo!

The young exodus from religion

Both Pharyngula and Friendly Atheist have already commented on this lovely new study: Professor Robert Putnam from Harvard has found that the number of young people who have no religious affiliation has skyrocketed to 30% – 40%. Now, these aren’t all necessarily atheists, but one can hope this is the first step for many of them to go down the slippery slope of Heathendom.

When I was about ten years old I confidently told my father that by the time I was 40, no one would go to church anymore. He looked at me shocked (especially since I didn’t know what church was actually for, or who Jesus/God were at the time).

“Why do you think that?” he asked. I told him everyone my age always complains about how much they hate going, so why would they keep doing it when they grow up? He chuckled at me, thinking this was a ridiculous idea, even though he himself was not religious. “We’ll see,” he said sarcastically.

Maybe in 19 years people will still be going to church, but I still consider this trend a victory. Take that, dad!

I also consider this a success for the atheist dating market, though I don’t have to worry about that too much as an atheist chick. Though the odds are good, the goods are odd… or to quote Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, “The male to female ratio, yeah? I mean you have your veritable pick of the litter. You can choose from all kinds of guys who have no idea how to please you.” (Just kidding, male readers! I <3 all of you, and I'm sure us uninhibited atheists win when it comes to being kinky in the sack)