Christian group: I hate religion because…

No, this isn’t some religious rant from me. A religious student group at Purdue, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, invited me and other members of the Non-Theists to an event they were holding today on Memorial Mall. They had a black board with “I HATE RELIGION BECAUSE…” written in large red letters, and invited students to write their opinions on the board.I ended up talking to some of them for a while (even though it was really cold outside, boo Indiana weather), especially the pastor who works with the group. He explained that they wanted to generate discussion about religion so they could learn from the different viewpoints and think about why some people dislike religion. Much like our Blasphemy Day event, they wanted to let people know it was okay to criticize religion – in fact, they encourage it. They don’t want people to blindly accept what they may have grown up with, be it Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, atheism. College is a place to question things and learn about different beliefs, and that applies to religion as well.

While they said no one was disrespectful, they were sad about some of the things written on the boards…not because they were mean, but because they were true about far too many religious people. Hatred of gays, lack of acceptance of science, judging others, being hypocritical…these are all things they concede that some Christians do in fact do. This group was more of the “Christianity is about a personal relationship with God, not organized religion, just love everyone and be a good person” thing. While I still don’t agree with the supernatural aspects (we had a long discussion about my atheism*), I really don’t mind these types of theists. They’re all about being moral people and loving others, and recognize you don’t need their brand of Christianity to be moral (and eagerly agreed that atheists can be moral).

Though, this one (temporary) counter protester amused me…
Why temporary?

Him: I actually came out because I thought they were those Non-Theists saying bad stuff about religion.
Me: I’m the President of the Non-Theists.
Him: …Oh.

After his initial embarrassment, he was actually pretty nice to talk to. I tried to make a point that we can dislike some aspects of religion but still like religious people – that we’re not just a bunch of cranky rabid anti-theists. I think I made my point, since he was friendly when I left.

EDIT: See that part that’s scribbled out? Apparently a friend of mine wrote “It’s okay to be gay” there, and the guy didn’t like it so much. Yeah, great Christian tolerance there.

I made one comment that I think the event’s organizers hadn’t thought of, and they were intrigued by. When the Non-Theists do a practically identical event – actually, more innocuous because we didn’t have “I hate religion because…” as the prompt, we just let people write whatever we want – people see us as hateful. “Why are those cranky, meany-head atheists going around criticizing religion? Can’t they just leave us alone?” But when a Christian group does the same exact thing, they’re praised for it. “Yes, we should definitely be critical of hateful, ridiculous things in religion! Speak up, question things!” It’s a double standard that really shows people’s biases.

If you’d like to see what people wrote, click the close ups of the signs below. Can you guess which one is mine?
*It always amuses me when I introduce myself as an atheist to religious people. 90% of the time there’s a look of awe/confusion, then they ask me why I’m an atheist. I really need to come up with a concise reply, but there isn’t one. My atheism, like most others, developed over decades and took a lot more thought than can be summarized in a short conversation. I generally try to explain my atheism as a null hypothesis, but non-scientists don’t really appreciate that. I also had to explain how my atheism is not a faith, what purpose there is to life (none, more shocked looks), and the other general things you hear over and over again… At least they were very thoughtful about my replies.

Tony Blair: Atheists as bad as terrorists?

The Times reports on Tony Blair’s recent speech at Georgetown University, where he had some strong words to say about the irreligious:

“We face an aggressive secular attack from without. We face the threat of extremism from within.”

Arguing that there was “no hope” from atheists who scorn God, he said the best way to confront the secularist agenda was for all faiths to unite against it.

He said: “Those who scorn God and those who do violence in God’s name, both represent views of religion. But both offer no hope for faith in the twenty first century.”

Yet another example of “As long as you’re believe in something, that’s okay.” It’s troubling when such a prominent politician feel the need to attack non-theists and compare us to religious extremists. When’s the last time an atheist has flown a plane into a building, or performed a suicide bombing? The only thing we attack is illogical, delusional thinking, and in that regard he’s right – we’re a threat. For a man in the running for the President of the European Council, you think he’d be a little more sensitive…you know, since Europe has a gigantic amount of nonbelievers.

(Via Gulf Stream Blues)

Colbert wants to be in the conservative bible, Conservapedia explodes

By now you’ve probably heard of Conservapedia’s hilarious idea to edit the Bible to remove liberal bias. Because you know, gender inclusive language, using the word “comrade”, and a lack of parables about free market are horrible things caused by the liberal media. While most people have been ridiculing this, they do have one strong supporter: Stephen Colbert. He supports it so much, that he asked his viewers to go edit Conservapedia so he can be a Biblical figure.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Tip/Wag – Conservapedia, Louvre & Honda Unicycle
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

His fans were so excited to spread the conservative gospel of Stephen Colbert that Conservapedia crashed within minutes of his request. Unfortunately, Conservapedia didn’t keep any of their edits. How sad. I mean, Stephen Colbert as a biblical figure is just as accurate as what they plan to do with the Bible – why not let us help out?

Jesus Camp shuts down

EDIT: Wow, blogging fail, guys. Apparently this article was from 2006. I blame trying to post this before hurrying off to class…and reddit. Damn you, reddit.

From Christianity Today:

The camp featured in the controversial documentary Jesus Camp will shut down due to negative response from the film, according to camp director Becky Fischer.

The documentary spotlights Kids on Fire, a charismatic summer camp where evangelical children are recruited to “God’s army.” The children who attend the camp are shown shaking and sobbing over abortion and praying over a cardboard cutout of President Bush.

The camp takes place at a rented facility in Devil’s Lake, N.D., but Fischer said the owners of the campground asked her not to return after vandals caused $1,500 in damage in October.

Fischer told CT she would have made the decision to shut the camp regardless, because she is worried about people who would attend simply to disrupt the camp. Since the film’s release, she has been bombarded with e-mails and phone calls.

“Christians go after me because of doctrinal issues, whereas the world is going after me because they think I’m another Adolf Hitler,” she said. “They’re accusing me of raising a Christian jihad.”

I’m disappointed people have felt the need to vandalize the camp, and that they feel like they need to shut down due to fear of disruption. That is never a good way to handle situations, even if you vehemently disagree with them. However, I have to say I’m kind of happy this camp will no longer exist. If you haven’t seen the movie (which you should), the indoctrination of children that goes on there is terrifying. This isn’t just some Christian summer camp where they sing kumbaya and occasionally mention God…this is creating a Christian jihad.

Of course, it’s probably only a matter of time before another one pops up to replace it…

Review of my Creation Museum talk at Ken Ham’s blog

Ken Ham again is talking about my Creation Museum presentation over at his blog. He posted some commentary by Brent Aucoin, the pastor who attended my talk and has commented a bit here. I think Brent was pretty fair in his description, even though we ultimately disagree on the validity of the scriptures and the Creation Museum’s message. I’m also glad that he’s passing judgment after actually seeing my talk, rather than Ken Ham who called me a godless atheist (redundancy, anyone?) who presented that Christianity is bad. That’s a whole other debate, and not something I discussed in my talk. I guess Ham was too busy globe trotting to read my email where I linked him to my blog and the video of my talk…oh well.

Review of my Creation Museum talk at Ken Ham's blog

Ken Ham again is talking about my Creation Museum presentation over at his blog. He posted some commentary by Brent Aucoin, the pastor who attended my talk and has commented a bit here. I think Brent was pretty fair in his description, even though we ultimately disagree on the validity of the scriptures and the Creation Museum’s message. I’m also glad that he’s passing judgment after actually seeing my talk, rather than Ken Ham who called me a godless atheist (redundancy, anyone?) who presented that Christianity is bad. That’s a whole other debate, and not something I discussed in my talk. I guess Ham was too busy globe trotting to read my email where I linked him to my blog and the video of my talk…oh well.

Our Blasphemy Day gets positive press in student newspaper

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.