As someone who founded a college atheist group, irrational fear and bigotry from the public is something all too familiar to me. We have to deal with flyers being torn down and idiotic statements on a fairly regular basis. Even though Purdue is a conservative campus, you figure a university is a place where you’re more likely to find open mindedness, freethinking, and at least some level of maturity. I can’t imagine what it would be like having an atheist group at a high school level, dealing with immature students and (sometimes even more immature) members of the community.

Skyler Curtis is dealing with just that at Rising Sun High School in North East, MD.

He noticed that there were different groups in his school, including Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He was recently inspired by atheist bus ads and had the idea of starting a group called Fellowship of Atheist Athletes. He asked a teacher to support his cause and approached the school administration for approval. It seems that the school administrators were concerned with his desire to use the word atheist. Maybe they were afraid that this word A-T-H-E-I-S-T would cause problems. Perhaps they were right. It was agreed that the group would use the name “NonReligious Solutions” or NRS.

I have to applaud the administration for not being complete jerks about the issue. When I was a senior in high school, a lesbian friend of mine tried to start a Gay Straight Alliance. Let’s just say the Principal and administrators did everything in their power to stop us and doom the group to failure. I also have to applaud a teacher for being brave enough to sponsor the group. Many teachers are too afraid to be associated with controversial groups because of the alienation they may face from the rest of the staff.

But of course, that’s where the nice part of the story ends.

Skyler got permission to put up flyers around the school. They only lasted a couple of hours before being torn down or vandalized. What did these horrible, antagonist heathen flyers look like?I’m pretty sure the thought process of his peers and community went something like “Oohh nooo! I can feel my faith crumbling because I know atheists exist! I better threaten him and act like a jackass before Baby Jesus cries any more!” And act like jackasses they did. In addition to the usually name calling common to high schoolers, Skyler has received threats:

I was told by a fellow peer that he would “Jack me up” and that he was not afraid of me because he was a “Crusader.”

Christians at his school have made an Anti-NRS page on Facebook, and the migraine-inducing letters to the editor have begun:
…

1. Either the daughter or parent is too ignorant to get the freaking name of the club correct. We can tell what kind of standard of intellectual integrity we’re dealing with here.
2. Official school clubs are allowed to post flyers. He didn’t slap them around willy nilly without permission. If this person’s daughter wants to start a Catholic club, then she will be able to post flyers as well.
3. “I have God on my side and you’ll lose.” And apparently this guy has the emotional maturity of a 5 year old. Yippee.

This really demonstrates why we so desperately need these sorts of clubs, whether they be for high schoolers, college students, or “adults.” People can feel horribly alone before they realize they’re not the only atheist around. Groups make great support networks where people can discuss common themes and not feel completely alienated by all the religious organizations.

And with these groups comes visibility for atheists. Students and parents are shocked not because this group is saying anything mean or against religion – they’re merely saying that they exist. People are terrified of that. Knowing someone believes differently than you can shake your faith, or make you worried about the faith of your children. People aren’t going to start accepting atheists until they realize that we’re everywhere and that we’re normal, moral human beings.

To Skyler, hang in there! There will be times where you take so much flack that you’ll wonder if it’s worth it. You have to remember that you’re doing a wonderful thing and making your community a better place for atheists in the future.

If you want to support Skyler and the NRS, you can join their Facebook group.
(Via Skeptic Money)

Today the Journal & Courier has a piece called “Atheism makes nonbelief known on campuses,” which features the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University (which I’m President and co-founder of, if you haven’t figured that out by now). It’s a fairly long piece, and I’m very happy for the coverage. The reporter basically emailed me out of the blue saying he saw the Secular Student Alliance‘s press release on the growing number of atheist groups (which was kind of a while ago, little slow I guess), and he wanted to feature ours. Some snippets:

At Purdue University, the Society of Non-theists held a “Fiction for Fiction” event. People could trade in religious texts, including Bibles and the Koran, for fiction novels.

As the stigma of atheism has diminished, campus atheists and agnostics have heightened their profile, fueling a sharp rise in the number of campus clubs in the mold of the Society of Non-Theists.

“The main reason I founded the club is because I felt so alone,” said Jennifer McCreight, a Purdue senior from Munster. “I thought I was the only atheist at Purdue. I quickly learned that was not the case.

“I now am surrounded by people that I feel comfortable sharing my lack of belief with. It’s a relief to have that safe haven when the many people at Purdue and in the U.S. react so negatively and threateningly toward non-theism.”

McCreight said the Purdue group is affiliated with the Secular Student Alliance. Nationally, campus affiliates have grown from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall.

Man, I soooo prefer email interviews to phone interviews. Look, I actually sound moderately intelligent when I get to type my responses, and it pretty much eliminates the ability to misquote!

Overall, I’m happy with the article. Like I said, they wanted to cover us completely out of the blue, and I think any advertisement we can get is a good thing. It’s a pity that it comes at the end of the semester when we won’t have any knew events for a month, but here’s to hoping people join our mailing list or something. I’m also glad that they highlighted some of our philanthropic events too – Secular Service Day and our food drive participation – because it makes us seem less like a bunch of cranky religion haters.

I do have a quibble, though (I always have something to complain about, don’t I?). This is the last third of the article:

The Rev. Patrick Baikauskas said he is praying for the Purdue Non-Theists to “find their way back to church.” He is the new pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Center at Purdue.

“There is a lot of seeking going on. There should be,” he said. “They are looking at a lot of things. They don’t want to believe just because their parents want them to.”

The Dominican priest said St. Tom’s campus ministry is stronger than ever. He estimated that 7,000 people worshipped in the church at various times on Ash Wednesday to start Lent. He said weekend Masses also are well-attended.

He said a recent discernment session was offered at St. Tom’s for young men wanting to find out more about the priesthood or religious life. Eighteen men attended. Past sessions have drawn only a handful of men, he said.

“All of them won’t become priests, but I thought that was a great turnout,” Baikauskas said.

Oh, where to begin.

1. I hate the patronizing nature of the Reverend’s quotes. Yep, we’re all just foolish children in a phase and rebelling against our parents. Bull. Shit. First of all, a number of us (like myself) come from families who didn’t feel the need to indoctrinate us in religion, so we don’t have a church to “find our way back to.” Yep, not everyone is raised in Christianity – shocker! Second of all, our members are some of the most intelligent people you’re going to find on campus. Many know more about religion than theists, and all have put thought into their non-theism. This isn’t some random decision we made to piss off mommy and daddy – most of us have put years and years of deep thought behind our non-theism.

2. Why does an article, which is supposed to be featuring atheism and our group, get the last third devoted to religion? What does our local Catholic church have to do with anything? Why did they get to list their numbers, but they didn’t mention that the Society has over 400 people on our mailing list after just over two years? When they do an article on the growing number of mass attendees, are they going to email me so I can poo-poo their beliefs and then talk about how awesome atheism is? I don’t think so. It seems like bad reporting to include this in a feature, when another side doesn’t need to be present, but it’s even more annoying since the reporter told me how awesome our responses were and how he wouldn’t be able to fit them all. Maybe if he cut out the irrelevant religious stuff, he could have.

3. They give links to our facebook page and twitter…but not our main website. We hardly ever use FB or twitter, and I only provided the link to our main website, so I have no idea how that happened. Advertising fail.

Alright, my complaints just took up more space than my praise, but I really am happy we got the article at all. We don’t get covered in the Journal & Courier a lot, so hopefully a lot of local non-theists will see this. Oh, and I get to spend the rest of the day reading the comments on the article, which always provides me with depressing amusement. Already have someone there telling me I can’t be good without God, woo.