Godless students, combine!

The Secular Student Alliance is having their annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio on 29-31 July. You should go — it’s relatively cheap, it has some cool atheist leaders and me giving talks, and it’s a fantastic opportunity to network and find out how other student organizations are operating.

I’m a college professor, so it’ll just be like my regular year. I’ll drone on, smack a few of you with a ruler, and make you take a test before I let you leave. Doesn’t that sound like fun? People pay thousands of dollars for that privilege!

A beautiful mind

I am not a fan of beauty pageants, especially after hearing about the preliminary questions in the Miss USA contest. The women were asked if evolution should be taught in US schools. Only two of the 51 contestants could bring themselves to answer yes.

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But here’s the good news: one of those two was the ultimate winner.

The newly crowned Miss USA, Alyssa Campanella, 21, of Los Angeles, who calls herself “a huge science geek,” says evolution should be taught in public schools.

…

Before her victory night, Miss California earned her way into the semi-finals in preliminary judging including interviews in which she was one of only two among 51 contestants to unequivocally support teaching evolution.

I suppose the photo is redundant. I already like her for her brain. How about if we judge all future Miss Americas by their performance on a test of general knowledge?

You really don’t want to know how the other 49 answered the question.

Canadians aren’t all nice and polite, except for the godless ones

Some team in Canada won the Stanley Cup, which prompted happy revelers to…riot and destroy public property? I have never understood that behavior; when something good happens in my life, I’ve just never felt the slightest desire to celebrate by setting a police car on fire.

I shall now embarrass all the good Canadians by showing a video of Canadians behaving very, very badly.

All honor is not lost, however: one reporter documented the Vancouver riots, and then found refuge in a bar full of sensible atheists.

I walked to the back toward windows looking down on the street and met a posse of friendly atheist gamers who asked how it was outside. We watched some videos on my phone, ordered a pitcher of beer, then hung out for hours chatting away about all sorts of things until the streets looked a lot more clear.

Good on Caustic Soda for representing the better side of Canada and atheism!

Oops. I’ve been informed that the Canadian team lost a hockey game, which, of course, justifies city-wide rioting and flaming cars in the street. My error.

Good Texans

I often pick on Texas — that is one screwed-up, backwards, insane state, you know — but just for a change I thought I’d mention a few good people working there and doing what they can to improve the dump.

  • Aron Ra, of course, who is one of the best purveyors of scientific information on youtube.

  • Dr Michael Soto, who is on the Texas State Board of Education and is one of the few people there who promotes teaching kids good science instead of that hackneyed medieval crapola other board members peddle. Keep him on the board, please, and elect more like him.

  • All the scientists working in Texas universities who do a fine job doing and teaching science. To represent them all, I’ll just cite the biology department at Sam Houston State University, which goes against the political grain and makes a clear statement about evolution:

    We unequivocally support evolutionary theory, which has gained unwavering support by scientists who acknowledge that scientific validity comes only as a result of hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and replication by others. It is this respect for the scientific method and scholastic integrity that has convinced the scientific community that evolutionary theory and the work of Charles Darwin are one of the most important of our time.

    In short, we acknowledge that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (Dobzhansky 1973).

  • All the fierce readers of Pharyngula from Texas who are fighting the good fight. You can take a bow in the comments.

Keep on battling!

All right, because everybody is reminding me in the comments, I’ll also recommend The Atheist Experience. I wasn’t trying to be exhaustive, there’s a swarm of good Texans out there!

I was lost, and then I was found

I received two packages the other day. The first was a substantial box, and when I opened it, I discovered a Bible, something called the Amplified Bible, a CD called “He is exalted” with recorded sermons just in case I was illiterate, a bookmark with a quote from Proverbs, a thank you note for allowing them to share the word of god with me today, and a copy of Bill Wiese’s “23 Minutes in Hell”, which purportedly documents in graphic detail an account of the author’s brief sojourn in Hell, just in case the nice approach didn’t work on me. Apparently someone decided to buy the missionary package from some commercial gospel outfit and send it to me.

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Wow. Look at all that slick stuff, all just for me, because someone loves and cares for me so much.

Well, you can guess what happened next. I converted. I found Jesus in a box of cheesy books from a religious supply house. How could I not? That’s what it was all for, wasn’t it? I’m sure when someone waves a Bible at you, you find it irresistibly persuasive, right?

So then I turned to my second package, a slim and floppy thing, hardly impressive next to that box. But within it, I found a message…a message I needed to hear, that was perfect after my sudden conversion: SAVE YOURSELF, MAMMAL.

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Yes.

Hallelujah, I said. I will save myself. I don’t need any gods or fairy tales, I will save myself. And mine eyes were opened, and I saw the glory. And I read the funny pages therein, and they were profane and twisted and hilarious, and I did fall on my knees and praise Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. The box is forgotten, totally displaced by one slim treasure of great truth.

And that is how Zach Weiner saved my life and my sanity.

Hmmm. He does look like a kind of skinny Nordic Jesus, doesn’t he?

It’s Father’s Day!

My wife remembered, so she sent me a video that reminded her of all the things I’ve done as a parent: the egg tending, the fungus gnawing, the battling of the interlopers, the affectionate clashing of chelicerae. See, this is what fatherhood is all about.

In case that’s not enough for you, National Geographic has a paternal gallery. None quite as adorable as me, but the cockroach does come close.

Twitter is useless! And Deepak Chopra is cunningly evil!

I have a Twitter account, and there’s nothing special about it except one nuisance: Dennis Markuze/David Mabus spams it constantly, creating dozens of new accounts every day and sending me hundreds of messages every day, typically repetitive stuff on the lines of “You are a NAZI!” and “We’re going to chop your head off!” It’s awesomely tedious drivel, fortunately easily handled by a single click to block each account, causing all of the noise to quickly disappear.

Unfortunately, I have now also attracted the attention of another kook, Deepak Chopra. He recently wrote:

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Did you know that Deepak Chopra has half a million followers on Twitter? Half a million gullible, credulous, voluble, whiny, mindless, woo-loving followers — and many of them have been babbling at me, saying stuff like “You are all bound by attachment to individuality, preferences and conceptual thought”, and “Fervent emotion is reflective of the defense of a personal viewpoint (ego)”, and “scientific extremists are just like religious extremists – stubborn and closed minded”, and “I just revert to this thinking: Wait til they see their angels as they transition. Everyone transitions into love” and “i think some one should let go his big profesore EGO ;) Have it you SNOB ;-DDD You such a slaver of your self ;)” and so, so much more. All night long, all day long.

I have been given the curse of Chopra. I am being flooded with the twitterings of banal idiots. Sandbags! I need more sandbags!

Oh, and Chopra on Twitter is just as brainless as he is everywhere else. A sample:

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Aaargh! I am not a subatomic particle, and someday, I will die, even while people are watching and machines are monitoring me. This is more quantum nonsense.

Although, if ever I meet this goon, I know how to frighten him: I’ll close my eyes and cover my face with my hands, and then he’ll panic over the idea that he might suddenly decay.