***Update***: Ray Comfort has agreed to do an email interview for this site. Please leave your questions in the comments and I’ll pass them along to him.
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Ray Comfortlied about when he would be distributing his anti-evolution version of On the Origin of Species on college campuses. He had said he would be doing the deed today. But….
We had a change of plans. We went in on the 18th.
Was it pre-planned or a last-second change? I don’t know.
In any case, copies of his book are out and we’ve learned quite a bit:
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It seems he (and his followers) appeared at number of campuses which were not on his original list of 50 schools.
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The font size of Comfort’s section is far larger than Darwin’s words:
Is it significant? Not necessarily, but there’s no reason you couldn’t have kept the same font size throughout. The only reason I can think of to increase the font for Comfort’s section is so it stretches to 50+ pages.
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Comfort included several pictures in his section of the book.
The single picture that Darwin included in his original version of On the Origin of Species was omitted.
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Many of the Secular Student Alliance’s affiliates had planned counter-events to this campaign. The date change meant some groups had to either revise their plans or hold their activities a day later.
So I’m particularly pleased with the SSA’s press release regarding this issue:
“We’re sorry that Mr. Comfort felt he had to mislead everyone just to avoid the counter-efforts of our campus groups,” said August Brunsman, Executive Director of the Secular Student Alliance. “Apparently he thought his deception would only work if nobody was around to tell the truth”…
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In an attempt to prevent the ministry from tricking college students, the Secular Student Alliance national office assisted affiliated college groups to schedule protests, host speakers, write letters to the editor, show films, and distribute the original version of Darwin’s 150-year old masterpiece. Their plans will go forward despite Comfort’s sudden, unexplained change of dates. The Secular Student Alliance has collected resources to counter Living Waters’ efforts at http://www.secularstudents.org/originintoschools.
“The best way to defeat misinformation is with education,” said Brunsman. “We would have loved to have a peaceful exchange of ideas with the ministry, but we’ll settle for having the last word in students’ minds.”
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Some people, like Atticus Hannah, found ways to pick up several copies of the book:
I set out to do all I could to keep this immorality away from youngling college students. So I put on my hat, grabbed two bags, tossed on a sweatshirt and headed out to the Ray Comfort people handing out free books at the U. I walked past the first group of people and got a book. I walked past the second group, got a book. I walked past the third group, got a book. Fourth group, book. Fifth, book. Then I doubled around, took off my sweatshirt and hat, and repeated…
I walked away with 22 books. One of which is actually for one of my roommates, one of which is for me. Stitch, in the picture, is posing with all 22 of them.
So, congrats to you Ray Comfort. You have truly surpassed all previous Attie award winners. You have publically slandered a man (Darwin), you have made all Christians look like ignorant boobs, and worst of all, you have caused people to question the validity of Christ through your dishonesty. You were in the zone today, my friend.
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This just creeps me out… (with Spencer Fern, secretary of the [UCLA] Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists secretary).
If you live within driving distance of Missouri State University (Springfield, Missouri) and you want to meet/listen to some of the biggest names in skepticism and atheism, consider attending Skepticon II this weekend!
Several months ago, Dano Johnson (the director of the wonderful, animated version of Flatland) and I began to talk about making a video in support of the Secular Student Alliance. He volunteered his services at no charge and stuck with us even when we requested changes late in the game.
I’ll spare you all the additional details that get discussed when this sort of video gets made Needless to say, we had a lot of talks about the content and I hope it’s worth the effort that Dano’s team put into it.
I think he did a wonderful job and I am proud to finally share the final product with everyone:
If you like it, please share it with others!
Remember: The SSA is still ~$5,000 away from meeting the Todd Stiefel $50,000 match. The thermometer in the righthand sidebar shows our progress and you can help us get to the top!
Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron will soon be distributing copies of Darwin’s masterpiece (along with a Creationist introduction) at campuses across the country.
I don’t think that’ll go over so well… many college students (though not all) are capable of thinking for themselves and that’s not good for Cameron or Comfort, who need you to follow them where the evidence doesn’t lead.
This cycle and the reaction to it earned the group lots of great publicity. And now, they’re able to spread their message to a larger audience:
[AAA president Sam] Arnold said AAA’s mission has two parts.
“We want to create a social hub for secular students,” Arnold said. “We also want to increase awareness and acceptance of nonreligious worldviews in the UA community.”
Caitlin McClusky, a sophomore majoring in anthropology and a member of AAA, said she joined to be with people with similar views.
“I’ve been agnostic all my life, and I’ve been in Alabama all my life, and it’s been pretty hard,” McClusky said. “It’s really important to have something like this in a university setting and have discourse on this. People need to know it’s okay.”
You’ll all be happy to know that this conversation took place in my classroom yesterday:
Me: …and that’s how you do a Geometry proof. Any questions?
[Male student raises hand]
Me: Yes…?
Student How does a tampon work? I can’t figure it out!
Me: FML…
Good times.
On top of that, I was at school all night for parent-teacher conferences. So I’m a little exhausted.
I did have some exciting news to share about the current SSA fundraiser and I posted that below.
For the rest of today, though, I’m turning the blog over to my friend, Jesse Galef, who will offer a few postings of his own.
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We are almost there.
You see the thermometer in the side bar. We’ve gotten contributions, large and small, from so many people and we’re unbelievably close to reaching the $50,000 mark set by Todd Stiefel when he made his matching offer.
Todd told us the deadline was December 21st. We felt there was a lot of support for us out there, but to raise that much money in only 2.5 months was an admittedly daunting task.
Is it possible to raise it all within a single month…?
Please help us get there and make the campus environment a safer haven for student activism, expressions of freethought, and intelligent conversations about religion.
The Campaign for Free Expression (a part of the Center For Inquiry, and along with the Council for Secular Humanism) is holding an essay contest to promote it’s beliefs on “the right of individuals to express their viewpoints, opinions, and beliefs about all subjects — especially religion.”
You must be a college student. Winner gets $2,000. The deadline in January 5th, 2010.
The topic: The Importance of Free Expression and Its Limits (If Any).
Each entry must address the question of what limits national governments or recognized international bodies, such as the United Nations, may justifiably place on free expression.
More than two years after The New Humanism conference at Harvard and coinciding with the release of Humanist chaplain Greg Epstein’s new book, Good Without God, the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University is putting out a new online magazine:
The New Humanism is an online magazine meant to explore and help pioneer new ways of bringing Humanists, atheists, agnostics and the nonreligious together to build a movement that can make a lasting and far-reaching positive impact. In short, we are interested in anything that is good, without God.
I love the concept, though I’m not yet convinced it’s a mindset that a lot of atheists will want to adopt.
A look at a few of the articles and I feel like they’re just setting themselves up for a backlash from the more vocal non-theists:
Since June, we’ve met about twice a month on Saturday mornings at the Harvard Science Center. After introductions and personal check-ins, we meditate for about half an hour, and then talk about what the experience was like, and what we think about it.
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We’re walking a fine line here, trying to appropriate practices associated with religions without buying into their discredited metaphysics or otherwise losing our secular bearings. We welcome debate about how to separate the wheat from the chaff — what we should and shouldn’t make use of as Humanists.
Many of the organizations that represent nonbelievers use words like “reason” or “rational” in their titles. That serves us well as a counterpoint to “faith.” However, as some dictionary definitions equate reason with logic, one might gain the impression that we reject emotions as well. In fact, feelings are essential to human flourishing and optimal decision-making. Emotions, especially joy, have a place in Humanism.
A little too touchy-feely? For me, yes.
It’s not all flowers and rainbows, though. The articles are interesting and I’d like to see this magazine continue even after Greg’s book is an afterthought.
I wonder if it would be more effective as an actual print publication — a quarterly or annual magazine that could be sent to Humanist (and student) groups around the country for a very low cost. The articles don’t quite function as blog postings, but they are exactly the type of reading you want to share with people who are making the transition into atheism.
This is a program I’ve been eagerly looking forward to ever since we began discussing it.
Last year, the Secular Student Alliance and the Secular Coalition for America began talking about getting non-religious students up on Capitol Hill. It was a service the SSA wanted to offer students and it was a key reason we were eager to help form the SCA in the first place several years ago.
Our thinking was: how amazing would it be to get our students positions as interns in Washington, D.C. over the summer? What if they could work with the Secular Coalition and lobby alongside them?
Could it lead to a generation of non-theists eager to get involved in politics? Perhaps even persuade them to run for office one day?
The Christian Right has been doing this for generations. Just read this 2004 New York Times piece about the fundamentalist Patrick Henry College:
Of the nearly 100 interns working in the White House this semester, 7 are from the roughly 240 students enrolled in the four-year-old Patrick Henry College, in Purcellville. An eighth intern works for the president’s re-election campaign. A former Patrick Henry intern now works on the paid staff of the president’s top political adviser, Karl Rove. Over the last four years, 22 conservative members of Congress have employed one or more Patrick Henry interns in their offices or on their campaigns, according to the school’s records.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We need to get our own people — rational, science-oriented, equal-rights-for-all-advocating people — working in D.C.
While we can’t guarantee that you’ll land an internship on Capitol Hill, the Secular Coalition will work with you to get your resume and cover letter through the door to elected offices and do everything in our power to help you land a highly coveted internship on Capitol Hill.
Applicants who are accepted for internships will then officially become part of our Capitol Hill Scholars Program, where we will offer you fantastic learning and networking opportunities and the tools and skills you need to be a nontheist advocate on Capitol Hill.
We also hope to offer a stipend for students who are part of the Scholars Program based on financial need.
If I were still in college, I would be jumping at this opportunity. The chance to do something meaningful, the chance to advocate for issues I care about, the chance to make professional contacts? Hands down, this would be a fantastic way to spend my summer.
The SSA and the SCA will be developing this program over the next few years, but there’s no better time to get involved in Washington. It’s an exciting time to be an atheist for a variety of reasons, but the chance to get a seat at the table on Capitol Hill is one I never thought would come this soon.
Secular Student Alliance Member Todd Stiefel has agreed to match all donations to us by 12/21/2009 up to a total of $50,000. Double the value of your support and help us get the whole match by donating now.
Needless to say, we had a lot of talks about the content and I hope it’s worth the effort that 
