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.

…

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.

We’re less than $8,000 away from our goal.

You can help us cross the mark.

Todd told us the deadline was December 21^st. 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…?

I don’t know what I’d do.

It may involve more dancing.

Please help us get there and make the campus environment a safer haven for student activism, expressions of freethought, and intelligent conversations about religion.

You must be a college student. Winner gets $2,000. The deadline in January 5^th, 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.

All the information is here.

Good luck! And when you win, feel free to send me a cut of the money

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:

Why More Humanists Should Meditate

…

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.

…

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.

A Place for the Emotions in Humanism

…

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.

(Thanks to Jonathan for the link!)

The first segment focuses on Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein.

The second, on the Boston Atheists.

The third, on Bostonian Woody Kaplan (Advisory Board chair for the Secular Coalition for America and the focus of the Kay Hagan campaign controversy during last year’s senate race).

The fourth, on the Boston University Atheists and Secular Humanists, an affiliate of the Secular Student Alliance.

I love how they report the results of a crashed poll at the end of segment four

Unfortunately, I can’t embed anything, but the segments were excellent. Go check them out.

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.

We’re finally ready to launch that program.

We want secular college students to apply for the Secular Coalition for America’s Capitol Hill Scholars Program.

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.

Donations for the Todd Stiefel $50,000 Challenge have come in from a variety of sources.

1) ChipIn

The widget says that the total amount of donations have been $3287 as I write this.

2) Individual Contributions

Donations directly to the SSA via check or credit card have totaled a few thousand dollars.

3) Foundation/Organization Contributions

We’ve received a $10,000 gift from the TAUPO fund and a $5,000 pledge from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

In total, we’ve earned just over $17,000 so far (not including the RDFRS pledge), but we still have a long way to go.

You can see the thermometer rising on the SSA’s website.

We have until December 21^st to meet the match. Your help is needed and appreciated!

***Update***: If you’re planning to book any flights/hotels/cars in the future, please use this link as your gateway. If you find that you’re paying the same amount you would elsewhere, and you purchase it from that link, the SSA will receive a portion of the purchase price.

There are currently more 18-25-year-olds who are not affiliated with any religion than ever before.

The Secular Student Alliance has grown faster this year than at any time in our ten-year history. You can see where the following curve is heading:

Our campus groups have made the front page of The New York Times and been featured in major magazine articles; visited New Orleans to do community service work; spearheaded consciousness-raising bus campaigns; and brought Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins, and several other speakers to their universities.

Our staff has fostered this climate for growth, created a resources for educators and a fantastic brochure (PDF) for high school teachers who may have non-religious students in their classroom. They organized a conference for over 100 secular students and a trip to the Creation Museum (with special guest PZ Myers) for 300 skeptics who left the museum armed with knowledge of its misinformation campaign, able to spread the message. They are currently developing three separate student conferences for 2010, all over the country.

I just read through our annual activity summary (PDF) and was amazed by how much our staff has done with relatively few resources and how much our affiliate groups have accomplished.

I can’t stress this enough: when I say “our staff,” I’m only referring to two full-time staff members (who are seriously underpaid) and a handful of interns and volunteers. We’re reaching the breaking point where our level of growth is surpassing our ability to support the groups adequately. We need at least one other staffer and the board would love to be able to pay all staffers closer to what they’re really worth.

As it happens, we have a chance to remedy this.

An SSA member/donor named Todd Stiefel has presented us with a challenge:

Any amount we raise — up to $50,000 — by December 21^st, he will match dollar-for-dollar.

In other words, your $20 contribution will bring the SSA $40. Todd’s not kidding about that dollar-for-dollar thing, either. (It’s not like we can raise $3,000 and he’ll give us the whole $50,000 amount anyway.)

This means we have a little over two months to raise an incredible amount of money — a larger amount than we’ve ever had to raise before.

The SSA staff and board are going to be doing everything we can to make this happen — meeting donors, writing letters, etc.

We could use your help, though.

If you’ve never given before, we could use your contribution now more than ever. If you have given before, your continuing support would help us even more!

If you haven’t told your friends about the Secular Student Alliance, please tell them who we are and what we do. We’re the largest organization in the world starting, supporting, and maintaining campus atheist groups. We have the ear of the White House. We helped found the Secular Coalition for America and continue to be a proud member of that group. We are also a 501(c)(3) non-profit and donations are tax-deductible.

If you have a blog or Twitter feed or Facebook, please spread the word about this challenge.

If you have any questions about the SSA, I would love to answer them in the comments below.

In the meantime, I’ll be giving updates on how we’re doing over the next several weeks.

It would be incredible if we could meet this goal.

I’m putting a ChipIn widget below (feel free to put it on your site), but you can give to us in a variety of ways.

Can you help us?

In honor of it, the Campus Crusade for Christ chapter at Indiana University – Bloomington prayed for 24 straight hours…

The Secular Alliance of IU had a response ready to go. They put up flyers advertising their upcoming meetings that countered the notion that the prayers would be helpful to others:

Beautiful. It’s not just talk, either. SAIU has service projects in the works:

SAIU plans on having multiple events throughout the semester which focus on the idea that “you can be good without God.” Service events in conjunction with Pages to Prisoners and Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard have been planned so that members can reach out to the Bloomington community.

It’s hard for me to talk about this without making snarky comments.

The choice seems clear: Students who want to help make the community a better place should join the SAIU. They take action. Students who want to ask a god to do the work for them can join Campus Crusade.

Next year, I’d love to see SAIU mount a real challenge. Do a 24-hour service project while the prayers are in session. Build something. Fix something. Raise money for a good cause. Anything like that. It would be a perfect, stark contrast to a day-long prayer session.

Dear Richard,

I am a senior in high school and I am preparing to start the college admissions process. A few of the colleges that I am planning on applying to use the Common Application. The essay for the Common App is open-ended and can be written on any topic of choice.

I am contemplating writing about my experiences as a teenage atheist for the subject of this essay. I am not planning on explaining the reasons why I’m an atheist or even talk about atheism itself. I simply want to share how being a minority has affected my life by sharing my experiences. I think that it would be a very personal and sincere essay and it would allow the schools to see who I really am.

At the same time, however, I am worried about the potential for discrimination. I feel that it is risky to even mention the fact that I don’t believe in God to the people who are paid to judge my character and who also have influence over my future. Surely they have received plenty of similar essays from racial minorities sharing their experiences, but I’m not sure how they would react to an atheist doing the same.

Coincidentally, the Common App colleges that I am applying to are also my “reach” schools, so I am willing to take more of a risk with their essays. I have also done some research, and each one of these schools has a student group that is affiliated the Secular Student Alliance. Still, I am hesitant about risking my chances for admission due to my essay topic selection.

So far, I have only found very limited advice on the internet and most of it recommends avoiding the subject of religion, especially atheism. Any additional advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
College-Bound Student

Dear College-Bound,

Ah, the eternal struggle between principles and pragmatism, what ought to be vs. what works. In principle, you should be able to write about “any topic of choice,” just as it says on the application. But pragmatically, with that particular topic, you’re taking a chance that you’ll be denied an acceptance regardless of how well it is written.

In principle, with an open-ended topic the admissions staff reviewer should be evaluating mainly for your ability to express yourself clearly and skillfully, with a style that shows promise that you will be able to write appropriately for academic works.

In reality, the admissions reviewer is a human being, subject to emotions, biases and even prejudice. The loathsome intolerance against atheists and atheism is very widespread and very strong. At this point in time, discrimination against racial minorities and religious minorities such as Jews is socially taboo enough to get people who discriminate fired, as it should. Discrimination against gays and lesbians is steadily becoming more taboo, but is still accepted by a large portion of the population. However, discrimination against atheists seems to be almost universally accepted, rarely resulting in social embarrassment or penalty at all. We have a long way to go.

When broaching subjects that society is still learning to accept, timing is important. Today, someone writing an application essay about socialism would probably risk little if any negative reaction to the topic, but in the 1950’s they could kiss their chances goodbye, and perhaps even be blacklisted at colleges across the nation. Timing makes a huge difference.

Colleges seem to vary widely in their admissions policies. Is it a picky college looking to exclude applicants for any hint of controversy, or is it more open and only looking at essays to screen out people who can’t write coherent sentences? Is there a clear and practiced criteria for judging an essay, or is it subjective to the sensibilities of whoever happens to read it? You probably have no way of finding out ahead of time.

The admissions staff may have no problem with you being an atheist, or they may disapprove but try to disregard it, or they may be negatively influenced subconsciously, or they may even see themselves as protecting the college from influences that they think are objectionable and they will reject you any way they can. Their set of “principles” may not include giving an atheist a fair chance.

Your “reach” schools may have SSA affiliates on campus, but that does not necessarily indicate an atmosphere of acceptance that permeates all the way into the Admissions department.

I found an interesting website called Education Planner that seems to have some good advice on several aspects of successful college admission, including this statement about essays:

Remember, a great essay can really make an admission official sit up and take notice. However, subjectivity prevails here. Some readers are biased toward content; some toward writing style and mechanics. One applicant submitted an ambitious essay that compared the works of three Eastern European writers. Two of her evaluators were impressed by her literary sophistication and the insight of her analysis; a third couldn’t get beyond the errors in spelling and sentence structure.

College-Bound, whether or not this topic for your essay is a good idea depends on many factors that are not within your control. You have control over some of the materials you send to them, and other materials, such as your transcripts, you do not. By sending them your proposed essay, you will be relinquishing even more control to them, and to the perhaps slim odds that they will follow principles that you hope they share with you.

The problem is that in this horse race, the odds don’t pay any better if you bet on the long shot instead of on the favorite. You are accepted or rejected. That’s all you get. For taking a greater risk, you do not get a greater return.

I want to make it very clear that by starting out my response by contrasting principles vs. pragmatics, I was not implying that you would be compromising your personal principles by choosing a less risky topic. That would be a false dichotomy that does not apply at all. You have made no promises regarding your choice of topic; you owe no one anything about it. This is your bid to get into one of the colleges of your choice. You’re free to write about whatever you want.

Many atheists stress the importance of “coming out” publicly because it helps to dispel the myths and negative stereotypes and to normalize our image as legitimate members of society. In general, I agree with this, but it has to be each person’s decision, made with their own interest in mind, carefully considering the pros and cons of taking that step at any particular point in time.

You said,

I think that it would be a very personal and sincere essay and it would allow the schools to see who I really am.

Yes, I’m sure that it would be sincere and candid. I just wonder if your sincerity and candor will be honored by the people who have the choice to give you or deny you what you want. Whatever you write about, have it be something that you can express clearly, with a balance of both passion and intelligence. That could probably be several subjects. Your atheism is only one aspect of you. In your writing, demonstrate the traits that have led to your atheism: your ability to think freely, to go beyond the popular assumptions, to question, investigate and reason. Those traits apply to many more things in your life than just a question about the existence of gods.

Right now, as a beginning student you have very little power, clout or authority. If I were in your position, I’d wait until my completed education had given me enough power, clout and authority to defend myself against the inevitable backlash before declaring my atheism in an essay.

However, if I were in your position I’d be 40 years younger, and back then “the principle of the thing,” the idea that I ought to be able to write about whatever I damn well please would have been more important to me. Over the decades, I’ve become more pragmatic. I’ve charged up several hills with my comrades only to find myself at the top facing the enemy alone, so I’ve learned to pick my battles and most importantly to pick the right time.

You should eventually write this essay, and I hope that many people read your story. I just would hate to see one more paragraph in it relating how your education was hampered because of another incidence of the bigotry that so many of us have experienced, simply because you made your move too soon.

I wish you the very best of experiences in your education and career. This is the beginning of a wonderful and challenging time in your life.

Richard

You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.

They inscribed the following messages around the school along with info about their next meeting:

“You don’t need God to be Good.”

“You’re not alone if you don’t believe in God.”

“Those who believe in absurdities commit atrocities”

Clearly, they offended someone because the reaction was swift and harsh:

“While we were chalking somebody dumped water on what we were chalking, somebody spat at us,” [group vice-president Peter] Sloan said. “But really, overall, most people were polite.”

Within a span of six hours, all the chalkings had been “erased and scrubbed clean.”

Who was the culprit? At the moment, it’s unknown, but an eyewitness says the erasers “did not believe in the organization.” (Which makes no sense to me. I mean, the group really does exist…)

“I did not think that this would be the reaction,” Sloan said. “This is uncivil, undemocratic and does not speak well to those who did it. They feel like they have to silence dissenting ideas instead of being involved in active debate.”

When I was in college, a member of my campus group told me that, as he was putting up flyers advertising an atheist speaker on our campus, someone else was ripping them down a few seconds later. She was basically stalking my atheist friend so she could “undo” his work.

When I was in high school, some students taped paper along the main hallway for a Humanities project. Each paper had a word on it — GAY, QUEER, LESBIAN, HOMOSEXUAL, etc. During passing periods, someone in the group would stand at a distance and record how many of those signs were ripped down in the span of a few minutes. Whatever the number was, it was too high.

It’s not just the vandalism that’s so scary, though.

As Peter says, what’s sad about this story is that there are people who are afraid of hearing from someone who disagrees with them, who might challenge their beliefs, who might get the audience to think critically and rationally about religion. Instead of hearing that person out and responding in a civilized way, the culprits try to prevent anyone from hearing the dissenting opinion.

It’s the same mindset that thinks it’s ok to ban books from public schools and libraries.

College is precisely the time when you should be hearing differing opinions from what you’re used to. Be challenged. It’d be great if the students who are ripping these signs or erasing the chalkings came to the advertised meeting and asked good, tough questions to the speaker. That’s what most atheists do when a Creationist or Intelligent Design proponent comes to give a talk on campus. We relish the debate and we know we have the facts on our side.

I guess when you know you’re on the losing end of the debate, you’d rather no one witness it at all.

(Thanks to Reginald for the link!)