Before you read further, try to guess the number of Christian groups at any one large college campus. Also, try to guess the number of atheist groups, Muslim groups, Jewish groups, etc.

I wanted to get some hard numbers on this, so here’s what I did:

I used the Wikipedia list of the Top 10 largest universities in the country as a starting point. Each school on the list has over 40,000 students. Some have over 50,000.

All the major universities have pages on their websites specifically for student organizations. It’s easy to search for just the religious groups or just the special interest groups. At many of the sites, it’s also easy to see which groups are active and which groups are not.

I was only interested in the active groups — the ones that meet regularly and are recognized by the school.

To the best of my ability, I organized the clubs by faith and (if necessary) sect. There may be mistakes along the way, so I provided the raw data. Feel free to rip it apart. I’ll post an updated version when I make changes.

I can anticipate people saying I lumped too many different versions of Christianity together. I separated larger sects out, but ultimately, some groups simply revolved around having faith in God whether they were athletes, accountants, or Asian. Those are all “Christian” groups to me and there’s no need to dissect them further.

The results look something like this:

Here’s the PDF of the spreadsheet.

And here’s the PDF of the raw data for the spreadsheet.

Amazingly, in the four years since I last did this, one thing is very clear: There are a hell of a lot of Christian groups and only one atheist group (if that) on all these campuses. I suspect this ratio doesn’t change much at smaller schools.

Of course everyone has a right to start an organization. I’m not saying Christians should stop forming them. I question why there is such a need for so many of them on any one campus, though.

I also wonder if the atheists are more united than the Christians on these campuses. Are the groups larger because there is just one of them? Why is there never more than one atheist group at a school?

I have my own speculations about the answers to these questions, but I’ll stop here for now.

Maybe those of you interested in this info can take this a step or two further.


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

What did you (or would you) give up for Lent?

Here are the Top 3 responses (with submitters)!

3|

I’d give up Klondike bars.

Then, when someone asks me what I’d do for one, I’d say “not break my lenten sacrifice, jerk!”

(Brad)

2|

I’m giving up my civil liberties (what’s left of them)… as a practice run just in case Huckabee manages to pull out a win.

(Anne)

1|

i’m giving up the shift key. among other things, this means no money, no email, no quotes, no questions, and no excitement. i’ll probably miss the snide parenthetical remarks most.

(John)

Congratulations to the winners! The top three will be receiving specially-made Friendly Atheist wristbands (in the color of their choice), sent to me by blog reader Shauna and her sister Danni!

…

If you’d like to win your own wristband, here is the new contest:

Recently, Jesus was struck by lightning:

Why was he being punished by God?

(Thanks to Chris for the suggestion!)

Funny and creative answers will have a shot at winning.

Good luck!


[tags]atheist, atheism, contest[/tags]

The discussion questions [in the back of the book]… assume a more traditional Christian point of view and are not applicable for most Unitarian Universalists. Many of these discussion questions are not applicable for Unitarian Universalist Christians as well.

What follows is my attempt to re-frame these discussion questions for use in Unitarian Universalist faith communities.

You can check out the PDF here.

Many thanks to Steve for putting these together!

(via Liberal Faith Development)


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

I hope you enjoy the background image.

And let me take a moment to highlight some answers I didn’t use, but that made me laugh:

• What is the meaning of life?

The worst of the Monty Python movies. (Via HeIsSailing)

• Weren’t some of the worst atrocities in the 20th century committed by atheists?

Yep. Give us another couple milennia and we might catch up. (Via Misanthropic Bastard)

• How could billions of people be wrong when it comes to belief in God?

How could half of America vote for George W Bush? (Via Jen)

• How do you deal with the historical Jesus if you don’t believe in his divinity?

He never calls me, so it isn’t much of an issue. (Via Everyday Atheism)

• What happens when we die?

You stop pestering me with questions. (Via Alex)

If we’re lucky, we live on through a Wikipedia entry. (Via The Popcorn Gallery)

[tags]atheist, atheism, FAQ, Monty Python, God, religion, George W. Bush, Jesus, Wikipedia[/tags]

You can download that PDF here.

Print it, distribute it, hang it on your wall!

Hope you enjoy it.