Dodads and insanity

Hey everyone! Sorry for my absence lately. ‘Tis the season of final projects, papers, exams, and graduate school applications. As you can imagine, I’m a bit out of my mind and not sleeping much, so blog posts may not be as frequent. Don’t worry – once winter break* hits, I’ll be bored out of my mind! My blogging then will probably make up for my disappearance now.

What, this post wasn’t atheisty enough? Well, here, look what came in the mail the other day**:If you follow Hemant over at Friendly Atheist, you’ll remember he had a little contest to win this heatheny Memo Maid for your computer. And yep, I was one of the winners! What was the contest?

We all know that Ray Comfort is giving away copies of The Origin of Species to college students… with his own 50-page introduction “debunking” the book.

What’s the next book Comfort will write an introduction to, and what already-airtight theory will he attempt to debunk in the process?

And what did I say that was so brilliant?

He’ll add a special intro to The Joy of Sex, reminding people that it only applies to married heterosexual couples and that all the sections except for the missionary position should be ignored.

I almost feel like I’m cheating. Every time I make a sex joke in one of Hemant’s contests, I win a prize (got a Friendly Atheist wristband last time!). Hemant, you’re just too easy***.

*Am I going to be banned by some Christian group because I didn’t say Christmas break?
**No, Hemant didn’t come included. I was just too busy/lazy to take my own photo. Though now that I think of it, a mail-order Hemant would be pretty cool…
***Double entundre obviously intended.****
****Alright, must stop innuendo about internet personas before I upset the boyfriend ;P

I think I’ve finally found something to start collecting

Because of Thanksgiving yesterday, I got to see my brother Chris and my sister-in-law Erin. I don’t get to see them too often since they live in New York, but they’re pretty awesome and I’m always excited to see them. To put it in perspective for you, they’re my only family members who know about my blog and who I feel comfortable being heathen-y around.

At one point in the night, Erin pulled me aside and told me they had a belated birthday gift for me, but that it may not be socially acceptable to open it in front of the rest of the family. That made me even more excited, so we ran off into another room where she presented me with a giant bag. She explained that while they could have mailed it to me, it had some back story so they wanted to give it to me in person. She then dug around in the bag and handed me the Thanksgiving Chick tract.I know this is totally what my Thanksgiving looked like.

I laughed and joked how I was starting to collect these things, since my friend gave me an evolution one a couple weeks ago. Erin smiled and said I wouldn’t have to try too hard to collect them…because she and Chris had given me every single current Chick tract. I kid you not:I now own 106 Chick tracts (with a couple of duplicates, but not many). How the heck did Erin get all of these? That story is even crazier. Apparently when she was attending high school in California back in the 80s, Chick tracts were constantly being passed out at her school. One of her friends got to meet Jack Chick and asked Erin if she’d like to meet him too. Being the adventurous heathen she was, she said sure, and had coffee with Jack Chick. Ever since then she’s been receiving free shipments of the newest Chick tracts.

Since Erin is a smart cookie and knew these would amuse me greatly, she called up Chick Publications and asked if she could have some more Chick tracts so she could share them with family over Thanksgiving – which is totally true, just not for the reasons they assumed. They were happy to spread the word, so they sent her a free box of the All Tract Assortment, which I now own.

That’s not all. Like a sign from some sort of atheist God (shhh, it doesn’t need to make sense) the box came with a free copy of a Crusaders comic. Which one? Primal Man?, the comic on evolution. Just too perfect. And if that wasn’t enough, they bought me R. Crumb’s Illustrated Book of Genesis, which I started reading during the car ride home. Simply awesome.

Not sure if I want to go for the whole set, though. I’d have about 940 left, and I’m not sure what I would do with that many Chick tracts…other than cry at their insanity.

Best postcard ever

One of my good friends is currently studying abroad in Italy (sooooo jealous), and I received pretty much the best postcard ever from her today:

“Jen and Vanessa,
Please know that when I first saw these classy postcards in Florence, I had a short list of “Who would most appreciate gratuitous peener?” and you came in at the top. Congrats.”

I feel like I should be concerned that lots of penises make my friends think of me. Hmm.

The Sexual Mystery of the Decade: Maleness glue

When I was in high school, I was part of an academic competition called Science Olympiad. Yes, I was a nerd, big surprise – but Science Olympiad was a level of awesome that far surpassed your typical quiz team. A team of fifteen would send two or three individuals to compete in events, with formats like typical exams, building airplanes, creating Rube Goldberg devices, making your own robots, using forensics to solve a crime scene. No area of science was left on covered – we had everything from ecology to quantum physics. But there was one event that was mine, one event that every time I competed in it at Regionals or State, I would win the gold:

Birds and Bees.

Yes, there was an event on reproduction, with a focus on humans. This event was offered to not only the high school teams, but the middle school ones too – shockingly progressive for many states, especially Indiana. The first year I was assigned the event I was a freshmen, though because of the grade cut offs, freshmen competed on the middle school teams. I got stuck with Birds and Bees since I was one of the oldest students and had actually gone through sex ed, unlike many of the other kids.

At the time, I was embarrassed; though looking back, it’s what sparked my scientific interest in sex. It was an easy joke for everyone (“Going to go study, Jennifer? Did you find a tutor?”) and on top of that, I had a giant crush on our coach, making it all the more awkward asking him questions about sex. I worked extra hard to find answers on my own, but eventually I found a term on our official Science Olympiad study sheet that I just didn’t understand:

“Maleness glue.”

Eventually I gave up and approached my coach, probably blushing, and stammered out, “Mr. K, er, there’s this word I don’t know…can you tell me what it means?” I handed over the sheet of paper and pointed at the offending word. His smirk (he was most likely preparing to crack a joke) soon faded to a look of confusion.

“I have no idea.”

We ventured off to the computer lab to do some Googling. Apparently Indiana’s website blocking software wasn’t so hot eight years ago, because Mr. K yelled “GAH!” and quickly closed a window (Of course he wouldn’t tell me what it was, so being the curious scientist I was I looked it up when I went home, and it was gay porn). But regardless if safe search was on or off, we couldn’t find any useful information on maleness glue. It never appeared on one of the exams, but it became a running gag because of its mysterious nature. What the hell was maleness glue?

At the time, we had created various theories about the cryptic phrase. One male friend joked that it was just a euphemism for semen, but the event instructions were very scientific – no other euphemisms or slang were included. Another friend joked that it was the substance that made men gay (bound them together like glue). As much as I enjoy that theory, it’s also not exactly scientific – but if I ever discover the gay gene, it’s getting named mglu. The only real clue we had was that it was a process “involved in gonadal determination.”

Now I’m 22 years old and about to graduate with a biology degree, and I still don’t know what it means. I’ve asked two different college professors who taught human sexuality courses, and they’ve had no clue. At this point I’m fairly convinced there is no such thing as maleness glue, but there’s still the mystery of how it got on the event instructions to begin with. If you look at the same instructions for the event provided now, they have never been edited – they still contain the mysterious maleness glue. Was it a typo of an actually relevant sexual term? Was it just some disgruntled scientist, hoping to set a young student on a life long wild goose chase?

The world may never know.

A version of the Bible that’s actually useful

My friend over at SuperFunAdventureTime! decided (probably out of boredom) to make some improvements to his copy of the Bible. That seems like a daunting task, but I like the final result:His reasoning?

“The SuperFunAdventureBible clears up and confusing or flowery passages and allows the reader to concentrate on the real crux of the Christian faith. Christians should be thanking me, as I carefully removed (with a utility knife) all of the times the Bible urges people to participate in:

  • murder (Ezekiel 9:5-6)
  • genocide (Deuteronomy 20:16-17; Exodus 17:13-16)
  • incest (Exodus 6:20; Genesis 19:30-38)
  • abortion (Hosea 13:16)
  • cannibalism (Jeremiah 19:9)
  • materialism (Proverbs 14:20)
  • domestic violence (Proverbs 20:30)
  • shit-eating (Ezekiel 4:12-15),
  • genital mutilation (Genesis 17:9-13)
  • …and Communist party membership (Acts 4:32-35)

Thanks to me, the Christian apologetics have less to apologize over. Now, Christians can concentrate on the central themes of intimidation and greed without the requisite cognitive dissonance.”

I approve.

Though I think I would be more creative in what I stored in my SuperFunAdventureBible. How about condoms? You’re in the moment, your partner asks you to grab some protection, you show them your Bible, they freak out (hopefully), you reveal its contents, you both have a good chuckle and then go at it like rabbits. Eh? Eh?

Pssh, fine then. What would you store in your Bible?

Best Heathen-y Birthday Gift Ever

Last night we had a triple birthday party at my place. Two of my best friends and I all have November birthdays, so we decided to kill three birds with one stone and just have one big bash. Some of our friends (including Mike over at Politics and Pucks) got us some gifts, and they were pretty awesome:Godless cookie cake! It was extra delicious.A Christmas stocking?! That’s not very atheistic, since I don’t believe…but wait, what’s inside?Noooooo! Bananas?!? My worst nightmare!

Oh, and how could I almost forget: my friend Josh brought me this lovely Chick Tract on evolution from some fundies who were demonstrating around the bars:Much loling was had. My friends are great.

You know what else is an abomination, Maine? Lobster

Dear 53% of Maine,

Today you decided that homosexuals are lesser human beings who don’t deserve the same rights as heterosexuals. You have just illustrated to the nation that you, like California, believe popular vote is a valid and moral way to decide human rights. I’m really glad we didn’t use this method back when legalizing interracial marriage, but I guess the whole majority rule, minority rights thing isn’t too important too you. But if you’re going to go and base your legal decisions on the Bible, I thought I’d like to point out one little thing to you so your logic is at least consistent. In the same book that condemns homosexuality, there’s another verse that you may find important:

Leviticus 11:9-12 says:
9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

Deuteronomy 14:9-10 says:
9 These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat:
10 And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.

I know the Bible can be a little hard to understand, so let me spell it out for you: God hates shellfish. You know what’s a shellfish? Lobster. Because of this, I fully expect a ban on Maine’s lobster industry ASAP. I know that’s a major facet of your economy and all, but you’ve illustrated that God’s word is more important than the well being of your citizens. I’m sure they’ll understand the dip in the economy, since getting into heaven later is more important than this life.

So, get cracking on that next referendum. I mean, you don’t want to be hypocrites, do you?

Demonic Discount Candy Week

The only thing I may possibly love more than Halloween is the following week – Discount Candy Week! Not only is it the one time of the year where you can buy bags and bags of chocolate (relatively) guilt-free, but it’s also when I have money to do so thanks to my birthday (22 today, wooo!). My parents sent me a check for my b-day, and in the card my mom wrote “Don’t spend it all on Reese’s Cups” – she knows me far too well.

But now I have even more reason to love Halloween candy – apparently it’s all demonic because witches have prayed over it!

Hey, that’s fine, fundamentalist Christians. I’ll take any candy you don’t want. Or maybe this is just an evil plan to make all heathens obese and have tooth decay…hmmm….