Creator of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” forced to change identity for safety

Many student groups participated in “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” without too much trouble. Yes, there was controversy and disagreement, but no real threats. On the other hand, Molly Norris, the cartoonist and creator of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” hasn’t been so lucky:

But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, “going ghost”: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. It’s all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” cartoon.

People, this is why standing up against ridiculous religious beliefs is so important. Molly Norris suggested people draw a cartoon, and she now has to change her whole life so she won’t be murdered.

A religion that reacts in such a way does not deserve respect or politeness. People have every right to believe whatever nonsense they want, but they do not have the right to force those beliefs on others. Muslims should not expect everyone to refrain from drawing Mohammed just because they don’t want to. Hindus should not expect everyone to stop eating beef. Jews should not expect people to stop working on the sabbath. Catholics should not expect people to treat their crackers like they’re the body of Jesus.

Now, I don’t go out looking to start confrontations, so I’m polite to an extent. If my Jewish friend is coming over for dinner, I’ll take their dietary needs into consideration. But the second Jews start threatening and murdering human beings for eating pork, I will not blink an eye before organizing a national Bacon Week.

I’m always asked why atheists need to be so organized if they’re not a religion. Well, this is why. I want to live my life without being policed by religions I don’t believe in. And if I have to choose between potentially offending someone vs. oppression and bodily harm, I’m going to lean toward the option of pissing people off.

Oh no, they already know I’m here!

I haven’t even been in Seattle for 48 hours, and this is what I just found on the steps leading up to my place:Man, Christians are quick.

Though as I went back to my car to get more groceries, I noticed all the houses had this on their steps. I still like pretending that I’m some infamous evil atheist worth personally targeting with silly evangelizing.

Oh, and the back? Just the same old “Why you should accept Jesus into your heart stuff.” Nothing new to report on there.

This is the soap my landlord gave to me

I found this very amusing when I moved in:
Hey, I’m just happy I have soap!

My landlord is super nice, though it is a bit amusing seeing my car with a Darwin fish parked right by his car with a Jesus fish. I pray to the FSM that this will not be a source of blogging material over the next year or so. I want to live in my Garden Gnome Cave in peace.

New horror novel, complete with a crisis of faith!

No, the crisis of faith isn’t supposed to be the horrifying part. It’s a murder mystery called The Faithful that’s coming out October 1:
About the book:

Conflicted with his faith in God and the hypocrisy of the church, Aidan, an assistant pastor, is already a spiritual battleground. When he learns that his ex-fiancee was murdered in a possibly demonic ritual, he finds himself catapulted into an even deeper fight. Tormented by demonic threats and haunted spirits in the afterlife, Aidan becomes a medium that will hold the key to solving this murder mystery. As Catholic priests, paranormal investigators and rogue law enforcement seek Aidan out, readers both secular and religious will find that the Faithful tears at the emotions and doubts of humankind.

About the author:

Jonathan Weyer is a campus minister at Ohio State University and is ordained in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. He is the founder of The Thomas Society, a student-led ministry dedicated to answering questions from skeptics, doubters, agnostics, and atheists. Jonathan is also the only Christian minister to have been added to the Secular Student Alliance speaker’s bureau. During the transition from church to campus ministry, Jonathan wrote the Faithful, combining his love of scary stories and his experience with doubters. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Wendy, three kids, and a crazy cat.

For the sake of full disclosure, you should know that Jon and I are friends. Jen friends with a minister?! Shocking, I know. I haven’t read the book yet, but if it’s half as engaging as Jon is in person, it’ll be wonderful. I’m sure his constant exposure to us crazy atheists will help him handle the “crisis of faith” in a non-cheesy way… though I have a sneaking suspicion the pastor will see the light. ;)

And hell, if you can’t plug your friend’s book on your own blog, what’s a blog good for?

Jon was nice enough to share a more religious focused passage with us. Blag Hag exclusive material, woo!

I shrugged, “Yeah, you’re right. Natural, I guess. But, first, let me ask you a question.”

She raised her eyebrow at me as took a sip of her ginger ale. “Ask away, preacher.”

“What do you believe?”

“About God? I guess I believe there is one.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, folding my arms across my body, taking my “I’m going to teach” position.

“Well, I guess I’m not sure. I mean, I was raised Catholic, but I don’t go to Mass much anymore. I don’t hold to most of what the church teaches.”

“Doesn’t that usually go with being an American Catholic?” I asked, smirking a bit.

“True,” Jennifer said. “I guess I have my own religion. You know, I believe in God and spirituality. I’m spiritual, but not religious.”

“Okay, let me stop you there. What does that mean, spiritual but not religious?”

She stared out the window, watching the Gallery Hop crowd pass by our table.

“You know, I have never really thought about it. I guess it means acknowledging God, being thankful, nice to people, helping in the community and all that. I guess a little praying gets thrown in there too, especially on some of the cases I have to investigate.”

“Okay, so this God you pray to, what is He or She like? Can you describe this entity?”

“Well, no, I guess it’s more of a feeling.”

“Exactly. Why do you need God to be a good person, to be nice and all that? You don’t.”

She folded her arms across her chest.

“So, who says what’s nice? Someone has to enforce the law.”

“So, God is a universal cop? That’s comforting.” I tried to keep the scorn out of my voice.

“No, I mean, laws come from somewhere right?”

“Sure. Society. It’s in the best interests of society for laws to be made.”

She slowly nodded her head. “I see what you’re saying, but I don’t buy it.”

“But what do you buy? This God you can’t define other than good feelings or ‘facts’ that you can’t prove?” I had leaned in close, far enough that our faces were almost touching.

Jennifer backed away, slowly nodding her head. “I guess, but I have hard time believing there isn’t something out there.”

“Like what? It could be anything, as Dawkins says. It could be a flying spaghetti monster. You don’t know.”

“True, I guess.”

“I suppose I don’t believe in God anymore because I see no other alternative,” I said. “I think the whole vague, spirituality thing is a crock, excuse me. Either believe in God, do what he says, or don’t. Why try to have both? It’s just hypocritical holding on to the notion of God without any of the responsibilities.”

You can pre-order a copy of The Faithful here.

What one law about religion would you change?

You’re dictator for the day. You’re allowed to remove, alter, or create one law that is somehow related to religion (I’m allowing loose connections as long as you can justify it). What one law would you change, and why?

If you’re not from the US, please make sure to say so in the comments so all us silly US-centric people can understand your new rule better.

Me? I can think of a bunch, but off the top of my head I would remove the tax exempt status of religious institutions. Though making gay marriage totally legal is a close second. The latter would probably follow if Mormons didn’t have so much money to waste on hateful political campaigns.

How does religiosity correlate with writing proficiency?

I love OkTrends. If I owned a dating site, I too would view it as hundreds of thousands of data points ready to be analyzed in amusing ways. In their newest article, they looked at the correlation between religiosity and writing proficiency, as measured by the Coleman-Liau Index.Hm, interesting indeed. Or as they quipped, “Is there a Comic Sans version of the Bible?”

But even more interesting is when you break it down by how serious users report their belief to be:

“Note that for each of the faith-based belief systems I’ve listed, the people who are the least serious about them write at the highest level. On the other hand, the people who are most serious about not having faith (i.e. the “very serious” agnostics and atheists) score higher than any religious groups.”

And those not serious Buddhists? Totally non-theists who just want something more fancy and enlightened to call themselves. Who doesn’t know one of those types of college Buddhists?

Now, let’s remember that correlation does not imply causation. Poor writing skills don’t necessarily make you religious (poor reading skills, maybe). Religiosity doesn’t necessarily make you a poor writer (unless you worship the LOLCat Bible). If I had to propose a hypothesis, it’s likely intelligence is one of the determining factors for both religiosity and writing ability.

Of course, this is the blog from a dating site, not a peer reviewed scientific study, so take it with a grain of salt. Still interesting, though.

Arsonists strike future Tennessee Islamic Center

New York is not the only city that currently has a mosque controversy. Conservative Christian wackies in Murfreesboro, Tennessee are opposing the expansion of their local Islamic Center. Because, you know, it’s just for training more terrorists and stuff. Oddly I first heard about the story from the hilarious clip The Daily Show ran on it last week.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Tennessee No Evil
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

In a not so hilarious turn of events, arsonists have set fire to the construction equipment at the site of the Islamic Center’s expansion.

Hey, Conspiracy Theorists Who Think All Muslims Are Terrorists? Maybe going around setting things on fire and destroying property in an attempt to cause fear and silence a whole group of people isn’t the best way to say those people are the terrorists. Just sayin’.

Despicable.

My visit to the “Ground Zero Mosque”

I’ve been doing a lot of sight seeing in New York, and one of the places I stopped by is Ground Zero. I felt compelled to visit it, like it was some sort of patriotic duty as an American. There’s really not much to see, especially since all of the area is surrounded by a fence advertising the 9/11 memorial that’s going to be built where the two towers used to stand. It is pretty amazing how large the area is, and how it’s still pretty much just a large hole filled with cranes – I thought it would be more far along after 9 years.
While I was in the area, I decided to stop by the controversial “Ground Zero Mosque.” I use quotes because 1. It’s not a mosque, it’s a Muslim community center that will include (amongst many other things) an area for prayer, and 2. It’s not exactly near Ground Zero. We had to walk a couple blocks to get there, and then down a quiet side street. It by no means feels like it’s on top of Ground Zero.
We recognized the building because there were people with signs outside. I was ready for some anti-Muslim xenophobic protests, but I was pleasantly surprised:

All of the people there were supporters of Park51 and had signs about freedom of religion. I was definitely pleasantly surprised. There were some chalkings as well:The guy with the goatee let us know that friends were welcome to dinner at 8pm, regardless if they were Muslim or not. Though he did say women would eat in a separate room, and after a quick glance at my outfit, confirmed that I was modestly dressed enough to come. We already had plans, but it was a nice offer.

It was great to know other people haven’t gone totally insane in this country. I may be an atheist, but I totally support freedom of religion. Even if Park51 was nothing more than a mosque, and even if it was right next to Ground Zero, I would still defend their right to build it there. 9/11 may have been caused by Muslim religious extremists, but it wasn’t representative of all Muslims. We have to remember that people of all religious beliefs, including Muslims, died in 9/11, either as victims who were in the towers or responders who were trying to save lives.