A blast from the past: my high school paper on intelligent design

Oral Roberts died, etc. It’s already been covered by other blogs (My favorite title being “Oral Roberts has finally been killed by God for not raising enough money.”), and no matter how many horrible things I think a person did while they were alive, I just don’t feel right talking bad about someone when they’re dead. So I’ll leave it at that.

Why mention it, then? Well, it reminded me of a girl I went to high school with who now attends Oral Roberts University. We were sort of friends – the kind that talk a lot in class, but don’t really do anything outside of school. She was super nice and a brilliant student, and always outshone everyone in our honors english, history, and math classes. So when I found out she was going to Oral Roberts, it felt like a step down. This is the kind of person who could go anywhere on scholarship, and she was going there?

But it didn’t really surprise me, because I found out how religious she was that semester. We were in AP Composition together the spring of our senior year (one of the most hellish, ridiculous classes I had to take at my high school – that’s a rant of its own) and our next assignment was a debate paper. One person had to be pro, the other con on a topic of our choice. We were partnered together by the sheer luck of sitting near each other, and started brainstorming topic ideas.

I had been reading a lot about evolution lately, so I suggested “How about whether or not Intelligent Design should be taught in school?”

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” she said. I smiled. “My father has his PhD in theology, so he’ll be able to help me a lot.” And smile gone.

I shouldn’t say my smile was gone – rather it was likely replaced by the smug grin of an 18 year old who knew she had this debate in her pocket. After devouring information about evolution and the ID debates for the last four years, this paper was going to be easy to write. The hardest part was shoving it all into a 4 page limit in the constraints of the formal thesis-3 supporting paragraphs-conclusion format. And fulfilling all of the random requirements our teacher created, like interviewing people, using a certain number of magazine articles versus books, yadda yadda.

I found that paper now (pdf here). I have to say, it’s fairly good for an 18 year old who self-taught herself evolution – still more intelligent than most of the creationist bull crap you hear today. I’m actually more impressed by my writing style, which has apparently totally deteriorated after being subjected to nothing but science classes at Purdue (which pretty much never write anything, least of all essays).

But that’s not the fun paper.

The fun paper is my rebuttal. We got to read each other’s papers* and write a 1000 word rebuttal, which would factor into our overall grade. She didn’t seem too unnerved by my initial paper. But I still remember that day when we were sitting in the library and swapped our rebuttals.

I made her cry.

Oh, those big bad evolutionary biologists. Keep in mind I was a extraordinarily passive agnostic who was just coming out of deism at this point. Making her cry was not my goal – winning this debate, sure, but not tears. Thinking about this experience now, I can’t imagine what I said that could have upset her that much. That is, until I went back and read my rebuttal (pdf here).

Oh my god. Hilarious.

Not only did I call her paper a “futile attempt” with “claims [that] hardly contain even a modicum of truth,” but I invoked Hitler at the end. Yes, I failed Godwin’s law, but at least I did it spectacularly (in my unbiased opinion).

Even Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box inclusion as “one of the most important books of the twentieth century” speaks little: Mein Kampf is considered one of the most influential books ever, but that hardly makes its message true (Sobilo).

I wasn’t trying to be mean. I think I just really, really wanted to win that debate – especially since, if I remember correctly, our teacher had some inane grading system where the better paper of the two got an automatic 100%. Niceties were not getting in the way of a grade boost I desperately wanted.

Needless to say, I got the 100%. Oh, she’s a far superior writer than I am – it’s just hard winning a debate when you have zero logical points to make (don’t worry, she still got an A for the writing). I remember I even showed all of the papers to my AP Biology teacher at the time. He just blinked slowly and said “You destroyed her.”

Of course, did I do anything to help the cause of evolution? Probably not. I guess this illustrates the fine line we have to walk between opening up dialog, or letting our frustrations win and calling people names. Do the big names of ID who are spreading lies deserve ridicule? I’m in the camp that says “sure.” Do 18 year olds who don’t really understand the topic? Probably not.

Ah, young Jen fail. Though on an interesting note, I had just started reading Pharyngula while writing that paper. Coincidence, or contagious crankiness – I’ll let you decide.

*I don’t have a copy of her paper or rebuttal. Well, a hard copy is probably buried somewhere back home, but I still wouldn’t want to post it since it’s her intellectual property. You can pretty much imagine what she said by reading any creationist argument on the internet, since they just parrot each other anyway.

It’s not lupus…

…it’s mono! Yay. Just what I needed right before winter break, to get sick.

Apparently it was pretty obvious to my doctor, just looking at symptoms alone. Apparently giant tonsils (enough to make him go “Woah!” – I felt kind of accomplished, like I had grown a giant pumpkin for a competition or something), white spots, swollen lymph nodes, and an achey spleen = mononucleosis.

Doctor: Have you been feeling tired or fatigued?
Me: …I always feel tired and fatigued (unsaid: I’m a college student). I guess I’ve been feeling more tired and fatigued, but it’s also finals week, so who knows what the cause is.
Doctor: …good point.

It was even obvious enough that he didn’t claim I was pregnant, which notoriously happens to every female who ever goes to our health center for any kind of ailment. He sent me down to get my blood drawn to confirm that it was indeed mono. I had actually never had my blood drawn before today. I’m not sure how I got to age 22 without it; guess I just never have been really sick. I was a weenie and closed my eyes, since I’m stupidly squeamish – now you know one of the reasons I’m not going to medical school.

I came back about a half hour later and he confirmed the lab results. Though I have to say, I love it when doctors find out I’m a biologist, because they get visibly excited that they can start explaining things more in depth. He told me how all the various tests worked and why they showed I indeed had mono (on the bright side, I’m not anemic like I suspected – guess my fatigue was the mono). I was starting to geek out as well until I realized, crap, I have mono. Sigh, I guess if there’s a time for me to have no energy for many weeks, it’s during winter break. Not like I was planning on doing anything other than blog writing and video game playing.

Though I thought it was appropriate that not only do I have mono the disease, but I have mono the plush microbe:
Guess I needed to lay off the kissing.

The History of Christmas: The Case of the Missing Jesus

I know, you all are probably sick of reading Christmas related posts by now. It seems like nearly half of the posts from atheist blogs I read are about Christmas in some way or another, and it’s starting to get old. But I just read this great summary of the history of Christmas, and I wanted to pass it along. I think the author does an excellent job documenting Christmas’s pagan history, how various traditions came about, and how only recently it became a holiday about Jesus’s birth. Hearing “put the Christ back in Christmas” is driving me crazy, and this is a nice post to forward to anyone who needs a history lesson. Just a snippet:

Christmas spent the best part of 800 years as a holiday of misrule. It was the time of year to subvert natural order. Servants were crowned and lords played fools. You were allowed to kiss and cavort and roll in the hay. Drunkenness, promiscuity, and gambling weren’t just permitted, they were encouraged. You went wassailing — what we would call caroling — where the objective was to get someone to give you ale and bread in exchange for your song. If you got ale at every house, I imagine this tradition looking something like a medieval pub crawl.

Hmmm…I think we need to preserve Christmas’s true roots!

Flip a switch; become a dude!

Okay, so it’s not exactly that simple; but researchers have found a gene that keeps females being…well, female. FOXL2, which was known to be involved with ovary growth, apparently keeps a woman’s body from turning into a man. Switch off FOXL2, and ovaries will start turning into testes and testosterone-producing cells will develop. Just think what this says about the human gender binary, or future less invasive methods for people undergoing gender reassignment.

*obligatory SCIENCE IS COOL flailing*

Sorry, that’s all the commentary you get, since my tonsils currently feel like they’re turning into…uh…inflamed…spikey…polka-dotted sadness*. Which I guess is better than testicles? Check out the article for a more detailed explanation, or for the genetically-inclined, read the original paper here.

*My wit fails me when I don’t feel well. I apologize.

Purdue Non-Theists and atheism featured in local newspaper

Today the Journal & Courier has a piece called “Atheism makes nonbelief known on campuses,” which features the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University (which I’m President and co-founder of, if you haven’t figured that out by now). It’s a fairly long piece, and I’m very happy for the coverage. The reporter basically emailed me out of the blue saying he saw the Secular Student Alliance‘s press release on the growing number of atheist groups (which was kind of a while ago, little slow I guess), and he wanted to feature ours. Some snippets:

At Purdue University, the Society of Non-theists held a “Fiction for Fiction” event. People could trade in religious texts, including Bibles and the Koran, for fiction novels.

As the stigma of atheism has diminished, campus atheists and agnostics have heightened their profile, fueling a sharp rise in the number of campus clubs in the mold of the Society of Non-Theists.

“The main reason I founded the club is because I felt so alone,” said Jennifer McCreight, a Purdue senior from Munster. “I thought I was the only atheist at Purdue. I quickly learned that was not the case.

“I now am surrounded by people that I feel comfortable sharing my lack of belief with. It’s a relief to have that safe haven when the many people at Purdue and in the U.S. react so negatively and threateningly toward non-theism.”

McCreight said the Purdue group is affiliated with the Secular Student Alliance. Nationally, campus affiliates have grown from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall.

Man, I soooo prefer email interviews to phone interviews. Look, I actually sound moderately intelligent when I get to type my responses, and it pretty much eliminates the ability to misquote!

Overall, I’m happy with the article. Like I said, they wanted to cover us completely out of the blue, and I think any advertisement we can get is a good thing. It’s a pity that it comes at the end of the semester when we won’t have any knew events for a month, but here’s to hoping people join our mailing list or something. I’m also glad that they highlighted some of our philanthropic events too – Secular Service Day and our food drive participation – because it makes us seem less like a bunch of cranky religion haters.

I do have a quibble, though (I always have something to complain about, don’t I?). This is the last third of the article:

The Rev. Patrick Baikauskas said he is praying for the Purdue Non-Theists to “find their way back to church.” He is the new pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Center at Purdue.

“There is a lot of seeking going on. There should be,” he said. “They are looking at a lot of things. They don’t want to believe just because their parents want them to.”

The Dominican priest said St. Tom’s campus ministry is stronger than ever. He estimated that 7,000 people worshipped in the church at various times on Ash Wednesday to start Lent. He said weekend Masses also are well-attended.

He said a recent discernment session was offered at St. Tom’s for young men wanting to find out more about the priesthood or religious life. Eighteen men attended. Past sessions have drawn only a handful of men, he said.

“All of them won’t become priests, but I thought that was a great turnout,” Baikauskas said.

Oh, where to begin.

1. I hate the patronizing nature of the Reverend’s quotes. Yep, we’re all just foolish children in a phase and rebelling against our parents. Bull. Shit. First of all, a number of us (like myself) come from families who didn’t feel the need to indoctrinate us in religion, so we don’t have a church to “find our way back to.” Yep, not everyone is raised in Christianity – shocker! Second of all, our members are some of the most intelligent people you’re going to find on campus. Many know more about religion than theists, and all have put thought into their non-theism. This isn’t some random decision we made to piss off mommy and daddy – most of us have put years and years of deep thought behind our non-theism.

2. Why does an article, which is supposed to be featuring atheism and our group, get the last third devoted to religion? What does our local Catholic church have to do with anything? Why did they get to list their numbers, but they didn’t mention that the Society has over 400 people on our mailing list after just over two years? When they do an article on the growing number of mass attendees, are they going to email me so I can poo-poo their beliefs and then talk about how awesome atheism is? I don’t think so. It seems like bad reporting to include this in a feature, when another side doesn’t need to be present, but it’s even more annoying since the reporter told me how awesome our responses were and how he wouldn’t be able to fit them all. Maybe if he cut out the irrelevant religious stuff, he could have.

3. They give links to our facebook page and twitter…but not our main website. We hardly ever use FB or twitter, and I only provided the link to our main website, so I have no idea how that happened. Advertising fail.

Alright, my complaints just took up more space than my praise, but I really am happy we got the article at all. We don’t get covered in the Journal & Courier a lot, so hopefully a lot of local non-theists will see this. Oh, and I get to spend the rest of the day reading the comments on the article, which always provides me with depressing amusement. Already have someone there telling me I can’t be good without God, woo.

Sometimes leaving my atheist bubble unnerves me

Yesterday I went to the Purdue Christmas Show with Bryan and a couple of our friends. I really wasn’t dying to go, as I’m already starting to get Christmassed-out… but it’s a 75 year old Purdue tradition, and I felt like I should go see it once before I graduate. I have to say, I was very impressed. The student singers were fabulous, especially when they were dancing around stage in unison, and I loved the bit where they played some songs just with bells. I’m a mediocre singer and never learned how to play a instrument, so musical things always impress me.

But then came Act II, and they dialed the Jesus Factor up to 11.

Instead of everyone being dressed in comfy sweaters or sparkly dresses, all of the students wore matching church choir robes. The background changed from a wintry landscape with snowflakes to stain glass windows and crosses. Instead of dancing around stage and impressing us with their coordinated jazz hands, they stood somberly and didn’t move for the entire act. And of course, instead of songs about winter and Santa and friendship and family, it was about Jesus and God and Creation and being saved.

Oh, religion. Why must you ruin everything?

Santa apparently loves Baby Jesus too.

I know what you must be thinking: “Jen, it’s the Purdue Christmas Show. You can go on and on about how it’s just a pagan holiday co-opted by Christians and is now losing its religious meaning, but some people do associate it with the birth of Jesus. You’re going to have some religious songs.” And you’re totally right. A lot of Christmas songs that I enjoy have religious imagery, and they’re quite beautiful. I went to this show totally expecting some.

However, I think sixteen highly religious songs* in a row is kind of overkill. By the time the fourth song came on, I literally started to feel trapped. It was like I had been tricked into going to church – the hall had been made to look like a Cathedral, and all the music turned into gospel worship songs. It was definitely uncomfortable, and that’s not how I expect to feel going to a music show from a secular public University**.

Baby behind us: *wails*
Me: *turns to Bryan* That’s about how I feel right now

But as I sat there, I realized it wasn’t the context of the songs that unnerved me – it was that the vast majority of the 5,000+ people there literally believed every word of it. We could all listen to songs about Santa and enjoy them without believing that he really did come down chimneys on Christmas Eve. But when they started singing about God creating the world and sending his only son (who was himself) to save all of us, all I could think was “I’m surrounded by people who believe this nonsense.” I would have the same feeling if you told me I was in a room full of people who all thought they had been abducted by aliens, or that the world was going to end in 2012.

That’s why leaving my atheist bubble sometimes scares me. Nearly all of my friends are atheists, the one club I have time for is the Non-Theists, I read atheist blogs…so I get deluded that everybody is an atheist. Then I go to something like this and I realize I am in the minority. It’s quite a wake up call.

*Here are the songs, in case you want to judge for yourself: Angels We Have Heard on High, The First Noel, Silent Night (these first three the audience was supposed to sing along), Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Can You Hear It?, Some Children See Him, Ring the Bells, Lux Arumque, Anthem for Christmas, Emmanuel, O Come All Ye Faithful, Go Tell It On the Mountain, Joy to the World, Little Drummer Boy, Each Single Day, Silent Night (needed to hear it again, apparently)

**On that note, how does a public University get away with having a religious Christmas show? I can understand a “Holiday” show were they throw in the dradle song for good measure, but something so explicitly about Jesus? I don’t see Purdue putting on giant shows for other religions. Where’s my Happy Monkey dance number?

Local newspaper highlights atheists who celebrate Christmas

Well, this was a pleasant surprise today! The Exponent, Purdue’s student newspaper, ran a piece today on atheists and agnostics who still celebrate Christmas. As a heathen who has pretty much been listening to nothing but Christmas music for the last week, I definitely fit into that group.

“It seems that Santa Claus, rather than Jesus Christ, is the mythical figure around which Christmas is centered,” Stolyarov said.

Chris Komlos, a junior in the College of Engineering, said even though his family is agnostic they still celebrate like everyone else.

“I tend to think of it as more of a second Thanksgiving. It’s more of a family holiday than a religious one,” Komlos said. “The commercialization of Christmas is good for those who are not so religious and want a feel-good family holiday.”

Remington Roberts, a junior in the College of Technology, said Christmas is lost in the commercial aspect and is hardly religious anymore.

Roberts is atheist but his family still puts up a tree, has dinner with relatives, opens presents and hangs up stockings.

“When I was younger I questioned the meaning behind Christmas, but after I found out I just started celebrating it to be with my family,” Roberts said. “There is never any conflict between my relatives who are religious and me; I just go with the flow.”

Success! Though the one downside is the Exponent is no longer taking letters to the Editor for this semester, so no watching those “Keep Christ is CHRISTmas” people spluttering.

I’m a bit bemused, however, that the Society of Non-Theists and it’s members weren’t contacted for this story. You’d think you’d want to use your resources on campus, right? Maybe I should take this as a sign that non-theism is becoming more accepted that they don’t need to go find a local group. Or more likely (since I’ve known people who worked at the Exponent), this reporter had some heathen friends she could call up, and that was good enough research for her. Oh well, good article nonetheless!

Erotic pottery, sleeping around, and the gaydar

Okay, now that I have your attention…

Today was just full of sexual news! Usually each of these stories would win their own post, but I guess I’ll just make one super sexy entry. Try not to get too hot and bothered.

1. A new exhibit has opened featuring the erotic artwork of ancient Greece and Rome. Ah, I’m so proud of my ancestors. I can’t imagine having the dishes in my apartment covered in drawings of gay sex. …Well, okay, I can, but some of my guests probably wouldn’t want to eat off of them. …Who am I kidding, my friends are all strange like me. They’d love it. That being said, I love their description of the prostitutes kiosk, with the walls covered with illustrations on what’s on the menu. “Eh, you like the retrograde wheelbarrow over there? That’s two chickens and a loaf of bread.” (Via Boing Boing)

2. A new study from University of Minnesota researchers has found that casual sex does not have a negative psychological impact on those that practice it. So to all of those people out there who say sex without love is evil or imply that something is wrong with people who enjoy sex for the sake of sex – HA!

3. Oh, the inner workings of the Gaydar. Not only do people fair better than random guessing when it comes to speculation on a stranger’s sexual orientation, but they can make that decision in under a second. Original article talks about the evolutionary implications and some of the studies flaws, though it left out my major criticism – how do fag hags do compared to the general public?!? I’m pretty sure I would have been an outlier if you threw me in that study.