Video of my Creation Museum presentation

At long last, here’s the video of my presentation about my trip to the Creation Museum – yes, the one that Ken Ham is already blogging about. I do warn you, it’s long. My talk is about an hour and then there’s about 25 minutes of Q&A. The first couple minutes are a little rocky because I was kind of nervous, but then I get in my groove and I think it’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Overall I received very positive feedback, even from some of the theists in the room. As you’ll see if you watch the Q&A, Pastor Brent Aucoin of the Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette attended. He was nice enough to email me and ask if he could come to the event (of course he could!) and disclosed that he helped with the construction of the Creation Museum (and I can only assume he is the supporter that Ken Ham mentions in the post about my talk). He was very civil, and I thank him for that, but he did repeat the same creationist arguments that we hear over and over again. My favorite part is at the 1:09:00 mark. At the very least, watch it for my friend doing a literal *facepalm* twenty seconds later.

Though, the thing that made my talk totally worth it? My former Human Genetics professor (you can see her behind the Pastor) who’s 80-something, super liberal, intelligent, hilariously witty, a fan of Stephen Colbert, a non-theist, and a Holocaust survivor came up and shook my hand for about five minutes straight, saying how we needed more people like me who were brave enough to speak out against this stuff. Coming from someone I respect so much, that meant a lot.

Oh, and the tiny little blip about 50 minutes in isn’t us hiding something, it’s us changing the tape, haha.

Ken Ham blogs about my Creation Museum lecture!

I’ve hit the big-time, guys – Ken Ham, founder and head of the Creation Museum, is blogging about the talk I gave at Purdue last night. And of course, even though he wasn’t there, hasn’t seen any video, and has yet to put up the reports from his informant (the pastor who came), he’s already reacting to what I may or may not have said:

Of course it is no surprise this person mocks the Bible’s account of origins—she’s an atheist! And one of the mantras of these atheists is that they vehemently attack the Creation Museum because children visit and are challenged concerning what to believe about origins. Of course, what is no surprise is that the atheists want to indoctrinate children in atheistic evolution and that there is no God.

And it would be no surprise to you that they don’t complain about the thousands upon thousands of children who visit the secular evolutionist museums, including the specialist children’s museums across the country where they are presented with atheistic and evolutionary ideas as fact—with no suggestion there could even be a different way of looking at things. (At the Creation Museum, children and adults are told about different ways of looking at the same evidence, and, so, we present the evolution belief system, but we do take a strong stand on the biblical account nonetheless).

As you’ll see when I post the video tonight, I fully disclose at the beginning of my talk that I am a biologist and an atheist, so people in the audience know where I’m coming from. I also repeatedly mention that the Creation Museum does not represent all Christians.

Then he starts talking about the Indianapolis Children Museum:

In the very popular dinosaur exhibit, millions of years is presented numerous times as fact. But also look at the other sign—there are neither “good” nor “bad” values or beliefs—just different ones.

  1. Atheists today (like the one from Purdue University) claim Christianity is “bad,” that children should not be exposed to Christianity—but, of course, they can be exposed to everything else, and as far as everything else is concerned it is neither “good” nor “bad”—only Christianity is bad!
  2. This is indoctrinating children not only in atheistic evolution, but indoctrinating them to believe that morality is relative—that there really are no rules—one can do what one wants (except believe in Christian morality, of course).

I never claim Christianity is bad, or that you must be an atheist to believe in evolution – I explicitly say in my talk that many Christians believe in evolution. But tonight you’ll be able to see for yourself what I did and didn’t say. Unfortunately I’m stuck on campus until 8 or 9 PM, so it won’t be up until late tonight. Maybe I’ll send it along to Dr. Ham and see what he thinks after really hearing what I said.

I have a feeling he still won’t like it.

Oh, what is it with Creationists not linking to their opponents or mentioning them by name? He went out of his way to delete any instance of Jennifer McCreight (or even Jennifer), and didn’t link to the Society of Non-Theists’s website (wouldn’t expect him to know my blog). Sadness.

My Letter to the Editor

I guess the Exponent has been running it’s special “Jennifer McCreight Edition” over the last couple of days. Not only was I quoted in two articles yesterday, but my letter to the editor was printed today:

PSUB’s ‘Porn and Popcorn’ slandered non-Christians

Publication Date: 09/22/2009

Last time I checked, PSUB’s purpose is to “Present programs designed to meet current entertainment, cultural, recreational, social, and educational needs of students.” So why did they sponsor the Stewart Cooperative’s Porn and Popcorn event Sept. 11?

The event was a Christian anti-pornography event full of emotional arguments and void of scientific information. They presented gross misconceptions and outright lies about human sexuality to young adults, individuals who need proper health information the most. They went as far to say that “Protective sex is a joke” and that you would get diseases and pregnant no matter what sort of contraception you used, which is simply not true. Is this the kind of “educational” event PSUB sponsors?

Not only that, but the event slandered non-Christian students by stating that “To connect with an unbeliever is to connect with the devil” and “If he can’t be faithful to God, he can’t be faithful to you.” As an atheist and the President of the Society of Non-Theists, I am extremely concerned that PSUB would sponsor an event that told downright lies about a significant percentage of Purdue’s student body. Non-believers are just as faithful to their partners as Christians, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous and unfounded.

If religious groups want to put on biased programming that alienates people, go ahead. But PSUB is supposed to represent the entire student body, and for them to fund this is unacceptable. Why doesn’t PSUB remain religiously neutral like RHA?

Their only reply to my concerns was a form e-mail stating that Stewart Cooperative’s “application met our requirements.” So PSUB, once someone gets your money, they can do whatever they want with it? It doesn’t matter if their event is an unwelcoming environment for many students or contrary to PSUB’s purpose?

Jennifer McCreight

Senior in the College of Science

Let’s see if I get any responses!

I am a technology n00b, help!

Alright, I’m sure at least one of my followers has to know a thing or two about computers…so please help me! Here’s my problem:

I had a canon camcorder for the Pastafarian Preaching day. When I plugged it into my computer with a firewire cable and turned it on, my computer recognized it and I was able to transfer that day.

Fast forward to today. I have a different camcorder, but very very similar model. This one is a Canon Vixia HV30. I connected it in the same exact way with a firewire cable (different one, provided with this camcorder – I don’t have the previous one) and my computer will not recognize it. It’ll do the little “You connected something!” beep, but that’s it. When I open Window’s Movie Maker and try to capture video, it says I have nothing connected. The website says drivers should automatically download and there’s nothing on the site you can download. I’ve tried restarting both the computer and the video camera. It’s recorded on a tape, not an SD card. I’m on Windows XP.

If you want the video of me giving my Creation Museum talk…help!

Non-theists in student newspaper

Our Pastafarian Preaching got us into not one, but two articles in the Exponent today! The first one focused on just us, and was the better of the two articles:

Non-theist group demonstrates against religion

By Bridget Johnston

Staff Reporter

Publication Date: 09/21/2009

A band of swashbuckling pirates occupied campus on Friday, but not to loot and pillage.

The Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University gathered to voice their opinions on religion. Members chose to dress as pirates to satirize religious teachings that certain followers are better than everyone else by sarcastically saying that pirates are the chosen people.

“Our main message is that everyone should be able to criticize religion just like every other idea,” said Jennifer McCreight, a senior in the College of Science and president of the Society of Non-Theists, “especially if it is silly or hateful.”

The group for atheist, agnostic and non-religious students carried signs and read verses from the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is a parody of religion itself. The book challenges religious teachings and contradictions the Non-theists find absurd.

Although the responses to the demonstration were generally positive, some students felt that it was disruptive.

“I think that they definitely have a right to encourage students to think about these things,” said Quinn Frey, a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts. “Although, they were kind of in the way, making passing through the area a little inconvenient.”

The Society of Non-Theists has been trying to humanize the bad reputation that non-religious people sometimes have. Along with a day dedicated to “debunking atheist stereotypes,” the group is planning on working on a service project on the National Secular Service Day on Oct. 18.

McCreight believes that overall, the student responses to the pirate demonstration were positive.

“Although we have previously had some people get angry, the vast majority of responses to our actions are positive.”

The second one focuses on Brother Jed, and they didn’t misquote me…they just completely made it up!

The Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University were at Memorial Mall by coincidence to talk about Pirate Day.

“When we found out he was here we made signs to refute his arguments,” Jennifer McCreight, president of the society and senior in the College of Science. “I don’t think it’s disrespectful that we’re here because it’s rude that he’s here.”

What the hell? I never said anything even resembling that. I got to talk to the reporter for about five seconds, and all she asked me about was how non-theists felt on Purdue’s campus. I talked about our flyers being torn down, prayer at graduation, being in the minority…yet somehow they quoted me as saying that?

Maybe one of our members said that, but I most certainly did not…especially because it’s false. We did not make signs to refute his arguments. We had the signs left over from last year. We didn’t even know he was coming until after we planned our event. And the second line doesn’t even make sense! Gah!

Of course, by now I’ve pretty much lost all faith in the media actually reporting things correctly…bah humbug. At least the first article was really nice.

My dad is awesome

In case you didn’t figure that out from my previous post about my family…

Dad: [On Facebook, about Pastafarian Preaching photos] Some great looking pirates. I had do some research (you’re keeping my mine active) figure out what Pastafarian meant. It makes good sense to me.
Me: [Through email, to mom and dad] You’d both probably like to know that your daughter was interviewed by the local tv station for the 5 o clock news…dressed as a pirate. Thankfully the piece was very positive. Love, J
Dad: Got a kick out of you facebook pictures – you make a great pirate. You represented yourself well on the news interview — but tell them to get your name right next time. Love, Dad
Me: They even had me pronounce it on camera, and they still got it wrong! And spelled it wrong, did you catch that? Not to mention the club name…”Non-thesis” ha!
Dad: The reporter is probably in training for Fox News.

<3

Purdue's Pastafarian Preaching!

Yesterday the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University had their annual Pastafarian Preaching. We go out in full pirate regalia preaching the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and hand out flyers to the confused students who run into us. One side of the flyer contains the “Eight I Really Rather You Didn’t“s and the other side explains what the FSM is really about. We want to be a satire of your stereotypical fire and brimstone street preacher to show not only how ridiculous these people look, but that we have the right to criticize religious beliefs, especially if they’re silly or hateful.In a stroke of wonderful luck that proves to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does exist, we found out Brother Jed was going to be there the same day as us. Brother Jed is a fairly infamous campus preacher who unites all religious denominations in laughing at him. He also looks exactly like Eugene Levy, which makes it all the more hilarious.We basically caused chaos for poor Brother Jed. We had our own readings from the Gospel while he was reading from the Bible, we held up our silly signs all around his, we giggled at all of the ridiculous things he was saying, we skipped around him singing pirate songs…but most of all, we got a great response from students who were sick of Jed’s nonsense.
We started to get a little bored with his ranting, so we decided to commandeer the Boilermaker Special, to the cheers of the crowd around Brother Jed. The train is Purdue’s mascot, so we have a little train looking car thing that you can get rides on on Fridays. So we climbed aboard and enjoyed our new ship, shouting piratical things at the now even more confused Purdue students.
When we returned Brother Jed was still going strong. Two of the Mormon missionaries approached us and asked what was going on. Oddly enough, they became our allies. We talked about how hateful Brother Jed was and how his method of preaching really didn’t make any sense. As silly as I think Mormonism is, I have to admit that the missionaries on campus are generally nice guys. Much preferred to people like Brother Jed.
Overall, the day was a success. We didn’t have any negative feedback, we handed out thousands of flyers, many people thanked us for what we were doing, we got interviewed by the Exponent for multiple stories, and we made the local tv news. I’m not sure how we could have done much better!
I can’t do the day justice through talking about it, so here’s a video of some of our pirate antics and Brother Jed’s hilarious nonsense.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me harties! Arrrrr!

EDIT: One of our other Pirates has blogged about it too, with more photos and video!

Purdue’s Pastafarian Preaching!

Yesterday the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University had their annual Pastafarian Preaching. We go out in full pirate regalia preaching the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and hand out flyers to the confused students who run into us. One side of the flyer contains the “Eight I Really Rather You Didn’t“s and the other side explains what the FSM is really about. We want to be a satire of your stereotypical fire and brimstone street preacher to show not only how ridiculous these people look, but that we have the right to criticize religious beliefs, especially if they’re silly or hateful.In a stroke of wonderful luck that proves to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does exist, we found out Brother Jed was going to be there the same day as us. Brother Jed is a fairly infamous campus preacher who unites all religious denominations in laughing at him. He also looks exactly like Eugene Levy, which makes it all the more hilarious.We basically caused chaos for poor Brother Jed. We had our own readings from the Gospel while he was reading from the Bible, we held up our silly signs all around his, we giggled at all of the ridiculous things he was saying, we skipped around him singing pirate songs…but most of all, we got a great response from students who were sick of Jed’s nonsense.
We started to get a little bored with his ranting, so we decided to commandeer the Boilermaker Special, to the cheers of the crowd around Brother Jed. The train is Purdue’s mascot, so we have a little train looking car thing that you can get rides on on Fridays. So we climbed aboard and enjoyed our new ship, shouting piratical things at the now even more confused Purdue students.
When we returned Brother Jed was still going strong. Two of the Mormon missionaries approached us and asked what was going on. Oddly enough, they became our allies. We talked about how hateful Brother Jed was and how his method of preaching really didn’t make any sense. As silly as I think Mormonism is, I have to admit that the missionaries on campus are generally nice guys. Much preferred to people like Brother Jed.
Overall, the day was a success. We didn’t have any negative feedback, we handed out thousands of flyers, many people thanked us for what we were doing, we got interviewed by the Exponent for multiple stories, and we made the local tv news. I’m not sure how we could have done much better!
I can’t do the day justice through talking about it, so here’s a video of some of our pirate antics and Brother Jed’s hilarious nonsense.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, me harties! Arrrrr!

EDIT: One of our other Pirates has blogged about it too, with more photos and video!

Best TA ever

Last night I emailed my Physics TA about my Friday 2 hour lab class. It falls directly during the peak hours of our Pastafarian Preaching, which greatly saddened me. Physics lab, however, has set make up dates for if you miss a lab for a valid reason, like illness. I asked if me being in charge of a student organization’s day long counter protest would constitute as a valid reason…and he said sure!

Granted, I didn’t include details of what we were going to be protesting (Brother Jed, I can’t tell you how excited I am for that) or what we’ll be wearing while protesting, or even what club it was for…but he didn’t ask. Maybe his noodliness used divine intervention to sway his opinions.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get my pirate costume ready.