I’m a sucker for terrible Christian movies

I want to see this so badly:

From the video description:

“The Waiting Game is about a guy who saves himself for marriage only to have his fiance leave him on their wedding day. He must now decide if it’s worth it to wait again.”

What the movie is really about: only getting married because you want to bang someone. Lovely Christian ethics at work!

Horrible morals aside, this film looks unintentionally hilarious – almost like an atheist parody of waiting for marriage. I’m not going to lie – I lol’d at the Ted Haggard cameo and “You need Jesus! With Jesus comes the wisdom of how to drive!” But it’s real, and they’re looking for people to fund the movie.

I’m torn. Is it okay to want 2 million dollars to go to a pro-abstinence movie if it will inspire ironic godless viewing parties?

(Via Friendly Atheist)

Omfg Tim Minchin!

Yesterday I went to the Sasquatch music festival out in Eastern Washington. It’s held at the Gorge Amphitheater, which is a ridiculously beautiful venue.
Photo of concert stage in front of mountainsThough I shortly nicknamed it “The Gouge.” Seriously, $5.25 for a coke? $10.00 for a beer?! The worst part was you were stuck buying bottled water even if you brought a water bottle, because the only drinking water station constantly had a line of 100 people. And there were no signs indicating the hand washing water was actually recycled water, so tons of people were unwittingly drinking water people had rinsed their peed-on hands in. Ewwww.

I’m not going to lie – while I also wanted to see Flogging Molly, The Flaming Lips, and Modest Mouse, the thing that really motivated me to go was Tim Minchin. And I was in the front row!

Tim Minchin playing the piano He was absolutely hilarious and charming, like always. He played a mindblowingly witty new song, but I don’t want to ruin it for any of you who are going to see him play live when he’s touring the US next month. Speaking of which, I have tickets to see him in June, and I don’t regret buying them at all. Especially since he only played for 45 minutes, which is not enough Minchin for me.

Close up of Tim MinchinThis photo is just to rub in how close I was.

The rest of Sasquatch was hit or miss. I had never seen Reggie Watts or Mad Rad before, but they were both very entertaining. The Flaming Lips were fucking horrible. I was so disappointed, since they’re one of my favorite bands. They picked one of their most subdued old albums to played from, had way too much dialog and set up between (or even during) songs, and had to resort to constant begging to get the audience to cheer. Everyone was falling asleep, and you could watch hundreds of people leaving. The lead singer couldn’t even hold a note that night. Eventually we left too – it wasn’t worth sitting through that horrible show to make it to Modest Mouse.

To make matters worse, apparently The Flaming Lips inspires everyone to light up a joint, so I was sitting downwind of a nasty stream of marijuana smoke. Ugh.

And good god, THE HIPSTERS! I don’t think I saw anyone who wasn’t a white 18 – 25 year old dressed in ironic 80s clothing with neon Native American facepaint and feathers in their hair. Are you kidding me? Though I quickly learned the only thing worse than hipsters are drunk and high hipsters, which was pretty much everyone at Sasquatch except me. Thank you, drunk hipster chick who elbowed me in the face during Mad Rad. Maybe it would have been more enjoyable if I was willing to blow a day’s paycheck on beer.

…I’ve officially become an adult, haven’t I?*

Oh well. Tim Minchin! Squeeeeeeeeee!

*Not true. I would have found all of this annoying even at age 18.

I have one last bribe

The fundraiser for Camp Quest ends on May 31st, and Team Awesome is still behind PZ by about $1,800 dollars. But I think we can do it, especially since many of us are resorting to bribery if we win:

* Since PZ Myers has offered to shave his beard into a hideous ’80s mustache if he wins — and really, you should donate to our side for that reason alone — Adam Lee at Daylight Atheism has agreed to grow a beard if Team Awesome wins. Thus preserving Atheist Blogger Beard Homeostasis, and preventing the world as we know it from collapsing into some sort of hideous beardly space-time nexus.

* Matt Dillahunty at The Atheist Experience TV program will do one episode of the show in drag.

* JT Eberhard of WWJTD? will shave his head… and wax his legs.

And what will Greta Christina do? I hear you cry.

* Greta Christina — she said, with a quiver of dread in her voice — will do karaoke.

Let me be very clear about this: I have never done karaoke. I have never wanted to do karaoke. I am a karaoke virgin. But if Team Awesome wins the Camp Quest fundraising challenge, I will pop my karaoke cherry. And I will get it on video, and post the video to this blog and to my Facebook page.

I’m throwing my own embarrassing bribe into the ring, though preventing PZ from performing beardocide should be motivation enough to donate to Team Awesome.

If Team Awesome raises more money than PZ by June 1st, I will attempt to learn how to ride a bicycle, and videotape the whole inevitably hilarious experience.

Yes, I never learned how to ride a bike. Yes, people (especially my family) like to tease me about this all the time. Yes, I feel ashamed when a 4 year old zips past me on the sidewalk without training wheels. No, you’re not the first person who came up with the joke “It’s just like riding a bike! …Oh.”

I say attempt in my statement because I can’t assure you that I will succeed. A boyfriend tried to teach me how to ride a couple of years ago, and I failed miserably. Partially because he gave up on me – yes, I was that bad. But I will attempt, and either way I promise you will get hilarious footage.

But only if you donate to Camp Quest. I’d say so children can learn to be skeptical and ride bikes, but I have no idea if they ride bikes at camp.

And if you don’t donate before May 31st? You will have to suffer through a 80’s porno mustache on PZ. Not to mention an even bigger ego – who knew that was possible?

So do it! Donate!

This certainly isn’t comforting

I don’t usually like bringing up especially personal stuff here, but I just couldn’t resist blogging this. For reasons I don’t care to explain at the moment, I made an appointment with UW’s mental health clinic. While you can request a referral online, you still need to do a phone screening before you can go in. Basically they need to know what you need help with (eating disorder? depression? substance abuse?) and how severe your problem is (stressed out graduate student, or ready to jump off the George Washington Memorial Bridge?).

Don’t worry, I’m not in the latter.

I decided to Google the name of my screener before calling. I’m not sure why – maybe I thought seeing a smiling photo attached to a name would calm some of my nerves. But the opposite happened when I read her bio:

[Screener]*, M.Ac. has worked in the field of crisis intervention, with a specialization in suicide prevention, since 1993. She earned her master’s degree in acupuncture from Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in 2002, and has completed her certification as a yoga instructor (RYT ® Yoga Alliance, 200 hours). Integrating an understanding of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Yoga with training in mental health issues, [Screener] offers a holistic and culturally sensitive approach to crisis intervention. [Screener] is a certified counselor in the state of Washington.

My reaction was pretty much exactly this:
Are you fucking kidding me?I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I was well aware that the graduate student appointee insurance covers acupuncture. It’s just a little unsettling when you’re trying to cure your own crazy, and you find out you’re going to be talking to someone who graduated from woo-woo university. Maybe this is culturally insensitive of me, but I don’t want Traditional Chinese Medicine – I want Proven Scientifically to Work Medicine.

After a little more digging, I realized 5 out of 14 of the clinic’s staff mention using spirituality or Buddhist teachings in their therapy. I’m not sure if this ratio is good or bad for a public university. I understand that there are religious students on this campus who could benefit from this…but it makes me a little unnerved. I was already uncomfortable about going in – I don’t want someone who’s not going to understand where I’m coming from.

I wonder how I can say “I am a raging atheist, please give me someone whose treatments are based on rationality” without getting that marked down as a symptom.

*Yes, I realize it’s very easy to figure out who this person is. I just don’t want people to find this post when searching for her name…or for her to get a Google Alert when I’m going to have to deal with her. I will remove comments that post her name.

The Unbelievers: New Atheism and the Old Boy’s Club

I highly recommend this article by Victoria Bekiempis at Bitch Media. It’s one of the most well-rounded, unbiased, well-researched article about the gender problem in the atheist movement that I’ve seen written by an outsider. And it has a fabulous graphic:An evil looking robot with three heads, of Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett, towering in front of an exasperated tiny female atheist with a picket signI particularly like the closing paragraph:

So let’s reframe. For every mention of Hitchens, counter with a mention of Hecht. For every theory that male atheists are purer or more confrontational, let’s ask why we gender the philosophy of nonbelief to begin with. The ranks of atheists who don’t fit the popular profile are increasing, and with more attention paid to who isn’t a white male author with a fancy-pants book contract, the public face of nonbelief may begin to look as diverse as atheism’s adherents actually are. And if the work of women like Hecht, Jacoby, McCreight, and Gaylor indicates anything, it’s that there’s a need for atheist voices from all genders and sexes to—very rationally—make themselves heard.


And no, I don’t just like it because my name somehow got squished between fantastic women I admire. I like it because it reiterates a point I’ve always made: The awesome female atheists are out there and doing things deserving just as much attention as Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, and Dennett. We just need to start mentioning them more.

Oopsie! The rapture is actually in October!

Says Harold Camping, the man behind the May 21st rapture nonsense. I wish I were joking:

But Camping said that he’s now realized the apocalypse will come five months after May 21, the original date he predicted. He had earlier said Oct. 21 was when the globe would be consumed by a fireball.


Saturday was “an invisible judgment day” in which a spiritual judgment took place, he said. But the timing and the structure is the same as it has always been, he said.


“We’ve always said May 21 was the day, but we didn’t understand altogether the spiritual meaning,” he said. “May 21 is the day that Christ came and put the world under judgment.”


Isn’t that just so convenient? It’s lovely when you make a testable claim, and then do a whole lot of hand waiving and goal post moving to explain why you were wrong.

I had a great time poking fun at the Rapture – it was basically an atheist holiday. But this just makes me sick. Why? Now Camping can keep scamming people for another five months. And this isn’t just the kind of “lol, gullible people” scamming. People have given away all of their money. People have attempted to kill themselves and their children to avoid post-rapture suffering. This man has ruined lives, and now he gets the chance to do it again.

And on a related note…why do equivalent loonies get quoted as experts, but not rational critics?

Tim LaHaye, co-author of the best-selling “Left Behind” novels about the end times, recently called Camping’s prediction “not only bizarre but 100 percent wrong!” He cited the Bible verse Matthew 24:36, “but about that day or hour no one knows” except God.”

While it may be in the near future, many signs of our times certainly indicate so, but anyone who thinks they `know’ the day and the hour is flat out wrong,” LaHaye wrote on his website, leftbehind.com.


This isn’t an alternative viewpoint journalists can use in an article. LaHaye and Christians who regurgitate that Bible verse believe the same crazy crap, they just don’t put a date on it. Where’s the quote from a skeptic or atheist?

An important rule to remember

My friend Jaki just sent me this shirt as a surprise gift:Jen wearing a shirt that reads 'Don't drink and blog' while holding a bottle of wineThough she didn’t send me the wine. That was a gift from the Imagine No Religion conference. And an aptly named on, too – Big Bang wine from Blasted Church winery.

Guess I’ll have to refrain from blogging for the next hour or so…