Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
The Best Thing
First of all, kudos to Allison Catalano, a sophomore at Colorado University, for starting up a chapter of the Secular Student Alliance at her school.
[link] Though there are many faith-based organizations on campus, Allison Catalano, a sophomore at CU, started the Alliance after she felt like there was no place for student atheists to assemble and get to know each other.
However, when talking about the new SSA, CU sophomore and treasurer of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), Bader Akacem, seems to have his priorities a little out of whack.
[link] (Bader Akacem) said they (the MSA) would like to meet members of the (Secular Student) Alliance and build a relationship with them. According to him, the MSA often plan dinners and various social events with other student organizations to get to know them and engage in discussion.
“The best thing we have here (CU) are a lot of religious organizations,” Akacem said.
You see, I would have said that the "best thing" at any university would be, you know, the education I was receiving at great expense.
But that's just me. At least Bader is willing to have a polite discussion with the Secular Student Alliance.
This is unlike Tom Miller, the "campus minister" at CU for the Flatirons Baptist Church. He makes no bones about why he wants to "talk" to the dirty, filthy atheists in the SSA - he wants to convert the heathens and save their eternal souls from fiery torment at the hands of Satan and his demons!
[link] (Tom Miller) said it is part of God's freedom to allow people to choose to be either a theist or an atheist. He said he wouldn't mind meeting to discuss different beliefs with the organization if they were going to be open to what he had to say.
“Some (atheists) are not open to dialogue and they'd think I was being obnoxious,” Miller said. “I would be going there to convert them and we'd clash before you even said your first name.”
So, what is the lesson the secular students at Colorado University will be taking away from this? Well, to me it seems to be that Muslim students are polite and willing to at least socialize with you, while adult Baptist "campus ministers" just want to "clash" with you, and then try to convert you.
If I were the baptist "campus minister", I'd re-think my strategy a bit.
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CU Secular Alliance Info
You can get more information about this group e at: http://www.cocore.org/student_secular_alliance.html
Solidarity amongst minorities...
I find it interesting that they mentioned the Muslim group as being more congenial towards the secular group on campus... and from my experience, very representative of my experiences with American Muslims. Congenial, and very open to friendly discourse without preaching. Several of my friends are Muslim, and they're some of the nicest people you would ever wish to know. Never preachy... they live their religion as a personal relationship with God... not a crusade. (They frown on the fundamentalist suicide-bomber nut-jobs of their own religion just as much as moderate Christians frown on the Dominionists.) I can ask them questions and get rational, academic-style answers about their beliefs without feeling that I'm being pressured to convert. It's very refreshing. I do enjoy learning about other cultures and religions. It's a fascinating world out there, and religion is a part of culture and history. I can't do the same thing with the average Christian. Of course, there ARE exceptions, but almost every conversation proves one of several things:
- They don't know their own Bible and Dogma.
- They can't given intelligent answers about their beliefs.
- They contradict themselves.
- They end up resorting to the "you can't understand the Bible because you don't have faith" argument.
- They can't have a discussion about religion without trying to convert you.
Back when I was in college, on my university campus, the Multicultural club included people of various ethnicities, and there were several Muslims in the club. The club also included the campus GLBT and Alliance. Amazingly, we all got along GREAT because the focus was on learning about each other and accepting people for their differences, celebrating the diversity, without needing to force beliefs and whatnot on each other. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, Jews, Pagans... we were all there. Gays, straights, asexuals... we were all there. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians... we were all there. The Bible Thumpers, however... they kept a separate club. They wouldn't sully their pure hands by shaking ours.
Trolling
Hi Brent:
It's me again. The egg on the face guy. I left that "cease and desist" before I had checked your blog out. Bad me. I just made post that I hope helps clarify things. I'm not as stupid as I make myself sound today, although I do have my days, and this one appears to be red letter!..(: Y'all are welcome anytime!!
Excellent Dan!
I am surprised and delighted to see you here, Dan! Welcome welcome!
For those of you who are wondering what's going on, please follow Dan's link and check out his "I Thinks It's A Miracle!" post.
Dan, again. Welcome. Happy to have you here at UTI. I hope you stay a while.
CU Secular Alliance
I would like contact information for this group. I would like to send them a small donation to help them with their organization.
Benefit of the doubt
I have enough experience with news reports to take their quotations with a grain of salt. Sometimes a BIG one.
We are one extra step removed from what was actually said, and with only a slip of punctuation you could have
I know I am reading into it just a possibility, but these kinds of slips happen every day in newspapers under the rush to meet publishing deadlines. The overall words often are right, but with simply moving a comma, period, dropping "and" or "or" or other typo, the meanings are frequently quite different. He may have meant it as written, but just as easily could have meant it another way.
If you take your experience with the accuracy of news articles that you actually know something about, and apply that same level of accuracy to the others...
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
Nice Try
Geez Rich. Benefit of the doubt? Basically, you are calling the reporter a liar and accusing her of purposely misrepresenting the events. Would you care to speculate as to what the purpose of the deception might be?
Taking the whole story into consideration, your theory doesn't make sense. If you read the entire article, it's about how a new atheist group is received on campus. The Muslim group was friendly, inviting and looking forward to discussing philosophical differences. The Christian group gave no favorable indication towards anticipating discussion with the atheist group. As a matter of fact, the Christian minister actually dismisses the idea because his only agenda would be to convert the godless heathens.
It would take a hell of a lot more to change the campus minister's meaning than a simple typo or rearranging a few words. Yes, you can quote one sentence and take meanings out of context, as you so frequently do here on UTI, but when considering the whole article, your hypothesis falls apart. Nice try, though.
Yes, Benefit of the Doubt.
I have seen and I have been misquoted myself by well-meaning reporters.
I did not accuse the reporter of deception. I will even give the reporter the benefit of the doubt in this. But I have seen too many times where meanings get misunderstood and garbled by well-intentioned reporters writing under time pressures, simple sentence construction that is ambiguous in meaning, wrong words that under a speedy proof-reading look right, in short all kinds of mangling that have nothing to do with intentional distortion. As a matter of fact, I just finished reading a whole book full of examples of this (Anguished English by Richard Lederer).
Maybe he did say it exactly as written (he is a Baptist, after all) but then again maybe not. I am leaving room for the latter, not denying the former.
It is evident that we are both looking at this article through our respective filters. You have experienced godders who stomp in trying to convince you that you "need Salvation", I have experienced atheists who when they find out I am a Christian, shut down any meaningful conversation before I can say anything past "good morning".
"I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion." -G.K. Chesterton
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