I came across this interesting interview today with Will Wright, the creator of the new computer game Spore, along with classics like SimCity, SimAnt, and the Sims.

From the interview:

WILL WRIGHT: It’s funny because in the game you’re kind of in the role of an intelligent designer. Yet the kind of meta message of the game is life becomes what it is through the process of evolution. In fact the other creatures around you are evolving while you’re exhibiting intelligent design. Personally, I’m very much a strong evolutionist—basically atheist, agnostic-ish. For the game design, though, we really wanted the player to be emotionally involved with what they were doing. Throughout any kind of game, especially a game like Spore, you have to be always cognizant of keeping the player’s emotional engagement with what they’re doing. It’s very much a game design kind of decision to have the player do this. We did have prototypes, actually, where creatures were evolving out of your control and you were picking from a selected set of mutations of your creature. And it was so much less engaging than if you’d actually gone and designed the creature itself. But we kind of liked the idea that the game is fairly ambiguous in that space. It doesn’t really feel like it has a strong agenda. Because we’re actually reading on our forums on the website, a lot of religious people talking to atheist people and basically discussing these concepts and debating them, fairly intelligently, without a lot of malice towards each other.

Congrats on the successful release on Spore (copy-protection issues aside); I, for one, hope it will get kids more interested in science and evolutionary biology.

If you haven’t already seen signs around campus, former Hoosier Senator Birch Bayh will be giving a lecture tomorrow (Thursday) at the Law School about the importance of the separation of church and state. His talk is at 3 PM. Please come if you can!

IDS article

Congratulations to our president, Sarah Kaiser, whose speech she made at the callout meeting this year was featured in the Secular Student Alliance eMpirical no. 32. Check it out!

Link to the SAIU business card (PDF).

We have gift cards. You’re welcome to take a few to hand out to people…if you ever mention the group to anyone and they’re interested, they can check out our website for more information.  We’ll hand out the business cards at events with tabling and such as well. If you’d like to donate business cards to us, email Carly or Jared.

Hey folks,

I just stumbled on this video of a presentation by Richard Dawkins at a TED conference a couple of years ago. It’s well worth your time, I promise:

–Eoban

Hey folks,

The new site, saiu.org, is finally up. The old IU-hosted site now redirects here. This is your official source for information about the Secular Alliance, especially our current events and what we’re all about.

So far the new site has been tested on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Opera, but if you notice any glitches in your browser, let us know!

Event: Russell’s Tea Party
Date: 9/21/08
Time: 12pm (noon)
Location: Indiana Memorial Union (IMU) Charter Room

Discussion topic: How do you feel about the “new atheist” movement, and how does this fit into your desires for the SAIU? We’ll also discuss the possibility of a 21+ Skeptics in the Pub night for of-age members, and go over upcoming events for those who are interested.
Description/explanation: Bertrand Russell coined the analogy of a celestial teapot, now dubbed “Russell’s Teapot,” which is now one of the first examples of a parody religion. These parody religions include the Flying Spaghetti Monster (www.venganza.org), the Invisible Pink Unicorn (Wikipedia page), and the Church of Google(www.thechurchofgoogle.org), among others. Following is Russell’s original description of the flying teapot analogy:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

The Russell’s Tea Party is, for SAIU, a time for discussion. Dry tea is provided, but we’ll borrow hot water from the IMU Starbucks or food court, or purchase other desired drinks or food there.

Event: Administrative meeting for SAIU
Date: 9/21
Time: 11am (before Tea Party discussion)
Location: IMU Charter Room
Description: Before the Russell’s Tea Party this Sunday, we’ll be having an executive meeting at 11am. This is for those interested in becoming officers, or simply being more actively involved with the group’s activities.

More specifically, we’ll be discussing the upcoming Cardboard Boat Regatta! We need to set up some dates for making the boat, figure out where we’re going to get cardboard and duct tape in mass amounts, and decide on boat decorations and themes, so we could use all the creativity and different brains that are available!

The Secular Alliance of IU hosted John W Loftus in Ballantine Hall room 109 on September 13, 2008 at 6pm. He spoke for a little over an hour, with time for questions at the end. Afterwards, group members were invited to join John and his wife for dinner at the Irish Lion. Hopefully, members got a chance to meet others in the group and have a good time.
Any thoughts on how the event went? What could have made it better? Post a comment below.