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With Joe Biden’s recent gaffe, and President Obama’s confirmation of that gaffe, there has been much talk about gay marriage. Some of that talk is opposition, specifically opposition that is based on religion. To put this briefly, your opposition to gay marriage means absolutely nothing if you’re grounding it in religion. That statement is not an attack on religion by any means. You are free to believe whatever you want. However, the consequences of those beliefs only affect those who hold them.

I have said that before and religious people will generally express to me that whether I follow their religion or not, I will eventually experience the consequences. Once again, you are certainly free to believe that, but that does not give you a free pass to take away others rights simply because you choose not to have them yourself. My personal opinion on marriage is that it shouldn’t be state recognized, that only civil unions should be. But we’re a long way off on that.

Another personal opinion of mine is that if you believe two people who probably love each other more than you and your heterosexual spouse do shouldn’t be able to do simple things like have visiting rights at the hospial or file taxes together, then you are kind of a dick.

Jessika Griffin is the president of the Secular Alliance. She is a senior studying public management, health administration, and legal studies.

In a press release that you can find on the IU News Room website concerning a newly published book on the power of prayer in medicine, written by IU professor Candy Gunther Brown, the release says the following:

“…even a majority of medical doctors say that miraculous healing sometimes occurs.”

When asked where this claim came from, the source given was the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, which conducted a national survey of 1,100 physicians in 2004.

The survey no longer appears to be available and happens to be cited in the Southern Medical Journal, which also published a different faith healing study done by Brown that PZ Myers did a pretty good job debunking.

“This study was wide open to experimental bias, and given that two of the authors of the study were not medically trained at all, but were instead members of schools of theology, and that all of the work was funded by the Templeton Foundation, we can guess what answer they wanted.”

Speaking as a journalism student and as someone who’s covered press releases, you have to be careful how you present information. You don’t want to mislead people, you don’t want to lean on questionable sources, and you don’t want to ignore any possible conflicts of interest.

Without access to the study that makes this erroneous claim, it’s impossible to fully understand why such a claim was made. Why not point to the Harvard study that showed how prayer actually had a negative effect on surgery patients? I would content it’s more valid than the study cited in the press release.

Note: The Secular Alliance hosted Brown as a speaker in January 2010.

Matt Cowan is a third-year student at IU studying Journalism. He is the secretary of the Secular Alliance.

The Send an Atheist to Church fundraiser in February and the Flying Spaghetti Monster Feast combined raised $650 for Doctors Without Borders! Thanks for a great semester of service, everyone!

We look forward to continuing service events, discussions, movie nights, field trips, speakers, and much much more next year! Keep checking the website for information about summer activities.

Remember if you have suggestions, comments, or concerns just shoot an email to secular@indiana.edu

Meanwhile, check out this awesomely amazing video.

This post features a critique of Doug Wilson’s Sexual By Design lecture by Jessika Griffin, and a response from Jake Mentzel of the Clearnote Campus Fellowship.

As someone who not only does not believe in a god but, more importantly does not adhere to any religious dogma, things like “god’s image”, or “rejection of God’s pattern for marriage”, mean nothing to me. So a talk like this, as an atheist, simply sounds like hate for the non-religious. Or people who, in Doug Wilson’s view, are sexual perverts. I don’t think anything two (or more, or even just one) consenting adult does in privacy is of anyone’s concern but their own.

Kinsey’s work at IU was important. Of course it was controversial. He was studying something people just didn’t talk about—and not talking is not healthy. Everyone has sex, vanilla or otherwise. When people believe that society will think they’re a freak for doing something that, as it turns out, a whole lot of other people are doing they’re just not able to live a healthy life.

There are plenty of arguments that have been made about the scientific validity of Kinsey’s research, and I encourage discussion about that, but I am glad that someone took initiative to bring about discussion about sexual practices. If you think a supernatural being is determining what you should and should not do in the bedroom, then by all means do as it says. However, religion is not an excuse to judge others.

Jessika Griffin is a third-year student studying public management and legal studies. She is currently the outreach director for the Secular Alliance at IU.

Jake’s response is below the break.

[Response to first paragraph.]

How about an analogy: I’m a Christian. I believe in God and I adhere to religious dogma. Comparing the God who made us and cares for us to a flying spaghetti monster is offensive. Blasphemous. And it sounds an awful lot like contempt for those who love Him. But that’s what Secular Alliance is doing—and in a very public way.

Should I be so threatened by your satire that I organize a protest? Wash off or vandalize your chalk? Start crying? Start shouting you down for your hatred and contempt for Christians? Wring my hands together for those poor, benighted believers who might be led to think critically about what they believe on account of your chalk? Or the event you’re putting on that they are not obligated to attend?

Obviously not. That’d not only be immature, but it would betray a whole lot of insecurity on my part.

Let’s change analogies. Substitute acombustionism (if you’ll pardon an absurd made up word) for atheism. You don’t believe in fire. Which is all well and good until the house you live in goes up in smoke with you in it, dousing yourself in lighter fluid. Am I morally obligated to warn you of the fire and to call you out of it?

You know, it’d be so much easier to just connive at your rejection of fire and choose instead to affirm you in it. I could carry myself with an air of superiority, rebuking those who would dare afflict your fragile psyche by suggesting there is such a thing as fire and that you were, in fact, in danger. And oh, the posturing and parading and preening I could do! But that wouldn’t make me loving. It would make me a self-serving, loveless hypocrite.

People who love and respect each other speak straight. They warn each other when they’re being stupid and when they’re in danger. Getting giggles from comparing God to a flying spaghetti monster may be clever, but it is also monstrously ungrateful. You ought to stop. Does saying so make me hate you? Of course not.

Same goes with any other sin that you’re tangled in. I have an obligation to warn you of the effects of sin both now and in the future. To appeal to you not to harden your heart against God or kill your conscience.

Do I realize that it’s offensive? Yes. Painfully so.

But sometimes love is offensive. The other day my daughter was playing outside and strayed too close to the street. A car was coming. And I wasn’t close to her. What did I do? I yelled and I was urgent. She came to me, crying and scared and unaware of the danger she had been in. Was I angry? Hateful? No, I just needed to get her to safety. Were her feelings hurt? Yeah, but it was a very small price to pay. I would jump in front of a car for her a thousand times over.

The difference is my daughter is all of two and a half years old. She’s not mature enough to understand the love that was behind that warning. It’s okay that her feelings were hurt. I was there to hold and comfort her and assure her I wasn’t angry. She’ll learn in time.

This is a point of disagreement and we should be able to disagree with one another firmly and maturely. It demonstrates that we actually have convictions and respect for one another. And it demonstrates that we both realize there’s something at stake.

[Response to second paragraph.]

Here’s my question: Since when have societal norms ever been a standard worth conforming to? Since when has “everybody’s doin’ it” been a good justification for… anything? Every five-year old knows this intuitively—and if he doesn’t, his mom will be sure to tell him. You know, something about someone jumping off a bridge and whatnot.

I mean, be serious. Some cultures have been cannibalistic. Can’t you see the ivory tower academics reporting breathlessly: “Well, we looked at the research, and, as it happens, the majority of our society is cannibalistic! Alert the press!”

How many times does every American lie during the course of one single day? Well, shoot. I guess we should campaign to normalize lying as an acceptable practice in our society.

In other words, the prevalence of any behavior in any human society cannot be the ethical ground on which you stand to justify that behavior. That’s mighty slippery ground. For instance, it just so happens that there was a period in our nation’s history in which racism and segregation were mighty prevalent. And I hope we can all agree that that was wicked and indefensible—as are all modern iterations of the same sins.

Here’s another question: If everyone is doing it, where does all the pressure to conceal it actually come from? We don’t exactly feel this way about eating ice cream and apple pie, do we? When and how did we all, as a society, sign up to ban happiness?

Couldn’t it rather be the case that we’ve all been collectively laboring under the weight of a bad conscience for destroying God’s gift of sexuality? After all, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In other words, concealed sin is a tacit acknowledgement of sin.

Or as Shakespeare said, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” Or something like that.

There’s a higher standard than societal norms, and it belongs to the One who created sex. Sex isn’t dirty. It’s a lot of good, healthy fun. It’s spiritual, it’s emotional, it’s carnal, it’s fruitful. And not properly understood, and removed from its proper context, it’s all vanilla.

Treating sexuality like a scientific study—placing us under the microscope, observing our behavior, and allowing ethics to flow from observation—isn’t “healthy.” It’s cold and lifeless. Demeaning. It’s an insult to God and the dignity of man. It debases what it means to be a man or woman made in God’s image. It debases the glory of sex as God intended.

Sex is much more poetic than that. But I’ll stop there.

[Response to third paragraph.]

Irreligion isn’t an excuse to judge others, either. Hypocrisy works both ways.

But let’s back up. Because making judgments isn’t the same thing as being judgmental. And refusing to make a distinction here is a sign of a lack of honesty and integrity.

We all make a thousand judgments a day. You judge that I’m being judgmental. You judge that I’m an idiot for being a Christian. The question isn’t about making judgments. The question is about hypocrisy and final judgment.

If you’re in rebellion against God, I have an obligation to point it out. I also have an obligation to do it in two ways:

1. By understanding that I’m a rebel who’s actually worse than you are, compelled by love to see you enjoy the same reconciliation with God that I now share. In other words, not as a self-righteous prig who can only see the sins of others, but never his own. This means humility. But doing things with humility doesn’t mean doing them apologetically or without conviction.

and

2. By understanding that I’m not actually condemning anyone in any final sense. God is the one justifies and condemns. It is God whose standard has been violated, not mine. My job isn’t to call anyone to my standards or condemn them for failing to be as holy as I am. My job is to call everyone to God’s standards, warning them that He will judge them for failing to met them. God is the only true and final judge. And He will judge.

But understand in the process that my hypocrisy is ultimately immaterial. You answer to God whether I do a good job of loving you or not. As someone somewhere once said, if a hypocrite is between you and God, he’s closer to God than you are.

Jake Mentzel is the Campus Director at Clearnote Campus Fellowship.

This is a guest post by Jain Waldrip and is a response to Sexual By Design.

If, like many of us, you’ve seen the biopic “Kinsey,” starring Liam Neeson as famous biologist and human sexuality researcher Alfred Kinsey, you know that his work was groundbreaking for making information about sexual behavior accessible and acceptable. What you may not know is that in his time, Kinsey wasn’t just fighting against ignorant attitudes toward human sexuality. He also devoted much of his attention to defending against pseudoscientific research that sought to shore up accepted beliefs about human sexual behavior.

Sexual orientation is presently understood as an identity category: people are most often understood to be gay or straight. This identity affects other aspects of their lives, but arises from sexual orientation. Less often, people are understood to also possibly be bisexual or asexual. Other categories exist, but each of these identity categories is complex and nuanced enough to deserve its own article, and it’s the continuum of heterosexual and homosexual behavior that provided the focus of both Kinsey’s work and the prior research he often fought against.

No one can completely avoid sexual identity politics in our culture.

These identity categories often come with a set of assumptions referred to as behavioral stereotypes, the most common form of which is the expectation that a homosexual person will adopt some habits of social interaction generally understood to belong to another gender category. That is, the stereotype for gay men is that they will behave in more feminine ways, whereas the stereotype for lesbian women expects masculine behavior from them.

Several people are, no doubt, presently thinking of examples in which this stereotype holds true. Other people are likely also thinking of several examples in which this stereotype is pointedly the opposite of reality. This is the nature of a stereotype: it is an assumption based on someone’s “firm impression” of a category of people. This is, in fact, the original meaning of the word. In some cases a stereotype may be true, in other cases nothing could be further from the truth.

The problem with stereotypes is in accepting them as foregone conclusions, and using them as a basis for future judgments. This is exactly what was done in the research Kinsey helped to disprove.

Jennifer Terry, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at UC Irvine, devotes a chapter in her book Deviant Bodies to these research projects and Kinsey’s response to them. Terry presents the example of a study conducted by the Commission for the Study of Sex Variants in New York City from 1935 to 1941 – just seven years before the first Kinsey Report was released.

One of the primary goals of the Sex Variant study was to craft an accurate and scientific description of the physical characteristics of homosexuals. It was believed that homosexuals – described as “sexual inverts” in the parlance of the time – constituted a specific taxonomic “type.”

Another such study performed enzyme assays on homosexual men, examining levels of estrogen and androgen in these individuals. The hypothesis was that homosexual men would have lowered levels of androgen, and elevated levels of estrogen.

Kinsey criticized not only the inconsistent results of such studies, but also their initial position, the starting assumption from which all other judgments were made. He claimed that their most basic error was “the assumption that homosexuality and heterosexuality are two mutually exclusive phenomena” which originate in “inherently different types of individuals.” Further, he insisted that any study that began with this assumption also carried the implication that heterosexuality was normal, and that homosexual behavior was an abnormality.

According to Terry, Kinsey’s preliminary research did find that there are some individuals who were almost exclusively heterosexual, as well as some who were almost exclusively homosexual. Interviewing a wide sample of the population, Kinsey also concluded that it was most likely that at least 50% of adult males had engaged in at least one homosexual experience to the point of “full climax” by the time they reached 30 years of age.

Here is the crux of the issue: while it is fair to say that some people fall at or near either end of the spectrum of human sexual orientation, Kinsey’s research revealed that in the majority of cases, sexuality is just another behavior that human beings engage in. It is not a physiological type that can be consistently predicted by observing someone’s visible features or performing enzymatic tests on their bodily fluids.

With his research, Kinsey created a brief moment in which this conclusion could be widely understood. This understanding spread through the scientific community and, to a somewhat lesser degree, through popular culture as well. Gay and straight identities still exist, and perhaps for very good reasons. It’s fair to acknowledge that.

What is not only unfair, but incorrect, is the long-standing assumption in our culture that heterosexual behavior is normal, and homosexual behavior is not. The scientific undertakings which sought to support this view began by taking this assumption as a foregone conclusion. There is, however, no more evidence to support this conclusion than there is to support the opposite: the assumption that people are naturally homosexual and that heterosexual behavior is the aberration.

Kinsey’s work taught us that.

Jain Waldrip is a recent graduate of Indiana University.  She previously served as the vice president of SAGE (Sexuality And Gender Equality) and majored in linguistics and history.

References

Condon, Bill.  “Kinsey.”  Fox Searchlight Pictures.  2004.  DVD.

Terry, Jennifer.  “Anxious Slippages Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: A Brief History of the Scientific Search for Homosexual Bodies.”  In Deviant Bodies:  Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture, edited by Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla 129-169.  Bloomington, IN:  Indiana University Press, 1995.

I wrote a guest post on The Friendly Atheist to defend the SAIU’s attitude toward religious groups this past year. There is a criticism of us, followed by my response.

Here’s an excerpt:

I certainly don’t respect Christianity, and I doubt there’s any way I’ll be convinced to take it seriously, but I respect a religious person’s search for truth, and the fact that they’re confronting the nature of their existence. I don’t expect a Muslim, who believes that my denial of God’s existence is active blasphemy, to respect my beliefs. We need to acknowledge one another, shake hands, and continue trying to convince one another that that the other person is wrong. We can’t hate each other, because after we retreat from the intellectual front lines of this debate, we have to live together. It’s possible for atheists be kind and still be unflinching in our message and goal.

I do see Spencer’s arguments about being unforgiving of religion, and I tend to agree that bowing to religion only legitimizes it. This year, the SAIU has made a huge leap toward humanism, and has been doing a lot of work interacting with religious groups. Our group has talked repeatedly about this, and come tenuously to the conclusion that we don’t want to partake in interfaith on our campus, and I’ve acted on that will (which is no problem, because I mostly agree). We have, however, approached religion from a more academic or cultural perspective.

I understand not all of our members agree with this approach, and I wonder if that is why we’ve lost some of our members who had previously been around for a long time. If this is the reason, then I offer my apologies. The group has not been as provocative as I would have liked this past year, but I still think we’ve been successful in getting out, at least, the “good without god(s)” message.

At any rate, leave comments below! I’d love to hear opinions on this.

Carly is a third-year student at Indiana University studying Computer Science and Linguistics. She is currently the president of the Secular Alliance at IU.

I was recently at a conference for university administrators, speaking on a panel about the experience of the atheist activist on a college campus. During the panel, I was asked, “Do you ever feel negativity in response to your beliefs?”

My response startled me, even as I was saying it. “It’s very hurtful when people assume that atheists can’t be moral, good, kind people. I’m capable of being good, and I am.” As soon as I finished speaking, I felt emotions welling in my forehead, threatening to show on my face or in my eyes. I’d never quite come to terms with that one thing: it hurts my feelings to be hated by the religious.

I have emotions, and I embrace them—as much as I admire the likes of Spock and Sherlock Holmes. I have hopes and desires, I love, I grieve, I feel sun on my skin and the drear of sitting inside all day. After I run, endorphins rush my brain. When I’m hungry, my stomach hurts. I’ve had the flu. I’m a human. Despite any amount of reasoning, when I’m rejected by other humans, I feel emotional pain. Some aspects of humanity can’t be controlled. When I’m told I’m evil, I’m immoral, that there’s no possible way (!!) I could be a good person, that I’m going to burn for eternity in misery and that I deserve such treatment—why not acknowledge the results as what they are? I’m being rejected, and I’m being hurt. Yes, I’m aware that this person’s line of reasoning is immensely flawed, and that I am a good person, and that there is no hell, and that the whole situation is ridiculous, but that only lessens the impact a little. I want to be liked and loved as I like and love others. So what? There’s nothing wrong with that.

A pile of cats to help you with your feels.

There’s a lot of humanity and emotion that comes with forming and maintaining our beliefs and worldview, and a lot of hiding of that fact when it comes to discussing these matters. In forgetting this (on both sides of the “does He, doesn’t He?” debate re: god(s)’s existence), we creating an uglier environment for everyone.

I’m all for everyone being nice all the time, and rainbows and butterflies and piles of cats, etc. I also know that’s naïve and unrealistic. It’s possible, though, to choose to bring kindness into our lives whenever we can. Kindness is not a sharp comment, made in thought that “I’m doing them a kindness by being honest”. Kindness is a smile, and a squeeze of the hand, and assurance that they can stop worrying, because god probably doesn’t exist and life is awesome anyway.

Carly Casper is a third-year student at Indiana University studying Computer Science and Linguistics. She is currently the president of the Secular Alliance at IU.

The Muslim Student Union received the most donations through our Send an Atheist to Church event, so we visited one of their services.

Friday’s Jummah prayer with the Muslim Student Union went quite well, as five of our members joined the MSU to gain a greater understanding of the Muslim faith and their religious practices. Only one of the five of us had ever attended a Muslim service before, and for the four of us who hadn’t, the experience was quite rewarding.

The service took place in the Bryan Room at the Indiana Memorial Union, a large, comfy room at the top of the Student Activities Tower with a wonderful view of the campus and plenty of room for the 30 or so people who were in attendance.

The service began with a call to prayer followed by a fifteen-minute sermon, and concluded with a few minutes of praying. Men and women sat separately, and everyone took their shoes off. The topic of this week’s sermon, which was written and delivered by one of the MSU members, focused on social justice. A mix of passages from the Quran, as well as advice for everyone there on what they themselves could do, was what filled the sermon.

After that, the person who gave the sermon led the group in a prayer that closed out the service. The five of us joined in, observing and following along with the rest of the group.

Afterwards, the president of the MSU answered questions that we had, and I learned that there is no particular person who delivers the weekly sermons. The assignment rotates around between different people each week, which differs from how most Judeo-Christian services are run, where the same person typically leads the group service every week.

My overall impressions of the service were that it didn’t differ very much from my experiences and understanding of Christian services I’ve been to, and that the whole thing felt somewhat informal, relaxed, and welcoming.

Matt Cowan is a third-year student at IU studying Journalism. He is the Treasurer of the Secular Alliance. He hopes to become a  sports columnist or beat reporter for a major newspaper or media organization.

Try to guess whom I’m talking about: Player A is a much talked about quarterback and a bit of a polarizing figure in the NFL. Player B is also a high profile quarterback who hasn’t quite found sustained post-season success. Player A goes to church every week. Player B waited until marriage to have sex.

Player A once said, “It’s a calming feeling when the Lord runs your life.” Player B goes around preaching abstinence and discouraging premarital sex.

Can you figure out which mystery player is Tim Tebow? That’s actually a trick question, because neither one of them is. Player A is Ben Roethlisberger, the two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Pittsburg Steelers. Player B is Philip Rivers, the quarterback for the San Diego Chargers.

Troy Polamalu, Pittsburgh’s All-Pro safety, converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity and has made pilgrimages to various religious sites in Europe and the Middle East. He makes the Sign of the Cross after every play.

Most players routinely point to the sky after scoring a touchdown and form prayer circles after games. Thanking God is a common thing to hear after a victory. Oh, and there’s that Touchdown Jesus nearby Notre Dame’s football stadium.

The point I’m trying to make is that Tebow’s openness about his faith isn’t something new. In fact, it’s more likely the norm for most athletes. And yet Tebow’s openness about his faith is always played up as if it’s some sort of controversial stance. It’s not.

If being a devout Christian in the NFL were really as controversial as it’s being portrayed with Tebow, then why do Roethlisberger and Rivers get free passes? Where’s the uproar aimed towards former Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy, who was never shy about expressing the role he felt faith has both in and outside of football?

The reason Tebow is always making headlines isn’t due to being an evangelical Christian, it’s the misguided perception that people actually care about him wearing his religion on his sleeve. The media’s made a big deal about the Bible verses that he paints on his eye black, and about how he’s a virgin, and about how often he visibly prays during games.

Well guess what, NFL fans don’t care about that. We just want to watch football. Maybe some of us hate Tebow and the Broncos because we live in Oakland, or Kansas City, or San Diego. Maybe some of us hate the media hype around Tebow rather than Tebow himself. Maybe we’re tired of hearing about how those of us who don’t root for Tebow supposedly root against him solely due to his faith.

It’s possible Tebow rubbed people the wrong way at one point, but that ship has sailed. His faith has actually become more of a gimmick than anything. Instead of ragging on how he used to put Biblical verses on his eye black, people crack messiah jokes, lightheartedly cite divine intervention for his unlikely success, and laugh about the 316 yards Tebow threw in his first playoff game alludes to John 3:16.

And then there’s the whole Tebowing phenomenon. When the Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Bronces a few weeks ago, Pittsburgh’s mayor lost a bet that required him to be photographed Tebowing in a Broncos jersey. Tell me where the hatred’s coming from.

So here’s what we should do: Recognize that Tebow isn’t a controversial figure for being open about his faith, stop framing everything Tebow does with the whole Good versus Evil angle, and stop posing dumb questions like “What if Tim Tebow were Muslim?”

And if you want to spend your time rooting against something that actually is evil, join me in rooting against the Green Bay Packers.

Matt Cowan is a third-year student at IU studying Journalism. He is transitioning to becoming the Treasurer of the Secular Alliance. He hopes to become a  sports columnist or beat reporter for a major newspaper or media organization.