Hemant Mehta’s talk, Improving the Atheist Image, was covered twice by the IDS (once the day day of, and once the day after).

Here’s the first article. And here’s the follow-up article.

The Herald-Times wrote an article about Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the FFRF, speaking at IU.

You must have a subscription to read the H-T version. Fortunately the article was also syndicated by the Times-Mail.

There were dozens of comments posted on both of the articles; in general, Herald-Times subscribers seemed rather more supportive of our cause; Times-Mail subscribers, not so much.

Here was my favourite comment from a Times-Mail reader:

I wonder why these so called atheist never scream and try to pass laws against lepriconns, tooth fairy’s, Santa clause? because they know they do not exist. Why talk about something if it is not real? They rail against God because deep in their spirits, they know they will stand before Him. I like the verse’s He has written for them.
Psalms 37;12 The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
37:13:: The Lord shall laugh at him, for He seeth that his day is coming.

This one is pretty good too:

John 14:6 JESUS said, “I am the way, the truth, the life, no man comes the Father (Heaven), but by me”… Christians don’t only think it, we believe it… If Jesus said it, that pretty much makes it gospel (no pun intended)… and BTW nonsensical things that boggle my mind that people believe to be true: we came from an amoeba, aliens exist, and that Obama is going to “Change” America… And Hard as it is to believe, Science and anthropology actually align with, not against the Bible…. You’ve swallowed everything the Haters of Christianity have put out there, hook, lies, and sinker….

Perfectly articulated, don’t you think?

An opinion piece in today’s IDS claims that creation science doubters don’t take the time to understand creationist claims.

Link.

Sarah Kaiser wrote a guest column for the Indiana Daily Student called “Creationism shouldn’t be accredited.”

Please try and bring your comments here!

Darwin Day column in the IDS.

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The decision has been made!  We are going with INatheistbus.org, per a vote at a recent meeting.  Thanks for voting!

I’m pleased to announce that as of today, we now have over 200 people on our mailing list (202 to be precise). This is a wonderful milestone that indicates the potential SAIU has to grow even further; it irrefutably demonstrates that there is a sizeable non-religious community at IU.

The Secular Alliance exists to serve that community, and we hope to increase our membership in leaps and bounds with our callout, activism and activities this coming semester. I’ve very excited that we’ve gotten this far in just eight months; now it’s time to even more exciting, even daunting, steps.

See you at the callout tomorrow.

Daily Local News on WFHB (89.1 FM here in B-town) covered our Creation Museum trip. If you don’t already listen or subscribe to the podcast version, the mp3 is available here.

News
Our trip to the Creation Museum was mentioned on WFHB. Sarah and Bart both heard it and thought it was an accurate good portrayal of our purposes in going.

Another IDS column on religion was brought up, “Tree Gets the Heave.”

We’ve apparently missed some multi-faith panels, both in attending and in being invited. These seem to be a popular event for residence hall event committees. We’re asking members to be on the lookout for them so we can announce them on list before they happen. If you’re connected to anyone involved in its planning, see if you can get an invite for the SAIU.

Administration
In order to make way for other sorts of activities and more regular administrative meetings, Russell’s Tea Parties will be held every other week next semester. They will alternate with administrative/planning meetings for other events and service activities and also with fun activity nights.  This will work as such: the first and third Sundays of the month will be Russell’s Tea Parties (RTPs), the second Sundays will be administrative/planning meetings, and the fourth Sundays will be fun silliness nights.

Russel’s Tea Parties will resume on January 11th, the Sunday before classes begin.

Movie nights will resume next semester. Dates TBA. A thread will be posted on the forum to decide what day(s) movies will be shown once we have advanced alien polling technology.

Service
Planned Parenthood needs muscle to escort patrons past protesters. This is an ongoing thing, not just related to recent events. Amy is contacting them to find out how to get involved.

If you were planning on volunteering at Wonderlab (the local childrens science, health, and technology museum), contact Amy (conrada @ indiana). The next training workshop will be held January 18th and you need to register in advance. Visit wonderlab.org to find out what Wonderlab is.

Events
We will have a second call-out meeting type event the second week of classes. Date TBA. We will need people to flyer and chalk during the week leading up to it, so keep that in mind the first week.

We plan to table once a month next semester. The first will likely be the week of the call-out, a day or two before. While the weather’s cold, we’ll do this inside the IMU at the desk outside Burger King and the bowling alley. Ideas for tabling topics are welcome. Sarah suggested handing out candy to people who answer questions on secularism and the other usual topics. Adam was placed in charge of tabling.

Darwin Day is Thursday February 12, a celebration of Darwin’s bicentennial birthday. Suggestions included making a day or week’s worth of activities including a showing of Inherit the Wind, an HMS Beagle themed scavenger hunt, and talks on Darwin or evolution. We want to contact the biology and anthropology departments to see if we can coordinate events. A committee volunteered, led by Jordan.  The committee includes Ashley and Laurie.

Hemant Mehta (friendlyatheist.com) is coming to IU March 30. The topic will be his book “I Sold My Soul on eBay” annd on how students can become more involved in the secular movement. Samantha volunteered her place for him to stay. Ashley will be in charge of finding a room, getting Mehta from A to B and such.

We want to hold a myths about atheism panel, possibly with a snappier name and with slogans like “Are atheists among us?”. We’re shooting for March 9 to 13. It was suggested we do it in a residence hall since RAs need event ideas, but we’d also like to have a lot of people attend. Professors of religious studies, philosophy, and such are needed. We also may invite some other active atheists in the area. If you have ideas or want to suggest someone for the panel, contact Bart (bjhelms @ indiana).

Other event ideas proposed:
-Pi Day is March 14. Nothing was agreed upon save the eating of tasty pies. Mmm.
-We still haven’t had a Flying Spaghetti Monster vs Invisible Pink Unicorn debate.
-Do we want to consider producing an atheist or sciency musical?

Field Trips
We want to do a visit to a real museum. Information on a possible two-day Chicago trip is on the forum. Other suggestions were finding things to do in Indy (Children’s Museum) and St Louis.

CFI World Congress is April 9-12 (centerforinquiry.net/worldcongress). Guests will include the likes of James Randi and Christopher Hitchens. The cost could be upwards of $100 per person altogether. Group subsidizing of transportation and lodging costs was considered. Laurie is in charge of looking into IUSA funds.  There is also the need for fundraisers, and Sarah will assign different jobs such as finding restaurants to donate proceeds to our group for raising money.  It was agreed that people are willing to spend up to $100 out of pocket, so the rest should be provided through group funds, which will come from t-shirt sales, bake sales, craft sales, and other fundraisers.

Fundraising
It was agreed to take the IU off of the t-shirts so we can get them done inexpensively. We may investigate the legality of the situation latter.