Monday 2/6 – Thursday 2/9
11am-2pm
Ballantine Ground Floor Lobby (By the big globe)

1. We will have a table with jars for specific denominations. Make a cash donation – 50% of donations benefit Doctors Without Borders and 50% will benefit the Secular Alliance - http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org

2. The jars will be labelled with participating religious groups.

3. We will attend the religious services of the first and second place denominations.

On the first Friday of every month, the Bloomington Atheists group meets up at Player’s Pub for Atheist Happy hour. Drinks are had, food is eaten, and chat happens. Feel free to drop by anytime between 5:30 and 8pm! If you need a ride to Player’s Pub, email secular@indiana.edu and we can arrange one.

Join us at 7pm in Student Building 231 this Sunday for tea and discussion. If you’re unsure where the Student Building is, here’s a map!

The topic this week is Indiana Senate Bill 0089, which allows schools to teach creationism in class. What do you think of the “creationist bill”? If it passes, what effect do you think it will have on the future of education in Indiana? How should teachers react? How should we react?

You can find the exact amendment proposal here.

You can also read a summary of the bill from the executive director of CFI-Indy, Reba Boyd Wooden.

You can join the event on facebook.

Flying Spaghetti Monster with Adam

In case you haven’t heard, the SAIU is having a Flying Spaghetti Monster Feast on Friday, April 20th. We will have special Flying Spaghetti Monster shirts available for purchase and we want YOU to design one. The design winner will receive a free shirt!

Here are the details:

Deadline for Submissions: Friday, March 30th

Format:  Underground Printing says “vector artwork is ideal, so if you have access to Illustrator art, that’s the best.  However, a high resolution jpg or photoshop file with the fonts expanded to outlines  would work to.”  That being said, if you have a really cool idea but are no good at designing on computers do not fret! You may submit your drawing and someone will find a way to make a computer design out of it.

Suggestions: Keep in mind that these shirts will be sold to a lot of people, so if you’d like to win, your submission should be something enjoyable by most people. Also, if you think the design should go on a certain color fabric, let us know with your submission! After the deadline the officers will look through them and vote on our three favorites and let the people chose from those.

Send submissions and questions about the contest to secular@indiana.edu

*Have no idea what the heck we’re talking about? Check out the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and read the good word.

*Are you in a band, improv comedy group, or involved in some other entertainment? Would you like to be the featured entertainment for our feast? Email secular@indiana.edu today!

Get pumped for our first movie night of the year! We will be watching The Man From Earth and I am so excited.

Rottentomatoes sez: “The story concerns a scientist who summons a group of associates to a cabin one freezing night, and strikes them with a fantastic revelation: he is not a traditional human, but a 14,000 year-old immortal, who has survived centuries of evolution from the Cro-Magnon Era to the present.”

We meet in Lindley Hall 102. Lindley Hall is south of the IMU and north of Swain Hall, on the west border of Dunn Woods.

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.

Read more »

Jessica,

First of all, thank you. I found out about your lawsuit this summer at the CFI Student Leadership Conference, and it made me proud to know you. I’m a proponent of fighting the so-called “small fights”, from nativity scenes on city hall lawns to postings of the ten commandments in courthouses to, as in your case, prayer banners in public schools. There are no small fights, and we both know that letting this go would have been the sort of apathetic passivity that has allowed Christianity to take such a strong hold over American society. So thank you for not being apathetic or passive, and thank you for taking action. You’re already ahead of most people with that act alone.

Congratulations on winning your lawsuit, and I applaud you for persevering through the shitstorm that it caused. I’m sorry that this country is the type of place where it is not shocking to see someone like yourself treated the way you’ve been treated. There’s no reason to harass, threaten, insult or hate anyone because of religious reasons, yet it doesn’t surprise me that these were people’s responses to your actions. Of course it’s not fair to expect that all religious people would act this way in the face of a restriction on their free practice (which, in a way this is; free practice is about balancing everyone’s free practice while not allowing one group to have more freedom), but why wouldn’t they? I would not like to say that following your case has made me cynical toward religious people, but it’s certainly a representation to me of a darker side of dogma. I’m sorry that you were affected by that and I hope you don’t let it make you cynical.

As I’m sure you know, you have the full support of the secular community. I see nothing but overwhelming support on my facebook wall, in blog posts, and in conversations with activist friends. We are doing our best to counter the negativity you’ve received with our own positivity. Just look at all this love! You’re a hero, really, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I congratulate you with all of my heart for your success and hard work, and I admire you greatly for your poise throughout the ordeal. I really am very proud to be considered amongst your peers in the secular movement and I look forward to your continued activism in our community. You’re outstanding.

With Respect,

Carly Casper
Secular Alliance at Indiana University President

Carly Casper is a third-year student at IU studying Creative Writing. She is the President of the Secular Alliance. Her future plans include eating pancakes and programming the world’s most successful physicistbot.

Let’s celebrate the start of classes with pizza, baked goods, tea and funtimes!! We will be meeting on Sunday, January 15 at 7pm in Student Building 231. Please note the change in location! We no longer meet in Wylie 115. There will also be discussion of upcoming events and ideas for this semester.

* Please come to this meeting with ideas for what you’d like the group to do this spring!

* Also: post in the comments if you’d like to bring a food.

Respond to the Facebook event!

On Friday, January 27 at 5:30pm we will be volunteering for Hoosier Hills Food Bank’s Meal Share program.

According to the Hoosier Hills website, “The concept of Meal Share is to safely capture prepared food from restaurants, catering businesses and other food preparation entities and distribute it to families in need … The end result is a program that has helped provide nearly 4,000 pounds of healthy nutritious food each month to those in need.”

The repack session is from 5:30 to 7 and will be held at the Hoosier Hills Food Bank (2333 Industrial Park Road). However, SAIU members will be meeting at the IMU at 5PM to offer people rides! In order to efficiently set up the carpool, please tell us in a comment below if you are able to drive or are in need of a ride! Hoosier Hills also needs to know how much food to have ready for us to pack so I need an estimate of how many people are planning to volunteer. So, if you are interested, please respond in the comments, on the facebook page or by sending an email!

Take yet another break from studying this Sunday evening and relax with your favorite secular student group! On Sunday, Dec. 11 at 7pm in Wylie 115 the SAIU will celebrate, as humans are wont to do at this time of the year. The SAIU is a diverse group so we will be celebrating all the major end of year holidays (Festivus, Agnostica, End of the Fiscal Fourth Quarter, IPU-letide, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster Holiday) in one big bash. So bring your Festivus unadorned aluminum poles, your agnostica mobius strips, and your FSM whatever you wants and be prepared for the airing of grievances and feats of strength.

Please bring some food for a potluck! You can email us at secular@indiana.edu to see what we need.