Penn Secular Society Sign Vandalized

Running a secular group at an institution like the University of Pennsylvania has a few unique challenges. Unlike many schools across the US where secular groups are outcast and face opposition at every turn on religious grounds, at UPenn groups like the Christian Association, the interfaith group PRISM, and most of all the Chaplain's office have been our greatest outside supporters. Groups that would oppose us tend to keep to themselves. Penn has such a diverse religious life that most people have become extra accommodating to people of other beliefs, and I'm glad they've begun to include non-believers in that umbrella.

All of this love and support can be a burden as well when it comes time to ask the hard questions some of our members want to ask our classmates. Questions like "what good is faith?" Or "why do you put so much value on a book that supports slavery?"

This culture of interfaith cooperation is naturally resistant to any cross examination. Certain venues do exist for this type of discussion, but most are Christian organizations like InterVarsity, Cru, and Veritas Forum which have varying degrees of evangelistic missions.

Last week, the Penn Secular Society attempted to strike a balance by appealing to common ground. On the main campus walk, the PSS banner proudly displayed a partial list of "Gods you probably don't believe in."

On the right side in soft, non-pushy writing sat the lingering question: "so what's one more?"

We reasoned that this would be inoffensive enough to our religious classmates (seeing as we stuck with Gods no longer widely worshiped today), yet it would encourage people to think about their beliefs in a hopefully new way.

Apparently, not everyone felt that way.

It's hard to see in the picture, but by the end of the week someone had torn down page one and thrown coffee on the middle of the banner. The banner's fine, but very sticky.

When the vandalism came up at the next meeting, the unanimous decision amongst those present was to respond with something a little more provocative. We decided to go with some popular Abrahamic holy books' views on women. Three verses were selected and quoted without commentary, followed by a message:

"Do you dislike this display? Please don't deface our banner - find us on Facebook and tell us why."

Not 5 hours had gone by when we noticed someone hadn't read the instructions:

So in a new record for Penn Secular Society, someone has thrown soup on our 5 day long banner campaign less than 5 hours into the week.

We've decided to not clean the banner this time, in the hopes that passers by will take notice of the vandalism and hopefully learn something.

Millennial generation has a problem with Muslims

Just read an interesting article on Friendly Atheist.

For the most part I wasn't surprised: Democrats aren't courting secularists, atheists, or non-theists despite the overwhelming. No big surprise there, especially considering the whole God in the platform issue at the convention.

The thing that shocked and scared me about this story was this chart. Up til now every statistic about my generation has been encouraging: increased openness, highest acceptance of LGBT people and issues, least racist, least sexist, and most atheists by percentage.

Then I see that 64% would be uncomfortable with a Muslim president, and I realize that a very horrible type of prejudice has made it through whatever barrier has set us apart.

Muslim Radicals Raze Buddhist Temples

This was the scene in Bangladesh this weekend as over 25,000 radical Muslim rioters destroyed at least 10 Buddhist Temples and over 40 homes.

(Via RT.com)

This pisses me off for two big reasons.

1. An extreme religious group is persecuting a relatively peaceful religious group and destroying lives and beautiful temples. 

I would add "for no good reason" but there can be no justification for such actions.  The rioters were reportedly responding to a Facebook picture where a Buddhist boy was accidentally tagged with a burnt Quran. I don't care if he was hanging an anatomically accurate nude replica of Muhammad on a cross made out of bacon!  There is no picture that can justify what happened today.

My outrage over this attack knows no bounds.

2. The only thing that pisses me off more is that it will fuel outrage against Islam as a whole and perpetuate this cycle of violence.

This should serve to remind us that radical Muslims do exist in reasonably large numbers, but also that most Muslims had nothing to do with the attack.  I'm angry that Muslims and people who look like Muslims will be looked down upon and equated with these thugs.  Muslims have to deal with enough hate every day without things like this happening, and the more hate they feel from us in the west the more the ranks of the extremists swell.

If you are a Muslim, please speak out vocally about this.  And if you're not, then for the love of whatever you find holy don't blame all Muslims for it. They've been through enough.

The day after Blasphemy Day

Much of the current blasphemy law controversy centers around blasphemy against Islam, such as depicting Muhammad or burning a Koran.  So when I came across this story about a Muslim Preacher charged with blasphemy in Egypt against Christianity I was intrigued.

(Via Atheist Media Blog)

Ahmed Abdallah, the accused, hits the nail on the head:

"That man who burned the Holy Koran, Terry Jones, is protected in the United States, yet I, an icon of this nation am accused of blasphemy against religion."

Yes, exactly.  Terry Jones should be protected, and Ahmed Abdallah should be as well.  It's not clear to me though whether that is what Abdallah meant.  His tone seems to suggest that Terry Jones should be the one charged with blasphemy, not him.  I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here, but the tone is unsettling.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks out against recent attacks in Lybia

Ayann Hirsi Ali has been a vocal critic of Islam and more importantly its political spinoffs around the world.  This is an excerpt from an article she wrote in response to the recent attacks in Libya.

"Utopian ideologies have a short lifespan. Some are bloodier than others. As long as Islamists were able to market their philosophy as the only alternative to dictatorship and foreign meddling, they were attractive to an oppressed polity. But with their election to office they will be subjected to the test of government. It is clear, as we saw in Iran in 2009 and elsewhere, that if the philosophy of the Islamists is fully and forcefully implemented, those who elected them will end up disillusioned. The governments will begin to fail as soon as they set about implementing their philosophy: strip women of their rights; murder homosexuals; constrain the freedoms of conscience and religion of non-Muslims; hunt down dissidents; persecute religious minorities; pick fights with foreign powers, even powers, such as the U.S., that offered them friendship. The Islamists will curtail the freedoms of those who elected them and fail to improve their economic conditions."-Ayaan Hirsi Ali http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-the-islamists-final-stand.html