Well, friends and neighbors, I think it's almost time I explain my agnosticism to a world ready to condemn it as either hell-bent sacrilege or pissy prevarication, depending on which side of the atheism-religion devide the complaintant sits. But not yet, because...
Speaking of "sides" reminds me of a Freethought anecdote. As anyone who reads this is undoubtedly aware, I've recently co-founded a student org at Wright State for secular students, called Freethought WSU Check Us Out On Facebook. Well, sort of. Anyway, last Friday we officially kicked off our first year with an appearance at Do the U! For those living it up in the SUNY loop, Do the U! is an absurd event designed to keep incoming, on-campus freshmen from either getting illegally drunk or clawing their eyes out from boredom for a few hours in their first weekend. Its features are almost wholly rediculous, including such hits as horrendous raffles, music, soda, some strange in-place cycling contest, &c. Do the U!'s least appalling secondary feature is to provide booth space to whatever student orgs care to introduce themselves to the soon-to-be alcohol poisoned minds of the new students. So, of course, Freethought WSU Check Us Out On Facebook was eager to be there.
By our own accounts, the event was a success. We hit a few preparedness snags, but improvised well. We featured flyers and free assorted Wonka candy, which could be seen scattered pointlessly accross the table itself, or more appropriately in the lovely pot the immortal Serpent Queen herself, Lori Davis, made for us. A common scene was for a Wide-Eyed Innocent to approach the booth (manned at various times by myself, Aaron, Allison, Justin--way to volunteer!--and Lori, in a welcome cameo appearance for which she was paid Marlon Brando prices), frown at the Bertrand Russel quote on our super-expensive white board, ask "so.......what are you guys about?" At this point, one of us would give a (by evening's end) Stock Speel about the group, followed by an apathetic/slightly offended "oh..." from the Wide-Eyed Innocent in question, capped off with a walking-away, halfway-to-dumbfounded sneer. We expect and appreciate this kind of non-agressive response, I suppose; though it can be disenheartening.
Nearly as often, however, we had some people show up with genuine interest, a few with real excitement at the prospect. We collected about a dozen names and emails, with most people opting to Chek Us Out On Facebook when we informed them of our presence there. We really didn't have any particularly negative exchanges, and no one tried to kill us, so I'm willing to call it a success.
But anyway, back to the whole "sides" thing. Probably the most negative reaction we had (in my presence, at least) came from a mother and daughter pair. Honestly, I felt for the poor girl (the freshmen had moved in the day before, and who on god's earth wants her/his mother around?). Her mother, who looked as though she'd put on her Neil Young halloween costume a month and a half early, did the talking, asking Aaron if ours is a Christian group. To be fair, we are currently (and deliciously) listed on the Religious Life page, with no weblink; so her misunderstanding was fair enough, though her sanctimonious condescension when asking was uncalled for. Aaron, the Friendly Face of Freethought, replied in sunny tones that "No, actually. We're kind of the opposite!" Before he could get fully into the Stock Speel, Southern Man Fan cut him off with a perfectly dismissive "Well we aren't on your side." In a spectacular display of diplomatic bravado, which I doubt I could have equaled, Aaron responded: "Well, we're not about sides."
This was so perfect because he synthesized quite a bit of what the group is about. We aren't about to hide from our secularism; I mean, good lord, that's the whole point. We're trying to promote secularism as a positive and meaningful alternative to religion, available to anyone. Conversely, we mean to be (as Allison puts it) "an alternative in every sense," in that we (unlike our fellow Religious Life orgs) have no interest in proslytizing or preaching. We aren't out to save souls--hell, most of us don't believe they even exist--but neither are we out to preach the Unholy Writ of Richard Dawkins or Dan "what's a bright???" Dennet.
So no, Neil, we aren't about sides. We see nothing wrong whatever about any Christian organization, nor would we ever seek to eliminate it. We three founders, at least, believe that Wright State is large enough to contain student-communities of all stripes: religious and not, gay and straight, &c. Even engineers. And that's the key word, kids: COMMUNITY. As much as they exist to save the immortal souls of all us sinners, our Christian orgs exist just as much to create a safe and welcoming community for people who share their values. Freethought seeks to do nothing so much as that.
Well, jesus, I seem to be preaching. Hopefully to the choir.
Oh, and Sarah Palin is the Devil.
