Article From Jed's First Day at Purdue

Found this article written by Brother Jed recapping the first day at Purdue. Apparently the Force is strong with our lesbians on campus.

Sister Cindy, who is in top form, drew a crowd, which built up to one hundred by crying out against the lusts of the flesh.  Lust was the main issue of the day, especially when it is expressed in the “gay” way.  The lesbians were out in force.  They were going out of their way to be generally respectful.  I did not deal with that many male homosexuals, but the female ones were very vocal.  At one point a man held a derogatory sign behind me, but the students shamed him into putting it down.

Rest is here.

Brother Jed @ Purdue Videos

The videos I took of Brother Jed yesterday are up.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Brother Jed

Brother Jed is on Purdue's campus through Friday. You can read about him here if you have never heard of him. I watched him today for about an hour and a half and recorded most of it. I will be putting it on YouTube sometime Thursday or Friday as I will be going back to watch him talk and, more importantly, watch the crowd tear him to pieces. That is literally what they did today. I was happy that many of the people there who said they did not believe in God, or any religion, made it very clear that their hostility towards Brother Jed and his group did not come from their disagreement with Christianity but with his method of presenting it. I think the best part was when a girl who was passing by shouted "Sit on this!" and flashed Brother Jed as he was speaking. Too bad I had my camera turned off as it happened.

The more you know about religion the more likely you are an atheist…

Or Mormon.

The Pew Forum released a new study on Americas’ knowledge of religion. Of the nine different groups surveyed atheists, Jews, and Mormons scored the highest with an average of 20 correct answers out of 32 questions. This survey has been making the rounds on the various atheist blogs and religious debate forums with non-theists shouting its results from the rooftops that atheists know more about religion than theists. However, almost all of them neglect to mention that Jews and Mormons are practically tied with them. It also seems they neglect to mention that it is knowledge of non-Christian religions that they score the highest in while on Christian topics, such as the Bible, Mormons score the highest.

Frankly the results of the survey should not be all that surprising. Most self proclaimed atheists have generally studied various religions to see if they believe them. Hence it is not surprising they would be fairly knowledgeable on this topic. It is also not surprising that Jews and Mormons are at the top as well. Jews tend to a highly educated group along with Mormons. It has even been shown that the more educated a Mormon is the more likely they are to be more involved in their Church.

Sources:
US Religious Knowledge Survey
Survey: Americans don't know much about religion

Wanting to come back to posting

I have not posted anything in quite a while here. Over the past several months my motivation for continuing in religious debate and discussion has been waning. Not because of lost of interest, but because of my coming to believe that it is rather pointless. This same thing occurred when I first started studying and debating religion as a hobby in high school. Originally I participated on a forum where the discussion/debate was between LDS and Mainstream-Christians. Eventually I got tired of constantly bashing my head against the wall there so I switched to a different forum where the discussion/debate was largely between theists and non-theists. Now, again, I am getting tired of bashing my head against the proverbial wall. So, again, I am losing my motivation. Now, I know I am not going to change the minds of those (mainly) non-theists I debate/discuss with. That was never my intention. What I wanted to do was get the point across that religion can and does have a place in the world and trying to cast it, and its adherents, as evil, delusional, handicapped, irrational, and the list goes on, is not the most efficient way to go about criticizing it. Such a method only results in alienating those you wish to reach.
I haven’t based my decision solely on my participation on a single forum. I also read quite a few big name atheist blogs (if you say my Google Reader you would think I was an atheist) and the general feeling of the posts I go through each day has also played a part. Frankly, with how many of them describe religious beliefs, I should be thankful I have the mental capacity to get out of bed in the morning or tie my shoes. I am hoping that the “Don’t be a dick” type atheists start getting a little more support but I doubt that will happen. A lot of blogs have been talking about needing the aggressive, dickish types in the atheist community. I cannot really wrap my mind around why they would think that as it is the same thing as me saying Christians need people like Pat Robertson or the Westboro Baptist Church.
Anyway, I would like to start posting again but I will have to wait and see if some topic comes up that I think is truly worth posting about.