Since October 2008, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) has sponsored the annual Skepticon at MSU. Skepticon is the largest student organized skeptic and atheist convention held in the United States, and it typically includes debates with Christian scholars. Don’t let the silly FSM name mislead you. These Flying Spaghetti students are serious about their agenda to make theism (especially Christianity) appear unreasonable and anti-scientific. Although they revel in juvenile noodle-head blasphemy, FSM clubbers (and members of hundreds of other similar student clubs) also have scientific-historical-philosophical pretensions in their stance against God on campus. PZ Meyers, a leading anti-design-blogging Darwinist in America, is one of the usual Skepticon speakers (see a critique of PZ Meyer’s latest Skepticon talk here). Meyers is also know for sarcasm (and recognizably lowsy arguments, once you get access to all the relevant evidence).
Although most secular student clubs in America do not have sarcasm built into their names like FSM, they do often engage in Christianity-bashing sarcasm on their facebook pages. See for yourself. Go to the two leading atheist-agnostic student group alliances in the USA and follow the links to the hundreds of student organizations on specific campuses:
Curriculum like TrueU and Christian apologetic student groups associated with Ratio Christi (with local church and denominational partnerships) are among our best strategies for response. Make it your new year's resolution to help equip our students with effective ways to show the reasonableness of Christianity within today’s anti-theistic university climate.
Do you need motivation to do something about this? Watch the Secular Student Alliance’s “what we offer students” video that begins with Richard Dawkins saying: “I can’t tell you how excited I am to see students taking up the banner of secularism.” He is an advisory board member of this network of secular clubs. Then consider holding a TrueU college preparation event in your community. Finally, check out Ratio Christi, a new alliance of Christian apologetics clubs, some of which are using TrueU. Ratio Christi is one of the most promising Christian student movements in existence today. They are networking with top apologists, curriculum providers like TrueU, campus clubs like Cru and Navigators, and local churches. Get involved in 2012.
Greg
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