Richard1366

Three words:

"Banned in Boston"

'nuff said...

openeyes

I had a thread concerning this topic HERE

It's in the wrong forum because originally I had just posted to give people in the area a "heads up" that Gaylor and Barker were going to be in town.

It seems to me the Catholic Church wants you to question, but only if you come up with the "right" answers.

I began questioning when I was 17. Even so, I still went to a Catholic women's college (not St. Catherine's) before transferring to finish my professional program. I remember trying to talk to a nun about my questions since I was just innocently trying to make sense of it all. She eventually told me I was a hostile person. (News to me and just about everyone else who knew me.)

So, Dr. McGowan, how do we non-theists manage to live the lives we have to live among all this god-belief?

Shake

Any word on if they got their hall reservation fee returned? I mean since they weren't allowed to use it, they should get their money back. Right?

Javaman

One would hope.

DA McGowan

Oh yes, we're getting the hall rental fee back. They may be fascists, but their accounting is ducky.

DA McGowan

Please call me Dale, geez.

I'll let you know the answer after this whole thing washes out. It's going in a very, very good direction, but my stomach is pure acid right now. Some lovely hate mail, as you can guess.

I think the answer is in Gandhi's non-violent resistance. Now hear me out: his principles are often dismissed as spiritual hoo hah when they are nothing of the sort. They represent an unprecedented insight into human psychology.

If you are treated unjustly, as atheists are when they are slandered and silenced, take a deep breath and begin asserting your simplest rights. You must do so calmly and reasonably for reasons I'll get to shortly.

Three years ago I hit the wall of theism. National politics, Kansas Board of Ed, my children beginning to mouth pieties, working at a Catholic college, all the rest. I ask myself a simple question: do I have the right to register my secularist opinions in my workplace?

Yes I do. I was a respected member of the college community, teaching awards, etc. Time to use some of that political capital. I started posting secularist quotes on my office door.

After eighteen months of total silence (the USUAL Catholic response to controversy), a student poked her head in the door and said, pretty much, "Me too." Then another. Then a faculty member.

Next question: do we have the right to meet as non-believers, to read, to discuss, to think?

Yes we do. This is a college, period.

Question after question presented itself. Is it reasonable that we form an informal club? Is it reasonable that we look for grant money to support ourselves? Is it reasonable to bring in speakers, given the college's oft-stated mission and position on open intellectual inquiry? The answer to each of these questions was yes. Now we're in a pickle, but it's a good one, because our every step was fully justified.

And here's the reason to stay civil: since we did, and we continue to do so, the president is looking like a hysterical reactionary. If we were shrieking, it would look like a battle of harpies. Think about the Middle East: who started it? Who is at fault? Who could ever, ever tell anymore. Same in Northern Ireland.

But now think about India's struggle for independence. Gandhi somehow convinced thousands to simply walk forward peacefully into a fort that rightly belonged to them --- a simple assertion of the right to be there. They were clubbed to the ground by British truncheons. And the world saw, in technicolor, who the bad guy was, and who the victim was. The Indians kept themselves in a sympathetic posture by the simple, eloquent assertion of their basic rights, and the British looked like bastards. Within a short time the British were gone.

ML King used it too, and it worked then as well. Keep the focus of the outside world's moral outrage right where it belongs, and it burns like a laser.

We have been very low-key but insistent in response to the lockout, and the response of the community is loud and clear: what the hell was the president thinking?? The fact that we have a large portion of the general theistic community sympathizing with atheists is evidence of how successful we've been.

We just received a supportive editorial in the St. Paul paper. The president has withdrawn into her office. A second student protest --- pure righteous indignation from students and faculty of every belief --- happened today. Our group has now been denied the right --- read this carefully now --- to even meet on campus. That's right: if we sit down on the central quad and chat quietly about our beliefs, we are in violation of the president's directive.

No one missed the lunacy of that one. We didn't have to scream and yell; we simply stated it. "If you are gathering in groups," I said at the rally today, "make sure the content of your conversation is pre-approved by the president's office."

As an assertion of our right to meet peaceably, we are meeting tomorrow in the central quad lawn with pizza and discussion. Rain is predicted, which will make our plight all the more dramatic (picture the poor pizza). No room at the inn, you see. And our membership has nearly doubled.

Long answer, but that's the best I have right now. Don't buy into the pre-drawn caricatures they yell at you and quietly assert your rights to be and think, one step at a time out of the closet.

Gotta take a nap. Thanks everybody for being supportive. Even though it's headed in the right direction, this is a tough time.

Bill Snedden

Dale -

I commend you on your approach and wish you the best of luck. I am a product of 12 years of Catholic schooling and while I wouldn't give it up for anything, I understand only too well the mindset with which you are struggling.

However, I remember a similar battle fought at Catholic University that was ultimately decided when the Vatican effectively enforced imprimatur on theological teachings at Catholic colleges and Universities in the U.S. While your situation is not completely analogous, it certainly shows how the church can attempt to twist the meaning of the word "freedom."

Good luck!

Regards,

Bill Snedden

"There is no god higher than Truth." Mohandas Gandhi

dangin

Are you meeting under the tree that looks like the virgin mary's face?

Melkor

Wow.

My wife (who happens to be an atheist) talks about a very similar environment in which she works... she works for the Liturgical Press at St. John's University/College of St Benedict.

It's good to hear of somebody taking a stand for their rights, and doing it the right way (not "screaming like harpies", which always sends the wrong impression, in my opinion).

Stand strong, Dale. There are many more behind you than I think even you know.

Godless Dave

Hell, if I'd known this was going to happen I would have showed up! (I read Openeye's post, thought it was very nice of her to post it for her fellow Minnesotans, but then I thought lecture? me? naw.)