Speaking at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo This Saturday

Does he ever sleep?

I have long been suspicious that he does not.

Performances on dinosaurs???  I’m trying to imagine what this would mean, but unless you own a hat and cane, I think I’m way off track.

I should have said performances about dinosaurs. Also shows about volcanoes and astronomy for libraries, schools, gem and mineral shows, scout troops, etc. I do have lots of hats, but the cane was only for a while when I hurt my back.

But this is about Hemant’s talk, so we should not digress too much. Sorry, Hemant.

Wait… I… What… Dammit! Ah well, my teaching salary will pay for everyone. Let’s go!

iTyped with my iThumbs.

Please excuse the brevity, spelling, and punctuation.

Can’t make it. But take a look at my book’s Facebook page demographics, Hemant! Woohoo!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Letters-from-an-Atheist-Nation/252536341450603?sk=likes

I went to Cal Poly in the late 70s and it was a very religious school. The Born Again Movement was very strong at Poly. I wrote an editorial for the school newspaper on being an atheist and was metaphorically crucified. Take warning Hemant! If things have not changed, fruit will be flung!

Cal Poly is still a very religious school, but I think it is probably better here today than it was when you were a student. Being an atheist is treated less with hostility and more with avoidance and indifference by the majority of Christians. We’ve also had generally favorable responses from the various campus religious groups to working together with them on service projects and the like. That isn’t to say there isn’t a very large fundamentalist population here, it’s just that they’re less harmful, perhaps, than they once were.

Probably the worst thing the campus religious clubs do is attempt to hijack portions of orientation in order to proselytize. I can’t imagine they’re very successful at converting people, but they no doubt bring in large numbers of believers to their various organizations. Other than that, there is just the typical campus preachers every couple of weeks, sometimes they’re students, sometimes they’re not, and in general, the Green Peace people are more disruptive.

We’ve hosted, largely without a problem, far more controversial speakers in the past and we’ve invited a number of student organizers involved with religious clubs that we have a good relationship to the talk on Saturday, and while I do not know if they’ll attend, I also don’t expect anyone to show up looking for a fight, so to speak.

On a side note, if you’re interested in being involved, we’re open to having alumni be a part of the group, even if you’re no longer in the area.