What is with all the fucking signup lists?

Movie screening discussion.

There are 21 now. People I mean.

Everyone is yelling out the names of movies. Tristin seems to be the
leader. He is making markings with some type of stone tools.

Talk about dennett

Talk about loose change.

The Jews did it.

Holograms destroyed the world trade center.

JAQing off.

911 truth movement. Those people are insane according to Joe.

The moderator thing is so fucking stupid. Ben is waving a stick at
people for talking. WTF^2

Atheists sank the titanic.

Joe uses bing.

Loosetrains911.blogspot.com

Joe knows alot about truthers.

Spencer takes a cigarette break.

Psychiatry industry of death museum

Deja describes it.

A field trip is proposed.

Presentations plz.

Meeting ends.

Matt makes fool of self.

Officers
P. Tristin
Vp. Tristin
Ev. Co. Paul
Treas. Matt
Secretariono. Spencer
Moderator. Daniel
Webmaster. Jordan

Discussion of origin of species revision.

George k
Joe c
Alex a
Bethany
Brandon
Jack
Nathan
Joe
Spencer
Ronalie
Jordan
Tim
Daniel
Roy was absent
Hannah
Aaron
Derek
Jayden
Matt
Brian
Kim

Tristin introduces healing touch.

Discussion of dead pandas. Conservation and natural selection discussed.

Some talk of such and things.

AAI mentioned.
6:33pm

Brandon proposes we call Dan Dennett

Deja talks about Dan dennett working backwards to big bang.

We break off into group discussions.

Some douchbag in a baby-blue polo shirt interrupts to tell us to clean
up when the meeting ends.

Joe points out a cute girl at ten o’clock.

This photo appeared in the UCLA yearbook.  (And underneath, they misspelled my name.)  Some of these people are not coming back next year!  Aww.

On Friday June 5th, we had the last meeting of the year.  There was pizza!  Pie!  Chips and soda!  You may get the impression from my minutes that we’re all debate, discussion, and gossip, all the time.  Not so.  A lot of the time we just spend hanging out.  And if someone wants to talk about something which is inordinately nerdy or philosophical, we’ll do that too.

Andrew came up to give an impromptu presentation on Alan Watts Buddhism.  Alan Watts used to be a Christian, but he became interested in eastern religions.  Andrew says he’s very entertaining to listen to.  So we started discussing the question: what is a life?  What makes you you, despite your constantly changing nature?  If you died and got resurrected, would you really be the same person?  If you got teleported, as in Star Trek, would you be the same person?  Or did the original you get destroyed?  What happens if the original is not destroyed, and you just create a copy?  It seems that we can’t answer this, because life and identity is an illusion of sorts.  Our genes want us to care about our future “selves”.

Unfortunately, at this point, I had to leave the meeting early.  But I still have an idea what happened through rumors and other supernatural postcognitive powers.  So you know my account is completely true.

Afterwards, Joe gave a presentation on why we should argue with crazy people.  He then proceeded to argue with the rest of the group, with a generous application of his new Loveline/Zelda soundboard.  Then Spencer confessed his deep, entirely heterosexual love for Christopher Hitchens.  After a very clever segue from Joe, Roy performed an interpretive dance inspired by the bacteria living in his bathroom.  He had apparently prepared this for weeks, repeatedly bleaching his bathroom for inspiration, rather than getting us t-shirts–and it was worth it!  Robin discussed Star Trek and North Korea, showing a collection of youtube videos to demonstrate a point he may or may not have had.  Matthew told us all about dating methods for dinosaurs, and how we can use them in our own lives.  Shaun and Deja presented a sock puppet show about Neo-Nazis.  A collection of people headed by Paul, Leilani and Steven performed a full production of Fiddler on the Roof.  Then we all crashed a Healing Touch Therapy lecture and… no wait, that never happened.  The rest is all true though.

Meeting discussion

We had another excellent presentation by Deja today about moral panics.  Moral panics are when people think there’s something out there that’s corrupting our precious children.  Please, won’t someone think of the children?  Some examples of moral panics are comic books, music, videogames, satanic cults, and the pedobear.  In the music category, people panicked about KISS (they thought it stood for “Knights in Satan’s Service”), Elvis’ gyrating hips, and about Judas Priest (they thought they were trying to get their listeners to commit suicide).  Ironically, sometimes you’d have to have a dirty mind to see these things, like Tipper Gore saw sadomasochism in Twisted Sister’s “Under the Blade”.

And then there was Seduction of the Innocent, the book which started the comic books moral panic in 1954.  The book claimed that comic books were making delinquents out of innocent youth.  As a result of this book, there were senate hearings, out of which came the Comics Code Authority, a way of censoring “bad” material from comics.  The Comics Code Authority is still around, but it became used by fewer comics over time.  In 2001, Marvel dropped the Comics Code Authority, and it is now only used by Archie comics and DC superhero comics.

And then there was the same thing for videogames.  In 1994, in response to Mortal Kombat and Doom, the ESRB was formed.  Etc. etc.

Satanic ritual abuse was a moral panic set off by a book called Michelle Remembers.  Of course, the book turned out to be false.  But as a result of the hysteria, there were at least two stories that blew out of proportion and became stories of satanic ritual abuse.  One was the case of the McMartins in California.  It all started with a schizophrenic mother, and soon it became a story with hot air balloons, underground tunnels, and Chuck Norris.  Another case was in Fells Acre, Massachussetts.  What happened was that a boy wet himself while sleeping, and an adult changed his pants.  Soon, it became an abuse story involving clowns and lobsters.

These last two cases were examples of False Memory Syndrome.  A person in power can convince a kid that he/she remembers something that didn’t actually happen.  Deja related a story in which her mother spilled some milk in front of her sister.  Her mother proceeded to convince her sister that she had spilt the milk herself.

Other moral panics: Rainbow parties, where girls wear lipstick of all colors, and then give BJs to all the boys.  There was a book written about it, and Oprah had it on her show, but it was entirely made up.  Dungeons and Dragons were another moral panic, as you can see in the classic Dark Dungeons Jack Chick tract.

Other things mentioned at the meeting:  Did you know that you can see North Korea as a dark spot on Google Maps Nighttime?  Bill Donohue (of the Catholic League) had a press release complaining about Lucky Louie, but he apparently never even saw the show.  What idea fuels Gorgoroth’s music?

The following took place on Friday, May 22nd.

Meeting discussion

At this meeting, we had a copy of Religulous, a comedy-documentary by Bill Maher on religion. We started by watching the end of the movie, where Bill Maher gives a full on rant against religion over a montage of explosions and stuff. While some people enjoyed the ending, several people did not. Spencer felt that since the audience mostly consists of non-religious already, the ending only serves to further stratify the debate. Robin felt that the ending caricatures religious people. Joe pointed out that some of the clips in the montage had nothing to do with religion, like a clip of the Challenger space shuttle. Though to be fair, that clip appears at a moment when Maher is talking about human fallibility.

Who do you think this movie is targeting? Anna thought it was targeting moderate believers, but others felt that it was targeting a more niche audience. Some people compared it to Sicko, by Michael Moore—who was Moore’s target audience?

Someone posed the question: if we removed religion, would there simply be something else, like pseudoscience, to take its place? Would we then be worse off? Joe had a nice analogy: why cut our fingernails if they’re just going to grow back again? We discussed some real world examples, like Japan, New Zealand and China. Robin said that because China tried to remove religion, they now have the worst forms of it, like a lot of prosperity gospel. Andrew said that we don’t want to force out religion like China did.

Then we discussed Maher’s interview style throughout the movie. A lot of it is heavily edited to make the interviewees look silly. Is this unfair? We watched a bunch of clips in the movie as examples.

From the meeting on May 15th:

Meeting discussion

We talked about genetically modified organisms. In one sense, it’s not really much different from what we’ve done with plants before, only now it’s done in a lab. Genetically modified crops often require less pesticide, meaning that they can be better for the environment. However, Ben brought to our attention a problem involving the Monsanto Company. Monsanto inserts a gene into its genetically modified seed products so that they become sterile after a few generations. This is in order to prevent people from replanting seeds rather than buying more from Monsanto. All their clients agree to this deal; however, what happens when Monsanto crops cross pollinate with your neighbor’s crops? It’s like your neighbor has been forced to accept the deal too. Courts have decided that this is legal.

A tangent: What’s up with corn subsidies? Are they making people fat just so they can fight some trade war?

Our next topic was indigo children. The basic idea is that your kid isn’t autistic, doesn’t have ADHD, he’s just special. As in, he is psychic, telekinetic, or just has some special empathetic connections, and is the next stage in evolution. We believe that the idea of indigo children is a response to Ritalin. I think that if they don’t want Ritalin, they should just not take Ritalin—they shouldn’t have to believe all this weird stuff to justify themselves.

Someone asked, is there really any evidence for ADHD? Spencer answered with a definitive yes. There is plenty scientific evidence for the existence of ADHD, though they may misdiagnose in individual cases. We noted that diagnosis rates tend to differ from culture to culture. Is it because in some cultures, people are over-stimulated from a young age? Or is it because more people are aware of the condition? Or perhaps different cultures have different thresholds for what is abnormal?

Matt asked, if Ritalin helps everyone focus, ADHD or not, why shouldn’t everyone be taking it? The first answers to this question involved addiction and heart problems. The discussion meandered, and we somehow started talking about Christopher Langan.

We also discussed the upcoming (but now passed) Faith Meets Doubt student discussion panel on May 18^th. Two atheists, two Christians, two Muslims. I will eventually write up a report on the event.

Announcements

There will be a lecture on Healing Touch Therapy on May 19^th, 1-2 PM at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center, B-130. We think it is outrageous that this is actually taught here at UCLA. Please, somebody attend this and ask them questions.

BASS and the Infidel’s club are both sponsoring a panel called “Faith Meets Doubt”. It occurs on Monday, May 18^th, 6:00-7:30 PM in Humanities A40. There will first be a presentation by a deist and a conservative Jew, and then a discussion panel made of six students: two Christians, two Muslims, and two Atheists. RSVP on Facebook.

Meeting discussion

We discussed the talk by Brian Dunning, “Here Be Dragons”, which occurred on May 6. Brian Dunning is a real common sense skeptic. “Ghost orbs”… are they supposed to be living orbs which died? And why are they surrounding the Loch Ness monster in this photo? We wonder, though if Dunning isn’t just preaching to the choir, since most of the attendees are BASS members.

Speaking of which, Brian Dunning is starring in a pilot of a possible new TV show, the Skeptologists (also, see the Skepticblog). Though we haven’t seen the pilot, some people thought it might be comparable to MythBusters, but a bit more rigorous. Someone complained that though MythBusters promote science, their experiments are not up to standards.

We discussed Healing Touch Therapy, which consists basically of putting your hands on or near the patient. Then, supposedly, you manipulate their “putative energy field” in order to heal them. The whole idea is premised on the existence of a “biofield”. Is this field is a scalar or vector field, and what are its units? This is being taught to med students at UCLA?

T-Shirts! Roy suggested a bunch of different t-shirt designs, which you can see on his flickr stream. As a group, we tend to be indecisive.

We met Steve, who is one of the hosts of Preach Around, a UCLA radio show. The show is a satire of Christian talk radio. They plan on recording our evil, godless meetings so that they can show everyone exactly how many babies Darwin-worshippers eat. This will be a lot of fun to do at one of our upcoming meetings.

Miscellaneous videos: Q-Ray bracelets? The Kiai Master. The leprechaun in Alabama. Jesus and the Terminator.

Announcements

We’re planning on screening Religulous during eighth week.

Meeting discussion

Robin had a presentation today in order to show the craziness that is Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck hosts a show on Fox News Channel, and he gets 2.4 million viewers a day. Glenn Beck is a Mormon, seems to like Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and frequently cries because he just loves America so much. He also seems to believe in conspiracy theories, in particular, he seems to believe that America will collapse and be replaced by the New World Order. You can get a good idea of what he believes in from his 9-12 project.

Clips were shown from these videos: Glenn Beck mocks Obama’s Aunt, Look into Glenn Beck’s eyes, Morning Joe rips into Glenn Beck, World what?, The War Room, Ben Stein and Glenn Beck, Stephen Colbert’s Doom Bunker.

Of course, conservatives aren’t the only ones who believe in the idea of a New World Order conspiracy. The 9/11 truthers at the LA Book Festival also believed in the New World Order. This brought up a few new topics for us: is there something wrong with a world currency? Are we already globalized, or would a global currency be needed first?

Our next topic is the swine flu, which we should probably call H1N1. Supposedly, H1N1 is the result of several different flu strains which genetically combined, you know, like Voltron. It is probably not worth panicking about. J.C. told us that in Texas, they stopped schools for two weeks because of swine flu, probably doing more harm than good. Many people get killed other strains of flu, so it’s not necessarily a big deal if swine flu kills only a few people.

Announcements

Brian Dunning, May 6! See details

Let’s go see a museum! We are thinking about seeing the Natural History Museum, Scientology’s “Psychology: An Industry of Death” museum, and the Museum of Jurassic Technology. We may see one of these in the upcoming weekend.

Leilani proposed a discussion panel consisting of students from various religious backgrounds. But we need volunteers.

Deja proposed the idea that we cook food in the quad. Unfortunately, if we start planning this now, it won’t happen until next year.

Meeting discussion

Some time ago, an atheist author named John Harrigan mailed us a copy of his book, The Professor and the Dominatrix. Deja offered to read it for us and give a book report on it. It’s taken a while for her to read it because it was so terrible, worse than fan fiction. The full presentation is not available, but here are some highlights:

• Summary: The book has ethnic stereotypes, homophobia, anti-religious BS, a terrible plot, terrible sex scenes. Most of it consists of babbling and cocks.
• Many characters have exaggerated and poorly done “Black English” or Latino accents, and are clearly stereotypes.
• The lesbians in the group “Dykes Taking Over” all seem to be women who had issues with men or their fathers.
• The hero, Synan Slane, is a professor, a former marine (just like the author), and has a massive wang. He seems to win every argument instantly, leaving his opponents sputtering. At one point, he gives a speech called “Critical Thinking 101” which consists of lots of boring sex and anti-religious BS.
• The dominatrix has red-gold hair. She plays virtually no part in the story, practically a macguffin. When she joins up with the professor, she becomes indistinguishable as a character.
• The villain is some religious nut cannibal serial killer.
• The author seems to completely forget the plot until the final chapter. Instead, we have a lot of babbling, and sex made boring.

(Also see another book review on Blag Hag.)

Next topic: Hoaxes! Let’s pull a hoax! Let’s make some UFOs with weather balloons. Or hold an anti-dihydrogen monoxide protest, or something like that. Of course, I won’t reveal all our secrets in the meeting minutes.

What things did you use to think were real? Did you ever believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy? Or maybe you had some superstition, such as wishing for the opposite of what you want in order to get it. Some people used to believe in the Montauk monster, or in various urban legends. We talked about some urban legends, like the Bloody Mary legend, and the idea that you can get pregnant from a swimming pool. And then comes the perennial question: would you lie to your kids about Santa? Debate ensues.

From the meeting on April 17,

Announcements

Since the meeting, we’ve had to cancel the debate between Matt Slick and John Shook. We failed to anticipate the amount of bureaucracy which would be involved.

However, we can still look forward to a talk by Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid podcast on Wednesday, May 6, from 6-9 in Bunche 3164. Tell your friends.

Meeting Discussion

We started out by discussing the “Is God a Delusion?” talk given by Lutheran apologist Angus Menuge. According to Deja, it was a train wreck. We discussed the Kalam cosmological argument (“everything which begins has a cause”). And then we moved on to the resurrection of Jesus. Angus Menuge said that if the resurrection is false, then Christianity is false (this is based on something said by Paul). What would we consider sufficient evidence for the resurrection? One person said that there could be sufficient evidence, but as it is, one unverifiable document is not enough.

And at the mention of evidence, lots of people start going off on a tangent about the meaning of evidence and proof.

Our other topic today was dinosaurs. Actually, we ended up talking about pterosaurs, which technically aren’t dinosaurs. Pterosaurs got their wings attached to really long pinkies, quite unlike bats, which have wings stretched between their long fingers.

After that, there was Pictionary. And candy.