davisagasa

Our new blog can be found here: agasadavis.wordpress.com/


And of course we still have our facebook group: www.facebook.com/group.php


And our rarely used, but still up-to-date daviswiki page: daviswiki.org/AgASA

Thank you to everyone who was a part of AgASA's Winter 2009 quarter.
The Atheism Series went well and we got to know certain members and topics better. The series went as follows:

- January 21st: Atheism in Religion - Mohammad gave a presentation about the history and mentality of Islam.
- January 28th: Atheism in Film, Music & Art - Shiva gave a presentation on anti-theistic sentiment in metal music.
- February 4th: Atheism in Literature - Cat gave a presentation on literature.
- February 11th: Atheism in Philosophy - Arash gave a presentation on the most common philosophical arguments behind theism, weak atheism, and strong atheism with respect to burden of proof.
- February 18th: Atheism in Mental Health - Jenny presented a comparative look at the happiness of atheists vs. theists where a long discussion ensued about each group's approach toward death.
- February 25th: Atheism in Global Culture - Sam presented on atheism in different areas of the world, namely Europe, Africa and Asia.
- March 4th: Atheism in Charity - Shiva led a discussion on charity and its merit (or lack thereof) as an accompaniment to an ideology.
- March 11th: Atheism in War - Faculty adviser Aaron Sikes presented on his experience as an atheist in the military and compared the mentality of theist and atheist soldiers.

AgASA will work on compiling these presentations into a library so that they may be referred to any time.

AgASA

2/18/09

Atheism in Mental Health by Jenny Bernstein

-        Can atheists have better mental health than religious people?

-        Can belief in God be a mental disorder?

-        Do atheists or theists recover better/more readily from life’s challenges?

-        How do atheists deal with life’s biggest challenge: death?

-        How do the religiosity and end-of-life attitudes of doctors affect their patients?

-        Jenny and the audience commenced in a discussion about the possible distinction between mind, body, and soul.

 

"Because our logo isn't offensive enough!"

The award for this is a $30 gift certificate to Borders, and a free AgASA t-shirt with your logo on it.

Whoever can design a logo which we decide to actually use on t-shirts, our banner, our a-frame, website, and maybe even fliers, will be the winner.

Try to keep the logo somewhat simple, not directed at a specific religious group, and not too offensive (unless its really funny). Also, try to avoid generalizing atheists by using, for example, an atom or a Darwin fish.


It's really hard to come up with a logo to define all atheists, so you might want to just think about AgASA at UC Davis when coming up with ideas. It's also hard to not try and use a whole bunch of words, but simple, easy-to-draw pictures make the best logos.

Some ideas: writing AgASA in an eye-catching way, a really cool letter A...

The coolest logo won't necessarily win if we, for any reason, decide it wouldn't be in our best interest to use it. Keep in mind what AgASA is all about!

Post your logos on the facebook event page in the photos section: www.facebook.com/event.php

The deadline is Friday, March 13th. Yes, I picked Friday the 13th on purpose (for good luck, of course)

Don't be shy about posting your ideas, the more we have to pick from, the better!

AgASA

2/11/09

-        Cat made announcements:

o       Michael Cui’s condition and our need to write him a card

o       Darwin Day tomorrow

o       IV. vs. AgASA next Saturday (21^st)

o       We have a blog for AGASA

o       Contest: logo contest, upload images on Facebook event. $30 gift card for Borders

 

Arash Presented on Atheism in Philosophy:

-        Preliminary defitinitions:

o       God

o       Theism

o       Atheism

§         Weak

§         Strong

-        Talked about burden of proof

-        Arguments for why God exists:

o       Ontological argument

o       Cosmological argument

-        Arguments for why God does not exist:

o       Argument from Sin

o       Argument from Incompatibility of Divine Attribute

 

                                                                         Drawing on the board!

 

                                                

                                         Classic AgASA Discussion!

Good afternoon AgASA-ites!

We are having our long-awaited presentation on "Atheism in Philosophy" by "senior member" Arash Khosrowshahi, who will introduce different arguments for and against theism and will reduce them down to rubble.

Please feel free to get comfy, bring your pajamas, popcorn and some snacks, as the presentation promises to be in-depth as well as entertaining and maybe a little long...

We meet in 118 Olson at 6pm.

See you all then,

--
~Catalina Chao~
President, AgASA 2008-2009

"It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the bible." –George W. Foote

Thanks everyone for making the potluck so much fun!

There was LOTS of food,



some Donkey Kong,



silly hats,



silly people,



some arts and crafts,
and of course some monkeying around...




I know we didn't actually get anything painted or come up with a logo, but we still had a lot of fun!

This is the second Atheist and Agnostic Student Association/InterVarsity Christian Fellowship mixer in the history of AgASA/IV mixers! You don't want to miss out on this one! We're playing kickball at Walnut Park and then heading to Woodstock's for delicious pizza. For those of you who aren't sure how to play kickball, here is the wikipedia page with the rules:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickball
It's basically just baseball, except instead of hitting a baseball with a bat you kick a pogo ball with your foot.

This is going to be really fun, so don't miss out!

Day: Saturday, February 2st
Time: 3pm
Place: Walnut Park
You can RSVP at the event page on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=63510479344


Walnut Park is the giant open field on Lillard Dr.
http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=38.541083,-121.719375&spn=0.013729,0.034547&z=15
If you need directions or need to plan a ride, email me at jlbernst@ucdavis.edu

AgASA

1/28/09

 

·        Shiva presented on Atheists in the Media, Film, Art, and Music

·        She then presented extensively on Atheists in Metal

·        Music has been an integral part of religion for as long as religion has been around

o       Music is thought to be very inspiring and uplifting

·        Some types of Metal:

o       Black

o       Death

o       Pagan

·        Metal originated in Norway, but has other regional developments

·        Pagan Metal:

o       Less intense

o       Promotes pride in one’s heritage and ancestry

·        Metal has two main themes:

o       Exposing hypocrisy in institutions (particularly, religion)

o       Returning land and ways of life to the natives of that land.

·        Shiva then responded to questions and comments from the audience

Shiva's follow up:

Hey guys,

During and after my presentation last week on music I had some requests to follow up on certain things...

First, you seemed to want to hear a sample of Skyforger to hear the bagpipe. Here's a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M45QTtJZ8Fk&feature=related
The audio quality is a bit poor, so give them a break if something sounds awful. Skyforger is from Latvia, by the way.

Here's another popular band with an overload of traditional sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ise7oUz3LYk

Here's another band you might find interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej690uaBwUA
Tyr, from the Faroe Islands.

Also, I mentioned Iranian metal, and I had a couple of requests to give some examples of that. Here are some links to music from Iranian metal bands in (and maybe outside) of Iran:

www.myspace.com/arasband
www.myspace.com/kahtmayan
www.myspace.com/mordab
www.myspace.com/sorginnkal

AgASA   2/4/09

-        Cat presented about “Atheists in Literature”

-        First slideshow was a catalogue of famous atheist authors

o       Joseph Conrad

o       Oscar Wilde

o       George Orwell

-        Some categories of atheist literature:

o       Classical dysopian novel

o       Religious satire/commentary novel

o       Humanist novel

o       Some examples:

§         Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzche

§         His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman

§         The Crucible, Arthur Miller

Representation of Atheism, Humanism, and Anti-theism in literature

-        Moby Dick: The whale, Moby Dick, is a representation of God

o       The will of Moby Dick cannot be defeated, only accommodated or avoided

o       Moby Dick cannot be physically or scientifically described

o       God-like characteristics of Moby Dick:

§         Impersonal force

§         White (color connotations reversed: white now represents evil)

§         Hogs n’ Gods. Hogs = people?

-        Huckleberry Finn contains religious satire

o       Uses ironic situations to illustrate absurdities such as:

§         Superstition and folk beliefs

§         Hypocrisy of slave-owners

·         Right vs. wrong

o       Huck relies on his sensory experiences of the world, his own logic and developed conscience to sort out right vs. wrong. This is a contrast to blind following of Biblical guidelines.

-        2001: A Space Odyssey

o       This is a humanist novel

o       Evolution is not “the end” but merely a stepd in a thousand directions of possible beginnings.

 

Some conclusions:

-        Not enough female atheist novelists.

-        Portrayals of atheism sometimes depend on anti-theism (or inversions/reflections of Christianity)

-        People interpret their marbles and made parallels to themselves as atheists as part of an exercise to compliment Cat’s presentation.