Politics and Pucks

Yesterday the Purdue Society of Non-Theists held their annual Pastafarian Preaching. Last year, we had the "honor" of having Brother Jed around at the same time (he is visiting during Blasphemy Day this year). It was a huge success, and we had a very positive response. During the day we had a lot of people telling us about how we made their day. We even had one woman come up and tell us: "I've had a really bad day, you guys have made my day, thank you!" We also encountered a lot of "pirate purists" who were reminding us that Talk Like a Pirate day is on Sunday. We shrugged that off, and let Mark Webster preach the world of the FSM!



Lots of students came by and took pictures of us! We also had a unique opportunity to make a little boy's day. A woman with her son came over and told us that he loves pirates. I gave him my plastic sword and we all took a picture with him, and he was ecstatic.



We even had a Ninja come by.



Although there was a lot of positive response, we did get some negative response. We had someone who identified himself as an atheist who took issue with our pirate shenanigans. He told us how we make him look bad, and that we look no better than the religious groups we protest. While I understand that concern, we don't think just sitting around and complaining about it in private solves the problem. We also had a few students come by and try to tell us to open our hearts to the bible.

Despite this criticism, I think we had a very positive impact yesterday. Even with the slight negativity, we still found that there was a lot of positivity. I think people appreciated the goofiness over anything else. I also heard from people, that they really disliked the preachers were at Purdue earlier in the week. I really think that, this event was a really positive one for our club's image, and that the people appreciated it.

In closing, I'd like to leave you with a video that captured the spirit of the day. Here's the video from Boilercampus: