Noelle Barrick

If you’ve perused my Profile page on this website, you know that I am about (I hope!) to finish my Master’s degree in Religious Studies. Religion fascinates me because it influences so much of our behavior, even if we are nonbelievers. I was planning to write my first post on religion about the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), but I was just watching the 10pm news, and saw a story about something that I simply cannot resist commenting on. Here it is, 10:30 at night, and instead of getting ready for bed, I’m doing research and pounding furiously on the keyboard. Yes, furiously!

Here in Kansas, you can’t put your big toe out the front door without stepping smack in the middle of a religion controversy. Ah, Kansas. Home of Operation Rescue and the creation versus evolution controversy engendered in our state Board of Education elections. After every election, the balance shifts and the science standards are re-written. At the moment, we are pro-evolution—which makes this particular  “controversy” somewhat surprising.

Tonight one of our friendly local news anchors informed me that a new billboard has just gone up here in town celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Wow, I thought. That’s weird but cool. Darwin certainly deserves to be celebrated. But as I scanned the billboard being flashed on the screen, I sighed. This is not a celebration of Darwin. It’s a manipulation of Darwin used as an excuse to b***h-slap people of faith.

“Praise Darwin,” it says. “Evolve Beyond Belief.” The sponsor listed at the bottom is the Freedom From Religion Foundation. (You can see an identical billboard in Colorado at http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-02-10-darwin-secular_N.htm.)

Here in Kansas we spend so much time fighting this creation/evolution battle that I pretty much have my response down pat. So here goes. Again.

For many of us, faith is not an either/or proposition. Of course some folks will tell you that if you don’t believe that the earth is 6000 years old and if you don’t accept Jesus as the Christ, then you are going straight to the hot place. But—and please pay attention FFRF—we don’t ALL believe that! In fact, judging by the latest ARIS survey, which I really will get around to writing about one of these days, fewer and fewer of us believe that.

When you attack all believers without discrimination, you attack many people who would otherwise support you. Let me share what is apparently a well-kept secret: It is possible to be a person of faith and to believe in the scientific evidence that surrounds evolution. Yes, that’s right. I am a religious person AND I believe in dinosaurs! (And the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but that’s a story for another day.)

It is possible to be a person of faith without insisting that everyone around you believe exactly the same way. It is possible to be a person of faith without insisting on literal biblical interpretation, prayer in schools, nativity scenes on public property, or posting the Ten Commandments on anything or anyone that will hold still long enough. I am a person of faith, and I am opposed to all of those things. Furthermore, it is possible to be a person of faith and to simultaneously support legitimate science standards, common-sense sex education in schools, and the right of every individual to practice his or her faith or non-faith as she or he sees fit. I am a person of faith, and I believe in all of those things.

In fact, my beliefs might conceivably lead me to offer support to an organization like the FFRF. I poked around on their website a bit (www.ffrf.org), and, once I got past the offensive proposition that only atheists are ethical and intelligent people, I found that their aims and most of their methods appear to be good ones. (I particularly appreciate their legal page, which gives accurate interpretations of current law and advice about what to do if you believe you are experiencing religious discrimination.)

But, given that they arbitrarily dismissed and insulted me because I have “Belief,” I guess I’ll just have to keep sending my money to the ACLU instead. Maybe the FFRF can Evolve Beyond the Need for My Donation.

UPDATE: I sent a shorter version of this post to The Wichita Eagle as a Letter to the Editor, and it was published on Sunday, March 28, 2009. See the online version at http://www.kansas.com/opinion/letters/story/751832.html.

Yes, I’m a “freelance” teacher as well as an editorial freelancer. In late January and early February of this year, I wrote and taught a study skills curriculum for a local vo-tech school. This was, um, an experience.

I got my first clue that this is not your typical classroom on the day I sat in on the HVAC class to gather actual class material for the lecture on note taking. Of course, HVAC is a male-dominated industry, so I was the only woman in the room. Plus, these students are all adults. They range in age from 18, having just graduated from high school, to men in their 50s who are starting a second (or third or fourth or twelfth) career.

So, the instructor finished the lecture, and then he showed a video—a lovely little piece that demonstrates how to shoot your wife with a blow gun dart when she’s bothering you; this will knock her out for a few hours so that you can go on watching your sporting event, porn, or whatever. Also works on bosses and coworkers!

And this has what to do with heating and cooling, exactly?

So, in the first class, I talk about dealing with distractions, and I use an example of being angry with a spouse. Aha! I think.  This is the perfect opportunity to comment on this charming little video. “First,” I say, “just remember that whatever you’re thinking about doing to your wife, she is also thinking about doing to you.” The students snicker. “And,” I continue, “we’re not going to mess around with some stupid blow gun. We’re just going to drop the shit in your coffee. You’ll wake up in 10 hours, thinking, ‘Damn, that was a great nap!’” This induces a split-second, jaw-dropping silence, followed by a full minute of braying laughter. You could see their minds working: “Oh my god! The instructor said ‘shit!’”

Suddenly, the students were more attentive and willing to participate. After the class, the instructor actually complimented me for cussing, telling me that it made me less intimidating. Actually, what he started to say was that it brought me down to their level, but he backed off of that pretty fast.

Yes, I actually gained credibility with these students by cussing at them. Only at a vo-tech, folks.

Actually, now that I think about it, this would probably work in any room full of men, be it on a university campus, a vo-tech school, or a court-mandated driver’s ed class.

Next week: Students who make homemade stun guns and bring them to class to use on each other. All in good fun, of course.

PS, I tried to find the link to the video on YouTube, and couldn’t. But I am disturbed to note that a search for “blow gun” turns up about 7,200 hits.

I must say, I’m more comfortable as an editor than as a writer—not because I can’t write, but because I have the horrible habit of editing while I write, which means that it takes eons for me to finish something. This is lucky for my clients, because I strive for the same level of perfection in their writing that I strive for in my own. But it doesn’t take nearly as long! (Neat self-promotional plug, right?!)

I have re-joined the freelancing world after a five-year break to attend graduate school. (That thesis will be done by April! It will!) So I think I am most qualified to write about the trials and tribulations of a new freelancer. Let see, that includes marketing by the seat of one’s pants; physical and emotional isolation; the temptation to do the dishes (or the laundry or dust or scoop the litter box) instead of working; the annoyance of realizing that if you were at a full-time job, you’d be getting paid to surf the web. . . . And, oh yeah, the poverty.

So I’ll try taking those topics, and any others that come to mind, one by one and not necessarily in that order. But right now that Schubert biography copyedit is calling!