Archive
Welcome!
CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE APRIL 25, 2013 PROTEST IN SUPPORT OF THE BANGLADESH BLOGGERS
Facebook Event for the Protest: Click hereSkeptical about gods? Join the club — literally!
The primary purpose of this website is to host our daily blog, which starts below this post. We also meet in person on the Mizzou campus every week — see our Events Page here.
There are hundreds of religious official student organizations at Mizzou. SASHA is the only expressly secular student organization at the University of Missouri – Columbia. For Tigers who are Skeptical, Atheist, Secular Humanist, and/or Agnostic, welcome to SASHA, your home on the web for secular news, discussion, local events, original articles & videos, and lots more.
If you would like to know more, Click here to read more About Us
Congratulations to our writers! And, a religion quiz from Christian Science Monitor
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
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Two things today!
Firstly, we recently celebrated posting our 200th blog article with a post by our president, Tony Lakey. When our blog passed 100 articles last year, we had a party with cake. We will likely be doing that again once we reach 250 articles in the fall!
Our 100th Blog Article Celebration cake. We asked the decorator to put a baby on it, and he obliged.
Early this morning, we also passed another benchmark: 150,000 views on our blog! We’re currently sitting around 150,250 views, for a straight average of about 730 views per article, and a total of about 750 comments since we started the blog in April of 2011. Wow! Not bad for a student group 
I think blogging is one of the best ways to 1) stay informed about current events, 2) get practice writing and 3) get your name out there, especially if you are interested in taking a leadership role in a student group, or doing your own talks. I highly recommend getting into blogging if you are passionate about secularism and have an interest in writing or speaking, whether you’re in-the-closet about your atheism or not. If you would like to submit a guest post to this blog, we are always willing to consider new writers, whether it’s a one-time thing or more than that! We have several recurring guest writers currently, some of them Christians, also.
I’m very proud of all of our writers, and I hope that all of our readers have enjoyed the ride! Let’s keep it up for another 200! We will probably celebrate our 250th article with a party in the fall semester as well.
I have something else for you today: The Christian Science Monitor has put up a 32-question quiz about religion from the Pew Forum. They say that atheists score an average of 20.9 correct answers, with Jews averaging 20.5, and Mormons 20.3. Protestants got 16 correct answers on average, while Catholics got 14.7 questions right.
I got 31 out of 32 (missed the one about the First Great Awakening) – how did you do? Let us know in the comments below, and share this/tweet this! We are curious about the engagement and knowledge of you guys!
Until next time!
- Dave
Dave Muscato is the 2012 Writing Intern for the Secular Student Alliance in Columbus, Ohio. He is also Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou studying economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday and twice monthly for the Humanist Community at Harvard. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com – Iron Chariots Wiki – Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an – AtheismResource.com – TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
New SASHA Officers
Welcome to the official MU SASHA blog!
Please join our group on Facebook.
Congratulations to our 2012-2013 SASHA Officers. For those unaware our officers are:
Tony Lakey (Myself) – President
Max Jersak - Treasurer
Sameer Surampalli - Secretary,
Robbie Macken - Director of Public Relations
Why is there no Vice President listed, you ask? Because that election is still ongoing! Follow this link to get to our ORGSYNC site and vote before before 11:45 tonight (4/30/12)! Aaron Underwood and Dave Muscato are both running for the position.
You will need an ORGSYNC account first, and to join our group on the site, but that is all free and can be done from this link. Be sure to do it early so that you can be approved to vote.
I am very excited about our new officers and look forward to working with them in the upcoming year. We have a lot of big things planned and I feel confident that we can accomplish them successfully with the great members we have in these positions.
NOW GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!
-Tony Lakey
Tony Lakey is the President of MU SASHA. He is a junior at Mizzou majoring in philosophy & sociology.
An Open Letter to our Members: Should you run for a SASHA officer position?
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
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So, you may have heard our current officers announce over the last few weeks at meetings that our annual officer elections are coming up for the 2012-2013 school year. You might be thinking, “What does this have to do with me?” I write today to answer this question.
I want to say to you, the person reading this: Consider running for an officer position. Yes, you. Really.
You might be thinking, “I’m not the ‘type’ to be a group officer,” or that you wouldn’t be good at it. Nonsense, I say.
I say to you, I myself never thought about running for an officer position either, until I was nudged into thinking about it. What I want to do right now, with this very blog post, is nudge you into thinking about it, too.
Take a moment. Think about SASHA, and what this group means to you, as you make your way through college. Take a moment to think about what this group can grow into over the next few years, that it is not already, with your help.
We are just going into our third year of being an active student group on campus, and we have barely scratched the surface. You can get in on the ground floor of this. When I started coming to SASHA, there were only about 5 of us regularly attending the meetings. We have easily quadrupled that now, and at our debate last April with Brother Jed, we drew over 200 people. And this is just the beginning! Here are some of the things we’re working on for next year:
- SASHA Book Club (monthly)
- SASHA Volunteer Day (each semester, monthly, or weekly)
- Movie Night (monthly or weekly)
- Game Night (monthly or weekly)
- Field trips to the planetarium, guided tours to local museums or nature trails, and/or to the Science Center or Zoo in St Louis
- Paint ball
- SASHA BBQ
- SASHA Lending Library
- Having professors come and give TED-style talks to us about their research
and that’s not even all of it.
Getting involved with SASHA is one of the best things I have ever done. When I was starting to doubt my religion, when I was the most confused about The Big Questions, when I was searching for answers, when I was just starting to see the light in the distance of rational thinking, SASHA helped me. It helped me connect with other people who are doing the same thing, and who could help me, instead of feeling lost or guilty about asking these questions, feel like I had come home. SASHA has taught me how to be a better person and how to be more comfortable as the person I really am, and as the person I really want to be.
When I first started coming to SASHA meetings, it was a brand-new experience for me. I was still in the closet as an atheist, and no one knew about my atheism except for my girlfriend at the time. SASHA gave me the courage in numbers — and the factual ammunition — necessary to feel confident about why I didn’t believe in a god, about evolution & natural selection, the origin of the Universe, history, about LOTS of topics.
SASHA taught me how to think like a scientist thinks, how to ask questions, and how to be comfortable without always having the answer of “God did it.” But what SASHA also did was give me a place to do that, where I was not judged, where I was not scolded, where I did not have to be afraid of my curiosity about the world.
Whether you identify as a skeptic, an atheist, a secular humanist, an agnostic, or something else, if you go to Mizzou, and you value science, reason, and secular values, SASHA is not only here for you, but we want you to think of SASHA as home. We want SASHA to be where you feel the most comfortable, where you can come to be free from censorship, discrimination, oppression, and closed-mindedness — a place you can come for intellectual stimulation, for challenge, for friendship, for moral support, for camaraderie, to help you through hardship: a place where you can not only be yourself, but celebrate who you are.
Further, we want you to know that SASHA is your group as much as it is ours or anyone else’s. We are not like churches, with top-down, hierarchical dogmas about what you have to believe to be part of SASHA, or how we have to operate. Yes, we have officers who carry out these things, but as a group, we explicitly value rational inquiry and critical thinking. If you have an idea for a better way of doing things, or an idea for something you want our group to do in order to serve us all better, we want you to know that you have the power to help make this happen. If you have ideas for changes in this group, in the activities that we do, in the topics of our talks, in how we function, remember that this is your group, and we want you to get involved.
I think SASHA is a great thing. It’s been a major part of my life these past 3 years, from when I first started attending 3 years ago, to when I became the Co-Director of Public Relations last year, and on to becoming the Vice President this current school year.
SASHA is, in fact, responsible for me becoming interested in where I see my long-term plans and career heading, since I’ve become an atheist and I no longer can feel at home working as a worship musician. It is through SASHA that I got interested in activism, and started writing about skepticism & history, doing public debates, and doing public speaking, first here at Mizzou and now at other schools as well. And as I mentioned at the meeting tonight, this summer I have an internship where I will have an opportunity to do exactly what I’ve realized I love doing — writing and speaking about atheism topics and representing the secular, skeptical point of view to the world — at a non-profit that specializes in doing exactly that.
I feel like I am finally finding my place in the world, in a way that I haven’t felt since I stopped working for a church. Only the difference is, I no longer have this nagging feeling constantly in the back of my mind that everything I’m doing is rooted in a lie, the way I used to. I feel like what I’m doing now really matters, and that I can effect real change by doing it. I no longer feel like I’m living a lie, and it’s a great feeling, and it’s all because of SASHA.
I hope that you will consider running for an officer position. Positions open now are President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Director of Public Relations. Contact our current president, Tony Lakey, and he will tell you what’s next.
I look forward to working with you next year! Together, we can do great things!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
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P.S.
If you have abilities that don’t fit into one of these, come and talk to us! We created the Director of Public Relations position because we realized we needed someone in charge of that, and we had someone interested in doing it. If you are a photographer — or are even just interested in photography, and want to get more experience by shooting SASHA events — come talk to us about making a new officer position to emphasize it. If you are a web designer, or want to learn, come talk to us. If you are want to be on the committee to help plan our Fall Conference, come talk to us. We are open to ideas, and want you along for the ride!
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Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
New Facebook feature = new Atheism Activism list feed!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA daily blog!
First time here? Read this.
Click here to Like our Page on Facebook (or use the sidebar if you’re logged in).
Local to Columbia? Join the Facebook Group, too!
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Hello all!
Facebook has introduced a new feature, Lists, that allow you to view a curated list of feed updates from many different pages & profiles in a single place (similar to Twitter Lists). With the input of our fellow activists, SASHA has created a List called “Atheism Activism” to help atheists, secular activists, and science-education advocates get all their favorite activism updates in a single Facebook feed.
You can subscribe to the Atheism Activism List by clicking here.
This List includes feeds from the Secular Student Alliance, Center for Inquiry, American Atheists, Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, National Science Education Foundation, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, The Friendly Atheist, Evid3nc3, and 40 others.
We are interested in adding more Pages and personal profiles to the feed. If your favorite activism organization or speaker is not on the List, please leave a comment below and we’ll check it out. As this is a curated list, we are looking for high-quality, regularly-updated feeds. Our goal is to be the go-to List for atheism activists on Facebook.
Please subscribe and SHARE on Facebook, Twitter, and your other social networks. Click here to help spread the word on Reddit. Enjoy!
- Dave from MU SASHA
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA blog!
Welcome to the official MU SASHA blog!
Please join our group on Facebook.
MU SASHA stands for University of Missouri Skeptics, Atheists, Secular Humanists, & Agnostics. SASHA is the only expressly secular/skeptic group at the University of Missouri. We are also open to (& strongly encourage interaction from!) people of all faiths & religious backgrounds.
MU SASHA meets every Tuesday from 6-7 PM in Ellis Auditorium on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus. Ellis Auditorium is on the ground floor of Ellis Library, just through the double-doors on the west side of the building (facing Speakers’ Circle). Here is a link to Mizzou’s Ellis Auditorium web page, and here is a link to Google directions to the library.
Our mission is threefold:
A. To promote to the highest degree the separation of church and state.
B. To promote a healthy and respectable image of the atheist and freethinking community in our area and around the world by means of philanthropic works, dispensary of knowledge, and organized debate and discussion.
C. To offer to students at MU and people in the local area their first opportunity to hear a freethinking opinion on life, reality, and rationality other than that of the religious organizations on the MU Campus.
Our blog is updated (at least) daily, and we currently have 5 contributing authors. They are:
Dave Muscato, Co-Director of Public Relations of MU SASHA, and Vice President-Elect (2011-2012 school year). Dave is a junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin. He posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Steve Sparkman, graduate student at Mizzou studying journalism. He posts updates to the SASHA blog every Tuesday.
Justin Laykovich, freshman at Mizzou going for a BS in Computer Science. He posts updates to the SASHA blog every Wednesday.
Tony Lakey, Vice President of MU SASHA, and President-Elect (2011-2012 school year). Tony is a sophomore at Mizzou majoring in philosophy & minoring in sociology. He posts updates to the SASHA blog every Friday.
James Cook, graduate student at Mizzou studying mathematics. He posts updates to the SASHA blog every Sunday. His website is http://www.math.missouri.edu/~cook/.
In addition to our five regular contributors, we also have two occasional guest contributors. They are:
Tony Amorosa, undergraduate student at Mizzou studying Biology/Anthropology.
Joseph Folkemer, undergraduate student at Mizzou studying chemical engineering.
Please check out our blog DAILY for new updates, and make sure to join our Facebook group!
Best regards,
MU SASHA
