kimming over the “Sculpture Emergency” blitz (the one letting us know the snow sculpture had collapsed), I focused in on the sign-off, “Lest the old traditions fail,” because this oft-repeated phrase is connected to a wide range of connotations and events in my mind.

The snow sculpture, like DOC trips, the bonfire, and big party weekends, are traditions that seem largely innocuous, and overall are probably positive. However, we should certainly realize that not all traditions are worth keeping. For instance, it was originally the “Men of Dartmouth” who were supposed to keep watch over the traditions, the oldest of which was our history as a single-sex institution.

Dartmouth, like the rest of the country, has traditions of sexism, racism, homophobia; we don’t want to put tradition on a pedestal, weakening our ability to root out harmful holdovers from the past. Appealing to tradition for its own sake is dangerous habit. We don’t want to retain the best parts of Dartmouth simply because they’re tradition: we want to retain them because they’re the best parts of the college, the elements that will make the new crop of ’13s eager to attend.

I didn’t attend a DOC Trip, and my Dartmouth experience hasn’t suffered from missing out on that tradition. But over 90 percent of students do attend one of the trips, and they seem to think they’re amazing. That seems a pretty good reason to keep having them—not their status as traditional relics, but as vital events that an overwhelming majority of Dartmouth students are passionate about participating in. We don’t have to appeal to tradition when there are more substantial reasons to continue a practice.

In the Sculpture Emergency blitz, Andrew Palmer ’10 and Max Friedman ’10 indicated that Moosilauke Ravine Lodge was chosen as this year’s theme “because it symbolizes Trips, which touches the vast majority of students. As such, we hoped that this year’s sculpture would resonate with all students.” For those of you who went on Trips, maybe this was good enough to get you out onto the Green to help out. Or maybe Trips aren’t quite as meaningful as people claim; or maybe they are, but you don’t feel the need to erect a monument to them. But that’s at least a real reason for you to care; the trite appeal to tradition itself had little motivational impact.

Over the preceding week, I’d already received blitz after blitz about how if I didn’t head out to the Green and get cracking, the tradition of the snow sculpture was going to fail for the first time ever, and it would be all our fault. My response to this guilt-trip was to delete each blitz, and to wonder, with all the budget cuts lately, the merits of offering free food and raffles to lure in helpers. Also, there’s something to be said about the cost of the sculpture’s construction. Maybe the snow sculpture generates more revenue in alumni donations than it uses, but it still seems a waste—there are plenty of other events on campus that are more valuable. Why, for instance, should the snow sculpture be privileged over MLK or V-Day events?

The College recently revealed the targets of the budget cuts instigated by the economic crisis. Did we save the best elements of the college, or did we bow to tradition and keep less vital elements for the sake of obligation to the way things have always been? One of my friends keeps complaining that in an attempt to get people out to a basketball game, two $250 prizes were offered. Was that the best use of 500 dollars? A lot of progressives have desired having an Activism/Organizing Intern on campus to coordinate activist groups—that 500 dollars could have been the term paycheck of a five-hours-per-week intern.

The desperate sculpture blitzes come out every year, and not one made any appeal beyond the standard, “this is a tradition and we can’t be the ones who let it fall.” Well, maybe we should be. Maybe students are sending a message that the snow sculpture isn’t resonating. The snow sculpture occupies a position of privilege: there is serious institutional support for its success, hence free food, give-aways, and even PE credit can be offered to seduce us into becoming snow construction workers. What if these incentives weren’t doled out? What’s the rationale for keeping the snow sculpture? It’s a tradition. It makes us unique. But what does it actually mean to us? I’m unclear on this.

I sympathize with the students who organized this year’s snow sculpture and the ones who devoted hours to working on it up until its unfortunate collapse (damn global warming!). A lot of students share this sentiment. But I haven’t encountered many people who actually value the sculpture so much that they are crushed by its demise—except, of course, for the dedicated group of students who did care enough to put effort into its construction. Personally, the sculpture is just not that important to me, to my Dartmouth experience, or to my Winter Carnival fun. (If 80s at Sig Nu got cancelled, then I’d have a problem.) Even as we feel sorry for the students who worked diligently on the snow sculpture, many people on campus treat its collapse as kind of a joke.

In a way, the snow sculpture is lucky. When other student campaigns at Dartmouth struggle, they don’t have institutional backing to aid them. We choose to give special support to things that are superficially seen as valuable to the college. Sometimes, this is necessary; however, something shouldn’t keep getting extra chances forever if it lacks a strong reason for its existence. I’m not saying there isn’t a reason behind the snow sculpture: it seems there must be some reason that, after the sculpture collapsed, a small group of committed students were out in the rain all night Wednesday into Thursday, trying to turn the mound of snow into something in time for Thursday evening’s opening ceremonies. Was it really just an appeal to tradition that brought them out? Maybe it was the feeling of community, of coming together to work on what they recognize as a symbol of Dartmouth.

Give us an honest reason to care about and devote our time to a heap of wood and snow, instead of the myriad of other significant things in our lives. I’ve been a student activist at Dartmouth, and I’ve realized that you can’t expect people to automatically care about your issues: you have to articulate a compelling reason, you have to prove that there’s a real purpose behind your pleas for support and resources. The failure of many campaigns can be traced to an inability to communicate purpose. Successful endeavors rely on the ability to convince, to get an audience over on your side and to realize your issues and objectives are necessary. If the snow sculpture doesn’t get finished it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worthwhile—but the struggle should call attention to the fact that we need to reevaluate our priorities to see if they are worth the effort of better articulation.

The topic of tradition may be a tired one, but I can say one thing new about it: the current president of the United States is not conservative, and he’s not clinging to the foibles of his predecessors. Hope and change, baby. We’re progressives. We’re looking to break free of the status quo. And the parts of our background we choose to keep for the future—we’re going to pick them carefully, based on substantial reasons, not the specter of tradition. Or at the least we damn well should. It’s not just about the snow sculpture: we’re looking for real reasons for our actions in every venue of our lives. We have to be careful about where we’re applying our limited resources.

Let the argument of tradition go. I won’t be here next year, but I hope that when Winter Ca
rnival comes around again, the snow sculpture has either gone to the resting place of unwanted traditions, or somebody has come up with a better reason to convince us to participate than “hey, it’s tradition.”

ast year, I lived in Ripley 007 (I thought a lot about James Bond those months). Though now I usually have no motivation to trek out in that direction from my warm room in the Gold Coast, I revisited my old haunts for the residents’ weekly floor meeting, held at what is now known as the Interfaith Living and Learning Floor.

After the meeting, when I mentioned my prior residence to Kurt Nelson, the Multi-Faith Program Advisor at the Tucker Foundation, he pointed out that I’d lived on the Interfaith Floor before it was the Interfaith Floor. And that set me thinking: when I bunked in Ripley ground floor, was it an interfaith floor already? Like most upperclassmen, I didn’t really get to know the people living in the rooms around me. I certainly didn’t go around asking what people’s faiths were; we might have each revealed our geographical backgrounds at some obligatory floor meeting, but not our “faith backgrounds”—which was one of the pieces of information proffered at the Interfaith Floor meeting I attended.

That’s also how the Multi-Faith Council meeting got going. At these meetings, people would identify both how they were raised, and their current belief systems. A number of members were formerly-X (usually, but not always, some Christian denomination) and now self-identifying as some kind seeker/exploring/agnostic or holding a personal or mixed belief system. My expectation had been that I would find people of different organized faiths coming to represent their religions, so I was surprised to find about 50 percent of the Interfaith Floor identifying in this non-institutional manner. On the other hand, the Multi-Faith Council better fit my expectations: more students on the Council identified with particular organized religious denominations, and were often members of specific denominational religious groups on campus. However, in both cases, it was carefully pointed out to me that members of the Floor or Council were not treated as representatives of their entire faith, but rather as representatives of themselves and what their personal faith experiences were, lessening the baggage ascribed to each individual and allowing for more intimate communication and connections.

While the Interfaith Floor is new to Dartmouth this year, and new to Kurt Nelson himself, the Multi-Faith Council has a longer history, and it didn’t always function the way it does now. Andrew Gates ’09, who entered the Council his sophomore year under Nelson’s predecessor, said that they used to have only about six to eight students on the Council (today it’s more like 16 to 20, selected through an application process to try to ensure a balance of faiths), and about half were from the Navigators. There wasn’t much variety in the faiths represented, and Gates himself was the only member who did not identify with a particular religion. “Beforehand it definitely had the feel of a council of appointed representatives from whatsoever organizations wanted to have representatives,” Gates describes. This was more in line with what I’d been expecting, probably because what background knowledge I had of the Multi-Faith Council came from an ’09 friend who had been involved as a first-year. Now, Gates continued, it’s more “a group of people who are united by interest in faith.”

Gates and other students now involved with the Council and the floor credit Nelson with changing the dynamic of interfaith dialogue and relations on campus. In fact, most of the students I spoke to are involved today because of the outreach efforts of Nelson (the Interfaith Floor was instituted primarily due to Nelson’s endeavors), especially spiritual students like Gates who don’t ascribe to a particular organized religion. The Multi-Faith Council meetings today are described as more structured, and include “spiritual autobiographies,” in which almost every week one member describes their personal faith and takes questions, giving students an excellent opportunity to get to know their companions and better understand different beliefs.

Why Talk About Faith?

“The narrative about religious interaction is about conflict,” Nelson indicated. “There’s a unique opportunity on a college campus…to overcome this basic narrative…and [the idea] that religious difference is utterly different that all the other areas of identity.” Hannah McConnaughay, who spoke at Dartmouth earlier this term on behalf of the Interfaith Youth Core, would agree. The Core’s mission is “to build religious pluralism in the world by empowering young people,” and for McConnaughay, “It’s something that’s centrally important to our being able to continue on…. You have to be able to deal with diversity.”

“It’s much easier to be prejudiced about a religion as a whole than to see [the] individual,” Andrew Gates elaborated. The interfaith programs at Dartmouth bring students of disparate belief systems together to overcome assumptions many students carry with them. In addition, the programs help to combat the lack of understanding about faith that drives people apart. Without such initiatives, students rarely get the chance to discuss faith with those of differing viewpoints. Adrian Munteanu ’10, the Orthodox Christian Fellowship president and also a member of the Multi-Faith Council, indicated that people of religious backgrounds are able to “see rather what they have in common, the faith they share…rather than the differences.” He sees the “common denominator” as being the desire “to improve ourselves, and to do the service that we can on campus.”

Chiara Klein ’10, President of Hillel,” related, “It is a really wonderful thing to be able to share your faith—something that is a part of you and something that defines you in such a unique way—with others and I definitely value interactions among many diverse people as an essential part of my Dartmouth experience.” It’s difficult to completely avoid discussion of faith when it is a motivating force and a large aspect of many people’s lives—just because people shouldn’t be forced into any religion, or the college or government shouldn’t promote one above others, doesn’t mean it’s not great to be able to discuss these issues with peers on a casual basis.

“The goal isn’t to convert anybody,” Nelson continued. Rather, it’s “to challenge us to think more deeply about what we believe…encountering difference is how we learn and grow…people become more involved with their own individual faith groups.” Ahmad Nazeri ’11, the Interfaith Floor UGA and a Muslim, said of his experience on the floor: “for me, it’s made my faith stronger.”

Without dialogue about faith, people grow apart instead of coming together; prejudices grow entrenched instead of being exposed and debunked. GLBT issues regarding faith certainly comprise one major area in need of productive discussion—the Prop 8 controversy demonstrates how serious an issue this is for those on both sides of the debate. The hateful homophobic tirades of some members of the clergy (Rick Warren’s equating of same sex marriage with pedophilia and incest) raise serious concerns, but not all churches and religions supported Prop 8 and there are many queer individuals of faith. On the other hand, a flaming Book of Mormon dropped on Mormon Church steps and the hate mail received by the Latter-Day Saints Student Association at Dartmouth is not a healthy means of dialogue either.

And here at Dartmouth, the occurrence of Islamo-Fascism Week in fall 2007 upset Muslim students—in response, the Multi-Faith Council cosponsored an “Islamo-Fashion Week” to better educate students about Islam and negate harmful stereotypes. The su
ccess of the Dartmouth community relies on going beyond stereotype and prejudice and achieving a level of understanding and respect.

Though Nelson and the students involved in the interfaith programming emphasized that this was not about trying to convert people—that’s the one taboo thing on the floor—these are learning programs. As Gates said, it’s hard to feel hostility toward a religion when you have a relationship with an individual of that faith. Traditionally, different denominations within our country and the world have made the narrative of conflict a true one. Even if this is not the only means by which religions have or can interact, it has been a major part of their history, and many Dartmouth students were raised with typical prejudices as well as misunderstandings regarding other faiths. The goal might not be to change anybody’s faith, but the communal learning process is geared toward forging a better perspective of other faiths and of necessity leads to a deeper consideration of one’s own faith, which can both strengthen and alter elements of a belief system.

“What is religion for? What is spirituality for?” asked Prasad Jayanti, the advisor to the Hindu student group, Shanti. “In my view, spirituality is seeking the truth… We are all trying to get a glimpse of it. So if we see it that way, there should be no reason to quibble that one religion is greater than another.”

Can We Talk About Faith?

Nelson says he’s looking to overcome the notion that Dartmouth isn’t a place to discuss faith and religion. What is the average Dartmouth’s student’s views toward discussion centering around religion and faith?

Andrew Gates said that the standpoint on campus seems to be, “Render unto God what’s God’s and render unto Dartmouth what’s Dartmouth’s.” Religion is generally not treated as appropriate FoCo conversation.

Why? “People are also afraid to talk about their faith not only because they think people will look at them differently, but out of a desire to be polite,” Ahmad Nazeri suggested.

George Thorman ’11, a member of Christian Impact and the Interfaith Floor, said that dialogue about faith is “not usually something that I initiate because I’m not completely comfortable in that, I’m not sure how it’ll be taken.” He also identified, “a sense of we don’t know what to say, we don’t know what will be offensive, we don’t know how to express our views without seeming like we’re trying to have a monopoly on what everyone thinks.” It seems any discussion of religion has the unfortunate tendency to be viewed as accusatory, until it occurs within groups that share the same faith; or, at the least, there is a fear that broaching the topic will be taken in this way.

This goes hand and hand with the concept of relations between religions as antagonistic.

Dierre Upshaw, Student Director of Religious and Spiritual Life at Tucker, indicated that religion carries a lot of baggage and negative connotations: “this is a place where people are trying to strive toward secularism, and… when you talk about interfaith, one of the first things people might think about are the Muslim-Jewish factions… ,the Protestant-Catholic fighting in northern Ireland.” And Phil Rehayem ’08, a member of the Baha’i faith, said that our “increasingly secular society shies away from religious discourse.”

Ah, secular. This word gets bandied about a lot—we live in a secular society, we attend a secular college—and often in negative ways. But while of course we don’t attend a religious college, secularism is about protecting freedom of religion and faith. While I don’t want to be obligated to sit through a prayer at the first-year welcome to Dartmouth , or have the Student Assembly president tell me that Jesus is the answer at a formal, mandatory opening ceremony, personally I find day-to-day discussion of religion, belief systems, and atheism (because this concept that discussing faith is taboo extends to my own atheist belief system as well) interesting.

Despite having had a class with Rehayem last term, I had no idea he was a Baha’i, or even what the Baha’i faith was (I had to Wikipedia it), until hearing from him when I contacted the Baha’i Association. As it happened, I was able to attend the Multi-Faith Council when Rehayem was giving his spiritual autobiography, and I have to say, it was one of the more fascinating moments of my week. Being exposed to a minority faith (there are only two other Baha’i students at Dartmouth) that I knew absolutely nothing about was a great experience, one of the moments for me to learn from the backgrounds of my peers that I was hoping for when I came to a college that’s supposed to be so diverse.

How’s the Dialogue Going?

Hannah McConnaughay from the Interfaith Youth Core said: “I think there is a danger that you build really strong relationships between a group of 10 or 12 people on the interfaith council that you lose some of the impetus to reach others.” Her organization prefers to train students to be leaders on interfaith dialogue who can reach out to their campuses, and she brings up a significant point about the insularity of these programs.

Ahmad Nazeri, the Interfaith Floor UGA, saw the floor primarily as a place for the residents to get to know each other and their faiths, rather than something that was supposed to be doing work on the campus at large—although he said in the future he would be interested in putting on campus-wide events. As people who self-selected to spend their term learning about faith, the residents on the whole were more open and tolerant than you’d expect the campus to be at large. The Interfaith Floor is not really intended to bridge major gaps amongst people skeptical of other faiths, nor will it seriously alter campus interfaith dialogue, at least for now. Despite all of this, I would still say that the Interfaith Floor is a positive and needed addition to campus.

The Multi-Faith Council is a bit different: it does bring together more students who are strongly attached to a given organized religion, and campus-wide programming is a part of its agenda. Dierre Upshaw ’09, the Student Director of Spiritual and Religious Life at Tucker, said, “What we definitely want to do more is sort of be a voice that responds to events or actions of a religious nature on campus.” While Nelson’s work seems to be building in the right direction, a lot of people are still unaware of the Council’s existence, or its major annual event, Voices of Faith.

Most of the students of faith I spoke with considered discomfort or uncertainty about starting religious dialogue as a bigger obstacle to dialogue than outright hostility, and some were even surprised at how curious their friends would be when the subject was broached. But it’s hardly a perfect situation.

Nazeri related that “sometimes I feel like if you’re religious you’re looked at differently—people have these misconceptions about those who are religious” By a religious person, Nazeri went on to explain that he meant a person who openly practices their faith, since more students on campus hold some kind of religious belief than not, but often are not seriously engaged with their faith. “A lot of people might be religious but it’s more like ‘I go to church/mosque/whatever once a week and don’t discuss it outside of that’”…but if I have to pray five times per day or say I’m going to an Al-Nur meeting…”

“I think interfaith dialogue is lacking in many ways,” Upshaw lamented, “unfortunately there’s very very little interaction between the different religious groups—sometimes even between religious groups that represent the same religio
n.” Also, dialogue on the Council is mostly limited to people sympathetic to learning about other faiths and collaborating—Upshaw stated, “that’s sort of the hard part—I don’t know if we’d want them on the council—but …the perspective that certainly is lacking is very dogmatic… or ultra-conservative religious voices represented on the Multi-Faith Council.” While having such hostile voices involved would probably make the dialogue more difficult, nonetheless it seems as though not dealing with those more extreme elements of religion has its own dangers.

Prasad Jayanti said that while there isn’t much awareness of Hinduism on campus, it’s not anybody’s fault; there just aren’t many chances to share their faith. The situation now, however, is certainly better than a decade ago, when there wasn’t any Hindu organization on campus at all, and the annual Diwali celebration (those candles on the Green) that includes a dinner open to non-Hindus has helped gain attention. (The first time Diwali was celebrated on campus, The Dartmouth mistakenly identified it as a Muslim celebration—now, Jayanti says, “the word is out—no longer do the lamps surprise people.”

Many of the students and representatives of religious groups I spoke to saw interfaith dialogue in a fairly good place right now, especially under Nelson’s leadership,. But I did encounter a concern that faith could not be discussed to the extent many would prefer because of an opposition to personal spiritual beliefs as a general subject of conversation. And certain groups had negative experiences on campus: Islamo-Fascism Week is one such incidence, and it spurred the need for a full-time Muslim student advisor.

The Mormon student organization also indicated difficulties being accepted as Christian by other Christian groups: Elyse George ’09 said, “We all want to be able to have that interfaith dialogue with other groups, which has proven very successful with our representation on the Multi-Faith Council, but in some instances it is hard when others try to define our faith for us and refuse to listen to what we have to say.” Combined with some of the hostility over Prop 8, LDSSA has had a less positive experience—but still indicated that it thought most students were open to real dialogue.

In the end, it seems most of us are still a bit uncomfortable bringing up issues of faith over coffee. Some of us might not think much about issues of faith; others might wish for more communication, and there are certainly some students on campus who oppose the concept of interfaith dialogue and prioritize their own belief systems, but that seems to be the biggest minority. We’re probably better off than the rest of the country in this respect, and the interfaith programs we have appear to be a growing positive force, which hopefully will continue to evolve in holding a more visible place on campus . If you want to discus faith, your peers might be more receptive than you think. Nobody likes proselytizing, but if you’re just looking to share and listen in return, it can’t hurt to ask about someone’s faith. Given the conflicts stemming from prejudice and ignorance, it might hurt not to.

he best thing about religion is the holidays. And the presents we get on those holidays.

Even with the economic downturn, ’tis the season for rampant consumerism. Even Judaism kicked Hanukkah up a few notches on the “important Jewish holidays” scale so that it could have its own orgy of gift-giving (a whole week of it). Of course, I know the holidays aren’t just about ribbons and wrapping paper, gift receipts and returns. It’s about family, eating too much, relaxation, appreciating what you have, and maybe about the birth of Jesus or the miracle of long-burning oil.

Humor aside, I’ve always loved Christmas. Seeing the grandparents, passing out the gifts, helping my aunt cook lasagna (Italian family tradition); my specific memories are not particularly important, but suffice to say I have a non-materialistic appreciation for the holiday season. So even though a point came when I decided that I couldn’t do my once-a-year appearance at church for Christmas anymore, no matter how much my grandparents wanted me to go, I didn’t want to lose the positive things I loved about the family holiday.

It’s lucky for us atheists that Christmas, as celebrated by many families, is more secular than religious, thus allowing us to appreciate the sharing of gifts and family time without feeling too uncomfortable about the religious undertones. Sure, there’s Christmas Mass and the Nativity Scene, but the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol anyway. Back when Christianity first became dominant and it was convert or die, pagans who celebrated the Winter Solstice pretended to celebrate the birth of Christ instead. In high school, my awesome Myth, Legend, and the Bible teacher taught us that the traditional red and green colors come from the blood of the yearly sacrifice spilled on leaves (just to make sure the sun would come back). And those strings of popcorn, or silver garlands, are reminiscent of the intestines of the lucky victims being draped around the tree. (I know the origins of those colors, and how much of Christmas we owe to pagan celebrations, is debatable, but I like what I learned in school.) And making lasagna might be an important part of the holiday when I celebrate with the Italian side of my family (one of my strongest childhood memories), but despite their devout Catholicism, that aspect of the festivities was about family tradition and Italian heritage, not anything religious. So I can continue to have a real appreciation for it.

This year, I thought I’d pretend I was celebrating the Winter Solstice instead of Christmas. I did everything I usually do, but instead of just ignoring the religious underpinnings to my family celebrations, I considered it a glorification of getting more sunlight. The background might be pagan, but it seemed that in general, celebrating longer days was more in line with my beliefs—and I was visiting Florida, where Christmas always strikes me as out of place (Santa and palm trees?). Marking the shortest day of the year, the Solstice is a great symbol for rebirth, starting anew as the days stop shortening and start growing longer. I was able to enjoy the holiday without as much of the discomfort of celebrating something I don’t even believe in.

However, this didn’t satisfy me. I wanted a true atheist holiday, not a borrowed pagan one. But what do atheists celebrate? We don’t have gods or other supernatural beings, so that’s out; the nod to the sun is the closest we get. Plus, atheism is not an organized belief system, so it’s hard to find a holiday (that’s not a Holy Day) for us all to get around. Everyone gets to celebrate New Year’s, so that’s cool, and I could totally get psyched about Thanksgiving if it weren’t for the whole murder-of-Native Americans thing. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, those are all well and good, but I’m looking for something everybody gets to celebrate together.

Well, Christmas (and Hanukkah and whatever other December holiday you celebrate) is behind us, and as it turns out, a real atheist holiday is coming up on February 12th! This one I learned about while doing research for my article on atheism (Issue 9.2), and it’s a much newer holiday than the Winter Solstice.

Darwin Day is celebrated on the birthday of Charles Darwin and, according to the Darwin Day Celebration website, “expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.” Darwin Day evolved from spontaneous celebrations that occurred from time to time in honor of natural selection and the man who figured it out. Finally, someone decided to make it official, and just over the last decade it’s been gaining steam. Supporters would like to make it a federal holiday—which would give us more time to buy Valentine’s Day presents and not get in trouble with our loved ones when we forget chocolates, or provide a nice substitute holiday to celebrate at about the same time for those of us singles out there.

At first I thought the whole celebration of evolution and science thing wasn’t exactly up my alley—I’m a poetry major who’s very bitter that she still needs to get her SCI distrib taken care of her senior spring. Then I thought about how frustrated I get when creationism, or intelligent design, or other ideologically-based “theories” try to subvert science and deprive our young ones of learning the theory of evolution in schools. I decided that this was something I could get behind after all.

Everybody can celebrate Darwin Day in their own special way, with a dinner party or a party-party. All the traditions surrounding older holidays haven’t developed yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all get together with friends and family. And if you do believe in God, you can still celebrate Darwin Day! In fact, over ten thousand clergy$mdash;members have signed a letter saying you do not have to choose between God and evolution. They’ll both still love you.

The truth is, the community-bonding element of religious institutions is one of the positives atheists miss out on. That’s why atheist activists are working toward getting Darwin Day as an official holiday—so that we have an excuse to get together with our evolution-supporting brethren, and maybe share what’s important to us.

Holidays aren’t the only option for creating a supportive atheist community. The Secular Student Alliance, which works with student free-thought organizations that “promote the ideals of scientific rationality, secularism, democracy, and human-based ethics” (according to their website), works to link up and support atheists and freethinkers across the country. Specific campus groups—secular student coalitions, humanist associations, atheist organizations, etc.—provide centers where students can socialize with like-minded peers, receive support in their beliefs, and engage in activities from dinners, to community service events, to discussions with religious organizations. If you’d like to see such a group formed on Dartmouth’s campus, feel free to send me a blitz.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find one of those Jesusfish with legs.

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