Adam Luke

And with that, my life as an undergraduate is over! Of course, I still have exams to pass, but I’m calling it early: I’ve finished my degree. I suspect that I’ll still be a student next year, but what and where I’ll be studying are yet to be announced. Also I’ve now seen so many acquaintances and regulars in my classes for the last time ever, which is kind of crazy.

Short post is short, so have some photos of my campus. I might miss it if I’m not there next year.

So, Australian census night is only two night away. But this entry can really apply to any country whose census has a question about religion.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia’s “Census No Religion” campaign is primarily aimed at people who don’t take religion seriously. It promotes honest responses to the religion question¹ of the census, suggesting people actually mark “no religion” on the census if they are irreligious.

Why?

The census isn’t completed for no reason. Governments use responses to the religion question to justify spending of taxpayers’ money. Euthanasia and marriage laws, to name two issues, have heavy religious influence and basis. Further, I pay tax and completely object to the fact that religious instruction and school chaplains receive government funding. Teaching of comparative religion in schools by teachers would be a good thing. Not teaching of one specific religion by someone from the church.

All the Census No Religion campaign is asking, is that people consider what their religious convictions actually are, and be honest about them. I hate that the jerktards at the Australian Christian Lobby (one of my least favourite things) get to say that the majority of the country is Christian, even though less than 10% of us go to church, and more than the census figures would have us believe, don’t take religion seriously.

Who is the campaign aimed at?

It may seem obvious to mark “no religion” if you don’t have one, but there are two groups to be considered:

1. Those who write joke answers like “Jedi” and “Pastafarian”. You are not a Jedi, and you are certainly not a Pastafarian. Presumably most people who write such things don’t actually have a religion or don’t take it seriously, so it simply waters down the number of people in the “no religion” category. After all, these answers are actually marked as “not defined”, so there’s no point writing it (even if you really, truly, believe in The Force!).
2. Those who aren’t religious, but put down whatever religion their parents are, or the religion of the faith school they attended, or the religion they were baptised into but don’t actually follow. Pretty sure for previous censuses (censii?), I put down my parents’ religion as my own, despite having never actually had a religion in my life.

So…my advice is to GO FORTH AND SECULARISE ON CENSUS NIGHT! Or, if you are religious, that’s fine too. The campaign is simply promoting honesty.

1. The question asks, “What is the person’s religion?”, which is of course completely biased, but that’s another issue…

I started writing this entry six months ago…but then things happened and I never finished it. This is an entry about all the Fun Things I did over the summer break.

Watching

• Mad Men: I could say more, but I think the above gif explains a significant portion of the show. Pretty sure everyone needs a bit of Christina Hendricks’s ass in their life.
• Community: it’s so meta and about ten different kinds of lulzy. I…I just love all the pop culture references and callbacks and continuity nods. Um, yep.

Reading

I stopped regularly reading fiction a long time ago. Non-fiction is where it’s at.

• The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life by Richard Dawkins: as some of you may have realised by now, Dawks is one of my favourite people, and I would regard this as one of the best books I’ve read. It follows the course of human evolution back through time, from humankind to bacteria. It’s a longass book, and, admittedly, got a bit tedious towards the end, but it’s an excellent popular science read for a non-biology-studying person like me (and for biology people too, I imagine).
• Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson: we all find it hard to admit we’ve made a mistake. Cognitive dissonance is a well-established theory in social psychology and demonstrates that rather than owning up to a mistake or apologising for a hurtful action, people will instead start rationalising and justifying their decisions.
• Quirkology: The Curious Science of Everyday Lives by Richard Wiseman: a magician-turned-psychologist writes about quirky science of the everyday and various offbeat topics. For instance, did you know that there is an over-representation of marine biologists named Dr. Fish?

Playing

• Diablo II: I get the urge to play this again about once every year or two. It’s still great this many years later, what with the hacking and slashing and all. Blizzard is great. I’ve avoided becoming addicted to their latest offerings, but I’ll definitely be playing Diablo III when it is eventually released.
• SimCity 4: at first I was a slightly (okay, extremely) greedy mayor. Apparently it pays off not to tax the shit out of everything. Who knew?