One more word out of CICCU and I swear I'll...

The BBQ Pit
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(Disclaimer: I’m not interested in christianity from a personal perspective, but I have nothing against it. If they were wiccans, moslims, jews, athiests, whatever doing this my reaction would be exactly the same.)

Ok. For those of you who don’t know (i.e. Probably all but one or two of you). CICCU is the Cambridge Inter Collegiate Christian Union. In their own words “CICCU exists to make Jesus know to students at Cambridge.”

When I first saw one of their fliers up on the projector at the beginning of one of my maths lectures, my thought was “Ok. Just fucking great. Our very own Christian propaganda machine.”

Ok. They have an evangelical religion. I can respect that. I don’t like it, but they’re free to express their views. I have less interest in converting to christianity than in using dental floss to do a nude bungee jump off the statue of liberty, but that’s merely my personal opinion.

However, this is just getting fucking silly. EVERY fucking lecture or thereabouts they have some projection slide advertising one of their mindless lectures. “Jesus loves you”, “If I’m happy why do I need Jesus?” and countless other ludicrous titles. Don’t they realise that they’re, if anything, making anyone with half a braincell less likely to be interested in christianity with all this crap? Added to that, my friends who have been to their various talks have confirmed my suspicion that once they get there they belong to the “all non-christians will be going to hell” crowd (to be fair, I only know this about the people giving some of the talks, not all of them).

Further, one of the other mathematicians at my college is a member and was constantly pestering me to go, despite my very firmly stating I had absolutely no interest. I eventually shut him up by basically saying “Look. Up untill now I have given you polite answers. Ask me again and I will cease to be polite.”.

I really really would like to go for just one week in term time without hearing one thing or seeing one promotion from them…

Failing that, I’d really really like to drop a swarm of army ants on a CICCU meeting. But we can’t have our own way all the time :slight_smile:

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[Watering down the pit]Hey, someone else from cambridge! Merkins, I’m talking about the cambridge in england. But hopefully relevantly to any CICCU. Nice to meet you. Actually, I like most of the christians I know. They seem nice people, and some are good friends. [/Watering]

But they’re GREAT for arguing with! Invite them round and say you want to know more about Jesus. Try asking:

[ul][li]Is free will being given a choice between a right and a wrong? Surely it’s choosing what is right?[/li][li]If God didn’t exist, do you think you would believe in Him?[/li][li]I tried praying to God to make me believe and He didn’t (Disclaimer: actually do try this first.)[/li][li]I’m incapable of doing things I think are wrong for God without some convincing reason. If he wanted me to believe, why did he make me incapable of it?[/li][li]You say I should believe (partly) because I’ll go to HELL (insert Cold Comfort Farm/Blackadder quote as appropriate) which is the worst thing possible (being an absense of God for a start), but surely that’s being quite selfish. I do good stuff because it’s right.[/li][li]Why did God smite so many people in the old testament?[/li][/ul]but be prepared to be smitten. Once, they actually brought in a high-up christian of some sort to talk to me, and I argued him to standstill (though he won with ‘stop arguing and do something worthwhile like I do’)

[unpitlike covering my ass]As I say, several of them are my friends, and lots of people, christian and not criticise my beliefs. I try not to force this sort of argument on people who don’t want it, but I think most people (including me) should understand their beliefs better.[/unpitlike]

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Hm. I remember in cégep the Christian Fellowship put out some homophobic screed. Which I would have ignored, except that someone else had just gotten officially smacked down for writing some racist screed in a different school newspaper. (Not censored - the piece was published - but signs were put up all over campus officially disavowing the piece.)

So I went to the head nun (although it is a secular school, it is administered by the Congregation de Notre-Dame) and kvetched for awhile. The president of MCF was persuaded to show up at a meeting of the gay & lesbian group and apologize. We were later offered the chance to put up info on gay history at Multicultural Day and on the pink triangle at Yom Ha’Shoah. It is possible. :wink:

(And I imagine when you’ve got a nun telling you you’re being homophobic, you get some sensitivity training PDQ.)

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Ugh, I’m reminded of the pro-God billboards that were up in SW Wisconsin in the past couple years. “Talk to me. I’ll listen. The Old Man.” Or something along those lines. They were a rather desperate attempt at making Christianity seem “cool, hip and/or happening.”

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Hmmm…so there’s a Tab equivalent of OICCU (popularly called “Oik-you” in Oxford). OICCU wasn’t as persistent as CICCU sounds, but they had their own foibles, like insisting that anyone who spoke at their meetings had to adhere to a modern-day Act of Uniformity which was highly evangelical in nature. Partly as a result of OICCU’s influence, Christian liberalism at Oxford, a movement which had been strong since literally the Reformation, was all but dead.

A little devil’s advocating, though, kitarak. You say “I really really would like to go for just one week in term time without hearing one thing or seeing one promotion from [CICCU]…” Would you suggest that they aren’t allowed to advertise anymore then? They don’t have to be in-your-face, but surely groups shouldn’t be allowed to put up posters or such just because you or someone else disagrees with them.

And Shade, thanks for reminding me of my favourite Cold Comfort Farm quote. Of course you don’t want to go to Hell, 'cos “There’s no butter in Hell!!!”

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Yeah, one of my christian friends complained that it was supposed to be the christian union, but they only accepted evanglicals (apparently that means taking the bible literally, not necessarily spreading the world) onto the committee, so the majority of christians never got a look in.

There nearest thing to a more sensible organisation comes from the college chaplains, though YMMV, who don’t go around preaching, and seem to support everyone regardless of religion.

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Finally validation. I was beginning to think I was the only person in the world to have seen this hilarious movie. Sir Ian McKellen’s character and the Quiverers he leads are spot on satire.

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we had some of those billboards around here,too.

“Before the game on Sunday, come on over to my house - God”

I always wondered what the reaction would be if I hired the billboard next to it…
“Eh, sleep in. Come on over to my house to watch some porn instead. I’ll have pizza and hot chicks there - Satan”

lol.
I bet they would just freak out!

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Sounds like CICCU has got more proselytising since I was there. I certainly never remember them putting material on the projector! I agree with you that this sort of in your face evangelism often turns more people away from religion than towards it. Is there a way that you could let them know that their methods are counterproductive, without letting yourself in for a onslaught of personally directed evangelism by email or personal visit?

Further than that, debate with them if you really want to, otherwise ignore them.

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There’s an Inter-Collegiate Christian Union at Durham too. AKA DICCU. (Pronounced with a hard C). Many an innocent young fresher has been confronted with an evangelical room-mate’s offer of “I’m going to DICCU - do you want to come?”, which leads to something of an image problem.

A problem which is only exacerbated by the hard-core fundamentalism of their professed beliefs (Catholics, Methodists, Baptists get to go hell alongside the atheists, Jews and Muslims). The President once revealed the mindset in a debate by using the following analogy: “Imagine that you liked classical music, and you met someone who preferred jazz. Wouldn’t you hate them?” It kind of gives the lie to the whole, “drop in for a chat and find out about God, buddy!” marketing campaign.

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Yeah, it’s funny how people on my campus will spend an hour listening intently at the Hare Krishna table while writing off any Christian group.

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My guess is that they’ve not heard the Hare Krishna screed before. The Krishnas are exotic: the Jesus Crispies aren’t.
Daniel

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Heh, reminds me of the ad for the ferry service in BC - Cruise the Straits with BC Ferries!

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Shade: Yeah, I mean Cambridge in England. And I have many friends who are Christian as well. As I said, I have absolutely no problem with Christians. The large majority of my friends are Christian. We disagree on religion, but so what? Is long as they don’t try to convert me it’s not a problem. We each have our own beliefs and still get along fine.

Duke: No, of course not. They’re perfectly entitled to put up these things. It just happens that the stuff they put up is mindless and irritating, and it would be really refreshing to go without it for a while.

Tansu: I’m thinking about letting them know. I have no interest in debating with them, as I know just how unproductive that would be. Fundies aren’t really known for their ability to listen to reason :slight_smile:

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kitarak: Hey, no hard feelings, just wanted to see what you thought. (Wow, reasoned debate in the Pit…and between “natural enemies” too…!)

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Should we slag each other off a bit?

Of course, it’s almost as disturbing when ‘friends’ say “Oh, yes, you’re going to hell, but I’m not going to anytihng about it.”

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That has to be intentional. Please tell me someone couldn’t be that funny by accident

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Shade: Mine don’t. They tend to be moderate christians of the “Good people, christian or not, won’t go to hell” school of thought. Anyone who believes I’m going to hell is Not a friend, almost by definition :slight_smile:

Duke: How are we natural enemies? Oh… Right. Oxford vs Cambridge, huh? I’ve always thought that was a bit silly. I mean, just because you go to a second rate university doesn’t mean we have to fight, does it? :wink:

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Friggin Tab! :slight_smile: