In his recent Viewpoints article, Jesse Holliday alleged that the Pastafarians at USC “have previously made enormous generalizations by grouping Islamic USC students with radical Islamic terrorists, once even saying that they promote a violent and backward religion.” However, this is completely false. Our organization has never once made so bold a claim. Furthermore, he claims that we “recently spoke out about a table on Greene Street occupied by an Islamic Awareness Group.” As a matter of fact, during the Muslim Student Association’s Islamic Awareness Week, the Pastafarians at USC canceled regular meetings in favor of attending MSA events. We relish every opportunity to learn more about those of other faiths, particularly those to which we are not regularly exposed. However, it is true that Andrew Cederdahl wrote an article in this newspaper in March that was somewhat critical of Islam as a religion, but he never once made any disparaging comments about Muslims. It is painfully clear that Mr. Holliday never read his article, nor any of the comments associated with it. Regardless of this, Andrew’s comments have no bearing on the Pastafarians at USC, as he did not write as a representative of our organization. His independent, personal views are not representative of our own.
We realize that it can be easy to lump an entire group of people together based on the actions or words of an individual or small group of individuals. We see this sort of behavior in criticism of Islam just as we do in criticism of atheists, whatever the reasoning behind it may be. Jesse Holliday’s article merely highlights the ease with which generalizations can be made, which is exactly the sort of thing we stand against.
The Pastafarians at USC fully expect to meet opposition to our point of view. We accept this, and even encourage it. We understand that we are a popular target. This is, after all, South Carolina, the heart of the Bible Belt. We understand that we are not the only ones who face intolerance. However, we reserve the right to speak out against perceived injustices, just as Tariq Salim so rightly spoke out in defense of his faith in March.
We ask again that an effort be made to get to know us before passing judgment on our organization, and indeed, the entire atheist population. The Ask an Atheist Panel will be held this Wednesday evening. We will be glad to publicly address any concerns then.