Nau speak: Vegas: Open Mic Night at the Center for Science and Wonder

Happy labor day guys!

Welcome one, welcome all, to the Center for Science and Wonder! Excellent name, isn't it? The venue itself is pretty small, primarily intended for small movie showings and open mic nights from my estimation and limited experience with the center's space. We were there, with our good friend Ceedro, to check out an open mic night. Ceedro was going to be performing, playing his ukelele for the crowd! Several other local artists and comedians joined the festivities, and though the open mic itself is pretty new it's been growing rapidly each week! Antho has gone back since and commented that it, indeed, had gotten more crowded since our visit the week prior. Being an open mic, it was full of the requisite awkward humor and self-deprecating jokes, moments of stage fright, and the venting of more than a couple frustrations. If the name "Center for Science and Wonder" doesn't make you curious, or at least a little ponderous, the center is geared towards the skeptic and atheist community of Las Vegas, providing a place for them to gather and discuss their ideas and philosophies without fear of interjection by offended religious folk, or consternation. There's a lot of hostility out there towards people who don't share the belief systems a lot of people are raised with, and that's very threatening to some people on a basic level- if you don't believe in the same moral guidebook, then how do they know you have morals?! Gasp, shock, horror. For most people who learn agnostic or atheist, the need for a guidebook on how to not be a terrible person is in and of itself a rather horrifying thing, so the offense goes both ways at least. Another place you can see this sort of contemptuous disdain for people with opposing viewpoints is any political rally or debate online. Same fervor tends to apply in those instances. It's a bit silly, to let our ideas become so divisive that we can't peacefully communicate and exchange those ideas, but the passion with which people cling to their beliefs is deep and often very meaningful to the individuals, whether it's their belief in an omnipotent god watching their every move with an itchy finger to send them on a one-way trip to hell, or the absence of any such singular entity. Whatever floats your boat or sinks your submarine, I say, as long as you're not hurting anyone else.