All entries by this author

Brendan O’Neill sneers at “the new atheists” *

Apr 5th, 2012 | Filed by

Wow, that dude is so contrarian!… Read the rest



Obama to the rest of us: who cares?

Apr 5th, 2012 12:07 pm | By

Secularism? Separation of church and state? Government should neither help nor hinder any particular religion? Pluralism? Some of us are not Christians? The president is supposed to be the president of all the people? Hello?

Oh fuck off, comes the reply. Obama hosted his third annual Easter prayer breakfast at the White House on Wednesday, and there’s not a god damn thing you can do about it.

Though the president is Christian, surveys have repeatedly shown that as many as one in five Americans believe he is Muslim. His Easter prayer breakfasts have served as a platform for the president to wax theological in familiar surroundings where he appears most comfortable.

Among the guests were Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl;

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Obama hosts “Easter prayer breakfast” *

Apr 5th, 2012 | Filed by

So tough shit, people who think the state should stay out of religion.… Read the rest



Egypt, meet sharia

Apr 4th, 2012 4:40 pm | By

Oh hey gee what do you know, the Muslim Brotherhood hasn’t turned all that “moderate” after all. How about that: when they said they had they were just bullshitting people so that they could win elections and then drop the mask. What a surprise!

CAIRO (Reuters) – The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate for the Egyptian presidency, Khairat al-Shater, declared that introducing sharia law would be his “first and final” objective if he wins elections in May and June.

Yes well – that’s what people who call themselves “Muslim” and “Brotherhood” tend to do. They like sharia. It means they get extra women, and they get to kick the women around. They like that. They’re stupid to like it, because actually … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Surprise! MB candidate says sharia is the main goal *

Apr 4th, 2012 | Filed by

Oh, gee, didn’t they say they were going to be “moderate” or something?… Read the rest



Pakistan will punish parents who don’t vax children for polio *

Apr 4th, 2012 | Filed by

The country is one of three – along with Afghanistan and Nigeria – that have failed to eradicate the virus.… Read the rest



Get a prezzy!

Apr 4th, 2012 4:00 pm | By

There’s this thing called Skepticon, and the next one (5) is November 9-11, and because we are Special here at FTB, we can tell you how to order a Skepticon 5 T shirt and get a free gift. (How Special is that?!) (No I don’t know what it is. I’m assuming it’s a secret decoder ring, because what else could it be, but I don’t know.)

Here’s what you do: you enter a Special Code in the Special Code section. Can you do that? I thought you could.

The Special Code is:

FtButterflies

Unless of course you decide you’d rather get a different code from a different FTB blogger.

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



It’s Wednesday so…

Apr 4th, 2012 11:05 am | By

There’s a new Jesus and Mo…which Jesus kicks off by pronouncing the Koran overrated.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Blackboxing

Apr 4th, 2012 11:00 am | By

I’m reading Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen’s collection of essays Making Minds and Madness: From Hysteria to Depression. It’s about what one might call the epistemology of psychoanalysis, and its relationship to things like reputation and fashion and consensus. There’s a bit on page 160…

The fact is that psychoanalysis managed to impose itself in significant sectors of twentieth-century society as the only psychological theory worthy of the name and the only psychotherapy capable of theorizing its own practice. In such locations, calling into question the unconscious, the Oedipus complex, or infantile sexuality could – and still can – provoke the same incredulous hilarity as do Kansas creationists or members of the “Flat Earth Society.” There, psychoanalysis has become indisputable, incontrovertible. It

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



If it’s good enough for Spock

Apr 4th, 2012 10:57 am | By

Excellent piece by Dan Fincke the other day, on why Dawkins wasn’t wrong or mean to say at the Reason Rally that patently absurd religious beliefs should be as subject to mockery as any other patently absurd beliefs, and in fact more so, since their very immunity helps people to go on being included as “Catholics” and other brands of believer when in fact they aren’t really believers at all.

While the media has largely ignored The Reason Rally, the one most popular bit of news that seems to be traveling around and getting criticized is Richard Dawkins’s recommendation to the crowd that we should incredulously and mockingly ask people who say they are Catholic whether they really believe in

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Rowan pushes the pendulum

Apr 3rd, 2012 4:42 pm | By

The archbishop is at it again. This time it’s “enough of all this selfish focus on how you are marginalized because you’re a woman or black or gay – we are all in this together so shut up about it and let the nice straight white men keep running things as we always have, ok?”

Of course he doesn’t put it quite that way. Well naturally not – you don’t get to be an archbishop by putting things that way. (Oh yes? What about George Carey then?) He puts it in the usual grand archepiscopal way.

In Cardiff he was joined a group of teenagers debating the idea of “identity politics” which he said amounted to saying: “This is

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Cameron cheers the “fightback”

Apr 3rd, 2012 2:30 pm | By

A nice write-up of a chat by David Cameron to some religious bossies.

He starts by saying he welcomes the Easter message as being one of hope, but at the same time admits that he has problems believing a word of it – particularly the resurrection! Even so, he welcomes what he calls the “Christian fightback” in Britain.

It is not clear what this “fightback” is against but he measures it in “the enormous reception of the Pope’s visit.”

However, the Pope’s visit – as the Catholic Church’s own research showed – was a comprehensive flop.

And if it hadn’t been, what would he be doing rejoicing about it anyway? What is this deranged assumption that all of a … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Suing the messenger

Apr 3rd, 2012 12:44 pm | By

The French approach to autism was discussed a couple of months ago, too.

A controversial new film by French documentary filmmaker Sophie Robert, screened  last week at an autism  conference here in Philadelphia, reminds the world that in France these  thoroughly discredited and dangerous ideas still hold considerable sway. The film, Le  Mur or The Wall, already viewed  tens of thousands of times on YouTube, is calling attention to the ongoing  stranglehold that psychoanalytic theories still have over autism treatment in  France.

The film’s interviews with prominent French psychiatrists leaves the viewer  wondering whether in France treatments for pediatric developmental disorders are  stuck in some sort of bizarre Freudian time warp. These ideas have been so  thoroughly debunked in

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



John Forrester reviews The Freud Files *

Apr 3rd, 2012 | Filed by

“Is it convincing to claim that, shorn of the myth, the poverty or the plain ordinariness of psychoanalysis will be plain for all to see?”… Read the rest



Simon Blackburn on dignity: its history and meaning *

Apr 3rd, 2012 | Filed by

We all have a special dignity because we are all, alike, children of God and equal in His eyes. This is a divinely ordained, supernaturally guaranteed L’Oréal advertisement.… Read the rest



L’Express: “The psychoanalysts fight back” *

Apr 3rd, 2012 | Filed by

“We will resist, by continuing to strongly defend our beliefs. French psychiatry, which is admired throughout the world, must not be swept aside using evaluation criteria as the means.”… Read the rest



Why are the French still blaming mothers for autism? *

Apr 3rd, 2012 | Filed by

A controversial new film by French documentary filmmaker Sophie Robert reminds the world that in France these discredited and dangerous ideas still hold considerable sway.… Read the rest



Just say a spell over them

Apr 2nd, 2012 5:40 pm | By

In France people are still medically treated on the basis of the four humors.

No they’re not, that’s a bitter joke, because the truth is almost as horrifying – children with autism are treated with psychoanalysis.

In many countries, the standard way of treating autistic children is with behavioural therapy – stimulating and rewarding them to develop the skills they need to function in society – but France still puts its faith in psychoanalysis. And an increasing number of parents are now demanding change.

For autism campaigners, it is one of the most serious health scandals of our times.

How for decades France turned its back on the latest scientific thinking, and treated autism as a form of psychosis.

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Well it was dark. Ish.

Apr 2nd, 2012 5:20 pm | By

Here’s a funny thing – Geoff posted some photos from QED at Facebook today, including this one

It turns out that the guy at the mic asking a question is David Aaronovitch. I hadn’t even known he was at the talk, let alone that he’d asked a question! This is all the funnier since I’d gone to his talk three hours earlier, and been informed and entertained by it.

I guess while talking I was so focused on content that I didn’t register faces. Or something. Mind you, people were instructed to say their names when they asked their question…I’m hoping he didn’t actually say, firmly and distinctly, “I’m David Aaronovitch.” I’m hoping he just said “I’m David.” I’m hoping … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



India: historian denied visa renewal *

Apr 2nd, 2012 | Filed by

Peter Heehs is a scholar of Sri Aurobindo, but some devotees consider his book “blasphemous” and sued to get his visa canceled.… Read the rest