The Jerusalem Post shares one of IS’s recent activities.

According to Kurdish media reports, the jihadist group that has captured wide swaths of Syria and Iraq beheaded a 15-year-old boy in Mosul for the crime of listening to Western pop music.

Reports cite officials in the northern Iraqi city as saying that the boy, Ayham Hussein, was discovered by ISIS henchman as he was listening to a portable compact disc player.

Hussein was detained by ISIS operatives as he sat inside a shop owned by his father in an open-air market in western Mosul. The boy was beaten and tried in a local sharia court, which sentenced him to be executed.

For listening to pop music.

They chopped his head off in a square in the city center.

A tweet from the past:

innocent drinks ‏@innocent 14 hours ago
When we got sent some pens designed especially for women.

The last one makes me laugh a lot.

Susan Jacoby was on Fresh Air yesterday. She’s written a new book about the history of religious conversion. It was an interesting conversation.

GROSS: Islam and Christianity have long histories of conversion. Judaism doesn’t. It’s a religion where you’re born into it. And conversion to Judaism, I think it’s really only in modern times that that’s even been accepted, and I’m not sure it’s still accepted by all branches of Judaism.

JACOBY: No, Terry. I’m going to correct you on that. People think that, that conversion to Judaism is just a modern phenomenon. But there was an era in the late Roman Empire Judaism was not a proselytizing religion. It didn’t go out looking for converts, but it accepted converts. And one of the interesting things is is that Judaism was very attractive to the Roman aristocracy. Now most of the conversions that actually occurred were probably the result of mixed marriages of Roman women marrying into Jewish families. But it isn’t true that there weren’t conversions to Judaism then. As I said, they didn’t proselytize, but they accepted and in that respect, not so different from conversions to Judaism resulting from mixed marriages today. The Roman Empire was fairly tolerant of religious choice as long as you made a point not of thumbing your nose in public at the Roman gods.

GROSS: So why was conversion accepted then but not after?

JACOBY: Well, very simple, the Christian church became ascendant in the Roman Empire. The Roman emperors became Christians. Constantine was the first, of course, but soon afterwards. And once the Roman Catholic Church in the West became the church most closely connected with the state, the Roman Catholic Church did not recognize the validity of any religion other than its own. So that it was not only Jews were a thorn in their side because Jews in general refuse to convert, but pagans converted and masked to Christianity. It was the thing to do. If you were ambitious, if you wanted to get along, that’s what happened, not so different from anything else. But the short answer is that the Christian religion did not tolerate heresy.

And you know what, kids? That’s still true today! The Roman Catholic Church does not recognize the validity of any religion other than its own. It pretends to, sort of, at times, for the sake of interfaith conferences and politeness when foreign visitors come knocking, but other than that it simply tells us what’s what.

Jacoby’s father was a non-practicing Jew but he converted to Catholicism after he married her Catholic mother.

GROSS: Funny thing, though, your father ended up being a gambler – having a gambling problem.

JACOBY: Well, my grandfather didn’t know that (laughter) at the time. And indeed my father – one of the reasons for his conversion was he had a terrible gambling problem, and my mother was going to leave him if he didn’t get control of it. He thought since he knew nothing about Judaism – he’d been brought up in a completely nonreligious Jewish home – he thought just practicing a religion might help him overcome his gambling problem.

And this too is a theme in so many conversions, whether it’s alcoholism or gambling, the desire to overcome some personal fault which the person feels he or she cannot do on his or her own. Look, President George W. Bush is a born-again Christian, which I do consider a conversion, and I should say that I define a true conversion as any conversion that requires a real change in the way someone lives.

And so my father’s conversion was sincere, even though he didn’t believe all of the technical points of Catholic doctrine, just as I’m sure George W. Bush’s conversion helped him overcome his problems with drink. And this is a theme in so many conversions that just transcends any individual or any family.

The conversation moves to something else for a time and then returns to that.

GROSS: You know how you said your father converted primarily because he wanted to give up his gambling problem and he knew if he didn’t he’d basically lose his family…

JACOBY: Yes.

GROSS: …And so he needed help and he thought, you know, converting to Catholicism would help him. And, as you point out, that’s a reason why a lot of people convert because they need – they need to feel that there’s a power greater than themselves that can guide them and help them and also that there’s, like, a discipline that will help them.

JACOBY: Yes.

GROSS: Did it help him? Did the conversion help him give up gambling?

JACOBY: I think it did. I actually think it did. For one thing, the Catholic Church in particular has this one thing – confession – in which you could go, confess to a priest and obtain absolution of your sins. And there was a routine and a ritual and I think – I think that it did help him, yes.

GROSS: And did that affect your view of faith when you found that out?

JACOBY: No. I’d be the last person in the world to deny that there are many people for whom faith is – can be a great sustaining force. You know, people often wrongly think that atheists want to convert other people to atheism (laughter). I am completely uninterested in that. And atheism, by the way, is not a religion. One of the things, in fact, that atheism lacks are the kinds of rituals that religion does provide and I would be the first to say that.

I don’t, for example, ever participate in debates about the existence or nonexistence of God because I can’t imagine why anyone would be persuaded one way or the other by such things. And so I don’t deny that religion is very healthful* to a lot of people. And as long as they don’t try to convert me, I have, you know, nothing – and to interfere with the rights of people to believe other religions or to not believe in any religion at all – as long as they mind their own religion – perfectly all right with me, in the case of my father, as well as any other religious convert I know.

*I think she either said or meant to say “helpful” not “healthful.”

As for what she says – I know what she means, but at the same time, I’m always curious about how people manage to believe the beliefs. And I’m interested enough in converting people to want to make atheism at least more visible and available – and more acceptable. But sitting people down and trying to argue them out of religion? No, I’m not into that either.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross back with Susan Jacoby, author of the new book, “Strange Gods: A Secular History Of Conversion.” One of her earlier books is a memoir about the history of religious conversions in three generations of her own family. Jacoby is also the author of “A History Of American Secularism.” She describes herself as an atheist.

You wrote a recent op-ed in The New York Times that was headlined, “Sick And Tired Of God Bless America,” and this was about how you were tired of hearing political speeches end with God Bless America. What’s your problem with that?

JACOBY: They didn’t used to, you know. God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn’t written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this…

GROSS: Believe in the separation of church and state.

JACOBY: Who believe in the separation of church and state feel obliged to do this. And not only, some presidents are more careful than others to make it an inclusive God, but there is also plain talk about Jesus, as we’ve heard in the campaign recently. It’s not simply God they’re talking about, it’s a particular kind of God, and also I think a longing for a more Christian America.

GROSS: I assume you’ve been following the Democratic and Republican primary campaigns. Are there statements you’ve heard candidates make pertaining to religion that you have found troubling in a multicultural country that includes a lot of people like you, who are secular?

JACOBY: The most troubling statement is, is that – made by Ted Cruz – which is, nobody should be president who doesn’t begin his day on his knees. I find that what he’s saying is no nonreligious person has the right to be president of the United States. I find that deeply troubling. I find it troubling that religious people don’t find it troubling. You know, a person can be religious and still respect secular values and not talk about Jesus all the time as though every American believed in Jesus. President Jimmy Carter is a very good example of that. A devout Baptist, he left the Southern Baptist convention in which he was raised because of disagreements among other things with its views about women, but he’s still a devout Baptist in his own way. But who, by the way, in the tradition of the first Baptists who joined with freethinkers to ratify a constitution that makes no mention of God, Jimmy Carter is that kind of Baptist. That kind of religious person who respects not only other religions but secular people is fine, but the kind of person who talks on the campaign trail as if to be a decent person or a decent public official, you have to have deep faith in God and practice a religion and that there’s something second-class about people who don’t, that is deeply troubling to me.

And that’s maybe one reason it’s worth trying to make atheism more visible and available to more people, so that that way of thinking will become less popular.

Tendance Coatesy shares a couple of reports:

Jenny Sterne at the Mancunion:

Allegations have come to light that Nick Lowles, director of HOPE Not Hate, has, according to a post on his Facebook page, been “no-platformed” by the NUS Black Students’ Campaign due to their belief that he holds “Islamophobic” views.

Hope not Hate, founded in 2004 after the BNP started to win substantial votes and local councillors, seeks to “challenge and defeat the politics of hate and extremism within local communities”, and Lowles was due to speak on an anti-racism platform. In Lowles’ Twitter bio he describes himself as “anti-fascist with HOPE not hate” and a “staunch supporter of the Kurdish fight against ISIS”.

In his Facebook status declared the decision “ultra-left lunacy”, mentioning the work HOPE Not Hate has done “challenging anti-Muslim hatred”.

The Huffington Post:

The NUS‘ black students’ campaign is attempting to no platform an anti-racism campaigner who founded Hope Not Hate because he is apparently “Islamophobic”.

Nick Lowles, director of the organisation, posted a message on Facebook saying he had been targeted by the National Union of Students because he has “repeatedly spoken out against grooming and dared condemn Islamist extremism”.

The NUS has a colourful history of attempting to no-platform speakers.

Most recently, gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was branded “transphobic” by an NUS officer, who refused to speak at an event with Tatchell.

However when it emerged Jihadi John sympathisers were speaking on university campuses, the NUS refused to address the issue. The union also voted against condemning Isis as it would be “Islamophobic” to do so.

Coatesy sums up:

The Tendance has been to an event organised by Hope not Hate in Ipswich.

A broad range of left-wing activists, from the Labour Party, trade unionists,  to the extra-Parliamentary left, Muslims, and even one Tory, were present.

Our principal concern at that point was campaigning against the xenophobes  of UKIP.

Hope Not Hate’s work against UKIP and all forms of far-right bigotry, from Islamists to the BNP, is greatly respected.

It is perhaps unnecessary to observe that the far-right (Stormfront) often mentions that Nick Lowles is from a Jewish background*.

All we can say, if this account is true, is that the NUS are now even more beneath contempt.

That sounds fair to me.

My friend Nouri Karim has just published his translation of The God Delusion into Kurdish. He published a translation of Does God Hate Women? in 2012.

He sent me some photos on the occasion.

Grattis, Karim!

In a surprise move, Obama said at a press conference today that he intended to do his job as the Constitution spelled it out. Pundits who had expected him to say “Ok then let’s just wait until next year” were left wondering what signs they had missed.

President Obama on Tuesday challenged Republicans to offer any plausible rationale for refusing to consider a Supreme Court candidate to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last weekend, and he pledged to nominate someone with an “outstanding legal mind” who cares about democracy and the rule of law.

That’s just shockingly irresponsible and inflammatory.

“The Constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to happen now,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference after a meeting in California with leaders of Southeast Asia. He said the Constitution demands that a president nominate someone for the court and the Senate either confirms or rejects.

“There’s no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off years,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not in the Constitutional text.”

Yes but Republicans don’t want to, because they want to wait until Donald Trump can do it. That’s more important than some stupid constitution. Obama’s an elitist who refuses to listen to the people.

Bill Cosby gets a nope.

Bill Cosby’s criminal sexual-assault case appears to be headed toward an evidence hearing after a judge denied his latest effort to throw the charges out.

In a ruling Tuesday, the judge who refused to dismiss the case earlier this month denied Cosby’s appeal of that decision.

The 78-year-old TV star is accused of drugging and violating an ex-Temple University employee at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004 and could get 10 years in prison if convicted. The defense insists Cosby had a promise from a previous district attorney that he would never be charged over the 2004 encounter.

Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill, though, found the evidence of such an agreement lacking after hearing from the ex-prosecutor and others at a two-day hearing.

But hey – he got away with it until he was 78. That’s quite a long run.

Good.

Oregon Public Broadcasting:

A federal judge in Portland denied Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy bail at a hearing Tuesday.

Not very surprising, is it. The guy doesn’t even recognize the jurisdiction, so how could he possibly not be a flight risk? He’s a fella who considers himself entitled to resist law enforcement with guns, so how could it be safe to let him out on bail?

Magistrate Judge Janice Stewart agreed with prosecutors that Bundy posed a flight risk and a danger to the community, and should be held in jail while awaiting trial.

If he’s not, nobody is.

Before Bundy’s Tuesday hearing, a family member said he isn’t dangerous or a criminal and should have been released from jail because he isn’t a flight risk.

Hahaha sure, and that thing where he’s been hiding on his ranch to avoid arrest for two years? That was just a prank. He’s a prankster.

Prosecutors called Cliven Bundy “lawless and violent” and told the judge not to free him because he doesn’t recognize federal authority.

There’s a limit even for white guys.

California Lawyer published an interview with Scalia in January 2011.

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?
Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. … But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that’s fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don’t need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don’t like the death penalty anymore, that’s fine. You want a right to abortion? There’s nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn’t mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

Lenora M. Lapidus at the ACLU Women’s Rights Project said he was wrong.

His comments fly in the face of 40 years of Supreme Court precedent. Since the 1971 case, Reed v. Reed, it has been clearly understood that the 14th Amendment prohibits discrimination based on sex. In decision after decision, many authored by conservative Supreme Court justices, this principle has been reaffirmed.

Indeed, the text of the Constitution simply states that the government shall not deny “any person” the equal protection of the laws. The 14th Amendment does not specifically mention race and the language is intentionally broad. Clearly women fall within the category of “any person.”

Scalia’s views are extreme and out of step with the mainstream. He says that nothing in the Constitution prohibits discrimination against women; rather, it is up to legislatures to ban discrimination if they so choose. However, the Constitution provides a safety net to protect against the will of the majority when fundamental rights — such as the right to equal treatment — are at stake.

If the Constitution did not prohibit discrimination against women, the government could treat women like second class citizens in a wide range of areas. States could legally bar women from serving on juries, women could be prohibited from owning property, the government could pay women less, and women could be excluded from public schools — all things that happened in the past, before women’s rights to equal protection were enforced.

The equal protection clause is a big deal, and if it doesn’t cover you, you’re screwed. Scalia’s eccentricity on this is a little shocking.

MSNBC offers a predicted candidate for Scalia’s seat:

A leading Supreme Court analyst thinks Attorney General Loretta Lynch is the “most likely candidate” to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

Tom Goldstein, who runs the influential SCOTUSblog, had earlier predicted Ninth Circuit Judge Paul Watford would make the top of President Obama’s short list. But in a revised blog post, Goldstein said he now believes Lynch is the leading contender.

Here’s the thing: she’s a career prosecutor, so the Republicans will look silly claiming she’s too squishy-liberal.

Lynch would be the first black woman ever nominated to the nation’s highest court — and the GOP would have a political problem during an election year if the Republicans refused to even consider her nomination, Goldstein wrote.

“I think the administration would relish the prospect of Republicans either refusing to give Lynch a vote or seeming to treat her unfairly in the confirmation process,” Goldstein wrote. “Either eventuality would motivate both black and women voters.”

I find this far more interesting than the election – no doubt because Obama is picking the candidates, so we don’t have to pay attention to people like Trump.

It’s everywhere. Stephen Fry has quit Twitter because he’s fed up with the rage-storms.

Bafta show host Stephen Fry has confirmed he has left Twitter declaring “the fun is over”.

He faced criticism online after comparing costume designer Jenny Beavan to a “bag lady” when she picked up her Bafta for Mad Max: Fury Road.

The Beeb includes the clip in which Jenny Beavan accepted the award and the one in which Fry made his joke. It would be mean if they were strangers and if he weren’t there to make jokes like that about everyone – but they’re not and he was. They’re friends, and he was there to tease all the people.

Fry has been presenting the Bafta film awards for 11 years and audiences have become used to his cutting wit, often involving quips about many of the stars involved.

Beavan, who won the Bafta for Best Costume Design for Mad Max: Fury Road, came onto the stage at London’s Royal Opera House wearing a black leather jacket, white t-shirt and dark trousers.

Following her acceptance speech and once she had left the stage, Fry said: “Only one of the great cinematic costume designers would come to the awards dressed like a bag lady.”

But he posted a picture of the pair at a party later in the night to show his comment had not been taken badly, captioning it: “Jenny Baglady Beavan and Stephen Outrageous Misogynist Swine Fry at the after party.”

But he got one of those pile-ons we’re all so familiar with.

Fry followed that up by saying in an expletive-ridden tweet that his critics were “tragic people”.

His latest comment continued: “A stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offended – worse, to be offended on behalf of others they do not even know.

“It’s as nasty and unwholesome a characteristic as can be imagined. It doesn’t matter whether they think they’re defending women, men, transgender people, Muslims, humanists … the ghastliness is absolutely the same.”

That’s not necessarily true. Sometimes people are defending people who can use the help. It depends on the particulars.

But it can be horrible.

This sample of the New York Times reporting on the Supreme Court vacancy is quite bizarre.

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — The death of Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday set off an immediate partisan battle over a vacancy that could reshape the Supreme Court for years to come, as President Obama vowed to nominate a successor and Senate Republicans called on him to let the next president fill the seat.

Why say Obama “vowed”? Why couldn’t he just have said? Of course he’s going to nominate a successor; the remarkable thing would be if he’d said he’s not going to. It’s his job, and he’s going to do his job. Why is that in any way remarkable? Why is his saying so framed as “vowing”?

Speaking to reporters from Rancho Mirage, where he is golfing this weekend with friends, Mr. Obama paid tribute to Justice Scalia, who died earlier in the day in Texas. He described him as “one of the towering legal figures of our time,” a jurist who dedicated his life “to the cornerstone of our democracy: the rule of law.”

But Mr. Obama also said, “I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor in due time.”

What do they mean “but”? Why put a “but” there? There’s no contradiction or swerve in direction. Scalia is gone and that means there’s a vacancy and such a vacancy is supposed to be filled so that the Court can do its job. Why on earth make it sound as if Obama is being combative by doing exactly what he’s required to do?

“There will be plenty of time for me to do so and for the Senate to fulfill its responsibility to give that person a fair hearing and a timely vote,” the president said. “These are responsibilities that I take seriously, as should everyone. They are bigger than any one party, they are about our democracy.”

The president’s tone left little doubt that he intends to use the full power of his office to try to leave a final imprint on the Supreme Court. His choice has the potential to be more decisive for the court’s makeup than his previous two — Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — given Justice Scalia’s longtime status as the court’s most outspoken conservative.

What does that mean? Scalia hasn’t left some kind of ghostly presence that will somehow make his replacement more decisive than Sotomayor and Kagan. Maybe what they were trying to say was that Scalia’s departure makes a bigger difference because of his status as the honcho reactionary, but that’s a different thing.

It seems as if they can’t think about it except in terms of a horse race. It’s warped and misleading and uninformative.

I haven’t said anything here about the stroke Richard Dawkins suffered last weekend, because I figured any sympathy I expressed would sound fake. The reality is that I never wished illness or disability on him, and I’m sorry that it’s happened to him. It’s much the same with Scalia – I was and am ecstatic that he’s not on the court any more, but I would have been fine with retirement as opposed to death. I would have been ecstatic if Dawkins had decided to stop jeering at feminism and Muslim schoolboys on Twitter, and to be a better person instead. I would much have preferred that. But that’s not what happened.

Matthew Facciani at Patheos quotes from a recording Dawkins made yesterday to tell people how he’s doing.

The doctors asked if I had been suffering from stress, and I had to say yes I had, and they keep advising me not to get involved in…controversy. And I had to tell then that not getting involved in controversy, that controvery is not one of those things I can. I told them I had been distressed, that on the 28th of January, I was disinvited from conference to which I had previously been asked, this upset me very much. I’m used to getting hate from religionists, from creationists, but when I get hate from my own people, from left, liberal feminists and so on, that actually hurt me.

So he’s sort of kind of blaming us for his stroke.*

Well, I understand how he feels. It certainly occurred to me often last summer that my (cough) irritation with various people who say harsh things about me could make my brain explode. I’ve also seen plenty of people hoping exactly that would happen, and predicting it would. (Thus I have a duty to breathe deeply and think beautiful thoughts, so that I can thwart them.) But it has also often occurred to me that my irritation at a vast range of other things could make my brain explode. I’m a highly irritable person. Dying of fury seems very likely to be my fate. I think sometimes about deciding to stop being that kind of person, and dismiss the thought almost before it forms. Can’t do it. The irritability is all tangled up with caring about things, and I have no interest in ceasing to care about things.

And the same applies to Dawkins, doesn’t it. Temperamentally I could be his twin. He cares about things, and the caring often leads to irritation. It’s no good pretending he’s not irritable. I was going to say he must realize that about himself just as I realize it about myself, but then I remembered that in his Twitter profile he says he pokes “good-humoured fun” at believers…so maybe he doesn’t.

These days one of the things he gets the most irritable about is his own warped idea of what feminists are like. The result is that he tweets to his 1.36 million followers that particular feminists should be mocked, “the more the merrier.” That’s a bad, unkind thing for him to do. That’s what I said here a week or two ago, thus perhaps being one of the feminists he had in mind when he sort of blamed feminists for upsetting him into a stroke.

I’m sorry the stroke happened, but I don’t think the blame rests with feminists.

In other news, the NECSS executive committee put out a statement this afternoon:

We wish to apologize to Professor Dawkins for our handling of his disinvitation to NECSS 2016. Our actions were not professional, and we should have contacted him directly to express our concerns before acting unilaterally. We have sent Professor Dawkins a private communication expressing this as well. This apology also extends to all NECSS speakers, our attendees, and to the broader skeptical movement.

We wish to use this incident as an opportunity to have a frank and open discussion of the deeper issues implicated here, which are causing conflict both within the skeptical community and within society as a whole. NECSS 2016 will therefore feature a panel discussion addressing these topics. There is room for a range of reasonable opinions on these issues and our conversation will reflect that diversity. We have asked Professor Dawkins to participate in this discussion at NECSS 2016 in addition to his prior scheduled talk, and we hope he will accept our invitation.

This statement and our discussions with Professor Dawkins were initiated prior to learning of his recent illness. All of NECSS wishes Professor Dawkins a speedy and full recovery.

So that’s women thrown under the bus again.

I too wish Dawkins a speedy and full recovery, but I also want him to stop trashing feminism and feminists. That hasn’t changed.

*Updating to add: Richard strongly objects to this accusation, pointing out that I didn’t quote the next part, where he says it was not that upset that preceded his stroke, but rather the good news that NECSS had apologized and reinvited him to their conference.