Posts Tagged ‘ FTB ’

You do the math

Oct 29th, 2011 10:50 am | By

Jerry Coyne has posted (with permission) an email exchange with Dan Barker. JC asked DB – evangelical turned atheist and co-president of the FFRF – “what he thought about the accommodationist claim that promoting compatibility between religion and science could turn the faithful towards science.” Barker’s answer is interesting.

I think you are right. I don’t know of anyone whose views on creationism changed as a result of hearing other religionists champion evolution. (Though I don’t doubt that could have happened. Well, I think it must have happened, given that some people do go through transitional processes, within religion and out of religion.)

I think the reason you are (mainly) right is that few believers hold much respect for

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



In which the rights of God are assured

Oct 29th, 2011 9:37 am | By

The “soft-spoken Islamic scholar” Rachid Ghannouchi has nice plans for Tunisia, he tells us.

“We will continue this revolution to realize its aims of a Tunisia that is free, independent, developing and prosperous in which the rights of God, the Prophet, women, men, the religious and the non-religious are assured because Tunisia is for everyone,” Ghannouchi told a crowd of cheering supporters.

He might as well say “We will continue this revolution to realize its aims of a Tunisia that will square the circle.” If the rights of God and the Prophet as understood by clerics and “Islamic scholars” are assured then the rights of women and the non-religious can’t be assured; it’s an impossibility.

It’s blood-chilling that a political … Read the rest

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



No attempt would be made to force women to wear the headscarf

Oct 28th, 2011 2:49 pm | By

Hmm. The BBC is looking on the bright side of life.

The leader of the Islamist party that won the most seats in Tunisia’s elections has said women’s social gains would not be reversed.

Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi promised to strengthen the role of women in Tunisian politics.

“Leaders” promise lots of things; they don’t always stick to their promises. The BBC is a venerable news organization, venerable enough to be aware of this.

But despite the reassurances, Ennahda’s victory is causing concern in some parts of Tunisia, who fear the party could later change its policies, our
correspondent says.

“Ennahda reaffirms its commitment to the women of Tunisia, to strengthen
their role in political decision-making, in order to

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



If conceptually coherent

Oct 28th, 2011 10:13 am | By

Dan Fincke takes issue with dismissiveness toward philosophy, and I agree with him about that, but I’m not sure about the particular example he’s chosen. That could well be just because I’m not a philosopher, so I’m not understanding.

The example is a postdoc fellowship in philosophy funded (lavishly) by the Templeton Foundation.

The fellowship enables young scholars to use contemporary analytic methods to pursue independent research in the fields of divine and human agency, such as moral responsibility and freedom of will; or philosophy of mind and its theological implications, such as the presence of the divine in a natural world and the emergence of consciousness.

[The] postdoctoral research project, “Divine Foreknowledge, the Philosophy of Time,

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



Only 377 to go

Oct 28th, 2011 9:58 am | By

A Foxhole atheist needs only 377 more signatures on the petition to “End the Military’s Discrimination against Non-Religious Service Members” to get the 5000 necessary, but he needs them in the next four days. If the petition gets to 5000 signatures in the next four days the White House will have to respond. If you haven’t already signed it, please do.

Please sign it: the petition.

Update: people have been having trouble signing in. A Noyd offers a fix:

What I did was sign out using the blue bar at the bottom of the page, refresh the petition page, and sign back in using the “sign in” button between “sign this petition” and “create an account.”  When I

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Defining sexism downwards

Oct 28th, 2011 7:46 am | By

A re-post from January 2010 – of quite startling relevance: about a pro-rape Facebook page and sexist epithets and…Rod Liddle saying a woman should be kicked in the cunt. How about that.

January 19, 2010

I did not know – some male students at St Paul’s College at the University of Sydney set up a pro-rape Facebook page.

The group, which was named “Define Statutory”, described its members as “anti-consent” and was listed in the sports and recreation section of the site…It was shut down at the end of [October], but had been live on Facebook since August, according to an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald…The Sydney Morning Herald said the page was part of a broader

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How dare you enforce the law

Oct 27th, 2011 4:40 pm | By

Stewart sent more links today. I’m still catching up. So…where were we? Oh yes -

Womens’ rights groups and organizations opposing religious coercion have demonstrated against the segregation. Jerusalem councilwomen Rachel Azaria of the Yerushalmim (Jerusalemites) faction and Laura Verton (Meretz) petitioned the High Court of Justice against the practice.

Well guess what. Guess what happened to Jerusalem councilwomen Rachel Azaria. She got an award from the Secular Lawyers’ Guild? No. She got fired. That’s right: fired.

Mayor Nir Barkat has dismissed Rachel Azaria from Jerusalem’s coalition government, but the city denies he did so because Azaria is against gender segregation in the ultra-Orthodox Mea She’arim quarter. It says loyalty to city council policy is the issue.

Members

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Shoving people off the sidewalk, again

Oct 27th, 2011 11:41 am | By

Stewart sent me a couple of interesting items last week. I was having technical issues and am catching up.

Israel High Court upholds ban on Sukkot gender segregation in Jerusalem.

Oh yes? There was gender segregation?

Rather.

During this year’s Sukkot celebrations, police gave ultra-Orthodox leaders of Mea She’arim’s Toldos Aharon community permission to erect a barrier dividing the street by gender, despite the fact that, last year, the High Court ordered community leaders to revoke the segregation they imposed on women on Sukkot.

Large billboards posted throughout the capital’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods last week forbade women to enter Mea She’arim Street during the Sukkot celebration.

This is a public street, you understand. It’s not private property, it’s not … Read the rest

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



For a free and secular Middle East and North Africa

Oct 27th, 2011 9:49 am | By

76 secularists and human rights campaigners, including Mina Ahadi, Nawal El Sadaawi, Marieme Helie Lucas, Hameeda Hussein, Ayesha Imam, Maryam Jamil, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasrin, Farida Shaheed, Fatou Sow, and Stasa Zajovic have signed on to a Manifesto for a Free and Secular Middle East and North Africa.

In light of the recent pronouncements of the unelected Libyan Transitional Council for ‘Sharia laws’, the signatories of the manifesto vehemently oppose the hijacking of the protests by Islamism or US-led militarism and unequivocally support the call for freedom and secularism made by citizens and particularly women in the region.

Secularism is a minimum precondition for a free and secular Middle East and for the recognition of women’s rights and equality.

We … Read the rest

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



It could turn out like Iran

Oct 27th, 2011 9:41 am | By

Middle-class women in Tunisia are not thrilled about the win of the “moderate” Islamist party.

In Sunday’s election Tunisia, birthplace of the “Arab Spring” uprisings,
handed the biggest share of the vote to Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party that was banned under decades of autocratic, secularist rule.

“We’re afraid that they’ll limit our freedoms,” said Rym, a 25-year-old
medical intern sitting in “Gringo’s”, a fast-food outlet in Ennasr.

“They say they won’t but after a while they could introduce changes step by
step. Polygamy could come back … They say they want to be like Turkey but it
could turn out like Iran. Don’t forget, that was a very open society too.”

Not to mention the fact that Turkey … Read the rest

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



Wubete and 100,000 more

Oct 26th, 2011 12:48 pm | By

Ever seen Nova’s “A Walk to Beautiful“? I was sure I’d posted about it at ur-B&W but I didn’t find such a post so I guess I didn’t. It was repeated on one of the local PBS stations last night so I saw it for the third time.

It rips my guts out every time. It’s about a hospital in Addis Ababa that repairs fistulas in women, which means it’s about a hospital that receives women who are outcasts, miserable, isolated, lonely, and repairs them. Everything about it is moving.

The real killer is Wubete, who is there for the third time, because the first two didn’t work. They tell her to do exercises and she’s in despair, … Read the rest

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Disseminate the word

Oct 26th, 2011 10:46 am | By

JT Eberhard of the Secular Students Alliance and Freethought Blogs says spread the word. What word? This word.

1. Like the SSA Facebook page. You do not need to be a student to do this, you need only support our cause.
2. Upvote the reddit article to push back against all the Christian down votes.
3. Become a member of the SSA ($35/year, $10/year for students) and/or donate to the SSA. You do not need to be a student to become a member! The upcoming generation of secular activists requires the support of the previous generation! And you know that we’re a 501(c)(3), so this shiz is straight up tax deductible, homie.
4. Spread the word even further!

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



Way back

Oct 26th, 2011 9:38 am | By

I’ve been following (and doing what I could to share and draw attention to) Maryam’s work for a long time – since 2004. I did a search at the ur-B&W and had to click “previous entries” a lot of times to get to the first ones.

One of the first ones is The Politics Behind Cultural Relativism, an International TV Interview that Maryam did with Fariborz Pooya and Bahram Soroush.

Bahram Soroush: You are absolutely right. When you talk about the West, it is accepted that there are political differentiations, that people have different value systems, that there are political parties. You don’t talk about one uniform, homogeneous culture. But why is it that when it comes to the

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Maryam

Oct 25th, 2011 4:50 pm | By

Here’s some Maryam, so that you can see why it’s good news that she’s joining FTB.

Iran Solidarity Stall at Frankfurt Book Fair 12-16 October

It is quite unbelievable that a regime that brutally kills off free expression
and those who use it, that forbids women to sing in public, a regime that bans
and censures books, films and the media in the tradition of the vilest
dictatorships will be able to freely spread their views and propaganda at the
fair. No doubt this will be done displaying a show of civility that the Islamic
regime hardly shows to its own people. In the name of representing ‘Iranian
culture’ we will see some well dressed, smiling henchmen of the

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Good news!

Oct 25th, 2011 4:24 pm | By

Maryam Namazie is joining FTB.

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The not just making it up community

Oct 25th, 2011 2:59 pm | By

That thing about drawing the boundaries in a different place, again.

Julian drew them as:

  1. science
  2. everything else, especially the humanities and looking at a painting

I want to draw them as:

  1. science and all other kinds of inquiry that are constrained by reality
  2. storytelling
  3. the arts, aesthetic experience, appreciation

I think we both put religion in a separate category, and both think it overlaps with the arts, storytelling and the like. I think we both think it’s in conflict with our respective 1s, but I think Julian muddled the issue by not including all other kinds of inquiry that are constrained by reality in his 1.

I think it’s good to emphasize the fact that many kinds of inquiry … Read the rest

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Iphigenia in America

Oct 24th, 2011 5:20 pm | By

Vyckie Garrison reviews a Quiverfull classic, Me? Obey him?

I am no less rational than my (ex)husband.  He also is gifted with a strong intuition and emotional intelligence.  Convinced as we were that I was more susceptible to Satanic deception, our family was deprived of my reasonable input in decision making.  My intelligence was squelched, my intuition was distrusted and my feelings were denied.  My husband developed an artificially inflated sense of his own powers of logic.  I can’t count how many times he said to me, “What you are saying sounds reasonable, but how do I know that Satan is not using you to deceive me?”  I had no good defense.  According to the Scriptures, we had every

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Cooking people is wrong

Oct 24th, 2011 4:30 pm | By

I saw a thing on tv a few days ago about a “spiritual retreat” in which some people looked for spiritual whatevers via a sweat lodge, and three of them died.

The “self-help guru” who ran the show was convicted of negligent homicide last June. He could have been convicted of manslaughter but that required ruling that he knew the sweat lodge was potentially fatal, beyond a reasonable doubt.

I was glad I didn’t have to be on that jury, because I would have been sorely tempted to convict, for legally bad reasons. I would have thought that if he didn’t know a sweat lodge could be dangerous, he should have. I thought the same thing about that “therapist” Read the rest

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Scraping the barrel

Oct 24th, 2011 4:14 pm | By

Some fella says Richard Dawkins is bad and stupid and cynical and anti-intellectual because he refuses to debate William Lane Craig.

Really?

Well not the bad and stupid part, no, that’s my paraphrase, but it’s not far off; and the rest of it, yes, really.

Richard Dawkins is not alone in his refusal to debate with William Lane Craig. The vice-president of the British Humanist Association (BHA), AC Grayling has also flatly refused to debate Craig, stating that he would rather debate “the existence of fairies and water-nymphs”.

Yes, and? Are they required (morally though not legally) to debate anyone who asks? Are they not allowed to choose?

Given that there isn’t much in the way of serious argumentation

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Arms linked

Oct 23rd, 2011 3:17 pm | By

PZ notes that atheists and gays “often find themselves fighting on the same side in battles against the Religious Righteous.” Indeed, and also some wrangles with the let’s-all-get-alongists, who want to unite with absolutely everyone…except those pesky atheists or those pesky gays.… Read the rest

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