Of the latest FTB hangout. Kate writes at at Teen Skepchicks and the Friendly Atheist.

PZ Myers: Freethought [after now, to be FtB, for my hands] bloggers, and what we decided to talk about this time was all the stuff other than atheism that concerns us in this movement. So we thought, well, one of the things that unites all of us here concern for social justice! So what we thought we’d do is we’d just sit here and chatter about all these wonderful essential things we thought were a key part of the atheist/freethought movement that need to be acknowledged. And that means things like equality, social justice, feminism, anti-racism, anti-sexual harassment—all this grab-bag of things we’ve been … Read the rest

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Someone (handle: tigtog) left a good comment here and then made a blog post out of it for more visibility, so I’ll make a blog post out of it too for more visibility again.

On not buying into the LULZer playbook at FtB (or anywhere) #WeLoveFTB

(This will be teaching many of you to suck eggs, I know – this is mainly for lurkers and newbies, especially newbie lurkers. Apologies in advance for the tl;dr)

The idea that each pocket of cyberspace should be a clean slate for somebody with no reference to what they are known to do elsewhere is a page dusted off from the old USENet alt.syntax.tactical playbook, as is the uber-purist semantic-hacktivist stance that objecting to … Read the rest

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Good about Anderson Cooper, huh?

I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible.  There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand.

Yep, and the same applies to atheists. Boy do young atheists get bullied in this country. Any hidden Name atheists out there? Speak up!

Anderson himself (he doesn’t mind if I call him Anderson, does he? I’ve considered him a … Read the rest

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Ok so what about Paula’s Google doc?

Sigh. Do I really care?

Oh well. Maybe a point or two.

First, since I gather this has touched a nerve in some quarters, I shall deal with the terms “feminazi” and “femistasi”. As a general principle, I oppose the use of any kind of name-calling.

Well don’t we all, provided we get to resort to it when we really want to.

For the record, I am categorically NOT suggesting that the people I have applied these terms to are, in fact, Nazis or Stasi members, or would ever have sympathized with either of them. There are many of us who are proud to be called Grammarnazis and who know perfectly well

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Oh, jesus christ.… Read the rest

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

We did another Freethought blogs conversation video. We talked about social justice and facts v values and equality / happiness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkWXMiLTWBM

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