A New Year’s message from Maryam Namazie.

 

Saudi Arabia – Oppression of Expression – Support Raif Badawi, Turki Al-Hamad and Hamza Kashgari.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcvLJ3esGgc

Dear friend

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy New Year!

In the past year, in which we celebrated our 5th anniversary, we continued to challenge religious identity politics and Islamism, defend free expression of Muslims and Ex-Muslims alike, oppose blasphemy and apostasy laws, raise awareness, support thousands of ex-Muslims here and abroad, as well as create a new “home” for the many left without a social network after renouncing Islam via our web-forum, social gatherings and events.

In the coming year, we … Read the rest

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

Because the technology to get to the moon existed in 1969, but the technology to fake a moon landing in a studio did not.

The takeaway -

Why does any of this matter? Well my concern is with the ultimate fate of knowing, of seeing the difference between what you can know and what you wish for…The urge to believe drives people to trade in part of their soul in exchange for the comfort of being a rebel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGXTF6bs1IU

… Read the rest

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Via the Ex-Muslims Forum – “perhaps the only time when the misogyny of Islamic Fiqh could ever be described as a relief.”

 

It is narrated from Ibn Abbas that he said, “The female apostate is not killed.”  This is because the unbelief of the woman is not equal to the unbelief of the man – which leads to (physical) devastation.  So, she is not equal in the liability to be killed, as is known.

- Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi (d. 373 AH/ 983 CE). Mukhtalaf al-Riwayah,, vol 3, p. 1299

Makes sense. The woman’s belief is puny and weak compared to the man’s, so her unbelief is the same way, so meh – nobody cares. No need to kill … Read the rest

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On Twitter -

This is a public information announcement: If you self-identify as a “freethinker” or a “progressive” it can seem just a tad conceited.

So does that mean it’s conceited to write for The Freethinker? Probably. Oh well.

(The truth is I don’t self-identify as either of those, because it’s true, it does sound conceited. I don’t like self-flattering labels, and I do avoid them. I prefer neutral, factual ones, when I can find them. That’s part of why I found Shermer’s jeers about “self-declared secular feminists” bizarre, when surely both words are factual more than they are self-flattering. But not calling oneself a freethinker doesn’t preserve one from doing things like writing for The Freethinker. What … Read the rest

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So they do it to Mary Beard, too. Mary Beard! A classics don! Makes me want to get my friend Euripides to give them a dam’ good scolding.

But why, you might say, am I so fussed by this. One tv programme of no moment, a bit of flak, and some great waves of support on twitter (thank you all…Tony Law even, bizarrely, got Sulla martialed in the fight last night…). Why not just “move on”?

One reason, it has introduced me to a side on internet trolling that I haven’t experienced before, and is worth thinking about. My appearance on Question Time prompted a web post that has in the last few days discussed my pubic hair

… Read the rest

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

It turns out that Jerry Conlon didn’t threaten me when he said maybe a vial of acid would do me some good. No, it turns out I threatened him. A friend sent me this screen shot from the mildew pit.

 

I don’t know who it was who posted the comment with some biographical information about Jerry Conlon; it was someone who has never commented here before. The comment was a peculiar kind of “doxxing” since Jerry Conlon had used the name Jerry Conlon himself on that threat (or “joke”) and since there was no address or phone number.

Given the first-timeness of the commenter, I suspect the comment was a plant. At any rate, I haven’t threatened anyone. I … Read the rest

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PZ is optimistic about the bigger picture.

I am constantly dunned by email and tweets from the haters and sick scumbags, and I read stuff by my colleagues who get far worse, and at times it is just too depressing and dismal — there really are reactionary fanatics within atheism who refuse to recognize the responsibility to work towards equality. And I just want to give up.

But then…perspective. Step away from the smears and assaults and slime and look at the movement as a whole: look at the leading organizations of the godless. You know what you’ll see? None of them support these loons. They’re all progressive and committed to improving the diversity of the

… Read the rest

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Another article not to miss is Lauryn Oates’s To tell the world his daughter’s name.

When the father of Jyoti Singh Pandey decided to tell the world his daughter’s name this week, he said he did so to give other women who have been raped courage.

His is a message directed at an untold number of women and girls. Rape is the most under-reported form of violent crime in the world. It consistently has the worst statistical reporting, with many countries keeping no rape statistics at all.

Somalian activist Hawa Aden Mohammed estimates that in her country, experiencing a torrent of sexual violence, 90% of rapes go unreported. She says the reason is that women know that nothing will

… Read the rest

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

I’m being Twitter-mean to Rick Warren. Well not really mean – I’m not calling him ugly or anything. But I’m teasing the crap out of something he said. Wull it was silly.

Rick Warren‏

Christians founded America. Ever since, Presidents (& most offices) take their oath with their hand on God’s Word #TheBible

My teasings.

And NOTHING CAN EVER CHANGE. We always do all the things exactly the way we always have done them.

Travel, medicine, architecture, communication, race relations, lighting – all, all done the same way forever.

So if somebody did something one way a few centuries ago (they didn’t, but never mind) END OF STORY.

How to do everything, according to Rick Warren. The way

… Read the rest

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Speaking of children being seen as “witches,” and witch hunts, and cruelty to putative witches, don’t miss Leo Igwe’s new article, Kukuo: Inside a ‘Witch Camp’ in Ghana.

Here is a sample.

Many of the alleged witches said they would like to return to their original homes but were afraid for their lives. Some did not want to go back at all. They felt safe and at peace in Kukuo.

But that is because they do not have a better alternative. In Kukuo, life is hard. Survival is difficult. Most of the women survive by farming for others, but many of them are getting too old and could not farm any longer. Some of them were sick. One of

… Read the rest

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In Sweden this time, not in London.

The couple, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, “think their daughter is a witch and reject the accusation” of abuse, Daniel Larson, a prosecutor in the western Swedish town of Boraas, said on Friday.

Which is the problem with thinking people are “witches” – then abuse isn’t abuse, because witches have to be cleaned out, kind of like a sewer. It gets a little rough, but that’s not abuse.

The girl, who claims she is not the couple’s biological daughter though the parents say otherwise, was allegedly beaten unconscious and forced to drink a concoction made up of a cleaning product and her own urine, according to the charge sheet.

Social services

… Read the rest

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Justin Vacula is raising money to attend Women in Secularism 2.

He posted about me on his Facebook page a few times yesterday. He incited quite a few enraged comments.

Justin Vacula

Yesterday (Images of disfigured women are added to a recent blog post from Ophelia Benson who writes “Maybe I should start wearing protection,” seemingly opining on the criticism, ridicule, and disagreement she experiences because she operates a blog… and makes statements people disagree with). Get a grip, Ophelia. Women who have acid thrown in their faces are in a much different situation than you are and face real quantifiable abuse – much unlike what you talk of as being abuse and the ‘threats’ you claimed to have

… Read the rest

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Something that happened last October, in Staten Island.

A teenage girl who friends say was bullied at school committed suicide by jumping in front of an oncoming train in front of other students Wednesday afternoon.

Why was she bullied? Well, you see, there was this party, and at the party she had sex with four guys on the football team. The four guys of course punished her for having sex with them by trashing her at school. What else would they do?

The day before the fatal plunge, the sophomore posted one last cry for help on Twitter, saying “I can’t, I’m done, I give up.”

…

Briana Torres says just a few days ago, Felicia broke down in tears,

… Read the rest

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I am, obviously, not going to treat this as a private correspondence. Jerry Conlon isn’t a friend of mine, I never asked him to contact me in any way, he tweeted at me yesterday (and the day before) just to stir the shit aka harass me, so I don’t consider his apology or my reply part of a private correspondence.

Jerry Conlon to me:

I would like to apologize Ophellia for that vile tweet I sent you yesterday. I did not mean it as threat on your person being but as a childish insult agaisnt your appearence.

I understand how you take it as personal threat and I hope in no way did I make you feel unsafe in your

… Read the rest

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Gee I don’t know why you’re always making such a fuss about all this stalking and hate-mongering.

… Read the rest

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

Wait, what? There’s such a thing as sexist sci-fi and fantasy book covers? Really? I thought only ugly feminists said that. Surely the BBC isn’t an ugly feminist.

Science fiction and fantasy novels routinely portray scantily clad woman on their covers – a device that draws the heterosexual male eye but may turn away women readers. Lynsea Garrison finds one fantasy author aiming to zap gender
stereotypes.

By doing the poses himself, to amusing effect.

Hines, a fantasy author, is posing like some of the female characters on science fiction and fantasy book covers he says objectify women.

He gets into character by twisting his body into the same contorted positions as the female characters on the books.

“The

… Read the rest

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