The BBC reports a situation.

Some young HIV patients are giving up their medicine after being told by Pentecostal Church pastors to rely on faith in God instead, doctors warn.

Medical staff told the BBC a minority of pastors in England were endangering young church members by putting them under pressure to stop medication.

It’s a test of faith, you see.

I wonder if those pastors ever test their faith by walking in front of trains.

The doctors and health professionals reported a variety of cases:

• Some said they had dealt with parents who felt under pressure to stop giving their young children their HIV medicine – and some had actually done so

• Others were breastfeeding mothers with HIV

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

Massimo Pigliucci asked yesterday, “Does philosophy have a sexual harassment problem?” He asked it in response to Jennifer Saul’s article in Salon, which was titled “Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.”

Last week Jennifer Saul, a philosopher at the University of Sheffield, published an article in Salon entitled: “Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.” While there is much substance and nuance in the body of the article, I sincerely hope that Prof. Saul did not actually choose the title herself (editors often do that sort of thing), because the message it sends is anything but nuanced, and if taken at face value also not particularly constructive.

And that’s what he got from that article? That saying philosophy … Read the rest

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

What the hell happened to personal responsibility? Eh? Waah waah waah, they provoked me, make them stop – that’s all we ever hear. Man up, anti-choicers! If someone offers you more wine an abortion clinic to target with violence, you can just say no.

Amanda Marcotte tells us the anti-choicers in Wichita are arguing over this point, now that a new clinic has opened where Dr Tiller’s used to be until an anti-choicer shot him dead in a church.

But now there’s a new clinic in town where Dr. Tiller’s used to be, and irate anti-choice groups are petitioning the city to have it shut down.

Their reasoning is that the clinic, the South Wind Women’s Center, provokes them into

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

Sanal Edamaruku talks to Arun George about the murder of Narendra Dabholkar.

The murder of noted anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar in broad daylight in Pune not only highlights the risk a rationalist faces in the country, but according to some like activist Sanal Edamaruku, it should serve as encouragement to others to take up his cause.

“He was one of the most wonderful soldiers of rationalism in Maharashtra because he was taking the movement down to the villages on one side and the legislature on the other,” Edamaruku told Firstpost. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK8tnjks08I

Edamaruku may be right. Sometimes an assassination or an attempted assassination does inspire others to take up the cause. That’s happened with Malala Yousafzai, for example. It’s much … Read the rest

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

Terrible news from India today -

Renowned rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, who fought for a law against superstition and black magic, was shot dead this morning in Pune in Maharashtra, an incident which sparked grief and outrage in the city and his hometown Satara.

The 70-year-old was on his morning walk when he was shot near the Omkareshwar Bridge in the city by gunmen on a motorcycle. The police said four shots were fired at him at close range, two of which hit him in the back of his head.

The authorities don’t think it was random.

In Dr Dabholkar’s hometown Satara, thousands came out on the streets to pay tribute to a man loved and respected for his campaign against

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

Aha, a gap in my knowledge of popular culture. (There are a lot of those.) I didn’t know kawaii was a thing. I knew about the Japanese cult of cuteness, but I didn’t know it had a name, or that it was a fashion outside Japan.

(I know a woman, a PhD-MD, whose parents left Japan for the US when she was a child because they couldn’t stand to let her grow up under that kind of pressure – and that was decades ago.)

Wikipedia clued me in.

Kawaii (かわいい [kaw͍aiꜜi], “lovable”, “cute”, or “adorable”^[1]) is the quality of cuteness in the context of Japanese culture.^[2][3][4] It has become a prominent aspect of Japanese

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

Jennifer Saul goes on to talk about the other ways women are belittled and overlooked in philosophy departments.

The blog also contains story after story of women whose point isn’t taken seriously until repeated by a man; or who simply aren’t called on during question periods.  And the Gendered Conference Campaign (run by the group blog Feminist Philosophers, of which I’m also a part) documents conference after conference with absolutely no invited women speakers. Recent work by Kieran Healy has dramatically demonstrated how infrequently work of women philosophers is cited.

What lies behind this?  There is undeniably still some outright prejudice in the field: One male philosopher I knew was well-known for openly declaring that women and black people are

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

One item from What’s it’s like to be a woman in philosophy.

I was in my second year of studies at a top philosophy department in the US. I took a course in X that was offered by a very prominent male philosopher who also happened to be quite active and outspoken in attempts to improve the position of women in philosophy. Once after class I mentioned to him that I was considering the possibility of writing a dissertation under his supervision, and he seemed supportive as I was among the best students in his course. One evening toward the end of the term we discussed possible topics for my thesis in his office. At one point during that conversation

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

I like this idea of dramatizing life among the Extreme Skeptics™, I want to do some more of it.

Scene 1

The living room. Chris is watching “Hoarders” on tv; Terry enters.

Terry: Let’s go swimming?

Chris: Why?

Terry: “Why?” What do you mean why? For fun, that’s why.

Chris: What’s your evidence that swimming is fun?

Terry: What are you talking about?! I like swimming, that’s my “evidence.”

Chris: That’s just a feeling. Feelings are not evidence.

Terry: Oooooookay, see you later. [Exit carrying towel and bathing suit]

Scene 2

The living room. Chris is watching “Man vs Food” on tv; Terry enters.

Terry: You drank all the milk!

Chris: What’s your evidence for that?

Terry [shaking a plastic … Read the rest

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

PZ has a post on this fun new trick of saying “I am Skeptic, I don’t just believe your claim just like that, I wasn’t born yesterday, I demand evidence for all claims” whenever there’s a woman muttering something about harassment. He does it with a short one-act play about a visit to SkepticDoc, M.D.

PZ: Doctor, lately I’ve been experiencing shortness of breath and an ache in my left shoulder when I exert myself…

SkepticDoc: Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down! See the name on the shingle? It’s SkepticDoc. Do you have anything other than your feelings to justify wasting my time here?

PZ: What? I’m telling you my symptoms…

SkepticDoc: Yeah, yeah, your feelings. Do you have some

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

That was an estimated 5000 people marching in Dublin today, calling on the Government to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples.

RTÉ News has video from the march.

 … Read the rest

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

Patricia Churchland once talked to the Dalai Lama. You can guess what they talked about from knowing it was Pat Churchland. She tells Religion Dispatches about it.

Then what about religions that believe in reincarnation, where the soul survives bodily death and is reborn in another body? 

What would it be, this thing? If the brain is the repository of memories and skills and thoughts and perceptions, what would this thing be that goes off somewhere else and gets born in a squirrel or something? I actually had a conversation about this with the Dalai Lama many years ago and he was very interested in the brain. He asked a group of us to come and talk to him about

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

Michael Nugent tweeted from the Dublin marriage equality march a couple of hours ago, with a photo:

… Read the rest

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

We’re arguing about it in comments, so I’ll bring it up here to argue some more. (And watch: now no one will argue any more. That always happens.)

We’re arguing about this question of whether it’s ok for conference speakers to hook up with attendees, assuming mutual enthusiasm and availability.

I’m not on the side my haters* would expect.They would expect me to screek in horror and demand that everyone be taken away in chains. You know the drill – ugly old bitch, crazy bitter ugly angry old bitch jealous of all the hot young people having secks, wants to see them all boiled in oil.

But nah. I don’t see the problem. I agree that the bigger stars … Read the rest

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

Brian Dalton has a follow-up to his “how to say no to more wine” video.

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

It’s obnoxious. For some reason he makes a big issue of the fact that the “no more wine thank you, I’m good; see how easy that was?” segment was about this one bit of PZ’s post and not about the other bit. Well I knew that but it doesn’t amaze me that other people didn’t, and anyway, I don’t see why he makes a big issue of it since he didn’t spell that out in the original video. If you do a parable and people don’t figure out exactly what the reference is, it’s conceivable that that’s your doing and not theirs. It’s … Read the rest

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

It’s the turn of “Ardent Atheist” Emery Emery to try to peddle the line that all this talk of sexual harassment is actually a campaign to stop everyone having sex. It’s a campaign to shut down pleasure and fun and joy and good things altogether.

The in-groupers at FtB have been attempting to redefine flirting as sexual harassment and sexual intercourse as rape. The problem with this tactic is that it obfuscates actual acts of sexual predation while criminalizing very healthy sex-positive human interaction.

No actually we have not. Not at all. We’ve been attempting (as have many others – we sure as hell don’t deserve all the credit for this) to define sexual harassment as sexual harassment. Flirting is … Read the rest

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

Maryam Namazie writes:

PROTECT NAHLA MAHMOUD

Following her interview on Channel 4 on Sharia law, Islamists have threatened Sudanese secular campaigner and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) Co-Spokesperson Nahla Mahmoud with death, calling her a ‘Kafira’ and ‘Murtada’ who has offended Islam and brought “fitnah”. The threats have been reported to the police who have advised that nothing can be done about the particular threats made by Salah al Bandar who has until recently been a Lib Dem Councillor. The police have even urged Nahla not to “anger” him further.

Hundreds of individuals and groups have already signed on to an open letter calling for the authorities to take action. You (and/or your organisation) can read more about … Read the rest

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