One rather peculiar response from a reverend:

@CLGrossman @RichardDawkins @OpheliaBenson Well said but why/ How? In a material world of blind indifference who decides what is is “civil”[?]

That’s not peculiar for a reverend*, of course, but it’s peculiar in itself.

Who decides? Human beings decide. We decide because we’re the ones affected. We decide because we want various things. We want to be able to have reasonable conversations. We want to be able to talk without fistfights or insults or taunts. We want at least a minimal baseline of peace and co-operation.

That’s who decides. The people who have a stake decide. That’s true even in a material world of blind indifference. The material world is blindly indifferent … Read the rest

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Not everyone is board, but we knew that.

… Read the rest

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Joint statement by Ophelia Benson and Richard Dawkins

It’s not news that allies can’t always agree on everything. People who rely on reason rather than dogma to think about the world are bound to disagree about some things.

Disagreement is inevitable, but bullying and harassment are not. If we want secularism and atheism to gain respect, we have to be able to disagree with each other without trying to destroy each other.

In other words we have to be able to manage disagreement ethically, like reasonable adults, as opposed to brawling like enraged children who need a nap. It should go without saying, but this means no death threats, rape threats, attacks on people’s appearance, age, race, sex, size, haircut; … Read the rest

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Have a friendly set of caricatures, for purposes of comparison. Crispian Jago’s deck of “Skeptic” cards from 2011. (Some of the people in the deck don’t fit the category very well – Dennett, Aaronovitch, Grayling, Hitchens, Peter Singer, Andrew Copson – they’re not primarily skeptics, not professional Skeptics.)

The caricatures are done by Neil Davies.

Here’s Anthony Grayling:

H/t Catherine Xanthë… Read the rest

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ISIS have also been using crucifixion as a punishment. What history wonks they are.

A man has survived being crucified by Isis in Syria, after the jihadists raided his village and nailed him to a cross for eight hours.

The unnamed man from Al-Bab, near the border with Turkey, was crucified as a punishment, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

He managed to survive the ordeal.

But eight others who received the same punishment did not survive. The men, from Deir Hafer in the east of Aleppo province, were subjected to the same treatment and crucified “in the main square of the village, where their bodies will remain for three days”, the Britain-based monitor said.

It’s a very … Read the rest

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From Blue Nation Review:

… Read the rest

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Greta has a terrific post on the question of what will you accept in an ally before you decide that’s not an ally after all.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week, as you’ve seen, and also as you haven’t seen, because I’ve been doing it out of sight.

Here’s a crucial bit of Greta’s post along with my response posted there and on Facebook:

In many instances, of course we can agree about some things while disagreeing about others, and agreeing when someone says (X) doesn’t automatically mean you agree when they say ( Y ). But when someone crosses a clear line into vile and unacceptable behavior, the community needs to make it clear that this

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More reasoned argument from Team We Hate Feminism – a friendly tweet from Mark Senior, who comments here as mofa.

Mark Senior @MarkSenior3

Please accept your ‘victim card’ (hope you have your sense of humour switched on)

regards mofa

He’s late; I posted that on Facebook yesterday. I also pointed out that the jeans and shoes are all wrong. I wouldn’t wear shoes like that, and I never roll my jeans, much less wear them up above the ankle like that. Ew.

Above the jeans of course it’s exact.

But as an argument? Well I’m not sure what the argument is, exactly. That I’m wrong about everything because I’m so ugly? I’m not convinced that’s a valid argument. … Read the rest

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Originally a comment by Tom Foss on Credit where it’s due.

 Link to this comment

This JG kerfuffle, is, though, inconsequential bullshit as far as I can see.

The atheist and skeptical communities have made their names on calling out and arguing against bad arguments and strawmen. Why would we stop when those bad arguments and strawmen are coming from someone who claims to be part of the community? Why wouldn’t we argue even harder, to demonstrate what we so frequently see lacking in religious communities, namely a willingness to police their own? If atheists being irrational and behaving badly is inconsequential bullshit to other atheists, then why is it suddenly consequential when religionists do the same?

It’s … Read the rest

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At Slate Amanda Marcotte considers the expanding definitions of “religious freedom.”

Is “religious freedom” about being free to practice your faith, or just a generic cover story for any and all attempts to try to foist your beliefs on others? In this era of Hobby Lobby vs. Burwell, it’s understandable that many on the right have decided it’s the latter and are eager to start testing the limits of how much leverage the expansive new definition of “religious freedom” gives them to meddle with the private contraception choices of others. Next on the docket: Attempting to force family planning centers to hire nurse-midwives who refuse to let patients plan their families, all in the name of “religious freedom.”

That … Read the rest

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Warning – bad stuff.

The BBC reports:

A top UN official in Iraq has said the Sunni Islamist group Isis controlling the city of Mosul is seeking to impose female genital mutilation.

All females aged 11 and 46 in the northern city must undergo the procedure, according to an Isis edict, UN official Jacqueline Badcock said.

That second sentence must be a typo – it has to mean aged from 11 to 46, not 11 and 46.

At any rate, if it’s true, and they mean it – well. That’s quite something.

Yo, George Bush? Feeling proud of your accomplishments this morning?

Update: links to denials in comments.

 … Read the rest

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Originally a comment by leni on You said it yourself, you’re a writer, not a diplomat.

One of my pet peeves is a lack of direct communication, if you’re a friend or a friend of a friend I wish that they would try to actually talk to me before making things a public issue

The most charitable reading of this is that Glenn means to say that the respectful response would be to don a wig and record a YouTube meta-parody of her position using questionable analogies. It’s pretty clear if you read far enough into the subtext and make some unfounded assumptions about her motivations. We don’t have to assume the worst, here.

This could be a real … Read the rest

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Nick Cohen talks about the confusion of people who think equality and diversity come in one package like fish and chips.

If you need me to rehearse the argument again after all these years, here it is, one more time. In a free society you are or should be free to believe what you want. But your freedom to ‘celebrate your diversity’ does not extend to the freedom to force your beliefs on others, unless you can secure a democratic change in the law compatible with the rights of minorities. For instance, you may be a doctor with ethical or religious objections to abortion. No one should force you to abort a fetus. You also have every right to denounce

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Salvadoran feminists are pushing back against their country’s nightmare abortion laws.

Salvadoran feminist and women’s organizations are waging an international campaign demanding a pardon for the 17 women currently incarcerated in El Salvador for abortion, in hopes of challenging the country’s harsh anti-abortion laws and beginning to change the anti-choice views held by the vast majority of Salvadoran society.

Each of the 17 women in question was arrested while seeking hospital care for pregnancy complications when medical staff notified the police on suspicion that the women had intentionally interrupted their pregnancies. All women were impoverished, with low education levels; none received proper forensic examinations, nor were they subject to due process before being sentenced to between 12-40 years in

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I think you already know this news, but this is an official announcement of it, which is all the better.

CFI’s Michael De Dora Elected President of UN Religious Freedom Committee

We’re proud to announce that Michael De Dora, CFI’s director of public policy and main representative to the United Nations, has been elected to a two-year term as president of the UN’s NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief.

The Committee, working from within UN headquarters in New York City, is dedicated to defending and promoting the international agreements that protect the rights to freedom of religion or belief. As president, Michael will be responsible for organizing high-level meetings and public events with UN officials and … Read the rest

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The Iona Institute is having a think about what is “discrimination” and what is “a religious exemption.” 

There are currently calls to repeal Section 37 (1) of Ireland’s Employment Equality Act: the law’s opponents argue that it allows schools, hospitals and other organisations with a religious ethos to discriminate in their hiring against those whose lifestyles run counter to that ethos. The law’s defenders (the Iona Institute among them) usually respond that protecting the religious freedom of such organisations is essential.

But it strikes me that in both these cases there could be some confusion about what is actually meant by “discrimination” and “a religious exemption” on both sides. There seem to me to be two quite different things that

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Sigh. I have someone badgering me via private messaging on Facebook trying to push me to agree that Jaclyn Glenn is a feminist, it’s just that she’s “a liberal feminist who doesn’t agree with radical feminism.”

I don’t know, that may be the way she sees herself, but it’s not what she’s said in any of the videos I’ve criticized recently (which are the only videos of hers I’ve seen). I’ve been criticizing what she says in the videos. That’s it. She says what she says, and I criticize that. If her meaning is something other than what she has said in those videos, it’s up to her to make that clear. It’s not up to friends of hers … Read the rest

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… Read the rest

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