Author: Ophelia Benson

In a press release.

American Atheists’ President Dave Silverman announced today that the organization was implementing a comprehensive Code of Conduct for all sponsored and hosted regional conferences and the annual American Atheists’ National Convention.

Dave Silverman said, “The Code of Conduct will allow all conference attendees to know that American Atheists’ events are safe, fun and informative. We want people to enjoy themselves but know there will be consequences for harmful behaviors.”

The Code of Conduct addresses conference attendees’ behavior during speaker’s sessions, access to sessions for ability-challenged attendees, respect for families who attend, as well as sexual and other types of harassment.

The Code of Conduct also provides direction for American Atheists’ staff and volunteers who will take reports of harassment and inappropriate conduct.

Silverman continued, “We are training our staff and volunteers to be able to take information from our attendees who have been harassed. These reports will be given directly to one designated senior staff member at each event to be assessed and to determine what action should and needs to be taken.”

“The Code of Conduct is a living document. We will adapt it as we learn from what works and what needs improvement. But the overall goal is to create fun, enjoyable, and safe conventions and conferences for everyone,” Silverman added.

The Code of Conduct will go into effect immediately and be used first at American Atheists’ regional conference in Minnesota, August 10-11.

AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a non-profit 501(c)3 national organization that defends civil rights of Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church-mosque-temple and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.

You can read the whole thing.

A German court has outlawed circumcision done for religious reasons.

Circumcising young boys on religious grounds causes grievous bodily harm, a German court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision that the Jewish community said trampled on parents’ religious rights.

The regional court in Cologne, western Germany, ruled that the “fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents”, a judgment that is expected to set a legal precedent.

And a hugely important one. Think forced marriage, think child marriage, think FGM, think of denying children medical care. Maybe bodily integrity will be defined more narrowly, so that it wouldn’t apply to child marriage – but child marriage ruins girls’ bodies and lives (think fistula), so maybe it will apply.

The case was brought against a doctor in Cologne who had circumcised a four-year-old Muslim boy on his parents’ wishes.
A few days after the operation, his parents took him to hospital as he was bleeding heavily. Prosecutors then charged the doctor with grievous bodily harm.

Ouch.

The decision caused outrage in Germany’s Jewish community.

The head of the Central Committee of Jews, Dieter Graumann, said the ruling was “an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination.”

The judgment was an “outrageous and insensitive act. Circumcision of newborn boys is a fixed part of the Jewish religion and has been practiced worldwide for centuries,” added Graumann.

“This religious right is respected in every country in the world.”

Yes, and it shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be a “religious right” to mutilate your children.

Mind you, one could wish it hadn’t been a German court…

 

A guy who has a blog called Eternal Life Blog with the subtitle “covering all aspects of eternal life” (I do like thoroughness, don’t you?) thinks it’s a tragedy when clerics escape.

Sadly, spiritual tragedies do occur in this dangerous spiritual environment. That is why Christians are told to guard themselves, hold on, keep themselves, etc. One of the most recent and openly publicized spiritual tragedies among preachers losing their faith would be Jerry Dewitt. Jerry DeWitt, from Louisiana, became an atheist after more than twenty-five years of Pentecostal ministry! He was senior pastor of a congregation when he became an unbeliever and now claims he could not be happier because he feels he has regained his integrity.

Emphasis his. Formatting his. Alternation between bold and italics his. Anyway he’s amazed that a former minister could be happy because he feels he has regained his integrity. I, on the other hand, find that thought completely intelligible. It’s similar to what I always think when I try to imagine myself taking up religion for any of the consequentialist reasons people so often cite – community, tradition, support in life’s difficulties, that kind of thing. It’s the fact that it would feel like such a gruesome surrender and cheat that makes it fall to the floor before it gains any respectable altitude. I couldn’t do it, because of integrity.

If Jerry DeWitt, Teresa MacBain or any atheist ever came to initial salvation or not, I can’t say. It is possible they were once saved at some point before getting back on the road to hell as they are now. As sad as it is for them to openly reject the existence of God (and therefore Jesus Christ), it is even worse when one ponders the many under their influence who might also be hurt by their horrible example. It is horribly bad for any professing Christian to renounce his faith, but even worse when a person who is considered by some to be a spiritual leader does it.

That poor man – he thinks there’s such a thing as “the road to hell” (or he professes to – who knows, really). Sucks to be him. He’s frantic about something that is not at all a bad thing. He’s throwing away his life on fictions and useless terrors.

Tragic.

Hebden Bridge was hammered by a flood last Friday. Pictures here.

After heavy rain all day Friday,  flood sirens went just before 8pm. Just hours later, the whole of the centre of Hebden Bridge was flooded. Market Street,  Bridge Gate, Old Gate, Albert Street and Crown Street were all under water and impassable.

The dramatic events of Friday evening have led to dozens of local shops and businesses suffering damage and serious loss of stock. We encourage all HebWeb readers to support the fund set up by the Community Foundation.

Life is difficult, and then it floods.

Jason has details.

A few people think I’ve been unfair to DJ Grothe. I don’t. I think it’s the other way around.

I’ll explain why, as succinctly as I explained it to DJ (and Carrie) the day after threat-day.

I think he stuck a metaphorical target on me. He didn’t do anything to take it off. He didn’t do anything to assure me that he still welcomed me to TAM. He triggered a shit-storm, and then let it get worse and worse and worse.

That’s it.

He stuck a metaphorical target on me (in my view) when he blamed the fall in women’s attendance at TAM on

irresponsible messaging coming from a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe.

Since I was scheduled to do a talk at TAM, the target was very awkward. I blogged about this. DJ never responded. (I could have emailed him directly – but his target-attaching was public as opposed to email, so I replied to it in public rather than email. Besides, I didn’t feel as if I should have to email him to say, “Uh er am I still supposed to do this talk or wut?” I thought it was his job to deal with it, not mine. I still think that.)

As time went on, the fallout from DJ’s remark got bigger and nastier. I felt steadily more unwelcome. DJ still did nothing. Again – I think this is not how someone in charge of an event should treat an invited speaker.

Then came the emails. When I told DJ about them and my decision not to go to TAM as a result, he finally did say they would welcome me as a speaker and value my safety “like we do of everyone who attends our events.” It wasn’t entirely convincing…and it was also very late (and forced). It wasn’t entirely convincing for instance because he went on to predict that some attendees might have different opinions and then cited “these recent couple dozen blog posts on Freethought Blogs about TAM” – in other words he blamed posts at Freethought Blogs for people at TAM disliking me. I, on the other hand, think the dislike originates in his remarks about the clumsy women. He then pointed out that controversial speakers possibly disliked by attendees were still treated respectfully, and named three examples: Dawkins, Krauss, and Jillette.

As I pointed out to him in my reply, there are some salient differences between me on the one hand and Dawkins, Krauss, and Jillette on the other. I think they kind of jump off the page, especially in this context. They’re all men. They’re all Names. They don’t piss off angry misogynists.

So that’s why I don’t think I’ve been unfair to DJ Grothe. That’s why I think it’s the other way around.

As I said, I replied to DJ’s reply, but I got no reply in turn. Carrie told me I could phone them, but that’s all the answer I got. I don’t think that’s very good management.

So that’s that. I expect now we can at last drop the whole smelly subject!

There are some memes that need correcting – and when I say “correcting” I mean “multiple repetitions of correction for however long it takes” because that’s how it is with memes: they’re god damn hard to correct and often trying to correct them just entrenches them instead. (So don’t correct them? No, because what else can one do, and because at least they’ll be easier to find.)

One that I see everywhere is that the mysterious “small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe” had been saying that TAM was bad for women before DJ Grothe called them out with that accusation.

We hadn’t. Or they hadn’t. I don’t know for sure if DJ meant to include me in that group or not, but either way – we or they hadn’t.

In his now notorious reply to Rebecca, he quoted only one item that specified TAM, and that one he cited via the generic address rather than the specific post. The generic address was that of The Skeptical Abyss – which is one of those anonymous sites set up for the sole purpose of talking shit about uppity women. The post DJ quoted from was a set-up for the next post, which was an order to name names. Another description for that would be an invitation to get yourself sued. The one item that named TAM comes from a site that is emphatically supportive of DJ and hostile to feminism and feminists.

The others are Rebecca, Stephanie (several times), and Jen. None of the passages he quoted mentions TAM.

So: DJ said a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics were scaring women away from TAM; Rebecca asked for specifics, and he provided generics. He did not provide any examples of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics talking about TAM.

I know I hadn’t been talking about TAM before that. For one thing, I didn’t know much about it. I had nothing to say. I hadn’t been talking about TAM, and I don’t know that any of the named women had either. But there is now a robust myth that we had all been talking a lot of smack about TAM before DJ ever said anything.

Not true. False. A dud meme.

Bad journalism department. The Warrington Guardian reports on a guy who thinks his son’s autism was caused by the MMR vaccination.

A STOCKTON Heath father, who believes his son became autistic after being given the MMR vaccination, has welcomed a landmark Italian court ruling.

Judges in Rimini awarded the Bocca family £140,000 after the Italian health ministry conceded the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine caused autism in their nine-year-old son.

The result has given fresh hope for many parents with similar cases who feel the British legal process has failed them…

Oy. How to inspire new flocks of people to refuse to let their children be vaccinated.

Oliver’s family said he ‘markedly regressed’ within weeks of the jab from a bright boy who could point to every letter on a bedroom alphabet freeze to someone who lost all his skills and language  and was in a ‘world of his own’.

Therefore…

sigh

Everyone says the CFI student leadership weekend was fantastic. Ed Brayton said so, and all the people tweeting about it at the time said so, and the pictures that Paul Fidalgo tweeted said so. (There was one of “James Croft with his invisible yo-yo” that cracked me up.)

CFI goes from strength to strength. Noticed that?

Maryam reports that the Council of Ex-Muslims 5th anniversary bash was also fantastic.

Good things!

So anyway.

Way back last month I did a brief post on Martha Nussbaum’s new book on religious intolerance. There’s more to say. I’ll say a little of it now.

The overall point is just that she leaves out a lot. She puts a thumb on the scales by leaving out a lot.

I had the same problem with the Opinionator articles the book expands on. I wrote about them on July 20, 2010 and July 22, 2010. Maybe I said it all in there, but I’ll say some things before I look to find out.

An example. On page 2 she says the US has not been free of what she calls “religious prejudice and fear” and gives as an example –

We need only remember, for example, that not until the 1970s did “white-shoe” law firms begin to hire Jews in any significant numbers, and only in very recent times could a majority of the Supreme Court be composed of Roman Catholics without public outrage…

One, the two items don’t go together very well, because it was never purely “religious” prejudice that kept Jews out of waspy law firms and country clubs. It was a weird, unpleasant mix, and usually didn’t have much to do with religion at all.

Two, more substantively – she completely ignores the possibility that there could be good reasons for not wanting the Supreme Court to be mostly Catholic. And that’s typical. She treats all concerns about religions as fundamentally irrational and like racism as opposed to like political disagreement. (She does sometimes address reasonable concerns, but not nearly often enough.)

It’s as if “Catholic” is a race, when in fact orthodox (so to speak) or Vatican-obedient Catholicism is a serious threat to many rights and freedoms, as we know all too well. The USCCB would get rid of contraception if it could! Let alone abortion and same-sex marriage.

Part of her argument (also discussed in her conscience book) is that

the faculty with which people search for life’s ultimate meaning – frequently called “conscience” – is a very important part of people, closely related to their dignity, or an aspect of it. [p 65]

And that’s religion, among other things.

But that’s a very flattering version of religion, and far from always true. Most people are born into and raised in their religion; they don’t search for it, they have it delivered to them or imposed on them, and they accept or obey. Obedient religion isn’t really about a search for meaning – it isn’t about a search. It’s about having already found.

I don’t like the book much, I’m afraid.

Meta. God this is boring. As briskly as possible –

Verbose S

to call the situations “threatening” runs a massive risk of saying that they were intentional threats, not that the person was reasonable to feel, at least, that there might be a threat.

What “massive risk”? There was nothing at stake. No one was named. What possible “massive risk” could there be? Harm to the reputation of [????????] That’s not a risk.

Verbose S again

 Thus, the “risk” I am talking about is another type of risk, the risk of using the word “threatening” to refer to the intentions of people as opposed to what people like Watson and Ophelia might feel based, which is wrong.  Thus, it opens up the risk of being wrong.

Oh that massive risk. So it’s massively risky for me to use the word “threats” to refer to threats but it’s fine for you to warn of the “massive risk” of…being wrong.

Verbose S again

If someone says that “X was threatening you”, then the implication is always that that was intentional, and not just that the person found it threatening.

But that isn’t what I said. I said I got email threats. The whole rest of your reply is subject to the same objection. Careless; points deducted.

S Beesley

your original post stated, unambiguously, that you had “got email threats about TAM”. No ifs, no buts, no nuance.

But getting threats doesn’t mean one thing and one thing only. I did get threats: threats about what was likely to happen, and how likely it was. Somebody telling me that it was very likely that I would be shot at TAM felt like a threat to me. That’s a perfectly normal use of the word. People talk about a threat of rain, for godsake.

My personal opinion is that you made a error of judgement in your original post.

By saying I got email threats when I did get email threats. That’s ridiculous.

I fear that you’re defending the indefensible

See above.

S Beesley again

The clear meaning here was that the emailer threatened her.

No. One possible meaning; not the clear meaning.

S Beesley again

My observation is that Ophelia is now complaining that reasonable people are not taking a nuanced approach which would not be possible from the original post.

Yes it would; see above.

It’s very kind of both of you to spend this much time and effort trying to show that I was wrong to say I got threats when I got threats, but really, it’s not necessary. I got this.