This is unfortunate.

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins · Apr 22
University is about confronting new ideas, unfamiliar, un-“safe”. If you want to be “safe” you are not worthy of a university education.

Sadly, it didn’t stop there. It went on.

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins 12 hours ago
If you can’t handle challenging questions like “What’s wrong with incest, or cannibalism?” University Probably Is Not For You (#UPINFY)

That one set off a little hashtag storm, which is still going on.

The originator helped.

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins 12 hours ago
If you can’t handle challenging questions like “Could rape be a Darwinian adaptation in wild animals?” university may be not for you #UPINFY

A philosopher suggests that children will one

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George Skelton at the LA Times observes that we all tend to value health very highly, and that that makes it surprising that so many people are hostile to vaccinations.

You parents who won’t permit vaccinations because of a personal belief, well, you’re free to practice that belief any way you’d like — as long as it doesn’t threaten other people’s kids.

Americans do have freedom of religion — but not the freedom to jeopardize the health of other Americans.

That’s the way it should be, anyway, and how a bill struggling through the Legislature would make it in California.

It passed one Senate committee; it has to pass two more; if it’s passed by the Senate it will get … Read the rest

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Not getting it.

A godbotherer claims that Obama is driving all the Christians out of the military and sowing their fields with salt. His claims are short on citations, apart from a link-free date-free mention of the Washington Times.

But he does give a couple of examples.

If you are in the military today, you have got to be so careful about any expression of faith.

Even the slightest slip up can cause the authorities to crack down on you.

Just consider the following two examples which come from Newsmax…

In December, a chaplain for a Ranger training battalion was sent an administrative letter of concern after a soldier complained that he had promoted Christianity and used a Bible during

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Guest post by Monette Richards, President of CFI – NE Ohio and a Director of Secular Woman.

I am being frustrated at the priorities we set in the secular movement. The amount of restrictions being passed against bodily autonomy, restrictions that have strong, deep roots in religion, are depending on bad and/or faulty science and yet are being outright ignored by most of the secular organizations. It is infuriating.

The slow but seemingly thorough takeover of hospitals by the Catholic Church is a growing problem that is hardly addressed. The directives set by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops set limits on the care they may provide. Already, we see this endangering women, especially those without the means … Read the rest

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The theocratic Islamist campaign to convince UK Muslims that “VOTING FOR MAN-MADE LAW IS SHIRK” has popped up in Leicester, the BBC reports.

Bright yellow stickers have been posted in areas of Leicester with large Muslim communities saying voting is “shirk”.

Shirk is the sin of worshipping someone other than Allah and is considered the most grievous crime for a Muslim.

Which just goes to show how anti-human and revolting religion can be at its worst. The most grievous crime, ahead of murder, rape, genocide, torture. Plus of course there’s the fact that voting for X≠worshipping X.

Dr [Ather] Hussain, an imam in Leicester and surrounding cities, said: “It’s laughable. Logically and religiously speaking they haven’t got a leg

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Election fraud in Tower Hamlets.

An east London mayor has been removed from office and a poll declared void after he was found guilty of electoral fraud.

An Election Commissioner concluded Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman breached election rules and must vacate his post immediately.

Four voters alleged he used “corrupt and illegal practices” in last year’s election, which must now be re-run.

Mr Rahman, who denied any wrong-doing, has been banned from standing again.

Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey said it was a big mess, caused by one guy’s ruthless ambition.

Mawrey also described Bangladesh-born Mr Rahman as an “evasive and discursive witness whose evidence was untruthful on occasion” and suggested he had played “race” and “religious” cards.

Mr

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The National Football League has to give former players a whole lot of money.

A federal judge gave final approval on Wednesday to a settlement in a lawsuit brought by about 5,000 former National Football League players who accused the league of covering up the dangers of concussions.

The settlement, approved by Judge Anita Brody, includes allowing for monetary awards of up to $5 million per retired player for serious medical conditions associated with repeated head trauma and could cost the league $1 billion over 65 years.

Which they can well afford, considering how profitable the whole racket is.

The NFL is accused of covering up the dangers of concussions to keep players on the field. The league and

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Almond milk. I already knew this from looking at the ingredients and the bit where it says how much protein and so on per serving – almond milk isn’t a useful thing.

People drink almond milk for a variety of reasons, but many have no idea how devoid of nutrients their trendy dairy milk alternative actually is.

Each half-gallon carton contains very few actual almonds. Evidence shows there may be just over a handful.

Well if they don’t know they didn’t look, because if you look, it’s obvious. Almonds aren’t the main ingredient. It’s mostly water and sweeteners.

While the amount of almonds in each brand of the beverage vary, an analysis of UK almond milk brand Alpro showed

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More compulsory religion for the US.

North Carolina’s McDowell County is now the third municipality in the state to approve adding the national motto “In God We Trust” to its public buildings.

The McDowell County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the inclusion of “In God We Trust” signs for county buildings last Monday.

So take that, atheists! And secularists, and people who don’t call themselves secularists but still don’t want god shoved on them in government buildings. Take that, all of you! No freedom of religion for you! Religion is mandatory around here and don’t you forget it.

(Also that “national motto” thing is ridiculous. That’s not a thing. We don’t have a national sock or a national dog … Read the rest

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In the Spectator…

Bahar Mustafa, the Welfare and Diversity officer for Goldsmiths Students’ Union, must have a strong sense of irony. You’d have to, to run an ‘anti-racism’ event which states that ‘if you’re a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME. As the student publication the Tab reports, the event claims to be ‘challenging the white-centric culture of occupations’, ‘diversifying our curriculum’ and building a ‘cross campus campaign that puts liberation at the heart of the movement’.

It’s an anti-racism event but men are told to stay away? I don’t even…

She’s the welfare officer at Goldsmiths. Hmm.

Back in February, Mustafa, who describes herself on Twitter as a ‘queer, anti-racist feminist killjoy’, came to my attention

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Of course.

THE AMAZING ATHEIST! ‏@amazingatheist 14 hours ago
Hey @CHSommers I would love to have you on my podcast, The Drunken Peasants.

Christina H. Sommers ‏@CHSommers
@amazingatheist Any time. Huge fan.

If you’ve forgotten who the amazing atheist is and what he’s like, just take a squiz at his feed.… Read the rest

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The Independent has a nice big (translated) excerpt from Charb’s book.

Stéphane Charbonnier was a cartoonist and writer. He was a supporter of the French Communist Party. And while, under his editorship, Charlie Hebdo aggressively poked fun at Catholicism and Judaism as well as radical Islam, his book – published in France last week – is a passionate rejection of the allegations that, under his editorship, Charlie Hebdo was “racist” or “Islamophobic”.

In the book, Charb, as he was always known, defends his publication of cartoons mocking radical Islam and caricaturing (but never mocking) the Prophet Mohamed. He argues – from a left-wing, anti-racist, militantly secular viewpoint – that the word “Islamophobia” is a trap, set by an unholy

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Originally a comment by Morgan on Psychiatry is an important skeptical and social justice issue.

Making demands about alternatives before you’ll bother to learn the truth about it seems callous, in addition to incurious.

Look, here’s the thing: you sound like a crank.

That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but from what you’re saying, it’s more likely that you’re a crank than not. So before giving what you have to say much time or attention, it’s worth running a simple filter of asking what your views are, in case they’re “people need to regulate their orgone energy via crystals” or something else that would clearly indicate you’re not worth the effort. What you’re saying may seem obviously reasonable to you,

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Via Twitter – Charlie Hebdo satirizes apathy of European leaders to migrants.

… Read the rest

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The producer of the movie that got the Sikh “campaigners” in Wolverhampton so riled up today withdrew the movie so the riled up campaigners could have just bided their time. The Indian Express has the ridiculous details.

Harinder Singh Sikka, the producer of controversial movie “Nanak Shah Fakir”, on Tuesday announced to withdraw the movie from cinema halls across the country and globe. Sikka made the announcement after meeting Akal Takht chief Giani Gurbachan Singh in Delhi.

Akal Takht chief was in Delhi on Tuesday after his return from Muscat and was scheduled to go to Bidar for a religious function. Sikka in a statement said the decision was taken while bowing before the supremacy of Akal Takht. He

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News from Wolverhampton:

Hundreds of people had to be evacuated from Cineworld Wolverhampton after 50 protestors turned up and staged a sit-in over the screening of a controversial film.

Police had to be called and the cinema cleared and closed after the protestors surged through the main entrance and headed for the screen showing Bollywood blockbuster, Nanak Shah Fakir.

Once inside, the Sikh campaigners sat down on the floor and began to shout, refusing to move until cinema bosses met their demands and stopped the screening.

Well that’s that then. We can’t have anything if religious protesters decide they don’t want us to have it. All they have to go is sit down and shout, and that will be … Read the rest

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Jason Walsh is disgusted with Queen’s University Belfast for canceling an academic symposium for bad self-regarding reasons.

Among the participants at this conference was to be yours truly, the Ireland correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, the world’s most measured, careful and, critics (with whom I would disagree) would say, stiff newspaper. Other participants included, well, academics. It was an academic symposium, after all. As I was a putative participant there is an ethical conflict in me reporting on the matter. There is no such impediment, however, on me complaining about it, so buckle-up while I take you for a spin around the insanity that is the modern university.

…

I had planned to give a paper entitled “Back to

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I stopped in at that chain drug store that I mentioned yesterday – Bartells – to see if they still carry OTC homeopathic asthma “treatments.” I could find only one thing (and didn’t feel like asking anyone). There’s only one and it’s not right next to other asthma meds; I couldn’t find any other asthma meds. They have everything with pseudoephedrine behind the counter now (because meth, ya know), and maybe all the asthma meds have pseudoephedrine so that’s why I didn’t see any. If that’s the explanation that’s an improvement on the last time I looked at this.

But still there is one item: safecare AsthmaCare for temporary relief of minor asthma symptoms.

In big letters in the middle:… Read the rest

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A Facebook friend posted a link to my Freethinker column (published yesterday), and got some…lively comments.

Paul McEnery “Of course the idea behind the cartoons was to challenge authority: to challenge religious authority, clerical authority, theocratic authority, the authority of public opinion and taboo.”

Total motherfucking hypocritical shit-mouthed arsemongering.

The idea was to be cunts to Muslims on the grounds of they were subhuman mongrels who should get the fuck out of Denmark.

Paul McEnery Nobody’s using cartoonists for scapegoats. YOU personally are pretending that the Danish cartoons weren’t full on racialist hate speech intended to provoke violence. So is Benson.

Nice deflect by pointlessly objecting to “cunts” as if it matters, btw. We’ve been through that before, and you

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