Stephanie has a good collection of items in her post Within the Movement - items that are more than just “trolls on the internet.”

• If announcing a conference about the role of women in secularism on your organization’s site is met with charges of misandry or comments on a report of the conference have to be shut down, with the problems coming from registered users, that happens within the movement.
• If a speaker and writer hosts a discussion for about a year that is devoted to tearing down those who call harassment an issue, posting personal information and lies, tracking everything said or tweeted in obsessive detail, that happens within the movement.
• If an atheist organization’s leader declares publicly

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

Chris Rodda tells us the horrible news that one of the victims of the attack on the US consulate in Libya was a member of the MRFF Advisory Board, former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty.

The Huffington Post has more.

Doherty himself had a history of opposing religious intolerance.

Doherty was an “extremely active” member of the advisory board of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an advocacy group that fights inappropriate religious proselytizing inside the armed forces, said founder Mikey Weinstein, a retired Air Force lawyer.

“He confirmed for me how deeply entrenched fundamentalist Christianity is in the DoD Spec Ops [Department of Defense Special Operations] world of the SEALs, Green Berets, Delta Force, Army Rangers USAF … and

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

A powerful (and depressing) comment by trinioler on PZ’s excellent response to Ron Lindsay’s post:

Okay, so, people believe that the slyme pitters are just trolls on “the internet”. Well, disabuse yourselves of that notion.

So, we have a local CFI branch. It started out as fairly libertarian, focused on laughing at creationists, etc.

So, some of the original organizers were the branch of libertarian skeptics/atheists we are having so much trouble with now.

Now, given that, what impact does this have now? Well, its had a pretty severe impact, as several of the younger organizers (nearly all women) have left CFI or stopped participating.

The Facebook page for the branch is filled with assholes who mislead, lie, make comments … Read the rest

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

The Highlands Presbyterians are outraged because Dawkins is invited to the Faclan Hebridean Book Festival on the Isle of Lewis.

The festival does not take place until November but as soon as Prof Dawkins’ name appeared on the schedule it was enough to rouse the ire of many in this stronghold of Presbyterianism.

Pastor Donnie Stewart of the New Wine Church in Stornoway said: “It is disappointing he has been invited, given the Christian heritage and local sensitivities here.”

Is it? So the Christian heritage there means atheists should Keep Out? Only one opinion allowed, in the whole region? Really, Mr Stewart – that’s an awfully theocratic claim.

…the Free Church (known locally as the Wee Frees) got involved, challenging

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

Ron Lindsay has a post on divisiveness in the secular community, which is attracting a hailstorm of comments.

I don’t altogether agree with it. I agree with the normative part but not entirely with the descriptive part. For instance…

…if hate-filled comments and threats to women have not been expressly called divisive, it’s because such conduct does not threaten to divide the movement. It has already been repudiated, both implicitly and explicitly, by many, if not most, of the organizations in the movement.

But that doesn’t do it. It has not already been repudiated, even implicitly, by some prominent individuals in the movement. To put it another way, there are some prominent individuals in the movement who promote it … Read the rest

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

The Telegraph is outraged because Richard Dawkins had the temerity to say that Mormonism has ridiculous stuff in it. It uses loaded language to convey its outrage.

Richard Dawkins on Sunday accused Mitt Romney of being a “massively gullible fool” as he launched into a furious tirade against the Republican’s Mormon faith.

Britain’s most prominent atheist attacked the core tenets of Mr Romney’s religion, saying that the Church of Latter Day Saints’ founding prophet was “a fraud” and that the presidential contender was “too stupid to see it”.

“No matter how much you agree with Romney’s economic policy, can you really vote for such a massively gullible fool?” asked Prof Dawkins during an outburst on Twitter that lasted several hours.

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

Today was Cooper’s last trip to the vet, to get the stitches taken out. His paw is healed! I still can’t take him out to run after the tennis ball at 90 miles an hour or to race over rocks to swim in the waves, but we can go for long walks.

Whew. Glad that’s over.

… Read the rest

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