I wonder what the fans of pope Francis will make of his claim that the church has been the best ever at rooting out sexual abuse of children. I know what I make of it, but then I’m not a fan.

Pope Francis has defended the Catholic Church’s record on tackling the sexual abuse of children by priests, saying “no-one else has done more” to root out paedophilia.

“The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility. No-one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked,” he said in an interview with Il Corriere della Sera daily published Wednesday.

Transparency! All that sending abuser priests … Read the rest

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What’s the thing about skeptics?

Is there a thing about them? Yes, I think there is. They tend to attract assholes. They tend to be assholes. I know lots who aren’t assholes, but I also know, and know of, lots who are. More than many other groups and movements and “communities,” skepticism seems to be a recruiting hall for assholes. Why is that?

Jason talked about this issue yesterday:

I do not consent to the skeptical “brand”, insofar as there is one, being represented by malicious con-men and other ne’er-do-wells. The skeptical way of thinking is a toolset that supplements a person’s identity. Not every person’s identity toolset is complete — many people lack empathy or a strong moral

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About this god person.

I’ve been arguing about it with Michael Nugent on the Atheist Ireland Facebook group. It started from an aphoristic remark Michael made there yesterday:

Because theism is a statement about the nature of reality and morality, atheism is also a statement about the nature of reality and morality.

I said

I think both theism and atheism are statements about reality. I’m not sure either is necessarily a statement about morality.

There could be a theism that posited a “god” with no interest in humans and thus no interest in giving them moral instructions.

Michael’s view is that belief even in a god with no interest in humans is still a belief about morality.

I agree that … Read the rest

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An interview with Ensaf Haider, wife of the imprisoned Saudi blogger Raef Badawi.

The background:

Saudi Arabian blogger and editor of a liberal website, Raef Badawi, was arrested on 17 June 2012 in Jeddah.

Over a year later, in July 2013, Badawi was convicted under Saudi Arabia’s anti-cybercrime law and sentenced to 600 lashes and seven years and three months in prison.

He was found guilty of “insulting Islam”, “founding a liberal website” and “adopting liberal thought”. He was also convicted of “insulting religious symbols” and criticising the religious police and officials calling for gender segregation in the Shura Council. The online forum, Liberal Saudi Network – created to foster political and social debate in Saudi Arabia – was

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More of Ben Radford’s…indirectness, from the comments on that public Facebook post.

Torkel Ødegård and now that this is out in open, let the rageblogging commence!

Scott Mardis Good luck, ben.

Ben Radford I will not be participating in any discussions, debates, or blogging about this. This is now a legal matter, and it will be decided by a judge or jury.

Torkel Ødegård I wasn’t referring to you. I was referring to THOSE people.

Laurie Miller Tarr Yes, Torkel, they are going to blog about it, and they are going to say that all Karen did was speak out, and Ben is being a bully and and further punishing her. But the truth is she accused Ben of

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Hey remember the other day – February 27th it was, last Thursday – I wrote a post about how Ben Radford wrote a post about False Accusations of Sexual Assault? And how it was more or less simultaneous with one by Carol Tavris on the same subject? And how it all seemed rather pointed? And then Orac wrote one? About conflicts of interest and how Ben Radford hadn’t disclosed his?

Yes well today Radford did a public post on Facebook that was a photograph of his lawsuit against Karen Stollznow. That was a secret last week but now it isn’t.

So Radford’s post last week looks even more pointed once you know that, doesn’t it, and the conflict of … Read the rest

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Another one. The previous one worked, so naturally there’s another one! Just as all the commentators pointed out.

Another publisher has pulled all copies in India of another book by Wendy Doniger.

BANGALORE: Within weeks of Penguin controversially recalling Wendy Doniger’s book, ‘The Hindus: An Alternative History’, another publisher, Aleph, pulled out the American author’s previous work, ‘On Hinduism’, on Tuesday. Bookshops across Bangalore received calls from representatives of Aleph Book Company, promoted by Rupa Publications, seeking return of all copies of the book.

Confirming the move, an Aleph spokesman said, “We don’t want to get involved in any controversy. Officials from our Delhi office sent a clear message to us — recall all copies of ‘On Hinduism’ we

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A horror story from Kurdistan Region.

A photograph of two bodies being dragged out of a pond with chains has caused even a greater outcry in Iraqi Kurdistan than the murder of the two young sisters involved.

“We intend to visit the Ministry of Internal Affairs to ask them about it,” says Parwa Ali, an MP in the Kurdistan parliament for the Change Movement (Gorran), the second-largest Kurdish party.

“This is too terrible. It is clear that the police from top to bottom needs training.”

The bodies of two sisters (aged 16 and 18) were found in a pond in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Said Sadiq, some 50 kilometers from Sulaimani, Kurdistan’s second-biggest city. They had been missing

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Another great who will be at Women in Secularism 3 in a few weeks:

Katha Pollitt.

… Read the rest

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It’s annoying when someone you’re arguing with (yes, on social media, not in actual [shudder] real life) says “I’m just being pedantic.”

No, you’re not being pedantic, you’re being wrong. I’m being pedantic, not you.

Sheesh.… Read the rest

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News from the British Humanist Association:

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has expressed alarm after a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that Ofqual, OCR and other exam boards have been reaching agreements with at least one and seemingly several state funded ‘faith’ schools to allow them to black out exam questions on evolution, where such questions are deemed incompatible with the schools’ religious ethos.

If a “school” has a “religious ethos” that is incompatible with teaching about evolution then it’s not a “school”; it’s a religious institution of some kind. It’s not education, it’s not teaching, it’s not a school, if there is a religious filter on the content.

The information came to light after Yesoday Hatorah

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Via Marcus Ranum: Pro Publica reports that guards may be responsible for half of prison sexual assaults.

A new Justice Department study shows that allegations of sex abuse in the nation’s prisons and jails are increasing — with correctional officers responsible for half of it  — but prosecution is still extremely rare.

…

The survey also shows a growing proportion of the allegations have been dismissed by prison officials as “unfounded” or “unsubstantiated.” Only about 10 percent are substantiated by an investigation.

But even in the rare cases where there is enough evidence to prove that sexual abuse occurred, and that a correctional officer is responsible for it, the perpetrator rarely faces prosecution. While most prison staff shown to be

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Speaking of our grotesque rates of incarceration in the US – here’s a guy in California who was legally growing legal marijuana for a collective of medical marijuana dispensaries, who has been sentenced to two years in the slammer.

Robert Duncan moved from Los Angeles to Northern California in 2010 to manage marijuana growing operations for a collective of medical marijuana dispensaries. Although California voters legalized medical cannabis more than 17 years ago, the plant remains illegal under federal law, and the Obama administration launched a renewed crackdown on marijuana in California in 2011.

That October, Duncan’s grow house was raided. A few months later, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner indicted him and others involved in the dispensary business on

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There’s an interview with Rebecca Goldstein in the Atlantic. She’s a speaker at Women in Secularism 3.

[pause for inward tap dance; inward so as not to alarm Cooper who is asleep]\

From the intro:

At a time when advances in science and technology have changed our understanding of our mental and physical selves, it is easy for some to dismiss the discipline of philosophy as obsolete. Stephen Hawking, boldly, argues that philosophy is dead.

Yes, and Richard Dawkins, absurdly, demands why philosophy didn’t think of natural selection before Darwin.

How early do you think children can, or should, start learning about philosophy?

I started really early with my daughters. They said the most interesting things that if

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A tour around FTB…

From the newest blog, On the Margin of Error, Kaveh talks about the fetish for uncertainty.

…we are not certain if there is an alien species or not. But if someone says that he knows aliens have their asses on their heads and every time they fart their eyes pop out, then we can be certain that person is wrong, and our certainty is not dogmatic, but only rational.

I have that thought often. There could be a First Cause, or a Whatever, or another cosmos in which this cosmos is just an atom, along with a cosmos in every atom of this cosmos…But none of that has anything to do with all the nonsensical … Read the rest

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And just today, a few hours ago, at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, the third annual Flowers for Magdalenes event, to remember the women who died in the Magdalene Laundries.

Speakers included Mary Lou McDonald TD (Sinn Féin), Claire McGettrick (Justice for Magdalenes), Lynn Boylan (Sinn Féin) and Martina Keogh (Survivor of the Magdalene laundries).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwcXTlWEx1k

 … Read the rest

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Meet Mari Steed.

Mari Steed was two-years-old when she was adopted from Ireland by a family from Flourtown, PA. Years later, her search for her birth mother turned up the Magdalene Laundries’ terrifying legacy, and Steed is widely credited for her campaign for justice and the Irish Government’s apology to the Magdalene survivors.

Mari is the daughter of a Magdalene survivor. She was taken from her mother and sent for adoption in America at eighteen months old.

She might never have gone looking for the woman who relinquished her had fate not brought her a great empathy for her mother’s experience. In her senior year of high school, Steed became pregnant by her boyfriend. Her parents sent her

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Boko Haram struck again yesterday.

The attackers – believed to be from the Boko Haram group – destroyed the entire village of Mainok, about 50km (30 miles) west of the city of Maiduguri.

The incident took place late on Saturday, hours after two bomb blasts killed at least 50 people in Maiduguri.

Boko Haram has been conducting a four-year violent campaign to demand Islamic rule in northern Nigeria.

The morning after the latest attack, bodies were lying in front of the mosque waiting to be buried and buildings in Mainok were still on fire, the BBC’s Will Ross reports from Lagos.

An eyewitness described how the attack unfolded: “They started shooting everywhere, they started burning all the houses in

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