Another thing about the two sheds – I’ve mentioned this before, I think, so apologies if you’re bored with it – is that even if we can’t know there is no god, we can know other relevant things, such as, that no one has managed to convince us (“us” being atheists) that god exists.

You could say that you don’t really know that because maybe way down deep somewhere you are a little bit convinced. But I don’t think so: being convinced is entangled with being aware of being convinced – being aware of the conviction is part of the conviction. It seems nonsensical to claim you can be convinced of something without being aware of it.

I know that … Read the rest

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Cara Santa Maria gave a talk at the CFI Summit which I enjoyed a lot. She talked about having tattoos and piercings and always making sure to have the arm tattoo visible when she does public stuff, because she wants young people (and people in general) to realize that scientists can look like her and like them.

She also talked about becoming an atheist at 14, having been raised Mormon, and how difficult that was. Her parents were divorced; her father (but not her mother) was very strictly Mormon; her father told her it was his duty to force her to continue going to church until she was 18. So a gulf opened up between them that lasted for years. … Read the rest

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Tickets for QED 2014 are now on sale. If being in Manchester the weekend of the 12-13 April next year is at all feasible for you and you have £99 I strongly recommend going.

The people who run it are terrific and they do a brilliant job, and there are terrific people attending as well. (I met Rhys Morgan there, also his father Dr Paul of that ilk, also Alex Gabriel, also Maureen Brian, also Author of Jesus and Mo, to name only a few.)… Read the rest

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Originally the second part of a comment by Salty Current on Shock-horror: research fails to find Big Danger in GMO crops

[Quoting "The Beautiful Void" @ 14]

Regarding the fact that Monsanto et al are for-profit companies: Of course they are. Farms themselves are for-profit companies, and often ones with dismal environmental records. Medicines are made by for-profit companies too; so are clothes, so are cars, so are computers. We live in a world where most of the things we encounter every day were made by for-profit companies. Where I live, in London, my very drinking water is supplied by a for-profit.

If your position is that all for-profit is inherently deplorable, then while I might disagree, I can’t fault

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Carrie Poppy has a public post on Facebook that elicited a lot of very funny and apposite comments. I’ll share some of the best.

First the post (which started life as a tweet) (should I do that thing where your tweets go to Facebook?) (no, probably not, because I wouldn’t do it right):

Me: I don’t feel safe in that alley, because people got stabbed there. Them: HAVE YOU COMPARED IT TO EVERY OTHER ALLEY? You’re overreacting.

Then some of the best comments. Without authors, in case they prefer it that way. Except Carrie.

If there’s one thing the skeptical community taught me, it’s that one person’s lack of an experience can be accurately extrapolated out to all others.

Carrie

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Never trust people approaching you in the street with a petition! They could be testing you.

A Londoner who suffered female genital mutilation has warned that political correctness is hampering the fight to stamp it out after asking people to sign a fake petition in its favour.

Leyla Hussein, 32, said many were scared to speak out against FGM because they were worried about criticising another culture.

She decided to conduct an experiment to see “how crazy political correctness has become” but was left in tears by the end.

Approaching shoppers with the petition supporting FGM, she told them she wanted to protect her  “culture, traditions and rights”.

In only 30 minutes 19 people signed it with some saying

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Let’s do a comparative study, or rather, let’s compare a couple of things. The American Humanist Association has a ten commandments, and I made up a ten commandments a few weeks ago, so it might be interesting to see if they have much in common. I naturally assume they have a good deal in common – a lot more in common with each other than either has with the Old Testament version.

The Humanist version:

1) Thou shalt strive to promote the greater good of humanity before all selfish desires.
2) Thou shalt be curious, for asking questions is the only way to find answers.

3) Harm to your fellow human is harm to humanity. Therefore, thou shalt

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Pentecostal churches in Africa do a lot of harm. The president of Cameroon is attempting to do something about that.

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has ordered the closure of nearly 100 Christian churches in key cities, citing criminal practices organized by Pentecostal pastors that threaten the security of the West African nation.

But Pentecostal pastors said the move is evidence of Biya’s insecurity about the churches’ criticism of the government.

Biya is using the military to permanently shut down all Pentecostal church denominations in the nation’s capital, Yaounde, and the North West Regional capital, Bamenda, which have the largest Christian populations in Cameroon.

To an American, steeped in the culture of freedom of [including from] religion, that seems like a … Read the rest

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GMO-phobes please note:

Massive Review Reveals Consensus on GMO Safety

“The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of genetically engineered crops.”

That’s the conclusion from a team of Italian scientists, who just completed a thorough systematic review of the scientific research conducted on genetically modified (GM) crops in the past decade. Their work is published in the journal Critical Review of Biotechnology.

But but but the genes of GM crops will spread to wild plants, other crops, and microorganisms.

The review affirmed that this can indeed occur.

“The formation of hybrids between GE crops and wild relatives is possible and documented,” Nicolia said.

There is a caveat, however. According

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Was there a rumor that the slime pit had gotten not so bad? Or did I imagine it? Anyway it’s not not so bad, that I can see. I normally don’t look at it, but it showed up in the stats again (as it does so often) and I was vaguely curious to see if they were raging at me for posting about the CFI Summit because whrblxqfxx. No, they’re raging at me for being so (physically, aesthetically, sexually) disgusting.

• Re: Bleeding from the Bunghole

by katamari Damassi » Mon Oct 28, 2013 2:44 pm  •  [Post 18619]

Cunning Punt wrote:Suddenly I want to fuck Service Dog.

Only because society has indoctrinated you that SD is sexy and that

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It’s exhilarating to know that Egypt is in such wonderful shape that its national security officials can squander their valuable time arresting people for posting atheism on Facebook.

A 20-year-old Egyptian student is reportedly under investigation for starting a Facebook group calling for atheism.

The unnamed student who studies commerce at the Suez Canal University in Ismailia, was arrested after the university’s administration filed a complaint over his alleged activities, Egypt’s largest news organisation Al-Ahram online writes.

The newspaper adds the accused student is now being investigated by national security officials.

There’s actually a law against that though?

Don’t be silly; of course there is.

While the story has yet to be verified by other sources, article 98 of

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Turkey used to be more secular than it is now. It’s going in the wrong direction. It’s going backward. Of course, theocrats think it’s going in the right direction, and going forward, or else that going backward is a good thing.

Torcant sent me this example from Hürriyet, in which a woman is fired because cleavage.

A television presenter has been dismissed over a low-cut top she wore on a television program, following criticism from ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesperson Hüseyin Çelik.

Çelik criticized the presenter’s costume during a TV program, without giving a name, saying he found the dress “extreme” because of its open cleavage.

“We don’t intervene against anyone, but this is too much. It

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You know that thing where you’re in a place with a lot of people you don’t see very often, and you cross paths with someone who says, warmly, “Hi, [your name here]!” and you know who it is but can’t pull the name up quite fast enough to say it before you’ve already said the “Hi” part and it’s too late? And you feel terrible? But then later you figure out a way to seek the person out so that you can say the name right off the bat? And then you feel very relieved?

That.… Read the rest

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I sat next to Eddie Tabash at the speakers’ dinner Saturday, so I’ve been reminded (aka inspired) to focus more on the church/state issues looming at the Supreme Court, so you can expect me to be sharing more reportage on the subject.

The LA Times has a useful article by its business columnist on the “do corporations have a ‘religious conscience’?” question.

Now that the Supreme Court has endowed corporations with the right to have their voices heard via unrestrained spending on political campaigns (in the Citizens United decision of 2010), there aren’t many frontiers left to test the idea that corporations are “persons.”

But one test is heading our way with the speed of a freight train. This

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More on the teenage Kenyan girl who was gangraped and then thrown into a toilet pit, from the BBC.

They threw her unconscious body into a latrine. Her spine was broken, and the girl – referred to simply as Liz to protect her identity – is now in a wheelchair.

Earlier this year, a similarly horrific gang rape in India sparked a worldwide frenzy in social media and brought international condemnation.

Liz’s case was first reported by Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper on 7 October. “This is one of many such cases that happen in rural areas and the slums,” says Njeri Rugene, the journalist who broke the story. “People keep quiet about it – but it’s rampant.”

The men

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He never should have been in prison in the first place, and he was there for 20 months, but he’s out now, so YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Al Jazeera reports:

Supporters of Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari are celebrating his release after his imprisonment 20 months ago. His lawyer Abdulrahman Allahim said he was released early Tuesday, though there was no official confirmation from the government.

Kashgari was detained in February 2012 for allegedly blasphemous tweets. He fled to Malaysia following widespread outcry and death threats from some religious conservatives. He was extradited back to the kingdom where he was apprehended.

Remember that? He was heading for Indonesia, I think, New Zealand but he had to go via Kuala Lumpur and there the … Read the rest

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I knew the situation with antibiotics was bad but I didn’t know how bad. It’s really bad. The part I didn’t realize (which was stupid of me, because it’s obvious once it’s pointed out) is how heavily most advances in medical treatment, i.e. surgeries, depend on antibiotics. We’re screwed.

Frontline did a big show on it last week which I haven’t seen yet. It has an interview with Dr. Arjun Srinivasan of the CDC on its website.

They really are miracle drugs, and not only have they saved the lives of millions and millions of people … but antibiotics have opened up new frontiers in medicine that would be impossible without them.

Like what?

For example, organ transplantation. One of

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For awhile the Mormon church tried to appear like less of a malicious hate-driven institution, but now that Romney has not been elected president it’s decided the hell with that, at least in Hawaii. It’s back to the old project of trying to repair the gayness, according to Mother Jones.

This week, the Hawaii state legislature began a special session to consider a bill that would legalize gay marriage in the state. The church is actively working to kill that measure.

One Sunday in September, local Mormon bishops read a letter from top Hawaii Mormon leadership instructing churchgoers to contact public officials about the same-sex marriage bill.

The letter was not the full-throated call to action the church issued during

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Another petition worth flagging up (because worth signing) - about a rape case in Kenya in which the rapists were basically congratulated and sent on their merry way.

["Liz" is not the victim's real name and that's not a picture of her.]

16 year old Liz was walking home from her grandfather’s funeral when she was ambushed by six men who took turns raping her and then threw her unconscious body down a 6-meter toilet pit. Their punishment? Police had them mow their station lawn, then let them go free!

Liz’s horror story has sent shockwaves through Kenya and now politicians and the police are under pressure to respond. But women’s groups in Kenya say nothing will truly change unless

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