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In a couple of weeks

Feb 19th, 2012 5:44 pm | By

Meanwhile…see that top banner in the right margin, the one above Rock Beyond Belief? Moving Secularism Forward? I’m a speaker at that. Orlando is kind of far away from everything except Florida, but I’m hoping some people will turn up anyway.

It’s a great lineup.

Daniel C. Dennett, Sir Harold Kroto, PZ Myers, Russell Blackford, Stephen Law, Rita Swan, Anthony Pinn, Victor Stenger, Elisabeth Cornwell, Eddie Tabash, Lionel Tiger, Ronald Bailey, Razib Khan, Jamila Bey, Sikivu Hutchinson, David Silverman, Bill Cooke, Steven K. Green, Ellenbeth Wachs, Ronald A. Lindsay, Debbie Goddard and Tom Flynn.

The following weekend I’m at QED in Manchester.

QED has a blog post about Maryam.… Read the rest

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And now for some good Twitter jokes

Feb 19th, 2012 11:14 am | By

Martin Robbins@mjrobbins And here is The Telegraph’s Charles Moore in 2005 attacking Blair for apologizing for slavery http://tgr.ph/AeDOiu

plus

So according to the Telegraph, you shouldn’t hold guilt for your ancestors’ actions, unless you’re Richard Dawkins. Neat.

David Aaronovitch@DAaronovitch

The Telegraph attack on Dawkins for having slave-trading forebears two centuries back, is wonderfully bizarre. Mad, really.

plus

Information is invited on ancestral sins, going back three centuries, of Telegraph editors, sundry bishops and Tory politicians. #pastsins

plus

Re Telegraph outing of past Dawkins, I have to confess to being descended from Sir Darcy O’Ronovitch of the Hellfire Club, hanged in 1782.

Mr Roger Quimbly@RogerQuimbly

According to Richard Dawkins, the Sunday Telegraph is descended … Read the rest

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Look out, he’s got a whip

Feb 19th, 2012 10:35 am | By

And last item on your exciting breakfast menu, all items with complimentary orange slice and sprig of mint, the Daily Mail on Dawkins as sekrit descendant of slaveowners.

Never mind, don’t get excited, it’s just the Telegraph article, reported. It does add one stupidity of its own though -

Equality groups are now calling on him to apologise for his family’s past.

Are they? Really? Groups, plural? Independently of reporters phoning them and asking for a quote? Can you name as many as one?

Plus they added an illustration.

 

 captioned

Ancestors of Richard Dawkins are believed to have been linked to slavery

Filthy. They’re a filthy crew. We knew that, but it’s worth saying anyway.… Read the rest

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Yemen: Tawakkul Karman gets death threat *

Feb 19th, 2012 | Filed by

The Nobel Peace laureate and pro-democracy activist received the threat in a short text message sent to her mobile phone demanding that she repent or face death.… Read the rest

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Canadian government accused of “muzzling” its scientists *

Feb 19th, 2012 | Filed by

Speakers at a major science meeting in Canada said communication of vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed.… Read the rest

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Telegraph hit piece on Dawkins *

Feb 19th, 2012 | Filed by

A new low in sleaze.… Read the rest

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Argumentum ad haircut

Feb 19th, 2012 9:33 am | By

There’s a separate, unrelated hit piece on Dawkins in the Sunday Times, which I haven’t yet read because of the paywall, but a comment at RDF quotes from it, and that’s quite informative by itself.

I’ve just been reading an article in today’s (19/02/12) Sunday Times By Camilla Long. It’s the front page of the News Review section and has a photo of Richard on the front page of the section. It really is the most appalling article. The very first sentence gives a flavour of how it will go, “Richard Dawkins has an extremely unfortunate face in that he always looks angry, even when he is quite calm.” I don’t know who she met, or if she has even

… Read the rest

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The disgraceful Telegraph article on Dawkins

Feb 19th, 2012 9:03 am | By

The Telegraph hit piece on Dawkins is out (as many of you already know; it’s nearly 5 in the afternoon in the UK, while it’s only a fresh-faced nearly 9 in the morning here on the west coast of the US). It’s even worse than I expected it to be, and that’s saying something. It’s vicious slavering bullshit. It’s a disgrace to journalism.

He has railed against the evils of religion, and lectured the world on the virtues of atheism.

Now Richard Dawkins, the secularist campaigner against “intolerance and suffering”, must face an awkward revelation: he is descended from slave owners and his family estate was bought with a fortune partly created by forced labour.

It’s not “awkward.” We’re all … Read the rest

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And another one, and more, and more

Feb 18th, 2012 5:08 pm | By

This one also from the Telegraph, by someone called Stephen Bayley (by which I mean, as you may remember, that I haven’t heard of him before, not that he’s obscure or beneath my lofty notice). It has no content, it’s just a brief volley of abuse.

…Richard Dawkins, a fanatic disguised as a scientist. And surely, in the powerful counterproductive sway of his noisy arguments, proof of the existence of God? Terrible to awake in that groggy matutinal state when things lodge in your addled brain and hear shrill, ugly, cruel arguments on the radio. Atheists seem to be very good at dogma. Dawkins seems not to understand that his own zealotry is itself a sort of religious quest. And

… Read the rest

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Telegraph does research, discovers that Dawkins has ancestors

Feb 18th, 2012 4:41 pm | By

Well now that’s a new wrinkle – a Telegraph reporter phoning Dawkins to say, “Oi! Do you realize your ancestors owned slaves in Jamaica in the 18th century? What have you got to say to that? One was named Henry. They owned many slaves. Do you feel any guilt about it?” Then when Dawkins cuts the call short because it’s so stupid plus he has a lecture to prepare, the reporter phones back (despite having been dismissed, which seems quite ill-mannered) to say, “Natural selection has a lot to do with genes yeh? Well, some people might suggest that you could have inherited a gene for supporting slavery from Henry Dawkins.”

Did you ever? And that’s not even all of … Read the rest

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Beware the frumious bandersnatch

Feb 18th, 2012 10:13 am | By

Polly Toynbee thinks secularism is not such a terrible idea. She’s not completely persuaded by claims that secularism is ruining all the things.

…the faiths are glad to circle their wagons round [the queen] against the unbelievers. Each has their own divinely revealed unique truth, often provoking mortal conflict, Muslim v Copt, Catholic v Protestant, Hindu v Muslim or Sunni v Shia. But suddenly the believers are united in defence against the secular, willing to suspend the supremacy of their own prophets to agree that any religion, however alien, from elephant god to son of God, is better than none.

They can all feel their victimhood now, facing what Baroness Warsi called a rising tide of “militant secularisation

… Read the rest

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So long

Feb 18th, 2012 9:23 am | By

Seen on the UCL ASH page at Facebook:

… Read the rest

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Nothing extreme about separating church and state *

Feb 18th, 2012 | Filed by

Aggressive? You should see this week’s “burn in hell” messages to the BHA attacking “that spastic Hawking who denies God”, and many more obscene unprintables.… Read the rest

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Councils given “rights” to impose prayers on everyone *

Feb 18th, 2012 | Filed by

Communities secretary says he is effectively reversing the High Court’s “illiberal ruling” that a Devon council’s prayers were unlawful. Mandatory theism is so liberal.… Read the rest

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Santorum says Dems will introduce the guillotine *

Feb 18th, 2012 | Filed by

War on faith: French Revolution: guillotine.… Read the rest

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Nick Cohen on the attack of the militant secularists *

Feb 18th, 2012 | Filed by

An established church that uses the force of law to insist on a privileged position seems slightly more authoritarian than  those of us who want a level playing field.… Read the rest

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Last night in Cranston

Feb 17th, 2012 5:51 pm | By

My brother was at the Cranston school board meeting last night. He told me he thought the day was really won by a great Irish guy named Dan McCarthy

who  got up early in the comment session and said “I went to Catholic schools, where  I said the rosary every day.  I also said it at home, with my father. In fact, I said it today with a dying friend. So I’m a practicing  Catholic.

“On the other hand, my great grandfather came here because he was not allowed to own the land he farmed, in Ireland.  Because he was a Catholic.  In a prod country.

“Don’t appeal.”

He sat down, and the atmosphere in the room changed. The  appeal

… Read the rest

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NPR throws mud at Dawkins

Feb 17th, 2012 11:50 am | By

Oh noes, says Barbara J King at NPR, that mean Dawkins guy is the keynote speaker at the Reason Rally. That will wreck the whole thing, right?

No, but Barbara J King does her best to make it so by predicting it, as pseudo-concerned atheist-bashers so often do.

In a 2006 interview with Steve Paulson at Salon (during his tenure as professor of public understanding of science), Dawkins suggested that greater intelligence is correlated with atheism. He also said that when it encourages belief in the absence of evidence, “there’s something very evil about faith.”

Yes; and?

Here is what he said in the full version – note first of all that it’s the interviewer who introduces the word … Read the rest

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Will Dawkins roooooin the Reason Rally? *

Feb 17th, 2012 | Filed by

Because he’s so mean and all? Barbara J King at NPR says he will.… Read the rest

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Next up for Cranston

Feb 17th, 2012 9:59 am | By

Steve Ahlquist – Jessica’s uncle – has a plan for what to do next, to benefit Cranston public schools, which he posted at the Facebook group Support the Removal of the Cranston High School West Prayer.

Awhile back, the Cranston school committee cut funding for music at their schools, because of budgetary concerns. In response, a group of concerned parents formed a group called BASICS, which I’ll find a link to soon, with the aim of restoring the programs. Raising money for the City of Cranston or the school committee would not allow them to “learn their lesson” but funding BASICS will put money directly into cut programs. The school committee will still have to pay, but the kids

… Read the rest

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