All entries by this author

God gonna torture you so ha

Feb 16th, 2012 10:40 am | By

Update: I missed the date, which is 2009. I probably blogged about it three years ago. Possibly word for word, in which case I think I’ll take up basket-weaving.

More entitled bleating from an entitled Christian about the requirement to “respect” her religious beliefs no matter how vicious they are.

A five-year-old child at a school in Devon told a classmate she would go to hell if she didn’t believe in god. The school told the child not to do that kind of thing, and the child told her mother, and her mother pitched the usual kind of fit.

Mr Read defended the school’s treatment of the matter and said they encouraged all children to “think independently”, but would not

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



School tells children not to threaten each other with hell *

Feb 16th, 2012 | Filed by

Result is uproar about failure to “respect” religious beliefs.… Read the rest



The control-freaky ways of Mars Hill Church *

Feb 16th, 2012 | Filed by

To seal the deal, the prospective member must formally agree to submit to the “authority” of the Mars Hill leadership.… Read the rest



Nick Cohen on a culture that pretends to be brave

Feb 16th, 2012 9:55 am | By

At the Rally for Free Expression.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lffXO_LLWo

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



Nick Cohen at the Rally for Free Expression *

Feb 16th, 2012 | Filed by

In 1936 no newspaper would publish news of Wallis Simpson; now no newspaper will publish the Danish cartoons. This is not progress.… Read the rest



Another nightmare

Feb 15th, 2012 5:36 pm | By

Another story of children whose parents think they are witches, sent to me by Leo Igwe.

Seoul (CNN) — A pastor and his wife are in custody accused of killing three of their children by starving them to ward off evil spirits, police in South Korea said Wednesday.

The couple told police the children — aged nine, seven and three — had been ill, which they believed was a sign they were invaded by evil spirits after eating too much on Lunar New Year.

They then cut the children’s hair to chase the spirits out and starved them from January 24 until February 2, only allowing them to drink water. Local media reports said the parents had beaten the

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



First order of business

Feb 15th, 2012 11:41 am | By

Whatever else we do, whatever metaphysical view gets us there, the first order of business has to be shackling women. We always have to make sure women don’t have too many rights. We have to make very damn sure they’re not as free to decide how to live their own lives as men are.

We have to carve away their genitals so that they won’t have sexual feelings.

In the rural areas of Egypt, in Upper Egypt, however there is scant respect for the law. You hear the words “tradition”, “custom”, “honour” uttered like a mantra when people justify their decision to circumcise their daughters.

The belief there is that it is the female who is sexually rampant and

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



Egypt: FGM is rife despite ban *

Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by

“Of course we fear this new parliament won’t tackle issues like FGM because already there are extremists who want FGM unlike the previous regime.”… Read the rest



Saudi religious cops arrest over 140 for Valentine’s Day *

Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by

The Organisation for Promoting Virtue and Discouraging Evil says officers have punished those caught so far.… Read the rest



Virginia House passes fetal personhood bill *

Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by

The House of Delegates voted 66-32 in favor of defining the word person under state law to include unborn children “from the moment of conception.”… Read the rest



Carl Elliott on ghostwriting and plagiarism *

Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by

University administrators sometimes compare themselves to corporate executives, who are not generally criticized for having ghostwriters on staff.… Read the rest



Eric MacDonald on Michael Ruse on Darwin Day *

Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by

Ruse wants us to leave a little protected reserve for otherworldly thoughts that can be shielded from the deep quest for knowledge on which science is founded.… Read the rest



The non-skeptical “Skeptiko”

Feb 15th, 2012 9:55 am | By

Ah, this brings back memories – Jerry Coyne did an interview with Alex Tsakiris of “Skeptiko”- which is “Skeptiko,” please note, not “Skeptico.” There’s a difference. I didn’t know that in September 2010, which is why I accepted Tsakiris’s invitation to do an interview.

It was a complete dog’s breakfast. The guy’s an asshole. He’s not a skeptic at all, and the name is pretty obviously meant to trap people in just the way that several people – including me – have been trapped. He’s a woo-meister. He didn’t tip his hand for the first few minutes, so we had an amicable conversation for that long, but then he did, and we hit a brick wall.

He bullshitted … Read the rest

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The barmaid praises Jesus and Mo for ingenuity *

Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by

They are grateful.… Read the rest



Less mealy-mouthed about their beliefs

Feb 15th, 2012 7:28 am | By

Now I’ve seen everything – now that I’ve seen an editorial in the Telegraph saying how swell Islam is compared to those other timid religions that won’t stand up for themselves.

It’s another Warsi-flatter, saying how right she is to order everyone to be intrusively religious and to go urge the pope to be more intrusively religious along with her.

It is unsurprising that it has taken a Muslim member of the Cabinet to speak out clearly and forcefully on the importance of faith in the life of the nation; followers of Islam tend to be less mealy-mouthed about their beliefs than many Christians.

Why yes, yes they do. Some are so much less mealy-mouthed that they threaten cartoonists and … Read the rest

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



Sahara TV on Helen Ukpabio

Feb 14th, 2012 5:32 pm | By

Sahara TV talks to Pastor Godwin Umotong of Liberty Gospel Church in Houston about the “deliverance” mission of Helen Ukpabio.

Where are the mermaids, by the way? Are they in the Gulf of Mexico?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5BeYr0V__0

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



Valerie Tarico on Plan B and motivated beliefs

Feb 14th, 2012 5:10 pm | By

Remember the caring sensitive Mummy whose disabled daughter was raped and who decided not to let her have Plan B? Because “It’s about taking the life of an innocent child”?

Well Valerie Tarico has an excellent post on The Big Lie about Plan B.

Plan B doesn’t cause abortion. It stops or delays ovulation. No egg, no fertilization, no pregnancy – no abortion. It’s that simple.

Well then why did the caring sensitive Mummy say it did? Why did she get all maudlin about the innocent child whose life had to not be taken?

So why does the Religious Right keep telling us that post-coital contraceptives function by aborting teeny babies? Because in the minds of many

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



The Women’s Ministry should exist to improve the lives of women

Feb 14th, 2012 11:37 am | By

Houzan Mahmoud will soon have a statement on Iraq’s Women’s Minister Ibtihal Kasid Alzaidi, who thinks and says that women are not equal to men. Not a good thing for a Women’s Minister to think. … Read the rest

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



More than one valence

Feb 14th, 2012 11:16 am | By

Something I’m ambivalent about:

On the one hand, there’s the value of being reasonable, and trying to see all sides of a question. There’s the value of not getting things wrong by being too one-sided; by confirmation bias; by seeing everything the way you see everything and so becoming blind to other ways of seeing everything. That’s different from the more political value of giving everybody a fair hearing, and letting people pursue the good in their own way as far as is compatible with the rights of others. The value I mean is epistemic and cognitive.

On the other hand there’s the value of countering a very loud, dominant, hegemonic, majoritarian, conformist brand of conventional wisdom.

Those two things … Read the rest

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



Derby: 3 men jailed for distributing gay death call leaflets *

Feb 14th, 2012 | Filed by

The leaflets showed an image of a wooden mannequin hanging from a noose, quoted Islamic texts, and said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.… Read the rest