Ok this is funny. Edwina Rogers is the new Executive Director of the RDF, and the RDF interviewed her for its Secular VIP of Week. So who made that decision? Was it the exec – oh wait. Couldn’t have been.

What if you allied the biggest secular groups in the United States and placed their political goals in the hands of someone who’s worked in the White House? And again in the White House, and for four US senators? This week we interview our very own Edwina Rogers, Executive Director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, in her other role as head of the Secular Coalition for America.

Good idea! Then next week you can interview Richard Dawkins in his other role as head of All the Atheism. Then the week after that Edwina Rogers and Richard Dawkins can have a dialogue about what it’s like to be the head of everything.

RDF: You run both the Richard Dawkins Foundation and the Secular Coalition for America. Where do you get your energy?

Edwina Rogers: Well, I’m happy to do it.  At the Secular Coalition for America our mission is to facilitate coordination for all secular groups, to unify the movement.   We are perfectly placed to provide back-up office support for any of the non-theist groups.

Bwahahahahahahahahaha – fabulous hard-hitting question there. Let’s continue.

Why are you so fabulous?

Just born that way I guess.

What made you so glorious?

I can’t explain it.

Where is anyone as fine as you?

I’ve looked everywhere and I still don’t know.

No no, for real now:

RDF: I heard you brought Richard Dawkins to Congress.  How did that go?

Edwina Rogers: We were very fortunate to have Richard Dawkins and Stephen Pinker offer a briefing for the House Staff and for the Senate Staff.  Richard did meetings with several members of the Science and Technology Committee, and answered any questions they had about science and gave advice.  It went very well.  A lot of the members knew who Richard was, or their children were big fans.  Some of them brought in books to be signed.

Hahahahahahaha – “I heard you brought Richard Dawkins to Congress” – heard where? On the grapevine? It’s RDF who asks, yet RDF heard Rogers “brought Richard Dawkins to Congress” as if it were gossip or a rumor?

The Secular Coalition for America has a newsletter, Twitter, and Facebook, and a list of 50 state chapters.

Want your secular group or leader to be picked as Secular VIP of the Week and featured to Richard’s 1.7 million followers? Email johnny@richarddawkins.net.

Ok seriously now – “Richard’s 1.7 million followers”? Followers? What the hell do they mean “followers”?

It’s gone to his head. Badly.

Update: the fan boys react.

Update 2: Oops another fan boy.

Dawkins sure does have classy fan boys.

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

Jesus and Mo stand up for gender segregation and the religious freedom of people who demand gender segregation.

J and M Author tweeted this one twice.

Gentlemen, there’s a new J&M up on the internet: http://www.jesusandmo.net/2013/11/27/rights/ …

Ladies, there’s a new J&M up on the internet: http://www.jesusandmo.net/2013/11/27/rights/ …

Geddit?

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

I thought I couldn’t hate popes and their bullshit any more than I already did, but pope Frank really knows how to push the right buttons. He did a “homily” the other day shitting all over curiosity and saying it’s the opposite of god. (He’s right, but for the wrong reasons. Or for the right reasons, but he doesn’t weigh them correctly.) It’s truly disgusting.

The spirit of curiosity generates confusion and distances a person from the Spirit of wisdom, which brings peace, said Pope Francis in his homily during Thursday morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta. 

The hell with peace (of that kind). We get that when we’re dead; while we’re alive we should make the most of it.

That which God asked of Abraham—‘Walk in my presence and be irreproachable’—is this: this peace. To follow the movement of the Spirit of God and of this wisdom. And the man and woman who walk this path, we can say they are wise men and women… because they follow the movement of God’s patience.

Nonsense. Word salad.

In the Gospel, the Pope underlined, “we find ourselves before another spirit, contrary to the wisdom of God: the spirit of curiosity”.

“And when we want to be the masters of the projects of God, of the future, of things, to know everything, to have everything in hand… the Pharisees asked Jesus, ‘When will the Kingdom of God come?’ Curious! They wanted to know the date, the day… The spirit of curiosity distances us from the Spirit of wisdom because all that interests us is the details, the news, the little stories of the day. Oh, how will this come about? It is the how: it is the spirit of the how! And the spirit of curiosity is not a good spirit. It is the spirit of dispersion, of distancing oneself from God, the spirit of talking too much.”

Terrible. Awful. Anti-human, anti-life, anti-thought. All that peace and union is just nothingness, it’s stagnation, it’s stasis. It’s death. The church claims to be pro-life but that he’s recommending right there, that’s death.

“The Kingdom of God is among us: do not seek strange things, do not seek novelties with this worldly curiosity. Let us allow the Spirit to lead us forward in that wisdom, which is like a soft breeze,” he said. “This is the Spirit of the Kingdom of God, of which Jesus speaks. So be it.”

No.

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

What??

How is this even possible?

AlJazeera reports:

A religious court in Israel has fined a woman $140 each day that her one-year-old son remains uncircumcised. The Rabbinical Court in Jerusalem has reportedly rejected an appeal from the woman, who is currently going through a divorce and whose husband insists the procedure be carried out.

Rabbinical courts in Israel have jurisdiction in Jewish religious matters, including marriage and divorce. However, the woman’s lawyer reportedly argued that the court does not have the authority to demand the circumcision. According to +972 Magazine, there is no legal requirement for parents to have their sons circumcised.

What??

A religious court can require people to mutilate their infant’s genitals and fine them daily if they refuse? How does that even work?

Making the decision against circumcision is a controversial one in Israel. Circumcision has been an important Jewish tenet for millenia, and for the religious, it symbolises a covenant with God.

No doubt it does, but how can sane contemporary people try to require anyone to cut off a bit of their infant’s penis because it symbolizes a covenant with god? Both parts are baffling – the mutilation part and the covenant with a fictional character part.

“Rabbinical courts in Israel have jurisdiction in Jewish religious matters” but does that include requiring everyone to be religious in the first place?

Smh.

Via Joanne Payton

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

Another illustration by Gnu Atheism.

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

Taslima has a post about her trip to Strasburg for the 25th Sakharov Prize anniversary.

I tweeted a lot in the last few days. I was at the European Parliament to celebrate 25th Sakharov Prize anniversary. All the Sakharov Laureates were there except Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Hu Jia, Jafar Panahi and a few others. Shirin Ebadi the Nobel Peace Prize winner came to represent Nasrin Sotoudeh, the Iranian lawyer who received Sakharov Prize last year. We attended many conferences, seminars on Human Rights, official lunch and dinner.

But she didn’t get to talk to Malala Yousafzai.

After she got the Sakharov prize we the Sakharov Laureates took family photos. In the photo below, Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament is standing between Malala and me. I congratulated Malala for the prize. She shook my hand with expressionless face. I came from the Indian subcontinent, almost from the same background, fighting religious fundamentalists for women’s rights, but her expression tells me that it means nothing to her. She in her speech expressed that the names of the previous Sakharov laureates that amazed her were Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Kofi Annan. A few days ago I requested the European Parliament to arrange for my meeting with Malala when we both would be at the parliament. But I was told that no bilateral meeting would be possible for Malala. She is now like a big superstar, no one can touch her. I imagine how busy she is with hundreds of different things in the West but I never could imagine she would not talk to any Sakharov Laureate, give no interview to any media after getting the prize and she would not be present in the discussion on children’s right at the European Parliament and would not be present even in the official dinner hosted by the President of the European Parliament for her honor. I heard her father said no to everything. I wish she could be herself. Would she be able to be herself someday in this protective environment? The glamour world and the business world both are dangerous for human rights activists.

That’s perhaps understandable, since she’s a schoolgirl and perhaps still not as strong as she would have been if the Taliban hadn’t shot her in the face…but it’s sad. It seems a great pity she wasn’t even allowed to go to the dinner and talk to her fellow laureates.

I did not expect but was not shocked either when Malala started her official speech in the name of Allah. She said, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim while she was giving a speech at the secular European Parliament. Malala believes in Allah and Islam. She often praises Islam and talks about women’s freedom. I wish she knew ‘religion is not compatible with women’s rights’.

So do I, but at the same time, she can probably do more good as she is. An Irshad Manji as opposed to a Taslima.

Everybody loves Malala. I am afraid she will be able to convince young Muslim girls that Islam is a good religion that respects women and it is good to wear Islamic veils. She talks about changing the world by books and pens. All children need books and pens. But the truth is, in all Muslim countries including Malala’s Pakistan, children are given the book called Quran to be indoctrinated in order to change the world to Darul Islam. The Taliban use pens to write the names whom they plan to kill. I think it is better to mention what kinds of books are needed to make the world a better world. And what should be done with pens.

That is true. It’s not just any books. It’s certainly not memorization and blind submission to one “holy” book.

I asked a politically incorrect question to children rights activists during children’s rights debate at the parliament: ‘You have been talking about children’s right to an adequate standard of living, health care, education and to play and recreation. You have been talking about children’s right to protection from abuse, neglect, exploitation and discrimination. But not many activists say that children should not be brainwashed to be superstitious, racists, chauvinists, misogynists, fanatics, terrorists. Why not many activists say that brainwashing children with parents’ religion or with any other religion is against children’s rights. Mutilating or cutting children’s genitals in the name of religion, culture, tradition is also against children’s rights.’

Seriously, no good answer was given to me. A woman said she was fighting against female genital mutilation. I asked ‘what about boys genital mutilation?’

I don’t get surprised easily. European Parliament’s official secretly informed me that there might be a plan to give Sakharov award to Pope.

I love Taslima’s question. And Taslima.

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

Aha so Doug Phillips of Vision Forum has resigned as top boss of VF because he had An Affair with A Woman. The blog Diary of an Autodidact has a thorough analysis.

Douglas Phillips has three major claims to fame, all of which are related to a certain view of gender.

The first, as I partially discussed in my post on his connections to White Supremacy, is his belief that there is a single explanation for modern evils. Let me state this clearly, because I think it tends to be lost in all the static.

The foundation, the CORE of the Vision Forum doctrine is that “Feminism™” is THE cause of all modern evils.

That is, that the big error of our age, the big cause of all that ails us, is that women do not know their place. What is their place? In the home, and under complete subjection to me in every time, place, aspect of life, etc.

Don’t believe me? Read it from Douglas Phillips himself. Here are the “Tenets of Biblical Patriarchy.”

Note, women are created to serve men. Men are the glory of God, while women are the glory of…wait for it…MEN. The entire created purpose of women is to serve MEN.

Out of this everything else flows. The cause of all our modern ills is that we have rejected “God’s purpose for women.”

So, the teaching of Vision Forum runs thus: We have forgotten that women belong in the home, doing housework and raising (large numbers) of children and, most importantly, obeying men in everything. After all, God speaks only to men, not women, and if women would just serve their men, everything would be great. So, we should teach our daughters to first, serve their fathers, until such time as their fathers find husbands for them, and then they should serve their husbands.

And it’s not just about who serves whom. Phillips (and others of the Patriarchy movement) teach that women are inherently easier to deceive, and thus must never be allowed to be in a position of authority. Of any sort. Instead, a woman must always be under the authority of a man. Her father, until she marries. Her husband after that. If she is widowed, she would be under the authority of her eldest son, or oldest close relative. Never ever can she be in charge of her own life.

This is from a conservative Christian, who considers Phillips’s views vile. If only everyone did.

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

I’m very late in catching up with the Ex-Muslims of North America. The prod was seeing a tweet of mine – about Universities UK and the gender segregation trainwreck – favorited by Sadaf, and looking to see who she is. She’s one of the founders.

While not fully comprehending the gender essentialism ingrained in the religion and its practices, Sadaf always felt that gender equality would never be attainable under Islam or her own Afghan culture. and has since pursued the creation of an inclusive safe-space for Ex-Muslims. While working with the Toronto group and staying connected with the global online communities, Sadaf has come to know the dangers, the troubles, and the alienation of being an Ex-Muslim. Ever since, Sadaf became a Community Organizer and aids North Americans in creating a safe-space of their own. Sadaf’s goal is to have an Ex-Muslim group in most major North American cities and to help others find strength and solidarity through our communities.

On their About page, they explain that because of the apostasy taboo and the dangers that go with it, they are not about public advocacy but rather about support and solidarity for other ex-Muslims.

As our membership grows, and we make gains in terms of visibility and social and legal protections for our members, we envision the group moving towards having a greater focus on outreach and advocacy, while maintaining, as always to the best of our abilities, the safety and privacy of our most vulnerable members.

And while they’re doing that they also have to avoid two opposing traps.

While we denounce the bigotry of those who promote their racist and xenophobic ideas under the guise of criticizing Muslims, we also denounce the cultural and moral relativism of those who propagate the idea that all people of Muslim backgrounds are the same and want to follow Islam, and that Islam is somehow less capable of being scrutinized than other belief systems. We are the people who have both first-hand and well-researched knowledge about Islam and we bridge the worlds between the polarized discussions of Islam through our lives and our voices.

Another of their team is Kiran Opal.

In 2008, Kiran became involved with Maryam Namazie’s UK-based Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), and its affiliated online forum. There were countless others like her: people of Muslim backgrounds or converts to Islam who no longer believed in the religion, but felt forced by their families and communities to keep their doubts and their agnosticism/atheism to themselves. Kiran has helped people access anti-violence services and shelters in their area, and build asylum cases when possible. She has helped rescue young women from forced marriage in their parents’ countries of origin, working with legal and medical advisors and law enforcement all over the world to provide assistance to people living under repressive rules and threatened with violence.

…

In 2013, Kiran heeded the growing need for open and public Ex-Muslim voices, and for connections between Ex-Muslims who feel isolated in small pockets around the world, by co-founding Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) with a group of passionate, reliable, and earnest Ex-Muslims. Kiran brings her experience and contacts to EXMNA to foster deep connections between previously isolated Ex-Muslims and allies, and to show that Ex-Muslims are not anti-Muslim. While being open about her lack of belief in Islam, she respects others’ choice to remain in the religion, and hopes to be afforded the same respect.

Kiran is coordinator of ExMuslimBlogs.com: an exciting project spearheaded by EXMNA co-founder Sarah Haider. She works closely with Muhammad Syed, who has been instrumental in putting together the new organization and continues to be its cool, calm center. Kiran is also honoured to work with Sadaf and Nas from Toronto, whose efforts in organizing and nurturing the Toronto Ex-Muslims group have provided the fertile soil for EXMNA. Kiran is also infinitely thankful to Maryam Namazie for being such an inspiration, and to the amazing admin team at the CEMB forum who have helped so many Ex-Muslims throughout the world, even as they themselves have had to remain anonymous. Their work makes a difference, and it will be remembered.

Yes. Infinite thanks to Maryam for being such an inspiration.

You can Like their Facebook page.

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