Rumors are flying about what happened at Skepticon very early this morning, and Dave Muscato said “please distribute” on his update when he posted it on Facebook, so I might as well distribute it here too. The original is at Skepticon.

My name is Dave Muscato; I am the Public Relations Director for American Atheists. I am at the Skepticon conference in Springfield, MO, although I am attending on my own “off-duty” this weekend and not in a working capacity for American Atheists.

Early Saturday morning, there was a security incident and I would like to clear up any misconceptions, explain where things stand, and tell you how Skepticon has resolved the situation.

About 4 AM on Saturday morning, another attendee of the conference made a graphic and direct verbal death threat to me while brandishing a semi-automatic pistol, which this person claimed was loaded. The incident occurred on E St Louis Street outside, away from conference property and neither in the conference hotel nor in the expo center. I was with a small group of people who were able to distract this person with conversation and diffuse things until we were able to return to the University Plaza hotel, where the person went to his room. I reported the incident immediately to hotel security and the Springfield police, and made statements on the record about what happened.

Skepticon organizers have been fully informed of all details of the incident, and all organizers and volunteers, as well as police and hotel security, have this person’s name and photograph. This person has agreed to leave the hotel and not return to Skepticon this year or in future years.

Skepticon organizers have been overwhelmingly supportive and competent. I was offered a security escort, which I appreciated, but felt was unnecessary and declined.

I still feel safe at Skepticon. I have been coming to Skepticon for four years now and intend to continue to donate and to return to Springfield for Skepticon 7.

I am not going to name the person involved in this incident at this time. Skepticon organizers and American Atheists have this person’s name and information. I will let them decide how to handle informing other event organizers about this situation.

What happens next depends on what American Atheists’ in-house counsel and the Springfield Police Department advise.

I would prefer not to discuss this incident further. I am OK. I thank everyone for their concern. I am extremely impressed and flattered with the outpouring of support from Skepticon organizers, other attendees, and speakers, as well as the support from the atheist community online.

I am here the rest of today but if I miss you, I will see you next year for Skepticon 7!

Sincerely,

Dave

I hate the gun culture in the US. I hate, hate, hate it.

I hate it.

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

Where else? Comics. Doctor NerdLove says about it.

I’m lucky to be friends with a lot of insanely talented people in all walks of the comic industry, from up and coming talents, rising stars and established names, writers, artists and publishers… and every woman I know involved in the comics industry has a story similar to Tess’.

Every. Single. One.

Well…that’s discouraging.

Men in positions of power and authority – creators, editors and publishers, convention runners – making passes and unwelcome remarks or trying to manipulate young and impressionable female creators into sex… talk to enough women in comics and you’d think you were hearing about the goings-on at Sterling Cooper, not about conventions in 2013.

That’s…familiar.

This behavior is enabled by an overwhelming culture of silence, especially when it comes to bad behavior amongst pros.  Women are already socialized to be nice, to be deferential, to avoid attracting attention to themselves and to not make waves…. and this becomes even more pronounced in comics. Comics is an incredibly small industry, where getting a job is as much about your ability to network, make contacts and build relationships as much as it is about sheer talent. A person who’s easy to work with and can hit his or her deadlines is even more highly valued than the temperamental but brilliant writer or the popular illustrator who can’t get his pages turned in on time to save his life. For many women, it’s less daunting to not speak up out of fear of being blacklisted or being labeled “difficult”. It becomes even more of an intimidating prospect when the person who’s been harassing you (or worse) is entrenched in the power structure – a big-name pro, an editor, someone who has more pull in the industry than his accuser.

Are there other fears? Like fears of being harassed and smeared on social media for the rest of your life because you disobeyed the culture of silence? Like fears that the fans of the big-name pro, editor, someone who has more pull in the industry than his accuser, will do their level best to make your life hell from now on forever?

On and on and on it goes.

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

Udo gets out in front of the war on Christmas rhetoric to reassure nervous Fox News addicts.

There is no war. Atheists like festivities as much as the next person. We just don’t pretend it has anything to do with god sending baby Jesus to carry presents to some wise guys.

One also can’t help but wonder how many the Muslims enjoying their Eid al-Adha celebrations would be willing to sacrifice their sons to their God, because Eid celebrations are actually celebrating a father’s willingness to sacrifice his son to demonstrate obedience to Allah – it goes without saying that the Bible offers similarly disconcerting stories of human sacrifice in the name of the Lord.

Seriously. Imagine a holiday celebrating Abraham’s willingness to cut Isaac’s throat by way of showing submission to god. What would be the right presents to give? What would be for dinner?

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

Well hahahaha homophobes, you lose and Dayna Morales wins – at least when it comes to her tip and to your reputation. CNN reports that tips for Dayna are pouring in from all over the world so yaboosucks The Hatefuls.

“I was offended. I was mad at first, and then I was more so hurt,” 22-year-old Dayna Morales told CNN.

Morales, who did a tour with the Marine Corps between 2009 and 2011, said she has been “out open and proud for years,” but “never discussed with them (the family) anything; it was their pure assumption.”

“It’s disrespectful and it’s hurtful,” she said. “I feel bad for their children because that’s how they are going to be raised.”

It is hurtful, but friendly counter-hurtful people all over the world should help with that.

She says the trouble began when she approached the table of four — a man, wife and two girls — at around 7 p.m. Wednesday -

Wait wait wait. Bad writing. Not “a man, wife” – no – either “a man, woman” – or even, just imagine, “a woman, a man” – or “a wife, a husband” – but definitely not “a man, wife.” Not “a person and his appendages.” Don’t do that.

Back to our story.

She says the trouble began when she approached the table of four — a man, wife and two girls — at around 7 p.m. Wednesday. Morales said that when she introduced herself as Dayna and told them she was going to be their server, the older woman “looked at me and said, ‘I thought you were going to say your name is Dan.’”

Morales was so upset about the incident, she vented on Facebook, and the group “Have a Gay Day” posted her story on their Facebook page. The response was overwhelming.

“People have sent me tips from all over the world just to show support. I have had people from Germany to South Africa, Australia to the UK, San Diego, everywhere.”

Morales says that between the people who have called in to the restaurant to give credit card numbers, those who have mailed tips, or donated to a special PayPal account the restaurant set up, she estimates that she has received more than $2,000 so far.

She plans to donate the funds to the Wounded Warrior Project, and the restaurant plans to match the donations and give it to a local LGBT organization.

My friend Lisa Ridge and some of her friends are planning to go there next week. I bet half of northern New Jersey will be in there. So suck it, haterz!

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

About the server stiffed by the godbothering couple in Kansas. They too left a note saying they stiffed him for reasons, and holy reasons at that.

A pair of Christian diners stiffed their 20-year-old server at Carraba’s Italian restaurant in Overland Park, Kansas, on the grounds that his homosexuality is “an affront to God.”

How do they know? How do they know people who stiff servers aren’t an affront to god while people who do homosexuality are god’s favorite thing ever? Did god send them a notarized affidavit?

KCTV reports that the server, who asked that his name not be identified, went to the table after the group of customers left and, instead of a tip, found this spiteful message from the diners written on the back of the check:

“Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD.

“Fags do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours. We hope you will see the tip your fag choices made you lose out on, and plan accordingly. It is never too late for GOD’s love, but none shall be spared for fags. May GOD have mercy on you.”

Shudder. Imagine being those people. Imagine living in those horrible minds.

The anti-gay message has galvanized support for the server on social media with a campaign underway to flood the restaurant on Friday evening.

Dr. Marvin Baker, a retired pastor who runs a Gay Christian Fellowship ministry, had lunch at the restaurant on Thursday with his partner, and asked to be seated in the server’s section.

“I was angry. I said this is not Christian as I know it,” Baker said.

That mind is a much better place to live, Christianity and all.

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

And speaking of random stupid undermotivated is-that-really-necessary petty hateful nastiness, there’s that couple that went out to dinner at Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater New Jersey on Wednesday night.

Dayna Morales, a server at Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater, N.J., said a family dining at the restaurant Wednesday night skipped the tip on their $93.55 bill and scribbled an explanation why, reported ABC News.

The note on the receipt, left by a couple with two young children, read: “Sorry, I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life.”

Excuse me? Since when is tipping an opportunity to express an opinion on the way someone else lives her life? What business is it of someone who eats at a restaurant to tell a server what that someone thinks of the server’s “lifestyle”?

Morales, who has been waiting tables on and off for 10 years, said she never told the family she was gay when she introduced herself.

She said trouble began as soon as she approached the family and introduced herself before asking what they would like to order.

“The mom proceeds to look at me and say ‘oh I thought you were gonna say your name is Dan. You sure surprised us!’” she said.

Oh is that it. Too butch for mom. Well so tf what? Mom isn’t being asked to share an apartment with Dayna, she’s simply being served dinner by Dayna. Mom’s anguish about the missing frills and ruffles on Dayna are supremely beside the point.

A similar incident played out in Overland Park, Kansas last month when a pair of diners stiffed their 20-year-old server at Carraba’s Italian restaurant on the grounds that his homosexuality is “an affront to God.”

And that’s why theism can so easily be an excuse for acting like a shit to real people.

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

Full name Sophia, Michelin-starred General of the First Mediterranean Iron Chef Batallion. Originally a comment on If you believe that good is a real and necessary part of the universe.

I disagree with the idea that if you believe good exists and is a necessary part of the universe in a religious context, you will be compelled to do good. In fact, I see it as potentially inspiring exactly the opposite.

Religious beliefs* tend to take concepts and try to form them into “things”. Love becomes a thing – god is love. Evil becomes a thing, the devil. Faith becomes the thing you must do all the time, sin and martyrdom and all those words becomes much more than their original concepts, they become monolithic constructs that have both meaning and grand, mysterious purpose. The issue is that imbuing a word with such gravitas puts it above lay people, it’s more important and mysterious and holy (or unholy) – bigger –  than them. ”Good” is a word that’s taken on this grandeur, and it’s become a personification rather than a concept. There’s this “good” that exists and continues to work on its own and can’t be influenced by humans because it’s “bigger” than us. People don’t have to do good – good will simply manifest itself through people if necessary. It’s a passive attitude, not an active fostering of the urge to do good deeds.

Secondly, if you’re being threatened with a big stick – hell – for not doing good, there’s technically an incentive to do it, but catholic doctrine contradicts itself on this concept in so many ways it’s easy enough to justify pretty much any behaviour within a catholic framework as “good”. Killing someone could be justified very easily by any of the OT passages in leviticus that decree death as a punishment. Considering what atrocities the bible promotes as godly laws, the concept that god is good can mean… well, just about anything. considering that the research shows that direct correlation occurs between a person’s own beliefs and what they believe to be their deity’s beliefs, religion serves predominantly as a personal belief-justifying tool. It imbues a person’s own thoughts with an infinite importance, so that person may technically (within the varyingly nebulous boundaries of their particular flavour of religion) do pretty much anything and call it good.

Not exactly a recipe for success. For someone to do Good (the real-life concept, not religiously personified) from a religious prspective, they must already have a personal concept of good that meshes well with the general concept of good. In other words, they’ll do it independent of their religion, sometimes in stark contrast to it. Most religious people will say their religion inspires them to do good, whether that is true or not depends entirely on that person’s personal beliefs, often shaped by that very religion into something totally distinct from reality.

*Going for christian concepts here since the topic is catholic belief.

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

Martin Robbins has, as he says, done a bloody petition. He hates them but did this one anyway, so you see how it is.

BBC Question Time: Please give scientists proper representation on Question Time

He provides a graph on it:

Since the last general election, scientists have been less well-represented on BBC Question time than reality TV show contestants. Nigel Farage of UKIP – a party without an MP – has appeared on the show four times more often than all scientists put together. Important debates on climate change have been conducted with denialists such as Melanie Phillips, Nigel Lawson and James Delingpole, without a single climate scientist given an opportunity to contribute. Debates on drug policy have been held between comedians and columnists, without a single medical expert present.

It’s time to end this bias. Please, Question Time producers, demonstrate that you’re interested in serious debate and put people with real scientific expertise on your show.

George Galloway, more than twice as often as all scientists. It’s a god damn outrage.

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

Skepticon is this weekend. Half the people I know are there or on their way there.

So there must be outrage, right? Of course.

In chronological order, so bottom to top:

Sara E. Mayhew @saramayhew

@LaurenPants @Funkmon @RealSkepticon You do a disservice to skepticism by giving a platform to bullies and pseudo-skeptics. #sk6

@LaurenPants Seriously, there are tons of skeptics who do good work, Tim Farley, Doubtful News, Drescher, Susan Gerbic, Reality Check…

@LaurenPants

 …Bob Blaskiewicz, David Gorski, Hariett Hall, Daniel Loxton—why go for cheap drama bloggers like Watson Myers Benson? #sk6

 What??? How did I get in there? I’m not at Skepticon. I’ve never been at Skepticon. I’ve never been asked or approached. I’m not on their radar even a little bit. Why ask one of the organizers (Lauren Lane) why go for cheap drama bloggers like me when she doesn’t and they don’t?

Strange, isn’t it. Even not being there and not being on the radar is no protection from being reported to organizers as someone who shouldn’t be there. “Ok you didn’t ask her and weren’t planning to and have no clue who she is but Ima ask you anyway: Y U INVITE PEOPLE LIKE HER??!”

Update. She’s still at it, facts be damned.

Sara E. Mayhew @saramayhew

Skepticon schedule: 2pm – Copypasta Workshop, Ophelia Benson, 3pm – The Fine Art of Googling Your Talk Last Night, Rebecca Watson. #sk6

I’m not there. I’m not at Skepticon. I’m not doing a workshop at Skepticon. I’ve never been to Skepticon.

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

Part of why I’m interested in this claim of Conor Friedersdorf’s that

Nick happens to be one of the best people I know. Even though I don’t have faith in the same things that he does, I see how his faith makes him a better person. I see how he makes the world a better place, and how his belief system drives him to do it. And whenever I think about Nick, I think to myself, you know, I disagree with the Catholic faith on a lot of particulars, but there must be nuggets of truth within it if it inspires people like Nick to be this good.

is because I want to figure out how he gets there. I want to see if we can find a persuasive chain of reasoning, or if he’s just describing a feeling or hunch or intuition or association that he hasn’t thought about carefully enough – a bit of fast thinking with no follow-up slow thinking.

Minow offered one such chain.

There is no doubt that a disproportionately large number of religious people dedicate their lives to good works without expectation of any material reward. I think that you are more likely to do that if an institution exists that will help manage it (the church) and if you believe that good is a real and necessary part of the universe, rather than just a philosophical position or a utilitarian benefit. And religion takes you there.

One problem with that is that Friedersdorf said the Catholic faith, not religion in general. I would love to know what he meant – which specifically Catholic nuggets he has in mind.

But put that aside for now. What about the claim that you’re more likely to devote your life to good works if you believe that good is a real and necessary part of the universe, rather than just a philosophical position or a utilitarian benefit? Is that right? Is it persuasive?

I’m not sure. It seems to me it makes just as much sense, or maybe more, the other way around. I don’t think that “good” (which is a human label or category or construct) is a real and necessary part of the universe; on the contrary. The reality on this planet at least is that terror and pain are part of daily life for most sentient animals, so it would make more sense to claim that “bad” is a real and necessary part of the universe. I don’t think that’s true either, but I would certainly say that suffering and agony are a necessary result of natural selection and that there’s nothing good about that fact.

So if we want to cause the world (we can’t do much about the universe, let’s face it) to have more good in it, we have to make it ourselves. Why wouldn’t that make us more likely to devote our lives to good works than a belief that good is already part of the fabric of everything?

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

The Guardian reports that the pope is tackling the mafia. Good on him if so, although he shouldn’t utter biblical death threats in the process.

In a fiery sermon on Monday, Francis railed against corruption and quoted the bible’s advice that practitioners be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck.

Yeah don’t do that.

But the article gives an interesting picture of the friendship between church and mafia.

“The mafia that invests, that launders money, that therefore has the real power, is the mafia which has got rich for years from its connivance with the church,” said [magistrate Nicola] Gratteri. “These are the people who are getting nervous.”

Gratteri attacked priests and bishops in southern Italy who legitimise mobsters. “Priests continuously visit the houses of bosses for coffee, which gives the bosses strength and popular legitimacy,” he said. A bishop in Locri in Calabria had excommunicated mobsters after they damaged fruit trees owned by the church, he said. “But before that episode, the bosses had killed thousands of people” without being sanctioned, he added.

So much for Catholicism inspiring people to be good.

Boosting the strong links between mob and church is the fierce religious devotion of the gangsters themselves, he said, adding that in his 26 years as a magistrate he had never raided a mafia hideout which did not contain a religious image. “There is no affiliation rite that does not evoke religion. ‘Ndrangheta and the church walk hand in hand,” he said.

A survey of jailed mobsters had revealed that 88% were religious, he added. “Before killing, a member of the ‘Ndrangheta prays. He asks the Madonna for protection.”

Cognitive dissonance at work.

Gratteri said mobsters did not consider themselves wrongdoers, and used the example of a mafioso putting pressure on a business owner to pay protection money, first by shooting up his premises, then by kneecapping him. “If the person still refuses, the mobster is ‘forced’ to kill him. If you have no choice, you are not committing a sin.”

That’s often the reasoning in domestic violence, too – she (or he) provoked the violence. The perp had no choice, because of the provocation. And of course many of the child-raping priests and the bishops who shield them claim the raped children were seductive. There’s always a way to make the cognitive dissonance disappear.

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

Originally a comment on How his belief system drives him to do it, responding to a quotation from Chesterton.

G.K. Chesterton was a very engaging writer with a lovely prose style, but he was also a very shallow thinker who specialised in dressing up fallacies and bigoted prejudices in quaint costumes to make them seem attractive, and was very fond of clever syllogisms that were actually meaningless except to make him seem superior to everyone else around him. Examples?

The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.

Aesthetes never do anything but what they are told.

When learned men begin to use their reason, then I generally discover that they haven’t got any.

I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.

Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.

Do you see his pattern? But even this I could live with if it wasn’t for his outright lying in order to defend his conservative political and religious beliefs. For instance:

There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

There cannot be a nation of millionaires, and there never has been a nation of Utopian comrades; but there have been any number of nations of tolerably contented peasants.

(Note: nice to see a man born in one of the wealthiest parts of London acknowledge all those contented peasants throughout history.)

If there were no God, there would be no atheists.

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.

(Note: this quote is especially galling because he was writing about the Book of Job.)

The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.

(Note: by this tortured reasoning, Chesterton convinces himself that a list of commandments that begins with “You shall have no other gods before me,” forbids all religious art, and forbids working on a certain day, is a liberal work. He also ignores that the Bible is full to the fucking brim with things forbidden. Just because the Top Ten List of Forbidden Things has only ten items, doesn’t mean that Leviticus doesn’t exist.)

Puritanism was an honourable mood; it was a noble fad. In other words, it was a highly creditable mistake.

Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.

Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else.

[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them.

(Note: this is about as cartoonish a straw man as you’ll ever see.)

Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.

(Note: this is an excellent example of Chesterton’s rhetorical style; write something outrageously, even obviously self-contradictory, and dress up the logical error as a witty verbal paradox!)

I would give a woman not more rights, but more privileges. Instead of sending her to seek such freedom as notoriously prevails in banks and factories, I would design specially a house in which she can be free.

There are many more examples to choose from (Chesterton was quite prolific) but I think I’ve made my point…

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

Jesus ice-skating christ. A twitter exchange:

Ahmed Safder @AhmedSafder

When you have Allah on your side. No force in the world can fight you and win Mashallah! Thank you God for everything.

Rah @francosoup

“@AhmedSafder: When you have Allah on your side. No force can fight you and win”

~Unless you’re a Muslim woman being stoned to death.

Ahmed Safder @AhmedSafder

@francosoup

those cases are rare majority of the Muslim women are kept like princesses

A smiley! A smiley!!! A smiley!!!!!

A fucking smiley about women being stoned to death.

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

I’m reading a piece about discourse and persuasion in the Atlantic, and my attention is snagged by a peripheral point.

A friend taught me this.

He’s an orthodox Catholic. I am not. I went to 14 years of Catholic school and decided that it wasn’t for me. As you can imagine, I’ve heard all the arguments for Catholicism. So when my friend, Nick, argues with me about Catholic doctrine, he is very unlikely to persuade me of anything. But Nick happens to be one of the best people I know. Even though I don’t have faith in the same things that he does, I see how his faith makes him a better person. I see how he makes the world a better place, and how his belief system drives him to do it. And whenever I think about Nick, I think to myself, you know, I disagree with the Catholic faith on a lot of particulars, but there must be nuggets of truth within it if it inspires people like Nick to be this good. It makes me so much more open to the notion that I can learn something from the Catholic faith—just as the molestation scandal took a lot of people and closed them off to the idea that Catholics had anything to teach them.

I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think there are any nuggets of truth in the religion (or “faith”) itself. I think it’s rather that people think the whole thing is about goodness, so they are drawn to the church for that reason, so there are good people in it. I think that’s really what inspires people like that. The author (Conor Friedersdorf) says it is “his belief system [that] drives him to do it” and it’s his story not mine, so he would know better than I would…But I think he might be misidentifying the source. I think it’s not so much the belief system or putative nuggets of truth in the belief system, but the beliefs about the system and the institution – that it’s where especially good people belong.

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

The Cellular Solutions staff page – does something seem a bit unusual here?

Scroll down.

Keep going.

More.

Ah! There we go!

Via Helen Dale

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

Another useful item from the UN: a statement that states that have ratified the UN Women’s Rights Convention have to uphold women’s rights even when there’s a war on. Imagine that.

States that have ratified the UN Women’s Rights Convention are obliged to uphold women’s rights before, during and after conflict when they are directly involved in fighting, are providing peacekeeping troops or donor assistance for conflict prevention, humanitarian aid or post-conflict reconstruction, a key UN women’s rights committee has said in a landmark document.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) also said that ratifying States should exercise due diligence in ensuring that non-State actors, such as armed groups and private security contractors, be held accountable for crimes against women.

…

“This document is comprehensive. It includes recognition of women’s central role in preventing conflict and in rebuilding devastated countries,” said CEDAW Chair Nicole Ameline.

“Women’s experiences are regularly dismissed as irrelevant for predicting conflict, and women’s participation in conflict prevention has historically been low,” Ms. Ameline said. “But in reality, there is for example a strong correlation between an increase in gender-based violence and the outbreak of conflict.”

Of course my own country is exempt from all of this, since it didn’t ratify CEDAW…

H/t Michael DeDora

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

There’s a difference between authoritarian morality and let’s call it reasoned morality. What’s the difference? Well obviously, the first is commands and the second gives reasons.

When bishops moan about attacks on the “religious freedom” of Catholics to punish gay people by refusing to officiate at their marriages or rent them rooms at bed&breakfasts, they cite “church teachings” as their reason for treating homosexuality as wrong and deserving of punishment. That’s authoritarian. “The church teaches that homosexuality is evil” is not reasons, it’s a detour around reasons.

That’s why the habit of punishing people for being gay is gradually (yet also, historically speaking, rapidly) crumbling away: it’s because once it’s pointed out that there are no real reasons for this stupid habit, people start looking for reasons and then finding that there aren’t any. Those people end up changing their minds, some slowly and some overnight.

The people who don’t change their minds are the ones who consider the invocation of phrases like “church teachings” adequate.

This thought is familiar from discussions and practice of child-rearing, too. Some command morality is needed for emergency situations and in the early years when the cortex isn’t developed enough to understand the reasons. But as the child grows and learns and develops the capability to understand reasons, it becomes practical for parents to explain reasons for doing one thing rather than another. It remains possible to have just rules with no explanations or reasons, but many parents prefer to shift more and more to reasons over time.

It’s possible to find some proffered reasons for some church teachings by browsing the Vatican’s website, but the putative reasons are not very convincing. The people who write the encyclicals probably don’t get enough practice in giving reasons for their commands.

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

Mother Jones has a “Richard Cohen’s 10 Worst Moments” piece, which is good, because I have hitherto neglected this rich vein of bad moments.

1 (tied). Richard Cohen goes to the movies, finds out slavery is wrong.

I sometimes think I have spent years unlearning what I learned earlier in my life…slavery was not a benign institution in which mostly benevolent whites owned innocent and grateful blacks. Slavery was a lifetime’s condemnation to an often violent hell in which people were deprived of life, liberty and, too often, their own children.

About a week ago, Richard Cohen went to see 12 Years a Slave and came out surprised by the brutal depiction of slavery in America. He defended himself by saying that he learned slaves “were sort of content” and “slave owners were mostly nice people” in school. Cohen graduated high school in the class of ’58. No, 1958.

Jesus hopping Christ, what? He learned slaves were content and owners were nice in school and nothing since? Are you kidding me? A guy who writes a column for the Washington fucking Post hasn’t managed to learn more about slavery than what he claims he learned in school? He had learned absolutely nothing about it since until last week when he went to a movie?

That alone is enough to get him demoted to a paper route.

1 (tied). Richard Cohen defends Clarence Thomas because boys will be boys.

Thomas stands nearly alone on the court in his shallowness of his scholarship and the narrowness of his compassion. But when it comes to his alleged sexual boorishness, he stands condemned of being a man.

In a 2010 column, Cohen dismissed any allegations of sexual misconduct that occurred during the 1980s, since that was “a bit before the modern era,” and argued that Thomas’ alleged actions—including asking a woman at work for her bra size and making other sexual comments—were just typical guy stuff.

Uh huh. It’s just typical, and women have to just put up with it, and whaddyagonnado, and these things just are the way they are.

Cohen claimed that Anita Hill couldn’t have been harassed, because “why did she follow her abuser, Thomas, from one job to the next?” But maybe that’s unfair to Cohen. After all, it’s not like he was ever accused of sexual harassment in the workplace.

1 (tied). Richard Cohen is accused of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Stand up and turn around.

According to a Washington Post staffer, Cohen said the above to 23-year-old editorial aide Devon Spurgeon. Staffers said he also told her she “looks good in black” and engaged her in an offensive discussion about oral sex following the Monica Lewinsky scandal. (Cohen denies the first comment and says the others were made innocently.) Spurgeon took a leave of absence, and Washington Post management found that Cohen committed “inappropriate behavior,” but Cohen maintained, “it was a personality dispute [that] had nothing to do with sexual harassment as the term applies today.” For further reading, see Cohen’s creepy screed on how terrible it is that women in movies don’t fall for men decades their elder as much as they used to.

Now what does that remind me of? Oh yes. That.

That’s just the first four; enjoy the final six.

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