So last week I posted a Monday “think piece” in which I examined the arguments against and for a community for humanists, and explained why I thought it was not a bad idea. I followed it up with a spitballed example of what I thought one could look like. My basic position, boiled down to …
Monthly Archive: October 2011
Oct 31 2011
I don’t believe in ‘agnostics’
As someone who believes strongly in his opinions, and who doesn’t shy away from debate, I often find myself having heated discussions with friends. They’re not always about atheism (in fact they rarely are), but they often end up back at the same point: “look, you believe that, but other people disagree – I think …
Oct 28 2011
Movie Friday: Witchboard
Happy Hallowe’en, everyone. Well yes, technically Hallowe’en is Monday, but it’s Movie Friday! I can’t rob you of some seriously spoooooky content! When I was a kid, my sister and I rented one of the corniest horror B movies I’ve ever seen. It has it all – terrible acting, cheesy special effects, a stupid plot, …
Oct 27 2011
Why are you hitting yourself? Part 4: the self-hating 99%
This is part 4 of an ongoing discussion of a paper by Jost, Banaji and Nosek discussing System Justification Theory. Read Part 1. Read Part 2. Read Part 3. In this morning’s installment, we explored the phenomenon of implicit valuation of members of high-status groups. Despite what we may say, or what we may consciously believe about ourselves, our …
Oct 27 2011
Why are you hitting yourself? Part 3: this post contains implicit content
This is part 3 of an ongoing discussion of a paper by Jost, Banaji and Nosek discussing System Justification Theory. Read Part 1. Read Part 2. We left off last week looking at the ways that factoring in someone’s desire to approve of the way the world works (“I like things the way they are”) will lead her …
Oct 27 2011
Occupy the ‘Hood
This one is just going to be a stub. I would have liked it to be a full-length post, but a) I’m running out of time in the week, and b) there’s other stuff that I want to get said before Movie Friday. So I will instead just invite you to read about something I …
Oct 26 2011
Fuck you, Oakland
I don’t usually shoot from the hip like this, but what happened in Oakland last night is disgusting: Police in riot gear have used non-lethal weapons on a crowd of more than 1,000 people attempting to march on to Oakland’s city hall to condemn arrests made at an “Occupy Wall Street” camp. Police dispersed the crowd with what appeared …
Oct 26 2011
A Hallowe’en Public Service Announcement
I always forget until it’s (almost) too late to do this every time Hallowe’en comes around. But it is that time of year again, when college students and young adults all over this great continent dress up as their favourite racial stereotypes because they lack the creativity and human decency to dress as something that …
Oct 25 2011
How do you know when you’re wrong?
Well there’s no definitive answer to this, but it’s a pretty safe bet you are if you’re considered too conservative for Texas: Conservatives in the United States’ toughest crime-fighting jurisdiction — Texas — say the Harper government’s crime strategy won’t work. “You will spend billions and billions and billions on locking people up,” says Judge …
Oct 24 2011
My day at atheist church
So unlike others at Freethought Blogs, I am not a writer of fiction. I used to be, once upon a time, but gradually migrated toward polemic. The nature of what I want to talk about today lends itself well to fiction though, so I am going to give it a go. This is my offering …
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