I once attended a forum for black students held at York University, where there were a number of seminars and sessions to try to broaden the discussion and (I guess) impart some life skills. One of these forums was about developing and harnessing economic power, moderated by two women who had a successful business consulting …
Monthly Archive: July 2012
Jul 31 2012
Because I am an atheist: Benjamin Stonier
Today’s contribution was submitted via e-mail by Benjamin Stonier Because I am an atheist… It’s really hard to sum up what being an atheist means to me. I’ve never really locked into a label like this before. Even when I was nominally Christian, I wouldn’t go out of my way to call myself that. I …
Jul 31 2012
#Occupy: the answer to an important question
When the ‘Occupy together’ movement started nearly a year ago, the media narrative almost immediately pivoted to bafflement (either pretended or genuine*) over what ‘the point’ was. Occupy, without a pre-determined raison d’être aside from “shit’s fucked up“, and lacking an official spokesperson to boil down the issues into bullet points that would be ready by …
Jul 30 2012
In Defence of Abused Fallacies
Y’know, if you don’t think that a horse is defined as such due to some innate form of ‘horseness’, then you should go read some Aristotle.* If you don’t think that Evolution has any basis in reality, then Darwin has some things to tell you. If you think that we can’t know anything at all …
Jul 30 2012
Because I am an atheist: Mano Singham
Today’s contribution comes from fellow FTBorg Mano Singham: Because I am an atheist… …I experience a tremendous feeling of intellectual liberation. For many years I struggled to reconcile my scientific understanding of the world with the constraints imposed by believing in a god. When I tentatively tried out the ‘What if there is no god?” hypothesis, I experienced a sense of …
Jul 30 2012
Kiva Project Update: July 2012
It’s that time of the month again, Cromrades – where we sink our hard-earned money into Kiva loans! Here are this month’s recipients: Mary – Kenya Mary is age 36 and married with one child who is age 12 years and in school. Mary has been in farming for 14 years running and currently produces …
Jul 30 2012
Getting token in
I have, at various points in my life, been the ‘token black guy’ in one social group or another. In the smaller groups it’s been simply the result of small numbers – if there’s 4 people in a group then it’s not exactly surprising that there will a token somethingorother. In other activities, my tokenism …
Jul 27 2012
Irrational Rationalists
The other day while perusing a few of my usual skeptical and atheist haunts online, I came across a conversation that seemed rather out of place; two individuals were having a serious discussion about the plausibility of extraterrestrials having constructed the pyramids. The cheerleader for the aliens had linked more than a few YouTube videos, …
Jul 27 2012
Movie Friday: @Toure and microaggressions
One of the things we discussed in the interview I posted yesterday is the power that the internet has to democratize the flow of information. I used the term ‘anarchic’ intentionally, because when nearly everyone can access the mechanisms of broadcast, the hierarchy of media enterprise is quickly obliterated. All of a sudden, the size …
Jul 26 2012
Because I am an atheist: James Croft
Today’s contribution comes from James Croft, vice-chair of the Humanist Community at Harvard. Because I am an atheist… …I know we’re in this alone, and that any change for the better in this world will be the fruit of human endeavor. There was never a eureka moment in which I realized there is no God: I …
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