This is part of a series of articles intended to illustrate the usefulness of treating atheism as a social justice issue, rather than trying to wall atheist discourse off from social justice discussions. Read the introductory post here. As I intimated in the panel discussion of masculinity we had last weekend, the fight over women’s …
Category Archive: freethought community
Mar 04 2013
Atheism is a social justice issue – a primer on intersection
One of the current fights happening within the atheism movement is a dispute (often heated, usually stupid) over whether or not the atheist community should concern itself with so-called “social justice” issues. I say this fight is “stupid” because the idea of someone insisting that people not talk about some topic in order to live up …
Feb 18 2013
Philosophers: Please Take a Stand
This is an open letter to the Philosophers out there who consider themselves to be involved in Skepticism (even if only in a tertiary fashion). The ones that I specifically have in mind as I write this are Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, Dr. Daniel Fincke, and Dr. Daniel Dennett*. Let’s begin with my credentials: I am …
Jan 30 2013
One of these things is eerily like the other
Because I was raised Catholic, I sometimes feel the call to do penance for my sins. If I have done something mildly naughty, I say a few ‘Hail Mary’s. If I’ve done something particularly bad, I might wear a hair-shirt for a couple of days. But if I have sinned so egregiously that nothing but the most …
Jan 24 2013
A Word on “Community” and Movement Atheism
Please join me in welcoming our newest guest author to the Manifesto – Jasmine! You will undoubtedly remember her from her participation in episode 5 of SERIOUSLY?! I am excited to have her perspective joining the crew here, and am looking forward to hearing more from her. Between Thundef00t’s recent videos —where he projects his …
Jan 11 2013
A petition in support of a more diverse freethinking community
Adam Lee of Daylight Atheism has created a petition on Change.org: We support making the atheist movement more diverse and inclusive. It’s long been clear that the skeptical movement has a preponderance of white men. While we don’t disdain their participation, we believe skepticism is valuable and important to people in all walks of life, and in accordance …
Dec 16 2012
A response to Lee
A commenter going by the handle ‘Lee’ has been asking some pointed questions about how to respond to claims of discrimination. I tried to give a robust answer, which ended up ballooning into a full-length post. Lee: I’ll respond by bringing the two into one. If someone claims they have been discriminated against, or they …
Dec 14 2012
Movie Friday: FAN MAIL!
Ohmygosh you guyse, I am just super excited. I was poking around in the dashboard of this site yesterday, and I noticed that I was getting a lot of hits from a Youtube video. Seeing as it is highly unusual for me to get referrals from Youtube, I clicked on through to see what was driving …
Dec 12 2012
A letter to Michael Shermer
This morning I was pointed toward a post written by Dr. Michael Shermer, a prominent skeptic, author, and neuroscientist. In it, he responds to an article by author and fellow FTBorg Ophelia Benson in which she sharply critiques the acceptance of stereotypes about the agency and willingness of women to speak up in skeptical circles, …
Oct 23 2012
How is religion like delicious yummy corn?
Disclaimer: the central metaphor of this post is scatological, so if you have a particularly weak stomach, might I suggest you watch this video instead. There is a far-too-common meme that exists among a subset of the nonbelieving community that goes more or less like this: Well of course religion has led people to do bad …
About the Author
Recent Comments