outrageous

Carolyn Jessops’s Escape: Preface

Dana Hunter4 Comments

I wish I’d had this book as a teenager.

I went to high school in Page, Arizona, a complete nowhere town with virtually nothing for kids to do. One of the ways we’d amuse ourselves on boring nights was by driving up to the Utah/Arizona border and gawking at the polygamists’ houses in Big Water. We’d make fun of their extreme size and shoddiness. There weren’t many there. They were weird and isolated, and we rarely caught a glimpse of any people around them. We had no idea what went on behind those blank walls, aside from knowing it involved one man, lots of women, herds of children, and extreme Mormon religion. If we ever encountered actual polygamists visiting or working in Page, we didn’t realize it. We’d probably have done something stupid if we had. We were almost completely ignorant about polygamy and the lives people in the more fundamentalist sects lived. Continue reading “Carolyn Jessops’s Escape: Preface” →

Carolyn Jessops’s Escape: Preface
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A Sordid Tale of Fanaticism and Murder: “Under the Banner of Heaven”

Dana Hunter3 Comments

I’ve been on a fundamentalist Mormon exposé reading kick lately. This happens when you read a book like Escape. You want to keep prodding at the open wound with fascinated horror. I already had Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven on my reading list, so I ordered it and got to reading.

Word of advice: don’t read this right after Escape. It can’t measure up. It’s a book written by an outsider. It’s a great work of journalism, but it is journalism, and the style of the detached, objective reporter giving it to you straight loses its power in the face of a harrowing personal account.

That said, it’s a very juicy true-crime story about murderous polygamists, so it’s absolutely not boring. If you’re in the market for gore, this is your book.

Cover of Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

Continue reading “A Sordid Tale of Fanaticism and Murder: “Under the Banner of Heaven”” →

A Sordid Tale of Fanaticism and Murder: “Under the Banner of Heaven”

Escape: A Harrowing Tale of Fundamentalism and Freedom

Dana Hunter6 Comments

I’ve been in an easily-distractable mood lately. I keep fussing around with books, picking them up for a few pages or paragraphs before tossing them aside and moving on to something else. I was afraid I’d never finish another book again in my life until I picked up Carolyn Jessop’s Escape. I didn’t even mean to buy it – I was there for Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, actually, and decided I’d better look around for similar books written by women, because my reading list has unfortunately been skewing too heavily dude. Up popped Escape, and I said “Brilliant,” and placed my order.

Image is the cover of Escape, which is photo of Carolyn Jessop on a black background. She cradles a framed picture of herself as an FLDS teenager in her hands. She is a woman in her thirties with chestnut hair and blue eyes.

This seriously screwed up my already-precarious sleep schedule, and almost ruined my April Fools’ Day plans. Continue reading “Escape: A Harrowing Tale of Fundamentalism and Freedom” →

Escape: A Harrowing Tale of Fundamentalism and Freedom

Even Our Police Dogs are Racist – When Their Human Handlers Are

Dana Hunter12 Comments

Here’s a statistic that should have you shaking with rage:

The Department of Justice’s report on the Ferguson Police Department is full of eye-catching numbers that reveal a culture plagued by significant racism. Statistically significant. For instance, nearly ninety per cent of the people who prompted a “use of force” by the F.P.D. were black. Even among such skewed percentages, there are some standouts. Among cases in which a suspect was bitten by an attack dog and the suspect’s race was recorded, what percentage were black?

A hundred per cent.

Let that sink in for a minute. Continue reading “Even Our Police Dogs are Racist – When Their Human Handlers Are” →

Even Our Police Dogs are Racist – When Their Human Handlers Are

Responses to the DOJ’s Report on Ferguson’s Atrocious Law Enforcement

Dana Hunter3 Comments

The DOJ may have cleared Darrin Wilson, but the city government of Ferguson is roundly condemned. The atrocious racism and massive problems with Ferguson’s law enforcement machinery is just a case study. They’re not unique: cities around the country operate this way, with one law for the rich and white, and another law for the poor and brown. I don’t know how we fix this, but we have to. Continue reading “Responses to the DOJ’s Report on Ferguson’s Atrocious Law Enforcement” →

Responses to the DOJ’s Report on Ferguson’s Atrocious Law Enforcement

“For Good People to Do Evil”

Dana Hunter6 Comments

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-Steven Weinberg, Freethought Today, April, 2000

Sometimes, people tell me that religion doesn’t cause people to do bad things, that x and y caused their awful actions instead. Sometimes, I think that’s true. In same cases, religion is just the convenient excuse used for doing what they wanted to do anyway. A lot of religions do a great job giving cover to bad acts. A lot of religions allow adherents to justify horrible behavior. But if religion wasn’t there, they’d find another excuse. All the atheist libertarians, MRAs, and other assorted dipshits are proof of that.

Continue reading ““For Good People to Do Evil”” →

“For Good People to Do Evil”

Remember that Behind Beliefs are People

Dana Hunter6 Comments

We don’t yet how Craig Stephen Hicks calmed his conscience as he entered his neighbors’ apartment and shot three young people death. I doubt he allowed himself to see them as actual people.

This isn’t what atheists should be. This is why so many of us went beyond a simple dictionary atheism, why we try to remember that behind beliefs are people, and their lives have value, no matter how awful we think their religion is. This is why we try to punch up, not down; why we fight against the various isms that attempt to reduce people to things. Once you start seeing some people as less-than, it’s too easy to take another step and decide that their lives are worth less than yours. Continue reading “Remember that Behind Beliefs are People” →

Remember that Behind Beliefs are People

MRAs Were Pathetic Whining Liars 117 Years Ago, Too

Dana Hunter7 Comments

The older I get, the more I tend to agree with the author of Ecclesiastes: nope, nothing new under the sun. Even the howling manbabies of the Men’s Rights Movement are just retreads of the same old tire. As long are there are women demanding equality, there will be men whining, “But what about teh menz??? Help, help, men are being oppressed!” A few words are changed, a few flourishes added, a sad trombone appended to the end, but it’s still the same ol’ song.

Travel back to me to the year of our Lord (who is a MAN, obvs) 1898, when some poor anonymous New South Wales reporter braved undiluted inanity in order to describe the Men’s Rights Activists of that day and age. You may recognize the tune: Continue reading “MRAs Were Pathetic Whining Liars 117 Years Ago, Too” →

MRAs Were Pathetic Whining Liars 117 Years Ago, Too

Freethought is More Harshly Punished than Child Rape in Saudi Arabia #FreeRaif

Dana Hunter4 Comments

A Saudi Arabian man starts a website for freethought and political debate. He’s arrested, threatened with the death penalty, tried for apostasy, and sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes. An international effort to secure his release has so far been unsuccessful.

A Saudi Arabian man suspects his five year old daughter of losing her virginity. He forces her to get an examination, then brings her home, where he repeatedly rapes her, and beats her to death with a cane and cables. He crushed her skull, broke her back, ribs and left arm, and burned her in several places. The Saudi royal family prevents him from being released after only a few months in jail and a fine, and a court eventually sentences him to 8 years in prison and 800 lashes. However, he pays her mother blood money ($270,000 – a boy would have been worth double that price), and is released after only a couple of years. Continue reading “Freethought is More Harshly Punished than Child Rape in Saudi Arabia #FreeRaif” →

Freethought is More Harshly Punished than Child Rape in Saudi Arabia #FreeRaif

Liberty University Pumping Creationists Into Public Schools

Dana Hunter, , , , , , 5 Comments

Sometimes, I wonder if my obsession with debunking Christianist textbooks is rather ridiculous. After all, how many truly committed creationists are there, really? Aren’t there more important causes I should be investing my time in? Surely I could be doing more on the feminist front, f’r instance. I could be pouring my time and energy into meatier posts about the magnificent science of geology. And I feel vaguely guilty that I let myself get distracted by the latest creationist outrages in textbooks that are foisted upon a mere fraction of the world’s children.

But then, I read survivors’ stories, and yes, I do think of the children: all those bright and curious minds stunted by the ignorant adults around them. I hope at least a few of them stumble upon this series, and find themselves jolted out of the confining creationist box and launched on an epic adventure in the science of their choice (even if it’s not one of the geosciences, although of course I think those are the best).

And there’s the fact we all learn some things about the earth sciences along the way, in what I hope is an entertaining fashion.

Not an inconsiderable consideration for me is that I’ve found so few women* debunking creationist nonsense, so it helps me feel like I’m doing my bit for diversity in the creationist nonsense debunking community.

Besides, Jonny Scaramanga recently said why creationism and the debunking thereof matters, so that’s told me this quest is not quixotic.

But when it really comes down to it, the main reason why I feel it’s bloody damned important to keep you guys informed as to what creationists are teaching their kiddies is because their kiddies are growing up ignorant, and then spewing that ignorance all over our public schools: Continue reading “Liberty University Pumping Creationists Into Public Schools” →

Liberty University Pumping Creationists Into Public Schools