The curious case of a man named James who thinks the secular community should be in bloody civil war

A few nights ago, a post hit my moderation queue on movement cohesion, wherein I speculate that there is no single unified movement, and that as long as the introduction of other values into particular communities continues, “rifts” will only solidify where people have fewer common traits. In my post I further fretted regarding the requests frequently made of feminists, anti-racist activists, gays and trans folk, to swallow their other causes; to put their causes outside of atheism aside in order to cohabitate in a “big tent” with anti-feminists and anti-social-justice folks — who are themselves never asked to stop with their targeted harassment, their bullying, their hate speech.

Richard Dawkins and Ophelia Benson just released a joint statement that amounts to a request of our communities: stop doing all of that. Included in that request is a statement by Dawkins that he does not, even tacitly, support the people engaging in such tactics.

I’m certain that James In The West, who left this lengthy screed on my earlier post, has since seen Dawkins’ statement and wishes he could recant on his strange fan-fiction.
Continue reading “The curious case of a man named James who thinks the secular community should be in bloody civil war”

The curious case of a man named James who thinks the secular community should be in bloody civil war
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CONvergence 2014 panel audio: It's (Not) Written In The Stars

This was a fun panel about the cognitive dissonance and shared delusion necessary to believe in astrology despite all of science’s advances. It was a bit raucaus at times, but we had good audience participation and Brianne had some hilarious points throughout, relieving me of my usual role as snarker. With a real-life astronomer and two science teachers — one tenured, one a teacher-in-training — this panel covered all the perspectives. Well, except for the perspectives of true-believer. No wait, Nicole admitted to having been one herself at one point! So it covered all the perspectives! Yeah!

We’ll explore the myths and beliefs of astrology and why some people still find it convincing in the modern age of science.

Panelists: Jason Thibeault, Brianne Bilyeu, Dan Berliner, Matt Lowry, Nicole Gugliucci

[audio:http://cdn1.the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/07/cvg2014-panel3-it_is_not_written_in_our_stars.mp3]

(or download the It’s (Not) Written In The Stars mp3 – 24.7 megs)

CONvergence 2014 panel audio: It's (Not) Written In The Stars

On that quote purported to be by The Amazing Atheist

Yeah, it might really be a quote by TJ Kincaid, given some corroborative evidence, but the exact wording of the quote cannot be found anywhere else on the internet presently. Better to damn him by what we can demonstrate he really said, and we can demonstrate he said something very close in 2006.

However, no, you probably shouldn’t damn him for holding a terrible opinion in 2006 that he’s since walked back. Not that there isn’t lots else to damn him about.

Since he’s an antifeminist and has expressed a number of backward views on topics like consent, I’m going to go ahead and treat this as a good place to put a fold and trigger-warning you all.
Continue reading “On that quote purported to be by The Amazing Atheist”

On that quote purported to be by The Amazing Atheist

CONvergence 2014 panel audio: Superheroes in our Modern Day Pantheons

This conversation ended up taking quite a few unexpected twists, including a lengthy interjection by a stalwart of the comic books industry that you’ll need to hear if you’re any sort of comics nerd. It was a small room, thankfully, and he was seated in the front, so it should be relatively audible. The panel also took a number of theological turns that I wasn’t expecting, mostly owing to ideological differences between myself and one of the panelists.

Nobody really worships Hercules or Thor as Greek and Norse gods anymore, but don’t despair, because now they’re both members of The Avengers. This panel will explore the commonalities and differences between our ancient and modern pantheons.

Panelists: David Schwartz, Jason Thibeault, Roy T Cook, Jonathan Palmer, Ryan Consell

Sincere apologies for the noise at about 20 mins — I tried to quiet it somewhat, but you may want to be careful with your volume then nonetheless. Ryan Consell dumped half a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper on my phone when he reacted to a comment by one of the other panelists. Luckily, the phone survived, and wasn’t even sticky thanks to it being “diet”. But boy did mopping it up cause a racket on the mic!

[audio:http://cdn1.the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/07/cvg2014-panel2-superheroes_modern_pantheon.mp3]

(or download the Superheroes in our Modern Day Pantheons mp3 – 31.1 megs)

CONvergence 2014 panel audio: Superheroes in our Modern Day Pantheons

Movement cohesion

Movement atheism is not a cohesive entity. Heads of orgs like American Atheists, in full-throated promotion of people like Jaclyn Glenn — especially those videos that attack movement feminists for being too firebrandey and poisoning movement atheism with all their “social justice warrior” stuff — they’ve evidently chosen sides. Let’s not mistake that there are, in fact, sides to choose in what amounts to a fundamental division between feminists and antifeminists within atheism. AA has chosen, expressly, the side of the antifeminists, and they’ve framed the issue such that the antifeminists are the ones demanding we stop talking about feminist ideas and the toxic anti-woman environment that these antifeminists inculcate in our movement.

Feminists are told to stop fighting. Antifeminists are asked absolutely nothing — they’re the “reasonable” ones for demanding that the status quo be maintained.

Fuck that.

The surest way to earn my enmity, my directed criticism, is to ask us to stop other fights so we can pretend we’re all one big happy big-tent family. It’s what bugged the hell out of me about courting secular pro-lifers at CPAC, it’s what bugged the hell out of me about the ongoing, constant, concerted attacks of big atheist vloggers like Thunderf00t and The Amazing Atheist against feminists despite the absolute hash they make of logic and reason and empathy in doing so. It’s what continues to bug me about basically every organization demanding that we go big-tent and allow every atheist in so we can all talk about how much God don’t real, but don’t you dare talk about the social impact of how we treat half the human fucking race. Not to mention every other issue that gets derided under the umbrella of “Social Justice Warrior”, like trans rights, gay rights, race issues, and every other aspect of humanism that involves having a shred of empathy for your fellow human being.

The necessity of feminism is evidenced by the comments everyplace it’s mentioned in anything but a negative, straw-feminist casting (take Laci Green’s recent video’s comments, for example). Especially so any time it’s mentioned in atheist settings, because there are precious few that aren’t expressly antifeminist and expressly anti-any-social-justice-but-secularism in bent, thanks to the vociferous libertarian quadrant of our “community” demographics.

There is no one single community. This inter-atheist fighting is necessary because we have coalesced communities around shared ideals, and there’s a shit-ton of you atheists out there who share almost no ideals in common with me outside of “god don’t real”.

I will not throw my other principles under the bus to be part of your hideous granfaloon.

Movement cohesion

CONvergence 2014 panel audio: Alien Conspiracy Theories

It took a bit of wrestling with my own damn operating system to get this to work, but here it is: Alien Conspiracy Theories, starring JD Horn, Nicole Gugliucci, PZ Myers, Scott Lynch, and yours truly.

Come join us as we talk about some of the alien conspiracy theories that have entered into popular culture, what’s implausible, what’s impossible, and what’s just good OBEY clean family STAY ASLEEP fun.

[audio:http://cdn1.the-orbit.net/lousycanuck/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/07/cvg2014-panel1-alien_conspiracy_theories.mp3]

(or download the Alien Conspiracy Theories mp3 – 24.2 megs)

CONvergence 2014 panel audio: Alien Conspiracy Theories

Morgentaler Clinic saved, temporarily!

The FundRazr campaign I blogged about recently has been fully funded, and New Brunswick’s only reproductive health clinic that offers abortion services has been saved from impending bankruptcy!

Canada.com reports:

The Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton is slated to close when their lease expires at the end of July due to lack of funds. Unlike every other province with private abortion clinics, the New Brunswick government refuses to provide funding for abortion services unless they are performed in a hospital and are deemed “medically necessary” by two doctors.

With time running out, more than 1,100 people have now donated more than $100,000 to a crowdfunding campaign on FundRazr.com. The group behind the campaign, Reproductive Justice NB (RJNB), plans to use the funds to negotiate a new lease agreement for the clinic’s building on Brunswick Street in Fredericton.

Continue reading “Morgentaler Clinic saved, temporarily!”

Morgentaler Clinic saved, temporarily!

Thankful sea turtle rescued from rope tangle

Desperately trying to reconnect with the intertubes and get all my backlog of things done, including processing and posting the audio from five of my six CONvergence panels (one, sadly, didn’t record at all; and the audio for the rest works in VLC, but is nothing but static in Audacity so I’m having difficulty transcoding them).

In the meantime, have this amazing GoPro ad involving a diver rescuing a sea turtle.

That’s one grateful turtle. Still, it’d be nice if we humans were a little more careful of potential impacts like this in our encroachment into their territory, no?

Thankful sea turtle rescued from rope tangle

The Epic Rap Battle I never knew I needed: Renaissance artists vs TMNT

Growing up, I loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — the comics, the cartoons, the video games, the movies, everything. Who am I kidding — I still do. I always wondered how the Renaissance artists after whom the Turtles were named would react to the idea of having ninjas — who were also mutated turtles, mind! — named after them, having their names’ value polluted for at minimum an entire generation.

Well, apparently so too did the folks in charge of Epic Rap Battles of History.

Fair warning — these rap battles often use problematic language, including this one which has a brief (but rather tame) instance: “you guys draw more dicks than New York Pride”.

The Turtle costume used in this video is awesome.

The Epic Rap Battle I never knew I needed: Renaissance artists vs TMNT