The International Humanist and Ethical Union put out a report last week on the criminalization of atheism in many parts of the world, as a presentation to the UN Human Rights Council.

States sometimes play on concerns about Islamophobia and religious intolerance to support laws which go far beyond their legitimate concerns, instead rendering any form of religious skepticism, or the expression of a positive humanist philosophy, effectively illegal. The IHEU submission relates to its report published in December, Freedom of Thought 2012, on the same subject of discrimination against the non-religious around the world. [Read more…]

The Times of India reports that a study by Canadian researchers catches up to what Hitchens told us years ago: “Mother” Teresa did very bad things. The study calls her

“anything but a saint”, a creation of an orchestrated and effective media campaign who was generous with her prayers but miserly with her foundation’s millions when it came to humanity’s suffering.

The controversial study, to be published this month in the journal of studies in religion/sciences called Religieuses, says that Teresa – known across the world as the apostle of the dying and the downtrodden – actually felt it was beautiful to see the poor suffer. [Read more…]

What happened to and about Chagnon is a fascinating (and appalling) example of ideological policing in anthropology. He tells a little about it in the interview.

SK: Most importantly, let’s turn to the science. What were the two heresies you proclaimed in your publications on the Yanomamö that went against the prevailing orthodoxy in anthropological community?

NC: Well, I didn’t realize until I began committing these heresies, how entrenched that orthodoxy was. [Read more…]

There’s a pattern in the harassment that I want to point out for the sake of the record. The pattern is to harass and mock and monitor and taunt, and then to blame the target for reacting.

It’s so childish. It’s the kind of thing children do in the 3d grade, and then they grow out of it. It’s bizarre watching adults do it, as if no parent or teacher had ever sat them down and told them to stop.

Adam Lee tweeted the same thing to me earlier today:

The pitters’ MO is to say something rude and then call you too sensitive when you object. Do they think it’s not obvious?

Precisely. It’s the perennial bullies’ move: bully and then blame the bullied for objecting.

Skepticism. What a laugh, eh?

 

People talked about this Qualia Soup video on workplace bullying yesterday.

It’s good.

A lot of it is unpleasantly familiar – especially the bully’s ploy of claiming to be the victim.

With bullying, all incidents remain relevant, because they establish a pattern.

It’s been called off. Why? Because Hamas says women can’t particpate.

“We regret this decision to cancel the marathon but we don’t want men and women running together,” Abdessalam Siyyam, cabinet secretary of the Hamas government, told AFP news agency.

“We did not tell Unrwa to cancel the marathon and we haven’t prevented it, but we laid down some conditions: We don’t want women and men mixing in the same place,” he added.

Which means, of course, that the women are shut out. It doesn’t mean the men are shut out, or they can run different routes. Of course not. It never means that. It means the women are kicked out (kicked to the curb, as John Loftus would put it), shown the door, told to piss off, told to go home. We don’t want women and men mixing, therefore the women are forbidden to do anything.

 

Vacula did a post claiming to reply to Michael Nugent’s post that asked him two questions. Vacula’s post didn’t reply at all; it ignored Nugent’s questions entirely and instead went on and on about how horrible I am. That’s not what Nugent asked, so it’s silly to say

This post will address Nugent’s most recent post and continue our ongoing dialogue.

One thing Vacula said was about my objection to his and Porter’s calling me “Ophie” – I pointed out that I don’t call them Justie and Karlie.

One should notice that the only reason Ophelia Benson was being called Ophie was because Karla Porter used the name in a satire piece, an episode of ‘As The Atheist World Turns,’ titled “ATAWT: Please Be My Agent Ophie.” [Read more…]

Uh oh – batten down the hatches. Board up the windows, hide all the knives, tie down everything loose. Michael Shermer tweets

Chris Mooney takes issue with my claim that there’s a liberal war on science: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/theres-no-such-thing-liberal-war-science …

So in a few minutes there will be a 5000 word piece up at eSkeptic, right? Ripping Mooney a new orifice and calling him a Nazi McCarthyite witch-hunting inquisitor? Right? Because it’s not permitted to take issue with a claim of Michael Shermer’s? [Read more…]