Oh whew, what a relief, Pope Frank isn’t going to relax the discipline on those pesky radical feminist nuns who are giving the Vatican such a splitting headache. Thank you, Mr Pope!

Pope Francis has reaffirmed the Vatican’s criticism of a body that represents U.S. nuns which the Church said was tainted by “radical” feminism, dashing hopes he might take a softer stand with the sisters.

Nah. Don’t worry about that. Nobody’s going to take any kind of softer stand with any sisters, because that’s where it all stops. If men ever give up the right to tell the sisters to stfu, then it’s all over – the very principle of arbitrary hierarchy and dominance and superiority will be at risk, and if there’s anything we can’t have it’s that. Why? Because little boys have to be able to pump up their egos as they grow up by constantly reminding themselves and each other that at least they’re not girls. [Read more…]

Leo Igwe’s talk in London last month, courtesy of London Black Atheists. (Which by the way is for all atheists; it’s “Black” to help more Black atheists come out, but not to limit it to them.)

Another artist convicted of a non-crime in Turkey.

A Turkish court has convicted pianist and composer Fazil Say of blasphemy and inciting hatred through a series of comments he had made on Twitter last year.

According to his lawyer, Meltem Akyol, the musician was given a suspended 10-month jail term. Akyol also said that his client would have to serve the term if he committed a similar offense within the next five years.

Ten months in jail for saying something “blasphemous” on Twitter! Suspended, but not suspended if he does it again in the next five years. “Blasphemous” for fuck’s fucking sake – a non-existent “crime” against a non-existent “deity” who is supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing which if it is why would it give the tiniest damn in the world about one human being saying something? Why would it want that human being punished for saying it? [Read more…]

Guest post by Torcant Torcant.

Sevan Nisanyan is a Turkish citizen of Armenian origin, living in Turkey, who is openly Atheist. He is also a public figure, an activist, an historian, a conservationist, an etymologist and more.

He spares no words when it comes to Islam and religion in general. He has many published books, is active on Facebook, twitter, and has a blog.

Of course he gets a lot of death threats.

But this video against him is especially interesting:

[Read more…]

Robin Ince wrote up his version of what that panel was about. “The journalist” is his coy name for Brendan O’Neill.

I attempted to explain to the journalist that the world we live in has never been more complex or filled with things that require work and patience to understand. Though democracy lovers may shiver at the idea, the penalty for living in the civilisation we currently walk through is that we must sometimes accept our ignorance and defer to others. We can hope that they might be trusted, that the heart surgeon is sober and the climate scientists isn’t swayed by the desire for fame on the front cover of Vanity Fair kissing a Polar Bear.

But the people! The people, I tell you!

The journalist suggested this was the kind of fascistic thinking that held up women’s suffrage and the education of the poor. My belief that we are not always equipped to make the best decisions is apparently the alibi that has always been used by people like me who wish to oppress “the common man”.

In the next breath (or on the next panel) he’ll tell you what a great idea the House of Lords is, and what a mess of trendy whiney liberal individualists are the people who say otherwise. It’s what he does.

Bad idea of the moment – a tweet –

Only three horsemen left. Who’s feet are big enough to fill Hitchens’ shoes? #atheism

Dear god what a stupid question (even if it had been “whose”). It’s like asking “what shall we call people who were just too young to fight in WWII that’s not ‘the greatest generation’?” Or “what shall we call the new atheists now that some time has passed?” It’s taking a dopy media cliché and treating it as somehow meaningful.

And then, even if it weren’t ridiculous to take the dopy media cliché seriously, why take it seriously in that way? Who cares whether there are four?

And then, if you want to say Hitchens left a gap, say that, but don’t talk sycophantic (and risible) nonsense about filling his shoes.

But much more, what is this pathetic craven belly-crawling need for Bosses or Leaders or Heads or motherfucking Horsemen? Why are people such suckups? Why are they not just suckups, but not even embarrassed to be suckups?

Atheism doesn’t need any leaders. Leaders are not automatically a good thing. Get over it.

And by the way least of all does atheism need male leaders, or a mindless belief that we need male leaders. Of all people you would think atheists could manage to figure that out, because what is it that we don’t share with most people? Belief in a mysterious supernatural hidden male boss of all the bosses, that’s what.

Well thank something for Kunwar Khuldune Shahid and his blistering retort to “Muslimah Pride.” Thank Abhishek Phadnis for sending me the link.

What the ignorant world does not realise is that once you have the permission of your husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, the approval of your neighbours, in-laws, their relatives and the consent of your spiritual guardians, their God and their scriptures, you can be quite the rebels.

It takes a lot of courage to ridicule something that is already taboo where you live. It takes volumes of bravery and valour to bow down to the status quo, and toe the lines that have been forced upon you. It takes unbelievable amounts of gallantry to act out a script that someone else has written for you. [Read more…]

Michael McDowell, a former Irish Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, applies some actual legal expertise (sorry, Brendan) to the question of risk to the mother’s life and Irish abortion law.

The phrase “established as a matter of probability that there was a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother” is not without difficulty, as the evidence at the Galway inquest is demonstrating.

In my view, the phrase “real and substantial risk” does not mean that the mother is more likely than not to die.

It’s pretty staggering that lots of people in Ireland apparently think it does mean that and that that’s the standard and that if the risk is 50% then it’s just tough shit for the woman. [Read more…]

Brendan O’Neill posted what he says is a speech he gave at QED, and I guess is what he said on that panel. It’s a bizarro rant about expertise and what a bad thing it is. This is apparently because expertise is undemocratic.

So the idea that we need more expertise in politics is not actually a new one. It’s been around for a long time, and it has always been on the wrong side of the debate about democracy, in my view. Because it’s an idea which tends to depict ordinary people as not sufficiently enlightened for serious political debate, especially on really complicated matters like war or law and so on.

This outlook survives today, in the widespread belief that we need more expertise and less ideology in politics; more science, less passion; more cool-headed, educated people like David Nutt, and fewer nutters from the mass of the population who think they know everything but don’t actually know very much at all. [Read more…]

Even a consultant who is critical of the care that Savita Halappanavar received at University Hospital Galway is apparently ok with the refusal to speed up her miscarriage.

Dr Susan Knowles, consultant microbiologist at the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street in Dublin, was critical of poor documentation at a critical time in Ms Halappanavar’s care at the Galway hospital on Wednesday, October 24th, last. [Read more…]