Via Imad Iddine Habib, who translated.
The Jihadist: “it’s Haram to eat UN Food, it’s from the Kuffars.”
The woman: “what about the bomb you’re holding?! Isn’t it made by the Kuffars, too?!”
Heartbreaking.
Eve Garrard wrote about Norm Geras for the Guardian last Sunday. She’s a colleague and friend of his, and one of the editors of Thinking Towards Humanity.
His interests were rich and varied, but his thought and writings form an integrated whole. He was centrally and always a man of the left, but one who became a scourge of those parts of left/liberal opinion which, in his view, had slid away from commitment to the values of equality, justice and universal rights, and in so doing ended up by excusing or condoning racism and terrorism. [Read more…]
Russell D Moore, President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, tells us that government prayer-fests aren’t sectarian at all because they’re all over the place.
Conservative evangelicals don’t want government support for our faith, because we believe God created all consciences free and a state-coerced act of worship isn’t acceptable to God. [Read more…]
Kimberly Winston looks at why atheists got so het up about Oprah’s casual aspersions on atheists. (Well one reason is just that it’s something to do. If someone mentions us, we talk about it. If someone mentions it – atheism – we talk about it. But besides that.)
Why has this struck such a deep chord? Ryan Cragun, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Tampa who studies atheists, said it may be because atheists are beginning to be more public about their lack of belief, seeing this as an opportunity to express their difference, their presence and their rights — much like the gay community has done before.”
Well yeah. That’s what I said – we talk about it. Mention us or it, and we’ll talk about it. [Read more…]
No doubt you’ve heard about the Google search item.
Here’s a simple and powerful campaign idea from UN Women using real suggested search terms from Google’s autocomplete feature. Campaign creator Christopher Hunt, head of art for Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, offers this summary: “This campaign uses the world’s most popular search engine (Google) to show how gender inequality is a worldwide problem. The adverts show the results of genuine searches, highlighting popular opinions across the world wide web.” Each ad’s fine print says “actual Google search on 09/03/13.” While Google users in different countries are likely to get different results, a quick test shows that several of these suggested terms definitely come up in U.S. searches. Since its creation, autocomplete has become a popular device for social debate and even inspired a recent epic visual from xkcd, but these ads do a stellar job driving home the daunting fact that enough people around the world share these vile opinions that Google has come to expect them.
So I tried, and sure enough. Of course some of them will be people like me looking for nasty bullshit, but all the same.
Check out the article for what the campaign did with some. Here are the ones I harvested.
Rachael Dunlop wonders why the hell media stories about medicine include bullshit for “balance.”
There’s a term to describe giving more time to opposing view points than the evidence actually supports – false balance.
So okay, my “feelpinions” might get hurt, but does it really matter otherwise? Well yes, it turns out it does.
A recent study reports that stories about vaccines that include false balance are actually more dangerous than those that are purely anti-vaccine. [Read more…]
A news item from Florida last week:
Police on Monday arrested two girls, ages 14 and 12, in connection with the death of Rebecca Sedwick, who jumped from the top of an abandoned concrete plant last month.
Authorities said the 14-year-old girl was Rebecca’s chief tormenter, and the girl posted a taunting message Saturday on the Internet about what had happened.
“Yes IK I bullied REBECCA nd she killed her self but IDGAF,” the Facebook post read. [Read more…]
Last week a Malaysian court ruled that people who aren’t Muslims can’t call their god “Allah” because that name is just for Muslims.
The appeals court said the term Allah must be exclusive to Islam or it could cause public disorder. [Read more…]
There’s this Evangelical church near Sacramento, Adventure Christian Church. Last weekend the church hosted a debate between David Marshall, a Christian author, blogger and founder/director of the Kuai Mu Institute for Christianity and World Cultures, and Phil Zuckerman, Professor of Sociology and Secular Studies, Pitzer College in Claremont, California, who reports how things went.
The question at hand: “What provides a better foundation for civil society, Christianity or Secular Humanism?” David Marshall took the Christian position, and I took the secular humanist position.
There was advance planning for months. They provided nice snacks. [Read more…]
A scorching comment from “Janis” on Erin Podolak’s post on not looking away from difficult embarrassing issues like sexual harassment.
It gratifies me beyond belief after leaving behind the career I’d wanted since I was 4 (and been more than qualified for) some two decades ago because the atmosphere was simply so poisonous I couldn’t get anything done, to see that this is finally being talked about.
It depresses me more than I can say that, twenty years later, it still needs to be said. [Read more…]
