A member of the General Synod of the Church of England explains about the vote not to allow women bishops.
The legislation we voted on needed to achieve two outcomes: the ordination of women to the episcopate; and sufficient provision for those who, for theological reasons, find this innovation unacceptable.
For theological reasons – that’s important, you see. They can’t be political reasons or moral reasons or we just don’t like them reasons. Why? Because it looks bad. [Read more…]
Jesus and Mo are also discussing the C of E vote to say no women bishops. Jesus is quite frank about it.
The new book makes a great Xmas present. It gots a foreword by Dawkins.
Teresa MacBain tells us about a disturbing law in Kentucky.
On August 17, 2012, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to hear a motion for discretionary review, brought by American Atheists and local plaintiffs, to a state law that makes it mandatory that the Commonwealth and its citizens give credit to Almighty God for its safety and security. [Read more…]
Let’s try this again. I keep seeing discussions of Chris Stedman and his new book that complain of how personal and hostile and unfair the criticisms of him are. Let’s see if I can spell out my dissent without sounding (or even being) personal and hostile and unfair. Religion News Service has an interview with him, so that provides an occasion.
On the blog NonProphet Status, and now in the book, Stedman calls for atheists and the religious to come together around interfaith work. It is a position that has earned him both strident — even violent — condemnation and high praise. Stedman talked with RNS about how and why the religious and atheists should work together.
One. Calling for atheists and the religious to come together around interfaith work seems to me (and others) to be a strange project, because it seems to be a rejection of the very idea of basic disagreement. [Read more…]
Tim Farley’s eagerly-awaited post on desperately tracking Mabus.
This post is the story of how those posts once again led to Markuze’s arrest by the Montreal Police. As in 2011 it took quite a bit of work to make this happen. Tedious, painstaking, often thankless work. But this is the type of work skeptic activists need to be ready to do in order to get results.
Really – incredibly tedious and painstaking. I find it tedious just taking a screenshot; the thought of tracking down endless IP addresses makes me want to run away and join the circus. Thank you Tim. [Read more…]
Meanwhile, from the guys in purple shirts – the general synod of the Church of England has voted against allowing the appointment of women as bishops.
Well you know how it is. It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing. Women aren’t so good at that. Women prefer to sit down and not talk about it. They prefer to stay home and not speak about it and to be intellectually inactive about it. Women are timid and quiet and tongue-tied and lazy. They don’t make good bishops. [Read more…]
Dr Jen Gunter has a terrific post today on Savita Halappanavar – yes, another one. It starts with the fact that the hospital was checking fetal heart tones, not once, but several times a day. That’s a tell.
Fetal heart tones are not checked with any medical purpose in mind until viability (around 23-24 weeks). The presence of fetal heart tones was irrelevant because survival of a baby at 17 weeks with ruptured membranes and/or advanced cervical dilation is impossible. Ms. Halappanavar was not 22 weeks pregnant where there might be a 3% chance of survival (depending on weight, sex of the baby, gestational age, whether it is a singleton or a multiple gestation etc). At 17 weeks with ruptured membranes, regardless of cervical dilation, this pregnancy could only end in with a fetal demise. [Read more…]
The Montreal Gazette reports on Dennis Markuze. The headline is good.
Man charged with threatening people using social media — again
Yes exactly: again. He was charged with it before, he was released on condition that he not do it again, he did it again. A lot. [Read more…]
Damn. Kevin Clash has resigned. That’s sad.
Mr. Clash has played Elmo on “Sesame Street” for decades. He was profiled in a documentary last year, “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.”
That documentary is why I know about him, as it probably is for a lot of people. He seems like an outstanding human being.
It looks as if Sesame Street, or PBS, or both, simply threw him to the wolves.
Last week, Sesame Workshop said the first man’s accusations were unfounded. The organization did not have any immediate comment about the second man’s lawsuit on Tuesday. But in a statement, it said:
Sesame Workshop’s mission is to harness the educational power of media to help all children the world over reach their highest potential. Kevin Clash has helped us achieve that mission for 28 years, and none of us, especially Kevin, want anything to divert our attention from our focus on serving as a leading educational organization. Unfortunately, the controversy surrounding Kevin’s personal life has become a distraction that none of us want, and he has concluded that he can no longer be effective in his job and has resigned from Sesame Street. This is a sad day for Sesame Street.
Chickenshits.
The Telegraph informs us that Anjem Choudary has plans to “announce a fatwa” on Malala Yousufzai later this year.
What?
Anjem Choudary lives in London on state benefit and issues periodic “announcements” of this and that as if he had an army at his command. [Read more…]