Leaving the LDS Church en masse

Here’s a great event you could go to if you happen to be near Salt Lake City next weekend.

Mass Resignation.

Atheists of Utah, in cooperation with American Atheists, will be hosting a mass resignation event to coincide with the LDS Church’s General Conference.

Many people confuse being “excommunicated” with resignation from the Church. Resignation is your chance to leave the LDS Church on your own terms. It’s your opportunity to let the LDS Church know that *you* don’t want to be associated with *their* false claims and bigoted views, and that you will no longer allow them to use your name as just another notch on their holy headboard. [Read more…]

Pre-Snickers dementia

Wow. Color me amazed.

Lisa Wade at Sociological Images dissects an Australian tv ad for Snickers – you know, the disgusting candy bar with nougat AND caramel AND peanuts covered in chocolate, the one that pulls your teeth out as you eat it.

What’s the hilarious hook of this ad? Construction workers shouting at women – shouting things like “have a great day” and “what don’t we want? Misogyny!” Wo, cool, right? No. The construction workers are hungry, so they’re out of their minds. Hahahaha that’s so funny. [Read more…]

Glam running

Here’s a thought – don’t be mean. Radical, I know, but it’s a thought.

In particular, don’t be mean by leading people to think you’re doing something they will like when in fact you’re doing something they won’t like. Don’t ask someone if you can use a photo of her in your magazine without telling her you want to use it for the purpose of mocking her, if that is what you’re planning. No, don’t do that. That’s a mean trick. That’s a mean shitty trick. Don’t play mean shitty tricks. Don’t be mean.

SELF magazine ignored this thought (which is not original to me and not new at this moment, I should point out) when it asked Monika Allen if it could publish a photo of her running a marathon in a tutu. She was excited to be asked, and said yes. SELF didn’t tell her the purpose was to mock the whole idea of running a marathon in a tutu. [Read more…]

Normal and extremist defined

Adam Deen of the “Deen Institute” (he’s the founder and executive director) (of the “institute” he bashfully named after himself) is ranting at and about Maryam Namazie on Twitter. He’s ok with ex-Muslims, you see (for the purposes of this discussion), but not with ex-Muslim extremists. What’s that? One observer suggested “the difference is between silence and speech.”

Author of Jesus & Mo obliged with an illustration. [Read more…]

Two top-tier prophets swapping props

Irshad Manji speaks up for freedom of speech and thought in Islam.

Last year, Al Jazeera aired an intense debate about Muslim reform between me and the British commentator Mehdi Hasan. Hate mail followed. So did love bombs. But I did not receive any death threats. To be sure, the reality remains that those who shatter age-old taboos within Islam do have to fear for their lives. While it is true that every religion has its extremists, in no other religion do mainstream believers routinely shrug off the murder of dissenters. This is a life-and-death difference. All the more reason for ijtihad to be revived in the 21st century. [Read more…]

More from the fetus as a person campaign

Do legislatures these days just sit around all day looking for new and more abhorrent ways of instantiating their hatred of women?

There’s one making its way through the process in Kansas that would mandate the reporting of all miscarriages.

A bill advancing in Kansas would mandate reporting for miscarriages at any stage in pregnancy, the first step along the path to criminalizing pregnant women’s bodies. Under an amendment attached to HB 2613 — which was originally intended to update the state’s procedure for issuing birth certificates for stillborn babies — doctors would be required to report all of their patients’ miscarriages to the state health department. [Read more…]

So what’s the problem?

Charlie Klendjian says more on why the Law Society’s guidance on how to draw up Sharia-compliant wills is such a crap idea.

The Law Society has said its practice note has not changed the law. The LSS agrees with this. At no point has the LSS said that the law has changed.

So what’s the problem?

Well let’s try and understand what the Law Society is actually giving guidance on. It is giving guidance on Sharia law. Sounds reasonable, surely? Well not really, because this is no ordinary law. As the practice note states at section 1.5 when defining the terminology it uses:

“Sharia – the code of law derived from the Quran and from the teachings and example of Mohammed.[…]”

This is an important point in itself: the Law Society is giving guidance on theology, and this is simply not appropriate. [Read more…]

God has made her female

A Christian “school” kicks out an eight-year-old girl because she doesn’t dress or act girly enough. Literally. Word for word. They said she defied “biblical standards.” Oh right, all those parts of the bible that say girls have to wear dresses; I remember those. Geraldine 7:4 was it? Mirabella 22:15? Angelina 9:7?

“You’re probably aware that Timberlake Christian School is a religious, Bible believing institution providing education in a distinctly Christian environment,” a letter from Timberlake Christian School’s principal said.

According to WSET, the letter said that school rules said that students could be banned for “condoning sexual immorality, practicing a homosexual lifestyle or alternative gender identity.”

“We believe that unless Sunnie as well as her family clearly understand that God has made her female and her dress and behavior need to follow suit with her God-ordained identity, that TCS is not the best place for her future education,” the principal wrote.

How exactly does the principal know that any particular kind of dress or behavior “follows suit” with Sunnie’s identity as female? What does he think he’s talking about? Does he seriously think “God” demands that girls were early 21st century US dresses in order to conform with their gender identity? How does he know “God” doesn’t for instance prefer Elizabethan dress, codpieces and farthingales and all? How does he know “God” doesn’t prefer simple tunics for both sexes? How does he know “God” gives a shit either way?

 

Until people are free to come and go as they please

Maryam considers the question of who gets to speak for British Muslims. Her answer is no one and everyone.

She says there’s been a huge fuss about the fact that Maajid Nawaz included her in the brief film he made for Newsnight.

In the programme I explained why I define myself as an ex-Muslim. It is not enough for me to call myself an atheist when I receive death threats for leaving Islam. Calling myself ex-Muslim is a public challenge to Islam, Islamism and its death penalty for apostates. Until people are free to come and go as they please and without fear, there is a political necessity to label myself in this way. [Read more…]

Theory of attention

An article in Psychology Today – psychology for people who know nothing about psychology (like me), or more politely for the wider public – describes research that suggests that dogs have a rudimentary Theory of Mind, or one piece of a TOM.

Experimenters tested whether dogs beg more (or less) from people who (they can see) can’t see them or from people who can. It was the second. This of course causes not the faintest surprise in anyone who’s spent any time with dogs. Of course dogs cue in on human attention. I make eye contact with dogs in the street. I smile at them. They react. And these are stranger dogs. Of course dogs pay attention to human attention, including their line of sight. [Read more…]