I wonder what the fans of pope Francis will make of his claim that the church has been the best ever at rooting out sexual abuse of children. I know what I make of it, but then I’m not a fan.
Pope Francis has defended the Catholic Church’s record on tackling the sexual abuse of children by priests, saying “no-one else has done more” to root out paedophilia. [Read more…]
What’s the thing about skeptics?
Is there a thing about them? Yes, I think there is. They tend to attract assholes. They tend to be assholes. I know lots who aren’t assholes, but I also know, and know of, lots who are. More than many other groups and movements and “communities,” skepticism seems to be a recruiting hall for assholes. Why is that?
Jason talked about this issue yesterday:
I do not consent to the skeptical “brand”, insofar as there is one, being represented by malicious con-men and other ne’er-do-wells. [Read more…]
About this god person.
I’ve been arguing about it with Michael Nugent on the Atheist Ireland Facebook group. It started from an aphoristic remark Michael made there yesterday:
Because theism is a statement about the nature of reality and morality, atheism is also a statement about the nature of reality and morality.
I said
I think both theism and atheism are statements about reality. I’m not sure either is necessarily a statement about morality.
There could be a theism that posited a “god” with no interest in humans and thus no interest in giving them moral instructions. [Read more…]
An interview with Ensaf Haider, wife of the imprisoned Saudi blogger Raef Badawi.
The background:
Saudi Arabian blogger and editor of a liberal website, Raef Badawi, was arrested on 17 June 2012 in Jeddah.
Over a year later, in July 2013, Badawi was convicted under Saudi Arabia’s anti-cybercrime law and sentenced to 600 lashes and seven years and three months in prison.
He was found guilty of “insulting Islam”, “founding a liberal website” and “adopting liberal thought”. [Read more…]
Another one. The previous one worked, so naturally there’s another one! Just as all the commentators pointed out.
Another publisher has pulled all copies in India of another book by Wendy Doniger.
BANGALORE: Within weeks of Penguin controversially recalling Wendy Doniger’s book, ‘The Hindus: An Alternative History’, another publisher, Aleph, pulled out the American author’s previous work, ‘On Hinduism’, on Tuesday. Bookshops across Bangalore received calls from representatives of Aleph Book Company, promoted by Rupa Publications, seeking return of all copies of the book. [Read more…]
A horror story from Kurdistan Region.
A photograph of two bodies being dragged out of a pond with chains has caused even a greater outcry in Iraqi Kurdistan than the murder of the two young sisters involved.
“We intend to visit the Ministry of Internal Affairs to ask them about it,” says Parwa Ali, an MP in the Kurdistan parliament for the Change Movement (Gorran), the second-largest Kurdish party.
“This is too terrible. It is clear that the police from top to bottom needs training.”
The bodies of two sisters (aged 16 and 18) were found in a pond in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Said Sadiq, some 50 kilometers from Sulaimani, Kurdistan’s second-biggest city. They had been missing for two weeks, after appearing in court to fight their family’s opposition to marrying men they had chosen themselves.
The police used chains to pull the bodies out of the water.
“That is what you would use for a cow, not a human!” protests Ali, who was told the police resorted to this because of the state of the bodies, and for lack of better equipment.
What the hell? The issue isn’t how the corpses were treated, the issue is how the two girls were treated before they were dumped in that pond.
The picture of the girls, floating face down, was shared on Facebook, which led to reactions of shock and disgust.
“It shows the low value (that) is given to women,” someone commented. The condemnations of the way the bodies were handled overshadowed those protesting the deaths.
Ali suggests that was possibly because the case was seen as just another probable murder of women in Kurdistan, or so-called “honor killings.” On the same day, a girl of 16 was killed by her father, after the shelter where she had sought refuge handed her over to her uncle.
“Honor killings” are a common feature in Iraqi Kurdistan, where women who are deemed to have dishonored the family by associating with men who are not immediate relatives are killed by a relative. Every year, there are hundreds of such murders, with victims often set on fire or forced into committing suicide.
That’s the real horror.
The CBC reports a student union leader at the University of Ottawa, Anne-Marie Roy, was anonymously sent screenshots of a Facebook conversation about her among five male students who are also student leaders. It was an unpleasant conversation from her point of view.
The online conversation — a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press — included references to sexual activities some of the five individuals wrote they would like to engage in with Roy, including oral and anal sex, as well as suggestions that she suffered from sexually transmitted diseases.
“Someone punish her with their shaft,” wrote one of the individuals at one point. [Read more…]
It’s annoying when someone you’re arguing with (yes, on social media, not in actual [shudder] real life) says “I’m just being pedantic.”
No, you’re not being pedantic, you’re being wrong. I’m being pedantic, not you.
Sheesh.
News from the British Humanist Association:
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has expressed alarm after a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that Ofqual, OCR and other exam boards have been reaching agreements with at least one and seemingly several state funded ‘faith’ schools to allow them to black out exam questions on evolution, where such questions are deemed incompatible with the schools’ religious ethos. [Read more…]
