Female genital mutilation has medical benefits?

There is a very good question which I’m pleased to see that an expert Islamic cleric has finally seen fit to answer. Why mutilate female genitals at all? What purpose does it have? I confess to uncharitably assuming that it was all about controlling women’s sexual activity, but I was unfair. They have perfectly good reasons for chopping and hacking at little girls crotches with jagged sharp instruments.

Female circumcision has not been prescribed for no reason, rather there is wisdom behind it and it brings many benefits.

Mentioning some of these benefits, Dr. Haamid al-Ghawaabi says:

The secretions of the labia minora accumulate in uncircumcised women and turn rancid, so they develop an unpleasant odour which may lead to infections of the vagina or urethra. I have seen many cases of sickness caused by the lack of circumcision.

Circumcision reduces excessive sensitivity of the clitoris which may cause it to increase in size to 3 centimeters when aroused, which is very annoying to the husband, especially at the time of intercourse.

Another benefit of circumcision is that it prevents stimulation of the clitoris which makes it grow large in such a manner that it causes pain.

Circumcision prevents spasms of the clitoris which are a kind of inflammation.

Man, that’s all so true. Don’t you just hate it when you’re having intercourse with a woman, and she starts getting aroused? I suppose snipping off the clitoris is one way of dealing with it (the ladies really do cool down fast when you start waving a knife around), but I’ve found it more humane to keep a bucket of cold water next to the bed. As a bonus, a good cold water splashing also flushes out the strange and repulsive slippery dampness that so unpleasantly oozes out of their vaginas.

Although, come to think of it, the guy giving all that advice probably doesn’t have to worry too much about aroused women.

But I haven’t even been trying!

Huh. So some cranky anti-Watsonite scribbled up a petty screed against her on r/atheism, which is stupid and negligible, except then several people start complaining about the horrible Pharyngula people who just downvote everything right and good and manly.

There’s probably a large Pharyngula block vote around on /r/atheism; when the whole elevator shitstorm blew up, that whole crowd sided pretty solidly with Team Rebecca.

I had no idea! I’ve never even tried to dispatch a squadron of winged happy monkeys to reddit for such a thing! Without even lifting a finger, I’ve been skewing polls on reddit.

So here, let’s give it a shot. Go read the goofy thing (“Tl;dr Rebecca Watson is a bitch.”), make your own opinion about it, and vote it up or down. Right now, it has 87 points (70% like it). Go ahead, skew it one way or another — we’re going to get blamed anyway.

Witch-hunter Ukpabio spreads her poison here

This may be redundant, but Helen Ukpabio is an awful excuse for a human being, and she’s also a fervent Biblical literalist. She’s a Nigerian pentecostal preacher who rants and rails about witches, especially those wicked children who are agents of Satan. Her brand of demonization is what has been fueling the mutilation and murder of homeless children in Africa.

She also makes movies illustrating the devilish activities of these witch-children: flying through the air, cursing good Christian families, drinking blood, and just generally being so naughty that they deserve to die, at least if no one brings them to Ukpabio’s ministry to be exorcised, at a price.

She’s also got simple diagnostic tools so that you too can detect a witch.

a child under two years of age that cries at night and deteriorates in health is an agent of Satan.

I am distressed. By this method, all three of my children were witches and warlocks. It also explains a lot about those Terrible Twos. And my kids didn’t grow up in areas where malaria was common!

All joking aside, who in their right mind would beat children to death, set them on fire, or throw battery acid in their faces? As it turns out, people under the influence of Helen Ukpabio think that is reasonable and just.

Third world problems, right? Let’s all close our eyes and not worry about it — we Americans have nothing to do with it.

Wrong. Helen Ukpabio is coming to the US, at the invitation of Glorious Praise Ministries in Houston, Texas. You read that right: an infamous Nigerian witch-hunter, responsible for fomenting a climate of fear and hatred leading to the agonizing death of innocent chldren, is coming to Texas to raise money and support for her reign of ignorance and terror. Here. Sponsored by American Christians.

Madness. This evil, criminal woman ought to be met at the airport and turned right around, if not sent off to trial for crimes against humanity.

Protests are being organized, and money is being raised to support Stepping Stones Nigeria, the organization trying to oppose the violence against children promoted by Ukpabio.

I’m simply stunned — I find it unbelievable that her visit is being tolerated by the state, let alone that she was invited here by a mob of dimwits in Texas.

They keep taking the excuses away!

This pattern of research undermining stereotypes is getting to be a nuisance. Once upon a time, it was much easier to batten the blame for the glass ceiling on the victims, and now they keep telling us it’s our fault!

The research focused on career paths of high-potential men and women, drawing on thousands of MBA graduates from top schools around the world. Catalyst found that, among those who had moved on from their first post-MBA job, there was no significant difference in the proportion of women and men who asked for increased compensation or a higher position.

Yet the rewards were different.

Women who initiated such conversations and changed jobs post MBA experienced slower compensation growth than the women who stayed put. For men, on the other hand, it paid off to change jobs and negotiate for higher salaries—they earned more than men who stayed did. And we saw that as both men’s and women’s careers progress, the gender gap in level and pay gets even wider.

Our findings run counter to media coverage of the so-called phenomenon that “women don’t ask.” Instead the problem may be, as some other research has shown, that people routinely take a tougher stance against women in negotiations than they take against men—for example quoting higher starting prices when trying to sell women cars or making less generous offers when dividing a sum of money. Catalyst research has shown a number of ways that talent-management systems can also be vulnerable to unintentional gender biases and stereotypes.

Given past experience, though, I’m sure someone will come along in the comments and helpfully give us a new excuse that pins the blame squarely where it belongs, on women themselves.

It’s about time Jesus & Mo got their just reward

Week after week, Jesus & Mo keeps plugging along with its sacrilegious portrayal of Jesus Christ and Mohammed as a pair of oblivious lunkheads, and there have been no fatwahs, no beheadings, no riots. It doesn’t seem right.

Now at last there has been a little protest: University College London is having a censorship fight over the use of Jesus & Mo by the Atheist, Secularist, and Humanist Society. It’s much more polite than a riot, at least, but just as stupid.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Students Association is protesting. Apparently, once you’ve been informed that a group of deluded idjits finds your signage offensive, you’re supposed to immediately take it down and apologize.

Once a particular act is deemed to be offensive to another, it is only good manners to refrain from, at the very least, repeating that act. In this particular case, when at first the cartoon was uploaded, it could have been mistaken as unintentional offense. When certain Muslims voiced their offense over the issue, for any civil, well-mannered individual or group of individuals, it should then be a question as to the feelings of others and the cartoons should then have been removed

Gosh, who knew? I find the inanity of Christian announcements deeply offensive, and all I have to do is go down to the local churches and ask them politely to stop expressing their views in public, and the church bells will stop ringing, the electronic chimes will cease blaring, they’ll stop putting up advertisements for Kent Hovind video showings at the university, and they’ll stop airing insipid church services on the local public television station. I look forward to our new era of tolerance, civility, and public respect for the views of atheists.

Why I am an atheist – Chad Brown

I am a long time reader of your blog. It has introduced me to many new concepts regarding feminism and atheism and has helped me greatly to shape the way I view my atheism today as well as my political/social stance and support for feminism. Thank you for these insights and for the time you take to run this blog. As part of my thanks, I have provided my story below for how and why I became an atheist.

I was raised in a Lutheran family in Winona, Mn. Our family attended church every Sunday, but we never talked about our religion around the house. A few years before my confirmation classes commenced I decided to read the bible. I found it obtuse, abstruse, ambiguous, contradictory, unnecessarily repetitive, and with a tendency to prattle on over irrelevant details. When I was 13 and attending confirmation, I started asking some serious questions. None of my confirmation teachers answered my questions to my satisfaction and it became pretty clear to me that our confirmation courses were less about exploration of our faith and more about indoctrination.

I started to have my doubts about religion and I didn’t know how to take my family’s silence on the matter. Was their silence an affirmation that religion was highly suspect, or was religion just too personal of a subject to broach? I sensed that I would not get clear answers at home.

For me, high school history, anthropology, and sociology were the first courses and sources of knowledge to expose religion as a sham. At the time I never even considered science as a path for leaving religion or that religion and science were naturally opposed to each other. By the time I was 16, I considered myself an atheist and really had no doubts about the matter. But the strangest thing was occurring; as I explored the subject with my closest friends, the people whom I believed thought most like myself, I found that they considered themselves believers. I was floored. Why was I alone in thinking that religion was a hoax?

In college I studied Physics and, although I do not work in a laboratory, I consider myself a scientist. In college I started to learn how science and religion are not compatible and I finally started to meet some atheist friends. Since leaving college it has been harder to come across other atheists. Coming out, on some occasions, has been costly and painful. I even had one boss tell me that my problem was that I was, “…a goddamn atheist”. I don’t think he recognized his own irony.

My family found out about my atheism by accident and I know that they are uncomfortable with it. It turns out their silence was not an affirmation of religion’s ludicrousness. I now have my own children. I try to let them know that we can talk about any subject in the house (sex, religion, politics, sexual orientation, etc.) at any level they desire. I don’t want them to spend years wondering what their parents think. Even more importantly, I encourage them to read, study and investigate so they can form their own, informed opinions over such matters.

The online atheist community has been a great source of comfort to me. It has offered me an opportunity to be introspective about my atheism and has helped my perspective on the matter to grow and evolve. I no longer feel so isolated. Your blog, and the works of others from Richard Dawkins to Rebecca Watson, is important to atheists out there like me who have been unable to find support in our local communities.

Chad Brown
United States

Of course the dog won

A while back, the Way of the Master (Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron) came out with a board game, Intelligent Design vs. Evolution. I imagine the Discovery Institute cringes in pain every time those two clowns associate themselves with their brand, which is good; but you know it has to be an awful, horrible, brain-damaging game, which is bad. I thought about picking up a copy just for the kitsch value, but just couldn’t bring myself to pay them money for it (and now it seems to have vanished from their online store).

But Chad bought it and played it against his dog (his wife was too smart to join in). Surprise! It’s as bad as I expected!

It looks boring, too. It’s an old-school board game where you march around the board by throwing dice, landing on squares that make you answer questions on cards in order to win brain tokens. Here’s a sample question, to give you a sense of what you’ll learn.

True or False? The Bible doesn’t speak of a literal place called Hell. It is merely symbolic of the grave.

ANSWER: False (see Luke 16:19-31). Your eternal salvation may depend on your understanding of this truth. If you answered incorrectly, give two brains to the opposing team.

It’s really a test of your knowledge of fundagelical interpretations of the Bible. Now I’m even happier I never wasted any money on it.

(Also on Sb)