This November my online course subject is “Counter-Apologetics: Learning the Best Ways to Refute Arguments for God.” In September I dealt with Boghossian’s one-on-one approach. Now we address a facet of the mass-market approach: [Read more...]
I announced that I’d be visiting Regina, Saskatoon, Kelowna, and Calgary. Now I have the details.
Some called him the Fifth Horseman of New Atheism. He wrote openly and prolifically in defense of atheism, and in promotion of sensible physics against Christian and woo abuses of it. And only a few days ago he died. I had the honor of hanging out with Victor Stenger several times in my life, and served as a consultant for him a few times (on philosophy and history of science). My wife liked him. She remembers him as a sweet old man. I also remember him as a forceful but soft spoken debater, and the number one physicist in the ranks of New Atheism bigwigs. Hemant Mehta has a nice memorial piece about him at Patheos. And there’s a brief but informative obit in Doubtful News. He’ll be missed.
I will be co-teaching a class with Peter Boghossian on his book A Manual for Creating Atheists. It starts in a week (September 1), lasts a month, and uses his book as a course text. So if you want to take that class and use the print edition, buy it now! The kindle edition you can buy anytime. Details and registration here. Anyone interested in philosophy, or arguing one-on-one with believers, or creating more atheists or rational people in the world, will benefit from this course.
Indeed, the value of this course is threefold…
I said two more. And here’s the third! Aoife O’Riordan (that’s ‘eefa’, like Eva with an f; and of course, oh-reer-d’n) has now brought over to FtB her more-popular-than-she-thinks blog Consider the Tea Cosy. See her inaugural post for an intro to what she’s about. But for the gist:
Aoife is located in a small town in Ireland, and she won’t let you forget it. She gets paid to teach, but will default to roller derby and social theory if given half a chance. She’s quite likely (but not guaranteed) to be writing about: feminism, queerness, wheelyshoes, Ireland, what she cooked last week, or any combination of the above.
Awesome.
I promised two more awesome women would be joining FtB this week, and lo, here is the second: my good friend (and one of my favorite bloggers) Heina Dadabhoy (and that’s “hee-nuh dad-uh-boyâ€?), also a queer poly ex-Muslim (though her background is interestingly different from Krisht’s). She’s migrated a year of stuff to her new blog Heinous Dealings. And now just launched her provocative inaugural post on her perfectly respectable exhibitionism. She has always been delightfully frank about this before in my company, so no surprise to me, but she has the audacity to defend the philosophy of it…hence my assessment of the awesome. Definitely challenge yourself by reading more of her stuff!
A queer, poly, ex-Muslim woman has joined our blog network. Formerly pen-named Marwa Berro to blog confidentially, she is now going public with her real identity, Hiba Krisht (and that’s hib- not heeb-), and moving her blog here. Check it out: Between a Veil and a Dark Place. Her inaugural post is a must-read. It will get you fully up to speed on this remarkable woman and what she’ll be contributing here that you might want to keep up on. She also does freelance Arabic translation (to or from English) on contract, so if you have need of that service, check her out for that, too. She has an impressive resume.
Two more groovy women will be joining our network this week. Stay tuned!
“Any person who tries to intimidate members of our community with threats or harassment is in no way my ally and is only weakening the atheist movement by silencing its voices and driving away support.” — Richard Dawkins
This is part of a new statement Dawkins issued this weekend, on his own website and elsewhere, denouncing the horrible way many (usually anti-feminist) atheists have been behaving the last few years. Greta Christina for the full scoop.
This is a remarkably positive sign. Dawkins has up to now been insensitive and out-of-touch on the treatment of women inside the atheism movement (the worst example being now a named trope, Dear Muslima). So my opinion marker is being moved a little back to favorable by this.
For those who aren’t sure what this is all about, see coverage by Alex Gabriel, Greta Christina, Stephanie Zvan, and Ophelia Benson.
[I apologize for not being clearer, but in my original posting of this information I expected people to read Christina's coverage for the full scoop, but some may not have and thus may have missed key facts of the story: this was a joint statement proposed and written by Ophelia Benson in consultation with Richard Dawkins and agreed to and signed by Richard Dawkins.]
I’ve been watching the foot-in-mouth implosion of Jaclyn Glenn of late, and some might want to know my take on it, because some people have asked, given that she kind of sort of but really doesn’t criticize Atheism+.
Atheism+ is just a name sometimes used (and rarely anymore) for the growing and ongoing movement to unite atheism, humanism, and skepticism. Hence the “+” in Atheism+ means simply “Atheism + Humanism + Skepticism.” (See all my past writing on the subject, especially my American Atheists convention talk in 2013, a transcript of which I have just now made available, along with a non-animated edition of my slideshow. I have also just published an essay on it in Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism 21.1 [2013], pp. 105-13, which you can now read online as Atheism…Plus What?)
There are generally only three kinds of people against Atheism+ (apart from people who don’t actually know anything about it): people who love and support the goals but hate the name (and I’m all for them…because as I’ve said from day one, I really don’t care what you call it); people who realize humanism entails feminism and hate feminism (and these are often in my experience either awful people or the cultish fans of awful people); and people who realize skepticism means skepticism of claims they like, and hate it when people tear apart their own cherished beliefs (and these are ironically usually the people comprising the SkepticTM community, yet they could take a lesson from the actual Rationality Community: if you aren’t questioning your own beliefs, you are just a dogpile of cognitive biases…like, pretty much every religious person ever).
There are also people who hate the Atheism+ forums, but since I’m not aware of any major Atheism+ advocate having anything to do with those anymore, I really can’t help you if they are eating your babies and skeet shooting kittens. They no longer have official ties to any of us, and are just doing their own thing. Which was, and for all I know still faithfully is, to create a safe space for discussion among advocates of A+ ideals…in other words, a space just for them…so if you are annoyed they won’t let you into their club, usually because you are breaking their rules and aren’t a support advocate, the only people the space was created for, then check your privilege and just accept the fact that you don’t get to disrupt other people’s meetings. If, on the other hand, you are annoyed they said something awful (so far every time someone has said this to me, it turned out not to be true, but whatever), just remember they aren’t me, or any other major advocate of Atheism+ or its goals. Some atheists are horrible people. That doesn’t mean atheism is horrible. As for atheism, so for Atheism+. See Hasty Generalization Fallacy.
Okay, end digression. Back to Jaclyn Glenn.
Tens of thousands of refugee children are massing across the U.S. border. And we’re responding like the biggest assholes on the planet. It’s time to do something about it. At a minimum that means spreading the word, and speaking out. Getting more people to know that this is even happening (because the U.S. media is useless) is the first step toward effecting change. Writing your senators and congressmen (state and federal) is the second step. Tell them human decency and compassion and any sense of justice requires more, and that you approve adequate funding for a humane response to the refugee crisis, and are willing as a taxpayer to forfeit a couple bucks a year for it if need be.
If you want to cut to the chase, and just get started helping spread this message, read Hutchinson’s summary and petition. And sign that. And write all your legislators. But if you need some catching up first…
Here is a quick primer on what’s going on: [Read more...]