The Morning Heresy 4/19/12: Condescendingly Stupid
April 19, 2012
Your daily digest of relevant news and links from Paul Fidalgo
So, the Women in Secularism conference got a lot more attention in the past 24 hours. Since my little rant from yesterday's Heresy...
Ophelia Benson called it "cogent" (why thank you), and then faced more trouble at the RDF site
PZ stepped in, calling the attacks against the conference "condescendingly stupid," "embarrassingly idiotic," and "macho assholes."
Hemant graciously plugged the $25 student pricing for WiS [Update: I'm told we're sold out of the $25 passes, but you can still donate to help more students!)
By the way, we have a new official promotional blurb here at the Heresy:
"I actually read it." - Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist
Good, right?
As if this weren't hubbub enough...
CFI announced its support for folks looking to seek legal remedies to harm caused by the hawking of homeopathic junk (and yes, we are getting a lot of mail from all sides on this)
And our Office of Public Policy announces CFI's signing on to a letter to the US Senate opposing religious profiling, along with 34 other groups
So it's been busy here! Moving on.
Glenn Beck's The Blaze interviews Todd Stiefel, the "atheist movement's George Soros" - Congrats, Todd!
Kylie Sturgess rounds up the first couple days of the Global Atheist Convention
Ben Radford at MSNBC.com reports on a trip to Africa to find living dinosaurs!
The blog Apocalisse Laica says the WiS conference will be "fantastic," and that's totally correct
You know who's been too loosey-goosey? Those Catholic nuns. The bishops aren't going to take their libertinism anymore.
In California, Catholic Bishops are lobbying against a bill that would protect children from sexual predators. Imagine that.
CFI-Canada says enough with the exorcisms
Try not to cry. Reuters (hat tip B&W):
About 150 Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday after drinking contaminated water at a high school in the country's north, officials said, blaming it on conservative radicals opposed to female education. . . . "We are 100 percent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals," said Jan Mohammad Nabizada, a spokesman for education department in northern Takhar province.
Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation in WaPo:
"When a military officer allows those in his or her charge to proselytize, ostracize, and abuse fellow service members because of their chosen faith (or lack thereof), they are permitting the commission of potentially irreparable harm."
Phoenix New Times: New Arizona law allows the Bible in school, but all other religious texts are verboten
NCSE's Peter M.J. Hess calls upon people of faith in Tennessee who support teaching evolution to "stand up and be counted"
The Psychic Friends Network goes public on NASDAQ! Aren't they immediately guilty of insider trading since they immediately can predict how their stock will perform?
Christian Post picks up the story of Indonesian atheist Alexander Aan who was beaten and arrested for a Facebook post
Allahpundit is flummoxed by survey data about God-belief in former Soviet countries:
". . . it’s confounding to me that the descendants of people who suffered under communism are actually more atheistic — sometimes considerably so — than those who actually had to endure Soviet anti-religious propaganda and reprogramming."
Oh, and you probably want to see that data, too. It's from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center
University of British Columbia study suggests that believers will like atheists better when they're reminded that God isn't the only boss in town
Pushback from all sides against Jacksonville mayor's interfaith get-together
You know that other famous New Mexico UFO incident? Me neither.
One Christian publications relies of reporting of another Christian publication to report that "Porn for Bibles" flopped
Take a cryptozoology quiz at LiveScience!
The Guardian has some handy charts on Bigfoot sightings in the US
Montana radio station shows off some of the worst Bigfoot videos ever
Toms River haunting: May actually be a reticence to pay rent
Quote of the Day
WaPo cartoonist Tom Toles thinks he has the right answer to the Big Religious Test:
". . . in idle moments I can at least imagine a religious humanism that acknowledges and recommends orienting one’s life to recognizing the divine in fellow humans, and even the planet we sprang from, and trying to live accordingly. Seems like it might be a good thing, right about now."
Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI . Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is.
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Comments:
#2 Paul Fidalgo on Thursday April 19, 2012 at 7:57am
Probably not, and all the better.
#3 anitalounurse (Guest) on Thursday April 19, 2012 at 7:45pm
I just stumbled upon your FB page and read the above Morning Heresy dated 4/19/12. I find your words interesting, candid, humorous and passionate about your “beliefs”. As an Italian, Catholic woman you might wonder why I am here. I love to read the good, the bad and the ugly (as they say) and hope to be a good contributor. Plus, I love funny jokes about nuns
Peace.
#1 SimonSays on Thursday April 19, 2012 at 7:42am
Not sure if being compared to George Soros is a good thing in a Glenn Beck publication